The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  Now seated and waiting for sunrise when the morning dew would dry on butterfly wings, I saw the Carley float battling its way in on the tide.

  The task must have appeared formidable to the men on the float as they reached the final barrier, the last line of coral before attaining the calmer water beyond. Two of the men crawled to the front of the float, each carrying a crude wooden paddle. Gripping the rope that looped around the outside circumference with one hand and lying on their stomachs, they attempted to reach out and push the float clear of the jutting coral heads. This was proving to be a fairly futile business as the float was carried fiercely inwards by an incoming wave, and bumping into a coral head, the men were immediately jerked backwards by the water smashing into the reef where the float spun and skidded every which way until the process was repeated by the next approaching wave.

  Some fifty feet ahead of them I could see a clear channel leading all the way into shore and I silently willed them to find it. ‘Left, go left,’ I said stupidly to myself, knowing they had no possible say in the matter. ‘Left!’ I urged again. The float, caught in a sudden contrary current, moved to the right and away from the safety of the channel; then just as suddenly it was picked up broadside by an arching white line of surf to ride the wave back in the direction from which it had come. I winced as I watched the four men clinging to the ropes as they were swept over several outcrops of coral but then, mercifully, the wave broke and the float subsided into the channel where it spun briefly before calming in the waist-deep water. They’d made it through. The men in the water would be badly cut and bruised, but they’d made it. Moments later an incoming wave caught the float and carried it the thirty or so yards onto the beach.

  They’d come into shore the hard way; half a mile further down was the lagoon where I had entered the creek the previous night. Had they found the same opening, life would have been a lot less tedious for the last part of their perilous voyage. I guess they couldn’t be blamed. Exhausted, they’d come out of a dark night and a frightening experience and it was still not long after dawn. At first light they would have seen land directly ahead and with the incoming tide being sufficient to cover several of the lower parts of the outer reef, and perhaps not understanding the nature of coral construction, they’d thought what looked like clear water was a break in the line and they’d been swept forward to be trapped within the reef.

  I watched as the black guys carrying the man I’d seen lying prone on the float stumbled up the beach. Four of them moved him like a sack of potatoes, one each gripping his ankles and the other two holding him by the wrists while his head lolled like a broken doll’s. I guessed he was dead and to their credit they hadn’t thrown him overboard but intended to give him a burial ashore. They carried him, often stumbling in the soft sand and almost falling, up the full length of the beach to place him in the shade of a line of low bushes that grew at the edge of the beach. One of the other men hastened up, kicking sand in little puffs as he ran, at the same time removing his shirt, pulling it over his head. While I couldn’t see with the bush in the way he must have spread it under the foliage before they lowered the dead black sailor onto it. I remember thinking how it was a curiously gentle and touching thing for an exhausted man to do for a mate. After all, if he were dead, why would it matter if he lay directly in the sand? I focused on the naked torso of the man who’d removed his shirt and I saw him reach up to his chest and pull a broad strip of black tarlike substance from his skin. Underneath he was white. Their blackened skin, as I should have realised, was as a result of oil spilled over the surface of the water from the sinking cruiser. Crude oil is thick, almost glutinous, and when it spills from a ship it rides on the top of the water and sticks like tar to the skin. While some of it will strip off as it dries out a little, it requires a strong non-irritant solvent such as kerosene to get the tar out of the pores of the skin.

  I had four 1-gallon tins of kero for the galley stove and decided I’d allow them to use a bit on their faces and hands and their crotches. A man has a right to piss clean. I’d also use kero to wash the immediate area around their coral cuts before using the precious iodine, but that would have to be the lot. As I’ve previously explained, the food Anna had given me for the voyage to Australia was heaps for one person even allowing that I might be blown off-course and lose a week or two. But as tucker for ten blokes it was a different matter entirely: one small meal, a handful of rice, a tablespoon of tinned fish and a dusting of the mild local curry powder a day if we were lucky. The rice was the one essential ingredient and without kero for the galley stove we’d starve.

