Corrigan's Run

by Colin Falconer

  ‘Is that bottle for me?’ he said, and Rachel involuntarily took a step back. Had he been awake the whole time?

  ‘It certainly is not for you.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘I've been trying to administer it to my uncle. He keeps spitting it out.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. The man has no appreciation for fine spirit. Let me have it.’

  ‘I have to get some of it into him. It will numb the pain.’

  ‘Let the bastard suffer. He enjoys it.’

  ‘Mister Corrigan, I am about to amputate his leg with a machete. I think a man deserves something to help him through such an ordeal, don't you?’

  Corrigan sat up and stared at her. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Tell me you’re joking. Look at you. A girl your age ought to be wandering round in fields picking flowers and playing the piano.’

  ‘Perhaps one day I will. For now my uncle needs my help.’

  Corrigan leaned back against the trunk of the tree and observed her. She had been burned by the sun and had long ago abandoned the tight bun with which she used to bundle up her hair. It now fell loose about her shoulders, thick and blue-black. She was wearing one of Manning's shirts, open at the neck, and a native tapa cloth. Her feet were bare.

  She looked at once appealing and vulnerable, an Corrigan felt himself stir. He let his gaze drop to her ankles. ‘Did I ever tell you have pretty legs?’

  Rachel blushed and her fingers went to the buttons of her shirt. ‘No, you haven’t. Now will you help me get this whisky into him?’ Her voice sounded hoarse.

  ‘Sure I'll help you. I'll even help you chop off the poor bastard’s leg if that's what you're proposing. I'm getting used to blood and shambles by now, so help me. If you can stand it, then I reckon I can.’

  Rachel watched him amble to his feet, his hands thrust belligerently into the pockets of his calico trousers.

  She smiled. ‘Thank you Mister Corrigan.’

  Corrigan laughed. ‘My pleasure, young lady,’ he said and followed her across the clearing to where Father Goode was still railing against the evil in the world and the jezebels of Gomorrah.

  *****

  ‘We will have to tie his arms behind his back.’

  Corrigan nodded. ‘Whatever you say, you're the doctor.’

  ‘You will have to lean on his shoulders to hold him still.’ She turned to Manning and Sergeant Lavella, standing hesitantly in the doorway. ‘If each of you put your weight on his legs, I'll get to work.’

  Manning's face was the color of chalk. ‘Isn't there any other way?’

  ‘The poison is working through his whole body. Unless I remove the leg he will be dead within forty-eight hours.’

  Manning looked down at the priest. His skin had the sickly grey patina of a corpse. There were dark shadows under his cheekbones and eyebrows where the flesh had been eaten away by fever.

  ‘What are his chances?’ Manning asked.

  Corrigan answered for her. ‘Let's put it this way. Don't put any money on him unless you can afford to lose it.’

  ‘I'll do what I can,’ Rachel added, ‘but he's very weak. If he doesn't die of shock in the first few minutes, he'll probably die of infection tomorrow. It will be a miracle if he survives.’

  ‘And a blessing if he doesn't,’ Corrigan muttered.

  Rachel turned towards him, her eyes flashing. ‘Think what you will of him, Mister Corrigan, he cared for me for ten years when I was alone in the world. I will always love him for that.’

  ‘All right, I'm sorry,’ Corrigan mumbled. ‘Let's get on with it then.’

  Rachel picked up a length of rope and turned the priest on to his side. Crossing his wrists behind his back, she tied them, as gently as she could. Then she rolled him back again. Corrigan placed one massive hand on each of the priest's shoulders. Manning and Sergeant Lavella squatted down at Father Goode's feet and leaned forward, putting all their weight on his shins.

  Rachel produced the bottle of whisky.

  ‘We must force some of this down his throat.’

  She cradled his head in the crook of her right arm. Pinching his nose shut with the thumb and index finger of her right hand, she forced the lip of the bottle in his mouth with the other. Father Goode gasped, and his whole body writhed under the weight of the three men. Finally he managed to turn his head to the side and force a spray of warm whisky into Corrigan's face.

