by G. W. Kent
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Kella stiffly, hoping to change the subject. ‘I mean I only met Elizabeth briefly.’
‘That one doesn’t need much time, son. Only opportunity.’
‘What happened exactly?’ asked Kella, trying with difficulty to keep to the main thread of his interrogation. ‘How did you get up here in the first place?’
‘I’m writing a paper on Kwaio custom carvings,’ said the American. ‘I particularly wanted to see the havu. No white man ever has. One morning two bushmen appeared at the mission, offering to bring me up here and show me the carving.’
‘They were sent by Pazabosi,’ said Kella. ‘He needed you as a hostage.’
‘Is that right? Well, when I got as far as the custom temple behind the waterfall, Pazabosi and some of his boys were waiting there for me. They told me that the havu had been stolen and they had to do something about it. Scared the crap out of me, I don’t mind telling you. I thought I was a gonner.’
‘Pazabosi couldn’t harm you. He’s entered the trochea, the contemplative last period of his life.’
‘Now you tell me! It didn’t seem so reassuring at the time, that’s for sure! Then the old guy presented me with a kind of ultimatum. I had to stay up here in this hut, in case he needed me, but to make life easier for me, he’d arranged for Elizabeth and the other women to keep me company.’
‘Some ultimatum,’ marvelled Kella.
Mallory closed his eyes in ecstatic contemplation for a moment. ‘Guys who look like I do don’t get many offers like that, I can tell you,’ he said frankly. ‘Not here, or anywhere else.’
‘That would be Pazabosi’s notion of irony,’ said the police sergeant. ‘You came up here looking for a carved representation of the sex act, and he offered you the real thing.’
‘In spades,’ breathed Mallory.
It would also mean that Pazabosi would not have to post guards around the house, thought Kella. He found himself liking the American for his pragmatic acceptance of his situation.
‘Let me tell you, sergeant,’ said Mallory, ‘after the first few hours with those Sikaiana women, I decided that they would have to prise me loose with a shoe-horn ever to get me to leave.’
‘I’m afraid that’s why I’m here,’ said Kella apologetically. ‘I have to get you back to Honiara and out of the Protectorate rather quickly.’
Mallory shook his head resolutely. ‘No way,’ he affirmed. ‘Mrs Mallory’s little boy knows when he’s well off.’
‘I’m afraid that if you stay here another hour, you’ll probably be dead,’ said Kella. In a few words he told the other man about the attempts of Hita to usurp Pazabosi as leader of the Kwaio people.
‘At this moment Hita’s out to make a name for himself by killing the pair of us,’ he finished.
‘Shit,’ mumbled Professor Mallory. ‘I knew it was too good to last.’
‘Stay here for the moment,’ Kella told him, standing up. ‘I’ll just go and take a look round outside before we leave.’
Elizabeth was waiting for him outside the hut. Complicitly she sidled up to the sergeant, murmuring endearments. Kella regarded the extroverted girl warily.
‘Are you really a schoolteacher?’ he asked.
‘Trained and certificated, Sergeant Kella,’ she confirmed. She grinned. ‘Mind you, that doesn’t mean I can’t do other things too.’
‘Just tell me one thing,’ begged Kella, trying to hold her off. ‘Why did you encourage me to spend the night with you the last time I came to the village? Was that Pazabosi’s idea to distract me?’
Elizabeth’s limpid eyes widened at the mere suggestion. ‘Certainly not,’ she said with hauteur. ‘Pazabosi knows nothing about you and me.’
‘Then why did you do it?’ asked the bewildered Kella.
The girl snuggled up against him. ‘Can’t you guess?’ she asked softly. ‘I fancy you, Ben Kella.’
Kella blinked, flattered and alarmed. Elizabeth threw her golden arms about his neck and tried to drag him in the direction of the trees. Before they could get started, another of the Sikaiana women hurried towards them and addressed Elizabeth urgently in her own dialect.
‘What is it?’ demanded Kella, disengaging himself with considerable reluctance.
