Savages

by Shirley Conran

  Reaching the shaft, she poked her head down and called urgently, “Annie! It’s Carey.”

  Calling out was a calculated risk. Carey hoped the crackling noise of the fire would obscure her voice. The alternative was to take the risk that no one was standing at the bottom of the chimney to get her neck broken. But she thought it highly likely that someone would be waiting for her at the bottom of the chimney, so she could not take that risk.

  A voice echoed up the shaft. “Are you coming down, Carey?”

  “Get out of the way, and keep quiet. I’m throwing something down, then I’m following.” She let go of the body.

  Feeling surprisingly clear-headed, Carey flung the man’s floppy jungle hat down the shaft, then pulled up the rattan rope, working as fast as she could. Although she worked swiftly, it seemed to take forever, as the red glare crept inexorably through the forest toward her.

  With relief, she reached the rattan string bag that was permanently attached to the end of the rope. She dumped the two rifles into it, securing the barrels to the rope with rattan. She didn’t want two ten-pound rifles upsetting her equilibrium as she descended.

  Quickly, with the machete, she hacked the rattan rope free of the tree trunk to which it had been secured. She bound the machete to the rifles as best she could, then lowered the heavy load down the chimney, as slowly as she dared. Shaking with anxiety, Carey again seemed to hear the voice of Jonathan in her head. “When you’re in a hurry, do things slowly.” Finally, hands trembling, she carefully camouflaged the top of the chimney with sprawling vegetation.

  Because of her size, Carey could do something that the other women found difficult: she could keep her elbows on the surface outside the shaft while bracing her feet against the other side. As she did so, she thought, This is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done in my life! Her nerve failed and she froze with fear.

  For months, the five women had schooled themselves not to think of their families in Pittsburgh because such thoughts plunged them into instant depression. Now, in order to muster her courage, Carey deliberately thought of her daughters. She had always been convinced that she would put herself in any sort of danger in order to protect her children. So now Carey sternly reminded herself that, more than anything else in the world, Ingrid and Greta needed their mother.

  It did no good at all.

  She thought again of running back to Patty and the safety of the water, but the flames were leaping toward her, flaring higher, beneath clouds of smoke. Oddly enough, it smelled as good as a log fire in a city apartment.

  Carey suddenly realized that if she didn’t move fast, she would be burned to a crisp. She could never outrun the flames.

  She began to lower herself carefully into the shaft. For a minute she was braced with her behind and her feet against the earthen sides of the shaft and her elbows still above ground, where they seemed glued. She dreaded removing them, but finally the crackle of approaching fire forced her into action. When the top of her head was just below the entrance of the shaft she pulled the concealing creepers back across it.

  Slowly, she started to inch her way down the chimney.

  She refused to think of landing on that corpse and concentrated on her descent. There were plenty of footholds, but the rock dug into her back and rubbed it raw through the khaki tunic. Her knees had been trembling before she lowered herself into the shaft, and now the only way she kept going was by calmly instructing herself aloud.

  * * *

  As the troops moved away from the burning camp, the sergeant realized that a man was missing. He questioned the others. Nobody volunteered information, but they did not seem surprised that he had disappeared. The man’s village was only fourteen miles to the south and for weeks he’d been complaining about barracks life and army discipline, clearly pining for the quiet life and fishing. Every week someone deserted from the barracks, just as they did from the copper mines when they found that the work was worth the money but not worth the loss of their liberty.

  The sergeant had to decide whether to stop and search the jungle for his missing man or continue his search for the women at sea. There was little more than an hour before sunset.

  Had the man been injured, they would have heard him shouting. More likely at this very moment he was deciding how many kina he could get for his rifle and what he would do with his girl tonight.

  Their orders had been clear.

  “Post Narak missing, suspected deserter,” the sergeant said. They could return and search for him the following day, by which time Narak would have had time to reach his village.

  They’d pick him up if he was there. Otherwise they’d come back here and comb the jungle. In the meantime, a night out in the jungle never hurt an islander.

