The White Ghost

by James R Benn

  “We’re based here, but I’m headed up to Rendova to check on one of my squadrons. Ask around if you need me, it’s a small town.” Cluster grinned as he stretched his arm out to encompass the shacks, Quonset huts, machine shops, and thatched-roof huts which lined the wharf. It had the air of a fishing village on hard times with a surplus of oil, men, and not much in the way of women, soap, or fresh laundry.

  “Charming,” Kaz said. “Are we to stay here in Sesapi?”

  “No,” Cluster said. “I hear Captain Ritchie set you up in the old assistant district commissioner’s house at the east end of the island. That’s near the hospital.”

  “Who’s in the district commissioner’s house?” I asked.

  “Captain Ritchie, of course,” Cluster said. “Good luck.”

  Without telling us if he meant with Ritchie, the investigation, or the Japanese, Cluster set about assessing the damage to his boat as his men secured the vessel. We walked up to the jeep and a smart-looking swabbie jumped out, snapping a salute. He was dressed in clean dungarees, blue shirt, gleaming white cap, and shined shoes. Amidst the greasy tumult of Sesapi harbor, he looked like he’d stepped out of a recruiting poster.

  “Yeoman Howe, at your service,” he said, taking our bags. “I’m to take you to Captain Ritchie and show you to your quarters, sir. And sir.” The second sir was for Kaz. Seaman Howe was well trained.

  “Take us to the base hospital first,” I said.

  “Sorry sir, Captain’s orders. He wants to see you right away. And it’s nearly time for supper. The captain gets upset if he’s late for supper.”

  “Then by all means, let’s not keep the good captain waiting.”

  “Excellent idea, sir.” Well trained. I doubt Yeoman Howe ever ran into an officer with a bad idea.

  We drove along a ridgeline, cresting it after about a mile. On our left, a jumble of huts and small buildings crowded the beach. “That’s the Chinese village,” Howe told us. “There’s a lot of them on the island—merchants and that sort of thing. Tulagi’s only about three miles long, so you get to know it pretty well.”

  As we descended along the rocky spine of the island, we were rewarded with a view across the sound with Guadalcanal in the distance. The sun was nearing the horizon, golden rays gleaming on the placid water. It was so peaceful you could easily forget about all the bones and steel lying on the seafloor.

  “There’s the captain’s quarters,” Howe said. “And yours next to it.” A row of European-style houses lined the road, built high off the ground with large wraparound verandahs.

  “Were these all for the British colonial administrators?” I asked.

  “Not all, sir. The Lever Brothers managers lived there, too. You know, the soap company?”

  “Soap? How’d they make soap out here?”

  “Something to do with coconuts, sir, I really don’t know. There’s a group of Australian Coastwatchers staying in the Lever houses. Some sort of big confab going on.”

  “The Lever guys haven’t come back?” I asked.

  “No,” Howe said. “They need a lot of native labor for whatever they do. The Japs control most of the Solomon Islands, and in the rest the coconut plantations haven’t recovered from the fighting yet.”

  “There must be a demand for native labor,” Kaz said.

  “Yeah,” Howe said. “One of the Coastwatchers told me the Japs use them as slave labor, so a lot of them hide in the jungle or make their way down here. They get paid and treated pretty fair, from what I can tell. It’s gonna be hard to keep ’em down on the farm after a few US Navy paydays.”

  “You hear anything about the native who was killed recently?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Howe said. “But I’ll let the captain tell you about that.” He slowed for a switchback and downshifted as we made the hairpin turn. “Base headquarters is ahead at the east end of the island, right by the hospital. The land thins out here, and there’s always a nice breeze off the water from one side or the other.”

  “Just the right place for headquarters,” I said.

  “I meant for the patients, sir. But the captain doesn’t mind either.”

  “How about you?”

  “I like what my commanding officer likes,” Howe said. “Do they run things differently out in North Africa? Sir?”

  “Please excuse Lieutenant Boyle,” Kaz said, placing his hand on Howe’s shoulder from the backseat. “He has the police detective’s habit of asking questions even when there is no need.”

