Savages

by Shirley Conran

  Harry nodded again.

  “You’ve heard about the boat explosion?”

  Harry nodded.

  “Is it true that all the Paradise Hotel tourists have disappeared?”

  “Can’t say. I don’t know what happened.”

  “That’s enough, mate.” Mentally Sandy typed, “Haggard eyewitness reports impossible break military cordon surrounding luxury Paradise Bay Hotel stop utmost secrecy prevails as shark-infested waters searched stop little hope missing millionaire tourists.”

  The lean, bald man fiddled with a black transistor radio. After some ear-splitting static, they heard gloomy military music.

  “They’ve been playing that bloody stuff on Radio Paui since dawn,” the man grumbled, then explained to Harry, “We’re waiting with bated breath for Raki’s speech.”

  By the time fifteen cans of Fosters had been emptied at Harry’s expense, Harry knew that the bald-headed man’s name was Bill, that he was a planter, that he’d been born in Manchester, England, and had come out as a young lad in 1947, after reading too much Robert Louis Stevenson. Bill reckoned that RLS had shafted him. RLS must have written that wicked shit with one eye on his audience, who obviously didn’t want to know the truth about the South Seas. The RLS audience wanted to hear about devoted native servants with regal bearing, who waved palm fans at moonlit beach picnics, where dusky maidens with breasts like coconuts swayed on the sand; the RLS readers didn’t want to hear about the flies and infections, the heat that made you gasp, and maidens with breasts like empty water wings.

  Harry pushed another can toward the garrulous old blighter and asked, “Well, why don’t you go back to Manchester?”

  Bill’s blood was apparently too thin, he was too old and too broke. One thing about Paui, he said, it didn’t cost you much to live and you never had a heating bill—but if that asshole RLS were still alive, Bill would gladly strangle him.

  There was an air-smashing screech from the radio as the brass band stopped in mid-boom, and Bill couldn’t relocate the frequency.

  Helpfully, the barman said, “Radio engine buggerupem. One boy Missis Chang fix it.”

  As he fiddled with the dial, Bill explained, “Ronald Chang is the only maintenance man on the island—that’s one of the reasons the Changs are so powerful. The islanders don’t understand machinery, so Mrs. Chang’s son is the local machine medicine man.”

  Sandy nodded. “He sticks the batteries in transistors, the oil in outboard motors, and screws the widgets back on the bicycles; otherwise, the natives’d just dump them and start saving for a new one.”

  Bill relocated the brass band. “Second time round, of course, Ronald Chang says they’re unserviceable, so the islanders do a trade-in for a new bicycle or sewing machine, then Ronald fixes up the old model and resells it to somebody else. You might say he’s in the recycling business.” He laughed.

  The Sousa march stopped abruptly. Against a background of shouts and whistles, General Raki was announced. He spoke first to enlarge on what he’d said in his first broadcast, which Harry had heard in Port Moresby.

  Raki’s radio manner was solemn, but strong; he drew out his words in the manner of a man who would have people think that he gazed upon the vision of a promised land rather than a studio mike. “Justice … Freedom … Brave soldiers … Cannot ignore the voice of the people … I therefore agree to accept … Office of President … Temporary position until democratic elections can be held … Social and economic reforms….”

  “Usual bullshit,” yawned Bill the planter. He switched off the glowing picture of progress.

  “Hey, I gotta listen,” protested the freelance journalist.

  Raki’s slow but excitable voice was again switched on, in time to hear him declare that the following Sunday would be a holiday. Religious ceremonies of thanksgiving for deliverance from the degenerate Marxist, President Obe, would be followed by feasts of free pig and beer. The new President would immediately start touring the villages by helicopter, to distribute feast money. Each medicine man would receive a genuine red plastic telephone and each luluai would get a Mickey Mouse watch.

  “Clever,” said the planter. “No islander takes any notice of the Houses of Parliament, the representatives just sit there with bones through their noses and don’t understand a thing. It’s the headman, the luluai, who makes all decisions, including voting decisions. And, of course, the luluai is greatly influenced by the medicine man.”

