The Ambassador's Son Read online

  Perhaps disorder had already occurred. Josh felt the curve of a woman’s bare hip pressed against his bare leg, and then he perceived her smooth back, still glowing with a faint sheen of coconut oil, and the dark curls of her hair, and her head couched in her long black arms. Something of the past evening began to be recollected. Josh peered down his own length and discovered that he was naked as a mullet. He concluded that there had indeed been some disorderly business going on and that he had participated in it. He felt a mild panic.

  The woman stirred, stretched languidly, then turned over. Smiling a dreamy smile, she raised up on her elbow to look at him. She had a pretty smile and vastly kissable lips. “Thank you, mastah,” she said. “I needed that. I think you did, too.” Then she rose in all her nakedness and took him by the hand and led him out of the hut and across the warm sand and into the sea where she began to gently bathe him by rubbing his skin with her tapered fingers, all the while singing a little song just beneath her breath. Josh accepted her ministrations and caught a wisp of her song. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.

  She turned Josh around. “Now, you me,” she said, and Josh returned the favor, the sexual fever that had gripped him the night before coming on strongly, only this time without the kava. After he’d finished running his hands over her body, he realized he had been holding his breath nearly the entire time. She looked out of the tops of her eyes and gave him another smile, this one quite shy and nearly chaste, and led him back to the hut and climbed on top of him. “It is clear you need more of me, mastah, as I do of you,” she said, and he found it difficult to disagree.

  “I don’t even know your name,” he said afterward.

  “My name is Penelope. And yours?”

  “Josh. Josh Thurlow.”

  She rolled off of him, took his hand, and gave it a good shake. “I am most pleased to meet you, mastah.”

  “Why do you have an English name?”

  She lowered her eyes, and the innocence of the gesture endeared her to Josh. “I must sadly confess to you that I am an orphan. I hope you won’t think any less of me because of it. I was raised by Minister Clarence. He gave me this Christian name. Do you not like it?”

  “I like it very much. I think it’s a pretty name.”

  “Why, thank you. And I think Josh is also a pretty name, as pretty as the man who bears it.”

  Josh found himself all the more charmed by her sweetness. “I don’t think any woman has ever called me pretty.”

  “Then you have not met the right kind of woman, have you?” She smiled her wonderful smile, but then her face settled and she cocked her head. “Why are you on this island by yourself, mastah?”

  “Well, you see, I’m on a special assignment.”

  “Ah. A special assignment for a special man.”

  “That’s true,” Josh replied, enjoying her flattery. “You see, I am here to find a marine lieutenant who disappeared a few days ago from the Truax plantation. There was a big battle there, as you may know.”

  “Oh, yes. So much noise and smoke! But why do you search for this lieutenant? How was it he became lost?”

  “Some people say he ran away with Whitman’s wife.” Josh said. “Did you tell me last night you knew Missus Whitman?”

  “Of course. She is the famous and beautiful woman who fights the Japoni.”

  “Do you live in this village?”

  “Sometimes, and sometimes at Minister Clarence’s mission. But mostly I am alone.”

  Her evident sadness caused a pang in Josh’s heart. “I cannot imagine why such a pretty girl as you would be alone,” he said. Then he found himself lusting after her again. She was like a tonic.

  Penelope kept her hands folded in her lap in a most demure fashion, then asked very quietly, “Why did you ask me last night about Joe Gimmee?”

  “Mister Whitman said Lieutenant Armistead and Missus Whitman are with Joe Gimmee.”

  “Oh, I doubt that very much,” Penelope replied.

  “Why? Whitman said Kimba Whitman is from Joe Gimmee’s tribe. He also said he is a renegade. That means he is very bad.”

