Savages

by Shirley Conran

  Silvana closed her eyes and softly groaned as she felt his hand on her naked breast. They fell back together to the floor of the forest, his hand traveling slowly down her body.

  She felt a warm rush of happiness flooding through her body to her tingling fingertips.

  Carlos was a pro.

  MONDAY, MARCH 11

  The explosion of an M-16 rifle made a lot of noise; a crack as the bullet was fired, followed by a thump as it hit.

  Patty nearly fell from the lookout tree firing at the naked man in boots who ran into the cover of the jungle.

  He swerved but ran on. She had missed him.

  Patty slithered down the tree trunk. Rifle in hand, she tore toward the tree where Carlos had been tethered. In the ghostmist of dawn, she could see a naked figure lying face downward. He had killed her!

  “What was that?”

  “What happened?”

  Carey and Annie, both carrying rifles, came running up, followed by Suzy, who gripped the machete.

  Naked and dazed, still half asleep, slowly becoming conscious of the ant bites all over her body, Silvana sat up.

  “What did that bastard do to you?” gasped Carey. Then, realizing, she stopped dead and screamed, “You stupid bitch!” She raised her rifle to fire. As she did so, Annie leaped forward and clutched at her shoulder. The second rifle explosion was followed by a cacophony of screams and squawks in the jungle beyond the clearing.

  Suzy snapped, “Don’t waste time on her. Let’s get out there and kill the bastard, before he can bring anyone back to camp.”

  Annie thrust her rifle at Silvana. “Stay here. Guard the camp. Guard the raft. Shoot on sight and shoot to kill. If he comes back, kill him. If you don’t, I promise we’ll kill you.” She turned to the others. “He won’t head for the Burma bridge, because he knows he won’t be able to cross it. So, Suzy, take my rifle and cut through the jungle to William Penn, as far south as you dare so he can’t get past you to Katanga village. The rest of us will fan out into a stalking line. We’ll keep one another in sight and we’ll beat toward William Penn to push him onto the path. Then, with any luck, Suzy can move up the path and take him.”

  “What if he crosses William Penn and goes into the jungle beyond?” Patty asked.

  “He won’t last long with no clothes and no gun,” Carey said grimly.

  Suzy said, “Why don’t we just let him go, finish the raft fast and get the hell out of here?”

  Annie shook her head. “He could get a helicopter here before we finish the raft. Wherever he is, we have to find him, because he knows our camp and our plans. If he doesn’t bring Raki’s soldiers, then he might warn the villagers that we’ve nearly finished the raft. We don’t want war canoes waiting for us beyond the reef.”

  Suzy said, “For God’s sake, let’s stop talking and go get him.” She slipped away.

  It was clear daylight as the three other women spread out in a line. Slowly and quietly, they moved through the trees, remembering to look up in case Carlos had climbed a tree either to hide or to jump on Patty and grapple for her gun.

  As the women disappeared into the bush, Silvana was conscious of their contempt and fury. She shared their opinion. She’d been fooled. She’d been callously used. She’d been betrayed by her own hungry body. She felt deeply humiliated and ashamed.

  Silvana felt like taking her fish knife and slashing at her own belly, in pain, in rage, in self-contempt.

  She didn’t need to be told to kill on sight.

  * * *

  Inside the twilight of the rain forest, the search party slowed down as it approached William Penn and the boundary line of the taboo area.

  A bird of paradise flew past, a flash of blue.

  Crack!

  It was the report of a rifle, from somewhere ahead.

  Cautiously they started to run forward, using the jungle lope that was now second nature to them. It might have been Suzy with the AK-47—they didn’t know what it sounded like—but it might also be some other rifle … or someone might have grappled the rifle from Suzy.

  They reached the narrow jungle track that they had christened William Penn. They could see no one.

  Simultaneously, all three heads jerked to the right as they heard a scrabbling noise and saw the naked figure of Carlos running toward them.

  He stopped abruptly when he saw the women, then crashed off the track into the jungle beyond William Penn. It happened so quickly that none of them had time to fire before he disappeared.

