by Graeme Kent
‘Anyway, what did you want to know?’ Hickey asked, examining the shattered fuselage of a Japanese floatplane.
‘I want to know what really happened in the search for the crew of PT-109,’ said Kella. ‘You know better than anybody what went on.’
‘What are you asking me for? You were here at the time.’
‘Not in August,’ said Kella. ‘We were looking for a Japanese landing barge off Rendova for the first two weeks.’
‘Deacon and the rest of you ragged-arsed cutthroats always were a law unto yourselves,’ said Hickey. ‘We never had any idea where you were.’
‘We weren’t too sure ourselves half the time.’
‘You went ashore with the Marines at Segi, didn’t you? That was a bloodbath.’
‘My sense of self-preservation kicked in,’ said Kella. ‘By the time it was over, I was running faster than the bullets they were firing at me. What can you tell me?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hickey doubtfully. He turned over the remains of a searchlight with his foot. ‘There’s the Official Secrets Act to consider,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I signed it.’
‘When the new Legislative Council meets for the first time, the elected members will have a great deal of power,’ said Kella. ‘Personally I think they should take up the matter of compensation to planters for war damage.’
‘Are you pulling my pisser?’ asked Hickey, hope flickering in his eyes.
‘I’m not promising anything, but I’ll talk about your plantation to some of the politicians I know,’ said Kella.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Hickey, trying not to display his elation. ‘I’d appreciate that.’ He started walking across the littered terrain again, a little faster this time. The endless hunks of abandoned metal before him made the landscape look like the aftermath of a battle between robots on some distant planet.
‘Kennedy’s disappearance caused a right shebang,’ he went on. ‘Those PT boat captains were the elite, a bit like the Prussian cavalry. They were only young sprogs, but many of them were Harvard or Cornell graduates. That meant that their families had influence. And young Kennedy had more influence than most. I’ll say he did! His daddy was old Joe Kennedy, for God’s sake; one-time ambassador to England and as rich as Croesus. Mind you, he blotted his copybook a bit early on when he told Franklin D. that Britain had no chance of winning the war.’
‘So your orders were to find young Kennedy quickly?’
‘It was a case of panic stations. Only it wasn’t as easy as that. At the time, the Yanks had invaded New Georgia and were in the process of taking five thousand casualties. In the week that Kennedy went missing, the Yanks attacked and took Munda from the Japs. In response, the Japanese from Rabaul were bombing the coast-watchers on top of the volcano on Kolombangara and everything else they could see that moved in the Roviana Lagoon.’
‘Difficult to divert people to look for one PT boat crew in the middle of all that,’ commented Kella. ‘Kennedy was on Kasolo by then, wasn’t he?’
‘It was like this. The PT-109 had been patrolling at night in the Blackett Strait,’ said Hickey. ‘A Japanese destroyer ran it down and cut the boat in half. The PTs weren’t the most substantial of craft. They had a complement of three officers and fourteen men and operated mainly at night. After the collision, the ship caught fire. Kennedy swam to Kasolo with his surviving crew members from the wreckage. He even towed one badly burnt seaman on a rope held between his teeth. Apparently he’d swum the backstroke for Harvard.’
‘Not a complete waste of a privileged education, then.’
‘Seemingly not. They soon decided that there wasn’t enough food on Kasolo for eleven men, so Kennedy started swimming around the lagoon looking for a bigger island, while keeping out of the way of the Japs. That took some guts. Eventually he found Olasana a couple of miles away. It was a much bigger island, and thickly wooded to give them shelter in case there were Japs there as well. After that they moved on to Naru, but the coast-watcher scouts were closing in on them by this time. They found Kennedy and his crew and got them back to safety. That’s your story.’
‘Right,’ said Kella. ‘Then what?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What you’ve told me so far tallies with the generally accepted account, as far as it goes. But there’s more, isn’t there? There always is.’
‘Rumours,’ said Hickey disgustedly. ‘Rumours and gossip that don’t amount to anything.’
‘But that don’t always reflect well on Kennedy?’
‘Not if you believe them. I don’t.’
‘And you know what was being said because you heard everything at Townsville. Everything passed through your receiver. Tell me about them.’
Hickey skirted a line of Japanese foxholes and stopped abstractedly to admire some ground orchids growing through a skein of barbed wire.
‘Why do you want to know all this?’
‘It might have some bearing on an investigation I’m conducting.’
‘Look,’ said Hickey. ‘Everything factual that I’ve heard about the story makes Kennedy look good. He did everything right and he showed that he was a brave bloke into the bargain. For God’s sake, Kella, the guy could be president of the USA in a few weeks. Leave it alone.’
‘Good luck to him and all who sail with him,’ said Kella unfeelingly. ‘What were the rumours?’
‘Once you get your teeth into something you don’t let go, do you?’ The planter started walking again. Kella went after him. ‘You know what it’s like. Every time somebody starts to make a name for himself, other blokes try to run him down. If you must know, there were stories that the authorities were considering court-martialling Kennedy for negligence in allowing a Japanese destroyer to ram him, but it all blew over and they decorated him for heroism instead.’
