KELLA FOLLOWED THE rest of the audience out of the Point Cruz cinema on Mendana Avenue at the end of the single performance for the evening. Expatriates and islanders alike began to scurry away to their parked cars or to their homes in the labour lines designated for government workers just outside the town.
Kella stood against a wall and let the others pass him. He was feeling tired. A few hours earlier, a Melanesian mission ship had deposited him at Point Cruz wharf. He had been lucky. The islanders on Baroraite had taken him by canoe to a mission station on Santa Ysabel, just as the Selwyn was preparing to leave. The voyage back to Honiara had taken two days. He had walked from the wharf to his hut in the fishing village on the outskirts of the town, washed and changed, packed another knapsack and walked back to ascertain that there was room on the charter flight leaving for Munda the following morning. He had booked a one-way ticket and then, unable to settle and not wanting to go home straight away, he had noticed that an American B Western was supporting the main feature at the Point Cruz cinema, known variously among the expatriate population of the capital, for obvious reasons, as the Flea Pit and the Bucket of Blood.
Kella loved all low-budget cowboy films, except the ones in which the hero sang to his horse. This evening’s production had lived up to his expectations, as it had starred the Hollywood actor Wayne Morris, who in real life had flown a Hellcat in the Pacific during the war and who always looked to Kella to be that rarity among screen actors: a man big and ugly enough to handle himself in a genuine fight.
The only interruption to his enjoyment in the cinema had occurred after Morris’s leading lady had been shot on screen and had tumbled gracefully to the ground. The ambience of the moment had been spoiled by the interjection of a Guadalcanal government clerk sitting at the back, who had shouted to the heartbroken hero in perfectly articulated English: ‘Go on, whitey, shag her while she’s still warm!’
This had aroused the ire of a bunch of Malaitans from the labour lines who had been sitting nearby. Objecting on principle to a man from another island raising his voice in their presence, they had started a fight with the Guadalcanal man, forcing Kella to climb over the backs of several rows of seats and slap a few heads with his open hand before a semblance of order could be restored.
Rather than risk the scuffle continuing during the interval, the projectionist had then gone straight into the newsreel. For once, the events being depicted were only a few months old. It showed scenes of the ending of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, Sputnik 4 being launched in Russia and a young Elvis Presley returning from army service in Germany. There was also coverage of a fresh-faced presidential candidate, forty-two-year-old John F. Kennedy, canvassing for votes among coal miners in West Virginia.
Kella studied the shots of the smiling young candidate with interest. The man seemed full of energy, although he was supposed to be suffering from a long-term back injury exacerbated by his experiences in the Roviana Lagoon. The announcer declared in passing that Kennedy’s forthcoming campaign against the Republican candidate Richard M. Nixon seemed too close to call at the moment. Afterwards Kella sat through the main attraction, an American cop movie, with massive patience, then left the cinema.
‘Hey, Kella, did you really stand me up on our last date?’ asked Mary Gui, coming out of the theatre behind him. She was wearing a floral print dress that clung to her trim figure.
‘I got called away from Kolombangara unexpectedly,’ said Kella.
‘You mean some boy brought a telegraph all the way up the volcano to you? I hoped you tipped him well, going to that trouble.’
Kella smiled and started walking through the night crowds. Mary fell into determined step beside him. ‘What did you think of the film?’ she asked.
‘Kirk Douglas had it made. Every time he needed information, he only had to make a telephone call from his precinct. I sometimes have to travel three days between witnesses. Plus he had a compassionate buddy and a tough but understanding lieutenant.’
‘Ah,’ said Mary, ‘but were there any black detectives in sight?’
‘No, just a black patrolman who Douglas ordered out of the way before sacrificing his life in an act of heroic folly for the good of his men.’
‘You see,’ said Mary. ‘You’ve got some advantages. You haven’t been asked to do that yet. When was the last time a white detective ordered you to step back on the edge of some volcano and let him justify his star billing.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing. You don’t find too many white cops on top of Mount Mahimba.’
‘Exactly, so count your blessings.’
In spite of himself, Kella laughed. Mary took his arm. ‘Buy me a drink,’ she said impudently.
Kella looked around. They were opposite the almost sacrosanct elite Mendana Hotel. ‘Are you kidding?’ he asked lightly. ‘Whitey doesn’t like natives cluttering up his tambu spots, unless they’re washing the dishes.’
‘You-me nofella native,’ said Mary, not moving. ‘You-me first generation indigenous educated islanders.’
