Chapter 16

After Thompson left the church, Yani took it upon himself to take the stained-glass window of the Ascension of Christ out of its crate. The slot had been prepared in the earthen wall to receive the frame rather snugly, but it would take two people to lift it into place. The Churchboy was sure that Jesus could work his magic better if he was out in plain view, rather than trapped in the wooden box. The pallet of palm leaves on which he had placed the pastor was in just the right spot for him to see the picture standing on the altar when he awoke again.

He wondered why the friends of Jesus had not come by to help them with the church. Maybe they realized that there were no more tools to be had, but since they enjoyed using them he doubted that was the reason.

___

One of the women who had taken a liking to Yani edged around the clearing, watching him position the window. When he finished, she said, “The picture of Witman God looks like it has much power. Can Big Man Duff go up through the clouds, too?”

“Yani and Pastor Duff will go through the clouds to Heaven when it is the time.”

She was impressed.

“Where are the friends of Jesus?” Yani asked. “I thought everyone would come to work with me. Pastor is sick from bad spell. I think Big Man Tomsin is bis” using the local word for sorcerer. “He use simka on him,” Yani said.

“Big Man Tomsin called all men to Big House. Everyone is there. He came to the village and told them to go there,” she said, her words showing her obvious fear of the white man.

Yani saw that McDuff was sleeping well at the moment. “You stay here,” he told her “Give him water if he wakes up. I go hear what Big Man Tomsin says.”

___

When Yani reached the Big House, he stayed around the outer edge of the crowd. He did not want Thompson to see him. In his usual style, Thompson stood up on the verandah, bullying the natives in their own language.

“The Japanese are coming. They have big ships. They have soldiers with guns.” He held his shotgun over his head. “They will shoot the Blackfella if he does not work on the copra plantations. The Witman chief in Sydney does not want the Blackfella to be shot.”

The natives did not believe Thompson’s words. They were more inclined to believe that the Japanese were their friends and were going to drive the Witman off the islands. However, no one dared to give voice to those thoughts at the moment.

Then he got to the sticky part. “Because we are at war with the Japanese, everyone will have to pay a tax of five Pounds a year.” No one understood what he meant.

“All men will work on the Plantation for six months every year. I will give you knives, hatchets, steel tools, tinkens, cotton cloth, and clothes. I will also give you Australian money; enough to pay the tax. I will give you five Pounds every six months.”

The islanders looked at each other to see if anyone understood what Thompson was telling them. No one did.

There was a general grumbling that went through the crowd that Thompson interpreted correctly. They had no intention of working on the coconut plantation. The assemblage began to break up. They had no intention of hearing any more of Big Man Tomsin’s nonsense, and drifted away.

His first reaction on seeing that he was losing his audience was almost automatic — he fired the double-barreled 12-gauge into the air. As always, it got their attention.

“I have not finished talking, yet!” he screamed. “I have been appointed Governor of this island. You are all British subjects, and will follow the regulations I set down.

“I have six Policeboys who will make sure you obey the laws.” He called them up to join him on the verandah. They were wearing their uniforms and were carrying their six-foot quarterstaves. But when he counted them, there were only five — he was one short. He saw that most of the tribesmen wore smiles. They knew something he did not, but it seemed best not to call attention to the missing Policeboy.

Thompson pointed to one of his copra drying buildings, and said, “That is the calaboose. Anyone who does not report to work on the plantation and collect coconuts or do what I tell him will be held inside that copra shed in the dark. He will stay there until he decides to cooperate.”

More islanders were beginning to go back to the jungle, and Yani decided that it was time for him to leave as well. Thompson picked three men to start work immediately. Again, waving his shotgun in the air, he said, “I will select the rest of the workmen as they are needed. We have to husk the coconuts already in the shed starting now.”

Everyone knew that it was a particularly arduous and difficult process. No one wanted to do it. To say that the mood of the men was ugly would be a gross understatement.

___

Yani found McDuff still asleep, and he dismissed the girl. Placing his hand on the minister’s head, he closed his eyes and whispered the word formula Ooma had taught him to undo fever spells. It is simka of Tomsin’s doing that gives him hot skin, Yani thought as he touched the sick man. The Witman’s pills are OK if Big Man Duff’s magic calls for them. But I think the old way is better in this case. The Witman doesn’t know anything about spells, and the work of bis. Tomsin is a strong bis, but I am stronger.

The young shaman kept his eyes closed, and visualized McDuff active and working in his usual manner. He held on to this thought until the patient awoke 15 minutes later.

___

Dr. McDuff lay on the palm leaves, his clothes soaked in perspiration; a piece of wet gingham cloth across his forehead. His eyes opened and he gazed up at the stained glass window. He recited a series of prayers focused on helping him recover his health. He asked to be shown the way he could fulfill his mission. As he prayed, the noise from the village began as a low murmur, but grew steadily in volume as more of the men picked up the chant. Yani had heard it from its beginning, and McDuff noticed that the Churchboy was acting strangely. He had placed a number of tinkens in a box, along with the Bible and “A Missionary in the New Hebrides”

“What are you doing, Yani?” the bleary-eyed American asked, pointing feebly with his shaking hand at the box. “Why are you putting my books in the box?”