  “No problem, sir, glad to help.” Without actually having helped, Howe parked the jeep near a Quonset hut and a couple of weathered clapboard buildings that once perhaps reminded a European of home, but were now ready to decay into the ground. They all had wide verandahs, which I figured was standard because of the heat. It had to be stifling indoors at midday, even with the breeze wafting in from twenty different directions.

  Howe offered to wait and drive us to our quarters. I figured he was going to report our every move to Ritchie, so I told him to knock off for the day. On an island as small as Tulagi, we couldn’t get lost for long. He looked dejected as we turned away and took the rickety steps up to the base commander’s office. A sailor on duty showed us into Ritchie’s office, where we found the captain reading from a file. There were two chairs in front of his desk, on which we were not invited to sit. As a matter of fact, Ritchie didn’t react at all. He kept reading, turning each page over carefully as if his superior officer might give him points for neatness.

  Howe had been right. The open windows on each wall let in a cool seaside breeze. The view wasn’t bad either, with Guadalcanal in the distance and the lush green of Florida Island on either side. A ceiling fan revolved slowly overhead. A sheet of paper moved about a half inch as the air wafted in. Ritchie put it back, aligning it with the others. I caught a few upside-down words, Boyle and Kazimierz among them. Uncooperative was there, too. No US Navy letterhead either, only flimsy paper that looked like it came out of a teletype.

  Salutes weren’t done indoors except when reporting to a superior officer, and I wondered if Ritchie was waiting for his due. We weren’t under his command, but perhaps he liked that sort of stuff.

  I glanced at Kaz, who had his British service cap tucked under his arm. I stiffened my posture into a semblance of attention and he caught on quick, snapping his heels and doing one of those Brit palm-out salutes, his arm practically vibrating above his eyebrow. I did the best I could, but I didn’t have the panache for it.

  “Lieutenants Boyle and Kazimierz reporting, sir!” I intoned.

  “Glad to see the army taught you basic military discipline,” Captain Ritchie said. He had about ten years and twenty pounds on us. His wavy brown hair was in retreat and his voice was a combination of sarcasm and weariness with a thin layer of disdain as a chaser. I could see we were going to be great pals.

  “Our orders, sir,” I said, holding out the crumpled sheets I’d been carrying halfway around the world.

  “I know all about your orders, Lieutenant Boyle,” Ritchie said, looking me in the eye and ignoring the proffered papers. “I’m the one who contacted ONI and asked for an investigator to be sent in.”

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  “Are you clear on what you are here to do?” Ritchie asked. I had about half a dozen theories on the subject, but figured I’d better stick to the official version.

  “Yes sir. To find out who killed Daniel Tamana and bring him to justice.”

  “The native, yes, of course,” Ritchie said. “It is vital that we treat his killing seriously.”

  “But?” I said, urging him along in the hopes he’d offer us a seat.

  “It must be done in a manner that reflects well upon the United States Navy,” Ritchie said, his chin jutting out as if it were the bow of a battleship cutting through the water.

  I thought ab
out that. And about the teletype sheets, and how the Office of Naval Intelligence had its fingerprints all over this investigation.

  “You worked in ONI, didn’t you, Captain Ritchie?” I said.

  “My previous assignment has nothing to do with this situation,” he said, the disdain a little heavier in his tone.

  “I don’t believe that, sir,” I said. Then I sat down. Kaz followed suit. The hell with this guy and his pompous airs. “I didn’t understand how ONI got on top of this so fast. But once I saw you had a report with our names in it, I knew you had a connection.”

  “I didn’t invite you to sit, Lieutenant,” Captain Ritchie said as he closed the file in front of him, nervously patting it down as if it might spring open and scatter pages for all to see.

  “And I don’t think your commanding officer would take kindly to you doing political favors in a war zone, Captain. I bet you and Alan Kirk were at ONI at the same time, right?” Kirk was Joe Kennedy’s naval attaché in London, who had gone on to head ONI. He didn’t last long, and was heading up a bunch of destroyers in the Mediterranean last I heard.

  “What of it?” Ritchie said, worry lines appearing in his forehead.