  The women ran along the track to the point where Carlos disappeared. As they reached it they saw Suzy running along the path toward them, clearly out of breath and panting too hard to speak. With her right hand she pointed her rifle toward the spot where Carlos had vanished.

  Patty was the first to reach it. She turned to check that the others were following her, then they all melted into the jungle and again spread out in a search line. As they moved grimly forward, each of the four women was conscious that they were moving farther and farther away from safety. Nevertheless, they had caught up with Carlos and were close behind him, so they ignored the dim warnings in the back of their minds as they ignored the briars that scratched them as they ran. They pushed their way forward determined to track down Carlos, but he had disappeared.

  Patty looked at her watch. She signaled to Annie, who signaled to the others. The four women gathered together.

  Patty said, “It’s already nine o’clock, we’ve been out here three hours. I think we’ve lost him.”

  Annie said, “At least we know roughly where he is. He knows we’re looking for him, so he might hide out.”

  Suzy suggested, “If we go back to camp now, we could work all day and through the night. We should be able to finish the raft and leave tomorrow.”

  Patty nodded. “If we’ve lost him, we should leave as fast as possible before he brings anyone back to the camp.”

  “Okay.” Annie wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand. “We’ll take a five-minute break and then get back to camp.”

  Suzy said, “There’s a stream over to the right, let’s get a drink. Just this once, Annie.”

  Annie looked dubious. “We’re all thirsty and we’re all hungry, but remember the last time we had diarrhea.”

  Suzy suddenly crumpled to the ground and hung her head with exhaustion. “Listen, I’ve gotta have a drink. What about water vines?” She looked around but couldn’t see any.

  Carey said gently, “You’re not going to die if you don’t have a drink, but you don’t want diarrhea on the raft. Please don’t drink, Suzy.”

  Suzy looked up, exhausted. “Can we just stick our feet in that stream, then?”

  “Leeches,” Carey reminded her.

  “Okay, we don’t go near the stream,” Suzy sighed, and ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth to summon up saliva.

  During the five-minute rest, none of the exhausted women spoke until Patty stood and stretched wearily. “The sooner we’re back, the sooner we drink. Let’s go.” She turned and started to move forward.

  Annie said, “No, farther to your left.”

  Patty half-turned and said, “This is the way we came.”

  Suzy said, “No, it was over to your right, Annie.”

  “Did anyone bring a compass?” Carey asked. “Where’s the one you wear around your neck, Suzy?”

  “I take it off at night to sleep.”

  The uppermost trees of the rain forest, which reached to sixty feet, were nourished by the sun and the rain. The second layer of canopy trees, reaching as high as thirty feet, formed a dense umbrella, which allowed only a little sunlight to filter down; the lowest trees—which rarely reached higher than ten feet—competed with each other for the few rays of sunlight which penetrated the canopy. In the green gloom of the jungle at ground level, it was not possible to judge direction by the sun.

  By eleven o’clock when the women stopped to rest again, they had no idea where they were.

 
; “Wherever we are at four o’clock, we stop for the night by a stream,” Annie decided. “Patty and Carey fish, Suzy and I collect boughs for beds.”

  “Maybe we should follow one of these streams until it joins a river,” Carey suggested. “The water must follow the tilt of the land, or run parallel to it. At least we know we won’t be going uphill again.”

  “We haven’t been going uphill,” Suzy said.

  “Oh, don’t start that again,” Patty said wearily. “Carey’s right. At least if we follow a stream, we’ll move faster. I’m afraid we’ve only been covering about one mile an hour and, as Suzy said, we might be going around in circles. We haven’t come across a path or a game trail, and we can’t climb a tree to see where we are because the lower trees get in our way; we can’t even reach the lowest branches of these tall trees.”

  “It would be easier if we tried at sunset. Then we’d know which way is best,” Carey said.

  “But once you came down again, you’d lose your sense of direction within five minutes,” Suzy objected.

