Killman (25 page)

Several hours passed before they reached the first village on her itinerary. By this time, as usual on the outskirts of the bush country, it was raining hard. She guessed that at least an inch of water had fallen in the last hour. She and Brother John were both soaked to the skin and beginning to get cold as they toiled up the incline. Bethezda was a small village, just a collection of a dozen huts, but the last time she had visited the area there had been an encouraging total of six children between the ages of four and seven regularly attending its single class.

Sister Conchita peered ahead through the stinging rain. At first she was not quite sure what she could see on the far side of the clearing. Brother John stopped, equally disturbed. A large brown-skinned man was sitting upright under a tree, his arms secured behind his broad back. The nun stepped forward uncertainly. Wiping the rain from her eyes, she saw that the man was bound to the tree by lengths of vine.

As she drew closer, Sister Conchita could also see that the prisoner was the Tikopian she had twice encountered briefly in the ark. She looked at Brother John in alarm. At the same time, half a dozen islanders holding spears at shoulder height stepped out menacingly from behind the huts.

Kella had decided to take the high coastal road along the clifftop, where the trees crowded impatiently towards the edge. This proved to be a mistake, because the sea lay only a hundred feet or so below him and he was still within range of the keening voices of the dolphins and the soft entreaties of their gods as they were carried on the breeze and over the softly lapping waves. He tried to tell himself that he could only hear the sobbing of the wind among the branches and the grunting of rooting wild pigs deep in the bush, but he knew that in reality the alien spirits were laying siege to him with considerable determination, reminding him of his obligations to them and the helpless dolphins.

Other people better qualified than he was and with more local knowledge would respond to the entreaties in time, he told himself. Plans would have been laid already. As the
aofia
, when he had been in trouble far from home he had sometimes enlisted the support of the gods of other Melanesian religions, but he had never felt comfortable in doing so. Now some of these ghosts were asking for payback, demanding that in turn he should support their cause. This had never happened to him before. To make matters worse, he did not understand the language of the dolphin gods. Only a little of what they were trying to say to him was filtering through. Perhaps his own shark gods were becoming jealous and reminding him of his true allegiance to them. It was very confusing, like most encounters with the spirit world.

Kella stopped walking when he had judged that he had put sufficient distance between himself and the bad
mana
of Boehrs, the German, and the mistreated dolphins. Slipping his pack off his shoulders he sat with his back to a banyan tree. As he sipped from his water bottle he tried to consider the situation. He thought about the spirits generally, and the important part they had played so far in the case upon which he was supposed to be concentrating. He had to admit that the humans involved had suffered a considerable buffeting at the hands of the heedless immortals. How often, he wondered, did the gods interfere just to see how humans reacted?

Poor, simple Papa Noah had been approached by some of them in a dream and encouraged to form his own faith, a mixture of Christianity and any number of pagan beliefs. The old man had based his cult upon what he knew of the ark of the Christian Bible. At the same time Atanga, one of the chiefs of the Tikopia, had finished planning to restore the pagan faith to his area of the island. His gods would have insisted that he establish his revival around their great icon, the big canoe. Somehow they would have pointed out the connection between the big canoe and the ark of the new Malaitan sect, and directed Atanga to liaise with Papa Noah by sending his son, who even took the new name of Shem. The young man had been a most reluctant adherent to the faction, wanting only to continue to enjoy the freedom that had become his during his voluntary and much-enjoyed exile from his constricted home island.

Nevertheless, as his father had ordered, the obedient Shem had made the Church of the Blessed Ark a haven for Tikopians on Malaita, further swelling its numbers. With so many conflicting loyalties rending the new church apart, the evil spirits of the rocks and trees in the area had been able to make their homes in the ark, joining the animals being assembled there by its now bewildered founders. These malevolent ghosts had wielded power far beyond their numbers and had instigated many of the wicked things that had started to occur in the ark, through the actions of some of the humans involved, culminating in the death of Papa Noah and the other two followers of his faith.