  ‘Jesus,’ Corrigan gasped. ‘I can stand the blood, girl, but I can't stand to see good liquor wasted. Can’t you see he doesn’t want it?’

  ‘It's not important what a man wants, but what he needs,’ Rachel said and forced her uncle's head back once more and upended the bottle in his mouth.

  It took almost half an hour, but finally Rachel had succeeded in forcing half of the bottle down the priest's throat. Now he lay, in a drugged sleep, snoring deeply.

  ‘He might die of alcoholic poisoning,’ Corrigan said. ‘But he's not going to feel any pain.’

  ‘I pray you're right,’ Rachel said, and she got to her feet and went outside to fetch the machete that waited in the froth of boiling water on the camp fire.

  Chapter 43

  Tashiro stood to attention in front of Colonel Nakamura.

  ‘How are your wounds?’ Nakamura said. His hands were folded neatly on the desk in front of him, his face a mask.

  ‘They are nothing, Nakamura-san,’ Tashiro said. He could not meet Nakamura's eyes. He stared stoically at the wall behind the colonel's head.

  In fact his wounds were not ‘nothing.’ Tashiro was in considerable pain. A bullet had lodged in his left shoulder, shattering the head of the humerus. His arm was strapped across his chest, under his open tunic. He had lost a lot of blood, and the bullet had yet to be removed.

  The Japanese had set up a forward post at Marmari Point, but Tashiro had returned to Vancoro to report to Nakamura personally on the latest reverse at the hands of the English bandits.

  He had allowed the surgeon to attend only briefly to his wounds at the hospital. Then he had marched up the slope to the Residency bungalow in the scorching midday heat. Pain was etched into his face; his eyes were glassy and streaked with yellow.

  ‘Once again the enemy has caught you by surprise,’ Nakamura said.

  Tashiro's face was impassive. Nakamura studied him for a few moments in silence. ‘What were your losses?’

  ‘Two men killed, four wounded, Nakamura-san. One has a serious chest wound. He will not live.’

  Nakamura took a deep breath, trying to control his anger. ‘What am I to tell Imperial Command? It seems certain that the Englishman has been operating in our area as a spy for many months. We do not know the extent of the damage he may have caused by giving the enemy advance knowledge of our movements. And now he is even ambushing our own soldiers ...’

  Tashiro bit into his tongue, as another spasm of pain hit him. He tasted the salt taste of his own blood in his mouth and swayed slightly on his feet.

  ‘You walked into their trap and they gunned you down like dogs. They are just natives! How can such a thing happen?’

  Tashiro did not respond.

  ‘I have asked the Imperial Command to send us tracker dogs. Meanwhile you will continue to conduct your operations from Marmari Point, concentrating on the northern mountains. Another company of soldiers under Major Harada will be arriving there shortly and he will relieve you and assume command of the operation himself.’

  ‘Hai, Nakamura-san.’

  ‘In the meantime, I must report truthfully on your performance to your superiors.’ Nakamura looked up. ‘You are dismissed. Have your wounds attended to, and return to your duties.’

  Tashiro saluted, wheeled about and marched out of the room.

  *****

  Rachel made her way up the rocky path to the top of the ridge. From the ridgeback, she looked west; Kangava Passage sprawled across the far horizon in breathtaking panorama, the vast ocean dotted with the emerald green of the islands. It was evening, a
nd the first pinpoints of stars were appearing in a pearl-shell sky.

  The shrill cries of parrots in the trees gave way to the night cries of the insects.

  Rachel sat down on a rock, trembling, though it was still warm. She tried to blot out the memory of the last half an hour.

  Her uncle was dead. She had done everything she could but he had been too weak to withstand the shock of the amputation. He had died within minutes, without regaining consciousness. It had been a bloody and messy end to his long struggle. She wished now that she had let him die whole, in peace.

  ‘You did your best.’

  She turned around. It was Corrigan.

  ‘I shouldn't have done it. He was too weak.’

  Corrigan sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. She began to sob. She put her arms around his neck and clung to him.

