Corrigan's Run

by Colin Falconer

Corrigan hoped to reach the boat shed undetected, climb aboard the Deutschland, then cast off and be across the reef before the German planter knew what had happened.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he told Sanei. ‘This time tomorrow we'll be halfway to Australia.’

  The door to the boatshed crashed open with one lusty swing of Corrigan's boot. The stench of copra was overwhelming. There were sacks of it were piled up in one corner; in another Heydrich had stockpiled half a dozen drums of benzene, a furled mainsail, some kerosene tins and four new batteries.

  But the Deutschland was gone.

  Corrigan gave a grunt of frustration and sagged against the wall. Waves lapped against the wooden piles underneath them. He punched the wall, splintering the wooden planking and ripping the skin off his knuckles.

  ‘The boat she gone, Iris,’ Sanei whispered.

  ‘Sure, and we can't go anywhere without it,’ Corrigan said.

  He looked down at his hand. There was blood dripping off his fingers. He swore at his own stupidity and stalked off towards the bungalow.

  ‘Which way boat she go?’ Sanei asked him.

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘We go back longa kiap now?’

  ‘Now what would I want to do that? We're going to wait right here for Heydrich to come back with the boat.’

  A well-worn path threaded through the close- planted palms to the thatched roofed copra sheds. Behind them he made out a weak yellow light shining in one of the laborers' huts. As he approached a naked child screamed and ran to find its mother, a pug-faced woman with pendulous breasts. She was pounding taro with a wooden pestle.

  ‘Where's Heydrich?’ Corrigan demanded. ‘Which way white boss?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘He go longa Vancoro before sun he up.’

  ‘Vancoro? Bugger him! Can't trust that fat slug to do anything right.’ Corrigan stalked off down the path towards the bungalow. Heydrich’s houseboys had gathered on the veranda and watched him march up the path with a mixture of astonishment and trepidation.

  ‘Get me a drink, you bastards!’ he shouted at them. ‘You've got a guest for the night.’

  Wolfgang Heydrich lived in all the opulent splendor that the tropics would allow. His bungalow had three bedrooms, a dining room, a drawing room, a study, and a kitchen. The veranda was shrouded in flaming red bougainvillea, and the gardens were redolent with the scent of hibiscus, azaleas and frangipani.

  The floors were polished teak, and the walls were hung with expensive prints, imported from Europe. There were heavy leather bound books lining one wall of the study and in the drawing room Corrigan found a radio and a record player. He put a record on the gramophone and lowered the needle.

  ‘Lili Marlene.’ Corrigan threw it across the room.

  In the study Corrigan found a photograph of Adolf Hitler hanging on the wall. Corrigan went to the writing desk, found a pen and dipped it into the ink. With a few broad strokes he altered the picture so that the Führer's outstretched palm was no longer empty; he now gripped a part of Goebbel's anatomy, something of a very intimate nature.

  Corrigan stood back to admire his handiwork. He chuckled to himself, his mood lifted.

  He continued his search of the house and finally found what he was looking for; a 1930 Mannlicher 65 rifle. He decided it might be useful if Heydrich tried to be difficult about loaning him his boat. Then he settled himself into a cane chair with a bottle of German Steinlager that the house girl brought him. He laid the rifle on the floorboards.

  ‘What's your name?’ he said.

  ‘Alice Melema'a,’ the girl said.

  Alice Melema'a was Polynesian; they were taller and slimmer than the local Melanesian girls. There was an apricot hibiscus bloom in her long straight hair. She had a close-wrapped cloth around her waist with a gaily-coloured floral pattern on it.

  Corrigan smiled. ‘Where do you sleep, Alice?’

  She lowered her eyes and nodded towards the French windows at the end of the verandah. They opened onto Heydrich's bedroom.

  ‘Well, that's where you're sleeping tonight as well. With me.’

  Alice Melema'a blushed and smiled.

  Corrigan's reputation had preceded him.

  That night, with half a dozen bottles of Heydrich's good German Steinlager in him, Corrigan slept the peaceful sleep of the damned with Alice Melema'a tucked protectively under his arm, the rifle propped against the bedside table at his side.

