‘He had been a missionary,’ Dalwood said, ‘in the Solomons. When he died he was holding down some sort of religious desk-job in Sydney. I don’t think there was ever much contact between them. Alistair was raised in boarding schools. Still, it would rock you a bit, I can imagine.’
‘And no mother?’ I asked.
‘Not that I ever heard of,’ the boy said. ‘But I don’t know much. He told me tonight, for the first time, that he was born on Guadalcanal. Why are you looking like that?’
‘Just thinking,’ I said. ‘When the Japs arrived in the Solomons, I’ve heard that some missionaries went missing. Perhaps some missionaries’ wives too.’
‘I don’t know,’ the young fellow said. ‘He’s never mentioned anything like that.’
He picked up a sponge-bag from the table, the only luggage he had with him. ‘I’ll take your advice about bed.’
‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘By the way, something you can pass on to Cawdor. If I’ve ever spoken my mind about Benoni in front of you two, I take it all back.’
‘He’s in control, then?’ the boy said.
‘I’m very impressed,’ I said, ‘very impressed indeed. If he lives long enough, he could be the first native District Commissioner, that young chap.’
‘That’s good news,’ Dalwood said, turning away. ‘It will be a load off his mind. Off Alistair’s, I mean. Mak, it can’t last much longer.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry for both of you, but it can’t. I saw that in his eyes.’
I met Misa Kodo and Misa Dolu’udi at the end of the path from Rotten Wood, and I walked with them around the villages of Olumata and Obomatu, where all the men, and women too, were working on the new houses and yam-houses, and at planting new palms and fruit-trees. Now and again Misa Kodo would say: ‘Very good, Benoni,’ and nod to me, though he did not seem to notice as much as I thought he would notice.
He was very silent, but I did not pay much attention to that, as he was usually silent. And besides, Misa Dolu’udi was talking a great deal, and saying to me, through Osana, very kind things.
But when we went to the resthouse, and Misa Kodo had all the people in front of him on the grass, and started his questions, then I began to see the change.
At first the questions were about the fight on the path near Olumata, then about the damage at Olumata. He wanted to know and write down what damage every single man had done, so that if he had chopped down a tree or broken a cooking-pot he would replant it or buy a new one for the person who owned it.
In the beginning we thought that it was only our heads which were going round with all these questions. But we soon saw that Misa Kodo himself was more confused than anyone.
Then he began about the boy Teava, who was burned to death at Olumata while he was lying unconscious. Misa Koda wanted to know how Teava was wounded, and as soon as the people said that he was hurt with a shotgun, Misa Kodo became very excited. It was a long time before we could make him understand that Teava had not been shot, only hit on the head with the iron part of an old shotgun, and that there were three like that on the island.
Then from talking about Teava he went on, with no kind of sense that we could follow, to ask about Metusela, about where he had gone. And nobody could say, of course, because not even Saliba knows. The only people who know are I and Tobeba’i, who took the pieces away in his canoe and threw them to the fish.
But I was frightened for a moment because Boulata, one of my uncle’s wives, said that Metusela had told her, when he left the church, that he was going to the stones. And I thought that he might have made some joke, as would have been natural in such a miserable little creature, about going to meet Saliba. But no, Boulata had heard nothing of that.
For a long while Misa Kodo wrote away in his book. Then he told all the people that he was arresting Boitoku, the VC, and taking him on the
Igau
to the calaboose at Osiwa for the time being. At that Boitoku’s old wife cried out, but Boitoku himself was quiet.
Then Misa Dolu’udi, who was always hungry, wanted to eat. But Misa Kodo said: ‘No, first let us talk with Dipapa.’
When we came to my uncle’s house, all the Government men and the prisoner, Boitoku, and some of the men who were with me, my uncle was alone on his covered platform. He was not asleep and did not even pretend to be, but raised himself and looked at Misa Kodo with his eyes that were bright and cloudy.
‘I am looking for Metusela,’ said Misa Kodo.
My uncle sat as if he were thinking, moving his mouth as he so often did, and said: ‘I know nothing about Metusela.’
‘Then he has vanished?’ said Misa Kodo.
‘I think so,’ said my uncle. ‘Yes, he has vanished.’
‘Dipapa,’ said Misa Kodo, ‘there is very great trouble. Trouble, I believe, for you.’
