Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

‘Shoot what?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened?’ And when we told her, she stood staring out at Sohano, her face pale and dark shadows under her eyes. ‘So it’s all over. He’s lost. Lost everything. He’ll be sent to prison.’ She turned, groping for the helmsman’s chair, and sat down. ‘Oh, my God! It’s no place for a man like Hans.’

It struck me as odd at the time, and it still does, but in that moment her thoughts were not for the men who had been killed to no purpose, or the expatriates in Bougainville whose lives were threatened if Sapuru didn’t capitulate, or even for her brother. They were for Hans Holland, as though he were some sort of exotic butterfly that couldn’t exist in the strict confines of a prison cell.

I can’t remember what we talked about, the three of us huddled together in the wheelhouse, waiting for the arrival time of the planes over Arawa. I don’t think we said very much, the time passing slowly as the rain finally stopped and the sun began to burn through the thinning cloud layer. At 13.15 we were tuned to the same VHF channel, but hearing nothing except static, the skipper switched to the shortwave frequency used locally. On this we caught disconnected snatches of talk. The reception was very bad, but a scattering of words came through: ‘Opposition’ was one of them, also ‘good landing’ and ‘cars at the bridge, thank God … ’ And then at 13.34, very clearly, came the words ‘four of us airborne now, course two-four-five and climbing to sixteen thousand. Our ETA … ’ The rest was lost, fading into a crackle of static.

The Australian switched off. ‘Course two-four-five, that means they’re headed back to Port Moresby, don’t it?’

I nodded. ‘Papua New Guinea, anyway.’

‘And just time to get back to Kieta again before nightfall with another eighty or so soldiers.’ He was on his feet, calling to his crew to get the anchor up. ‘I’m not hanging around here any longer. I’m on my way.’ He winked at me, his teeth showing brown nicotine stains against the bleached hairs of his beard. ‘A good law-abiding citizen, that’s me, bringing the company’s property back where it belongs. And don’t you say anything different, mate, or I’ll shop you for a gun-runner.’

The engines were throbbing away, the anchor coming up, and Perenna was on her feet, saying, ‘You can’t just leave him.’

‘Can’t I?’ He laughed. ‘Look, miss. He had it all sewn up, the future, everything. But now it’s all fallen apart, and he’s in the shit, ennee? Right in it up to his neck, so I aim to put as much space between him and me-’

‘He’s coming down to the jetty now,’ I said.

He turned, staring at the shore.

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Oh, hell!’ he said. ‘I dunno. Take him to Madehas, I guess. That’s where he said.’ And he swung the wheel over, turning the tug’s bows towards the Sohano jetty. ‘Can’t leave him on Sohano to be picked up by the Army. They’re bound to commandeer the ferry and send a section over to grab the radio station.’

‘Where’s Mac?’ Perenna asked.

‘That little monkey-faced man with a bladder full of liquor? He’s coiled up in the big hawser aft, sleeping it off. You coming back to Anewa with us, miss?’

Her head jerked up, her expression suddenly changed. ‘Yes,’ she said sharply. ‘Yes, of course.’ Then she was silent, looking straight ahead, watching as the bows sidled towards the jetty where Hans stood facing us, very still and watchful as though events had made him suddenly suspicious of everyone and everything. The Australian slid the tug alongside so that its bulwarks barely touched the wood, and almost before Hans had stepped on board he had the prop in reverse and we were backing out into the Passage, the bows already swinging so that when he went ahead, they were still turning towards Minon. ‘You still want to go to Madehas?’ he asked.

Hans didn’t answer immediately, standing just outside the open door to the caboose, his eyes not seeing anything, only his thoughts. At length he turned his head and said, ‘Did you manage to raise the LCT?’

‘Yep. Passed on your message.’

Hans nodded. He had his shirt outside his trousers. It was almost dry now, and like that it was only when he moved I could see the shape of a gun stuck into his waistband. ‘Another hour then, and Jonathan should be back.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Perenna breathed, and the Australian said, ‘Depends what he decides when he’s heard the news, doesn’t it? He might head straight back to Anewa like I’m going to do soon as I’ve dropped you.’

Hans looked at him, his silence and the contempt in his eyes saying more than words. ‘Put me ashore at Madehas,’ he said finally. ‘The north of the island, below the house.’ He turned to me. ‘And you’ll come ashore with me. I want that letter.’

That he should have remembered it, with all that had happened — that really did strike me as very strange. Then, as we passed through the narrows between the Minon and Buka Island markers, I forgot all about it, Perenna pulling me to one side and saying, ‘Have you seen his eyes? He’s desperate. I’m afraid he’ll do something terrible.’

‘Nonsense,’ I whispered.

‘You just look at his face. That shut look. And he’s got something under his shirt. A grenade?’

‘It’s a gun.’

‘You can’t be sure. It could be a grenade-’

Her voice had risen slightly, and he turned, quick as a cat. ‘What’s that you say?’

‘Nothing.’ The freckles on her face showed very clear against the pallor of her skin, her eyes wide as she stared straight into his face.

He smiled, but it was more of a grimace, reminding me of ancient gargoyles. ‘Who put the curse on us, Perenna? Eh? Who was it? My father, your grandfather — or somebody further back, some devilish Holland we don’t know about? And Red Holland — my father — murdered by your grandfather. Nothing went right for them, did it?’ His voice had risen, the words spat out between clenched teeth. ‘And now, ten years’ work, ten years’ preparation, coaxing, organising, building for a big future, and what happens? It goes sour on me, a ghastly failure, and just because a gorilla from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, a man who should be back in the Dark Ages living in a goddam cave, comes down from Paguna with two or three hundred followers armed with pangas, telling Sapuru he’s magicked their jobs away and for that he’s going to put a bigger magic on him. That’s what he said, a bigger magic — because he’s more than a fight leader, he’s a sorcerer and capable of bigger magic than Sapuru. And you know what?’ He thrust his face close to Perenna’s, staring at her, his eyes gone wild. ‘It was you they wanted. Yes, you. If I didn’t bring you back to speak for them, they’d tear every Buka man in Arawa limb from limb and eat them at the biggest sing-sing since before the first missionary came.’

He had been talking so fast spittle had formed on his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and turned to me. ‘You think you’re going to marry this little bitch and make the Holland Line your own, eh? Oh, I heard all about you and what happened on the trip over. But you’ll never do it, not if you’ve any sense. Let the ships, the name, everything, sink into oblivion — like the old Holland Trader. ’ His voice had quietened as though he were beginning to come to terms with what had happened. ‘Maybe that’s the answer.’ He had turned away and was staring for’ard towards the house, which was just coming into sight on the high ground at the north end of Madehas.

Nobody spoke after that, the only sound the swirl of water at the bows and the background hum of the engines. Perenna looked very shaken, almost cowed, and suddenly I was seeing her in quite a different light, not as a highly attractive, sensual woman, but as somebody with very real problems that made her vulnerable. The broadened nose, the fullness of the lips, the thrusting breasts, the way she walked even and the way her hair fitted her head like a cap — it was all there, traces of a mixed blood, the people I had seen in the market and at the quayside shops.