The young man filled a large, hollow gourd from their rainwater cistern, and stuck a makeshift cork of palmwood into the neck. “You sleep. Yani tell you when time wake up,” he said in his best English. He did not want to risk being misunderstood. “I go now. Come back soon. You sleep.” And with that, he slipped into the jungle carrying the box and gourd.

“Come back!” McDuff called after him. “It’s time for my quinine pills. I can’t reach them myself...” But Yani was gone.

He slowly rolled over, and fell off the pile of palm leaves onto the floor, winding up on his stomach. From this position he was able to work his way into a kneeling position, and finally stood up shakily by holding on to the altar. He misjudged his sure-footedness, and his knees gave out from under him. He grabbed at the altar-cloth as he went down and caused the stained glass window to pitch forward. He sat down hard on the ground, and was quickly crowned by the falling window.

The broad surface of the window crashed down on the malaria-weakened man and shattered on impact, covering him with dozens of razor-sharp shards of colored glass. He was struck on top of his head by the heavy metal frame of the window, which rendered him unconscious almost at once. His head went through the leaded glass joints and he received numerous scalp wounds that bled profusely. He fell against the altar in a sitting position and the window frame hung around his shoulders like a huge necklace.

___

McDuff had not been unconscious for more than ten minutes when four of the tribal elders crept up on the church clearing, weapons in hand. They all wore oversized nambas or penis gourds. The men wondered at the silence in the little compound. The Witman was known to talk almost incessantly, and Yani was also unusually verbal for an islander. On a signal from the head man, they all sprang to their feet and ran into the back end of the church swinging their recently acquired machetes.

The churchfella, Big Man Duff, was not stretched out on the floor, sick and delirious as the woman had told them. Instead, he was sitting at the front of the church, facing them. His head and face were a bloody mess, protruding through the window, and was not moving.

The lead man raised his hand and signaled the others to stop where they were. He looked for a long moment, then shared his assessment of the situation. “Yani has already killed the Witman. But he had a strong spirit. If we go near him now, he can still make powerful simka against us. Leave the way we came in. Don’t touch him.” Slowly the four men backed out of the crude building and hastened back to the village.

Yani did not take the pathway back to the church. He moved carefully from tree to tree, not revealing himself in case anyone was watching. Suddenly, he saw the four elders returning from the direction of the church, and he feared he was too late. Once they were out of sight, he hurried through the bush.

He found McDuff just as the natives had, but ran right to him. Seeing that the missionary was still alive and breathing, he carefully lifted the splintered window off the injured minister and threw the frame to the side. The jewel-like shrapnel lay strewn around the foot of the altar, so Yani lifted McDuff up and out of the danger zone.

He laid him back on the palm leaf bed and poured water on the man’s head. The cool liquid revived him and he reached instinctively for his nose to keep the water from entering. He coughed and slowly opened his eyes. Fortunately, there was no glass around his eyes, but his face and scalp had numerous slits and cuts.

“Blackfella do this?” Yani asked him.

“Do what?” McDuff said, knowing that something had happened, but really having no idea what. He looked at the hand he had just touched his nose with. It was covered with blood. “What the...!

“What happened? How did I get this blood on my hand?” Then he became aware of the pain and discomfort on the top of his head and around his ears. When he reached up he gathered a new collection of blood on his fingers.”

“Blackfella do this?” Yani asked again. “I see them run through jungle. I think maybe they kill you. I find Jesus hit you on head.” He pointed to the ruined picture of the Ascension.

McDuff touched his hair and felt the tiny glass particles. It took a few minutes to compose himself. “I think I know what happened. I fell against the altar and the picture fell on top of me. What a shame it’s ruined. We’ll never be able to repair it,” he lamented.

He tried to sit up with little success. Yani helped him. “Night time come quick,” Yani said. “We hide in jungle now. We go down beach. No moon this night time.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Yani?” the pandanus leaf walls of the church seemed to swirl around him. “Why do we want to hide in the jungle?”

“Blackfella kill Witman. Kill Tomsin. Kill Big Man Duff. Wait for Japfella come. Japfella Blackfella friend. They bring tinken, guns for Blackfella. Kill Witmen,” Yani rattled off quickly. “Percy say so.”

“You say they’re going to kill Thompson? We’ve got to warn him. We’ve got to get down to the Big House.”

“Yani think you head-sick. Yani put tinken, water, books in Captain West boat. Night time we go boat. We go Yani’s island. See Ooma.”

Those were the last words Dr. Moses McDuff heard within the confines of the Church of God’s Triumph. He had passed out again. Yani draped him over his shoulders and carried him into the bush. He headed toward the strand, and hid his patient among the palm trees while he waited for the right time to race out onto the pier.

A bright light caught his eye at the other end of the lagoon. The Big House had just started to burn. It grew in intensity, and finally took on magnificent proportions when the drums of petrol for the generator blew. The natives were in a frenzy of joy at their liberation.

The island had again lived up to its reputation among white men as Christ’s Despair. Yani took advantage of the blazing distraction, and carried McDuff out on the pier. He safely placed him on the deck of the Salvation, untied the moorings, and quietly put to sea.