My uncle simply lay back again, with his neck on his head-rest, and said: ‘You say.’
‘You understand me?’ asked Misa Kodo.
‘I understand,’ said my uncle. ‘But Misa Kodo, who are you? A young man of no importance. And I command Kailuana, and have spoken with the Queen’s husband.’
‘True, Dipapa,’ said Misa Kodo. ‘I am a young man of no importance. But I should be sorry to see an old man like you, an important man like you, die in the calaboose.’
‘What is your mind?’ asked my uncle.
‘That I think,’ said Misa Kodo, ‘that Metusela is dead. That I think you killed him.’
My uncle said: ‘I am an old man, you have already said it. Do you believe I kill people?’
‘With your own hands,’ Misa Kodo said, ‘no. But I ask you another time. Where is Metusela?’
‘I have heard,’ my uncle said, ‘that he went to the stones. The machine had been there before. Perhaps it came again.’
‘Dipapa,’ Misa Kodo said, ‘do not forget the calaboose.’
My uncle sat up once more, and only looked. And I was afraid for Misa Kodo. I came to stand near him, so that when my uncle looked at Misa Kodo he would have to see me beside him, with the bushknife in my hand.
While we three were like that, Osana had been gossiping, in whispers, with Boitoku and a few other men. Suddenly some of them hissed, and some others laughed in an uneasy way, as if Osana had said something of which he should have been ashamed.
I did not hear what Osana said, and nothing he said would interest me. But Misa Kodo, who was nearer, had understood, or thought that he had.
Misa Kodo seized the bushknife from my hand, and rushed at Osana. And Osana was terrified. Misa Kodo meant to cut off his head, as Tudava did to Dokonikan.
‘Say it another time,’ Misa Kodo said to Osana.
‘Say what?’ Osana cried out. He was trembling, but not more than Misa Kodo.
‘What you have said already,’ said Misa Kodo.
‘Taubada, you did not understand,’ Osana was gabbling. ‘You do not understand everything. There are words you do not know.’
That was so true that we felt a little sorry for Osana. Nevertheless, Misa Kodo was going to cut off his head.
But Misa Dolu’udi came behind Misa Kodo and closed his hand around Misa Kodo’s wrist. They did not struggle, or even speak, but my bushknife fell to the ground, and Misa Kodo turned and went away towards the resthouse.
Some of the men would have followed him, but Misa Dolu’udi called in a deep voice, in the language: ‘You stay here.’ And he was so stern, and so different, that they did not move.
Misa Dolu’udi said a few words in English to Osana, and later Osana translated a speech of Misa Dolu’udi’s. Misa Dolu’udi said: ‘The older taubada is ill. This time we cannot stay long in Kailuana. In the meantime, I shall manage matters and hear your talk. And I shall come again before long.’
The people were so interested in Misa Dolu’udi, who was suddenly so changed, that they almost forgot Misa Kodo. I saw my uncle watching, sucking his lips and the inside of his cheeks in the way that he had. I saw his thoughts in his face. He was thinking: This is a taubada of the sort I understand. He was pleased with Misa Dolu’udi. That was one more reason for him to want Misa Kodo dead.
After leaving Dipapa I took Osana and the policemen with me, and we went round the villages again, to the church and to the stones, while I put together as much information as I could collect. Osana was pretty cast down, which was good to see; but in any case, I soon found I hadn’t much need of Osana. Because Benoni started trying his Pidgin on me, and though I don’t speak it, I had learned enough from a book, while I was still expecting a posting on the New Guinea side, to be able to follow and answer. That way I was able to get a very good picture of what had happened, and what Benoni had done about it afterwards, and it gave me quite a respect for him, as well as just a skerrick of sympathy for Dipapa, because it was certainly checkmate there.
It was twilight when I came back to the resthouse, and there wasn’t a light, so I shouted out for Biyu to attend to that. While he was dealing with the Tilley lamp on the veranda, I went into the room where we slept. Alistair was lying, wrapped in the red blanket with the tiger on it, on one of the hard bunks lashed with vines that Benoni had had built for us the first time we came. But he had been busy, apparently, because his day-book was lying open on the other bunk, mine, covered with writing which I would see at a glance was about the Metusela business.
He wasn’t asleep, though, and when I only sat on my bunk without saying anything he felt he had to say: ‘Well?’
‘Alistair,’ I said, ‘I’ve taken over, you realize that.’
