by Graeme Kent
Kella did his best to balance on the swaying glass roof. ‘You’ll be leaving the lagoon and sailing out into rough seas in the next twenty-four hours,’ he said. ‘If I’ve taken the hatch glass out, the first big waves you meet in the Pacific will pour into the hold and ruin your consignment of rice. You can’t go back to Gizo or Honiara for a replacement hatch cover because there will be a warrant out in both places for your arrest for non-payment of harbour fees. You might be able to get a tarpaulin over the hole, if you have one on board, but any big wind will dislodge it in no time. Face it, Commodore. If this glass is gone, so is your cargo. You won’t be able to sell sodden, swollen rice, even in Ontong Java. You might as well throw it over the side.’
Ferraby’s face was red with fury, but he did his best to speak quietly. ‘You won’t be able to stay up there for ever,’ he said.
‘I don’t intend to. If you haven’t done as I say in the next five minutes, I’m going to crack this glass and then take my chances in the sea.’
Ferraby started to edge forward, surprisingly lightly for a big man. Kella lifted the stanchion high above his head.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Ferraby asked, halting.
‘Change direction and get me close enough to land for me to be able to swim ashore.’
‘There are sharks in the lagoon,’ Ferraby said.
‘I’ll risk them. Didn’t you know? I belong to a shark clan.’
Ferraby hesitated. Reluctantly he barked orders to the helmsman. Obediently the Melanesian swung on the wheel and began to head towards the coast. Kella did not take his eyes off the other three. Ferraby would almost certainly have a rifle in his cabin below, but unless he could get hold of it, there was little he could do to get the policeman off the hatch.
‘Just take it easy,’ Ferraby said. ‘That’s all I ask. Nobody’s going to rush you.’
‘Too true they’re not,’ said Kella grimly.
For over an hour the tableau on deck did not move. All the time the coast was edging almost imperceptibly closer. Once the helmsman tried to jerk the wheel abruptly in order to dislodge Kella. The sergeant raised the stanchion and Ferraby howled at the Melanesian to keep on course. After an hour and a half, Kella could make out the trees and sandy beach of Baroraite Island. Another hour crawled by. Now he could see islanders on the beach. They were gathering in a puzzled crowd on the golden sand; they were not accustomed to seeing a trading vessel pass so close to their village.
‘This will do,’ said Kella.
‘I always knew you were a resourceful fellow,’ said Ferraby, ‘but did you have to prove it on my watch?’
‘Goodbye, Commodore,’ said Kella.
He sprinted across the deck to the gap in the rail and dived into the sea. Ferraby’s ship would be too cumbersome to pursue him, and in any case, if it went any closer in to the shore, there would be a danger of grounding on a shoal. Kella could already see canoes putting out from the shore to pick him up. The islanders had recognized the danger of his situation and were utilising every form of canoe waiting on the beach. Some were graceful, with curves at the prow and stern, others were balanced with an outrigger, a few were long and heavy, with carved figureheads. The men in them were banging at the surface of the water to drive off any lurking sharks. Swimming economically, Kella headed for the leading canoe.
Chapter Twelve
‘NOT THAT I’M complaining,’ said Sister Conchita, ‘well, not much anyhow, but why did you decide to bring me here? It’s hardly holiday-brochure stuff, is it?’
‘If you think you’ve got problems, spare a thought for mine,’ panted Sister Johanna, her chin tucked on her chest, not looking back. ‘This is my first venture outside the mission for ten years. It was time, that’s all. I’ve been worried greatly about Sister Brigid. For years that woman has been trapped in a hell of her own making, with her own private demons, and she won’t let anyone help her. Father Karl tried while he was alive, but even he had to give up in the end. It was time to make her confront her past. You were the first new member of the mission since the war. Perhaps your arrival at Marakosi was intended to bring Sister Brigid release.’ The old German nun started to chuckle unexpectedly, but the sound turned into a dry, racking cough. ‘You have certainly shaken us up enough in other directions.’
‘Have I been that bad?’ asked Conchita.