  Penelope giggled. “I know what it means, Mastah Josh. But Mastah Whitman is such a silly man, I think. He is always grinning at me when he sees me in the village or at Minister Clarence’s mission. My word, Joe Gimmee is not bad at all. He is a holy man, and quite peaceful. He once lived here on New Georgia, but he and his followers moved away many years ago. I have heard he lives now in Australia. But it is true Missus Whitman is from Joe Gimmee’s tribe. I would certainly think so. She is his daughter, you see.”

  Josh was so startled by this news, his mouth dropped open. Penelope laughed. “You will catch flies that way,” she said. “I think Mastah Whitman is confused. I am certain he is very busy, fighting the Japoni, and now his wife has gone off. It is very sad, I think. Perhaps I will say a prayer for him.”

  Josh wondered where his notebook was. When he found it, he intended to draw an arrow between the two names Kimba and Joe Gimmee and write father and daughter. He felt he was really getting somewhere now! Whitman had not told him this detail, and perhaps that was important. But then Josh had another thought. Maybe the girl was lying. If Joe Gimmee didn’t work for the Japanese, it certainly didn’t fit in with Hypo picking up radio traffic on Armistead.

  “When is your airplane coming for you?” Penelope suddenly asked.

  “Today, I think.”

  “I should very much like to go with you. May I?”

  Josh hesitated, a psychological condition that he usually did not tolerate for long. Still, he allowed himself a moment to imagine Colonel Burr’s reaction if he brought a half-naked black woman back to Melagi. He imagined that Burr’s growl might be heard even in Frank Knox’s office in Washington, D.C. But then Josh got tired of hesitating and agreed that Penelope would be very welcome to fly back to Melagi with him, indeed. Why, he said, she might even find work. “There’s a Missus Markham there,” he said. “She could probably use a servant.”

  “I would be pleased to find work,” Penelope said noncommittally. “Would you like to lie atop me again?”

  Josh did. He couldn’t seem to help it. He rationalized it by recalling Dosie’s letter and her fooling around with that damned doctor, and also by the time that had passed since he’d lain with a female. Later, Josh found his utilities near the cooking pit along with his socks and boots. His cap was hanging on the limb of a tree. The first thing he did was get his notebook from his shirt pocket and draw an arrow between the two names along with a comment about Joe Gimmee’s parenthood. He also included Penelope’s belief that Joe Gimmee was now in Australia. Then he dressed, and so did Penelope, although for her it was no great chore since all she had to do was wrap her lap-lap about her waist and stick a freshly plucked hibiscus in her hair. She soon had coffee boiling in a tin pot over a fire. To his question about where she got the coffee, she replied, “I brought coffee and many tins of food from Minister Clarence’s mission and hid them nearby.”

  “Doesn’t he need these things?”

  “No,” she answered. She used a GI can opener, which was called a P-38, to open a can of pickled pigs’ feet. He ate the feet, one at a time, and wiped his fingers on a banana leaf. Penelope ate a banana while waiting patiently for him to finish. Then she buried the empty can in the sand and smothered the fire and scattered the ashes. “If the Japoni come, they will not know we have been here,” she said.

  “I thought they didn’t come to this village anymore.”

  “The Japoni are scattered these days. They fight, but they also try to escape. Their situation is confused. They could turn up anywhere.”

  “How do you know so much about the Japanese?” he asked.

  “For a pickaninny girl such as myself to survive on this island requires much paying of attention. I shall be very glad to go with you elsewhere. But now, mastah, before our airplane comes, it is necessary that I take you to see Minister Clarence.”

  “I t
hink we should talk about a few things first,” Josh said. “One of them is I don’t think you should call me mastah anymore.”

  “Then I shall call you Josh darling,” she said, agreeably.

  “That sounds OK.”

  “And you shall call me Penelope dear.”

  Josh pushed the brim of his cap up with his finger. “That seems fair,” he said uncertainly.

  “But why do you not want to be called mastah?”

  “Well, considering what we’ve done . . . that is to say, our being together and all.”