  I began to plan the rescue and our escape from the Japanese forces. I decided that the chances of being spotted were too great if we hugged the shore, going down the archipelago and veering off across the Indian Ocean from Timor. The Vleermuis was well found and capable of handling the open sea and so, depending on the monsoon winds, I intended to attempt the direct route across to Broome. This meant no stop-offs to gather coconuts or water — the yacht’s freshwater tank was fairly big but not for a crew of ten at sea for perhaps a month. Two cups a day, I decided, then let’s pray it rains.

  With a bit of luck and a fair wind I could, with difficulty, carry the nine shipwrecked sailors back to Australia. If I succeeded they’d be dirty and we’d all be near starving, but safe. Alternatively, if what I’d heard of the Japanese conquest of Manchuria was anything to go by, being taken prisoner of war by the Imperial Army wasn’t going to be a whole lot of fun. It was apparent that the Japs couldn’t even spell the two words ‘Geneva Convention’.

  The sun had begun to rise and I stood in preparation to make my way down to the shipwrecked sailors when I saw a group of men, thirty or forty in number, coming up the far end of the beach, the opposite end to where the Vleermuis was concealed in the mangrove swamp. I watched them through my binoculars. They were not dressed in the remnants of the uniforms the native soldiers deserting from the Dutch army usually wore, retaining only the shorts, sometimes a shirt, but the remainder, boots, gaiters, webbing and caps discarded. Piet Van Heerden’s warning had been not to trust them. He’d informed me they were useless, unenthusiastic recruits, most thought to be supporting the nascent independence movement. Singly they were cowards; in a mob, dangerous. But these men wore only the native sarong and were bare from the waist up. They appeared not to be carrying any weapons so I concluded they must be from a local village. I was surprised at such a large group in one gathering, presuming their women and children, chickens and the like would have indicated a fair-sized fishing village and I had seen no fires last night when I came into shore or fishing boats drawn up on the beach this morning.

  The men were alone and that too was unusual. Perhaps they were copra workers, on their way to an outlying coconut plantation. I decided none the less to stay put and observe what happened when they reached the shipwrecked men. If they proved to be friendly we might be able to get further supplies for the voyage.

  The men off the float seemed not to notice them until the islanders had drawn within hailing distance, although, of course, with the pounding of the surf they would have needed to be almost upon each other in order to be heard. I then saw the first greeting take place, the natives waving their arms in what seemed a friendly manner and the shipwrecked sailors waving back. I found myself smiling as the two groups merged. I fixed my glasses on one of the islanders to see that he wore a wide grin while extending his hand to greet one of the white blokes. Still half-smiling to myself, I watched the group of Javanese men as in one accord they reached behind their lap-laps and withdrew their parangs.

  It was as if I was witnessing some ghastly pantomime, since the pounding surf made the cries of the attackers and those of the shipwrecked sailors impossible to hear. The morning sunlight glinted on the vicious blades as they arched high above the white men, who were surrounded too quickly to attempt to escape. The natives encircled them, moving forward and bunching them
together. The shipwrecked men fell to their knees, holding their hands wide or above their shoulders, palms turned outwards in the universal gesture of surrender. Their attackers suddenly rushed forward and the hapless sailors brought their arms over their heads to protect themselves from the blows of the vicious blades. The parangs slashed downwards and then raised and slashed, raised and slashed again and again, in what soon became a killing frenzy, all of it coming to me in silence except for the booming background of the surf.

