The White Ghost (10 page)

The smell hit us before we saw it.

Flies swarmed and buzzed as we approached a cairn of rocks. I swatted at the darting insects as I tried to make out what was protruding from the rock pile, breathing in quick, shallow gasps.

It was a head. Daniel's head.

His eyes and lips were gone, all the soft flesh eaten or rotted away in the fetid jungle heat. The outline of his skull was clearly visible, hidden only by patches of dried skin. Kaz and I had seen death before, but this was something new. The autopsies I'd attended in Boston were nothing compared to what came next.

Vouza grabbed the head and twisted. A cracking sound marked the severing of the neck from the spinal column. Kaz turned away. I wanted to, but the scene was so unreal I couldn't take my eyes off it.

“This is ravuravauni,” Vouza said, standing over the cairn which presumably enclosed Daniel's body. He waved his package of leaves at the flies zooming around the head.

“The grave?” I asked.

“No, no grave. Only hed is important. Only hed matters,” he said, tapping his own skull. He unrolled the leaves and flowers and began to stuff them into the mouth, eye sockets, and nasal passages. “Good puchupuchu,” he added, rubbing the remaining leaves into his hands. “Now Daniel ready.”

“For what?” Kaz asked, steadying himself on Jack's cane as he stepped closer.

“Clean,” Vouza said. “We go down to the beach. Then you lukim Daniel's hed. He sit in the sun for few days, then go rest with ancestors.” He carefully wrapped the head in the giant taro leaves and tied it off with vine. Holding it under one arm, he took his rifle in the other and started off. We trotted along after him, glad the puchupuchu had done its job.

“There,” Vouza said as we neared the village. Farther up the hill were a group of small wooden structures. They were steep-roofed and decorated with necklaces and other garlands. Inside, protected from the elements, were stacks of skulls. “Ancestors.”

“Fascinating,” Kaz said as we hurried to keep pace with Vouza. “This reminds me of Hallstatt, an Alpine village in Austria.”

“Austria is probably the last place this island reminds me of,” I said.

“They share a similarity,” Kaz said. “Lack of proper ground for burials. Hallstatt is perched between a steep mountain and a deep lake. People can be buried in the church graveyard for only a year. Then they are disinterred and their bones deposited in the church crypt. The skulls are prominently displayed. I happened upon a disinterment procession when I was touring the country. Quite festive, actually.”

“You're right,” I said. “We haven't seen much cleared land. Those giant roots and vines would make hard going for a gravedigger.”

“Yes,” Kaz said, warming to his theory. “And the climate is perfect for rapid decomposition. The combination of salt water and sand makes for a viable cleaning agent. We should be able to make out Daniel's wound quite clearly.”

The path to the beach took us down the other side of the mountain, to the eastern shore of the narrow island. Waves broke over a coral reef, sending sprays of saltwater into the air. Before us stood open ocean, the great South Pacific. The view was marred by nothing more than a few white, fluffy clouds and the horizon looked a million miles away. The wind off the water was refreshingly cool after the trek from the village, and Kaz and I plunked ourselves down as Vouza unwrapped the head of Daniel Tamana.

The odor of death wafted up on the breeze as he peeled away
the taro leaves. He wordlessly removed the puchupuchu and carried the
head into the water, giving it a thorough soaking. Then he rubbed the fine white sand all over it, seemingly oblivious to the decayed skin and flesh sloughing off. More water, more sand, more rubbing, followed by careful, delicate scraping with his knife. I wondered what had happened to the brain matter, but we remained silent, aware that this was
a funeral ritual as sacred as any church service.

“Daniel is ready,” Vouza said, setting the skull on a taro leaf and placing it before us. The surface of the bone was clean, the smell of decay nearly gone. Vouza turned and walked into the water, bathing himself, rubbing gobs of wet sand over his hands.

“Here,” Kaz said in a whisper that seemed appropriate to the moment. He placed a finger in a depression on the rear of Daniel's skull, behind the ear. “His parietal bone was evidently struck.”