  She smiled, most demurely. The sight of it made Josh’s heart thump hard in his chest. “When we couple,” she said, “don’t you think it is so very much fun, Josh darling?”

  Josh allowed as how he thought it was indeed fun but then said, in a stern voice, “But we shouldn’t have done it.”

  Penelope was astonished. “Why not?”

  “The Ten Commandments. Number seven on the list, as I recall.”

  Penelope shrugged, and the way she moved her pretty shoulders, Josh thought, was most endearing. She said, “Pickaninny people think about coupling this way. God made it feel very good for a man and a Marie to couple, so He must have wanted us to do it, and often. When I came of age, I asked Minister Clarence to tell me if it was right or wrong. He read me some Bible verses that made it sound as if God was against it. But then I read the Book of Solomon and had no doubt God thought more like a pickaninny than this reverend. Do white people think coupling feels good, Josh darling?”

  “Most of them,” Josh said. “At least while they’re young.”

  “And you are most obviously one of them, though you are not too young.”

  “I’m only thirty-three,” he replied, a bit defensively.

  She displayed her wonderfully white teeth in a delighted grin, then stood and strapped a dilly bag across her shoulder. “I was only pulling your leg, Josh darling. Now that I see that it works, and makes me laugh, I may yet do it again, if only occasionally. Be forewarned! But now we must go and see Minister Clarence.”

  Josh didn’t see any reason not to go along with her. He figured he had plenty of time. Since the Catalina hadn’t arrived the night before, Phimble had surely stopped off at Melagi and would need to refuel before heading north again. By the time he raised the aviation fuel truck and got its crew moving, it would be midmorning. As long as Josh got back to the pickup beach by early afternoon, he figured, he’d be in time to catch his ride. He couldn’t wait to see Phimble’s face when he brought aboard Penelope. He was certain to get a lecture, Phimble being severely attached to all of the biblical strictures, but it would be worth it.

  Penelope, a gleaming machete in her hand, led the way. Over hill and valley they traveled, through heavy bush and savannah, and past splintered palms, blasted by recent artillery, and past empty Japanese bunkers, the stink of dead Imperial soldiers inside wafting into the damp, morose air. They crossed a small coffee plantation, torn apart by a tank (the tracks were still visible in the mud), and then they came across the site of a recent battle where they discovered the corpses of six American and fourteen Japanese soldiers, all dead, terribly bloated, wild dogs and vultures vying for their carcasses. Josh chased the scavengers away but, for the lack of a shovel, could do little else. They continued on until they reached the Minister Clarence Mission.

  The mission was actually a small village, set on a little plateau surrounded by a loya cane fence. It was a well-tended place. Neat bamboo houses surrounded a common green backed by a steep-roofed chapel. As they walked on the green, Josh expected to be met by friendly villagers and then Minister Clarence, who he imagined would be an interesting man, as most preachers are, with his own story of suffering or degradation followed by redemption. Instead, he was surprised to smell again the stomach-turning odor of death. Then he saw the reason, scores of dead people, their black skins turned gray. Wild dogs and vultures had worked the bodies over. Rib cages and other protruding bones, coated with dried blood, glittered in the white sun. “The damned Japanese!” he growled, trying not to gag.

  “That is Minister Clarence,” Penelope said, pointing to a mangled, headless corpse tied by hemp ropes to a mulberry tree. The corpse was wearing black pants, but its chest was bare and covered with gore and ants.

  “Where were you when this happened?” Josh asked, with a catch in his throat. It seemed death was at every turn on New Georgia.

  “I was at the river, getting water for a friend who was sick with fever. I hid, but then I crawled through the bush where I could watch. Minister Clarence was mocked, then stabbed many times. Then, when he called to his savior, his head was cut off.”

  “Jesus,” Josh muttered.

  “Yes,” Penelope replied without irony.

  “Why did you bring me here?” Josh asked.

  “I wanted you to see, to witness. And I wanted you to also see one of the men who did this. He came back the next day.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the chapel.”