Elizabeth looked concerned. ‘There is a war party coming through the bush towards us,’ she translated.
Kella had shepherded Mallory and the three frightened women as far as the killing ground before Hita caught up with them. The three bushmen came out of the trees across the plateau at a brisk trot. Kella pointed to the bush track.
‘Follow that path,’ he shouted to the others. ‘Keep going down towards the coast. If you’re lucky you’ll meet a police detachment coming up.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked the dishevelled Mallory. His eyes behind the thick lenses of his spectacles were worried and unfocused.
‘Never mind me! Just get the girls away from here.’
Kella whirled round to face the three bushmen. They were advancing across the bluff in a tight bunch, hoisting their spears speculatively.
Kella was not expecting anything subtle from his attackers. Hita was not a reflective man. The young warrior could have succeeded Pazabosi merely by waiting a short time for the elderly chief to die. Instead, he had insisted on challenging the old man. Any attack from the bush warrior now was likely to come from the front, in a sudden flurry of action.
One of the warriors outstripped his two companions and raced towards Kella. Drawing back his arm, the bushman hurled his spear with whiplash force. Instinctively Kella ducked. The weapon screamed through the air past his head and embedded itself quivering in the ground a few yards away.
Propelled by his own velocity the bushman continued on his run towards the police sergeant. Like his companions he was smaller and lighter than Kella. The sergeant braced himself and drove his right fist into the running man’s face. The warrior’s nose exploded in a spray of blood and his head jerked back sharply.
Kella stepped forward, bent his knees and punched the bushman in the kidneys with a scything left hook. The warrior doubled up. Kella seized him by the shoulders, straightened the man up and drove the top of his head with sickening force into the bushman’s already blood-soaked face. The warrior crumpled to the ground and lay still. Kella scrabbled for the man’s spear and held it before him as he faced Hita and the remaining bushman.
The two men had fanned out and were approaching Kella cautiously, making threatening circular motions and darts with their short spears. They knew that if they threw and missed, the burly police sergeant would then have an advantage over them. Hita snarled something to his companion. The two men ran with desperate courage at Kella.
The sergeant retreated to the edge of the cliff, the waterfall thundering just behind him. This would cut down the bushmen’s angles of attack, but it certainly limited his scope for retreat.
Out of the corner of his eye Kella saw that Mallory and the three Sikaiana women were huddled together under the trees at the edge of the plateau. Again he shouted to them to run. Then the bush warriors were upon him, jabbing fiercely with their spears.
As the bushmen closed in on him, Kella launched himself forward in a rugby tackle on Hita’s companion. Still clutching his spear in his right hand, he wrapped both arms around his adversary’s scrawny thigh, pulling the man round and to the ground, so that he lay between Kella and the hovering and disconcerted Hita.
At the same time, with his left hand Kella grabbed the bushman’s unprotected testicles. He pulled and twisted them viciously. The warrior screamed in agony. Kella released his grip on the man’s thigh. In the same movement the sergeant rolled away and dragged the point of his spear across the tendons at the back of his fallen adversary’s knee, severing several of them. The bushman yelled again and writhed helplessly on the ground.
Undeterred, Hita leapt over the fallen bushman to reach Kella. The police sergeant tried to scramble to his feet. He slipped on the w
et grass and toppled backwards on the edge of the cliff. Hita’s eyes glistened with triumph. The young warrior raised his spear to bring it down on Kella. Instinctively the sergeant shielded his face with his forearm and tried to brace himself against the fatal thrust that would surely follow.
He was suddenly aware of the pounding of running feet. Kella looked up. Behind Hita, the scrawny, middle-aged form of Professor Mallory was running clumsily but with enormous determination across the bluff towards them both, gathering momentum as he approached. The sun glistened on his spectacles.
Distracted, Hita snarled and turned to face his latest attacker, adjusting the grip on his spear to deal with the American. Kella lashed out with both feet, catching the bush warrior on the shins, causing him to stagger and lose his balance for a moment.
