Savages

by Shirley Conran

  “Seems as if the whole town is on this road today,” joked Arthur. Everybody in the bus laughed with him.

  “This is the center of town, the poor part,” the manager explained, as the yellow bus threaded its way through a vibrant mess of stalls, bars, clubs blaring native music and shifty-looking mongrels. There was not a white person in sight.

  On either side of the broken, potholed road were gutters full of garbage. The road was lined with small shops, closed at night by rusting iron gates. The shops were painted (or had once been, by their Chinese owners) bright pink, orange or pale blue and were crammed with men wearing what looked like brilliantly colored nightshirts. Occasionally, the line of shops was broken by a peeling, concrete building, not so much of modern design as of no design whatsoever. Invariably, the tiny windows were heavily barred.

  As the smartly painted bus bumped slowly over the rusting ironwork of the single-lane St. Mary Bridge, the occupants glanced below at the sluggish khaki waters of the St. Mary River. Safely across, the bus swerved to avoid a bicycle and nearly hit a peeling, turquoise shack with GREAT UNIVERSAL SUPERMARKET painted on the corrugated tin roof. Tacked to the wall was a sign that read BEWARE VERY BAD DOG.

  The bus passed through a less congested area, after which it bumped by the side of a street market, where black women bent speculatively over dusty pyramids of yellow and rust-colored vegetables piled on leaves in the road.

  As the bus crawled on, the manager said apologetically, “This is the only road to the palace. I’m afraid we always have this problem.”

  Arthur looked at the manager; he had a chunky sunburned body and ears that stuck out from an unmemorable round face, like a toasted muffin.

  “Build another road,” said Arthur.

  “Certainly. I’ll see to it this afternoon, sir.”

  The road had widened, and there were fewer people on it; the shacks and shops had been left behind. The bus passed two-story houses with wooden verandas or corrugated tin porches, then these houses gave way to even grander ones, of colonial design with once-white painted balconies.

  Gradually the houses petered out, and on both sides the dark green jungle spilled over the buckled surface of the road, which could be described as potholes linked by tarmac, and might well have been the result of earth tremors. Brett clung to the seat in front of him as, time after time, the bus threatened to leave the road, but miraculously jerked back on course.

  As the bus turned the next corner, the driver slammed on the brakes.

  On the stretch of road ahead, a group of naked blacks were fighting with spears; on either side of the road stood more blacks, pointing drawn bows at each other.

  “Heads down, everybody,” said the manager sharply.

  The bus driver leaned on his horn, languidly motioned to the natives to clear off the road and moved slowly ahead.

  Surprisingly, the mob of scuffling men parted and moved to either side of the road, except for one man who lay motionless. Angrily, the driver banged on his horn. Two spear-carrying natives moved forward. One took an arm and the other a leg, and they dragged the man out of the route of the bus.

  As soon as the bus had passed, the naked warriors started to fight again.

  “Just a routine tribal battle,” the manager explained.

  Charley said, “I’m glad you told us to duck.”

  Brett said, “That man on the road looked dead to me.”

  “He probably was,” the manager agreed. “They’re a bloodthirsty lot. There are some odd traditions around here.”

  “Such as?” Brett asked. He was still shaken by the sight of the body on the road but hoped that nobody would notice, if he continued to talk.

  “Most visitors find the Cargo Cult pretty odd,” the manager said. “The islanders believe that all Western manufactured goods are sent from God and should be shared equally. Instead of which, white men keep the lot. So, there’s a small group called the Cargo Party; their politicians offer death to all whites, followed by speedy salvation and reward.”

  “Does anyone take any notice of them?” Brett asked nervously.

  “There’s always a bit of anxiety at election time, because of these extravagant promises, but Cargo politicians are a disorganized bunch. None of them is what you’d call a born leader. There’s no one in the party with charisma.”

  “What if a dynamic leader were to appear?” Brett asked.

  The manager laughed. “Charisma wouldn’t be enough. He’d also need to be rich, well organized and well disciplined, with well-equipped troops. But if a guy like that did appear, he’d be able to reach into the hearts and beliefs of every villager in the country, and we might be in for trouble. However, there’s nobody like that on Paui.” He pointed ahead. “Look, that’s the palace.”