‘And if we go into the Mendana, that’s just what they might be putting on our gravestones.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be brave,’ Mary said.
Kella studied the girl’s determined face. She seemed to be in deadly earnest. ‘Do you really want to go in there?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think you’ll like it.’
‘Sure I do. There’s got to be a first time for everything. Come on.’
‘But why?’ asked Kella
‘Because,’ said Mary, ‘to the African retread, a permanent and pensionable colonial official now languishing in the South Pacific, in that hotel, I’m still just one generation away from being a jungle bunny, and I’m a lot more than that, don’t you agree, Sergeant Kella?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Kella, feeling himself being propelled against his will by the sheer force of the girl’s personality. ‘As long as you’re sure about this.’
‘I say it’s prejudice, and I say stuff ’em,’ said Mary, crossing the road in the direction of the hotel.
‘If you’re certain it’s not going to be a problem,’ said an impressed Kella, following her.
‘I didn’t say it wasn’t a problem,’ said Mary seriously. ‘It’s probably going to be a hell of a problem, but if you and I aren’t going to go in there, who will? Incidentally, afterwards I shall want full credit for my brazen and devil-may-care attitude.’
‘You’ll get it,’ said Kella.
Mary took the policeman’s arm again and they stepped into the quiet foyer of the Mendana Hotel. They walked past the reception desk with its clerk goggling at them, and out into the large, roofed but open-sided paved veranda running down to the sea. There were exotic potted plants around the edges of the dining area.
At this time in the evening, the dining room was busy. Expatriates in pairs and foursomes were sitting eating at the tables. There was a buzz of conversation, which died away when Kella and Mary appeared. They ran a gauntlet of disapproving looks from the white diners around them as they took their seats. At first Kella thought they were not going to be served. Then, from the knot of waiters in their long white lap-laps, one emerged and crossed the dining room towards them, shouldering the other waiters out of his way. He was a Lau man, squat and ugly in comparison with the handsome, light-skinned Western Solomons men who made up the rest of the serving complement.
‘Aofia,’ he said. ‘What can I fetch you?’
Kella ordered a bottle of beer for himself and a Bacardi and Coke for Mary. Slowly the other diners resumed their conversations and started eating again, continuing to direct cold glances at the unfamiliar sight of the two islanders at their table.
Kella wondered if he should have allowed Mary to bring him to this white bastion. He would not have inflicted the embarrassment on any other local young woman, but he was interested to see how the newly returned Western girl would react to the colonial ambience. He suspected that not only would she rise to the occasion; she might even enjoy it. He had detected a vein of steely, single-minded ambition in Mary, but there was also an element of recklessness that she could probably trace back to her marauding forebears.
‘What are you doing in Honiara?’ he asked.
‘It’s my last day of freedom. Tomorrow I fly back to Munda to take up my job as warden of the rest-house. I’m staying with wantoks at Matanikau tonight. Now tell me, what really happened to you on Kolombangara? I looked for you when I got up the next morning, but there was no sign of you.’
‘Was anyone else from the SIIP in the village with you?’
‘Hardly. I was well off the beaten track, wasn’t I? You know full well why I was up in the bush. I was getting the custom markings tattooed on my back from arse to shoulder. Why all the questions, Sergeant Kella? Did you bring me here to strike a blow for independence, or just to interrogate me?’
She stared at him defiantly. The Lau waiter brought their drinks. Kella paid him, and added a generous tip. The waiter grinned appreciatively and left.
‘What are you going to do now that you’ve come home?’ asked Kella. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to spend the rest of your life running the rest-house. You’re one of the Solomons’ first female graduates; you could practically write your ticket in the government service.’
‘And sit on my backside behind a desk for twenty years? No thank you. I’m going to climb the pole quicker than that, thank you very much.’
‘You’re a determined young lady. There’s always politics.’
‘Certainly, but not just yet, I fancy. The West is a very traditional district. Welchman Buna has got the Roviana seat sewn up for the next five years. I’ll let him make his mistakes before I move in and challenge him.’
‘So what does that leave?’
‘You could say that I’m exploring my options,’ said the girl evasively.
The drunken female voice that Kella had been half expecting since their arrival cut through the dining room imperiously.
‘They’re getting everywhere these days. The bloody people will be fox-hunting next,’ it said, icy with condemnation. There was a peal of forced laughter from the others in the party.