  Carey said, “I’m voting that we follow a stream. Streams always move downhill, as I remember. With any luck we can wade in the water.”

  “Leeches,” Annie said.

  “Fuck leeches. They don’t hurt anyway,” Carey said. “We can de-leech when we get back to camp. Streams lead to rivers, and rivers lead into the sea.”

  “Sometimes rivers lead to swamps,” Patty warned.

  Annie said, “Following a stream would make more sense than just wandering around. So let’s go. From now on, we take a rest every hour. We’ve all got knives. We can survive out here so long as we don’t exhaust ourselves or panic.”

  “I haven’t got the strength to panic,” Suzy said as she got to her feet.

  Annie said, “Let’s hope that Carlos is in the same fix.”

  By two o’clock, they seemed to be moving along the bottom of a valley, where many little streams meandered between strips of forest. The endless trees were parted by thin, sparkling threads of water, clear and bright and trickling diamonds. At one point, through the pale green gloom they had a glimpse of a small waterfall, beside which an almost invisible track climbed a steep incline. In the larger streams they glimpsed small bright fish and nearly transparent freshwater shrimp lying close to the stones below the water. At least they wouldn’t starve.

  By now, the women were frightened. The jungle sounds were so different from those they knew. The brilliant birds flashing high overhead seemed to mock them.

  “I want to stop again,” Patty said, pulling Jonathan’s lighter from her pocket. “I think we should all ask ourselves what Jonathan would have done in this fix.” Nervously her hands stroked the lighter.

  Annie felt in her pocket for the comforting weight of the Swiss army knife.

  Carey said, “You realize what you’re doing, don’t you? You’re using Jonathan’s possessions as fetishes.”

  “I thought those were leather whips and black garters,” Suzy said.

  “No, it’s any object that you become excessively attached to,” Carey said, “or irrationally devoted to. Suzy’s compass, Patty’s lighter, Annie’s knife—you’re either using them as good luck charms or touching them because you feel it puts you in touch with Jonathan.”

  Suzy nodded. “What’s wrong with that? As a matter of fact, I find it comforting. To me that compass is more than just a keepsake. I only wish to hell I had it with me now.”

  “Just don’t start thinking it has any magical power,” Carey said.

  “But it has,” Suzy said. “For me.”

  By three o’clock, the banks of the river they had been following had deepened into a stony gorge.

  When they stopped to rest Annie said, “I don’t want to raise false hopes, but is this starting to look familiar to anyone?”

  Carey said, “I’ve been wondering the same thing. Do you really think it’s the Allegheny?”

  “You mean our river? You think we might be above the Burma bridge?” Suzy asked. “How come we got to the other side without crossing water, if it’s our river?”

  Carey said, “I remember Jonathan saying that these rivers sometimes run underground for a while. If so, we might have walked over it.”

  “Or we might have walked around the source,” Annie said.

  Carey sighed. “We might have traveled for miles, or we might have been moving around in one small area, who knows? But it sure looks like our river! On your feet, guys.”

  With new heart, the tired and thirsty women moved forward again, until Annie, who was in the lead, lifted her head sharply and put up her right hand.

  Immediately, they all stopped. Nobody moved or spoke. It was their danger signal.

  Annie turned around and beckoned to the other women. They moved up to her.

  Annie whispered, “I heard a bark. Listen.”

  “Sounds like more than one,” Carey whispered. “Sounds like several dogs.”

  Annie nodded. “That means a village.”

  “That means this isn’t our river,” Suzy said.

  “Keep quiet! I can hear something else.” Carey strained to hear, then gave a tired grin. “It sounds like the rumble of distant drums.”

  “The surf!” Suzy beamed. “The sea!”

  Again they all moved forward, still cautious, but now definitely hopeful.

  * * *

  What Carey had heard had been the sound of drums. As the little group drew closer to the noise, they could also hear singing and the excited cries of children.

  “They’re making a hell of a noise,” Suzy whispered to Annie.

  Annie nodded. “Must be somebody’s birthday. No more talking until we’ve checked this situation out.”