‘What else?’
‘Christ, you’re a nosy bugger! It goes with the job, I suppose.’ They had travelled in a wide arc and were walking along the sandy beach. Hickey studied with simulated interest an old pontoon bridge half-submerged in the water.
‘The other rumours seemed to centre round a native called Kakaihe. There were stories that he discovered Kennedy before the other scouts did. All we knew was that Kakaihe was stabbed to death in his search for Kennedy and that his dead body was brought home by a nun, who would never say what had happened.’
‘What sort of rumours were spreading at the time?’
‘You’re going to talk to the politicians about my compo? Put in a word for me?’
‘I promise you. Go on.’
‘Well,’ said the planter, ‘it was all very confused and I was hundreds of miles away, but the gist of it was that Kennedy was mightily pissed off because he’d seen no signs of any rescue attempt. The story was that he might even have been considering surrendering to the Japs.’
Some frigate birds flapped heavily overhead. Waves lapped against the beach.
A small leaf frog hopped ahead of them and then hid under a length of pipe. Somewhere among the trees on the hills a cockatoo screamed.
‘It would be hard to work that into an election slogan,’ Kella said, ‘unless you happened to be Benedict Arnold. Where does Kakaihe come into this mix?’
‘There was speculation, and it was no more than that, mind,’ Hickey said slowly, ‘that a panic-stricken Kennedy or one of his men might have stabbed Kakaihe in case he got back and spread the story that the Yanks had been in the act of surrendering when he found them.’
‘I see what you mean,’ said Kella after a long pause. ‘Dangerous stuff. Who spread this story? Was it Kakaihe himself?’
‘He would have had to be quick; he was dead.’
‘Perhaps he told the nun who brought him home. She might have been with him before he died.’
‘We asked her. She couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us anything. Then the Catholic hierarchy in the islands ordered us to lay off, so we did.’
‘Doesn’t do to upset the bishops.’
‘Like I said, there’s not an atom of proof to support that supposition,’ said Hickey. ‘At the time, we were all too busy. Nobody knew where anybody else was. We just had to wait until the smoke cleared. Afterwards Kennedy was given command of another PT boat, Kakaihe was dead and the nun, who seemed to be the only person who knew what had really happened, wouldn’t say a word to anyone. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. Do you want to spend the night? There’s plenty of room.’
‘No, thanks,’ said Kella. ‘I’ve got to answer a letter.’ Before the puzzled planter could ask him what he was talking about, he said: ‘Can I ask you something else? Why haven’t you made any attempt to get your plantation working again—until you get your compensation, that is?’
‘To tell you the truth, I just can’t be bothered,’ said Hickey. ‘I’m too old and too bloody tired. Now let me ask you something. Just what is this case you’re investigating anyhow?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m supposed to be putting a stop to attacks on a logging camp, but another case keeps getting in the way. Perhaps they’re connected.’
‘And perhaps they’re not,’ said Hickey.
‘In my culture there is no such thing as coincidence,’ said Kella. ‘Everything is related to everything else. All things happen for a purpose. It’s just a matter of finding the right links.’
‘And what are the links in this case?’
‘Everywhere I look, a group of American tourists seems to crop up. These tourists appear very concerned about John F. Kennedy’s time in the Roviana Lagoon. To be honest, I’ve only got two leads at the moment.’
‘What are they?’
‘Well,’ said Kella dispiritedly, ‘to put it bluntly, it seems to be a matter of finding out who crapped on the beach at Alvaro and who smacked me behind the ear on Kolombangara.’
• • •
‘GOOD LUCK,’ SAID Hickey. He shook his head. ‘I wonder if this bloke Kennedy ever realized just how many islanders risked their lives to save him when his boat went down. What’s the pidgin for a close relative or a special mate?’
‘One blood,’ Kella said.
‘Well, if you ask me, Kennedy had a lot of one-bloods he’d never heard of looking out for him in the Roviana Lagoon.’
Chapter Twenty
‘BLOODY NUISANCE, THIS logging-camp business,’ said Maclehose, the District Commissioner. ‘That company has got a lot of influence in Whitehall. If we can persuade them to expand their timber industry in the west, we might even come close to balancing our budget one day.’
‘They bring plenty of problems with them too,’ said Welchman Buna. ‘I’m getting a lot of complaints about their Australian workers.’
‘The price of progress,’ shrugged Maclehose. ‘They come to Gizo on benders most weekends, but they spend a lot of money here.’
‘There’s the environmental aspect as well,’ said Kella. ‘They loggers have turned Alvaro into a hellhole. It’s only a matter of time before they move on to other islands and do the same there.’
‘I’m sure the authorities have that in hand,’ said Maclehose. One of his eyes twitched. For the last hour he had been undergoing an unexpected grilling from the politician. The so-called Invisible Man had been all too visible and audible at their meeting, and the District Commissioner was beginning to look punch-drunk. For an impressed Kella, it was like watching a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. The normally retiring Buna had been interrogating the official fiercely on every subject he had brought up about problems in the Roviana Lagoon. The islander must be pretty confident about getting elected to the Legislative Council, thought Kella. If his conduct over the last hour was anything to go by, the new assembly was going to be more than a mere talking-shop. Maclehose, another African retread, was probably recognising the symptoms, which would account for the twitch.
