Papua

by Peter Watt

‘It is a beautiful day,’ Paul said in English, as he wanted his family to improve their fluency in the language that was second to them. ‘I think the Burns Philp steamer will be a pleasant voyage to Port Moresby for me.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Karin agreed cheerily and reached over to touch her son on the cheek. She frowned when he seemed to wince from her touch and withdrew her hand with a hurt feeling. Maybe it was that he was growing up, she consoled herself.

  ‘What will you do when you reach Papua?’ Erika asked, and her tone was accusing.

  ‘I will make enquiries as to whether any of the plantation owners need a manager,’ Paul answered calmly and firmly in order to curtail his sister’s recriminations. ‘I am sure with the experience that I have I will get a job until we are in a position in the future to possibly invest in our own plantation. Times will change, and many of the less experienced owners who took up our plantations will be pleased to sell out.’

  ‘So we will be stuck in this hell hole while you hope that someone will take pity on a former enemy and give him a job,’ Erika said bitterly. ‘I have heard what some of the passengers on the ship from Sydney have said about living this far from civilisation. Do you not care for the safety of your wife and son?’

  ‘I do,’ Paul growled. ‘But I would not take any of you to some place on earth where I could not protect and provide for my family. And sadly, dear sister, that includes you.’

  ‘You really do hate me,’ Erika spat. She rose from the table, almost spilling her plate on the floor. ‘You have always been jealous that father preferred me to you when we were growing up.’

  ‘Sit down!’Paul ordered as he folded a linen table napkin. ‘That is not true, and until you are twenty-one, you will do as I say.’

  Erika resumed her seat. Yes, she would do as she was told but when she turned twenty-one she would take her share of the family estate and return to Germany. Her brother had always been a man who was not capable of understanding the destiny of Germany. He was a man who thought that family came before country. A fool.

  The breakfast continued in silence. Karin felt the rich food curdle in her stomach. She had always found her sister-in-law to be a strange young woman, prone to explosions of temper. But they had shared the loneliness of the war years in Munich and a bond had formed between them despite their differences of opinion. She glanced at her husband and saw pain in his face. She did not doubt him. Her love was something that grew stronger with each day they were together. No matter what lay ahead, he would find a way. Besides, she was looking forward to once again smelling the sweet perfume of the tropical flowers and seeing the lush foliage of the rainforest trees. She knew they would not be apart for long. Paul was a very capable man who would soon find employment and have them join him in New Guinea. Like her husband, she truly felt that they were going home. Germany was but a memory of despair and ruin.

  TEN

  The dawn mists swirled in ominous fingers around the campsite. The sun was burning off the coolness of the morning and soon the humidity would bring clinging sweat and thirst to be slaked with brackish warm water from the canteens.

  George woke with a feeling that all was not right. He had stood guard until three in the morning when Jack relieved him, then gratefully crawled under his blankets to fall into an exhausted sleep. But now he awoke to notice that something was happening around him. Or that something was not happening!

  He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He could see Jack standing in a huddle with the two police boys and by the way he held his rifle George knew that his former officer was tense with the expectation of a coming action.

  Glancing around the campsite, he noticed that the fire had not been lit for the breakfast meal, and that the native porters squatted, looking out at the dense rainforest cloaked in a still, grey mist.

  Jack disengaged himself from the two police and walked over to George. ‘No doubt that they are out there,’ he said. ‘The boys are sure. It’s all too bloody quiet for my liking. No bird sounds.’

  ‘What do you think will happen?’

  And as if to answer his question an ululating sound rose in the forest. George felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The call was answered by many and came from all around them. He had never heard such a strange, eerie sound before.

  ‘Better get yourself ready,’ Jack said quietly. ‘I know that sound and it’s not good.’

  The porters cast fearful looks in the direction of the two Europeans as they fingered machetes. The police boys raised their rifles to their shoulders.