  I heard myself whimpering, then felt myself sobbing and my hands holding the binoculars shook so furiously that I kept losing focus. The attack seemed to go on and on until at last the circle of attackers parted and I could see eight dead men sprawled in the sand in various grotesque attitudes, three face down, one curled into a foetal position while four others lay on their backs and stared up at the sky, their arms and legs flung wide. A lone victim was still seated with his legs tucked under him, his hands resting on the beach on either side, just as a child might do when building a sandcastle. He might have been dead seated like that. I watched as one of the attackers moved forward and, swinging his parang in a wide arc, lopped off his head. While there must have been a great deal of blood and plain enough to focus on through my binoculars, I wasn’t conscious of seeing any of it until the sailor’s head tumbled into the sand and a crimson jet rose into the air from his severed neck, drenching the man who’d performed the beheading. He ran to pick up the severed head and, holding it up by the hair to show the others, he then turned and, swinging it in an arc three times, he hurled it into the surf. I was shaking too violently to hold the glasses and I started to throw up, collapsing against a coconut palm, vomiting, snivelling and weeping like a small child.

  I forced myself to recover, wiping my eyes and returning to watch through the binoculars. The attackers were searching the bodies of the dead men. I focused on one of them who’d recovered a wallet from a bloodied shirtfront. He opened it and appeared to withdraw what I took to be money, then flung the wallet aside. The others did the same, removing the watches from the wrists of the murdered sailors and then the boots, tying the laces together so the boots hung around their necks. They gathered around each other comparing the watches they’d stolen before placing them on their wrists.

  The sudden thought occurred to me that if they continued down the beach to the river they might find the Vleermuis and that would be pretty well the end of me. Stranded and alone, I would have no means of escaping Java. I’d make for the jungle, I thought wildly. I told myself I could survive. In New Guinea I’d often enough gone into hidden valleys, the so-called impenetrable jungle, after butterflies, staying for two or three days at a time. As a kid my native friends had shown me what to eat, how to make a trap for small animals. But I knew in my heart that this was wishful thinking, utter bullshit; I didn’t even have a box of matches in my knapsack.

  I watched as the group removed the bloodied Mae West jackets, some of them cut and torn by the vicious swipes from their parangs. Six men lifted the Carley float above their heads, then started to return the way they’d come.

  I guess self-preservation is a primal instinct. The tide was still coming in, though it had not yet reached the bodies sprawled on the beach. I waited almost an hour until eight o’clock when the attackers were well gone before making my way down to the beach. By this time the tide was in and spent waves were breaking over the dead men, white spume bubbles popping and water swirling in patterns around their inert bodies, the force of the water not sufficiently strong to wash them back into the surf. Some, lying on their backs, still had their eyes open and seemed to be staring at me accusingly. I avoided looking at the bloke with the missing head.

  Several small wallets and pieces of paper were being carried in and out of the surf and I gathered these frantically into a pile. Not stopping to examine them, I shoved them into my knapsack. I was berating myself, telling myself to act calmly. I’d seen dead bodies before, even those that had been mutilated. My father was a missionary and was often called in after a tribal fight. Though most of the outlying New Britain villagers were ‘heathen’, as he called them, they nevertheless didn’t mind having a spare whitefella god in attendance at burial ceremonies.

  I began to drag the mutilated bodies above the high-tide mark. Some began to bleed again as I moved them, leaving traces of blood and oil in the sand. Several had their arms all but severed, blood and sinew, muscle and viscera scarlet against their shining oil-blackened bodies; others carried great gashes to their torsos with ribs protruding like bloodied and broken cages. The vicious parang blades had slashed willy-nilly at their bodies, cutting deeply wherever they landed.

  I fought back the need to sit down and howl and on two occasions I threw up violently. I was also near crapping myself, I was so afraid the murderers would return and find me. I knew I should do the decent thing and bury the bodies. The sand was soft enough to scoop out a ditch for each. But it would take too long and I was too scared. All I could think was that I must somehow tidy things up. So I began placing them in a straight row, each about two feet from the next. I had left the headless bloke until last, unable to summon the courage to drag him up to the other bodies.

