by John Harris
“Why?”
“I thought the Salomios might qualify more.”
Voss’ face wore a gentle expression. “Flynn, you soft-hearted old cluck. That makes two of us now.”
The day they set off for the waterfront the whole of Papeete seemed to be on the move with them, Tahitians laughing and joking as though it were a holiday, solemn-looking Chinese shuffling among the crowds, young Frenchmen on motor scooters, a negro on a bicycle, Polynesians, Tongans, Indians, Tonkinese, Europeans in taxis, American tourists by the dozen loaded with cameras.
“Looks like a gala welcome,” Voss commented as they hurried through the crowd.
“The word’s certainly got around,” Flynn agreed.
The waterfront, where the heavy smell of copra and vanilla hung in the air, was crowded and children were clinging to the rigging of moored schooners. Canoes and launches and dinghies crowded the bright water where the tropic fish darted in fright among the stones. Some of the vessels were even dressed with flags and one or two launches were making their way out filled with sightseers. People were leaving the business houses across the road and the sheds where the copra was stacked in pyramids, and the stores and the tourist hotels and the government offices were empty, while the Chinese traders closed their market stalls and stopped their bargaining over hogs with the schooner captains from Raiatea.
Girls decked with flowers and young men in military uniforms rubbed shoulders with the weighty Tuamotan women who had come in on the inter-island schooners.
A native boy was offering leis for sale, accompanied by a barking chorus of dogs.
Voss and Flynn found the little group of police, naval men and harbour authorities and joined them. The other newspapermen were there too and eyed Voss with envy. Below them, a launch waited to take them out to the Salomios as soon as they dropped anchor.
“Thank God old Seagull’s not around,” Voss said. “I don’t think I could have stood his remarks just now.”
They had been waiting some time when they heard a distinct rustle among the crowd that indicated that some watcher outside the harbour had signalled the arrival of the Boy George, and immediately several launches put to sea to welcome her in.
It was some time before anything further happened beyond a considerable amount of pushing and shoving among the crowd that toppled a small apricot-coloured boy into the water, and numerous minor agitations among the island boats as various small ships appeared round the head. Every time anything appeared, a murmur went up, only to die again as the crowd realized it did not contain the fabulous Salomios. Ice cream and fruit drink sellers were moving about, doing a great business, and it was obvious the welcome was developing into a public holiday.
“I don’t know that I’m enjoying this,” Voss muttered to Flynn after a while as he watched the excited and jovial French authorities and port officials. “I keep thinking of Mama Salomio.” He was unusually quiet. “I’ll bet she doesn’t feel very much like cheering. Still–” he shrugged “–the crowd thinks they’re pretty hot stuff to outsmart the police and catch a murderer into the bargain, so who the hell am I to tell ’em?”
“They’ll be all right,” Flynn pointed out, “if they play their cards right.”
Voss frowned. “I doubt if they knew they were playing cards,” he said.
As he stopped speaking, another murmur ran through the crowd and this time it did not die away but swelled to a tumultuous roar, rippling across the moving heads towards them.
“This must be them,” Flynn said.
A pilot launch, fussy and important, glided into view round Venus Point where Cook first set foot in Tahiti. It was followed by a police launch and the Teura To’oa with Captain Seagull posturing on the stern, indifferent in his desire for glory to the plight of the passengers on Nukuhiva who were still waiting for his ship.
“He’s put some fresh silver paint on his cap,” Voss said, “and damned if he isn’t wearing a suit.”
“Hold it!” Flynn caught his arm. “Here come the Salomios.”
Surrounded by a bevy of small craft all flying flags and followed by the larger naval launch, the Boy George hove into sight, tiny beneath the towering peaks behind Papeete.
She headed slowly towards the harbour, matronly, shabby and elderly, like some old lady arrested for shoplifting who was maintaining a dignified defiance to the end. A piece of red material, little more than a rag, fluttered half-way down her halyards.
“They’ve got a flag at half-mast,” Voss said uneasily. “I told you I wasn’t going to like this.”