  Carey warned, “Remember, if a dog comes up, or barks, or snaps at your ankles, stand absolutely still.”

  With Annie in the lead, the women moved nearer and nearer to the village. Eventually, Annie could see into the clearing ahead of her. The singers were men, their lean black bodies sleek with pig grease. As they danced, the shells of their necklaces clicked against each other. The faces of the men were smeared with white and yellow-ocher paint; the yellow and scarlet feathers of their elaborate headdresses swayed as they shuffled around in a circle. A singing, swaying chorus, they tossed their heads and stamped their feet to the accompaniment of flute music and the throb of empty oil drums.

  Surrounding the singers, a further circle of men squatted. They chewed hunks of meat which was being served from the side of the clearing. Naked women chattered together as they crouched beside a battered, galvanized-iron washtub, dipped coconut-shell cups into the tub and ran to offer the palm beer to their menfolk.

  Everyone fell silent as a big, middle-aged man appeared at the edge of the clearing. He wore the white feather headdress of a medicine man, his head was shaven, his face was painted with white horizontal stripes and a pair of false teeth hung from a leather thong around his neck. He was carrying something.

  Through the shimmering haze of feathered headdresses, to the thump of a single drum, the medicine man advanced to a rough altar that stood on the left side of the clearing. Abruptly, the music stopped. He bowed before the altar.

  The medicine man stepped forward and carefully placed his burden upon the altar. He stepped back and bowed reverently.

  “Oh, my God!” gasped Suzy. “The snake tattoo! That’s Carlos’s arm!”

  BOOK SIX

  ITAMBU

  26

  MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1985

  The deeper the dinghy penetrated, the narrower the river became. After five hours of travel in the cramped boat, Harry felt claustrophobically smothered by this dark green, slimy tunnel inexorably lowering over his head.

  Sounding like the black flies that clustered around Harry’s eyes, the small inflatable craft buzzed through the tunnel of green gloom hanging above the frothing river torrent. Rotting vegetation, dead branches and forest muck swirled along in water the color of milk chocolate. The clammy, m
idmorning heat enveloped Harry in a suffocating blanket of perspiration, and the cloud of insects that surrounded his head goaded him to silent frenzy.

  He reminded himself that any discomfort was worthwhile if—as seemed probable—he was at least following an unequivocal clue to the disappearance of the Nexus party.

  Mentally, he reviewed the events of the last ten days.

  * * *

  On March 1, the day after the official end of the cyclone season, Harry had flown up to Queenstown Airport—now fully operational—in the new Nexus Lear 30. He was always amazed by the lack of space in private jets. In movies, a jet interior seems huge but in fact, Harry couldn’t even stand upright in most private jets, and the cabins were so small and confined that he felt as if he were sitting in a cigar tube. He was always glad to get out of them.

  In the sweltering heat of Queenstown Airport, Kerry had been waiting for him. Two armed guards sat in the back seat of the jeep.

  Harry jerked his head toward the guards. “Are they really necessary?”

  Kerry said, “Yes. You’ll see why if you really insist on staying in Queenstown.”

  “I don’t want to start that argument again, Kerry.” Harry felt irritated. “I’m only going to get information if I’m in the town center and easy to contact.” As the jeep bounced over the ground toward the helipad, he added, “And if I’m staying with Ma Chang, it’s easy for anyone to get a message to me quietly by slipping into Ron Chang’s sewing-machine workshop and giving it to him.”

  The two men continued their conversation as they climbed out of the jeep, walked across the helipad and got into the helicopter.

  “I suppose the only way to dissuade you is to show you how things have changed,” Kerry said.

  “Have Johno and the other pilots arrived?”

  “They arrived late yesterday from Moresby. The Piper Cherokees will use the Queenstown strip, because there’s no sand gear at Mount Ida.”

  “Why do we have to fly in pilots? Couldn’t we have hired Paui Defense Force aircraft? Surely they’d know the area better than eight Aussie pilots from Moresby?”