The smell of the drying plants would have been unbearable but for the many air holes in the walls. Wilkes and Ellis lay on the dry, dusty earth floor, each finding a hole from which to look out, and took off their NVGs. There was plenty of light from the fire to see what was going on without the devices.
‘Bugger me,’ said Ellis in a whisper.
Sergeant Wilkes was no expert on the ethnic differences between the various peoples of South East Asia, especially at night from a distance of thirty metres, but the man demonstrating the use of a nine millimetre semiautomatic pistol to an enthralled crowd of near naked, befeathered men was certainly not Papuan.
Wilkes and Ellis watched as the man stripped down the weapon and then expertly reassembled it before inserting the clip in its stock. He pulled back the loading mechanism, which chambered a round. Aimed. BANG. And half a pig’s head on a post set up for the demonstration blew clean away, splattering several men sitting close by with brains. The tribesmen jumped at the noise of the explosion that filled the clearing. Then they all laughed heartily, obviously delighted with the new device soon to be placed in their own hands.
‘Jesus. Hand guns,’ said Ellis.
‘And mercury tips to go with them,’ said Wilkes. He pulled a credit-card-sized camera from his top pocket and began taking photos of the gathering. Ellis jabbed him lightly in the ribs with an elbow and pointed at two large crates. They contained enough hand guns to arm two platoons. Ellis also indicated that Wilkes should photograph the small mountain of bulging hessian bags he’d spotted stacked to one side of the clearing. New Guinea Gold, ready for transport.
‘How much do you reckon that would be worth on the streets?’ asked Littlemore. They were witnessing the exchange. An Asian man took a pipe from his pocket and dipped it in a bowl presented by one of the highlanders. He then sparked up a lighter and dipped the flame into the pipe’s cone. He exhaled a vast cloud of thick smoke and sat back. The gathering held its collective breath, waiting for some reaction from the man. After a long minute, the Asian said something Wilkes didn’t understand, but it was obviously positive. The villagers nodded and smiled, and then rushed the crates for their pistols. At least the traders had the good sense not to hand out any ammunition.
After the excitement faded, the bowl and pipe passed from man to man and soon nearly everyone in the gathering was stoned. Several natives rolled enormous cigars and filled their lungs with the pungent, mind-altering smoke. After an hour of cackling laughter the second phase of the drug kicked in and most of the users fell asleep.
‘Come on,’ said Wilkes. ‘Seen enough.’
They edged back from the air holes, refitted the NVGs, and silently crept out the door and into the path of two enormous painted men staggering back from the evening’s entertainment. The four men looked at each other for what seemed like an age. The natives were obviously frightened by the appearance of the startling bug-eyed strangers. For their part, Wilkes and Ellis were unsure what to do with the warriors they’d stumbled into. They didn’t want to kill these men, but at the same time they couldn’t afford discovery. Ellis went for his man first, attaching a sleeper hold that cut the blood supply to the brain by pinching off the carotid artery. Wilkes chose a quicker option. He launched himself, ramming his forehead into the man’s chin, instantly punching his lights out.
Ellis brought his opponent quietly to the ground, the black man’s feet twitching as he slipped from consciousness.
‘They won’t know what hit ’em,’ said Wilkes, relieved at least that the inert pair at their feet would live to see another day.
‘Love to hear how they describe what they saw,’ said Ellis, adjusting his NVGs and turning on the unit’s light source. ‘Honest, chief, we wuz attacked by men from Mars…Yeah, sure — you bin smokin’ that whacky tobacky again, ain’t choo?’
The two soldiers made their way quickly back to the treeline without further incident. Timbu and Muruk were waiting for them, as instructed.
‘That was lucky,’ said Timbu. ‘Thought the cat was out of the bag for sure, then. Get what you wanted?’
‘Yeah. Scary stuff, I’m afraid,’ Wilkes said.
‘I’d like to know how they get the drugs out of here. Maybe there’s an airfield nearby somewhere.’ Ellis propped the goggles back on top of his head and rubbed his eyes. The NVGs were hard work. They offered almost no peripheral vision, presenting the world as if through a narrow green tunnel. The things always gave him a crushing headache.
‘Yeah…’ Wilkes realised the job was only half done. They were going to have to tail the gunrunners and see where they ended up. ‘Damn,’ he said to himself. He was supposed to be back in Townsville the day after tomorrow. Annabelle would be pissed off. Again.
Sergeant Tom Wilkes rolled out of his hammock two hours before dawn. No one needed waking. Within moments, the men were all quietly repacking their gear. Muruk led the way back to the enemy village, the NVGs looking totally out of place on a young man wearing a penis gourd.
The soldiers knew things would be different as they approached the village this time. The two men they knocked on the head would have sounded the alarm and guards would undoubtedly be posted. Muruk kept them away from the trails, which made the going more difficult.
They arrived within twenty minutes of the village just as the sky in the east lightened to purple. The bush crawled with highlanders stalking soundlessly through it with AK-47s, and some with pistols. The advancing dawn eliminated the advantage of the NVGs. Muruk brought the party in a wide arc around the village, but they couldn’t get any closer. Wilkes wanted to get on the trail of the gun traders, or at least see in which direction they were headed.
‘Timbu, ask Muruk if there’s any higher ground around here that’ll give us a view of the village.’
The interpreter put it to Muruk, who gave Sergeant Wilkes a nod. Half an hour later the men climbed a volcanic outcrop with the jungle spread out below. The soldiers pulled out their binoculars. Wilkes could clearly see the traders, maybe a dozen men, leaving the village. Behind them snaked a trail of natives toting the sacks of marijuana slung between poles. The scene reminded Wilkes of old Tarzan movies. The party was departing to the north, on the opposite side of the village to their observation post. Wilkes and his men kept watching until the column disappeared from view, in case the initial direction taken was a ruse and they doubled back.
By midday, they had picked up the trail. It wasn’t difficult. The traders were lazy bushmen, and perhaps confident that whatever they met in the jungle they had more than enough firepower to contend with. Wilkes had Muruk take them on a parallel course — close enough not to lose contact but far enough apart so that the two groups wouldn’t stumble on each other. That made their passage through the bush difficult. It was dense, and becoming more so. The traders had it relatively easy, taking the paths maintained by the tribesmen that moved between neighbouring settlements for trading and warring. At the end of the first day’s trek, Wilkes and his men were exhausted keeping up with the gunrunners. By the end of the second, they had begun to fall behind. The drop in altitude brought a marked increase in the thickness of the jungle. And the heat. There was no way to move without the help of a machete. They only managed to stay in touch with the traders by carefully probing forward after dark with the NVGs and establishing the whereabouts of the camp.