  “For God’s sake, shut up,” implored the journalist, as Raki started to repeat his speech in English, for the sake of overseas listeners.

  “Sure,” said the planter, “my shout.” For the first time he paid for a round of drinks. He said thoughtfully, “Raki’s behaving as if he’s God-Kilibob himself. First he announces Deliverance Day, and then he explains that he’s going to arrive in each village from heaven, with pigs and Cargo. The Cargo symbol is generally a watch, and the medicine man uses a telephone—if he can’t get a real telephone, then he uses an imaginary one—to talk to God-Kilibob. The islanders have noticed that whites consult these things before making a decision.”

  As though on cue, Freddy appeared at Harry’s elbow. “Telephone, master.”

  The call was from Jerry Pearce in Pittsburgh. Condensed, his urgent message to Harry was to find the missing Nexus group, dead or alive. Nexus couldn’t have their executives vanish into thin air. What could Jerry say to their families? Harry could imagine the pressure he was getting. Apart from considerations of personal friendship, business friendship and the helluva problem Jerry was now having to reorganize their top line of command, it was shit-awful publicity for company recruiting. It was now up to Harry to get things moving and insist on action, goddamnit.

  “Jerry, you’re in a better position than I am to insist on action,” Harry said. “Just because you can see Queenstown marked on a map, don’t think it operates like a normal Western capital city. Queenstown is about as normal as a head-hunter at a cocktail party.” Harry pictured Jerry sitting in an office stuffed with computers and secretaries who had clean hair and freshly laundered clothes.

  “Jerry, you don’t understand what it’s like out here.” Harry described the pseudo-efficiency, the bureaucratic dead ends, the cynical corruption and the official lack of interest that was lending nightmare qualities to his search. But Jerry didn’t seem to comprehend it.

  “Surely Kerry can handle that?” Jerry said. “That’s his job.”

  Harry explained that Kerry was doing everything possible, short of using a cattle prod, to activate the Paui Minister of the Interior and the U.S. Consulate at ’Moresby, whose job it was to bring the mighty weight of the most powerful country in the world to bear on the new President of Paui.

  “Jerry, if the president and half the board of General Motors disappeared on a remote tropical island, within twenty-four hours that island would be surrounded by U.S. aircraft carriers. The air above that island would be black with the latest helicopters containing the latest detection equipment, including infrared sweepscopes that can pick up a living object on the ground at least fifty feet in the air. And inch by inch, that tropical island would be combed by battalions of Marines.”

  “Just what are you getting at, Harry?”

  “You have the power to find them, Jerry. I’m just the man on the spot.”

  “In that case,” Jerry said, “you’d better get back to Sydney. We don’t want any problems there.”

  Careful of his words, Harry said, “There might be other complications. You’ve had my telex about the special arrangements that have been requested.”

  “Yeah. Goddamn nonsense. There’s no reason for back payments. It creates an unacceptable precedent, and it’s unethical.”

  Harry said, “I’m not talking ethics, Jerry. Nothing gets done out here without a few favors, out here it’s all strictly on a cash basis. It was a pity that we stopped those payments.”

  “It was a Board agreement. We were having to pay the new bunch,
if you remember. And the person concerned was totally without influence at that time.”

  “But he’s in charge now, Jerry. And it looks as if he’s here to stay.”

  “I don’t like pulling rank, Harry, but I am acting president,” Jerry snapped. “Of course, I’ll do everything I can from this end and you’ve just said that Kerry is doing everything that can be done on Paui. So everything that can be done will be done. But we’ve also got a company to run and shareholders to answer to, Harry. The stock’s already gone down eight and a half points since the newspapers reported that half our Board has vanished, and Wall Street’s wondering who’s running the company. So get back to Sydney, where you’re needed, and that’s an order—and I might add that it’s supported by the rest of my acting Board.”

  As he replaced the telephone, Jerry picked up the file labeled PAUI EMERGENCY PLANS and slammed it into one of the drawers in his desk. This drawer was marked “Pending.”

