Eden

by Peter Watt

  ‘Nothing I can do anything about right now,’ Lukas replied in a dull voice. ‘Except help you look for Fuji before he causes any mischief.’

  ‘Got any ideas?’ the police sergeant asked.

  ‘You said that Fuji has a local woman around here?’

  ‘Her name is Keela.’

  ‘Maybe she could tell us where he is.’

  The police sergeant flicked the stub of his cigarette into the ruins. ‘Get on the back,’ he said with his hand outstretched. Lukas took the grip and was assisted up onto the horse. ‘We will see if we can find her and convince her to tell us where he might be.’

  It was not often that the police visited Keela’s village as her people enjoyed a reputation of keeping to themselves in a law-abiding manner. So the appearance of the two Europeans doubled on the horse caused quite a commotion amongst the villagers. Men, women and children gathered out of curiosity in the centre of the village to greet the men. Keela was huddled amongst them.

  Lukas dismounted but Ian Groves remained astride his mount. ‘Anyone here know the woman Keela?’ the sergeant asked, and the excited chatter brought on by the visit suddenly evaporated into an uneasy silence. Children received a slap around the back of the head from nervous parents when they continued to talk amongst themselves, oblivious of the change in mood. The fact that the sergeant had singled out a member of their clan bode no good.

  There was no response as the villagers remained silent but Lukas noticed several pairs of eyes nervously shift to a pretty young Motu girl standing in the gathered crowd. He strode forward, parting the villagers and confronted the girl. ‘You are Keela?’ Lukas said in fluent Motu. ‘We will not hurt you. All we want to know is the place where Fuji stays.’

  She refused to look at Lukas and remained silent. Lukas turned to Ian Groves. ‘I am pretty sure this is the girl but she won’t talk.’

  The police sergeant slid his rifle from the leather bucket. ‘This is wartime and the King has given me orders that anyone who does not help me will be considered an enemy. I have his personal permission to take the head man of your village back to Moresby, where he will be tried, found guilty and hanged unless you tell us where the Japanese man known as Fuji Komine is.’

  It was a lie but Groves hoped his bluff might scare the information from the villagers.

  A rumbling sound of voices protested the sergeant’s demand. They genuinely did not know where the Japanese man was. The village leader, an old man scarred and bent by life, stepped forward. ‘If we knew where he was,’ he said, ‘we would kill him ourselves for the killing of my nephew who was to marry Keela. If she knows where the Japanese man is then she must tell you.’

  All eyes seemed to swivel on Keela. They were not friendly eyes and Keela knew that if she did not talk then she would be castigated by her own kinfolk. She also realised that the two men who had come to her village meant to harm her man and to tell them anything would endanger him. ‘I do not know,’ she said, partially lying as she was not certain that Fuji would be hiding near the beach.

  ‘Then the sergeant will be forced to take away your head man and hang him in Port Moresby,’ Lukas threatened. He could see the fear in Keela’s face grow stronger and the nearest villagers strained to hear the conversation between the young woman and the white man with the eye patch.

  ‘Fuji is in the bush that way,’ Keela blurted, pointing west. ‘He is at the place where the track joins from the river.’

  Lukas knew the area she identified. ‘Good,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘We will go and meet him.’ He turned to Ian Groves. ‘The woman has told us what we need to know,’ he called in Motu. ‘We can leave these people alone and go to fetch the Japanese man but we will be forced to shoot anyone who attempts to follow us to exact payback on him. He will be a prisoner of the King.’

  From the mumbled reaction of the gathered villagers Lukas knew his message had got through. ‘We have to get out of here now,’ he said quietly in English when he had reached the sergeant. ‘She lied but I think I know what she is about to do.’

  Ian Groves helped Lukas mount behind him. ‘So if she lied, what help is that to us?’ he asked in a puzzled voice.

  ‘What would you do under the circumstances?’ Lukas asked.

  ‘Go and warn Fuji that …’ The sergeant paused as what Lukas planned sank in. ‘Follow her!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are as cunning as your old man.’

