by Owen Stanley
“The women. Jump over here when they’ve had a row with their husbands to make ’em feel bad. The police’ll show yer how to cross.”
The police, who had stood up and given butt salutes with their rifles as Fletcher came up with them, prepared for the crossing. Two constables went first, carrying one end of a light rope. Prout stood in apprehensive misery as he watched the bridge begin to sway through a wider and wider arc with the movements of the two men; slight undulations ran along the vines as they hurried across. When they were safely over, they belayed themselves and Fletcher tied Prout to the middle of the rope.
“OK. Over yer go. Can’t fall very far even if the bridge goes!”
All arms and legs, Prout scrabbled and floundered between the vines. Like a spastic spider, thought Fletcher, as he paid out the safety line. After about five minutes the piteous exhibition was over, and the remaining police crossed, followed by Fletcher and Cpl Barigi, who both made a careful examination of the vines on their way. Now only a short, but steep, climb lay between them and the village, and in another quarter of an hour they had surmounted this final obstacle. Their progress did not go unobserved, however, and the forest around them was alive with the shrieks and laughs of naked urchins who peered out, round eyed, at the strange red man of whom their elders had been talking, then ran off giggling and chattering.
At last the trees thinned out, and gave way to scantier vegetation of sword-grass, bushes, and casuarina trees. Signs of former cultivation became more obvious, and soon they were walking past newly planted gardens of sweet potato, taro, and sugar cane, surrounded by stout timber fences against the ravages of the village pigs. Ahead of them a square house, raised on piles, came into view over the fences. As the party reached it the notes of a bugle rang out, blown by one of the constables who had remained behind at the rest house with Sgt Oala. In front of the rest house, on the wide expanse of grass, maintaining a deathly silence, was the assembled population of Laripa, with Malek, their chief, and other notables at the salute in front. The police formed in line before the flagpole, facing the crowd, and presented arms as the Australian flag was slowly raised, to the accompaniment of the bugle. Just as it reached the head of the pole, ready to be broken out, a large pig dashed from the crowd making for the forest. Fletcher drew his Webley .45, fired, and bowled it over with a single massive slug in the ribs.
Prout, standing beside Fletcher in front of the police, was stunned. “You sadistic thug,” he muttered to himself. He knew that if he didn’t immediately make some public act of solidarity with these wretched people, his mission would be permanently discredited by its association with the appalling Fletcher. Just as he was meditating some decisive gesture, however, Fletcher stepped forward to address the crowd.
“So, my people, I have come. And with me I bring an elder of my tribe, who loveth you well. But though he loveth you, he knoweth not your ways, nor yet your tongue; in these matters, though old in years, he is but a little child, grasping beyond his reach, prattling of things beyond his understanding. Bear with him, then, and mind ye well that he liveth under my protection. Smile upon him, and he will reward you; deal kindly with him, and he will shower you with riches. I have spoken.”
As Fletcher concluded his address, which was embellished with many of the rhetorical flourishes beloved by the Moroks, but which are too tedious to be repeated here, a babble of talk broke out among the people. Malek silenced it with a sweep of his arm as he stepped forward.
“O Tikame! Thy words bring gladness to thy people of Laripa. Thy presence alone warmeth our bellies; our women are happy, our children are happy, our dogs are happy, our pigs are happy…” his eloquence faltered slightly, “…our happiness is like unto the waters of the Limilimi, that falleth from Mount Karama without ceasing.” A great burst of applause greeted this unusually fine allegory. He allowed it to die away. “And this, the elder of thy people; let him come among us as one of our true kinsmen. Our women shall cram his mouth with taro; the juice of our sugar cane shall sweeten his lips; the fat of our pigs shall run down his chin, so that his breast may shine in the firelight. When his shadow falleth upon our pigs, they shall wax fat; when it falleth upon our women, their wombs shall be heavy; when it falleth upon the ground of our fathers, it shall yield taro, and sweet-potatoes, and yams, and cucumbers, in abundance; and when it falleth upon our old men, they shall grow young. I have spoken.”