  * * *

  Patty peered anxiously through the foliage. Beyond this angular split in the cliff she could only see the sea and the sky. The two translucent blues divided by a thin, darker blue line had recently become two dark grays with a black dividing line.

  An hour and a half earlier, Patty had seen a big olive helicopter pass along the coastline going south. It had returned later, northbound, but far out to sea.

  Apprehensively, Patty looked again at the sky. There was something odd about it. Low dark clouds had piled up since the helicopter had passed. The sea was now the color of purple slate, and the choppy pattern of the waves had changed to black. The invisible sun, which had slipped behind the headland, was still shining with a fierce but detached clarity. The light was sharp and ominous.

  Patty checked the mooring and tugged on the ropes of the two bamboo beds. As thunder rumbled overhead, Patty laid one bed over the stern of the boat and lashed it to the transom.

  The storm reached the shore with sudden ferocity. Water crashed through the foliage overhead.

  Patty was immediately drenched, as surely as if she’d been standing under the waterfall. She grabbed the tin bailer and started to heave water out as fast as she could. She stopped only to crawl forward to the locker and pull out one of the bamboo water containers to use as a second bailer. Then she hurled water from the boat with both hands.

  As the squall shrieked over her head, Patty crouched beneath a torrent of rain, scarcely able to catch her breath in the deluge. Frantically, she tried to empty the water from the boat, until she realized that bailing was almost as futile a gesture as that of King Canute trying to hold back the waves.

  Shivering, she wound a length of rattan around the second bed and slid it over her so that two-thirds of the dinghy was covered by a bamboo roof. But the beds were not waterproof, and the rain trickled between the poles like mountain rills.

  By nightfall, Patty was as cold and as wet as if she had been swimming in the sea rather than bouncing on top of it. She wondered if the storm was going to last the whole night. It was more than likely. She wondered what would happen if she fell asleep. She wouldn’t know if the boat were torn from its moorings. What should she do? Should she abandon ship—jump for the overhead boughs, climb along a branch and down a trunk? Or should she stick to the boat and risk being swept out to sea, risk being waterlogged and sunk?

  Reluctantly, Patty reminded herself that all their escape equipment was in the boat. Supine, and with some difficulty, she wriggled into her life jacket.

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13

  Patty opened her eyes. Her first reaction was to wonder why she was soaking wet and what that odd slopping noise was. Her second reaction was relief. She was still alive, and still in the boat—now half filled with water.

  The storm had passed.

  Patty could hear comforting little slaps against the hull. She felt the soothing, cradlelike motion of the sea beneath her. With difficulty she moved her left arm, wondering how old you had to be to get rheumatism, and looked at her watch.

  Eight o’clock in the morning.

  She hadn’t been so hungry since that first night in the cave. With stiff fingers, she undid the knotted rattan, lifted the battered bed and loo
ked out. The sea was still somber and the sky looked damp. On both sides of her the black cliffs glistened with water; trees shone and dripped. The creek was still in shadow, but she could see that the sun was lighting up the greenery at the entrance, while beyond it the sky was blue.

  Patty took a swig of the soldiers rum and slowly chewed slivers of smoked fish. Then she peed into the bailer, emptied it and used it for its proper purpose.

  She hoped to hell that the other women were on their way.

  * * *

  Katanga village straggled across the north bank of the Katanga river. The thatched huts, which were used only for sleeping, stood on eight-foot poles and were reached by rickety wooden ladders. Within living memory the tidal rise had not been high enough to reach the huts. The inhabitants lived and worked in the shade below them.

  At ten in the morning on March 13 most of the village women were either rounding up the pigs or tending the vegetable gardens, which had been devastated by the storm. The village was quiet except for a group of children squabbling beneath the huts. They were occasionally bawled out by one of the gap-toothed grandmothers repairing fishing nets, steaming vegetables in big wooden cooking pots or twisting thin rattan to make nets.

