The Samurai Inheritance (40 page)

Jamie searched into his pockets until he found what he was looking for and watched as Doug Stewart wrote ‘Unknown Japanese Soldier’ into the raw wood.

Stewart caught his look and shrugged. ‘He was a Jap, but he was a soldier, and believe me, son, every soldier wants to know that when he’s dead someone will send him home. I’ll mark this place on the map and hopefully someone will come and check the place for more remains. At least what’s left of him will get a decent burial.’

With a final glance at the last resting place of Lieutenant Tomoyuki Hamasuna they set off for the Pagana Plain and the longhouse of Kristian Anugu.

Jamie’s energy-sapped mind barely registered the first burst of fire from their right front, but Doug Stewart reacted instantly, bundling the Englishman to the ground and firing single, aimed rounds from the SLR over his body. ‘Find some cover,’ the Australian snarled. ‘That was just a warning.’

‘Where?’ Jamie looked around in desperation, but with his nose in the damp earth all he could see was grass. ‘They’re probably all around us and if you shoot back at them the next bullets will be up our backside.’

‘Nope,’ Doug Stewart said calmly. ‘I reckon there’s only three or four of them. The main party haven’t had time to get ahead of us.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘Because if there’s more than that we’re well and truly fucked.’ They ducked as bursts from two or three weapons ruffled the top of the grass. ‘You go left,’ the Australian ordered. ‘I’ll work my way right and try to flank them. Soon as you hear the SLR, get off your arse and get yourself as far into the jungle as you can.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Jamie cried, ‘why don’t we just give them the bloody head if they’re that desperate for it? It’s not worth fucking dying for!’

But Doug Stewart was already gone.

Reluctantly, Jamie squirmed back through the grass towards the thick jungle. When he reached it, he turned and began to crawl deeper into the foliage, moving fast up the slope, but staying low. There’d been no firing for almost a minute, but suddenly the distinctive whip-crack of the SLR broke the silence. ‘You bloody madman,’ he groaned. But he did as he’d been instructed. He leaped to his feet and sprinted uphill as the rattle of two or three automatic weapons combined. A hidden dip opened up in front of him and he dived into it, rolling over and over until he came to rest at the foot of the hollow.

The sound of gunfire faded and he found himself staring at a pair of dark feet in open-toed sandals, the nails and the flesh beneath them a pale contrast to the rest. He decided distractedly that it was an odd thing to notice at a time like this, probably the mind delaying the moment of awful truth. With a feeling of terrible inevitability he craned his neck and looked up into the bearded face and flaring nostrils of a black man wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and sports pants. The face, with its betel-stained teeth, would have been fearsome enough even without the rifle – the twin of the one Doug Stewart had carried – that was aimed directly at Jamie Saintclair’s right eye.

‘Bugger.’ He allowed his head to drop; he wasn’t especially keen to see the bullet that killed him. All that effort wasted, the Bougainville head would never reach its destination and he’d never find out what was so important about all this. His final bleak thought was that the ever-so-clever Doug Stewart had been wrong and he’d been right. They’d been surrounded. He had walked straight into the people he’d been trying to run away from, which was very silly when you thought about it. But a little niggle in his brain told him there was something not quite right. Something …

‘You’re a hard man to keep track of, Jamie Saintclair. We lost you when you left the trail and almost didn’t find you again.’ He wondered if he was hallucinating, because, when he looked up again, the black man had been replaced by the slim figure of Magda Ross, with a hand held out to help him to his feet. His heart thundered and his mind seemed to dissolve in confusion at the sight of her. ‘I’m sorry.’ She smiled. ‘I promised I’d cover your back in case Devlin tried to double-cross you, but I didn’t do a very good job, did I?’

He accepted her hand and hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’d say your timing was impeccable.’ If they’d been alone he would have hugged her. He might also say that no one had ever looked better in a pair of combat trousers and a T-shirt, but something more important occurred to him. ‘What about Doug? The man I was with.’ He looked up and noticed for the first time that the black man had been joined by two others, who crouched on the rim of the hollow, listening intently and peering in the direction of the ambush. ‘He’s down there, shooting it out with somebody.’

‘There was nothing we could do.’ Magda shook her head. ‘My friends here were reluctant to meet him before you and I made contact. They were worried about a misunderstanding.’

Before Jamie could ask who her new friends were a fourth man appeared at the edge of the dip and spoke to the bearded Bougainvillean in a singsong burst of pidgin. The big man nodded and jogged down the slope to join them. ‘He says there’s been no movement down there since a couple of blokes ran off into the bush by the river.’

