Timbu talked some more with the chief, nodding occasionally and asking questions. The chief became quite
animated.
‘What is it?’ Wilkes asked.
‘The Indonesians first came about a year ago with just a few weapons and gave them to a small village over the ridge,’ said the translator, pointing north. ‘In return, the people gave them food and herbs, which probably included marijuana. Six months later, the Indonesians returned, this time with several crates of weapons and boxes of ammunition, and bartered the lot for bales of pot. The guns proved a big success with the locals. They could kill at great distances — much better than spears, but there were a couple of accidents. The chief says he heard one man blew his hand off accidentally, and two boys shot each other dead playing with them, but the weapons had allowed the small village to finally exercise payback on a much larger neighbouring village they’d been warring with for some time.
‘The Indonesians came back again a couple of months later with still more guns, wanting more drugs. This time they struck a deal with the larger village. The following day, a raiding party wiped out the smaller village — everyone — men, women and children. Fewer warriors use the traditional weapons around here anymore. They all want carbines. A lot of people are dying— it’s very sad.’
Wilkes nodded. Sad was an understatement. ‘Ask the chief why his village doesn’t have rifles yet,’ he said.
Timbu put it to the chief, who hawked loudly onto the ground before answering.
‘The chief says it’s the road. It scares off the traders. That’s why this village is one of the last in these hills to get them. But the chief thinks his village will get rifles soon. They must have them to deter attacks.’
The chief began to talk again, smiling, patting Morgan and Littlemore on the back. Timbu said, ‘The chief wants us all to be his guests tonight, and he is sorry that he didn’t make us feel welcome when we first arrived. He didn’t know we were such good fighters.’
Wilkes scratched his forehead. He wasn’t keen. This wasn’t supposed to be the SAS show. He looked at Loku and Pelagka. Bill Loku took over, speaking up in pidgin, smiling, using plenty of friendly gestures and back-patting of his own to get his point across. Striking up a rapport with these people was his reason for being here. Politicians — the same everywhere, thought Wilkes.
Timbu translated for the politicians and the chief smiled broadly, showing a mouth full of red and black teeth, the legacy of a lifetime of chewing betel nut.
But it wasn’t all happiness. The wives, mothers and sisters of the two villagers felled at the treeline by friendly fire began to mourn their dead. They howled over the men. Timbu said, ‘Aside from the emotional loss, losing their men is going to cause those women real hardship. They’ll have to rely on the generosity of the village to survive.’
Wilkes nodded. ‘If it’s not a rude question, Timbu, I’ve been meaning to ask — where’d you learn to speak English like that?’
‘My parents came from this area. Our village got torched when I was a baby. A payback raid over a pig. My parents were killed. An Australian patrol officer found me and adopted me. Went to a private school in Sydney. Political science at Sydney University, then back to Port Moresby, and here I am.’ He said it as if there was something about his life’s journey that was inevitable.
‘Is “payback” what it sounds like?’ asked Littlemore, who’d never been to PNG before and didn’t know much about the place.
‘Yeah, it’s exactly what you’d think it means. You do something to me, and I pay you back. Unfortunately, the way they practise it here, you pay me back and then I pay you back and on it goes, round and round. Used to be pretty bad before the Lutheran missionaries began converting the area and settled things down. But looks like it’s gonna get bad again with all these guns about.’
‘Yep,’ said Wilkes, looking at the dead highlander twenty metres away curled on the ground in the foetal position, his warpaint running with his own blood. PNG troops laid three other dead warriors beside him. ‘So what are you doing up here, Timbu?’
‘This was my home,’ said Timbu. ‘Not this village, but these hills. Come back every chance I get.’ He looked around, taking in the surrounds, and Wilkes could sense the man’s loss. ‘Now I work for the government as a translator. When I heard Bill was heading up here to kiss babies, I put my hand up to come along. I speak English, Indonesian, pidgin, a couple of these highland dialects and a smattering of menu French to impress the chicks.’
‘Don’t think you’ll find much foie gras round here,’ said Wilkes. He sized Timbu up professionally and decided it would be much healthier to be his friend than his enemy, for Timbu was a big man, five or six centimetres taller than Wilkes, and just as stocky — around a hundred and ten kilos in weight. He guessed Timbu was around thirty to thirty-two years old, a few years older than himself, and built like a rugby player — maybe a second rower, Wilkes thought — with a good strong face, a broad nose and teeth so white they appeared to be lit from the inside.
‘Boss,’ said Beck, interrupting.
‘Stu?’
‘Got three wounded PNG men. Not seriously. Two flesh wounds — both thigh shots — and a fractured tibia and fibula. The bullet’s still lodged in the bone. Should medivac ’em out.’
Wilkes nodded.
‘We’ve got no morphine, just a basic first aid kit — a few dressings and that’s it.’
Wilkes heard the men crying out when their pain became too much for them to bear. ‘Gary?’
‘Yo.’
‘See if you can get that Blackhawk up here pronto. Tell ’em we need medivac.’
‘On it,’ Ellis said.
‘And while you’re there, see if you can get a patch through to regiment. Give ’em the serial number on this rifle and see what they can do with it,’Wilkes said, tossing Ellis the carbine.
‘Sure, boss,’ said Ellis, who then turned and jogged off to the truck to get on the satellite videophone — the vone — and make the call.
Gunfire cracked from the treeline. Wilkes turned to face the source. It was the men who’d chased the marauders off into the jungle, returning. They seemed pretty happy with themselves, laughing and shooting the weapons they’d won skywards as they strolled back into the village centre. One man was being carried between two others, his foot a bloody red mass. Beck walked over to meet the approaching war party, Timbu following. ‘Put him down here,’ Beck said. The wounded man was laid on the damp earth and Beck rummaged in his satchel for swabs to wipe away the clotted blood. The warrior stared straight at the sky, eyes fixed and wide. He breathed short, quick breaths through his teeth, flecks of white spittle blowing from his lips. Yet, he made not a sound. ‘Sorry, mate,’ said Beck. ‘I can’t give you too much help, I’m afraid.’ Beck admired the man’s courage and cursed the fact that he had no morphine to end yet another unnecessary battle with pain.
An old woman, naked but for thin baggy cotton shorts, with hair the colour and texture of steel wool, pushed through the tribesmen, muttering. She carried a banana leaf on which were collected small piles of berries, leaves and beetles. She knelt beside the wounded man, placing the banana leaf on his rigid stomach. She gathered the nuts and leaves, put them in her mouth and began to chew. After a minute, she knelt over the man’s face and let a gob of purple spit fall from her lips onto his clenched teeth. He swallowed and, within a handful of seconds, relaxed into a deep sleep. Beck watched on, open-mouthed. The old woman spat the masticated quid on the ground, took one of the insects, a large orange beetle, bit off its head and chewed. She screwed up her face — Beck could only imagine the taste — and spat on the ground again.