But then I remembered the note the houseboy had handed to Luke. The envelope, addressed to Perenna, was still in his pocket. He had forgotten all about it. But when I took it to her, she refused to read it, insisting that I read it for her. And when I had done so, I didn’t know whether to tell her or not. Hans had scribbled it moments before setting fire to the house. He had known what he was going to do, and he had done his best to ensure that the person most vulnerable should feel the weight of the past hanging over her. She was looking up at me, very tense; she must have seen my reaction, for she suddenly changed her mind. ‘What’s it say? Read it to me.’ And when I had done so, she said hotly, ‘It’s a lie, a stinking, bloody lie.’ And she added quickly, ‘I’ve heard it before. Tim mumbled it in delirium. But it’s a lie. My grandfather would never have done a thing like that — his own daughter-in-law. It’s unthinkable.’ And she told me to tear it up and throw the pieces overboard and not to say a word about it to Jona. But I doubt whether it would have mattered very much to him, not then. He had other problems on his mind, for Simon Saroa, back in the signals office behind the wheelhouse, had picked up a message from Port Moresby instructing the LCT to proceed with all speed to Kieta to embark government troops being airlifted in the following morning.
The situation, however, had changed by the time we had rounded Cape L’Averdy. Kieta airport was unserviceable. Before retreating, the insurgents had blown the runway. Moreover, there had been heavy rain during the late afternoon, and visibility had been so bad that the second airlift, which would have had to use the road again, had been postponed until the weather improved. We ourselves were then steaming through a drizzle of rain that was so thick and humid it was virtually cloud.
Dawn broke grey and miserable, the humidity thick and the rain still falling. We had been ordered to Anewa, Kieta town still being held by the Sapuru regime, and we were coming in on radar with the tug just ahead of us as we steamed through the northern channel between Takanupe Island and Bougainville. It was almost nine before we were alongside the loading wharf, where we were met by the captain in command of the PNG airborne force. He was pale black, almost coffee-coloured, dressed in jungle combat gear with a parachute flash on his arm, and he was asking for Perenna. Apparently his men had virtually no ammunition left. Most of it had been handed over to the police at Buka airfield, and the rest had been expended in driving the insurgents out of Kieta airport. With no further airlift from Port Moresby to re-supply them they were now very vulnerable, the mining people having no weapons and being under orders not to become involved. But what Hans had said about the Chimbu mineworkers was true. There were several hundred of them in Arawa. They had already mounted a massive demonstration against the illegal regime which had effectively cut the insurgents off, so that they were now sealed into the Kieta Peninsula, except for a few key buildings they still held. However, the situation was still precarious, since the Highlanders refused to support the government forces without some guarantee for the future. This had been the situation for the past twenty-four hours, Tagup, their leader, insisting on speaking with Miss Holland before his people took any further action.
It was a strange situation. For that moment, it seemed, the fate of Bougainville lay in Perenna’s hands. ‘I think it is because the name Holland still means something, both here and in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea,’ the captain said to her as we drove out of Anewa in a requisitioned company car. ‘I refer, of course, to your grandfather, Colonel Holland. The Chimbu mineworkers need to be reassured that support of the legitimate government will secure their jobs at Paguna.’
Tagup was waiting for us at the sports centre where the Chimbu were camped in the stand and the changing rooms. On their way down from the mine they had found a red clay, and with this they had decorated their bodies so that now they no longer looked like a labour corps, but like the warriors they really were, and they were armed with whatever they had been able to lay their hands on at the mine — pangas, steel bars, giant spanners that they held like battle axes. Some had even made bows and arrows from wood cut from the rainforest.
The captain took Perenna alone to meet Tagup, then left the two of them talking together in the Chimbu tongue. The tribesmen were gathered round, but still leaving a space, so that they remained a little apart, and everyone waited.
Finally Tagup raised his hand in parting, smiling now. Then he turned abruptly and went towards his men, his face set and determined, his eyes flashing as he gave the order to march. Perenna, rejoining us, said, ‘I told him what had happened at Madehas and in the Buka Passage. He realised the driving force had gone out of the insurrection, the organisation, too. Now he’ll settle it in his own way.’
The battle that followed was a most extraordinary affair, a very noisy, blood-curdling, colourful non-event. The insurgents were concentrated in the new government office building and in the police station. Cut off from Arawa, they had only been able to grab some half-dozen expatriate whites, whom they were holding as hostages on the top floor of the police offices. No attempt was made to storm either this building or the government HQ. The Chimbu labourers advanced in serried ranks, their bodies half naked and freshly daubed with paint, crayons, cosmetics, anything they had been able to get hold of, but each advance was no more than a mock attack to be followed by withdrawal and a wild yelling of taunts. Advance, retreat, advance, retreat, the noise increasing, the distance lessening. Half Arawa, expatriate whites included, came out to cheer them on. Occasionally a shot was fired from the government HQ, but more in warning than in anger. Nobody was hurt.
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.