  She had no idea how long they were like that. She let it all spill out of her; everything she had tried to keep in check these last months, all the terror and aloneness.

  When it was over, she looked up at him and was surprised by the look of tenderness on his face. He bent his face to hers and kissed her.

  ‘Corrigan . . .’

  ‘You want someone to hold on to. There's nothing wrong with that. We all need a bit of kindness now and then. Even you.’

  She was overwhelmed with shame. Her uncle was still warm and she was making love with the man he had most despised. Feeling like a whore, she pulled away from him and ran back to the camp.

  Chapter 44

  Mitchell and Shoup sat alone in the dugout, listening to the rain dripping through the roof, forming in dark puddles on the mud floor.

  They had carefully positioned two wooden crates in between the cascades of water, and now they sat on them smoking cigarettes. Somewhere out on Edson's Ridge they heard the hammering of a Browning. Could be just some kid from Omaha getting nervous.

  ‘They say he's a local, you know,’ Shoup said suddenly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Weatherman. I always thought he must have been shipped in by the navy. But they say he's just a government man, small-time official who volunteered to stay behind. No special training, nuthin'.’

  ‘Which island is he on?’

  ‘No one seems sure. Maybe New Georgia or Choiseul. What do you think?’

  Mitchell shrugged and lit another cigarette. The rain was getting on his nerves.

  ‘Must be one hell of a guy,’ Shoup said. ‘I wonder what he looks like?’

  ‘I never thought about it,’ Mitchell lied.

  ‘How does he stand it day after day? Having the Japs all round him, not knowing when the natives might hand him in. How does someone deal with that kind of fear?’

  Mitchell shrugged and didn’t say anything. He didn't want to talk about The Weatherman. Not tonight. Sometimes it sounded to him as if they were talking about a dead man, and he wanted very much for The Weatherman to make it. If he could survive, with the odds stacked against him, then maybe he could too.

  ‘Do you ever think much about it?’ Shoup said.

  ‘Not much,’ Mitchell said, and they fell silent.

  *****

  They buried Father Goode in a clearing just below the ridgeback.

  They wrapped the body in a canvas tarpaulin and Rachel read the short service from her uncle's leather-bound Bible. They each threw a handful of the black soil into the grave.

  Rachel went back to the camp alone.

  ‘Don't look so sour,’ Corrigan said to Manning. ‘Could have been worse. Could have been you or me.’

  ‘For God's sake, Patrick.’

  ‘Look, just because I'm not a hypocrite and don't pretend I'm grief- stricken. I never liked the bastard.’

  ‘Whatever you say about him, Patrick, he was a man of great courage. He did what he thought was right.’

  ‘And look where it got him.’

  ‘Everyone has to believe in something. If you don't, you may as well be dead.’

  Corrigan rubbed his chin. ‘Well, he's dead anyway. And what's changed? The Japs are still here, and the islanders still pray to sharks. He might just as well have come with me on Heydrich's boat.’

  ‘Why? Everything he lived for was here.’

  ‘One place is much the same as another.’

  ‘There's more to life than women and booze, Patrick.’

  ‘So I've heard you say. Like what?’

  Manning felt himself getting angry. Sometimes Corrigan's devil-may-care attitude to life amused him. But there were other times - like now - when it filled him with black rage.

  ‘I feel sorry for you, old boy,’ he growled and he turned away and followed Rachel back up the hill.

  Corrigan watched him go, surprised at Manning’s reaction. Then he shrugged, and watched Sergeant Lavella and two of his police boys shovel mud into the hole. The slap of the heavy earth on the priest's canvas-covered body left him feeling nauseous.

  He looked down into the hole and crossed himself; an involuntary reaction to death he remembered from long ago, in the church in Dundrum Bay. He found himself saying aloud the thought that had been on all of their minds that morning.

  ‘I wonder which of us is next?’

  *****

  Manning was getting desperate.

  A few days before he had sent Chomu into Vancoro to work as a laborer for the Japanese and report on what was happening there. Chomu had sent back word that the Japanese had built a giant steel bowl on top of one of their huts. Manning immediately realized what it was; the Japanese had installed radio direction-finding equipment.