I took Jack's cane and held the round knob at the top against the indentation. It was a perfect fit. A killing blow.

“Cane blong Jack?” Vouza said, standing over us with his rifle in hand.

“Cane blong Jack,” Kaz said. “But it might not be the cane that killed Daniel, or someone other than Jack could have used it. It might have been given to Jack to frame him for the murder.”

“Maybe,” Vouza said. “Maybe not.” He lifted Daniel's skull from the ground and placed it in the cleft of a rock overlooking the beach. “Morning sun work on Daniel. Three, four days, he be ready to join ancestors. Nice and clean, white like teeth. Come, we leave him alone now.”

What took a
half hour going down took three times as long going up. Finally we came to the village, where Jacob Vouza received another warm welcome. He seemed much loved by his people, or perhaps it was because of the ceremony he'd conducted. Or both. Deanna was finishing up with her last patient, a child with a laceration on his leg. Deanna sprinkled sulfa powder on the wound, singing to the child as she wrapped a bandage around the thin limb.

Porter and one of the natives were engaged in a rapid-fire Pijin conversation. He was pretty good at it. The native indicated the general direction of our boat, and I was able to make out “Japan fella” but nothing else.

“A Jap pilot was shot down over the Slot,” Porter told us. “He parachuted and landed close to shore near our boat.”

“What about the Jap patrol?” Vouza asked.

“They've been spotted on the coast road from Malu'u,” Porter answered. “They must have seen it, too.”

“Good,” Vouza said. “We get pilot and kill many fella Jap, too.”

“We should get a move on,” Porter said. “It'll be dark in a few hours.”

Vouza nodded, accepting a drink of water from a gourd given him by the old woman we'd seen earlier. Four of the native men trotted off across the bridge and melted into the bush.

“Are you sure we can handle that?” I asked. “We're not exactly a combat patrol.”

“Most assuredly,” Kari said with a grin, the excitement causing his voice to rise. “There is a ten-thousand-dollar bounty for every live pilot we bring in.”

“Even split three ways, it's damn good money,” Porter said. “Sorry, mate, only goes for Coastwatchers.”

“Don't let me stand in the way of cash money,” I said, with more bravado than conviction.

Vouza said his goodbyes to the villagers and made for the bridge. We followed to the cries and laughter of children saying goodbye to Deanna, trailing us as we crossed the ravine.

“You're popular everywhere you go,” I said.

“Who doesn't like Amelia Earhart?” she answered.

Our exchange drew a muted hush from Vouza. Deanna unslung her carbine, and suddenly the jungle seemed even more threatening than ever.

We stayed on the path this time, wending our way down switchbacks until mountain steepness gave way to rolling hills. I saw one of the natives come out from the bush ahead and talk with Vouza before vanishing again. We had an escort. Which meant there was something close we needed protection from.

I unsnapped my holster.

Twenty minutes later we came to the river, probably the same one we'd crossed farther upstream when we went cross-country. Vouza motioned for us to wait, and we moved into the underbrush along the riverbank. I drew my automatic, feeling the sweat in the palm of my hands. I looked at Vouza, who put a finger to his lips. He didn't need to tell me twice.

I caught a glimpse of movement across the river. I raised my pistol. Vouza shook his head no, lowering the barrel with his hand. I finally made out the figure more clearly. One of the men from the village, followed by the three others. The villager silently pointed downstream, to where a series of large, flat stones made for an easy crossing. Vouza nodded, and led us to the spot. But we didn't cross.

The natives moved along the riverbank, jumping from stone to stone, not making a sound. Before coming opposite to our position, they climbed the riverbank in swift, fluid movements, their brown skin streaked with shadows as they filtered into the dark green jungle, gone before I could blink the sweat from my eyes. Then I understood.

The Japanese were coming. And we were going to ambush them as they crossed.