Impassively Kella glanced across the room. He recognized a group of six at the next table. There were three administrators from the Education Department, stick-thin men, their faces a jaundiced yellow from the persistent injections against tropical diseases they had taken over the years in a variety of depressing dependent tropical territories. Their bored, upholstered wives were uniformly over-bosomed and fat-bottomed. Mary looked expectantly, almost gleefully, at Kella. He sighed, pushed back his chair and walked over to the table. With surprise and obvious alarm, the six expatriates saw him coming and sat up, stiff-backed. Two of the Western waiters began to shuffle forward reluctantly. The Lau waiter sent them back effortlessly with one sweep of his arm. The room fell silent again as everyone waited and listened for what was to come.
Arriving unhurriedly at the table, Kella surveyed the occupants in silence. When he spoke, he pitched his voice so that everyone in the dining room could hear what he said.
‘If you lot get on my tits again, I shall climb down from my tree in the jungle and come and live next door to you,’ he said. ‘So watch it!’
The six expatriates stared fixedly at the tablecloth before them. No one met Kella’s eye. The policeman waited for a minute or two, and then nodded pleasantly and returned to his table. Mary Gui lifted her glass to him in a silent toast. The administrators and their wives started conducting a vehement conversation in hissed undertones. One of the wives stood up and stalked in an offended manner to the lavatories by the reception desk.
‘Excuse me,’ said Mary, standing up and slipping after the large woman.
The hotel manager, a lugubrious middle-aged Scot apparently beaten into a permanent state of submission by decades of dealing with arrogant colonial administrators around the world, appeared in the entrance, apparently summoned by the waiters. For years he had refereed the international rugby union matches regularly held on Lawson Tarma outside the capital. He wore a shiny dinner jacket and a permanently dejected expression, like a man who quite enjoyed and almost relished his secret sorrows. Kella wondered if he was going to be asked to leave. He saw that the Lau waiter was following the manager across the room. The manager noticed him and waved him away.
‘I’m hoping that the rest of the customers will think I’m reprimanding you,’ said the Scot, sinking into Mary’s chair. ‘So if you don’t mind, I’ll remain here a minute looking stern and exasperated. Is that all right with you, Sergeant Kella?’
‘Be my guest,’ said Kella.
‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about that time you played wing forward for the Solomons against the New Hebrides. If you remember, on that occasion I sent you off for unnecessary violence to their French scrum-half. Since then we have had the honour of entertaining three separate French trade delegations in this establishment. I’ve changed my mind. How the hell can you be unnecessarily violent to a Frenchman?’
‘A fair point,’ said Kella. ‘Vive l’entente cordiale!’
The manager turned to the Lau waiter. ‘Phillip, give the sergeant and his guest a drink on the house.’
‘I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ said Kella. ‘I have a feeling that we might be leaving quite rapidly at any moment.’
‘Point taken,’ said the manager, rising. ‘In that case, I shall withdraw to the sanctity of my office while I still have the chance. Phillip, call me when it’s over.’
The Scot walked away, nodding affably to the rest of his patrons. The Lau waiter winked conspiratorially in Kella’s general direction and went back to the suddenly agog group of waiters. Kella waited patiently, finishing his beer and draining Mary’s glass for good measure. He might be leaving in a hurry.
There was a scream from the direction of the lavatories. The woman who had left the neighbouring table rushed out and stood, distraught and gibbering, at the entrance of the dining room. There was a large wet stain across the lower half of the back of her expensive dress. The other two wives at the table hurried over to her in clucking consternation. Once again the diners lost all interest in their meals and stared across in fascination at the tableau. The first woman was panting for breath and in a state of some shock, pointing back in the direction of the lavatories. When she could finally speak, she gasped:
‘Someone leant across from the next stall while I was sitting down, and pulled the chain! My dress is soaked!’
The slim, demure form of Mary Gui slipped past the big woman, frowning concernedly. Kella stood up and walked across the room. He met Mary in front of the bewildered but appreciative waiters.
‘Into each life a little rain must fall,’ she said composedly.
‘Sometimes quite unexpectedly,’ agreed Kella.
On their way out of the hotel, they walked past the scandalized women, who had now been joined by their dithering husbands. None of them looked at Kella and Mary as the couple left.
‘I should send for a policeman,’ Kella advised them sympathetically, without stopping. Mary nodded her agreement.
The manager erupted from his office like an overstuffed bird popping out of a cuckoo clock. He bowed gravely to the departing couple.
‘Sir, madam,’ he said, straight-faced. Then he winked. ‘If you keep coming here, they’ll be charging me entertainment tax soon,’ he said.
• • •
THEY UNDRESSED BY the light of the oil lamp in Kella’s hut in the fishing village just outside Honiara.