  A swishing sound filled the air and a porter cried out in agony as a long, thin bamboo arrow struck him in the chest. And even before he had fallen to the ground three others pierced his body. He screamed as he groped at the deadly shafts.

  The crash of Jack’s rifle beside George’s head almost deafened him as he snatched his own rifle from the ground beside him. When he rolled into a kneeling stance he saw Jack’s target.

  Three short but solidly built dark skinned men had appeared out of the mist. They sported bird of paradise plumes above their heads. Around their waists they wore bark cloth skirts and they had strung short black palm bows with arrows. One of the men fell back when Jack’s well-aimed shot took him in the throat. His two companions hesitated at the sound of the rifle’s blast. It was obvious that they had never encountered a firearm before.

  ‘Looks like we found your Orangwoks,’ Jack muttered as he flung back the bolt and chambered a second round.

  But as the arrows continued to rain down out of the mist one thunked into George’s side just above his waist belt. ‘I’m hit!’he gasped.

  Jack fired again and dropped a second warrior before he could charge them, wielding a lethal looking stone axe. The mist swirled away on an eddy of morning breeze and it was Jack’s turn to gasp. Advancing on them and firing their arrows were at least a hundred warriors. Jack knew that they were completely surrounded as the men of the rainforest closed in. In unison the police boys wildly fired into the advancing warriors. Another warrior fell and this time the advance hesitated. The fact that members of their war party had mysteriously fallen at the sound of the thunder proved that these were surely evil spirits of the forest. Their power was awesome. Blood oozed from the dead and wounded men. One of the dead men had his flesh minced from a bullet exit wound. Such an injury was terrifying to behold. As one, the warriors broke off the fight, leaving their dead behind. The grey swirling mists swallowed them and left the campsite a haunted place of silence.

  Jack bent to examine his friend. George lay on his side, tugging at the arrow. It was lodged firmly, having penetrated a good six inches.

  ‘God it hurts, old chap,’ George groaned. ‘Didn’t even see it coming.’

  ‘Just take it easy,’ Jack said gently. ‘I will give you a good slug of the rum and pull it out when you are a bit under the weather. It’s still going to hurt like hell though. But first I’ve got to see how we stand just in case your Orangwoks decide to return, so start sipping on the bottle.’

  George nodded and raised himself to his feet to go to the tent and find the bottle in the medical supplies. It was the only thing close to an anaesthetic they had. The ground around him was littered with hundreds of arrows, protruding from the earth and riddling the tent. The number certainly gave credit to the war party’s expertise.

  George swigged from the bottle until it was almost empty. The rum quickly took effect. He sighed and slumped down inside the tent.

  Jack returned with blood on his hands. ‘They killed two of the boys and wounded three others,’ he said. ‘But the police boys were lucky – no injuries.’ He knelt beside George and examined the shaft. ‘I am hoping that isn’t barbed,’ he muttered. George winced when Jack tugged on it gently. ‘Sorry old mate, but I am going to have to cut you so that I can make the wound wide enough to allow me to pull the bastard out.’

  ‘Got to do it,’ George slurred and Jack chuckled. ‘Was funny?’ George asked.r />
  ‘Never seen you this pissed before. It’s a bit of an experience.’

  ‘Just get the bloody thing out you colonial hooligan so I can get sober.’

  ‘Never heard you swear before either,’ Jack added as he slid his skinning knife from a sheath on his belt. George eyed the blade and Jack could see the fear in his face. He was not a coward but the systematic cutting into his body held a personal fear.

  ‘You have to close your eyes,’ Jack said.

  ‘Why, old chap?’

  ‘Because I am going to say a little prayer, and I don’t want you to see me praying.’ George squinted at his friend. Jack was not a religious man and he wondered why he would be saying a prayer now. For whatever reason he obeyed and closed his eyes as he heard Jack mutter under his breath, ‘Dear Lord, who looks after wayward prospectors and mad pommies, gird my arm that I may do your work.’