As the Boy George entered the harbour, the crowd started to cheer, a spontaneous warm-hearted gesture that indicated their admiration. The crew of a cutter from the Tuamotus, discharging mother-of-pearl and copra, started the yell and the passengers crowding one of the inter-island schooners took up the cry, hanging over the rails with their possessions, the bananas they had brought to eat, the chickens and the eggs and the children and the baskets of fruit and coconuts. Boats’ hooters and the siren of a tourist ship started to add to the clamour, then the foghorn of the phosphate ship from Ocean Island spat steam and a second later its deep-throated boom vibrated across the water.
On the bow of the Boy George, one of the Tahitian sailors, wearing the pom-pom of the French navy, was standing by the anchor. Another one lounged by the sail awaiting instructions. Rosa was with Joe at the wheel and Frankie sat alone on the stern, her mind questing all the time after the happiness she had had with Willie. But she could remember so little of love, for there had been so little to remember before she had come abruptly to the point where a curtain had slammed down in front of her, leaving her only a moment of heart-breaking exhilaration as a memory. Unable to cry any more, her eyes stared dark-ringed out of a pale face that was desolate and rebellious, the bitterness in it changing abruptly to bewilderment as she thought of Willie. Everywhere she looked she saw him. He was waiting with the sailor by the mast and standing by the wheel with Joe. He was below in the engine room tinkering with the tired old engine that had let them down at the last desperate moment. He was in every nook and cranny of the ship, and she tried desperately to believe he was flesh and blood and not just her own imaginings.
“I never thought we’d get a welcome like this,” Rosa said, trying to keep her from too much thinking. “With all these people waiting – and flags and everything.”
Frankie didn’t turn her head. “It doesn’t make much difference now, Mama,” she said slowly. “It doesn’t make any difference one way or the other. Everything’s over.” She paused, making an effort to speak normally. “We’ll be seeing Lucia and Tommy soon.”
Rosa nodded, anxious to keep her talking. “I guess Tina’ll be there too with all the boys. It sounds as though there’s going to be a party or something when we get back, with reporters and flashlight pictures and all that.”
As the shouting increased from the shore, she turned her head towards the splash of colour along the waterfront, pathetically trying to show some enthusiasm to stir Frankie from her silence.
“They’re cheering,” she said. “They must be pleased about something.”
“They caught us, didn’t they?” Frankie said. “They ought to be pleased.”
“It’s not that,” Rosa went on, forcing joy into her voice. “You can hear them shouting our name. Think it’s us they’re cheering, Joe?”
“Maybe,” Joe said. He was feeling better now that his sense of guilt was wearing a little thin, for the praise that had been showered on him had made him feel as clever as he had always thought he was. His pockets were full of French cigarettes and he was mellow with the wine that had been thrust aboard the Boy George. Swallowing it, one eye on Rosa, he had felt a twinge of conscience as he remembered what had happened on the last occasion he had lifted a bottle to his lips, but even that memory was slowly fading now.
Rosa moved towards her daughter and stood behind her, her hands on her shoulders. For a while, Frankie stared ahead, unheedin
g, then she turned and looked up at Rosa.
“Mama, it’s nice to know we haven’t to go on running all the time any more,” she said.
“Yeah. Sure.” Rosa found that she too could feel only relief in her heart that they hadn’t to face any more problems of food, of weather, of their failing old boat. The realization that she would not have to fight any longer came on her abruptly, and she sat down alongside Frankie, suddenly aware how tired she was, how sick of struggling.
The din was terrific by this time, then, perhaps because of some signal from one of the French sailors or because someone caught the significance of the scrap of bunting half-way down the mast, the hooters began to stop, first one, then another, until finally the siren of the phosphate ship went on booming alone for some time after the others in solitary groans.
The mood spread to the passengers in the boats and the cheering died and the tricolour flags stopped waving and eventually even the noise of the crowd on shore died away to silence. The chattering of the French officials alongside Voss and Flynn stopped and the Boy George glided into Papeete’s lagoon in silence.
There wasn’t a sound as she swung round behind the pilot boat and the shout of the pilot could be heard distinctly across the water. Then the sail slatted down and they heard the splash of the anchor and the rattle of the chain running out. The crowd watched without speaking and over the silence, the bark of a dog echoed down one of the streets and the sudden honk of a horn turned a few heads.
