The Birthmark

by Beth Montgomery

  ‘How far away from the channel is that bunker you told me about, the one with the bath?’ Lily said.

  ‘Not far, the entrance is right near the restaurant on the bay,’ he said.

  ‘We could go up to that bunker instead of swimming,’ Lily suggested. Exploring the forest was the best time she’d had with Hector.

  ‘OK,’ Hector nodded. He shouted around the side of the hut, ‘Ibu, how about we go for a walk in the forest, to a bunker?’

  Riki appeared at the opposite corner. He was draped in a huge fishing net and carried an old jerry can. ‘Where?’ he asked.

  ‘Baringa, you know the one up on the cliff.’

  Riki raised his eyebrows in agreement. He walked up the steps and put the fuel in the kitchen. Then he pulled the net from his shoulders, reached up to the rafters and threaded it through. ‘I might be a bit slow, though,’ he said.

  Old bleached car bodies marked the beginning of the trail. Hector pushed past them and through the hanging vines and chest-high shrubs that blocked the track. Beyond were two pinnacles like guardians at the gate. He slipped behind one, hiding from his grandfather and the girls.

  He ambushed them as they drew level.

  ‘Whaha! I’m a ghost!’

  Lily jumped back, her mouth wide with fright, and fell against Christina. They toppled to the ground in a tangled heap.

  ‘Shit!’ Lily gasped and the three of them erupted with laughter.

  ‘You should have seen your face,’ Hector said as he helped Lily to her feet.

  She pushed him aside and swore at him.

  Christina stood up, brushing soil from her clothes. ‘We’ll have to get him back later, Lil,’ she smiled.

  Riki coughed behind them. ‘The path is overgrown,’ he said in a strange hollow voice. He looked about slowly, his eyes troubled and weary. Then he began a rhythmic muttering that Lily couldn’t understand.

  She turned to Hector, but he shook his head, frowning at her and Christina to silence them.

  Lily felt nervous. Her mum was right, there was something creepy about Riki.

  The group trudged along a marshy floor that rose towards the darkness of the scrub. Mud oozed over the edges of their thongs and tiny black insects hovered in clouds about their ankles.

  Fern outcrops hugged the bases of rocks and pinnacles that bordered the path through the black soil. The trees made a canopy that let in shafts of sunlight, each illuminating clumps of fern in a vivid glow. Everything between these pockets of green looked faded in the bronzed light. To their left the ground rose steeply and a hedge of tree hibiscus partially hid the ridge that loomed before them like the wall of a castle.

  They plunged through the hibiscus. With each step Hector took, another branch flung back to whip Lily in the face.

  ‘Watch it, arsehole. Do you want me to follow or not?’ she said.

  Hector chuckled. ‘We’re nearly through it. You should have brought the sword to cut a path. The bush grows back so quickly.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll find another sword here anyway,’ Christina said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Well, if they had a bath up here, it was obviously a special place for the officers. And if they were the only ones who had swords…’

  Lily still couldn’t work Christina out. Was she just a smart arse? How much did she know, or thought she knew? Did Lily know less about her own history than this girl who had been here a week? People didn’t talk about the history of Tevua. They were more interested in talking about football or fishing or music or sex, or just getting drunk and being stupid. History was dull in comparison.

  The vegetation cleared and the ridge appeared before them: a steep, grey rise, dotted with huge coral boulders, each bigger than a large pig.

  In the yellowed light the air was still and oppressive. Lily couldn’t hear the familiar scratch of crabs or the scurry of lizards, just the drone of Riki’s muttering as he lumbered behind them.

  ‘Up there in the rocks,’ Hector said, pointing, ‘that’s where the Jap soldiers hid.’

  ‘Pretty good camouflage,’ Christina said. ‘You’d never guess there was anything there except a cliff.’

  ‘We’re going up there?’ Lily asked, full of trepidation. ‘It’s easy,’ Hector called, bounding up the slope.

  Lily climbed steadily. It was so steep she had to pull herself from one pinnacle to the next tier. Her leg muscles burnt with exertion. Her lungs heaved. She wanted to stop, but she wouldn’t dare let Hector show her up like this. He was only a few tiers above her, perched on a boulder like a bird. She inhaled sharply and willed herself onwards. Sweat trickled down her cleavage, pooling at the band of her bra, and a sweaty moustache had formed on her upper lip. She licked it away. Behind her she could hear Christina panting too.