  ‘Not that easy,’ Lukas cautioned. ‘She may have the same idea and will be extra cautious. You will have to pretend to ride west towards Moresby, drop me off while I sit off the village and cover the trail west. I have a gut feeling Fuji would have to be down near the beach if he has been dropped off by a sub. If I am right she will head straight for the beach to warn him. I will follow. All you have to do is double back to give me support if I need it.’

  ‘You only have a six shooter,’ the police sergeant noted. ‘What if Fuji is better armed?’

  Lukas had thought about this problem should he confront the Japanese sailor again. ‘I doubt that he will be better armed. The Japs have put him ashore on a spying mission is my guess. Therefore he would have to travel light. Maybe he has a pistol but I doubt they would have issued him with anything heavier.’

  The sergeant nodded and they rode out of the village west towards Moresby while Keela intently watched them leave. From the direction they were riding, it seemed that they had accepted her lie, she thought and returned to her family’s hut. But when she thought the excitement of the police visit had died down, she discreetly slipped from the village to take the track to the beach. She was careful and stopped to check occasionally to see if she was being followed. When it did not appear that she was, she continued to seek out the man she loved and warn him that the police were searching for him.

  Lukas followed behind off the track in the thick scrub. His guess had been right. The Motu girl was leading him to his old enemy. This time only one of them would walk away from the meeting alive for he knew Fuji would never allow himself to be taken prisoner.

  Fuji sat with his back against a palm tree staring at the placid sea in deep thought. It had been a long time since he had felt so lost. He was deep in enemy territory waiting to rejoin his comrades aboard the I–47 and yet, he grudgingly admitted to himself, he was harbouring a reluctance to leave Keela. He had not thought it possible that anything could ever divert him from his divine mission in the Emperor’s cause and yet Keela haunted him with her beautiful smile and deep dark eyes of almost pure black. For a moment he even imagined that he could hear her calling to him from the far end of their beach.

  Realising that her call was real and sensing the fear in her voice, Fuji snapped from his dreamy thoughts and snatched the pistol at his side. Turning aside, he flattened himself against the hot sands above the beach and sought out the Motu girl. He saw her hurrying along the beach towards his concealed position and knew something was terribly wrong, as she had been instructed not to come to him.

  ‘Fuji,’ she called desperately.

  Fuji cursed under his breath, every instinct telling him danger lay in wait should he reveal his position to her. But she was upon him before he could warn her off.

  ‘Here,’ he hissed. Keela hesitated, then rushed towards him.

  ‘They are looking for you,’ she sobbed, falling into his arms.

  ‘Who is they?’ Fuji asked, holding her at arm’s length.

  ‘A policeman and one other,’ she answered, her anguished face reflecting her fear.

  ‘How did they know I am here?’he asked with a trace of anger in his voice for the betrayal he suspected.

  ‘The people of my village know of you,’ Keela said, wiping with the back of her hand the tears that splashed her face. ‘You must leave here now or they will find you.’

  Fuji did not answer. He could not tell Keela about the submarine coming for him. The dramatic turn of events changed everything and if the police or army had any force in the area searching for him, that w
ould jeopardise the safety of the I–47. He had to get out of the area even if he could not contact the submarine and warn them to stay away. At least when it surfaced at night he would not be there to respond to its signal and the captain would immediately leave. Fuji gently pushed Keela away. ‘Are you able to get a canoe and some supplies for us to sail a long way from here?’ he asked, deciding on his only real option.

  Keela looked at him, eyes wide with surprise. ‘I think I can return to my village and take a canoe,’ she answered. ‘It will not be easy but I could do so tonight.’

  ‘You are to meet me beyond this beach at the place of the mangrove swamps in the direction of the rising sun. Do you know the place?’ Keela nodded. ‘You will have a lantern at the stern of the canoe so that I might find you,’ he continued.

  ‘Where will we go?’ she asked in a trembling voice.

  ‘Your people trade each year with the people of the islands to the east of Milne Bay,’ Fuji said. ‘That is close to safety for me. From there I will be able to make my way to New Britain and my superiors.’

