Solomons Seal (20 page)

‘Oh, for God's sake!' I said. ‘Leave it till we're off the coast of Bougainville. Tonight we've more immediate problems.'

She put her hand on my arm, gripping it urgently. ‘Please. This is our best chance. Jona comes off watch at midnight. You'll be alone then.'

‘He won't leave the bridge, not until we're past the Louisiades.'

‘And that will be when?'

I pointed to the eastern tip of the archipelago. ‘Rossel Island is nearly three thousand feet high. We should pick that up on radar within the next four
hours.' I glanced at the bulkhead clock. ‘That means we'll clear Cape Deliverance around o-two-hundred.'

‘And once we're past the Cape it's open sea again.' She looked up from the chart. ‘Then he'll go to his bunk till he relieves you again at four.'

‘Probably.'

‘That means you'll have two hours alone here.' She straightened up. ‘All right then. I'll check with you at o-two-hundred, and if there's nobody about … ' She turned to go, but then she said, her voice a little cold and distant, ‘No need for you to be involved. I should be able to manage it on my own.'

Cape Deliverance was broad on the beam when I came into the wheelhouse at midnight, the radar trace showing our distance off 9 miles. Holland had already altered course to 350°. The tension had eased out of him, and he stayed chatting to me until we were clear of the Cape and into the open waters of the Solomon Sea. Then he went below, leaving me with nothing to do except admire the brightness of the stars. The port bridge wing door was open, a warm breeze ruffling the pages of the
Admiralty Pilot.

I had just entered up the log for 02.00 when Perenna appeared, dressed in jeans and a dark top. ‘I've had a look round. Everybody's asleep.' Her voice was low, a little strained.

‘Have you got a torch?'

‘Yes, and tools. They're in my cabin.'

I hesitated, but only for a moment. The wire fastenings might be difficult for her, and now that I was rested the urge to know what was in those crates had
returned. ‘Tell the helmsman I'm going to check the vehicles. I'll be gone about ten minutes, quarter of an hour.' He was a Buka Islander, and she relayed the message in Pidgin; then I followed her to her cabin, picked up the tools, and we climbed down into the tank deck. It was very quiet down there, the sound of the sea rushing past the ship's sides muted. Somewhere a chain was rattling, and the black bulks of the Haulpaks, outlined against the stars, seemed to sway with the movement of the ship. There was nobody anywhere for'ard of the bridge housing to challenge us. I chose the starb'd truck, knowing the canvas back was easy to unfasten. Once inside I shone the torch on the first of the crates and set to work with hammer and chisel.

It took longer than I had expected. The top of the crate was very securely fastened, long 4-inch nails, and the steel walls of the tank deck echoed to the sound of my hammering, the reverberations magnified in the still night. I felt nervous, remembering the way Teopas had hauled me out of the back of the truck two days before, so that I found myself glancing up every now and then, half expecting that deep voice to challenge me out of the darkness. Before I could prise open the wooden top, the two securing wires had to be severed. There were no wire cutters in the toolbag she had borrowed from the engine-room. I had to use a hacksaw, and it took time. ‘Hurry,' she whispered as the first wire parted with a twang. ‘The helmsman comes from the same village as Teopas.'

Her face was very close to mine, sweat shining on
her freckles in the torchlight as she levered at the top of the case, using the long cold chisel. ‘Is that important?' I asked.

She pushed her hair away from her eyes. ‘They're in a funny mood. You must have noticed it.' And she added in a fierce undertone, ‘I don't trust the Buka people when they're like that.'

With her hair pushed back I could see the scar in the beam of the torch. ‘Is Teopas responsible for their mood?'

‘He's their leader, yes.' She straightened up for a moment, easing her back. ‘There's something brewing. I don't know what. Something …'

The second wire parted. I took the hammer and chisel from her, and in a moment the nails were pulling out, the whole top of the case lifting. I put all my weight on the chisel, and my end came loose, enabling me to get my hands under it and force it back, the nails at the other end tearing out of the wood. Whatever it was in the case it wasn't bottles, and it wasn't anything in cartons. The thick brown covering paper yielded to the touch. She tore at it with her hands, ripping it clear. ‘Oh, my God!' She stood frozen, shocked into immobility, staring at the contents. ‘Guns!'