  ‘How much further?’ Lily gasped as she reached Hector. She noticed the sheen of sweat on his temples. The humidity had slowed him too.

  ‘Not far,’ he said, watching his grandfather’s progress. ‘Come on, Ibu. You’re nearly there,’ he called down the hill.

  The old man stepped his way up the slope, his breath coming in loud puffs. As he climbed, he used the pinnacles to haul himself up, as Lily had done. She watched the muscles of his long arms ripple in the muted light. Long ago, she thought, he would have been a tall thin youth.

  When Riki reached them, Hector nodded towards a huge rock at the base of a coral ledge that jutted out about three metres above them. A young beach almond had established itself right on the edge, its roots encasing the cliff like a badly woven fishing net.

  ‘We’ve got to get up there,’ he said. ‘Watch where I put my hands and feet—then follow that pattern. It’s the easiest way.’

  Riki was still puffing, but his mumbling had stopped. His lined face was covered with sweat. He used one finger like a windscreen wiper to clear the sweat away, then he shook his head and his shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t think I can,’ he said. ‘You three go ahead. My legs are tired. I cannot climb.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Hector urged him. ‘If you rest a while, you’ll make it.’

  ‘I will sit here and wait for you,’ he said, smiling. ‘You will tell me what you find.’

  Lily imagined Hector’s ibu in his youth, climbing coconut trees and cutting the young shoots to collect toddy. But now he was crumpled and worn and his belly heaved as he caught his breath. He didn’t seem so weird now he was exhausted like her, but she was glad he was staying behind. It wasn’t just Lorelei’s warnings. There was something about his manner that spooked her.

  The rock at the base of the cliff was waist high. Hector jumped up then looked down at the girls. ‘Once we get over this cliff, it’s much easier,’ he said.

  Lily hitched her skirt above her shorts and clambered onto the rock. She watched Hector scale the cliff face in front of her. He reached up to his right for a handhold and found a notch to the left for his foot. Two more similar manoeuvres had him within reach of the sapling. He clasped a root and heaved himself up towards the trunk. Once he’d caught the base of the trunk he pulled himself up over the ledge. Then he stood beside the sapling and coached the girls as they made their way up to join him.

  ‘Wow, what is this place?’ said Christina, her eyes wide like a big bonito.

  Their ledge formed a small platform out over the forest.

  ‘My old school teacher says it’s where the Japs were,’ Hector said.

  ‘The sentries stand there and look down to see if anyone is coming,’ Riki called from beneath them.

  Hector walked to the edge and crouched behind one of the large boulders that formed a natural barrier to hide behind. ‘Tck, tck, tck!’ he pointed his arm into the air and shot off an imaginary round of ammunition.

  Lily laughed at him. ‘You’re like a little kid,’ she said. Then she shivered as the air around her cooled. She looked up for the telltale change in the clouds, but the forest canopy blocked out the blue. She glanced at Christina whose nervous eye
s were also scanning the treetops. Even Riki was gazing about uneasily. Hector was still shooting imaginary invaders with his invisible machine gun.

  ‘Shut up, you idiot, and listen for a minute,’ Lily shouted. ‘Can’t you feel it?’

  Hector stared at her blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

  She shuddered as a tingling sensation crept down her body. ‘I can feel them. The soldiers, guarding the way. Their ghosts.’

  Hector looked towards his grandfather. ‘Is that what you mean, Ibu? Can she feel the air?’

  The old man raised his eyebrows and brought a finger to his lips.

  ‘They are here, Hector,’ he said, ‘the air is thick with ghosts here.’

  fourteen

  Baringa District

  6 March 1943

  Tarema scaled the cliff face like a lizard on a rock. Tepu followed, terrified that at any moment one of them would lose their footing and tumble. He was glad it was too dark to see how far they’d climbed, but poor visibility meant they had to feel their way, sometimes doubling back when there were no handholds. The rocks were jagged and tore at their exposed skin. Tepu was thankful that his hands and feet were tough after labouring on the work gangs, but he worried how Tarema’s hands were faring.