  “Kirk is connected to Joe Kennedy Senior,” I said. “You’re connected to Kirk. Jack Kennedy gets himself involved in the murder of a local native, and the first thing you do? You don’t investigate, you don’t bring in the British or Australian police, instead you contact your buddies at ONI, who can get to Joe Senior. Then things begin to happen and favors accrue. I bet old Joe would pay a bundle to have his son’s name cleared.”

  “I don’t have the time or inclination to listen to your preposterous theories,” Ritchie said, standing and sucking in his gut. That was our cue to leave. “Find out what happened to Tamana and try not to disgrace the uniform while you do it. Report to me if you find out anything useful.” I felt his glare on my back as we left.

  “That was interesting,” Kaz said as we stood on the verandah, surveying the bustle of soldiers, sailors, and natives around the headquarters area. “When were you sure about Ritchie and ONI?”

  “When he didn’t throw me in the brig for sitting in his damn chair,” I said, watching a crew of natives loading a truck from a supply tent. “And the few words I caught in that report didn’t sound like a military memo. It was the lowdown on us. On me, probably direct from old Joe himself.”

  “Do you think Ritchie is really being paid off?” Kaz asked.

  “Not with money or anything that can be traced,” I said. “But I bet he’ll get a promotion and a plum assignment next.”

  “Unless we do not proceed in a manner that reflects well on the United States Navy,” Kaz said, in a rough attempt at imitating Ritchie’s growl.

  “I’m tempted to disgrace the navy just to see him transferred to Greenland,” I said. “Come on, let’s find Jack and see what the hell he has to say about all this.”

  We maneuvered the jeep through the heavy traffic around headquarters and the nearby docks. Seaplanes floated near their moorings offshore and a steady stream of small craft motored men and materials back and forth. Tulagi had become a backwater island when the fighting moved on up the Slot, but it was still a busy backwater.

  The hospital was a long whitewashed cement block building with a red cross against a white background prominently painted on the roof. It sat high on a slope facing the sound, with breezes off the water drifting through the wide-open windows. I asked a clerk at a desk in the main corridor which room Jack Kennedy was in.

  “He’s up the hill, Lieutenant,” the clerk said. “Go out the back door, third hut on the right.”

  “In a hut?” I asked, expecting to find Jack bandaged and bruised, stretched out on white sheets.

  “Yeah, the VIP lounge we call it,” he said. “It’s for officers with minor wounds. Not much different from in here except we don’t have to check on them that often.”

  “No nurses here?” I asked, noticing the all-male character of the staff walking the hallways.

  “Not of the female persuasion, not yet anyway,” he said. “Captain Ritchie says it ain’t good for morale to have a few women around with so many guys who ain’t seen a dame in months.”

  “The captain must not be the most popular officer around,” I said.

  “Let’s say if he were laid up here, he wouldn’t have many visitors,” the clerk said. “Not like Lieutenant Kennedy. He’s got people coming to see him around the clock. Nice guy.”

  “Yeah, he’s swell.” We stepped out the back, taking a well-trodden path to a shaded palm grove with island huts arranged on either side. They were built up on stilts, the walls made of woven palm fronds. The roofs were thatched and makeshift windows were propped up to let the air circulate. We went into the third hut, where four hospital beds were arranged around a central table. A card game was in progress. Bridge, by the look of things. No one was in bed nursing their wounds. VIP lounge, indeed.

  “Hey guys,” I said, waving my hand in greeting. By the bottles on the table and the wrinkled clothing, it didn’t seem any of them were sticklers for rank. “I’m looking for Jack Kennedy. Is he around here somewhere?”

  “Crash? He’s on a date,” one of the players said as he tossed back a shot of bourbon.

  “A date?” I said. “The kind with a woman?”

  “I guess you don’t know our Jack,” another guy said.

  “Oh, I know him all right,” I said. Then I began to laugh. The table joined in, probably to be polite, because I couldn’t stop. I come halfway around the world to save Kennedy from a murder charge, and on this small island with no women, he’s out on a date.

  Jack, you sonuvabitch.