  Depressed, Harry returned to the bar of the Independence. As he called for a beer, he could clearly imagine them all busily sending interminable telexes to each other. He realized that unless he stayed on the spot and checked every damn thing himself, no trace of the Nexus party would ever be found.

  Four beers later, Harry had decided that regardless of what Jerry Pearce said, he had to do the job himself, get out there on a freelance basis and look for Annie and the others as fast as he could. He’d keep the Duck, for it was a decidedly low-profile aircraft. Johno was an asset—he spoke Pidgin, and he was used to dealing with natives on PNG. He was also a trained medical orderly, and a sailor as well as a pilot. And he seemed eternally optimistic.

  Optimism was in short supply.

  * * *

  Raki kept his word. With a speed that made Harry uneasy, the Paui government ordered the army to begin an immediate air-and-sea search. It started on Saturday, November 17, four days after the boat explosion.

  The official list of missing persons had been amended. It now included the entertainment manager, the skipper of the hotel yacht, two other British guests and two Japanese tourists. Until Raki’s announcement, the British and Japanese authorities had not realized that any of their countrymen were missing. Raki had gained himself a few points, for showing himself to be concerned and efficient.

  Brett Adams’ name had been removed from the list. Harry thought, So I was right! Raki had put a tail on him, who had reported Harry’s visit to the morgue.

  14

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1984

  Their grueling work gave the women no time to think, but whenever they remembered that their husbands were dead, the tears welled up, as if their eyes were controlled independently from the rest of their body. The tears flowed silently, without sobs, whenever the women stopped concentrating on their arduous jobs.

  Silvana, who had never wanted another man, now saw only the advantageous side of Arthur and yearned for the chance to forgive him his little peccadillos. Timid Annie longed to bury her head against Duke’s big chest and feel the comfort of his enfolding arms. Neurotic Patty remembered how understanding Charley had always been—he’d never once reproached her about keeping Stephen at home—and he had always been supportive. Stoical Carey forgot Ed’s exhausting ambition, and the lonely evenings spent at their isolated farmhouse when he was on his field trips. She remembered only his enthusiasm and energy and the awful moment when she’d seen all that life wiped out in seconds. Suzy felt increasingly contrite about her husband; she hadn’t been nice enough to Brett, and she knew it. All the women now realized how very, very easy their life had been, although it hadn’t always seemed that way.

  Now their meals were eaten in silence and sorrow, and their lives were lived in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. They ignored each other’s sobs, because to comment would start everyone weeping. But at night, they turned to their private thoughts, and in the few minutes before sleep overcame their exhausted bodies, they wept for their men. In their state of shock, deprivation and forced labor, those few minutes of private grief were luxury.

  Every night they had nightmares. They cried softly or whimpered in their sleep, but when they woke, nobody ever spoke of the sinister dreams or the shapeless black menace of the night.

  They were always exhausted by the time the sun rose. Annie, who woke most frequently at night, thought that the fears of sleep were even worse than the fears of the day. Although she mourned her husband bitterly, she sometimes couldn’t prevent her mind wandering to Harry. The superstitious part of Annie half-wondered whether Duke’s death had been a punishment sent from God, because of her lustful thoughts. But at least Harry was alive. She had saved his life by stopping him from coming to Paui.

  Jonathan grieved differently from the women. The finality of being without Louise was more than he could endure, so he filled every moment of the day with work. What brought him nearest to remembering his wife was the women now in his charge. In their unhappiness and need, they were so soft and vulnerable that he developed a sort of defensive hardness toward them and resented their meek subjugation to his orders. He looked at their soft arms and knew that he would never again feel the firm, brown arms of Louise. He was frightened of forgetting what she looked like, what she felt like, what she smelled like. Sometimes this made him cruel to the women, because they were alive.

  Dawn broke. A streak of gold flashed between the lavender sky and the sea. Gradually, the gold outshone the misty blue, which receded as the blood-orange sun climbed. There had been a heavy dew during the night, and the tall trees glistened in the first rays of sun; their green darkness was scattered with flowers of brilliant pink, soft yellow and fleshy cream. The songs of birds of paradise rose clear above them, and the ferns and undergrowth rustled in the slight breeze.