‘Indescribably worse! You are a typhoon, my dear, a veritable human typhoon. Which is probably just what we needed. But how far can you go? All right, so you may be able to transform the physical face of the mission, but can you confront the secret torments of Sister Brigid? None of us has ever been able to do that.’
The two nuns were making their way laboriously along a muddy coastal track running parallel to the sea on the island of Kolombangara. They had come over in the mission canoe from Marakosi first thing that morning. Sister Johanna had directed the younger nun to the nearest safe landing place close to the village they were seeking. Kolombangara was not like any other island that Conchita had seen in the Roviana Lagoon. While all the others had been sun-kissed and sparkling, this was a dank, inhospitable place. Where they were walking, the cliffs rose so close to the shore that they had been forced to follow a winding track inland and then turn at the top of the cliffs and begin a long, sloping descent. The sound of many rivers running down to the sea from the mountain was so loud that they could hardly hear themselves speak. They were picking their way through stunted trees across a mangrove swamp. Every time they reached a patch of comparatively dry ground, their progress was impeded by mounds of slimy dead leaves and branches. There were occasional fallen trees to be circumnavigated, and stones that had rolled down from farther up the mountain. Occasionally their path would take them close to the edge of a precipice overlooking the sea, a route made all the more dangerous by the slippery mud beneath their feet. There was an overall smell of death and decay.
‘This island has a dreadful history,’ said Sister Johanna. ‘Traditionally it was a place where headhunting parties would bring their captives and kill and eat them. During the war, the Japanese brought a group of British prisoners of war here to build a coral airstrip. They treated them so badly that all the prisoners died of malnutrition or disease. Then the Allies bombed the island and killed most of the Japanese garrison. No wonder the islanders don’t have much time for visitors.’
Conchita wondered if she had made a mistake by bringing the frail, elderly sister with her. Johanna was walking purposefully enough at the moment, but she was stopping increasingly often for breaks. When Conchita suggested that they sit down for a longer rest on a log, the German nun shook her head vigorously and plodded grimly onwards.
‘I don’t know if I’m going to be much help to you,’ said Sister Johanna suddenly, breathing deeply and turning to face Conchita. ‘All I know is that whatever happened in 1943 started here, when Sister Brigid picked up her guide Kakaihe at the Catholic village we’re going to now. This island of Kolombangara was the headquarters for the chief coast-watcher in the region, Mr Evans. He was up near the volcano, while the Japanese were stationed around the coast. He had sent out an urgent radio message asking everyone to watch out for eleven American seamen who had been marooned somewhere in the area after their vessel had been sunk. I urged Sister Brigid not to go. I said there were plenty of young islanders who could do the job better than she could, but she wouldn’t be told. She reached this island at night, picked up Kakaihe and set off, heaven knows where, in a canoe. The next thing we heard was that Kakaihe was dead and dear Sister Brigid was in a state of catatonic shock. Some islanders brought her back to Marakosi. She wouldn’t say a word for months, and to this day she has never told anyone what happened on that final trip of hers.’
‘Will anyone at the village we’re going to be able to help us?’ Conchita asked.
‘Possibly not, but you’ve got to start somewhere. For some reason, the American Imison seemed to think that Kakaihe and Brigid were involved in something strange tog
ether. I doubt if any of the islanders will tell him anything about Kakaihe, so you might have a head start if you can get to his village first.’
‘And Sister Brigid has never spoken to anyone about the reason for her silence?’
‘The subject was obviously far too painful for her, so after a time Father Karl and I stopped bringing it up. The poor woman has never left the mission grounds since, and that was seventeen years ago. That’s why I’m hoping that you’ve been sent here by divine providence to put an end to the whole thing. I only wish that it wasn’t this village we have to visit.’
‘Why is that?
‘You’ll see for yourself directly,’ said Sister Johanna with a shudder. ‘It’s the most squalid place imaginable.’