Some time during this period, Kella was convinced, Brother Abalolo, the Christian pastor on Tikopia, had become aware of the threat to Christianity on his island. Convinced that the assault on his church was emanating from the Church of the Blessed Ark, he had abandoned his home and travelled to Malaita to try to stem the problem at its roots.

Kella wondered what could have happened next. Did Abalolo murder Papa Noah in an attempt to destroy the power of his cult? Could he then have gone on to kill the other two members of the new church, hoping that this ruthless action would frighten away many of its recent recruits? If this was the case, what awful danger could the pastor have envisaged that would turn a follower of the Christian God, sworn to the path of peace, into such a merciless killer? Did he receive any help on his killing spree?

Kella decided to give his brain a rest. He folded his hands in his lap and tried to go to sleep. Perhaps during his repose the various gods would stop squabbling and obscuring the issue and allow him to get on with his work.

He had conditioned himself to wake up as night fell. The night invaders were beginning to stir as he stood up in the cool air and took out a torch before burying his pack beneath a pile of debris secured by a rock. Giant skinks were swinging by their muscular tails from branch to branch above his head. Horned frogs were calling from a mangrove swamp close to the beach. Bats, humming insects and anopheles mosquitoes darted between the trees. At his feet he saw for a slithering moment a five-minute snake, so-called because its bite was said to be lethal in that amount of time.

Shielding his torch with his free hand, Kella made the steady descent back to the dolphins’ camp on the coast. All the time he was aware of other forms accompanying him through the bush. They were stealthy and light-footed but still too substantial to be the spirits or their representatives. These were humans, and they were waiting for something, probably a signal. It had started to rain, the preferred time for islanders to launch attacks on their enemies.

When he reached the collection of tents and huts on the coast, there were no lights on at the foot of the hill. Even the lanterns swinging in the tents seemed to have been extinguished. As far as he could see, no guards had been posted. Boehrs must be supremely confident that there would be no nocturnal intruders. Perhaps he was relying on the reputation of his hard-nosed Guadalcanal mercenaries. Certainly when Kella had seen them earlier in the day they had seemed to be spoiling for a fight.

The dolphins were still languishing dolefully in the pool. The water was less than six feet deep. The only access lay through the dam of logs piled on top of one another at the sea end of the pen. The stream on the far side of the dam leading to the ocean had dwindled to a trickle. If he could break the dam, the released water would gush through, taking the dolphins with it by sheer force out into the bay, or so Kella hoped.

He walked to the far side of the pool. He had studied the construction of the simple log barrier surreptitiously while he had been talking to Boehrs and Schuman earlier in the day. Several poles about fifteen feet high had been hammered into the ground on either side, with flat sides jutting out upon which the logs were resting. It should be simple enough to dismantle the structure by the simple method of sweeping the logs from their ledges one at a time, starting at the top. He would not be able to help making a noise in the process, but he was not particularly worried about being apprehended by the German. Almost certainly Boehrs was about to face many more serious problems than Kella could offer him.

It took the sergeant a quarter of an hour to demolish the crude and hastily designed rampart, by the simple process of swimming across the clouded pool and scaling the shifting logs until he reached the top one. Clinging on to the long vertical pole, Kella eased his side of the top log free of its horizontal supporting ledge, swung it away from him and let it drop on to the ground on the far side of the dam, where the seeping stream crawled down lethargically to the water’s edge.

He repeated the process with most of the other logs, until he was standing waist-deep in the pool with the released water pouring past him down the beach in a great burst of energy, taking with it the still dazed but soon rejuvenated dolphins. Only one did not move. Kella guessed that the creature was too dazed or unwell to be able to make the effort. If it did not follow the others soon, it would be stranded on the dry bed of the rapidly emptying dam.

