Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

The rain had lessened to a light drizzle, the clouds were lifting and it was hot when Tagup, dressed in nothing but a few broad green leaves, his body painted with an intricate pattern in red and wielding a brand-new fire axe, came out to stand a dozen yards or more ahead of his Chimbu battle groups, all drawn up in line. Here he called upon Daniel Sapuru to come out and fight, challenging him to single combat.

They were two men of uncertain age, but both of them elders and certainly not young; this was politics, not mortal combat. At first, there was no reaction from the other side, the white concrete walls of the government offices standing blank and silent in the hot glimmer of misty humidity that lay like a blanket over the scene, Tagup standing there, shouting taunts that were echoed by the black, glistening lines of bodies behind him. Perenna, translating for me, suddenly said in a quite different voice, ‘He’s changed it. He’s challenging Sapuru, not as a fighter — as … he’s challenged his power-’

‘What power?’ I asked.

‘They’re not just political leaders, they both have-’ But a door had opened, and a small, very dark man in a light blue suit came out. He stood there for a moment, his head held high, the black halo of his hair framed in the arch of the entrance. The ranks of the Chimbu swept forward, a tide of glistening bodies uttering a low menacing roar. Tagup raised his hand. The ranks of his men halted, the roar fell to a murmur, then a sudden silence, and Tagup walked forward, moving very slowly, very deliberately. Sapuru, too, was moving forward. A shot was fired. It came from one of the ground-floor windows, sounding very loud in the stillness. A howl of fury swept the Highlanders’ ranks. Sapuru half turned, his face clouded with anger, his hand raised.

Silence again, and the two men walking towards each other. Sapuru was unarmed. The Chimbu leader discarded his axe. They met halfway between the black ranks of the Chimbu and the white blank face of the government offices. They talked, and while they talked, the glimmer of sun heat in the mist increased. Tagup turned, shouted something to his followers, and they answered with a roar, fanning out on either flank and moving forward, stopping suddenly when he raised his hand. This movement was repeated three times, each time the black mass of men spreading out to encircle the offices, moving steadily nearer. And then, suddenly, it was over, Sapuru turning and walking back into the building, Tagup calling to the PNG captain, who came marching forward at the head of his men to take up a position facing the government HQ.

There was a moment’s hiatus then when time seemed to stand still, no sound, no movement, everybody waiting, tense and expectant. And the glimmer turned to sunlight, the mist burning away to reveal the high green interior of the island still wrapped in cloud, pinnacles of grey rock appearing and disappearing. Then Sapuru reappeared. A great a-ah of released tension went up from the crowd as the hostages came out behind him. They hurried to the safety of the jungle-green uniforms, and then the Buka insurgents were coming out of the building, some of them men I recognised, who had been part of the crew of the LCT coming across from Australia, all of them carrying their weapons and laying them down in front of the captain.

There had been no fight, no last-ditch stand. The insurrection was over, and the defeat of the insurgents had been achieved by bluff, by a show of strength. And something else, too — some inner power. He’s more than a politician, Perenna had said, and I could only guess at the secret trial of strength that had gone on between those two men. And now suddenly it was over, no bloodshed, not a single hostage harmed. By evening more troops had arrived, and the LCT was under charter to the PNG government to take the insurgents back to Buka, all except Daniel Sapuru and a dozen or so leaders of the Buka Trading Co-operative.

That night I lay between fresh-laundered sheets in a bed that was rock steady and did not move with the motion of the ship. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep, thinking of Perenna just a few doors down the cement walkway of the motel where we had found accommodation, wondering what she would do now, whether she would accept Hans Holland’s advice or whether she would ignore it and try to run her brother’s life and the Holland Line, the two in harness. The torn pieces of that last letter of his were drifting soggily somewhere in the dark depths of the Pacific, and though it was that first line of his to which she had reacted so violently — My father and yours were brothers, each destroying what the other built — I could remember every line. It had gone on: Take my advice. Let the Holland Line founder. It has cost too many lives. Or else burn the stamps so that nobody else can ever know. And he had added, Goodbye, Perenna. I was cursed before ever I was born.

It was that last line, in conjunction with his opening — My father and yours were brothers — that my mind fastened on, and Perenna’s reaction, her statement that it had been blurted out by Tim. She had leapt to the instant conclusion that he was saying her grandfather, Colonel Lawrence Holland, had been her natural father. His own daughter-in-law … It’s unthinkable. But unthinkable or not, if it was Colonel Holland, then the only brother he had ever had was Carlos of the Holland Trader and the wooden masks and stamps. Carlos Holland! If it was Carlos Holland who was Hans’s father, then he must have survived the loss of the Holland Trader , must have known what had happened to it, and had then spent the last thirty years of his life masquerading as a distant cousin. It would explain Colonel Lawrence Holland’s reaction on finding that letter from Lewis in the safe at Madehas. No wonder he had been filled suddenly with such demoniac anger that fratricide became the only answer. A man who could leave his partner waterless … I was thinking of the Holland Trader then. Christ! Lewis, that letter, the stamps … The thought that had leapt into my mind was enough to bring curses upon any family.

There was a gentle tap on the door, and Perenna came in. ‘Roy.’ She was a dim shape in the darkness, feeling her way towards me. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I think I’m too tired to sleep. I keep thinking …’

‘About what?’

I pulled back the sheet, and she reached down to me. ‘About Hans — that letter chiefly and what happened to him.’ I could smell the warmth of her as our bodies met and I held her close. ‘Do you think he’s really dead?’ she breathed. ‘Or was the letter, the shot, the fire … was it all a stupid game?’

‘He’s dead,’ I said, but with more conviction than I felt. ‘He won’t trouble you again.’

‘No?’ She lay very still. ‘Then that’s the end of Carlos Holland. Hans was the last of his blood.’ She was trembling slightly as she said that. ‘Where’s Mac? Is he all right?’

‘He’s sober again, if that’s what you mean. He’s gone north with your brother.’

‘I’m glad. But I ought to have gone with them. As long as I’m with Mac … He’s getting old now.’

‘You think you can keep him off the drink?’

‘I could try. But not now.’ She pressed her body close against me.

‘What about the stamps?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to take Hans’s advice — burn them, forget all about the past and-’

‘No. I want to know the truth now. If I know the truth, then I can face it and that’s the end of the curse, isn’t it? If only Tim-’ She stopped there, burying her head in my shoulder. She stayed like that, very still for a moment; then she whispered, ‘But that’s for tomorrow. Let’s forget now.’