At the same moment Mallory’s bony shoulder thudded with full force into Hita’s body. The bushman staggered back several paces, waved his arms desperately in an effort to regain his balance, and then plunged screaming over the edge of the cliff. The cascading force of the waterfall enveloped Hita’s body and drove it mercilessly down on to the rocks far below. The falling, broken body bounced several times on different ledges and then spiralled helplessly to the river beneath.
Awkwardly Professor Mallory teetered on the edge of the cliff. Kella forced himself to his feet and dragged the American back. Then both men collapsed panting in a heap on the grass.
Mallory was the first to recover. He climbed slowly to his feet and settled his spectacles on his nose with one trembling finger. He regarded the great waterfall with myopic awe.
‘I’ve never done anything brave on purpose before,’ he said wonderingly.
Kella looked at the three voluptuous Sikaiana women who were hurrying towards them, audibly marvelling at the American’s prowess.
‘Life must have been full of new experiences for you lately,’ he observed. He wondered what had prompted the American into his unexpected display of resource and courage. Perhaps he had guessed what would have happened to him and the three women if Hita had triumphed.
Thirty or forty armed bushmen hurried agitatedly out of the trees in their direction. Kella stifled a groan. Then he caught a glimpse of Pazabosi. The paramount chief surveyed the scene. The bushman Kella had knocked unconscious was standing, tenderly feeling his swollen, broken nose. The man with the shattered tendons was being supported unsympathetically by two other bushmen. Pazabosi questioned the second man briefly before allowing him to be helped away into the trees. Then the old chief approached Kella unhurriedly.
‘I hear that Hita is dead,’ he said.
‘It’s a real shame,’ said Kella. ‘You don’t have a rival any more, but it had nothing to do with you. You’re smelling of roses, old man.’
Pazabosi pretended not to hear him. ‘I think I can stop the others from attacking you for about an hour,’ he said. ‘But you would all do well to get down to the coast and join the police patrol which I hear is coming this way, before any of Hita’s wantoks start after you.’
‘We’re on our way,’ Kella assured him. He hesitated. There was still one aspect of the case that puzzled him. Because he had rid the old chief of the renegade Hita, Pazabosi now owed him a big favour. Perhaps he could persuade the old man to tell him what he really wanted to know.
‘Before I go, there’s something I want to ask you,’ he said.
36
SERVICE MESSAGE
‘Cain killed Abel because he was jealous of his brother, and he was cast out by his people,’ said Sister Conchita. She glanced at her script. Through the glass window of the radio studio she could see the Melanesian programme assistant in the studio next door torpidly manipulating the control panel.
‘Cain was so jealous of his brother that he murdered him,’ went on the nun reading into the microphone, ‘and as a result he was banished by his people. But perhaps Abel should have been more alert. There could be nothing worse than being betrayed and attacked by a brother. However, as Christians we should also be aware of the feelings of others. We should always ask ourselves, “Did I pay enough attention to my brother? Did I really know him? Could I have stopped him before it was too late?” Thank you! God bless you and goodnight.’
The programme assistant gave her the thumbs-up sign. Sister Conchita stood and walked through to the solitary control room of the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. As she entered the room the programme assistant removed a spool of recording tape from a console and scrawled a title on it with a marking pen.
‘Will that be broadcast tomorrow night?’ asked Sister Conchita.
‘Yes, sister, at 21.55, just after the record requests programme.’
‘Good.’ She handed the technician a scrap of paper. ‘I would like this service message broadcast as well. Could you see that it goes out tonight and tomorrow night, please.’
The programme assistant looked at the message. ‘Is this right?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘It couldn’t be more right,’ the sister assured him. ‘It’s also very important. Will you send it out before my talk?’
‘Sure,’ shrugged the islander. ‘Consider it done.’