The applause at the conclusion of this impassioned harangue was tremendous, and while it continued Fletcher turned to Prout.
“I gave ’em the good oil, about how yer were a mate of mine and came up here to hand out some goodies. The chief says he and his folks’ll treat yer like one o’ themselves. So if yer give ’em some tobacco and newspaper they’ll love yer like a brother.”
“Yes, well, the sooner I establish decent relations with these people the better. After your sickening treatment of that poor pig, God knows what they’ll think of me.”
“It’s a chief’s privilege to kill any animal that interrupts him during a speech—they do the same themselves, you’ll learn.”
“I didn’t come here to learn that kind of thing. I came here to help, and one doesn’t help people by encouraging their worst behaviour.”
“I’ll have the tobacco and paper dug out for yer.”
“Not yet. There’s something I have to do first.”
Prout turned away, with the first sense of satisfaction he had felt since the morning, and hobbled over to the rest house, and climbed the steps to the verandah. The house was solidly made, the walls and floor of pandanus bark, and the roof thatched with leaves from the same tree. Inside was a large room with two beds, each formed by running a couple of poles through a tube of canvas, and lashing them to cross-pieces wedged against the walls at each end. Two folding chairs were the only other furniture. The patrol boxes and other gear were stacked inside, and Cpl Barigi was busy extracting cooking pots and billies for tea.
In a connecting room, some carriers were blowing a fire, made on a hearth of mud and stones, into a blaze. Another house for the police, with a kitchen, was close to the rest house, and the smoke from the two fires was warm and comforting, since the afternoon mist was already drifting around them, dank and chilly from the mountain above.
Prout went over to the piled baggage and picked up his rucksack. After fumbling inside for a few moments, he withdrew a wad of banknotes, in Australian currency, and took it outside onto the verandah. Fletcher was standing below, making arrangements for guard duty with Sgt Oala.
“Could I please speak to the carriers?” said Prout. Fletcher sighed. What did he want now? He shouted for the carriers to line up. When they had assembled, and stood gazing at Prout with indifferent eyes, Prout called the first one up the verandah steps, and held out a handful of notes.
“There, my friend. That’s for all your hard work of today in carrying my bag.” He gestured to his back, and pointed to his bag, which he had thrown on the verandah. The man grasped his meaning instantly, and seizing the money with a grin skipped down the steps and ran off to the police house. The other carriers, now keenly interested, clustered round the steps, and the same performance was repeated, accompanied by hilarious laughter from the carriers. Fletcher and Sgt Oala watched in astonishment as the Laripa people gathered closer. When the last of the carriers had received his money, Prout felt relieved.
“Now,” he said, hobbling down the steps again, “we can settle the matter of the pig.” He made his way painfully to where the pig lay on its side in the grass.
“Ask them, please, whose pig this is. I want to compensate the owner.”
Fletcher translated the question, with the smiling indulgence normally reserved for small children. Sensing his contempt for Prout, the Moroks all began claiming the pig and pressed forward clamorously, each determined to get his hands on the reward. Men tapped their chests peremptorily and scowled, or pushed forward their copiously weeping womenfolk who were holding out their hands in supp
lication. Prout was taken aback by the flood of savages, whom he was seeing for the first time at close quarters, and in panic began thrusting bundles of notes into their hands, quailing inwardly under the gaze of their burning eyes.
They examined the notes suspiciously; they knew coins, but had scarcely seen banknotes before, and considered them extremely inferior substitutes for the half-sheets of newspaper which Fletcher gave them when he was in a good mood. Tobacco was the traditional gift of a chief. Frowning, the men rolled the notes experimentally between their fingers, to test their value for cigarettes, and found them hard, shiny, and thoroughly unsatisfactory. Children, in the arms of their fathers, reached for the notes, and pressed them to their snotty noses, crumpled them, smeared their faces with them, and, losing interest, allowed them to drop heedlessly into the mud around them. The women snatched them for closer inspection, but, discovering that both sides were green, a color which ranked at the bottom in their scale of preferences for personal decoration, tossed them away into the wind.