‘This has been one of my more interesting evenings since I got back from Australia,’ said the girl, pulling her dress over her head. ‘Thank you for taking me to the Mendana. I’ve always wanted to go there, but you were the first islander with the guts to take me. I hope I didn’t shock you.’
‘I’m recovering,’ said Kella.
Her dark, beautiful and unadorned figure ghosted past Kella. She lay naked on the bed, legs apart, staring up at him with anticipation.
‘Let’s hear it for a full and total recovery, Big Man,’ she said.
‘Flattery will get you anywhere,’ Kella said, lowering his rigid body on top of her.
Mary moaned in grateful acquiescence. Then she gave a sharp scream and sat up abruptly.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Kella.
‘I’d forgotten how sore my bloody back was,’ groaned the girl, squirming from beneath him. ‘Roll over; you’d better let me get on top.’
• • •
KELLA ROSE EARLY the following morning and washed and shaved. He dimly remembered Mary Gui getting up and leaving while it was still dark. It was a sign of her independence that she had probably walked all the way back to her relatives at Matanikau. He thought about the curious events of the previous night. Somehow he felt that both at the hotel and in bed afterwards, Mary Gui had been testing him. He ate a plate of taro and drank a bottle of water before putting on a change of uniform. Then he set out to hitch a lift to the airport at Henderson field.
After a few minutes on the almost empty road, a battered Ford stopped to pick him up. He climbed into the front seat with a word of thanks, to discover that the driver was the council member Welchman Buna, as smartly dressed as usual, this time in a tan safari suit.
‘Well met, Sergeant,’ said the politician. ‘You can give me your preliminary report as we drive.’
Kella tried to give the other man a concise account of the events of the past few days. Buna listened in silence as they passed the Central Hospital on one side and the playing fields and the open-sided Anglican Melanesian mission cathedral on the other, until they reached the almost deserted wartime airstrip built by the Japanese. The two men walked into the departure lounge of the single-storey building in time to check with the Australian charter pilot that there was room for them on the waiting Piper Apache, and that they were scheduled to take off on time. The pilot left them with a wave to make his last-minute checks on the engine. Buna and Kella sat on one of the benches in the almost empty lounge. Next door, the transit lounge for incoming and waiting passengers housed only a solitary bored customs official.
‘You’ve had a busy couple of days,’ commented Buna.
‘Frustrating mostly,’ said Kella. ‘And slightly embarrassing.’
‘I go back to Roviana every month,’ Buna said, as if the other man was due an explanation for his presence. ‘The Legislative Council elections will be held in a few months; I have to canvas for votes.’
‘Not easy to do when most of your constituency is water,’ said Kella. ‘How do you work that out?’
‘Feasts,’ said the politician simply. ‘I go to every feast being held in the district. That’s the Roviana custom. Being visible during kinship events is very important. How else would people get to know me? It may get me the votes, at least I hope it will, but it plays hell with my digestion.’
Kella wondered if the other man was joking, but Buna was not a humorous man.
‘You’ll walk in,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got any opposition worthy of the name.’
Buna shrugged. ‘I hope to be successful,’ he said, ‘but it’s a long time since I lived in the west. I came to Honiara fifteen years ago. At least I don’t think I’ve offended anyone back home yet. That’s my best hope. I’m not a charismatic man. I just work hard for my district.’
Even in the heat of the noon sun the council member looked cool and composed. He sat very erect, not relaxing.
‘May I ask you a few questions?’ asked Kella.
‘Certainly, Sergeant.’
‘What do you know about the Solomon Islands Independence Party?’
‘Not very much,’ said Buna. ‘It is based in my district, mainly at Munda and Gizo. It’s comparatively new and not very influential yet. It consists mainly of local graduates returning from overseas universities, usually teachers and junior administrators. They sit around and have debates, pass motions, that sort of thing. They’re not into direct action, if that’s what you’re thinking. I suppose that one day they will run a candidate to oppose me. A modern, educated progressive against an ignorant old bushman, you know the sort of thing.’
‘Their candidate will have to eat a lot of pig at a lot of feasts before he whittles down your lead. And Mary Gui is their leader?’
‘I believe so.’ Buna smiled thinly. ‘She is something of a firebrand, but she would never lead a raid on the logging camp, nor indeed leave a pile of excreta behind. At least I hope not. She has her principles, though. She refuses to take a post in government service. She earns a living by running the rest-house at Munda for Joe Dontate. Do you think she had a hand in knocking you unconscious on Kolombangara?’