They were neatly chocked into wooden supports, half a dozen machine pistols in the top layer, the plastic grips gleaming, the dull steel coated with grease.

She looked up at me. ‘Do you think he knew? He must have known.'

‘He probably guessed.'

‘All these cases. And another truckful of them.' She
was peering into the back. ‘And there'll be ammunition, too.' She turned to me. ‘Who's getting them? Where are they being sent?'

‘No idea.' I started folding the lid back. ‘If you're in the armaments business, I don't imagine you ask yourself questions like that.'

‘He'll have to ditch them.' Her voice was trembling. ‘I won't be a party to it. Automatic weapons like that. They'll land up in the hands of terrorists – innocent people getting killed. God! What a fool! No wonder he didn't want me here. What a bloody stupid mindless fool to get mixed up in a thing like this!' And before I could stop her, she had jumped to the deck and disappeared among the black shapes of the Haulpaks.

The small hours of a night watch are not the moment I would choose to face up to a decision involving moral principles. There was nothing to occupy my mind, the course set, no navigation required … time passing as I paced back and forth, wondering what the hell to do and conscious all the time that there were guns on board and a sullen crew – an explosive mixture.

Every now and then I glanced at the clock, the minutes dragging, wondering whether she would persuade her brother to get rid of them, expecting him to burst in on me at any moment. Suddenly the deck lights came on, and there were men down there at the for'ard end of the tank deck, dark figures in the shadows gathered round the back of that starb'd truck. The coxs'n's head appeared, coming up the ladder from below and storming into the wheelhouse. ‘Yu. Yu opim em kes?' He was naked to the waist, the muscles rippling under the velvet skin of his bare arms
as he stood glaring at me. ‘Why yu do it? Cargo bilong Buka pipal. I tell yu before, bilong Buka Co'prative. Where I find Kepten Holland, in his cabin?'

I nodded, too surprised at the man's anger, his proprietorial sense of outrage, to say anything.

‘Okay, I tokim. An' yu' – he was still glaring at me – ‘yu stay out of cargo deck. Nobody go on cargo deck – nobody, yu savvy, only Buka men.' And he went through into the alleyway. I heard the door of Holland's cabin thrown open, the sound of voices, then silence, only the murmur of the engines, the rattle of the cups on the ledge below the porthole.

A few minutes later Holland came in. ‘I'd like a word with you. Not here, in my cabin.' He was wearing sandals and cotton trousers, nothing else, his face pale and that muscle twitching along the line of his jaw. I followed him into his cabin, the ceiling light blinding. There was a bottle and glasses on the desk, and Perenna was there, sitting withdrawn and very still, the tension in her filling the cabin. ‘I thought I'd better tell you. There's nothing I can do about it.' He had seated himself on his bunk, his body slumped. ‘By morning it'll be all over the ship. Everybody will know we're carrying guns.' He reached for his glass as though to a lifeline. ‘Perenna wants me to ditch them. But I can't. I can't do that.' And he added, ‘She thought I should tell you.'

I looked at her, expecting her to say something, but she remained silent, drawing on a cigarette in quick, short puffs. I hadn't seen her smoking before. ‘What's their destination?' I asked.

‘Queen Carola Harbour in the north-west of Buka. The Co-operative takes them on from there.'

‘Yes, but who gets them in the end?'

‘How the hell do I know?'

I glanced at Perenna again, but still she didn't say anything, her eyes avoiding mine, as she drew nervously on her cigarette, inhaling deeply. ‘So you don't care where they're going.' I had turned back to her brother. ‘Or even what they'll be used for?'

He shook his head as though to push that thought aside. ‘There were fuel bills,' he muttered. ‘I told you. And the yard – the engine overhaul cost more than I thought.' And then, still trying to justify himself: ‘Hans has always co-operated with the indigenes.' He was looking across at his sister again. ‘He's very close to them, so close that sometimes—' He shrugged. ‘Well, you know his background. He's almost one of them.'

‘He came to see Tim.' Her voice sounded strained, a little wild. ‘I wrote you about it. At the end of May.'