  ‘It is a long way,’ Keela said softly. ‘But I will be with you.’

  Fuji thought about that and felt a twinge of guilty sadness. He had only planned to have her accompany him as far as possibly the Trobriand Islands – no further. He would be in fact deserting her to return to his mission for his Emperor, but for the moment what was most important was getting out of the Moresby district and leading his enemies away from the rendezvous point with the sub.

  ‘Go as fast as you can back to the village,’ Fuji said. ‘My life is in your hands.’

  Keela understood. Turning on her heel she walked away from the Japanese sailor and hurried away without looking back.

  ‘I see her,’ Lukas said, kneeling by the police sergeant beside him.

  ‘She disappeared into the palm grove and came out the same way,’ Ian Groves replied, pushing his rifle forward. ‘I bet the little yellow bastard is in there.’

  They were concealed in the bushes back from the curving beach, around two hundred yards from where Keela had stepped off the beach into the stand of palms.

  ‘Maybe if you give me a couple of minutes I will circle the bush while you edge forward towards the palms,’ Lukas said. ‘That way we can take him from two sides.’

  The older man looked sideways at Lukas. ‘You think that is a real good idea?’ he asked. ‘He is a cunning bastard and might be better armed than us. What if I go back to Moresby and round up some help from the army?’

  ‘He will get away before you return,’ Lukas replied. ‘It’s going to be dark soon enough and he can use the night to elude any reinforcements you bring back. No, we have him now and it’s only a matter of pinning him down to the beach during daylight hours.’

  Ian Groves was rightly nervous about him and young Kelly taking on the Japanese sailor with only a rifle and pistol between them. Maybe Komine was armed with grenades or something heavier. But what the younger man proposed made the only sense for the moment. They would lose him if they waited. ‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘We do it your way.’

  Lukas nodded and without another word disappeared into the thick bush adjoining the beach. The police sergeant waited for a short time then carefully pushed his way through the undergrowth running down to the beach. The safety catch of his rifle had been slipped off and his finger was never off the trigger. Every nerve in his body was on edge. He had survived the last war and did not want to die in this one.

  Fuji’s keen eyes caught the movement. So they had found him, he thought bitterly, gripping the pistol in one hand and his razor-sharp knife in the other. As far as he knew he was only being hunted by two men, and whoever had been clumsy enough to disturb the bush alongside the beach was a dead man. He would not wait for his enemy to come to him. He would take the fight to the enemy.

  Crouching, Fuji eased forward without bending a branch or breaking even a twig of the undergrowth. This is how he had been trained to fight in the jungle and this is how he would bring death to the enemy.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The soft swoop-swoop of the overhead fans and the low murmur of men’s voices drifted to Jack Kelly between his fevered dreams. He knew that he was in a hospital in Port Moresby but had little recollection of how he got there. From time to time he would have flashes of stumbling and struggling along trails of clinging mud overshadowed by rainforest. He dreamed of a dank, still world of eerie silence and body-clinging sweat where words of encouragement had come from both natives and Europeans who had helped him to get back to Moresby. At times he was carried in a litter, at others supported as he stumbled over buttress roots. How long it had taken him he did not know but the clean sheets and gentle administrations of the nursing staff in the hospital were far divorced from his journey on the edge of hell.

  Dengue fever – he had heard a male voice say at one stage – coupled with malaria was racking his battle-scarred body. Not a good combination for a man his age. But Jack fought the microscopic bodies attacking him from within. He was tough in both body and spirit.

  ‘How are you feeling, Sergeant Kelly?’ a woman’s voice asked.

  Jack tried to focus on the pretty face hovering in a mist over him. ‘I’ll live,’ he croaked with a weak smile. ‘But I’ve been better … You look vaguely familiar.’

  ‘It’s Sister Megan Cain. We met when I was up around Morohe way, and I have met your son, Lukas. He brought us safely to Moresby on the Independence.’

  ‘Ah, the pretty angel,’ Jack said, reaching out with his hand. ‘I think my son should be taking you to the pictures.’