‘Have you?’ he said.
‘I don’t know what the rules are,’ I said. ‘Perhaps, if it came to it, I have the right to arrest you for what happened today. Anyway, I’m stronger than you are, and we don’t want public trouble.’
He showed hardly any reaction. All he asked was: ‘What will you tell them here?’
‘I have told them,’ I said. ‘That you’re sick. That I have to get you back to Osiwa tomorrow, to the doctor. Thank God we’ve got one at last. We’ll take Boitoku and some of the witnesses, say Tobeba’i and Saliba. But we’ll have to leave this half-finished for the time being. Benoni can handle it, I’m sure of that.’
In the dim light I had been able to make out his face, more or less, but just then Biyu got the lamp going properly, and the glare coming over the half-wall made a shadow in which I lost him.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. Then he gave a sort of laugh, like a sob. ‘Am I to consider myself under arrest now?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘On sick leave.’
‘Fine,’ he said, and rolled over and pulled the flimsy blanket around his head.
When I wanted to see Misa Kodo, first Kailusa tried to stop me, than Misa Dolu’udi did. But I kept saying, in Pidgin, that I knew that Masta Alistair was sick, and knew why, and would do something to help him. And at last he let me go into the room where they slept.
Misa Kodo must have been listening to us, because when I came in he turned on the bed and said, very quietly: ‘O, Benoni.’
‘Taubada,’ I said, ‘I want to talk.’
‘Talk, then,’ he said.
‘Taubada, I want you to come and sleep in my house. It is not safe here.’
‘Why is it not safe?’ he asked.
‘It is built off the ground, taubada. Look at the cracks between the floorboards. And the walls do not meet the roof, and there is no door.’
‘E,’ he murmured. ‘So you fear sorcery for me?’
‘Yes, taubada. Very much. In my house you would be safe. I will not sleep with you if you do not want, though it would be better. But I will be watching.’
‘You are kind,’ he said. ‘But I think I shall live as long as Dipapa. I am a Dimdim, Beni. I laugh at sorcery.’
‘My friend,’ I said, ‘do you laugh at my fear?’
‘No, my friend,’ he said. ‘But I want to be alone now. You know I have a fever. In the morning perhaps I shall be better.’
I knew how it would be. But I only said: ‘Well, then, I am going.’ And he said: ‘Sleep peacefully.’
At first, waking and finding him gone, I made nothing of it, thinking that he had wandered out to the small-house, or perhaps was on the veranda having a solitary session with the rum-bottle, as he used to do before he changed so much. But I couldn’t sleep again, thinking of that blanket lying there uninhabited, opposite, and at last got up and went out, just as I was, in bare feet and underpants, to look for him.
As I was taking the path towards the small-house, Benoni suddenly appeared beside me, and asked in Pidgin: ‘Masta Tim, you like to find Masta Alistair?’
‘Do you know where he is?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we know. We are watching, many of us. He is all right.’
‘Take me to him,’ I said; and he walked on, telling me with a jerk of his head to follow.
He spoke the truth about there being many of them. As we went along the beach-path, people kept popping out of the bushes. Most of the younger men on the island must have been out of bed that night. Nobody said much, there were just a few mutters meaning that there was no news.
In the moonlight the place where the stones were looked more desolate even than when I saw it first. In burning the cargo storehouse, as they called it, Benoni’s men had started other fires in the scrub, and whatever wasn’t barren rock was charred. Behind the biggest of the stones, one that Metusela’s crowd could never have moved, Kailusa was keeping guard over his boss.
With all that shadowy activity around him, Alistair thought he was alone. He was sitting on one of the rectangular stones, staring at the ground.
The coral-rock tore at my feet as I went towards him, and at one point I stopped with a bit of a yelp, and he looked up, startled.
‘You,’ he said, as if he’d forgotten that there was such a person.
‘Alistair,’ I said, ‘this isn’t doing you any good. Come back to the resthouse. You’re keeping a lot of people awake.’
Still he didn’t seem to realize how many eyes were watching. All he had to say was: ‘Aren’t you cold?’ He was fully dressed himself, but shivering.
‘No, I’m not,’ I said. ‘Come on, there’s that nice blanket waiting for you, and if you like you can have my mosquito-net on top of it. D’you hear me, Batman? This is your boy-apprentice reasoning with you.’