As their murmuring grew into a clamour of irritation and bewilderment, Prout began to realise that his scheme was going wrong.
“Money, money!” he began shouting, pointing at the notes, sweat running down his face as he beamed and gesticulated.
“Moni, moni,” repeated dozens of voices, a vague recognition slowly dawning. Some of the carriers, hearing the commotion, came out from the kitchen and began explaining the significance of these bits of paper. The scowling brows and angry gestures were soon replaced by smiles and laughter, and Prout was besieged by clutching hands and soon relieved of the rest of his stock. Laughing and exhilarated, he walked slowly back to the rest house, through the press of his new friends. He regarded Fletcher with a look of triumph:
“Well, you see, one doesn’t have to be a linguist to express oneself. The basic language of humanity is the outstretched hand of friendship.”
“Outstretched hand of bludging, more like. If yer think yer can buy these bastards off with a few quid, ye’ve got another think coming. The only thing these jokers understand is bayonets and a belt round the ear. Still, as long as ye’re enjoyin’ yerself…”
“I thought you’d take that attitude. You’ll just have to get used to the idea that kindness and compassion leave a more lasting impression than fear and violence.” His eyes left Fletcher’s face, and wandered over the village, the spur, and the great valley. “This is the first time someone has come here and shown them sympathy and behaved with human understanding. You wouldn’t understand that. All you can do is terrify and brutalize.”
He looked challengingly at Fletcher, whose contemptuous smile did not waver. “I see it’s no use trying to argue with you. I should like to see the village. Perhaps you will come with me as an interpreter?”
Fletcher, still smiling, nodded his acquiescence.
After tea they took the path that led down from the rest house, with the men of Laripa clustering round, Malek and his friends closest of all. As they drew near the stockade an odour of human faeces, which had been discernible near the rest house, became pungent and obtrusive.
“Why don’t you make them dig proper latrines?”
“What’s the point? The pigs and dogs lap up most of it, and it’s well clear of the drinking places. They don’t like the taste of shit in their drinking water any more’n yer do.”
“It’s still disgusting. As soon as I return from Rabaul it’s the first thing I’ll have done.”
By now they had reached the entrance to the stockade, where a few timbers had been uprooted and were lying cast aside in the bushes. Prout looked up at the hideous, cruel carvings on the posts with respectful interest. Clearly, people who were so dexterous with their hands had great potential as mechanics and clerks in the modern society he was planning for them. He was less impressed by the two lines of dismal hovels that flanked the yard, which was scattered with pig droppings.
“It’s no wonder their behaviour is sometimes violent, when they live in surroundings like this. It’s well established that environmental disadvantages of this type can lead to anti-social behaviour. What they need is piped water, model houses, cottage industry, and sanitation. And it only needs the will, I assure you. They will respond eagerly enough. Of course, a social democracy needs an elected assembly, people’s courts, and a trade union movement, but such things can be built up rather more quickly than one might imagine. There’s promise here, I can see it. Now, what’s that extraordinary building?” he asked, as he caught sight of the men’s house.
“That’s the club, the men’s house. No women allowed.”
“No women? My wife will want to change all that! Still, we mustn’t rush things, especially when there are so many other projects to keep us busy. I should like to have a look inside.”
He climbed up onto the verandah, assisted by Malek and Macardit, who crawled inside and helped Prout through the narrow entrance. Fletcher elected to remain outside. No sooner were they in the club than Malek blew on the fire, while Macardit took down some smoked pandanus nuts from a shelf above the hearth. He began cracking them between two stones, and offering the interiors to Prout. The kernels were dry, yet oily, faintly kipper-flavored, but quite pleasant. Prout munched busily and began to look about him, but the interior was even darker than it had been in the morning because of the heavy cloud and mist, and for a time he could discern very little. But as the fire began to blaze up he became aware of a corpse huddled on the floor, covered in a layer of ashes.
“Fletcher! There’s a dead body in here!”