  Then the thought entered my befuddled mind that I was the son of an Anglican missionary who was a clergyman and I had attended hundreds of funerals in the past. I knew the funeral litany by heart. I must do something. Say a prayer or recite a passage from the Bible. I started collecting driftwood from the beach and with a ball of twine I carried in my knapsack hurriedly fashioned nine crude crosses, every minute or so looking towards where the attackers had gone. I tried to tell myself that they had no reason to return, they’d taken everything they could find — the Carley float, Mae West jackets, watches, money; they’d even taken the boots, though they couldn’t have any possible use for them as these men were all barefoot and had probably discarded the boots they’d once worn in the Dutch forces before deserting. These reassurances didn’t work, I was still damn near messing in my pants, glancing every few moments in the direction they’d gone.

  I placed a cross above the head of every corpse and then with one cross left I could delay the gruesome task no longer and forced myself to walk further down the beach. Not looking at the severed neck, I grabbed him by the boots and dragged his body up the beach, averting my head for as long as possible and finally placed him in line with his mates.There seemed something profane about a body lying with all the others but without a head. Then I saw it, the head. It was being pushed up onto the beach by an incoming wave and then dragged back again as the wave receded, in a manner I had seen so often with a coconut washed ashore.

  I knew I mustn’t stop to think about it and I dashed towards the water, not conscious that I was sobbing as I waded into the shallow waves that were breaking at my ankles. I reached down and grabbed the head in both hands, not looking, the wet hair soft to my touch. Stumbling and running up the beach, I deposited it above the dead man’s shoulders and made myself look at the dead sailor’s head, only to see that I had placed it sideways, his left ear resting on the top of his severed neck. I was forced to pick it up and look into the blackened face for the first time. The dead sailor’s eyes were open, staring at me, a piercing blue colour almost identical to the colour of Anna’s. I screamed, dropping the head, where it rolled away from the body and was covered in sand. Still sobbing, I retrieved it and placed it more or less correctly onto the neck. I didn’t have the means or the courage to wipe the sand from his face. I sat on the beach, my hands resting on my knees and my head lowered between them, panting and whimpering, mucus running from my nose.

  I was emotionally exhausted and, rising unsteadily, I placed the last of the crosses in place. In my confused and overwrought mind I was not sure if I could remember the words, or at least some of the words, to the Anglican burial service. I stood more or less at the centre of the nine men laid out in a row and with my palms held in front of me in
the manner of an open prayer book began to recite as I had so often heard my father do at a native funeral. In my panicked state of mind I decided to choose only two small and very common passages I thought might be appropriate.

  ‘“I am the resurrection, and the life”, saith the Lord: “he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die…”’

  I suddenly mistook the sharp cry of a gull for a human voice and glanced backwards, terrified, very nearly wetting my pants. It took several moments to regain my composure. With my knees trembling, and still breathless from the effects of the sudden rush of adrenalin brought on by fear, I pronounced the remaining words in a voice that seemed to alter pitch every few moments:

  ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

  ‘Earth to earth; ashes to ashes; dust to dust; in the sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life.

  ‘Amen.’

  I ended by saying the Lord’s prayer, adding in retrospect, ‘May you rest in peace’.

  The performance of the small, hastily improvised ceremony had a strangely calming effect on me. I felt as if I had brought some measure of decency into the horrific deaths the sailors had suffered. If, like many of the sons of ministers of religion, I wasn’t religious myself, I nevertheless had a deep respect for the calming process of sacred words.

  Despite trying to put him from my mind, my thoughts kept reverting to the poor guy with no head. His blue eyes, so reminiscent of Anna’s, had shaken me badly, somehow his death seemed worse than that of the other men. Poor bugger didn’t even possess a shirt as a shroud.

  Oh God! He must have been the one who had removed his shirt for the dead man they’d placed under the bushes. The man under the bushes! I’d entirely forgotten about him. I began to shake. When was the horror going to end? I’d have to repeat everything! The thought filled me with terror.