Jamie blinked, because the accent was pure untainted Australian and for some reason sounded odd coming from the unyielding black face with the sombre eyes.

‘Jamie Saintclair,’ Magda said solemnly, ‘meet Michael Taruko.’

‘G’day,’ the black man said. ‘It’s a pity we couldn’t get involved sooner, but we couldn’t take a risk of mucking about when you were with an ex-SAS man with a loaded rifle.’

‘You know about that? How did—’

‘That’s for later.’ Michael Taruko’s tone made it clear who was in charge now. ‘First we have to get down there and see what’s happened with your mate and those other blokes. I’d be obliged if you take the lead, because he’s less likely to shoot you than anybody else. I reckon it’ll be okay to go in shouting his name, but for Christ’s sake keep your head down.’

Jamie clambered out of the dip and stumbled down the slope. There was no answer to his calls, but he wasn’t being shot at either, which must be a good sign. ‘Doug?’ He repeated the cry. ‘It’s Jamie, and I’m with some friends. Four native gentlemen and a white girl, so hold your fire and shout out so I know where you are.’

They reached level ground and he looked to Michael. ‘I think we should spread out.’

The big man nodded and issued an order to his companions who split up and entered the jungle on the far side of the track. Magda came to Jamie’s side and together they advanced warily into the trees, their eyes searching the undergrowth for any sign of the missing Australian.

‘You told me you had a friend on the island who might be able to help,’ Jamie whispered. ‘Judging by Michael and his mates’ armoury, that seems to have been only half the story.’

‘What did you expect me to say?’ she hissed back. ‘He’s an islander. He was my translator when I was doing work for my Ph.D. We kept in touch. The accent comes from being sent to school in Brisbane. He was there for the entire period of the Crisis and it still shames him. The family are landowners and didn’t want to get involved, but that only made them fair game for both sides. He lost close relatives. Despite that, his father insisted he complete his education. He was just out of university when I met him. In many ways he’s a very formidable man, but I think he is still confused about his identity.’ Her eyes sought Jamie’s across her shoulder. ‘There’s more. Maybe he’ll tell you, maybe he won’t, but that has to be up to Michael, okay?’

‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘I trust your judgement, so we’ll do what Michael says.’

Magda turned to reply but something caught her eye and she gasped. Jamie’s vision was partially obscured by the intervening trees, but when he moved to join her he saw that she was staring at a man lying twenty feet away with his back against a tree and his head twisted at an unlikely angle. Not Doug Stewart, but one of their ambushers, judging by the automatic rifle at his feet. The torn T-shirt he wore had a dark patch in the centre of the chest.

‘Stay here.’ He was halfway to the dead man when he heard the soft groan from his right. Doug Stewart lay in the foetal position, his body partially hidden by the long grass. Jamie experienced a wave of nausea as he saw the splashes of red on the ground beside Keith Devlin’s security chief and the ragged exit wound low in his back that was leaking too much blood.

He knelt over the injured man wondering what to do first. Should he try to move him? At first glance the wound looked terrible, but just how bad was it? As gently as he could, he lifted the Australian’s shirt to reveal a fist-sized mess of ragged flesh. Christ, it was even worse than he’d feared. What now? The first-aid kit? But it had been in Stewart’s backpack and he’d clearly abandoned it somewhere along the way. Jamie wriggled out of his rucksack and searched inside for the spare shirt he’d packed, but tearing it into bandage-sized strips turned out to be more difficult than in the movies.

‘These might help.’ Magda handed him a small pair of scissors and he used them to cut the material. She stared at the blood oozing from the bullet wound and had an idea. From a zip pocket of her bag she came up with four padded squares in blue paper packets. ‘And these.’

‘Perfect.’ He tore open two of the packets and positioned the sanitary towels so they overlapped across the wound. ‘Can you hold them in place while I turn him over?’

‘I’ll give it a try.’ She knelt beside him and though her face was pale, she wore a determined expression that made him proud of her. Jamie tied two pieces of shirt together so they’d encircle Doug Stewart’s body at least twice. He draped the length of cloth over Stewart’s lower back and Magda moved her hand so that the bandage covered the pads, then replaced it again over the cloth.