  There, two miles south of Queenstown, stood the ramshackle Presidential Palace. It had been built in 1975, as soon as independence had been declared, but the contractors’ fee had been eaten away by bribery, so the building had been flimsily constructed and soon fell into decay.

  The yellow bus drove toward a high wall, in the center of which was a once-imposing concrete arch; beyond, the passengers could see a group of two-story, mauve-washed buildings. All the window apertures were heavily barred.

  The bus stopped at the arch. The manager climbed out to present his pass to the armed guards, and held the door open for Arthur.

  * * *

  “That’s the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen!” Annie said.

  The skipper nodded. “I often bring tourists here. It’s the best beach on this part of the island, but the natives never come here.”

  The Louise was heading into a small lagoon that looked about a mile wide and was surrounded by a ring of coral, except for a small gap. The beach was backed by high, black cliffs, parted on the left by a waterfall that shimmered in the sun. It wasn’t a sheer drop; although rocky, the cliff sloped gradually down to a wide rock pool about fifteen feet above the beach, after which it continued its descent to the sand. On top of the cliff, luxuriant foliage soared on either side of the waterfall.

  “Hang on tight,” called the skipper from the flying bridge. “I’m taking her through the reef.”

  As the Louise drew nearer to the line of white foam that delineated the reef, the passengers could see the waves breaking against it; the sound was like distant thunder as the surf hurled against the invisible coral, just below the surface. As the Louise surged toward the gap, none of her passengers were aware of the delicate seamanship involved in getting the boat through that narrow channel in the coral reef. Over millions of years the skeletons of minute sea animals had built up from the bed of the ocean, to form the rocklike accumulation of limestone which had gradually formed the reef. It was razorsharp, and should a swimmer be dashed by the sea against the coral, he would instantly be slashed to pieces, head pulverized, body torn to a bloody pulp before the sharks could get to it.

  “Is it safe to swim here?” Patty asked, looking ahead at the calm aquamarine waters of the bay.

  The skipper nodded. “Sure. Big predatory fish don’t come over the reef, it’s like an underwater fence.”

  “Why not?” Patty asked.

  “Dunno. Maybe it looks like a trap to a shark. You’d better stay in the southern end of the lagoon, because there’s a current on the north side, where the waterfall joins the sea, and there’s quicksand beyond that, where the mangroves come down to the water. So don’t go beyond the waterfall.”

  The skipper waited for a high wave to enter the lagoon. The Louise surged in with the wave, which provided the boat with the deepest possible water at the shallow entrance to the lagoon.

  They dropped anchor about thirty feet out from the beach. Winston started to load up an inflatable dinghy with insulated picnic bags, parasols and cotton mats to sit on. Just as the Louise was the skipper’s pride, the inflatable dinghy was Winston’s joy; he loved every inch of her gray rubberized fabric. Although only ten feet long, the dinghy had a 20-
horsepower outboard engine and could be used for water skiing. When deflated, it could be packed back in its little bag and stowed in the trunk of a small car, a trick that always intrigued Winston. The outboard fired immediately, which was lucky because it was a temperamental old engine. The skipper intended to get a new one, as soon as he had a bit of spare cash.

  The women made a wobbly descent into the dinghy. Winston took them ashore in two trips. He carried the provisions to the shade of the palm trees at the back of the beach. The ground there was littered with palm fronds, fallen coconuts and brittle, dead leaves.

  It was blistering hot on the beach, so they decided to walk to the waterfall and take a natural shower before lunch. The women changed into swimsuits and trailed after the skipper, beguiled by the soft caress of the sea, the palms stirring in the slight breeze and the splashing of the waterfall, which grew louder as they approached, until it swelled into a persistent roar.

  Patty pointed. “Look. There’s a path up the side of the waterfall.”

  A narrow, overgrown path meandered in a ragged zigzag between blackish rocks to the top of the cliff.