“That’s better,” Voss murmured.
The Boy George swung slowly round her anchor and one of the Tahitian sailors tossed a line ashore. Half-a-dozen people, eager to be concerned with the triumph, grabbed at it and fought for a moment for the privilege of turning it round a bollard, and the old boat became stationary, stern-on to the quay.
The crowd began to surge closer but there was still no noise, no cheering. Even the high-spirited Tahitians seemed to be subdued and Captain Seagull, on the stern of the Teura To’oa, wore a puzzled look as he was ignored.
Rosa waited calmly for the arrival of the authorities, who obviously didn’t intend to hurry them ashore just yet in the hope that the crowd would disperse a little. Boats still clustered round the Boy George, their passengers gaping but silent, staring up at Rosa who stood slightly apart, dignified and matriarchal, holding her shabby cardigan together over her faded frock.
Then a launch bumped alongside and the deck was suddenly swarming with officials, tight-waisted Frenchmen in uniform, who chattered noisily and waved their arms; and two other men who had the familiar look of Australians – one big and bulky and neat who looked like a policeman, the other, a lean man with shaggy hair and a rumpled suit, clutching a bundle of newspapers across the top of which she could see her own name in square black letters.
“Mrs Salomio?”
As they spoke to her, she turned to the cabin hatch and indicated it with a sweep of her hand.
“Maybe you’d better come and sit down,” she said. “It’s quieter below and we can have a cup of tea while we talk.”
Her head was up as she followed them. There was plenty to tell them – and nothing she need be ashamed of. She was thinking of Willie and though the pain in her was dying a little now, she knew she would never forget him or the things they had achieved together – she and Willie and Frankie and Joe.
Flynn and Voss were sitting down when she got below, eyeing with curiosity the shabby little cabin where the tremendous adventure had been planned and lived. Frankie stood by the stove, her eyes down, pretending to be engrossed in making it work, and Joe waited in a corner, nervously smoking a cigarette they had given him.
As Rosa appeared they stood up. Neither of them spoke as she pulled a box forward, then as she settled herself and looked up, brushing the hair out of her eyes, they leaned forward eagerly and Flynn spoke for them both.
“Right, Mrs Salomio,” he said. “How about telling us all about it?”
Synopses of John Harris Titles
Published by House of Stratus
Army of Shadows
It is the winter of 1944. France is under the iron fist of the Nazis. But liberation is just around the corner and a crew from a Lancaster bomber is part of the fight for Freedom. As they fly towards their European target, a Messerschmitt blazes through the sky in a fiery attack and of the nine-man crew aboard the bomber, only two men survive to parachute into Occupied France. They join an ever-growing army of shadows (the men and women of the French Resistance), to play a lethal game of cat and mouse.
China Seas
In this action-packed adventure, Willie Sarth becomes a survivor. Forced to fight pirates on the East China Seas, wrestle for his life on the South China Seas and cross the Sea of Japan ravaged by typhus, Sarth is determined to come out alive. Dealing with human tragedy, war and revolution, Harris presents a novel which packs an awesome punch.
The Claws of Mercy
In Sierra Leone, a remote bush community crackles with racial tensions. Few white people live amongst the natives of Freetown and Authority seems distant. Everyday life in Freetown revolves around an opencast iron mine, and the man in charge dictates peace and prosperity for everyone. But, for the white population, his leadership is a matter of life or death where every decision is like being snatched by the claws of mercy.
Corporal Cotton’s Little War
Storming through Europe, the Nazis are sure to conquer Greece but for one man, Michael Anthony Cotton, a heroic marine who smuggles weapons of war and money to the Greek Resistance. Born Mihale Andoni Cotonou, Cotton gets mixed up in a lethal mission involving guns and high-speed chases. John Harris produces an unforgettable champion, persuasive and striking with a touch of mastery in this action-packed thriller set against the dazzle of the Aegean.