  *****

  Sanei woke him, just after dawn.

  ‘Wake up, Iris,’ she said, shaking him by the shoulder. ‘Wake up!’

  Corrigan groaned and sat up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Boat he come,’ she said, and Corrigan was instantly awake, leaping from his prone position to the French window in one movement.

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus.’

  Heydrich was back all right. And he'd brought half the Japanese Imperial Army with him.

  Chapter 28

  Corrigan screwed up his eyes against the glare, his heart pumping wildly in his chest.

  He leaned against one of the verandah posts as the effects of the previous night's encounter with Heydrich's beer cellar hit him. Then, like a man on a wildly pitching ship, he staggered back into the bedroom, grabbed the rifle, and threw on his shirt and calico trousers.

  Alice had woken and now sat up in the bed, watching Corrigan's frantic efforts to put on his boots.

  ‘You go?’ she murmured.

  ‘I'm going all right. As far away from here as bloody possible.’

  A few moments later, he stumbled back on to the veranda, the rifle slung over one shoulder, still pushing his left foot into his boot. Sanei was waiting for him, the rucksack slung over her back.

  ‘Let's get out of here,’ Corrigan said.

  *****

  Corrigan stood in the clearing, hands on hips, his chest heaving with the exertion of that morning’s climb back up the mountain.

  ‘Heydrich?’ Manning was saying. ‘But how did he know I was here?’

  ‘Same way we did, I suppose. The natives.’

  ‘You think they betrayed us?’

  ‘Heydrich's just another white man to them. Maybe they thought he was on your side.’

  Manning looked at the teleradio and the generator, at Father Goode lying semi-conscious under a lean-to. Getting away through the jungle would not be easy. He wanted to avoid it at all costs.

  ‘Are you sure the Japs are coming this way?’

  ‘Look,’ Corrigan muttered irritably, ‘what do you want? A search warrant signed by the Imperial Emperor himself?’

  Manning turned to Sergeant Lavella, standing a few paces behind, anxiously fingering the bolt action on his old Lee-Enfield. ‘Tell your men to be ready to leave in an hour,’ he told him. ‘Dismantle everything. Now - quickly!’ He turned back to Corrigan. ‘I don't know what to say to you. You've saved our lives. Perhaps you've saved thousands.’

  ‘Yeah, I'm a real hero. Now I suppose you want me to help you shift all these boxes?’

  *****

  Wolfgang Heydrich pushed the native boy along the path in front of him. Brilliantly coloured birds shot through the trees, darting in and out of the bright shafts of sunlight. A misty green haze filtered through the vast green canopy above. It was always twilight in the jungle and Heydrich could make out no more than a few feet in front of him through the tangle of twisting lianas and orchids.

  Mein Gott, a man could get lost in here and no one would ever find his bones.

  The place filled him with foreboding and Heydrich cursed silently; it would have been better to have stayed behind and let Tashiro do his own dirty work. But the little bastard didn't trust him. He had made him come with them.

  He was still still hadn't recovered from the shock of finding Corrigan's calling card in his bedroom. The putz had ruined his best cotton sheets and the photograph of der Führer his brother had sent him from Nuremberg. And a case of his best beer was missing from his cellar.

  But he h
ad not had time to dwell on this outrage. Tashiro had insisted that they set out immediately for the hills, to search for Manning. Tasimboko had literally shook with terror when he saw that Heydrich had brought the Japanese with him. The Japanese had forced him to give them his son Menazuni as a guide. As they left the village, a terrible wailing had come from inside the kraal as the natives expressed their grief for what they had done.

  Such touching loyalty!

  Now as they wound further into the hills, the heat became oppressive. The air was thin, and his lungs labored to get any life from it. Only Menazuni, leaping ahead through the undergrowth, seemed unaffected.

  The path grew steeper. Heydrich stopped, mopping his forehead with a sodden handkerchief. He felt a gun barrel nudge his spine. It was Tashiro. He hurried on, sweat oozing out of his pores, trickling off his fingers and dripping steadily from his chin.

