Stop. Lieutenant Haapu went to ground.
The platoon had reached a stream, swollen and brown with silt. Beside it, a bumpy red dirt track. On the other side of the stream were misty rain-soaked rice paddies and open fields.
Path to the village? Sam signed.
Affirmative, Lieutenant Haapu returned. ‘This is what we’re going to do, Sergeant. I want you to wait half an hour while the rest of us go round the flank and take up positions overlooking the village. In half an hour, take your men in. Got that? We’ll cover you as necessary and, once you give the all clear, we’ll join you.’
Then he was gone, and with him half the squad. As they left, the underbelly of the sky was split with electrical discharges. The ceiling cracked open and a spear of forked lightning plummeted to the ground. The air crackled with ozone.
‘Guess who’s arrived,’ George said.
His eyes were filled with myths and beings of the Maori past.
‘Te Uiuira,’ Sam answered. The Lightning God.
Village, George signed.
It was dusk and the village was a jumble of shabby bamboo-framed hootches. The huts were roofed with palm fronds and raised from the ground, their backs to the sloping mountain. Rainwater urns collected water under their eaves. In front of each hootch was a wooden pedestal set with offerings to the spirits of wind and sky. Most had verandahs and, below them, enclosures for pigs or poultry. But apart from a silky hen and its chicks, there was no sign of livestock.
Sam saw a villager appear and go around to the garden at the back of his hut. A small group of children as thin as rice stalks ran out and began to play around the village dinh, the small concrete shrine in the middle of the square. If children are playing, Sam thought, the village must be safe. He signed to George and Red Fleming:
Let’s go in. Do not fire unless fired upon.
The section advanced to a cau ki, a monkey bridge with a flimsy handrail. The water in the stream below had a rich smell like damp leaves. As Sam crossed he saw a reflection in the water. His mind flipped to a fairytale about the Little Billy-Goat Gruff clip clopping across a wooden bridge. Underneath the bridge was a troll —
George and Red Fleming went ahead. Cicadas croaked in the water palms, then became silent as the two scouts entered the village. The villager returned from his garden and shouted at the children. Without looking left or right, they ran quickly into their hootches. It was almost as if they had never been there.
Silence descended. Only the rain. Sam always trusted George’s gut instincts and, so far, George had not given any sign that there was any danger. But then two black figures ran out. George pointed them out to Sam: Bring back?
No. Leave to Lieutenant Haapu.
The team patrolled the entire length of the village, alert to every sign that might spell danger. When they reached its northern extremity they patrolled back to the village square where Sam positioned his men defensively in a 360-degree harbour.
He returned to Zel Flanagan: Send the all clear.
Five minutes later, Lieutenant Haapu and the rest of the platoon had still not arrived, but Sam was conscious that all around him the villagers were watching.
From the corner of his eye Sam caught a movement. Through the glistening rain he saw that a candle had been lit in one of the huts. It was moving as if someone was signalling.
The candelight flared and, far away, Sam saw a beautiful chameleon, a creature with an iridescent pale blue body and a yellow throat. As he watched it turned a deep angry blue and then an extraordinary pellucid green. Sam looked through the green of the chameleon’s skin. With a sudden flick it disappeared. In its place was an old woman, holding a candle and looking back at him through the open-weave lattice walls of her hut. She put the candle down, pulled and the wall went up. When Sam looked again, she was sitting on the verandah of her hootch like a wizened Queen of Sheba. She motioned to Sam.
Haere mai. Come.
‘What is this power you have over women?’ George asked.
Sam felt himself compelled to approach.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Flanagan said. ‘You may need somebody to translate.’
The old woman stood up and greeted Sam. Her voice reminded him of singing. Of an aged grand-aunt who lived long ago. He was taken to her once, to the place where she lived, a hut just like this — except that it was called a whare — and she had welcomed him and his mother in a similar singing language. Later that evening, after dinner, he had traced the moko on her chin and listened as she sung him to sleep with oriori, lullabies for children:
Po! Po! E tangi ana ki te kai mana
Waiho me tiki ake ki te Pou, a hou kai
Hei a mai te pakake ki uta ra —
The rain, the shivering trees and, when Sam blinked, he was back in Vietnam and an old lady was looking quizzically at him. Her hair was scraped into a bun. Her teeth were betel-stained. Behind her was an old man, her husband. He had lost a leg and was standing on a crutch. He had a scar running from his left ear to his chin. From the hut came the aroma of wood smoke and cooked rice.
‘What is she saying?’ Sam asked Flanagan.
‘The old mother says that she has been waiting for us,’ Flanagan interpreted.
‘How did she know we were coming?’
‘The hills have eyes. The birds left their shelter at our approach. The hills have ears too. They sent the vibrations as we trod every blade of grass. The old mother invites you inside to have a meal with her.’
At that, the woman’s husband yelled at her.
‘The old man doesn’t want us to come in,’ Flanagan explained, ‘but she’s insisting on it. She’s reminding him that she’s the one who wears the pants.’
Sam paused. He felt himself falling, as if he was going through a looking glass, and he remembered again the whare of his grand aunt. Like that house, this one also had mats on the floor, but instead of greenstone and feather cloaks it had an altar with a house God. Placated with offerings, the house God brought good fortune.
The old woman showed Sam the front room. A shrine, with yellowed photographs of loved ones. In front of each, a bowl containing money and tidbits of favourite foods, dedicated to the family’s ancestors. Through a window, a small temple in the backyard to appease wandering spirits.
‘Pho?’ the old woman asked Sam.
She led him into her kitchen. The old man stumped after her. To one side was a cooking area. A large ceramic urn, emblazoned with a dragon and filled with water, sat near the fire.
‘The old mother asks if you are hungry,’ Flanagan said.
The woman crouched over a charcoal burner. She was so skinny that when she hunched over, folds of loose skin wrinkled around her knees.
‘An com?’
She pulled Sam towards a pot that was simmering on the burner, put handfuls of noodles into a couple of bowls, then lifted the lid off one of the pots. Large bones bobbed about in the simmering liquid. Pushing these aside with a ladle, the old woman scooped up broth and poured it over the noodles. Next came handfuls of bean sprouts, slivers of meat and an array of garnishes. The soup looked salty and spicy.