  The playful noises of the children didn’t seem to disturb the men of the village. They dozed in the shade beneath the huts in company with mongrel dogs, anorexic chickens and a young woman who drowsily suckled a piglet at her breast. Sleepily, the luluai shifted his position in the shade. After the storm there was much to repair. He hadn’t yet decided where to start. The pig fence definitely needed immediate attention, but it was hard work making a pig fence. On the other hand, if it wasn’t mended immediately, the pigs would get into the vegetable garden and make an even worse mess. Perhaps they should start on the pig fence fairly soon. He yawned and slowly scratched his ear.

  The silence was broken by a low, distant hum—a buzz like the noise of a mosquito. As it grew louder, heads were raised.

  A red Bell 206 helicopter appeared around the headland and headed straight for the village.

  The luluai called sharply to the other men, who scrambled to their feet. Without being told, the village boys ran into the huts and came back with wooden clubs and spears, which they shoved into their fathers’ hands. The children and old women rushed terror-stricken behind the line formed by their armed men standing on either side of their luluai. On Paui, the village headman always leads his men in danger or he loses his position. The whole village watched in apprehensive silence as the helicopter dipped toward the beaten mud area on the riverbank where the dugout canoes had been pulled clear of the water.

  The wind caused by the rotating blades blasted the leaves and beat back the branches of the eucalyptus trees which edged the clearing. It was as if a cyclone were blowing.

  Neatly, the helicopter came to rest and the rotor blades slowed. The three black passengers wore military uniforms. One of them was Colonel Borda.

  Clutching a rifle, the colonel jumped down from the machine as soon as the rotor blades stopped. After greetings had been exchanged through an interpreter, Colonel Borda announced the identity of their visitor.

  “Raki … Raki … Raki …” The words echoed through the group of villagers. There was excited chatter behind the men with bows and arrows, who did not move and would not do so until instructed by their headman but whose eyes were fixed on the small figure which slowly descended from the machine. Raki stood in its shadow, wiped off his sunglasses, pushed them into the breast pocket of his tunic and advanced toward the headman with majestic dignity in which there was no hint of either arrogance or humility.

  Inside the dark, hot guest hut, President Raki dropped his solemnity. Briskly, he barked to the interpreter. His few words were translated by a necessarily long and elaborate speech. During the translation, Raki lost interest and his mind wandered. His firm look of presidential resolve changed swiftly to one of bland boredom, then to the malevolent glare of a clever, spoiled child who has been thwarted. This was replaced by the blank-eyed stare of an unpredictable man of violence who might be thinking of nothing at all or who might be just about to pull a trigger.

  Upon hearing the astonishing and exasperating news that some of the Nexus women were still alive, Raki had realized immediately that if the women ever returned to the States he would be in serious political trouble with the USA, Britain, Japan, Australia and the U.N. Nexus International Mining, Inc., as well as the International Mining Federation, would be compelled to reassess the wisdom of doing business in Paui. Other powerful international mining companies would also view him with deep disfavor, to say the least. So long as these women were alive, his hold on the presidency was at risk.

  They must therefore be found and killed before any news of their reappearance could reach Mount Ida or that overinquisitive Australian with whom he was negotiating the mining concession. The invasion had seriously depleted his bank account, and he was determined that every Swiss franc be replaced. He also needed cash to pay for Cargo Cult junk from Taiwan for the entire population of Paui.

  He knew that the quickest, easiest and best mining deal he could make was with Nexus. Undoubtedly, they had already decided the limit to which they would bargain, which limit Raki was grimly determined to reach. He had intended to string out the bargaining. Now, in view of the reappearance of these white women, Raki wished that he had already signed with Nexus.

  In the somnolent heat of the guest hut the interpreter nervously repeated the headman’s last question. “Mr. President, the luluai wishes to know why troops went yesterday to the land above the waterfall which is itambu?”