The only sounds came from the flowing water and the thumping of my heart. I tried to catch Vouza's eye to get some sense of what was going on. How many Japs were there? Did he know? Did he care? He stayed focused on the riverbank, which at this point was the smart move, so I did the same after checking to be sure Kaz was in a good position. He and Deanna were behind a moss-encrusted rock. Kari was closer to the water, prone behind a fallen log. I couldn't spot Porter.

We waited.

Then I heard sounds. The kind of sounds infantrymen make even when they work at being quiet. The subtle creak of leather, the slap of a canteen on a hip, the wood-on-metal clatter of slung rifles. Faint, but unmistakable.

A minute later a figure emerged from the bush, near the stepping stones. His uniform was a pale khaki brown, his shirt as sweat-stained as ours. He wore a cloth cap with a neck flap, and clutched an Arisaka bolt-action rifle that was almost as tall as he was. Stepping cautiously into the river, he looked upstream and down, crouching as if ready to run at the first sign of trouble.

Vouza held steady, and without a word spoken, we all knew he was calling the shots. No one was going to fire until he did. He let the lone soldier cross, coming within five yards of us. As soon as he gained the bank, he stood on the bare earth and scanned the thick underbrush, nervously poking at the greenery with his bayonet. When he was satisfied, he turned and waved to the rest of the patrol. Three other Japs came down the bank, followed by an officer wearing a sword, and then about ten soldiers clustered around the pilot, wearing a white silk scarf, khaki flight suit, and leather boots. His shoulder was bloody and he cradled the injured arm with his good one. The scout climbed the bank, turned and sat on a rock to watch the others cross, unaware of the hidden threat on both sides of the water.

A flash of shadow and spray of blood. John Kari with his hand on the Jap's jaw and a knife drawn across his neck. Then the scout was gone, no sounds other than the faint rustle of Kari dragging him into the bush and a gush of blood on leaves as the soldier's heart beat its last.

One of the Japs in the river looked up and called out. He spoke to the others and they laughed. Probably a joke about the scout taking time for a piss. A few more steps and the first of them were almost on top of us, the rest strung out, jumping from rock to rock.

Vouza fired.

We opened up on the soldiers to our front. Three, then four dropped quickly, the others shooting wildly, not certain where we were. The rapid semiautomatic fire from Deanna's carbine behind me and the louder, slower Lee-Enfield single shots rang in my ear. I steadied my automatic with both hands and aimed two shots at the closest Jap and saw him crumple, blood staining the smooth rock beneath him.

More shots came in our direction as the remaining soldiers spotted us and fired, but they were in a panic, their shots high, zipping through the foliage like angry bees. The noise was deafening as everyone seemed to fire at the same moment. Porter came charging out of the undergrowth, firing and leaping behind a boulder, giving him a better angle on the enemy rear.

An explosion behind me left my ears ringing as I fell forward, tensing against the expected flow of blood or feel of red-hot grenade shrapnel. I was unhurt, as was Deanna, who winked as she raised her carbine.

Vouza dropped a soldier at the edge of the group protecting the pilot. Then the officer pointed with his sword to the opposite bank, obviously telling his men to retreat. Kari got another one and that hurried them on.

Right into the trap.

The natives opened fire from the bank and more Japs went down, the rest huddled in confusion, firing at the new threat and looking to their officer for orders. A bullet took him in the throat and he fell, his hand clutching his neck as spurts of blood escaped through his fingers. His other hand clutched the sword, now swung in our direction. He tried to get up but fell as his men got the message and charged our position. There were five of them left, plus the pilot, who staggered after them. He must have felt invincible with all the lead leaving him unscathed. Or did he know his bounty price?

Vouza stepped forward, firing at the men on either side of the pilot. I followed, but Kaz was even faster, jumping into the water and firing his Webley revolver, taking out the Jap right in front of the pilot. The last two men charged with their bayonets, their faces a snarl of anger, fear, and resignation. Shots from the far side of the river sent them sprawling, the water washing their blood from the rocks.