  “Don’t go up the cliff and into the jungle,” the skipper warned. “You never go into the jungle without a compass, because it all looks the same. You’d lose your bearing within five minutes and never find your way out.”

  “Do you have a compass on you?”

  “Sure.” From under his shirt he pulled out a hand-bearing compass suspended from a leather thong around his neck.

  Patty said, “Then you can take us into the jungle. Just a little way. Just so that we can say we’ve been in the jungle.”

  “Maybe after lunch. Let’s have a swim now.”

  “Why only maybe?” Patty persisted.

  “The natives don’t like anyone to go up there. It’s a taboo area. There are taboo areas all over this island, which is why I never move around without a native.”

  “Why is it taboo?”

  “I expect there’s an abandoned village somewhere up there. When the soil is worked out in one place, the inhabitants move on and build a village someplace else, but the bones of their ancestors stay buried around the abandoned village. The natives don’t believe that the dead are gone, they reckon they’ve merely left their bodies, but they’re still here. The invisible dead always continue to live where they lived when they had a body.”

  “Yuk! How creepy!” Suzy gave a pretty shudder.

  Patty said, “It looks as if there’s a rock pool about fifteen feet up the cliff. Can we at least go up to the pool?”

  “Sure,” said the skipper. “That’s a very pretty pool. I always take visitors up there.”

  They climbed up the path to the pool. Four of the women plunged in and frolicked in the spray at the side of the fall. They were careful not to get under it, because the weight of the water might have hurt them.

  Suzy, in a pink bikini, sat on a rock, her legs dangling in the water. In answer to a surprised look from the skipper, she shook her head. “I can’t swim.”

  The skipper squatted beside her. “Then you’ll have a grandstand view of Winston’s little trick. It came about because I gave him a penknife, and a month or so ago he dropped it in this pool. The lads on this island will do anything for a penknife, it’s a real treasure, so Winston wasn’t going to say goodbye to it. He’s a real good diver—he’d find a contact lens in the bottom of the lake—and when he was diving for his knife down there, he found a cave under the surface of the pool; the entrance was hidden by a rock overhang.”

  Suzy was fascinated. “Have you been in it? How big is it? How could he breathe?”

  “No, I’ve never been in it, sailors don’t like getting their feet wet. Winston says there’s an underwater tunnel, and at the end of it there’s a cave with fresh air. It must be there, otherwise he couldn’t do his little trick.”

  Suzy said, “That’s amazing.”

  “Not really. Underground limestone caves aren’t unusual in this part of the world. Though there’s nothing on Paui as big as the one in East New Britain—she’s six hundred yards long and twenty yards high in the central cavern, and there’s an underground stream running right through her. The natives keep quiet about these caves, they don’t like whites to know about them.”

  Below them, in the pool, Winston rolled his eyeballs, let out a shriek and disappeared below the surface. The reaction of the swimmers was everything he could have hoped for.

  “Help!”

  “He must have gotten a cramp!”

  “Did some animal pull him under?”

  “Should we dive for him?”

  Carey waved urgently to the skipper, then cried, “Why are you two laughing? Something’s happened to Winston. He’s been gone for over two minutes.”

  Patty spluttered. “I’m going down for him.”

  She was just about to duck-dive, when the skipper called out. “Winston’s okay. This is his parlor trick. Usually he takes bets on how long it will be before he comes up again. He’ll be gone at least five minutes. I don’t want you to worry.” He explained again about the cave.

  Sure enough, five minutes later, Winston surfaced, the grinning center of attention.

  The women laughed and scolded him for giving them such a fright. The skipper ruffled his black fuzzy hair and said, “You’re a game little lad.”

  This attention went to Winston’s head. He jumped up and down on his broad, flat feet and wriggled his splayed toes. “Winston not believe in waterfall spirits. Winston not bloody savage.” He waved his skinny arms. “Winston is good Christian. Jesus is strong magic. There is no other God but Him.”

  The skipper gave him a friendly cuff. “You can tell he’s been to the Queenstown mission school.”