  The President replied smoothly, “Those were Filipino troops, who sadly did not know that they were in a forbidden place. They sought the white women who had already desecrated the spot and thus aroused the malevolence of the dead.”

  Barely an hour before, President Raki had stood on the forbidden land himself. He had glanced contemptuously at the sheet of tin nailed to a tree, painted with the sign of a black hand above the roughly printed words, ITAMBU.

  The President had surveyed the smashed, burned-out huts. With one ostrichskin-shod toe he had prodded a bamboo pot into the scattered remains of the campfire, then turned to Colonel Borda. “Does the tracker’s information agree with the story from the soldier who escaped from these women?”

  Colonel Borda had nodded.

  “This hero, who let women steal his clothes, must be severely punished. We do not wish him to speak further of the women. National security is involved. Take out his tongue.”

  “I will see to it, Excellency.”

  “The women cannot have gone very far, Colonel.”

  “We are searching the entire coast, Excellency, in case they have not headed for Irian Jaya but are traveling up the coast. If so, we shall quickly hear of this.”

  “So we are bound to find them?”

  The colonel had hesitated. “A twelve-foot dinghy is not easy to spot from the air, sir.” He looked at Raki’s eyes and sighed. “Of course, we shall do our best, Excellency. Our very best!”

  Now, sitting cross-legged in the heat of the village guest hut, Raki found it almost impossible to breathe.

  The interpreter said, “The headman wishes to know when the soldiers who guard the itambu area will depart.”

  The President leaned toward Colonel Borda. “No point in leaving sentries, is there, Colonel?”

  “The sentries must stay until the women are found, Excellency. They might return or be forced back to the area around their camp. This is the area they know. I respectfully suggest that we offer this village a sacrificial feast as soon as our men depart.”

  The interpreter said, “They would also like to have a rope bridge repaired. It was apparently damaged by the women.”

  Irritably the President said, “Yes, yes, tell them yes, for God’s sake! Then ask them what they know about these women.” He knew that the headman was all-powerful in a village, and that information had t
o be paid for or the headman would lose face—and his position.

  “The headman says five women and one man were on the sacred site throughout the cyclone season but the man died,” the interpreter reported. “Sometimes they fished and swam in the lagoon. That is all they know. The villagers do not go on ground that is itambu.”

  The President raised his voice. “Tell them that I have not visited this place to learn nothing.”

  Colonel Borda hastily leaned toward the President and said reassuringly, “Sir, I feel confident that these women will be found.”

  “I do not want the women found, Colonel. I want their bodies found.”

  * * *

  Silvana and Annie took turns swimming through the underground passage, to check that the sentry hadn’t moved from the beach. The women were unaware of the storm until they saw the beach at dawn on the following morning. There was a lot of debris at the high-tide line, but a saffron sun had risen, tinting the sky with sulphur and with rose.

  “It looks as if it was a bad storm,” Annie reported to the other women in the cave. “I’m worried about Patty.”

  “I’m worried about the boat.” Suzy said.

  “Let’s try to reach it tonight,” Carey suggested. “Any time will probably be bad. I can’t stand this place much longer.”

  Annie nodded. “If we leave this afternoon shortly after three o’clock, we have a good chance of reaching the boat before sunset.”

  “Three hours should do it,” Carey agreed. “It only took me two hours to get back here. We’ll travel along the shore, on the fringe of the jungle, then strike out overland for the last part of the journey. I couldn’t find my way through that in the dark, so we shouldn’t leave later than three o’clock. And I’ll need more time to climb up the chimney because of my back.”

  Carey’s back was raw and bleeding after her descent. Nevertheless, it had been decided that she should be the one to climb the chimney to carry up the rope. Suzy was too short for her legs to reach the other side of the shaft. Because Annie was afraid of heights, it had long ago been decided not to use her in any emergency where her fear might endanger their safety. Silvana still had a bandaged hand. And, as Suzy unfairly pointed out, it was Carey who had cut the fucking rope.