  ‘Was that . . .’ George did not finish his sentence as the blackness came to him in a blinding shower of red stars. He had not seen Jack wrap the handkerchief around his fist. Nor did he see the powerful blow coming.

  ‘Hey Karius, Lipo – get over here,’ Jack called to the two police boys who hurried to the tent. ‘If Mr George wake up I want you to hold him down.’ They nodded and stood by with their rifles as Jack commenced his first incision.

  Mercifully George did not feel the cut but he did feel the arrow being tugged from his side. He woke with a shout but found himself held firmly to the ground by the two police boys. Jack struggled to release the cane shaft from George’s flesh. With a mighty yank it finally slid from the Englishman. George’s body arched as the arrow was removed but only a gasp of air exploding from his lungs revealed any sign of his trauma. A copious flow of blackish blood seeped in a small rivulet from the wound.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Jack asked gently when George was sufficiently recovered.

  ‘Pretty awful, old chap,’ George replied and rolled on his side to promptly vomit up the contents of his stomach. With a rising horror Jack noticed that there was the dark stain of blood in the vomit; the arrow had pieced his friend’s stomach. From experience, such a wound on the battlefield usually meant a slow and agonising death unless immediate medical help was sought. And even then it was touch and go.

  ‘Sit back and take it easy,’ Jack said, helping George to lean against a low set camp stretcher.

  ‘Got a terrible thirst,’ George slurred. ‘And a bloody headache like the chimes of Big Ben are going off in my head. Need to have some water.’

  ‘Maybe not a good idea for the moment,’ Jack said and avoided the Englishman’s eyes. ‘Just get some rest.’

  ‘It’s a stomach wound isn’t it, Jack?’ George had tasted the blood in his mouth.

  ‘Afraid so. But we will get you to a mission station down on the coast where they usually have a good supply of medicines.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen as you and I well know,’ George sighed. ‘We both know that I will not live long enough to survive a stomach wound. I may be dead before the sun sets.’

  ‘We are going to try. The rest is up to you. We’ve been in worse spots before. Like that time . . .’

  ‘You don’t have to patronise me,’ George said softly. ‘At least I got to see my Orangwoks.’

  ‘Listen, you pommy bastard, I am not going to let you die out here. We didn’t survive all those years of war for you to die from an arrow fired by some Stone Age kanaka, when the best of German industry thrown at us failed.’

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I am going to tell you some things before I die. Might shut you up for a while.’

  ‘Nothing that would be of much interest to me.’

  ‘I think what I am going to tell now has everything to do with you,’ George said as a wave of pain swamped him. ‘I have to tell you things about my past and who I am. I want you to give Iris some letters that I have been writing to her since we left Moresby.’

  ‘When we are having a drink back in Moresby you can tell me and personally hand over the letters to Iris.’

  Before George could continue speaking the air was filled with the voices of many men keening a song that rose and fell with an unmistakable beauty in its simplicity. It was a wailing song, and its tone was sad rather than threatening.

  ‘The little bastards are back,’ Jack said.

  The two police boys had already exited the tent to face another onslaught. Their courage was equal to that of the overwhelming numbers of warriors facing them. Jack stood with his men and the wounded porters – although fearful – gripped their machetes in a resolute manner.

  They came from the forest with their wooden shields held high above their heads and their bows unstrung. Jack sensed that their wailing was not that of men preparing to attack. Their posture was like that of the Roman soldiers Jack had once read about in a history book. They were asking for a truce to retrieve their dead from the battleground. ‘Lower your guns,’ Jack ordered, by way of signalling to the slowly approaching warriors that he understood their motives were peaceful.

  They retrieved the bodies of their fallen comrades and, still wailing their song, retreated to the cover of the jungle.

  Jack walked back to the tent and stepped inside. ‘Damnedest . . .’ He froze as the words died in his throat. His friend was slumped back against the camp stretcher. Jack had seen death many times and knew that George was gone.