  Winston led the way back to the picnic site with the bow-legged, bent-kneed, steady lope of a jungle dweller. While he spread the cotton rugs and unpacked the picnic, the women went for a swim in the warm blue water of the lagoon.

  Silvana jerked through the water, keeping her neck held high so that her hair didn’t get wet. She stayed in for only a couple of minutes, then changed as fast as possible out of her one-piece black swimsuit with the supposedly slimming cut into her figure-concealing black jumpsuit.

  Annie, in a pale blue, one-piece suit, ran dripping up to the picnic rugs. She threw herself down in the shade. “Gee, I’m thirsty. Oh, isn’t there anything to drink but beer? No Perrier?”

  There wasn’t, so Winston went to fetch a bucket of water from the waterfall.

  A splendid Amazon figure in a flowered bikini, Carey ran up the beach from the lagoon, her long, taffy-colored hair streaming down her back. But Patty wasn’t back and the skipper had to go to the water’s edge to yell for her to come out before she got sunstroke. Head down, Patty plowed in a racing crawl across the lagoon and didn’t seem to hear him. The skipper bellowed, “Come out of the water, or I’ll have to come and get you.”

  Reluctantly, Patty headed for shore. She waded from the water shaking her short, blond, boyish-cut hair and tugging at the bottom of her navy Speedo tank suit, with white stripes down the side and the straps cut inward so they didn’t chafe her shoulders when she swam fast. She flung herself down in the shade and took a sandwich.

  “You’d think that they could give us something better than chicken sandwiches,” Suzy complained.

  Carey started to laugh. “The chef has put up a fishing picnic!” Fishing picnics consist of a great many cans of beer and a few thick sandwiches easily held in the mouth or thrown to the deck should the fishermen get a bite while eating.

  “Well, it’s too hot to eat anyway,” said Patty, slapping at the sand flies that attacked her legs. It was too hot to walk barefoot on the beach, she’d burned the soles of her feet just now, and she could feel a headache coming on—although she wasn’t going to say so, because that bossy skipper had warned her that she might get a touch of the sun if she swam too long. What a great place! Too hot to sit on the beach, and if you went in the
water you got sunstroke. Patty slapped the midges off her legs again, then watched Suzy putting her lipstick on with a little brush.

  “I suppose Winston learned English at the mission school,” Patty said. “I can understand him perfectly, but I can’t understand a word the other natives say, although they seem to expect me to.”

  “They’re speaking Pidgin,” the skipper said. “It’s basically Melanesian and English, with a bit of Malay, Chinese and German thrown in. There are only thirteen hundred words in the language, there’s no grammar and no plural, but you can translate thousands of English words into it. Some think it’s ugly, I think it’s ingenious. My favorite word is ‘engine,’ which can mean anything from a can-opener to a bulldozer. A table fork is ‘engine belong kau-kau,’ which means ‘eat.’”

  “None of it sounds like any sort of English to me,” Patty said.

  “It’s difficult to understand because the natives can’t pronounce f or v; so ‘fish’ is ‘pish,’ and ‘every’ is ‘ebry.’ And they use s for ch, so ‘church’ is ‘surch.’ ‘Ebry Mary go surch’ is ‘every woman goes to church.’”

  He taught Patty a few words of Pidgin, but then she lost interest. It was too hot.

  The wind dropped, and the afternoon grew hotter.

  In the shade of the palms, it was humid and sticky. Silvana—the only one who had brought a book—lay stretched out, reading.

  Patty turned to the skipper. “When it gets cooler, can we waterski?”

  “Matter of fact, I’m having a spot of trouble with the outboard, so I’d prefer you didn’t use the dinghy.” He didn’t want to get them all excited about water skiing and then have the outboard pack up.

  Patty swore under her breath. She wanted a distraction, because she definitely felt a headache coming on; the back of her head was throbbing like crazy.

  The sun exhausted them.

  Nobody talked until Suzy, who couldn’t stand silence and thought that the picnic was about as cheerful as a funeral parlor, looked over Silvana’s shoulder and said, “Hey, what’s the book?”

  “Jane Eyre.”