Sister Conchita thanked him. Father Ignatius had looked suspicious when she had asked his permission to write and deliver the five-minute religious broadcast that the different churches took turns to broadcast every night. He had even insisted on reading her script in advance, but, finding nothing apparently offensive in its content, had dubiously given her the go-ahead.
The nun hoped that Ben Kella would hear the programme, and that if he did the content would start him thinking. Sister Conchita had not been able to forget her confused experience in the dream-maker’s cave. She was convinced that she had been intended to pass on a warning to Kella to be aware of the actions of a brother.
She realized the risk she was taking. If the bishop were to find out that she had used a religious broadcast to pass on her experience at the hands of a pagan dream-maker, Sister Conchita knew that she would be shipped out of the Solomons and perhaps out of the Church, which was something that would break her heart.
Outside the SIBS building in the bright morning sunlight she saw Chief Superintendent Grice marching briskly past on his way to the Guadalcanal Club, presumably for one of his notorious liquid lunches. The usually reticent Kella had mentioned his periodic run-ins with his choleric superior. But Kella was far away on Malaita; it was time someone else kept the police officer on his toes.
‘Good morning, chief superintendent,’ she said innocently. ‘I just want to tell you what a great job you guys are doing.’
‘Really? Thank you,’ bumbled the gratified police officer.
‘Sure thing!’ confirmed the young nun. ‘It’s hard to select any one particular guy, but I’ve got to tell you, that Sergeant Kella, he’s something else again. Everyone says so!’
‘Do you think so?’ asked Grice, disconcerted.
‘Oh, yes, sir, no doubt about it. He’s the pick of a fantastic bunch. One of Honiara’s finest! Good afternoon, Chief Superintendent Grice.’
Sister Conchita sailed graciously past the bemused officer. If nothing else, she thought hopefully, she must have befuddled Kella’s principal antagonist in the capital even more than usual, and softened him up for Kella’s eventual return to Guadalcanal.
37
ONE SIMPLE AMBUSH
‘There’s a message for you,’ Inspector Lorrimer informed Kella.
Kella finished storying with the three Roviana policemen around their cooking fire and reluctantly got to his feet. It was mid-evening on the Ruvabi mission compound. The police patrol had arrived there from the mountains that morning. A truck had been waiting at the Sulufou road-head to take Professor Mallory, nine of the constables and the three Sikaiana women straight to Auki.
Lorrimer and Mallory were booked on a chartered flight to Honiara, the capital. The constables would follow by ship. Kella had arranged for Elizabeth and the two other women to wait at the Catholi
c mission in Auki until the next trading boat left for Sikaiana to take them home.
The truck was due back sometime in the next hour. Kella, Lorrimer and the three policemen had stayed on to clear things up. Reaction after the events on the killing ground had set in. Mallory had hardly stopped trembling, even when wrapped in blankets after encountering a relieved Lorrimer and his patrol on the bush track. Elizabeth had departed from Kella with a great deal of pouting reluctance, and even a show of tears.
‘What sort of a message?’ he asked Lorrimer.
‘You’re not going to believe this.’
‘Try me,’ said Kella patiently.
‘There was a service message on the SIBS tonight. It was for you from Sister Conchita. She wants you to listen to her religious broadcast tonight.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘There’s no doubt about it, old boy. It’s due on now. I brought this across for you.’
Carefully he placed his portable radio on the ground between them and tuned it in. Slim Dusty was singing ‘A Pub With No Beer’. The final nasal strains died away and the announcer introduced Sister Conchita’s talk. Lorrimer and Kella listened in silence. When the broadcast had finished Lorrimer switched the set off.
‘Wow!’ he said. ‘What was that all about?’
‘Obviously she was trying to tell me something,’ said Kella.
‘But what? It was just a story about two brothers.’
‘Two brothers who fell out,’ Kella reminded him. ‘The sister was warning me to beware of a brother.’
‘Which one? You’ve got four or five, mate.’
‘Somehow I don’t think she meant any of them. Perhaps she didn’t know herself. She just had some sort of premonition she was trying to pass on to me.’