  He knelt beside his old friend and the tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Now why did you go and leave me,’ he whispered hoarsely as he choked back his terrible grief. George was closer than any brother he could have had. They had shared such experiences in the horrors of the Western Front, things that neither could tell to anyone who had not been there.

  And even when the guns had fallen silent, George had followed Jack to Australia rather than returning to the greener fields of his home in England. But in doing so he had been led to his death. Jack was selfishly seeking riches for himself. But George’s noble search to enrich mankind’s knowledge was something that would endure in memory long after the gold was melted down and sold for the material comforts it could bring.

  Jack rose from his knees and faced his small party. They too had reason to grieve. They knew that they would be leaving their fallen in foreign territory a long way from their ancestral lands.

  The dead were buried and they struck camp. The confrontation with the tribesmen had decimated the expedition, but Jack had carefully marked his find for a future claim. It was time to return to Port Moresby.

  Before they retraced their steps back to the Huon Gulf Jack stood over his old friend’s grave, his rifle slung on his shoulder and his battered hat in hand.

  ‘Don’t matter about who you were and what you did before the war,’ he said quietly. ‘All I know, is that you were the bloody best company sergeant major the Australian army ever had, and the best friend I ever knew. I won’t forget you George, and I will tell Iris that you had her name on your lips before you died.’

  From the shadows of the forest many eyes watched the white demon and his servants preparing to leave. They had succeeded in killing one of the white demons but his partner was able to elude their arrows. They would go to the graves and dig them up as soon as the demon left their territory. That night they would feast on the flesh of the men they had slain.

  ELEVEN

  The Japanese boat captain was true to his word. His boat was anchored in the bay waiting for Jack and his party, now diminished to just himself, the two police boys and the two Buka porters who had survived the fight weeks earlier in the mountains. The other porters had died from their wounds, from arrows Jack suspected had been dipped in poison.

  They had arrived on the beach after a forced march. The drums that had been silent for Jack’s trek into the dreaded warriors’ territory now pounded in the forests with their unreadable messages. Their eerie sound was unnerving but the threat of another attack faded as they grew closer to the coast – although J
ack never allowed his men to drop their guard. It was possible that the warriors had passed word back down to any coastal natives that the white demons could be killed like normal men.

  But what Jack did not know was that the warriors who had attacked them had no knowledge of any other persons whatsoever living beyond their rainforest territory. George had been right when he had concluded that they had met their Orangwoks, although they did not ride on horses nor were they covered in gold armour.

  The sea voyage back to Port Moresby was as uneventful as the voyage out and within a couple of weeks Jack arrived in the frontier town. His first stop was Government House to report to Sir Hubert Murray on the tragic consequences of their limited exploration into the Huon Gulf hinterland. Sir Hubert listened sympathetically and expressed his condolences on the loss of George and the Buka men who had accompanied them.

  ‘I have even worse news for you, Jack,’ he said leaning forward at his desk. ‘We received a letter for you some days ago. As it was actually addressed care of the administration my people took the liberty of reading it. The letter came from your brother-in-law. It seems that your sister Mary in Sydney is critically ill.’

  Jack felt his shoulders slump at the news. In such a short space of time he had lost his best friend and his men. Now he might lose his beloved sister back in Sydney.

  ‘When was the letter dated?’ he asked wearily.

  ‘It was posted four weeks ago from Sydney. We have had no other news since then.’

  Jack rose. He would need to submit an official report to the Papuan administration on the events of the past few weeks, but now he had to make his way out to Sen’s house and tell Iris the sad news concerning George’s death. In a way this was not something new to Jack. He had written many letters to next of kin of soldiers killed or missing in action during the war. Sometimes missing in action was nothing more than the official description for men who had taken a direct hit from a high explosive artillery shell and their bodies blasted into a thousand tiny pieces of flesh with nothing left to identify them or acknowledge that they even existed except for the fact they had been in the army. But he had never before personally delivered the message to the next of kin or a loved one. To do so was something he wished he could avoid. Jack knew his first stop before going to Iris would be to the hotel for a long, hard-earned drink.