‘Hey, not bad,’ said Timbu.
‘Can you ask him about a guide? Got no idea how to say that,’ said Wilkes a little self-consciously.
The old man nodded occasionally as Timbu spoke. He then addressed the Australians and Timbu translated: ‘He understands that we’re keen to be on our way. And he’s lending us one of his sons to be our guide.’
The chief turned and said something quickly to his people, and a boy of around fourteen stepped forward. His black skin glistened with sweat in the morning heat. There was not an ounce of fat on him. His face was open and friendly beneath close-cropped hair bleached an ochre colour. Overly large teeth crowded into a mouth that stretched from ear to ear as he grinned. A small collection of ornaments hung from his neck and, around his waist, the penis gourd. ‘Nem bilong mi Muruk,’ he said.
‘Tom,’ said Wilkes, shaking the boy’s hand. ‘Mi amamas long mitim yu, Muruk,’ he added politely. Pleased to meet you.
‘Er…don’t know whether you’ve noticed, boss, but he’s a boy,’ said Ellis, knowing how arduous the next few days would be.
‘To them he’s a man,’ said Timbu. ‘And if you don’t accept, the chief will think you question his judgment, which would be considered rude. Besides, this is the boy’s home. The jungle’s the kid’s backyard. There’s no way the chief would put him forward if he didn’t think he was man enough for the job.’
‘Sounds reasonable,’ said Wilkes. ‘Tell the chief that we’re honoured his son will be our guide.’ He knew that sending his son wasn’t such a big deal, but it didn’t hurt to be polite. The people here were polygamists. The chief had maybe twenty wives and God knows how many offspring. Half the men in the tribe were probably his.
Timbu thanked the chief and the village men mingled with the soldiers, nodding and smiling.
‘We should get going, eh?’ said Sergeant Wilkes after a few minutes. It was already 0900 hours and he was impatient to get underway. Just because he and his men were now officially tourists in PNG rather than soldiers on duty for the Australian government, it didn’t mean they could relax. That they weren’t performing an official task meant this ‘mission’ would not have the benefit of any intelligence. Time was therefore of the essence. The last contact with the gunrunners was just a few days ago. After further questioning of the warriors from the village who’d seen these foreigners, there was no certainty about whether they were on their way to conduct business, or leaving after having concluded it. And if they were heading out, what was their destination? The more Wilkes considered it, the more he thought that perhaps he was on a fool’s errand, and should be sitting on a quiet beach somewhere with a cold beer on one side and Annabelle on the other. Indeed, once they’d left the highlands, Wilkes had had second and third thoughts about becoming further involved in this guns-for-drugs mess. They could conceivably land in a shitload of trouble with the authorities back home. But then Wilkes took another look at the innocent faces around him and knew he was doing the right thing. Okay, so there was no way he and his men could single-handedly stop the flood of modern weaponry into these hills, but maybe they could discover something that would make this exercise worthwhile, even if just for this one village.
Muruk approached the Australians and shook each man’s hand in turn, learning their names as he went. The boy’s grip was strong. He said something to Wilkes, who then looked helplessly at Timbu. ‘He said he’s packed and ready to go now,’ said the interpreter.
‘Good,’ Wilkes said.
‘Rockin’,’ said Muruk.
Wilkes and Timbu blinked wide-eyed at the young man.
‘Radio,’ said Muruk by way of explanation as he ran off to one side and picked up a bilum, a shoulder bag made from woven grasses.
‘Jesus,’ said Beck, who’d caught all this. ‘Bloody Elvis has a lot to bloody answer for, don’t he?’
Muruk returned and Timbu said an official goodbye on behalf of them all. The chief and the rest of the village waved, and kept waving right up until they followed Muruk into the jungle. A dozen paces into the thick ground cover and Wilkes turned to look behind him. The village had gone, hidden utterly from view. Timbu had been right. Within a few short steps, the jungle had swallowed them so completely it was if they’d journeyed into it for days.
Sounds filled Sergeant Wilkes’s ears — a chorus of birds, crickets, geckoes, the swish of lizards and snakes slithering through grass. He breathed deeply, taking in the wet heat he knew so well. The combination of jungle smells and sounds combined to send an unexpected shiver up his spine. Wilkes was suddenly reminded of his troop’s most recent mission into the centre of Sulawesi, where they’d rescued the survivors of a downed Qantas plane. There, they’d come up against the Kopassus, Indonesia’s infamous special forces troops. The mission had been successful, but it had also been murderous and two of his men had been killed. Until then, Wilkes had embraced the jungle completely, welcoming it as a second home. But now the press of wet leaves, the razor grass and the three levels of canopy overhead also held brutal memories that forced their way into his dreams and made him wake to the sound of his own screams. Virgin jungle was a place of death, of destruction, revealing its secrets only when it had worn down the mind and left it vulnerable. Sergeant Wilkes took a deep breath and shook his head: get a grip on yourself, pal — come unglued afterwards, when you’re sitting on that beach with Belle.
An hour later, Tom Wilkes was feeling more like his old self. The notion that the jungle had some kind of malevolent consciousness had receded and he was starting to enjoy the walk. The deep bush of the New Guinea highlands was a botanist’s delight, with orchids everywhere, and of every colour: purple, yellow, white and red. They flowered on the ground and in the trees. Some were large and some small. Some were openly parasitic, their delicate white tendrils tapped into the life force of host trees and shrubs; some apparently taking nutrients from the air itself. And all the while, the infinite diversity of song rang out from a spectacular range of birds of paradise, their intensely coloured plumage visible from a considerable distance. It had been too long since Tom had been in the jungle just for the pure joy of it. Okay, the environment held its dangers, but at least this time one of them wasn’t camouflaged enemy special forces. And that was a pleasant change.
Muruk took them along paths that were hidden by the jungle, the byways rather than the highways. The climb over the ridge was relatively easy with no need for ropes or pitons, but the altitude, well over three thousand metres, left them breathless. Standing on the top of the ridge, Sergeant Wilkes looked back towards the village. The view was spectacular, as if some titan had taken a giant bucket of greenery and splashed it into the valley, the foliage sluicing up the mountainsides towards them. Muruk’s village could be seen clearly, appearing like a sloppy crop circle cut into the vegetation by drunken aliens.
Muruk and Timbu chatted briefly in the village dialect.
‘Muruk apologises for the cold,’ said Timbu, ‘but says going this way will slice half a day from the trek.’
‘Hamas taim long go long?’ asked Beck, who was starting to pick up a few words of pidgin. How far to go?
‘Klostu liklik,’ said Muruk.
Beck nodded, but obviously with no idea of what the boy had said.
‘He said, literally translated, “fairly near”. But around here, normal concepts of distance don’t mean much. We might still be walking this time tomorrow and Muruk will still be saying, “klostu liklik”,’ said Timbu.
Littlemore swigged some water from a flask. Ellis pulled a fleece from his pack. Beck shrugged. ‘Well, tell Muruk we’re enjoying the walk anyway.’