  Josh was immediately on guard. An Imperial soldier was always dangerous. He drew his pistol from its holster. “Show me,” he said.

  Penelope fearlessly walked into the chapel, its doors torn from their hinges. Josh crept in behind, then slipped around the periphery of the rows of wooden benches. He watched Penelope as she walked to the altar and knelt, her hands clasped in prayer. Josh saw no Japanese soldier, just dead parishioners lying in grotesque forms across the benches and on the floor. The stink was nearly overwhelming. Josh approached her. “Your soldier is gone,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Minister Clarence preached to be good to all men, and since this is his church, I fed the man and gave him water. We talked. He was sorry for what he had done. I witnessed to him our Lord. Then he slept.”

  “He must have gone away after he woke up.”

  “No, Josh darling,” Penelope answered. “He wanted to go, but I said he couldn’t. He had to atone. Atonement is what Minister Clarence said we children of the Lord must do if we sin.”

  “And did he atone?”

  “Oh, yes, though he thought I was pulling his leg, as I am wont to do. How he laughed! I could see he wasn’t going to do what was required, so I waited until he was asleep, then I let him atone.” Penelope reached into a wicker basket set on a blood-streaked white cloth that covered the Communion table and drew out a human head by its short black hair. The sunlight streaming through a nearby window lit the thing very well so that Josh could clearly see its sagging mouth and its closed and peaceful eyes. Penelope cocked her head and admired the face. “He atoned very well, don’t you think?”

  22

  Eureka Phimble did not know where he was, and that all by itself left him most unsettled. It was part and parcel of his being a seafaring man, a sailor always needing to know where he was so he’d go in the proper direction to get wherever he was going. Phimble’s perception of unease ignored the fact that his direction didn’t much matter because he wasn’t going anywhere soon, considering the condition of his transport. The Darlin Dosie, her starboard engine cooked by a Japanese bullet or some unknown mechanical problem, was pushed up next to a black sand beach on an unidentified island in the middle of the Solomon Sea. All Phimble could tell was that the island was an extinct volcano, its steep, jungle-clad slope leading up to a collapsed cone. It was also a noisy and active place, the surf booming against a headland south of the cove, and tropical birds of every stripe flitting from limb to limb in the bush and putting up an awful racket of twitters and yelps and crackling noises. No human civilization, native or otherwise, was apparent. Phimble, feeling much like Robinson Crusoe, except that he wasn’t alone, stood on the Catalina’s starboard wing, a chart in his hand, and puzzled over the scene. “Where do you think we are, Stobs?” he finally asked the radioman.

  Stobs was sitting on the tip of the wing, his boots dangling over the shallow water, which was languidly slapping against the volcanic sand. He was in an oddly petulant mood. “H
ow would I know?” he snapped.

  Phimble ignored the radioman’s petulance. “I didn’t say you’d know. I was asking for your judgment, which is usually pretty good.”

  Mollified by the pilot’s compliment, Stobs said, “The way I figure it is maybe that’s New Georgia over there to the northwest. And maybe the Russells back behind us. Taken altogether, this could be Mary Island, but it might not be.” He peered at a surf-washed, foam-flecked reef, more than a thousand yards long, that pushed out perpendicular to the cove. “If it’s Mary, that reef ain’t on our chart, that much is for sartain.”

  Phimble folded the map and tucked it into his hip pocket. “About all these charts are good for is toilet paper,” he griped.

  Fisheye was squatting beside the burned engine cowling, looking it over. Phimble asked him what he thought. “Damned thing’s cooked, sir,” he answered.

  “Can we fly with just one engine?” Stobs asked.

  “Yes, but we can’t take off with one,” Phimble answered.

  The boys didn’t reply to that, leaving unasked the question that was in both of their minds as to why Phimble had put the Catalina down if one good engine could have been used to limp Dosie back to Melagi.