  The noise grew louder as they neared the top. They could hear someone speaking rapid Japanese while another shouted. The brothers froze—had they been spotted? Tepu’s heartbeat thundered at his throat. He held his breath.

  A long silence followed, then the sound of many Japanese voices, someone coughing and a group of men chuckling.

  Tepu exhaled. His legs shook.

  ‘Come on, Tepu, we’re nearly there,’ Tarema whispered. Tepu struggled after him, blinking away the falling debris dislodged by his brother’s feet. Moments later Tarema stopped and Tepu hoisted himself up beside him. They had reached the top of the cliff. The Japanese voices were very close now, perhaps only a few feet from where they perched.

  Tarema was about to peer over the edge when Tepu caught him by the shoulder.

  ‘No, I must do it. I am older,’ he whispered. Gingerly, he raised his head. Before him was a tent peg which held down one corner of a large tarpaulin. The tarpaulin formed a makeshift roof over a natural basin in the rock. About a dozen marines sat on the ground talking and drinking in the glow of a lamp. He recognised one face. It was Egirow. The Lieutenant drank from a large bottle, listening to his fellow officers and occasionally saying a few words.

  ‘They drink while we starve,’ Tarema whispered at Tepu’s ear. Tepu was so engrossed he hadn’t noticed his brother at his side.

  ‘Get down,’ he hissed, pushing Tarema back. Unbalanced, the boy slid, gasping and clutching madly for a handhold.

  The noise made the marines turn. Someone shouted an order and they all rolled onto their stomachs, drawing their revolvers. A dozen pale faces squinted into the darkness, directly at Tepu.

  Baringa Bunker

  Wednesday 30 June 2004

  Hector gulped at the humid air that hung around him. A sinister chill had come from nowhere, pawing at the sweat on his head and chest. He was unsure about going on, but Christina jolted him back to a kind of courage by her words: ‘Must be a storm coming.’

  Despite her scepticism about ghosts she looked frightened, as if she thought someone was watching her. ‘So where’s the bath?’ Lily said hoarsely, pulling at Hector’s shoulder.

  ‘We go this way,’ he said, pointing to a space behind the sapling. A path led to a cleft in the rock. Inside, limestone cliffs formed the walls of a narrow corridor. They walked single file down the curving path. The carpet of leaf litter, several centimetres thick, silenced their footfalls.

  ‘Our teacher said this might have been an old reef, millions of years ago. Then volcanoes put a crack in it,’ Hector said.

  Lily snorted. ‘You lie. There are no volcanoes here.’

  ‘That’s what he said. He told us all about this place. He said only one soldier at a time could come through this path. He said it was good for an ambush.’ Hector looked up and imagined jeering Japanese high above, pointing their rifles at him. He would have been dead in an instant, like a squashed piglet on the road. Then all the blue flies would come and sit on his eyes and mouth. Dead Tevuan boy, move no more.

  The path opened into a clearing as the two walls of rock veered off in opposite directions. An old lime tree shaded the clearing and plenty of sour-sob seedlings struggled for a patch of sunlight. Beyond them the scrub was thick again.

  Hector pushed his way through the bush, skirting the line of the right ridge. The girls followed as he plunged into the greenery again.

  The ridge formed a wall, higher than any building Lily had ever seen. Its steel-grey surface was pock-marked with holes and crannies. The wall continued around in a curve. They kept close to the ridge for several paces, then Hector stopped and pointed to a recess in the wall. ‘Look, can you believe it?’

  Christina shook her head. A rusted white tub, filled with sixty years of mud and leaf litter, sat like a throne in the rock recess.

  ‘How did that get here?’ Lily’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

  ‘They must have dragged it up here. Well, forced slaves to drag it up here,’ Christina said.

  ‘Slaves?’ Lily and Hector said in unison.

  ‘Yeah…On of Dad’s mates reckons the Japanese forced most of the locals to work as slaves.’

  Hector could just imagine a soldier sitting in the bathtub, his pale body lifting a tin of water. He could see the water trickle down the sides of his head and his eyes would close for an instant. Then he would shake his black, stubbled head and his bottom lip would drip, drip, drip the last of the water—precious Tevuan water, while the islanders starved.