  Chapter Nine

  “Nem blong mi Jacob Vouza,” a booming voice said in my dreams. “Hu nao nem blong yu?”

  I opened one eye, struggling to remember where I was. Tulagi. The assistant district administrator’s house. Asleep, under mosquito netting.

  “Wanem nao yu duim?”

  All I could make out was a hazy silhouette in the door, sunlight filtering into the room at his back. I scrambled out from under the netting in my skivvies, still half asleep, to find an imposing figure standing square in the doorway, his arms crossed, shooting a glare at Kao, the houseboy who came with the joint. Kao was a skinny little kid. Our visitor looked like he could snap him in two.

  “Your name is Jacob Vouza?” Kaz asked, sitting up on the edge of his bed. I could see he was working out what the native was saying.

  “Ya, Sergeant Jacob Vouza. Blong Solomon Islands Protectorate Armed Constabulary. Twenty-five year. Retired. Now marine.” He pronounced the English words precisely, with some island dialect mixed in.

  “Blong,” Kaz said, standing to face Vouza. “Belong? The name which belongs to you?”

  “Ya,” Vouza said, speaking slowly as if to a pair of slow children, pointing to each of us with an exaggerated gesture. “Nem blong yu?”

  “Nem blong mi Kaz. Nem blong him Billy,” Kaz said, keeping things simple. I pulled on my trousers and watched as Vouza and Kaz exchanged a few more words. Kaz was the one with the language skills, so I left the lingo to him as I took in the man before us.

  He was dressed in a lap-lap, which looked like a sarong to me, but Kao had corrected me on that point last night. Vouza was tall, broad, bare-chested, and wearing a web belt with a mean-looking machete and a .45 automatic slung off it. His hair was thick and frizzy, his skin a dark, rich brown. He had a broad, flat nose and sharp eyes which kept a watch on Kaz and me as I cinched my own web belt and pistol.

  The scars were something to behold. His chest, throat, and ribs were decorated with thick, knotted scar tissue. Not the puckered scar of a gunshot wound, or the scattered rips and tears from shrapnel. Knife or bayonet, I guessed. Kao squatted on the floor, gazing at Vouza with awe. Maybe fear.

  “Sergea
nt Vouza is a retired constable,” Kaz said, turning to me. “From the neighboring island of Malaita. He says he works with the marines and the Coastwatchers organization.”

  “You got all that from what he said?” I asked.

  “He’s speaking Pijin, an island dialect. It is very closely related to English,” Kaz said.

  Vouza threw a glance at Kao and said, “Kopi.” Whatever that meant, Kao ran out of the room, nodding his head and smiling.

  “You mean pidgin?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” Kaz said. “Solomon Island Pijin is related to other Pacific dialects. Pidgin is a less precise term. Pijin is a trade language, originating with the first whalers who visited these islands in the last century. It allowed the natives and the seamen to speak a common language. A quite interesting evolution, actually.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, cutting Kaz off before he composed a monograph on the subject. “But why is he here?”

  “I gather he wants to know why we are here,” Kaz said.

  “Does he know Daniel Tamana?” I asked, looking to Vouza for a reaction. His eyes widened for a split second at the mention of the victim’s name.

  “Mi wantok blong Daniel,” Vouza said. “Angkol.”

  “Angkol?” Kaz repeated. “Uncle? You are Daniel’s uncle?” Vouza nodded solemnly.

  “Wanem nao yu duim?” It was the same thing he said when he first came into the room. I was beginning to get the hang of this. Most of the words were English, pronounced with a unique accent, and perhaps a slight speech impediment.

  “What are we doing?” I guessed.

  “Now,” Kaz added. “What are we going to do now?”

  Vouza nodded, folding his arms across his massive chest and waiting.

  “We are here to find out who killed Daniel, and why,” I said. Another nod. Then I smelled coffee brewing, and I learned another Pijin word. Kopi. I needed some.

  We sat on the verandah, the three of us sipping steaming kopi while Kao worked his magic with powdered eggs and Spam. Vouza was silent, content with the view and his sugared brew.