‘I’m not sure. It happened outside her hut. Her back had just been slashed to pieces by the tattooists, so she wouldn’t have been in any state to attack me, or drag me back down to the beach. She might know who did it, though. I haven’t made up my mind.’
‘Doubtless you intend to get together with her?’
‘I’ve already started work in that area,’ said Kella.
‘And you’re going back to Munda to complete your investigations?’
‘By rather a roundabout route, as it happens,’ said Kella with feeling.
‘I suppose one day Mary Gui and others like her will present a problem to me at the elections,’ Buna said. ‘Not yet, though. They are regarded as too callow and inexperienced. Whereas I lived in a saltwater village for the first twenty years of my life. I wouldn’t have left even then if I hadn’t been forced out by the war.’
‘Did you fight in the West?’ Kella asked.
‘Not to your level of distinction, Sergeant Kella,’ Buna said vaguely. ‘I did my best to help out locally. Incidentally, I’m concerned about the part played in all this by the white man Ferraby. That man is a throwback to the 1930s when expatriates expected us to call them all master. He belongs in a museum. Will you arrest him?’
‘What for? I can’t prove anything.’
‘Hmm, that’s a pity. After the next elections, the elected members are going to have a lot more influence. I think as a matter of urgency we ought to look into the status of expatriates like Ferraby. They’ve outstayed their welcome in the islands. So you haven’t made much progress with your investigations at the logging camp? That’s disappointing—and not like you.’
‘I’m going back there tomorrow to try again,’ said Kella, shaking his head.
‘You’re persistent, Sergeant Kella; that’s an admirable trait in a police officer.’ Buna hesitated. ‘That’s another change we must make in the near future. We must fast-track the better men we already have in government service. If you handle this logging business efficiently and tactfully, it will be remembered in the right quarters, I can promise you. And I don’t mean in Whitehall; I’m referring to here in the islands where all the decisions will be made before long. Find out who’s launched this campaign against the loggers, and do so without upsetting anyone influential.’
‘Would you like me to form a silver band to entertain the loggers at the same time?’ asked Kella.
Buna showed no sign of recognising the levity in the other man’s tone. ‘And the attack on you at Kolombangara,’ he asked, ‘could it have been carried out by one of the islanders with a grudge against the police?’
‘I doubt it,’ Kella said. ‘I was attacked by either a European or an islander with plenty of money.’
‘What makes you think that?’ asked Buna.
‘Whoever knocked me out paid Ferraby in cash to hold me on his ship for a few weeks. None of the islanders on Kolombangara could have afforded that. I was taken down to the beach by someone with ready cash on him—or her.’
‘Of course,’ said Buna slowly. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Are there many expatriates in the West at the moment, apart from the government workers at Gizo?’
‘There’s only an American tourist party stopping at Munda. I’m going to question them too, and Mary Gui, if she’s come back.’
As he spoke, the girl entered the departure lounge. She was wearing a white blouse and a long floral skirt. Kella made as if to get up and walk over to her, but she shook her head almost imperceptibly and took a seat on the other side of the lounge, where she stared composedly ahead.
A voice over the loudspeaker announced the imminent arrival of the Fiji Airways flight from the New Hebrides. At the same time an official police car driven by a local officer pulled up outside the arrival and departure lounge. To Kella’s horror, Superintendent Grice, dapper in full uniform, got out of the back of the car and started walking towards the single-storey building. Presumably the superintendent was about to meet some dignitary from another police force. If he saw the sergeant, he would be sure to demand an explanation as to why Kella was setting off for Munda for the second time in just over a week. Like Buna, he would also ask for a progress report, which Kella, true to form, would be unable to provide.
‘Excuse me,’ said Kella, and dived for the Gents’.
He lurked inside for ten minutes until he had heard the two-turbo-prop-engined Fokker Friendship from Fiji land and discharge its maximum of forty-four passengers. He gave it another ten minutes for luck, and then emerged cautiously from the toilets. Chief Superintendent Grice and a uniformed chief inspector from the New Hebrides police force carrying a suitcase were walking talking animatedly towards the exit. Grice saw his sergeant. He stopped talking and his eyes widened. Providentially, the loudspeaker then announced the departure of the local flight to Munda. Kella sketched a desperate salute in the general direction of his superior officer and ran for the charter aeroplane waiting on the tarmac. As he did so, he noticed that Mary Gui had left her seat and was now sitting next to Welchman Buna and talking sedately to the Advisory Council member.