‘Of course he came to see you. He was in England, and the accident happened on a coaster he'd chartered, so naturally—'

‘Don't you ever read my letters? Tim was getting better, slowly. He was winning. And then suddenly there was no will left. He just seemed to give up. Hans was with him for the better part of an hour, and it was after that—'

‘For God's sake, Perenna! You're letting your imagination run away with you.'

‘Am I? Don't you see what Hans is? A child of four hidden in thick forest under Mount Bei until the
war was over, then brought up in Lemankoa by that man Sapuru. Red hair and a white skin, but underneath he's Buka through and through. Grandpa saw that, why the hell can't you?'

‘The Old Man was prejudiced. He thought Hans hated him. God knows he'd every reason—'

‘Why?' She was leaning forward, her eyes fixed on him. ‘Why should Hans hate him?'

‘His father was killed during the war.'

‘Lots of people got killed in the war.'

‘He was killed in a raid on Carola Harbour. His schooners were based there, and it was the Old Man who led the raiding party.'

She stared at him a moment, then nodded. ‘I see.' She said it huskily, her voice barely audible. ‘So that's why he wouldn't talk about it.' And she added in a whisper, ‘Now I begin to understand.'

‘I hope you do. Red Holland was a collaborator, but from his son's point of view – well, if it were my father who'd been killed …' He left it at that, leaning forward and continuing quickly, ‘So don't go on about Hans. And stop imagining things. He's been very helpful.'

‘What about the guns?' I asked.

He glanced at me, suddenly reminded of my presence. ‘I told you. That cargo belongs to the Buka Trading Co-operative.' And then he had turned back to his sister, taking up where he had left off: ‘Hans helped found the Co-operative. He's provided most of the finance and given it proper commercial direction. I admire him for that. Some return for their having
saved his life during the war and looked after him until he was old enough to go to school in Australia.'

‘And you admire him?'

‘Yes. Yes, in some ways I do.' And then, soothingly: ‘It's just a trading organisation, Perenna. Nothing else. And it makes sense for us to have a close association with it. No white company can survive in the islands without being involved locally. Not any longer. It's a matter of politics.' He turned to me. ‘It's happening all over the world. So why not in the Solomons? Don't you agree?'

‘Trade is one thing,' I said, ‘but guns—'

‘Governments deal in guns, don't they? Your government, every government – they're up to their necks in the arms trade. Just because I have to get them secretly, off an open beach, what's the difference?'

‘Cargo,' Perenna said. ‘That's the difference. It's Cargoism.'

He turned on her angrily. ‘Now don't start on that again. What happened when you were last at Madehas was quite different. I know how you feel, but this is strictly a business proposition. It's got nothing to do with the Cargo cult.'

‘The Hahalis Welfare Society called it “bisnis”,' she said wearily. And then, leaning towards him: ‘I've never been able to ask you this to your face, but when Tim was sent to Buka, was it to deal with a new outbreak of Cargoism?' He didn't say anything, the silence seeming to last a long time. ‘Well, was it? I asked you in letters, but you never replied …' She was staring at him, and he sat there, eyes fixed dumbly on
his glass. ‘I see. First Mother and me, then Tim. But now it's “bisnis”, nothing else – and two trucks full of guns.' She stubbed out her cigarette, getting slowly to her feet.

I thought she had finally made up her mind and was going to tell him that if he didn't dump them overboard, she'd notify the authorities. He seemed to think the same, for he started to tell her again that trading in arms wasn't very different from trading in any other commodity. And then his voice trailed away as he saw her standing there with a look of contempt on her face. Then suddenly, without a word, she turned and left the cabin.

He didn't say anything for a while, sitting motionless, his head in his hands. At length he finished his drink and looked up at me, an effort at a wry smile as he said, ‘That's why I didn't want her out here. She's very emotional and last time she was at Madehas … you know about that, do you?' I nodded, and he went on, ‘She's right. It was Cargoism then. And when Tim was injured, that was Cargoism, too. But this is different. The Buka Trading Co-operative is just like any other co-operative anywhere in the world, entirely commercial. Those guns are being shipped to make a profit, and they'll be passed on to some dealer, a friend probably of one of the traders at Chinaman's Quay in the Buka Passage. They'll finish up somewhere in South East Asia, I imagine. It's just a business deal.'