  Suddenly Menazuni stopped. He indicated with gestures that the camp was very close. The Japanese soldiers pulled their rifles off their shoulders and held them ready. Heydrich stepped back to let them pass. Himmel, they didn't expect him to fight as well, did they?

  Kurosawa was at the rear. Heydrich gave him an obsequious smile. The only civilised one of the lot of them. Except that the young second lieutenant drew his revolver and pulled Heydrich up the slope after him.

  Menazuni pointed dead ahead and lay down flat in the grass. Tashiro tried to get him on his feet, but he refused to go any further. He wriggled free and ran back down the slope. He brushed past Heydrich and was gone.

  Tashiro shrugged. It was not important now. He drew his sword and motioned for his men to follow him. They spread out into the jungle, moving silent as shadows.

  Heydrich crept forward to watch. He hoped they would take Corrigan alive. He would prefer to see him die slowly. Ja, it would pay him for the sheets. He licked his lips in anticipation.

  They were on the edge of a clearing. From where he lay he could make out three thatched huts; smoke drifted towards the sky from a smoldering fire, but otherwise there was no sign of life. The only sounds came form the angry chatter of monkeys in the trees above.

  Tashiro gave a blast on his whistle and a burst of machine gun fire sent the monkeys howling and scattering through the trees. Bullets tore apart the flimsy thatched walls of the huts. Another whistle blast and the firing stopped. It was cue for the rest of Tashiro's men to rush in from the jungle, their bayonets drawn.

  Screaming banzais, they rushed into the first of the huts. Seconds later they emerged, crest-fallen, their rifles at their sides.

  Heydrich got to his feet. ‘What is wrong?’ he said to Kurosawa.

  ‘English not here.’

  ‘But . . . they must be.’

  ‘No, not here,’ Kurosawa said mildly.

  Tashiro, his sword drawn, stamped across the clearing, went into each of the huts. Nothing. Enraged, he threw his sword into the soft earth. It clung there, shivering.

  He turned to Heydrich. ‘You were wrong,’ he said in Japanese.

  Heydrich could only shake his head.

  ‘Corrigan must have warned them,’ he murmured.

  ‘We must go after them,’ he said toKurosawa.

  ‘We will never find them in this jungle without a guide, Tashiro- san,’ Kurosawa said.

  Tashiro glared at Heydrich, trying to control his anger. ‘Send that slug back to Marakon,’ he said and stormed away.

  *****

  Manning had been preparing for just such an eventuality for months. He had already chosen a reserve site for his camp, in a jungle- covered gully on the slopes of Mount Tahunga, further north towards Marmari Point. It meant a long day's hike through steep valleys and along the ravined walls of Ngulinni river.

  He had sent Sergeant Lavella to the nearest village to recruit carriers for the trip into the hinterland. There was no shortage of eager recruits; since the departure of the Europeans, the twist tobacco the natives loved and that the British used for payment had been in short supply.

  In the gathering dusk the transmitter and its generator were quickly packed in their crates and lashed with vines to long bamboo poles. Each stretcher was borne by four of the native carriers. Other bearers brought their supplies of rice, tinned meat, clothing and benzene. Two more carried Father Goode on the makeshift bamboo stretcher.

  By the time they set off, the constellation of the Great Bear was glittering high overhead. They hurried through the night, tripping over roots, stumbling in mud holes, slipping on wet leaves and grass as they struggled to put as much distance between themselves and the Japanese patrol as possible.

  They attached small luminous fungi to their backs so they would not lose each other in the dark. Sergeant Lavella led the way, occasionally wading into shallow streams to help hide their tracks. Manning followed the men carrying the precious teleradio, fussing over it and shouting instructions to the bearers the whole way.

  The moon had fallen behind the distant mountains when Manning finally allowed them to stop and rest. They slept huddled against the trunks of huge hardwoods, exhausted and soaked with their own perspiration, while mosquitoes whined around their heads.

  At first light Manning roused them and urged them on again.