“Unlikely. Dead bodies go in the women’s houses until they’re buried. It’s probably some old git havin’ a kip.”
“Ask these men who he is, will you?”
Fletcher did so. Macardit gave the corpse a prod with the stone he was using to crack the nuts. It was Nyikang; the old man stirred, rolled over and accumulated more ashes in doing so, and heaved himself into a sitting position; his eyes were gummed together with the mucus of sleep and his chest was covered with scabs, which had been smeared with clay. He looked like Lazarus released from the tomb. Prout watched, open-mouthed with horror, as the apparition rubbed its eyes with its knuckles and fixed him with its bloodshot gaze.
“They say his name’s Nyikang, and that he will die soon because he is very old.”
“Poor old man. Poor, poor old man.” Prout was deeply moved. To die like this, filthy, naked, diseased, infirm, when he should have been given the loving care of his family to soothe his last days on earth, or, better still, been placed in a municipal home for the aged. Impulsively, he reached out both hands to the old man and took his bony old claws in a warm grip. He gazed into the aged one’s eyes, and smiled.
Nyikang, recovering his wits, grinned with toothless gums, and disengaging a hand from Prout’s sympathetic clasp, reached into a gourd behind him and brought out a small piece of mouldy dried tobacco leaf which he offered to Prout, hoping for a present in return. Prout took it and recalled that he had a packet of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. They were rather crushed, but still smokeable. He gave the whole packet to Nyikang.
Macardit and Malek exchanged glances. The old man turned the packet over, inspecting it carefully in the firelight, but his curved, blackened finger nails could make no impression on the cellophane, until finally Prout reached over to strip the packet, took out a cigarette, and put it between Nyikang’s lips. Then he lit it for him with his lighter. The old man puffed ecstatically, and Prout watched him with a benign smile. At last he got up to go, clutching the mouldy leaf of tobacco.
“Tell them,” he said to Fletcher, “that I like this man very much. He is my good friend.” Fletcher dutifully complied.
Dusk was falling as Prout crawled out of the men’s house, and the evening mists had risen from the river gorge to blanket the village. The people who had gathered outside the men’s house called out gaily to the two men as they made their way out of the village and up the track to the rest house, where they were
greeted with curried bully-beef and rice, hot tea and rum, to keep out the cold of the night.
As they finished their silent meal, spread out on the tops of patrol boxes, Fletcher cocked his ear to listen to the conversation of the carriers in the kitchen, where they were boiling water to wash up.
“They’re callin’ yer Father of Nyikang,” he said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if they reckoned you were his real father, come back from the dead!”
“Oh, please! Can you not simply admit that there is such a thing as genuine human sympathy, without any superstitious mumbo-jumbo attached, and that they responded to it?”
“Suit yerself, mate. I was only thinkin’ aloud.” Fletcher poured himself another glass of rum and drew deeply on his cigarette. The rain had been falling for some time, and was now battering on the roof. But there was a good fire in the kitchen; this was one of the better rest houses on the island. There were no leaks anywhere, the pressure lantern was hissing smoothly, and most importantly, there was another bottle of Neghrita Rhum in his patrol box. Fletcher felt that even a lecture on human rights could not spoil the pleasure of an evening like this, relaxing after a good day’s march, warm, dry, and full of grub, with a glass of grog, listening to the rain. All he needed now was an obliging young mary.
“What did yer think of the skulls?”
“Skulls? I didn’t see any skulls.”
“You bloody intellectuals are all the same. Only see what the books tell yer to see, don’t yer?”
“You don’t have much time for books, do you, Fletcher?”
“Too right, I don’t. That’s the trouble with the world today. As Olly’s always sayin’, all books and no brains.”
Prout frowned.
“That’s the kind of glib generalisation that makes our work ten times harder. How do you think we can begin to solve the urgent social problems of our time without a thorough scientific understanding of the way pre-modern societies function? For that we need books, in order to communicate our data and what we have learned in the course of our research. Doctors need books, but you don’t condemn them for that!”