‘This might hurt a bit, Doug old son,’ Jamie said, though he had no idea if the wounded man could hear him, ‘but there’s no helping it. You know the drill. Try to keep calm and stay with it. You’re making a proper mess of this bit of jungle and we have to stop the bleeding.’ He manoeuvred himself into a position where he could get his arms round the wounded man’s chest. ‘On the count of three,’ he said to Magda. ‘When I get him up, you wrap the bandage round and plug the hole in front with another of your little marvels. Got it?’ She nodded, but her lips were a single pale line. ‘Don’t worry,’ he gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile, ‘he’s a tough old bastard. He’ll live, but we have to get him to hospital. One … two … three.’

Jamie heaved upwards. Doug Stewart gave a groan of agony that ended in a long whimper. The Australian was all bone and muscle, but there wasn’t much of him and Jamie managed to hold his body until Magda could apply the second patch and fix the bandage in place.

‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘You seem to have bitten your lip.’ He raised his hand to wipe the blood way only to realise it was covered in Doug Stewart’s.

‘It’s nothing,’ Magda swallowed. ‘I’ll go and fetch Michael. We need to get your friend off the mountain somehow.’

She ran off in the direction of the trail and Jamie lay back with the Australian in his arms. ‘You really are a silly old bastard,’ he sighed.

‘Less … of … the … old.’ Every word was a challenge to Doug Stewart’s ebbing strength and the voice emerged as the merest whisper. ‘Not dead yet.’ There wasn’t really much of an answer to that, so Jamie tried to make them both as comfortable as he could under the circumstances. Stewart’s breath wheezed in his chest and his face was the colour of old parchment with nicotine stains under the eyes. ‘Should have left me.’

‘Don’t be bloody daft. We’ve been in this together from the start.’

‘You … hung out to dry.’

‘Devlin hung us both out to dry,’ Jamie insisted. ‘Look, Doug, save your strength.’

But Doug Stewart’s hand closed over his, the skin chillingly cold to the touch, and when he opened his eyes they were filled with some desperate urgency. ‘No, don’t understand, Devlin,’ Jamie felt the body shudder in his arms. ‘You …’ But there was no more. The words faded and the Australian’s grip tightened convulsively before the hand fell away. Jamie hardly dared look at his face for fear of what he would see, but Stewart’s eyes were closed and his chest continued its uneven rise and fall as his tortured body struggled for life.

Jamie was still trying to decipher the message Devlin’s security chief had been so desperate to communicate when Magda appeared through the trees with Michael. The Bougainvillean took one look at the wounded man and issued a stream of instructions to his comrades.

‘We need to get him to a doctor.’ Jamie’s voice acknowledged the hopelessness of their situation. In the unlikely event they could carry Doug Stewart back through the bush to Arawa, the Australian would have bled to death long before they got there.

But Michael only nodded. ‘We should continue along the trail,’ he said. ‘My grandfather’s lands are not far away. I have communications there, a radio. We can call up a helicopter and have him in hospital at Buka in another hour.’

Jamie stared at him, aware that Michael’s persona had taken on another new dimension. With Stewart’s bandages already turning pink this wasn’t the time to question the mystery of the convenient communications in a place with no phone or internet signal, and the even more convenient helicopter that appeared to be at Michael’s beck and call. But he did have one question. ‘Buka? Why not Arawa? Surely it’s only a few minutes away by air.’

The sombre brown eyes studied him, testing … something: his courage, integrity? ‘Because Devlin is in Arawa,’ he said finally. ‘I doubt it would suit either my purposes or yours for him to know that we had joined forces, Mr Saintclair.’

Jamie looked from Magda to the bearded islander.

‘We need to talk,’ he said, ‘and soon.’

But there was no time now. Michael’s three companions appeared from the jungle carrying newly cut branches, vines and palm leaves that they turned into a functional stretcher within a minute. All the niggling little uncertainties would be answered later. Their first task was to save Doug Stewart’s life.

XLIII

Jamie took the right rear handle of the makeshift stretcher for the first stretch. His right palm was still blistered from his earlier session with the machete and it felt as if he’d plunged it into the heart of a fire as he gripped the raw wooden pole. Michael had the left, with two of the islander’s companions on the front. The third worked his way ahead to scout out any potential trouble. Michael doubted the ambushers would bother them again; he was more concerned about the original party who’d followed Jamie and Doug Stewart from the Panguna Mine. ‘My people will know the Redskins are coming, but it depends how eager they are to lay their hands on what you’re carrying. They have a great deal of firepower and I’ve told my people not to get into a fight.’