The Cross of Lazzaro
The Cross of Lazzaro is a gripping story filled with mystery and fraught with personal battles. This tense, unusual novel begins with the seemingly divine reappearance of a wooden cross once belonging to a sixth-century bishop. The vision emerges from the depths of an Italian lake, and a menacing local antagonism is subsequently stirred. But what can the cross mean?
Flawed Banner
John Harris’ spine-tingling adventure inhabits the shadowy world of cunning and espionage. As the Nazi hordes of Germany overrun France, devouring the free world with fascist fervour, a young intelligence officer, James Woodyatt, is shipped across the Channel to find a First World War hero…an old man who may have been a spy…who may be in possession of Nazi secrets.
The Fox From His Lair
A brilliant German agent lies in wait for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. While the Allies prepare a vast armed camp, no one is aware of the enemy within, and when a sudden, deadly E-boat attacks, the Fox strikes, stealing secret invasion plans in the ensuing panic. What follows is a deadly pursuit as the Fox tries to get the plans to Germany in time, hotly pursued by two officers with orders to stop him at all costs.
A Funny Place to Hold a War
Ginger Donnelly is on the trail of Nazi saboteurs in Sierra Leone. Whilst taking a midnight paddle with a willing woman in a canoe cajoled from a local fisherman, Donnelly sees an enormous seaplane thunder across the sky only to crash in a ball of brilliant flame. It seems like an accident…at least until a second plane explodes in a blistering shower along the same flight path.
Getaway
An Italian fisherman and his wife, Rosa, live in Sydney. Hard times are ahead. Their mortgaged boat may be lost and with it, their livelihood. But Rosa has a plan to reach the coast of America from the islands of the Pacific, sailing on a beleaguered little houseboat. The plan seems almost perfect, especially when Willie appears and has his own reasons for taking a long holiday to the land of opportunity.
Harkaway’s Sixth Column
An explosive action-packed war drama: four British soldiers are cut off behind enemy lines in British Somaliland and when they decide to utilise a secret arms dump in the Bu
r Yi hills and fight a rearguard action, an unlikely alliance is sought between two local warring tribes. What follows is an amazing mission led by the brilliant, elusive Harkaway, whose heart is stolen by a missionary when she becomes mixed up in the unorthodox band of warriors.
A Kind of Courage
At the heart of this story of courage and might, is Major Billy Pentecost, commander of a remote desert outpost near Hahdhdhah, deep among the bleak hills of Khalit. His orders are to prepare to move out along with a handful of British soldiers. Impatient tribesmen gather outside the fort, eager to reclaim the land of their blood and commanded by Abd el Aziz el Beidawi, a feared Arab warrior lord. A friendship forms between the two very different commanders but when Pentecost’s orders are reversed, a nightmarish tragedy ensues.
Live Free or Die
Charles Walter Scully, cut off from his unit and running on empty, is trapped. It’s 1944 and though the Allied invasion of France has finally begun, for Scully the war isn’t going well. That is, until he meets a French boy trying to get home to Paris. What begins is a hair-raising journey into the heart of France, an involvement with the French Liberation Front and one of the most monumental events of the war. Harris vividly portrays wartime France in a panorama of scenes that enthral the reader.
The Lonely Voyage
The Lonely Voyage is John Harris’ first novel - a graphic, moving tale of the sea. It charts the story of one boy, Jess Ferigo, who winds up on a charge of poaching along with Pat Fee and Old Boxer, the men who sail with him on his journey into manhood. As Jess leaves his boyhood behind, bitter years are followed by the Second World War, where Old Boxer and Jess make a poignant rescue on the sand dunes of Dunkirk. Finally, Jess Ferigo’s lonely voyage is over.
The Mercenaries
Ira Penaluna, First World War pilot, sees his airline go bankrupt in Africa and grabs at the chance to instruct pilots in China. But Ira hasn’t reckoned on the beat-up, burnt-out wrecks he is expected to teach his students in, or on the fact that his pupils speak no English. Though aided and abetted by an enthusiastic assistant, an irresponsible Fagan and his brooding American girlfriend Ellie, Ira finds himself playing a deadly game, becoming embroiled in China’s civil war. The four are forced to flee but the only way out is in a struggling pile of junk flown precariously towards safety. Will they make it?