Kella plunged into the water and began banging on the surface with both hands in an effort to get the last dolphin to move. At first he thought he had left it too late, but slowly the great creature began to stir. With a squeal it thrashed its tail into the water, catching Kella across the shoulder and sending him to the bottom of the pool. He inhaled water but forced himself to use his hands and arms to reach the surface again. He came up, spluttering and gasping, in time to see the dolphin forcing its way across the remains of the dam and down to the open sea in what was left of the water in the stream. A minute later, with a final great thrust of its glistening body, the rejuvenated mammal had joined its companions in the open sea.

Kella’s shoulder ached from the force of the blow it had just received. He stood watching the dolphins gambolling in the moonlight before they headed for deeper water and were lost to sight against the white-tipped waves. Then he looked round for Boehrs and Schuman.

They were waiting for him as he waded back to the side of what was left of the pool. The Guadalcanal men were formed up in a truculent line just behind their employers.

‘Kella! Schuman said that you would be back, but I thought you had more sense. What the hell are you doing?’ demanded the German, shaking his head at the policeman’s stupidity.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ asked the soaked Kella. ‘I’m afraid your dolphins have gone walkabout. They’ll be long gone by now, as you can see.’

‘You fool! Do you think I could possibly let you get away with this?’ asked Boehrs. ‘If the natives heard that I’d let you go unpunished, I’d have no credibility left in the district.’

Kella saw that the German was carrying a French steel Mle. 1950 automatic pistol, while Schuman had a Yugo Mauser rifle cradled in his arms. The German was not stinting on armaments, thought Kella. Perhaps that was why he had been lax about posting a guard on the dolphin pen. With the calibre of artillery he seemed to possess, he could be fairly confident of tracking down anyone who offended against him and then exacting retribution.

‘I suppose you could report me to my superiors,’ Kella said. After all, he thought, why should Boehrs be different to everyone else?

‘It’s not a matter of reporting you, Sergeant Kella,’ Boehrs said softly, walking forward until he was standing in front of the sergeant. ‘You attacked and destroyed my property at night. I would be perfectly within my rights to assume that you were a thief and fire a shot to warn you off. It would be most unfortunate if that shot were to kill some hapless intruder – you in this case.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Kella.

‘Why not?’ asked Boehrs.

‘Because this is my island, not yours, and I’m afraid you have very little say in what goes on here, Mr Boehrs. In fact the only major decision you’re going to be able to make over the next few minutes is whether you’re going to be a living visitor to our shores or a dead one.’

At the German’s side Schuman cleared his throat politely. ‘Excuse me, Herr Boehrs,’ he said, ‘but unfortunately Kella really does have a point. It wouldn’t be a good idea to dispose of the sergeant. He has certain traditional affinities in this area and indeed all over Malaita. If anyone were to handle him the way he undoubtedly deserves to be treated, then I’m afraid that once word got around, his killer and any of his associates would be cut down before they had a chance to leave this camp.’

‘What are you talking about, man? Are you suggesting that I let him go?’ asked the German.

‘Certainly not,’ said the half-caste. ‘Sergeant Kella has broken the law by entering our camp, destroying the dam and releasing the dolphins. I suggest you make a citizen’s arrest and that we take Kella back to Honiara on the Chinese boat when it arrives, and hand him over to the authorities there. From what I hear, some of his senior officers will be only too pleased to make an example of him. The islanders around here won’t know what’s going on. They’re used to seeing Kella associating with white visitors.’

Boehrs thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘All right,’ he said unwillingly. ‘I hope to make a good living in this area, despite tonight’s little setback. I wouldn’t want to antagonize the natives unnecessarily. Lock Kella in the supplies shed. He can wait there until tomorrow when we ship out.’

‘Nice try,’ Kella told Schuman. ‘But I’m afraid you won’t be locking me up tonight.’

‘Are you serious, Sergeant?’ asked Boehrs. He gestured at the Guadalcanal men waiting impatiently behind him. ‘I suggest you make your way to the store shed immediately. For some reason my colleague Mr Schuman seems averse to seeing you get hurt. I have no such reservations.’

‘I should save your breath,’ Kella said. ‘I’m afraid you’ve both got rather a long walk ahead of you.’