  Annie slowly opened her sleep-encrusted eyes. Something moved against her thigh. Sleepily, she stretched her bare arm down to scratch her leg, and her hand encountered warm fur. Her finger was sharply bitten.

  Within seconds of Annie’s scream, Patty was crouched with her knife in her hand and Jonathan was on his feet, clutching his rifle.

  Jonathan laughed. “It’s only a rat.”

  Annie gasped. “But it was black, and at least twelve inches long. I thought it was a cat.”

  “The rats are as big as cats out here. Bigger, some of ’em. I reckoned we was going to have trouble with ’em in the cave. Can’t think why we didn’t. Watch that bite and put antiseptic cream on it.”

  Except for Patty, the women crouched in a little heap, clasping each other for comfort. Astonished, Jonathan said, “You’re more frightened of that rat than a forest full of terrorists, scorpions and cannibals! I’ll make you slingshots after breakfast. After that, the rats will be frightened of you.”

  As the women squatted to eat their breakfast, Jonathan said, “You lot ain’t used to nature, that’s why you’re scared of it. I’ll grant you, there’s a few irritations I could do without, like the mosquitoes, the ants and the sand flies. But if you’d stop being frightened by spiders and such, life would be a lot easier for you. You ain’t visitors anymore. You’ve been out here five days. Now you’re part of the scenery.”

  He ran his tongue around his teeth—that was the trouble with coconut, the threads got wedged between your teeth. “Pilot I know used to fly a helicopter in Canada, he said the courts dealt with some juvenile offenders by giving ’em a short survival course, then flying ’em into the bush and dumping ’em with only a fish hook, line and a knife. My mate used to pick ’em up seven days later—they never failed to turn up, he said—and what they’d learned was how to survive by themselves. They’d learned self-confidence.” He sucked his tooth again. “Now that’s what’s lacking in you lot, so after breakfast every morning I’m going to teach you a few things.”

  “What sort of things?” Suzy asked.

  “Climb a rope and a tree, shoot, use a slingshot. That sort of thing.”

  “But why do we all have to learn this stuff?” Silvana objected
. “I’m only supposed to do the cooking.”

  “Never know what you might need.” No need to spell out to them that the cook might be the sole survivor. “Right now, ladies, you all need toothbrushes.” He pulled from his shirt pocket some small green twigs. “Chew an end into a pulp and scrub your teeth with it. Silvana can make some cooking salt, then you can use it as an abrasive, instead of toothpaste.”

  “And how do I do that?” Silvana asked.

  “Find a large rock with an indentation in the top. Keep a bucket of seawater nearby, and keep pouring it into the rock hollow, as the sun evaporates it. You’ll be left with no water, just a handful of dirty salt.”

  Patty took Suzy off to practice swimming in the waterfall pool, while Silvana, with an upended palm branch, swept the leaves out of the hut. This irritating daily task was necessary because scorpions and spiders might otherwise creep beneath the debris during the day.

  As Annie went off to gather rattan for their first climbing lesson, Jonathan trimmed six small Y-shaped branches to make slingshots. Carey cut up her bra and Patty’s, so that the straps could provide elastic for the slingshots. The two now-strapless bras were converted into belts for Suzy and Carey, who hadn’t been wearing belts on the day of the massacre. They each needed a belt in which to stick a knife and a slingshot, and from which to hang a mosquito-net bag. Although Carey and Patty were now braless, they were not topless. To protect them from the sun and the jungle branches, all the women wore big white fishing shirts over what was left of their beach clothes, and the floppy cotton sun hats and sneakers from the Louise.

  Next, Jonathan made a rope ladder, so they could all climb the lookout tree easily. He braided rattan until he had a thick, twenty-foot length. He attached one end to the lid of a bait can, which he threw over the lowest branch of the eucalyptus tree. Then he climbed up the doubled rope to the branch, where he twisted the rope around it in a half hitch—something that they’d all seen in cowboy films, when horses were tethered outside the saloon. Sitting astride the branch, he knotted the two lines together about every twelve inches, forming loops for footholds, to use as a rough ladder.