  A rage of injustice seethed in him. He wanted to shout or swear into the forest, but stings like hot needles pierced his feet. He flinched and looked down. Dozens of orange-red ants crawled over his thongs. He brushed them away, stamped his feet and jerked sideways in a crazy dance.

  ‘You look stupid, you idiot,’ Lily laughed. She moved back from him, then stumbled to one side as she tripped over an old bottle. ‘Shit!’ she yelled.

  ‘Who’s stupid now?’ Hector muttered. ‘See, I told you they had beer bottles up here.’ He pointed to where a few brown bottles lay beside the curved legs of the bathtub. Hector picked up the one Lily had tripped over and turned it in his hands. The neck was broken and inside he could see the same filth that filled the bathtub.

  ‘Are you sure it’s a beer bottle? Maybe they drank sake,’ Christina said.

  ‘What’s sake?’ Lily said.

  ‘It’s a Japanese drink, some kind of alcohol.’

  ‘I don’t know, can anyone read their writing?’ Hector rubbed his fingers over the Japanese markings on the glass and handed it to Lily. ‘Whatever it was, they got drunk.’

  ‘Shit,’ Lily said. ‘They must have sat here and drank beer in the bathtub while the rest of them…’ she screwed up her face and paused while the realisation hit her, ‘they beat up our relatives. What arseholes!’ she shouted, and she hurled the bottle at the bathtub. It smashed against the side with a clunk, spattering humus and glass everywhere. Her laughter was strident and she looked at her companions. There was cold fury in her eyes.

  Christina didn’t laugh. Nor did Hector. He felt afraid in his gut and he wished she hadn’t smashed the bottle. He was sure Ibu would have liked to keep it. The air around them cooled once more and Hector looked to the sky, noted the dimmed light and knew it was about to rain.

  ‘Come on, we’re nearly there,’ he said.

  He forced his way through another curtain of dense scrub and a small maze formed by a rocky outcrop. The girls followed a few paces behind. A distant boom sounded and the roar of a tropical downpour fell on the leafy roof above them.

  Big droplets of rain spilled down from the waterlogged leaves onto their sweaty limbs. Drip, drip, drip—the rain soaked their shirts and Hector felt himself shi
ver.

  ‘It’s just up here,’ he shouted over the noise of the rain. He smiled at how good Lily looked with water streaming down her face.

  Up ahead there was a natural cave in the limestone ridge. Hector ran to the opening and crouched inside. Lily was beside him in an instant, squatting under the low entrance, edging closer to him. The cave was tiny, about the size of a small car.

  ‘Move over, I’m soaking,’ Christina said as she squashed in alongside them.

  ‘Is this it?’ Lily said peering around the cave in the gloom. The dusty floor was littered with old ammunition cartridges.

  ‘No, the bunker is behind, through the crack in the ridge at the side there.’ He pointed at the crevice they’d just passed.

  Hector ran back out into the pass, then ducked under a low rock face that stuck out at knee height. As he entered the bunker he was aware of a cool chalky sensation that lingered at his lips. The air was dry and powdery. A pale light filtered into the chamber from a broad slit in the wall opposite. He moved towards the makeshift window and turned to watch Lily’s expression as she entered. He saw her feet first, then her head ducked down and she crawled in after him.

  ‘Ai-ye-we!’ Her eyes were as wide as pipi shells. She pulled herself up and moved over beside him.

  ‘You can’t see much of the bay,’ Hector said, indicating the overgrown trees that obscured the view, ‘but here they watched for battleships.’

  Christina came in next and she whistled at the view. ‘You can see for miles up here!’

  Hector gazed out, imagining US warships or even bombers approaching in the sky. These days there might only be a small boat, a dark smudge on a velvet sea, someone out catching fish for their families. Just like his ibu did every chance he could. But in this weather, the waters of the bay were black against a grey sky and no smart fisherman would get in a boat.

  ‘What’s out here?’ Lily said. She crawled through a small opening which formed a ledge on the cliff side, perpendicular to the bunker. Hector joined her and together they sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the rain fall.