‘What about the tourists?’ Kella asked. ‘Do they give you any trouble?’
‘Apart from getting murdered like that man Blamire at the mission open day?’ asked the District Commissioner. ‘One or two of them practically live in this office. There’s a woman called Mrs Pargetter. So far she’s been in to complain about the dirty state of the rest-house, the slowness of mail to reach the Solomons from the USA and the fact that there is no television service in the islands. And there’s an American called Imison. He keeps coming in to ask me about the islands John F. Kennedy hid on while the Japanese were searching for him. I’ve told him everything I know about the man, but it doesn’t seem enough to satisfy him.’
‘What about the one who died—Ed Blamire?’ asked Kella. ‘Did he ever come in about anything?’
‘Just the once,’ said Maclehose. ‘What was that about? Oh yes, I remember. The fellow wanted to know if I had the power to arrest anyone.’
‘What did you tell him?’ asked Kella, interested at once.
‘I said that was the duty of the police.’
‘But Inspector Lammond and Sergeant Jomanu are away on New Georgia.’
‘I wasn’t aware of that at the time,’ said Maclehose.
‘Did he say anything else, like who he wanted arrested, and for what reason?’
The District Commissioner bowed his head in concentration. He looked like a man at prayer.
‘There was something,’ he said. ‘It was something about needing to find the letters before he could be sure. Yes, that’s it. He said he would find the letters and bring them back here as evidence.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘He didn’t say,’ said Maclehose.
‘Do you have any idea what he was talking about?’
‘None at all, old boy. You’d be surprised at the amount of twaddle I have to sit and listen to in this office.’
Twenty minutes later, Kella and Buna were walking down the dusty main street together.
‘Where are you going next?’ asked the politician.
‘I’m hoping to find Joe Dontate,’ said the sergeant.
‘That’s somebody else we will have to keep an eye on after independence,’ said Buna. ‘I’m all for learning from other countries, but that young man picked up far too many tricks of the wrong sort during his stay in Australia. You would think that with his background, he would have more respect for the traditions of the islands.’
‘I think he does,’ said Kella. ‘He has to balance that against his desire to make money as quickly as possible.’
‘Much of that is due to his girlfriend, Mary Gui,’ said the politician. ‘She’s the one pushing Dontate to get involved in all these dubious ventures.’
Buna raised a hand in farewell and hurried away. Kella walked up the hill leading out of Gizo. Soon the bitumen road had faded into a mere track. Halfway up the hill, he came to the radio shack. It was little more than a large windowless shed with half a dozen aerials sprouting from the roof. Kella knocked on the door and went in.
There were two men inside the shack. They were both Melanesians. One was fat and somnolent, with a pockmarked face. The other was small and wiry. The fat man was asleep on top of a pile of sacks. The wiry man was sitting at a large radio receiver-transmitter that ran the full length of one side of the room. He looked up and saw the sergeant.
‘Hello, Kella,’ he said in Lau. ‘Do you want to buy a rifle?’
The wiry man’s name was Raesohu. During the war he had been a radio operator on the launch raiding Japanese stations in the Western District. He had been noted for his habit of swimming ashore at night and stealing rifles from sleeping Japanese troops before cutting their throats. Few of the weapons had been handed in to the authorities in 1945. Seventeen years later, the Malaita man was still selling them at thirty dollars apiece to all comers.
‘Hang on to it; you may need it when you start your own revolution,’ said Kella. ‘Do you keep records of the signals you send out?’
‘Of course.’
‘When the white man died at Marakosi Mission recently, his body was brought here to Gizo for a few hours. Did another white man come up
here to send a radio message to Honiara?’
The fat man on the pile of sacks snored. Raesohu stood up and walked over to a heap of files on the floor. He extracted a flimsy piece of paper and handed it to the sergeant. Kella read it and copied the contents into a notebook that he took from his pocket. He handed the message back to the wireless operator.
‘Thanks,’ he said, heading for the door.
‘When I start that revolution, whose side are you going to be on?’ asked Raesohu.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ said Kella. ‘How’s the planning coming along?’
‘Just fine,’ said Raesohu.
‘Holding meetings and passing resolutions?’
Raesohu looked contemptuous. ‘That’s the last thing I need,’ he said. ‘When I decide to act, it won’t be after a committee meeting, believe me.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Kella. ‘Would you give me the names of some of the other men who think as you do in Gizo?’
‘Why on earth would I do that?’ asked Raesohu. ‘So that you could take the list to whitey?’
‘Do you think I would do that?’ asked Kella. ‘I want to talk to these men. If you give me their names, it may stop an innocent man going to prison.’
Raesohu looked at the police sergeant for a long time in silence. ‘It’s a good job I know you, Kella,’ he said. ‘If any other man had come to me with a request like that, his body would have turned up floating in the lagoon.’
‘I know,’ said Kella. ‘Three or four names will do.’