  ‘I think so too, Sergeant Kelly,’ Megan responded.

  ‘Just call me Jack. I’m not used to ladies calling me Sergeant.’

  ‘I will do that, Jack,’ Megan said, although she knew she was breaking the strict rule of nonfraternisation with her patients. She saw this man as different – he was the father of Lukas Kelly.

  ‘How long am I going to be here?’ Jack asked. ‘My unit will be missing me.’

  Megan took a thin thermometer, shook it and placed it under Jack’s tongue. She measured Jack’s pulse whilst waiting for the reading on the thermometer. Both tasks completed, she frowned. ‘As for your question concerning when we release you, I can tell you that it will not be before the end of this week.’

  Jack sighed. He knew he was too weak to rejoin his comrades up the track but felt guilty at leaving them under-manned to face the Japanese.

  ‘I will have to continue my round of the wards,’ Megan said. ‘If you need anything, just call me.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’ Jack replied, closing his eyes.

  ‘He is very weak and still has a long way to go before he will be back on his feet,’ Megan said to her visitor waiting on the verandah of the hospital. ‘I have just spoken to him but he has slipped back into a deep sleep.’

  The information about Sergeant Jack Kelly’s admittance to the Moresby hospital had come to Ilsa Stahl from her colleague, Gene Fay, who had been at the hospital visiting an American airman shot down near Lae and rescued by an Australian navy ship en route to Port Moresby. Whilst at the hospital, Gene had scanned the list of patients to ascertain whether any other Americans were being treated. When he saw Jack Kelly’s name on the list he remembered how Ilsa had shown a great interest in this particular man from the NGVR. Upon his return to their quarters outside Moresby, Gene mentioned that he thought the man she sought might be in hospital. Ilsa immediately hitched a ride there.

  Now Ilsa stood in the late afternoon sunlight a mere twenty yards from the man she had discovered, from questioning the nursing sister, must be her father.

  ‘Would you like to come in and see him?’ Megan asked gently. ‘He will be asleep however, and it would not be wise to wake him. His body needs the rest to fight the dengue.’

  ‘I will do that,’ Ilsa answered hesitantly. ‘Thank you.’

  Megan led the way and the sight of the beautiful young woman in the baggy batt
le dress of the war correspondent turned many a head in the ward. A few rough compliments were passed but Ilsa ignored them as she followed Megan to Jack Kelly’s bed.

  Ilsa stood beside the bed, staring down at the face jaundiced by the anti-malarial drugs and was struck by how fragile this man seemed. She tried to find similarities between his face and her own and, now seeing her biological father for the first time, realised how much she resembled her mother. She thought she could see a kindness in her father’s face, the same expressions as those of her half-brother when she had been aboard the schooner.

  ‘I think Jack will be allowed to have visitors tomorrow,’ Megan said. ‘He is recovering well and I think he will be sitting up by then.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ilsa replied, attempting to stifle the tears welling in her eyes. ‘I may come tomorrow.’

  ‘I know it is not my business to ask,’ Megan said, ‘but why do you have such an interest in Sergeant Kelly?’

  Ilsa bit her lip. Did it matter that this woman she had come to know and like should know? ‘He is my father,’ she said softly.

  Megan was stunned by the revelation. So Lukas Kelly must be Ilsa’s half-brother, she thought with some relief, as Megan had feared that the beautiful young woman might have been a threat to her own affections for Jack Kelly’s son.

  ‘I think I would like to go now,’ Ilsa said, turning on her heel and walking away from the bed towards the entrance to the ward.

  Megan remained by the bed and watched her leave. Life was so full of surprises. Immediately her thoughts turned to Lukas. Where was he and what was he doing at this very moment? Wherever he was, she prayed that he was safe and that she would see him soon. There was so much to talk about.

  At the very time Megan was thinking about Lukas he was warily creeping towards the place he last suspected Fuji was hiding. Every sense was heightened by the hunt – or was he the hunted? Fuji was a highly trained agent and Lukas began to have doubts about his abilities to take on the Japanese sailor.