Twenty minutes later, they entered the village. It was hardly more welcoming than the track had been. There was an air of neglect about the huts. The ground was ankle deep in mud. Even the boles and branches of the trees surrounding the handful of huts were grey with slime. The few villagers present seemed lethargic. There was no attempt made to welcome the sisters, only sullen and indifferent glances from the doorways of the huts.
‘Do you see what I mean?’ asked Sister Johanna. ‘I don’t wish to appear irreligious, but this must have been one of the last places that the good Lord ever made. I’ll see if I can find the headman, not that he’ll be much help.’
Now that she had safely negotiated the path to the village, Sister Johanna seemed to have been affected by the general lassitude of the village and to have lost much of her customary energy. She hobbled off towards a group of unwelcoming women and addressed them in what Conchita assumed to be the local dialect. Finally one of the women detached herself unwillingly from the group and slouched off to a hut bigger but no more prepossessing than the others. After about five minutes, a fat islander in his fifties emerged from the hut, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He was wearing a scruffy, unwashed length of cloth around his waist, reaching to his knees. He eyed the nuns without enchantment, but walked slowly over to them. Sister Johanna began to address him in dialect, but the fat man stopped her with a wave of his flipper-like arm.
‘I speak English,’ he said curtly. ‘My name is Matthew Pironi. I am the headman.’
‘You speak very good English,’ said Conchita.
The compliment had no effect on the headman. ‘I was a mate on a Chinaman’s trading boat for many years,’ he said. ‘What do you want in my village?’
His tone could hardly have been less welcoming, but neither sister gave any sign of being deterred by it. Conchita guessed that his spell on the trading vessel would have accrued him enough money to throw a number of feasts on his return home, which would have secured him the position of local chief.
Sister Johanna walked over to a log placed by a cooking fire and sat down gratefully. Conchita joined her. Matthew Pironi followed them with ill grace and stood facing the pair.
‘We want to talk about the time before,’ said Sister Johanna, using the pidgin phrase for the past. ‘We want to know what happened when Kennedy was lost in the lagoon.’
Matthew did not look surprised. When he replied, it was as if he was using a speech he had uttered several times before. ‘Many people used to come here and ask that,’ he said. ‘We told them that we don’t know. So they stopped coming. Now you have come back again after many years. We still know nothing. The time before is over. We want you to go now, before the young men grow angry with you. We don’t want strangers here.’
‘We will go as soon as you answer a few questions,’ said Conchita. ‘Were you here in 1943?’
‘Yes, I was a young man then.’
‘I want to know about a man from this village called Kakaihe.’
‘Kakaihe is dead. He died many years ago. There is nothing to say about him.’
‘Just tell me about Kakaihe and we will go and not come back to your village, I promise you.’
The headman stood thinking. He nodded. ‘Ask quickly, then,’ he muttered.
‘What sort of a man was Kakaihe?’ asked Conchita.
‘He was a rubbish man,’ said the headman, as if speaking from the heart for the first time. ‘He was very young at the time. He was about eighteen or nineteen, no more. Kakaihe was very proud and headstrong, always boasting about his bloodline. He would quarrel with people and become offended easily. He was not an experienced coast-watcher, so he was not given an important part to play in searching for Kennedy. That was why Sister Brigid found him still here and was able to use him as a guide.’
‘So he wasn’t a full-time coast-watcher for the Americans?’
‘No, sometimes he did that,’ said Matthew warily. ‘At other times he did other things. He spent much time wandering about the island. There was a lot happening in the lagoon all that time ago. It is hard to remember everything.’
‘But when the search was on for Lieutenant Kennedy, Kakaihe guided Sister Brigid to some of the islands to look for the American seamen?’
‘We did not want Sister Brigid here,’ said Matthew. ‘It was very dangerous. The Japanese were just along the coast. But Kakaihe was most eager to go. Even though he was not Sister Brigid’s usual guide.’
Probably because the reward for retrieving a lost American serviceman was a sack of rice, thought Conchita.
‘Do you know where the pair of them went?’ she asked.
