Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

I think Mbalu must have sensed that I was hesitating, for he suddenly went aft and routed Mac out. He came into the wheelhouse smelling of whisky again and with a belligerent look in his eyes. He was in no doubt at all, either about the need for the operation to go ahead or the way it should be launched. We should put back into the Passage itself and land the police force at the usual LCT landing place. There would then be no danger of anything going wrong in the landing, and they would have the airport road for their approach march with no chance of anybody getting lost in the darkness or in the thick growth of the plantations.

And that was what we finally did, fetching our anchors shortly after midnight and steaming slowly north-east out of the cove. Navigating by echo-sounder, we back-tracked past the marker posts, which were just visible in the starlight, until we had the Buka Passage open on radar. After that it was quite straightforward. But though Luke knew exactly how to run the ship in to the landing place, it was almost 01.15 before we finally squared off to the shore with a kedge out to hold us against the current, the bow doors open and the ramp down. Of the twenty-seven-strong police force waiting to go ashore Mbalu had only been able to arm eight with the weapons he had seized from the Buka guards.

The ship seemed suddenly very empty as they moved down the ramp, vanishing one by one up the road into the darkness of the palms. In case things went wrong, I had the ramp winched up and the bow doors closed, with the Chief and one of his officers on stand-by in the engine-room and the bos’n waiting by the stern anchor winch. Luke and I moved to the upper bridge, where it was cooler and we had a clear view in every direction, and I invited Mr Treloa and some of his more senior Administration officers to join us.

There was nothing to do but wait after that, the hot night air very oppressive, the stillness exaggerating the sound of the current running past our stern. It was running fast, a gurgling sound which seemed to grow as the whisper of hidden voices died away and the bodies strewn about the ship lay sleepless, wondering what the dawn would bring. We had only just enough fuel to get back to Anewa and if the police failed … The tension in the ship was very strong, the uncertainty and the strain of waiting communicating itself to all on board.

I tried to lessen my own reaction to it by doing the rounds with a Mortlock helmsman I had come to trust. Below decks the ship seemed deserted, the day’s heat trapped and hardly a soul to be seen. Topside there were bodies everywhere, but none of them asleep, the white glint of eyes following me, sometimes the white of teeth as well as mouths opened in a nervous grin. Back on the upper bridge, I paced to and fro, glancing surreptitiously at my watch, trying to conceal the nervous tension inside me, wondering about Perenna and Jona Holland, all the other whites, picturing in my mind those men moving on to the airfield in the darkness and only eight of them armed. And all the time the gurgling menace of the tide running past our stern and the dark straight line of the Buka Passage like a smooth black tarmac road under the stars. Not a light anywhere, just the shape of the land black in outline, the feeling of something hanging over the place, a brooding, overpowering, tropical presence.

At last the luminous hands of my watch pointed to 02.00 hours. No sound — nothing. Only the tide to break the stillness. A minute, two minutes — and still no sound of any shots. An anticlimax tinged with fear, the minutes ticking by and nothing happening; only voices murmuring through the ship as men gave utterance to thoughts that we on the upper bridge kept strictly to ourselves, fearing now that the police had either lost their way or been taken in ambush without a shot being fired.

I went down to the signals office, where Simon Saroa, a native of one of the fishing villages near Port Moresby, was sitting with earphones on and an expectant look on his face. He had briefed one of the police on the equipment at the airfield and was listening out for him. He shook his head. Nothing had come through so far. I went back to the bridge, very conscious now of the six Buka men imprisoned behind the locked door of the old sergeants’ mess. I rang down for the engines to be started up and then began to haul off on the stern anchor while at the same time transferring the kedge hawser from stern to bow. I was taking no chances, intending to lie off, bows-on to the current, until I knew definitely what had happened.

We were halfway through this operation when, above the throb of the engines and the sound of the big drum winch aft, I heard a man shouting. Then more shouts, the shouting relayed along the length of the ship until all the blacks on board seemed to have gone out of their minds. Even the senior administrators, gathered in a huddle at the rear of the upper bridge, were leaning over the rail, yelling themselves hoarse. A hand touched my arm. ‘Kepten.’ It was Luke. ‘They have taken the airfield.’

I stared at him. ‘Without a shot?’

‘Yes, without a shot. There is only a small guard, and they take them by surprise. It has just been reported by radio.’

I should have realised that in the islands of the Solomon Sea, and all through the South West Pacific, radio was the equivalent of the telephone in more densely populated areas. It was the main means of communication, and Simon Saroa had instructed the police officer to tune to the channel commonly used for communication throughout the Bougainville District. The result was that within minutes of the announcement that the airfield had been taken I was called to the signals office, where Simon Saroa thrust the mike into my hands without a word, as though glad to get rid of it. The voice that answered me from the loudspeaker wasn’t the soft voice of Inspector Mbalu; it was a harsh, abrasive voice with a strong Australian accent. ‘What’s happened, you bastard? What’s happened up there? You tell me. Over.’

‘Who’s that?’ My voice sounded taut in the hot little cabin.

‘Hans Holland, you fool. Who else? Now just you tell me what’s happened. The airfield is in the hands of the police, right? … How did they get free? Where did they get the arms? And where’s Teopas? I asked to speak to Teopas, where is he? Over.’

I told him briefly what had happened. I didn’t tell him who had killed Teopas, but he guessed. ‘It was Mac, was it? He’s the only man … that drink-sodden bastard! I should have got him off the ship. Where did he get hold of the gun?’ I started to tell him, but when he realised that Mac had been armed with nothing more than a knife, he shouted at me, ‘And what were you doing? Looking on and applauding? An old drunk with nothing but a knife-’

‘He was sober,’ I said. ‘And he knew what he was doing. He had the guard mesmerised, and nothing I or anyone else could do. It all happened too quickly. And once the man was dead and he had his gun …’ I didn’t enjoy making excuses, knowing I’d been of two minds what to do and had let events take control. And when he told me I’d have to move a lot faster if I wanted to skipper one of his ships, my temper suddenly flared. ‘If you think you can handle the situation here any better, why don’t you come up and do it?’

‘I will,’ he snapped back at me. ‘I’ll do just that. Meanwhile, you pull out into the stream and stay anchored there. Don’t let anybody ashore.’

I told him we should have to go ashore for food, but he ignored that. ‘Haul out into the Passage and stay there. Tell your operator to remain tuned to this channel. I’ll see if I can raise Queen Carola, get them to send a truckful of boys down to Chinaman’s Quay. The airfield isn’t all that important. PNG won’t dare fly in troops, not after the warning we’ve given them. But still … ’ He was thinking aloud. ‘Open like that, it’s a temptation. Some silly sod of a politician might be tempted … You still there? … Good. Keep your operator tuned on this channel, and it’s VHF only. No communication with the outside world. Understand? We keep this to ourselves till the airfield’s retaken. Okay? Over.’