  From then on he kept his transmissions as brief as possible.

  Manning had chosen the site for the camp well. They built their huts and lean-to’s in the lee of a dry gully, invisible from the air because of a natural overhang of rock and the dense vegetation that grew on its flanks.

  The air currents moved upwards over the mountain so whenever they had to re-charge the teleradio's batteries, the noise of the diesel engine was carried away on the wind.

  The only track into the camp led up through a fissure in the rock wall, scarcely wide enough for one man to squeeze through; above them the gully led to the ridgeback, protected on both sides by eighty-foot-high teak trees. Manning had built his observation post in the canopy of one of the teak trees, and it afforded unobstructed views over Kangava Passage and westwards to The Slot.

  The only way the Japanese would find them was if they walked in right on top of them. Even so, they all knew it was only a matter of time before the Japanese hunted them down. Every day at dawn, and again late in the afternoon, a Japanese Zero flew over the mountains, looking for them. Once it flew almost directly over their heads.

  In his mind he measured his survival in days rather than months.

  Twice he had tried to organize an evacuation from Jervoise Bay; each time it was called off because the submarine that was to take them off the island was redirected to combat operations elsewhere.

  And so they settled down to wait, the tension among them almost palpable. The Japanese were not the only cause of strain among them. Even Sergeant Lavella watched Rachel moving about the camp, as if she was tabu.

  ‘No good too mus,’ he whispered to her one day. ‘That Sanei she want for killim you, missy.’

  Rachel shuddered and prayed that the submarine would come soon.

  *****

  Ever since she was a little girl Rachel had suffered from vertigo. A flimsy rope bridge led across the gorge below the ridgeback to a clear rock pool; she had to brace herself for every trip across it. But the pool was cool and green and anyway, Rachel Goode was not the kind of woman to let fear get the better of her.

  One evening, about a week after her uncle’s death, she didn’t take her time, as she usually did. She felt uneasy and she didn’t know why. She climbed out of the pool and dressed quickly, shucking Manning’s loose-fitting shirt over her shoulders and fastening the tapa cloth at her waist. Dark thunderheads were
forming over the mountains shot through with shafts of gold, bathing the surrounding greens of the jungle in an eerie light.

  She hurried back along the path, her long hair still wet, and soaking her shirt. She was eager to have the ordeal of the bridge over for another night.

  As she stepped on the bridge she saw something that stopped her in her tracks. There was someone squatting under the mahogany tree, on the far side of the bridge, waiting for her.

  It was Sanei.

  Rachel remembered what Sergeant Lavella had said to her. That Sanei she want for killim you, missy.

  Sanei got to her feet and started to walk towards her across the bridge.

  That Sanei she want for killim you, missy.

  Rachel kept her head held high and kept walking.

  I won't let her frighten me.

  As they reached the middle of the bridge Rachel realised Sanei was not going to let her pass. She also knew Sanei had the advantage. She was a mountain girl, accustomed narrow mountain tracks and rope bridges like this one. If she tried to move past her she could easily tip her into the wild rushing waters a hundred feet below.

  Rachel stopped. ‘What do you want?’

  Sanei didn't answer. She just stared at her and then, quite unexpectedly, she smiled. She gripped the bridge ropes in each hand and began to rock. Rachel's hands tightened around the rope spans as she tried to keep her balance. She looked down at the whitewater frothing and boiling far below her.

  A cold, greasy sweat had erupted all over her body. She heard herself whimper.

  Sanei began to rock harder, her feet splayed across the wooden slats, swinging the bridge through a huge arc in a wild giddying rhythm.

  ‘Stop it!’ Rachel screamed.

  ‘Corrigan b'long me!’

  ‘STOP IT!’

  The walls of the gorge and the river below blurred together in her vision. She closed her eyes and concentrated on holding on to the ropes. If she lost her purchase on the wooden slats beneath her feet, she would fall. Through the red mists of her panic she heard Sanei screaming at her. ‘Corrigan b'long me! You no take 'im! He b'long me!’