  The storm hit suddenly, soon after dawn, sweeping over the island from the south-east. Towering thunderhead clouds blotted out the sun. In minutes torrential rain turned the earth into a glutinous porridge. Every step became treacherous, and the carriers struggled to keep their feet while the mud sucked the strength from tired muscles.

  Manning had the carriers put banana leaves over the poles to deflect the rain from the canvas covers and keep the contents of the boxes dry. The men he had entrusted with the teleradio were the strongest and the best of the bearers; if one of them slipped he would let his body fall but keep his arm quite rigid so that the stretcher did not touch the ground or the water, and within seconds Manning would rush forward and take the weight until the man could once again gain his feet.

  Progress was painfully slow. Manning pressed them to get to his new camp by nightfall. Every hour he spent off the air was precious.

  Her knew there were men relying on him, just as wet and exhausted, somewhere on Guadalcanal.

  *****

  The rain slanted down in miserable grey sheets. They stopped to rest in the lee of a dark basalt ridge. They all found leeches clinging to their legs, even under their shirts. They burned them off with lighted cigarettes.

  They laid Father Goode's stretcher in the overhang of the cliff, a sparse shelter from the downpour. The journey had taken its toll on him. He gasped with every jolt and bump. The malaria had come back; at times he burned with raging fever, moments later he was shaking with cold. Sometimes he raved, semi conscious, at other times he lay still as the dead.

  He rested now in the cool damp of a shallow cave. His eyes flickered open as Corrigan strode through the mud towards him, a leather poncho over his shoulders.

  ‘Mister Corrigan.’

  Corrigan stopped, leaning into the cave. ‘So you're awake now, are you?’

  ‘I wish to speak with you.’

  ‘Make it quick. We have to get going again soon. I’ve got to check all the waterproofs on the boxes for Manning.’

  ‘Please. Come closer.’

  Corrigan sighed and ducked his head under the overhang. He squatted down next to the stretcher.

  ‘Mister Corrigan, I must hear it from your own lips. Have you impugned my niece's virtue?’

  ‘Talk English for God's sake.’

  ‘My niece. Did you take advantage of her?’

  Corrigan snorted. ‘You can't think of anything else but sex, can you?’

  ‘I'm waiting for an answer, Mister Corrigan. I'll know if you lie to me.’

  ‘No, I bloody didn't, for all the difference it makes. What on earth gave you that idea anyway?’

  ‘I've seen the way she looks at you. She has sinned in the heart, if not in the flesh.’

  Corrigan looked
away. ‘I don't know what you're talking about.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘Look, I know what you think of me, and I guess you're right. If I could have, I would have. But I didn't. Now shut up. Get some sleep. We've still got a long way to go.’

  ‘Stay away from her, Mister Corrigan. She deserves better than someone like you.’

  ‘I could say the same thing about you.’

  He stamped out of the cave.

  During that long afternoon's march he thought about what the priest had said. Christ, women! They were always trouble, whatever way you looked at it. It was easy with the island girls, you knew where you stood. They never tried to complicate anything with commitments. Sanei, for instance; she knew he took other women and she understood about that. But with white women it was different . . .

  He didn't want to think about Rachel. He had once had his life just as he wanted it, and as soon as he got away from this rotten island he would have it that way again.

  Damn them. Damn the lot of them.

  Chapter 29

  As evening fell rain continued to pour down in sheets and leather boots were soon soaked through, coated with mud and dead leaves and heavy as lead. Even the natives with their strong splayed feet began to tire as they made their way up and down the steep valleys and boulder-strewn beds, slipping on the treacherous wet rocks and the greasy red mud of the highlands.

  A premature twilight had settled over the mountains when they finally reached the Ngulinni river. The site Manning had chosen was just an hour's walk now. To their right the valley fell away a hundred feet into the swirling brown waters of the river.

  Manning stopped and looked back over his shoulder, straining to catch his breath. He waited for Corrigan to catch up. ‘Almost there, old boy.’

  ‘Almost where? While I'm on this bloody island I'm not anywhere.’

  ‘Is there some way I can persuade you to join me. I could use a man of your talents.’

  ‘No thanks.’