Matthew shook his head. ‘All I know is that a few days later Sister Brigid returned at night with the dead body of Kakaihe in her canoe. He had been stabbed to death. Sister Brigid was weeping and crazy in the head, and would say nothing that we understood.’
‘Stabbed? But if they had encountered the Japanese, wouldn’t they have shot at Sister Brigid and Kakaihe with guns, and not used knives?’
‘Me no savvy,’ said Matthew. ‘All I know is that Kakaihe had six stab wounds in his body and had lost much blood. Sister Brigid would not say what had happened. We knew and trusted her, so we made sure that she was taken back safely to the mission at Marakosi. We told her not to come back to Kolombangara. They say that to this day she has never left the mission again.’
‘Can you guess what happened to Kakaihe after he left this island with Sister Brigid?’
‘No,’ said Matthew. After a pause he added: ‘There is only one man who might know that, and nobody would dare go to him and ask about it.’
‘Who is that?’ Conchita asked.
‘Teiosi, the magic man, who lives in the bush,’ said Matthew reluctantly. ‘He does not come down to the saltwater villages often, but when Kakaihe was brought back to the village, he visited us and sat alone with the body on the sand for two days, listening and talking to him.’
‘How could he listen to a dead man?’
‘Custom,’ said Matthew simply. ‘We keep the body of a dead man above the ground for as long as possible, so that members of his bloodline can get here in time to say goodbye. Until the body is buried, it is not regarded as being dead. That means that it can still talk to the special people, the magic men, if it has something important to say, or some last confession to make. When the body is being buried, the soul will come out through the dead man’s throat. Then it will go down to the coast and wait for the next boat to the other world. That was the time when Teiosi listened to Kakaihe.’
‘And you think that Teiosi the magic man left this village with information that Kakaihe had given him?’
‘It is known to be so,’ said Matthew. ‘He told us that before he left. The spirit of Kakaihe spoke to Teiosi and the magic man went back to the bush with the knowledge that the spirit had given him. He has guarded that knowledge ever since.’
‘Is there someone who could guide us to this magic man?’ asked Conchita.
Matthew shook his head firmly. ‘My people do not go to see Teiosi. It would be tambu for us to do so. His mother was an islander and his father was a wild boar. It would be death for any of us even to look upon him. The women leave food for him on the track outside the village an
d then run away. That is all I want to say. Now you must go!’
The headman turned and walked away. Other men were coming out of their huts and gathering in small groups, looking malevolently at the nuns.
‘Come, Sister Johanna, my dear; I think we may have outstayed our welcome already,’ said Sister Conchita.
They retraced their steps along the path leading up into the bush. After half an hour, Sister Johanna stopped and sat on an uprooted tree. While the main track continued along the clifftop, a smaller, barely discernible path branched off up a steep slope towards the interior of the island.
‘Are you tired? Would you like a rest?’ asked Conchita, concerned.
Johanna shook her head. ‘No, I just want to think,’ she said. ‘Do you really believe that Mr Blamire was murdered with the war club at our mission?’ she asked. ‘And then his body was thrown on the bonfire, as if it was a funeral pyre?’
‘I’m convinced of it. Why?’
‘It is another sign,’ sighed the old nun. ‘You coming to the mission to change us, Mr Blamire being murdered; they’re both omens that it is time for Sister Brigid’s long silence to be ended.’
‘But how can we do that?’
‘We must follow the indications that we have been given, of course. The American has pointed us towards Kakaihe. Mr Imison may not be a good man, in fact I think that he is probably a very bad one, but the Lord could still be using him as an instrument to help us.’
‘How?’
‘I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I think I know where the magic man might be,’ said the old nun, standing up. ‘Many years ago, Father Karl and I came here to inject the babies on the island against yaws. Father Karl had heard about the magic man and went up to his lair to try to find him in case he needed help or supplies. I stayed here on the main track. Father Karl did not see the magic man on that occasion, but when he returned, he told me of the path he had taken on his search. I think I can remember his instructions well enough, even after all these years, if you would like me to take you up to it.’
