The Ambassador's Son Page 27

  Once, Again, and Pogo came running down the path from the village. “Oh, sir!” Again cried at the sight of his commander. “We have saved you!”

  “I knew you would come,” Josh said. “Although I have to admit you had me worried when you ran a bit late. How are things in the village?”

  “The natives have all cleared out, and Mister Kennedy got knocked in the head. I think he’ll be OK, though.”

  Josh introduced Penelope, and Once and Again fell all over themselves to be polite and to not look at her bare breasts. Pogo frowned at her but said nothing. They followed the boys back to the village, where they found Kennedy sitting against the post where Josh had recently been tied. His head was bloodied, but his eyes were clear. Josh did a double take at the woman who was tending to Kennedy. “Missus Markham?”

  “Very nice to see you, Commander,” she replied.

  “How is it that you’re here?”

  “Lieutenant Kennedy rescued me and John. Our boat sank during a storm near Mary Island.”

  “So you tried to escape from Colonel Burr.”

  “More than tried!”

  Josh introduced Penelope to Felicity. They nodded to one another during mutual arched-eyebrow inspections. “I recall seeing you at a planter’s party,” Felicity said.

  “And I recall you as well, missus,” Penelope replied. “Though from a distance, since I was most assuredly not allowed in the main house.”

  “I regret that you weren’t,” Felicity offered, though the flecks of fresh blood on the woman’s body made her pause. Then she looked down at her own hand, the one that had held the Webley, and saw blood and powder marks on it. She looked up and saw Penelope was looking there, too. When their eyes met, they both smiled at the same time.

  Ready appeared. “Skipper, there’s something I think you need to see. It’s in that big house, the one with the tall roof.”

  “It is called a devil-devil house,” Felicity said. “If you look inside, I fear you’ll discover why.”

  They followed Ready to the great thatched house, ornamented in front with fancy plaited mats and carved posts of obscene figures. Inside, they found a vast hall, laid out with parallel logs. “All-same fellas not belong Marie sleep-sleep,” Pogo said, pointing at the logs with a sweep of his hand.

  Felicity translated. ‘The bachelors sleep on those logs.”

  Even though his head ached, Kennedy had joined them. He ducked his head when it brushed against something dangling from a string. “Jesus, Mary, mother of God,” he said when he saw it was a dried fetus.

  “Quite,” Felicity said.

  Past the benches was a circle of stones containing a smoldering fire. Behind the fire was a table of stacked flat rocks, and on it was a line of mummified heads, blackened by soot. Felicity peered at them. “I recognize this one. Cunningham, a trader. He disappeared five years ago.”

  Kennedy came near, curious about the heads and repulsed at the same time. It was with a start that he recognized one of them, too. It wore an expression of dismay. “My God, that’s Paul Grant. His boat went out about six months ago and was attacked by a Jap bomber. We thought he and his crew had drowned.”

  “He likely made it to shore only to run into Kwaque and his merry men,” Felicity said.

  Kennedy lurched from the devil-devil house while clutching his mouth. Felicity followed him. “It is the manner of these people, Jack,” she said, standing above him as he knelt on the ground. “There is nothing to be done save stealing their children and educating them.”

  Kennedy dropped his face into his hands. His head ached and he needed something for it. He recalled briefly the joy he had so recently felt on the deck of his gunboat, but that was all gone now. The stink of the devil-devil house seemed lodged in his nostrils. He felt sick to his stomach and worried that he might throw up. In seconds, he was no longer worried. Felicity made Kennedy lie down in the shade and took his head into her lap, the blood oozing from his wound onto her shirt. “Rest, Jack,” she said.

  “Mustn’t rest,” he answered, though his voice was dull and unconvincing.

  Pogo led Josh into the shadows behind the stone altar and pointed at dozens of other heads, stacked in several pyramids like gray and black cannonballs. The stink was overwhelming. “Kwaque kill’m Japoni, Americans, pickaninny, no matter,” Pogo said. “This place belong devil.”

  “Not anymore,” Josh said. “Ready, take the head of that PT-boat skipper and put it in a sack or something. We’ll bury it at sea. Then burn this place. Not just the devil-devil house. The entire village.”

  Felicity looked up to see the first flames licking from the roof of the devil-devil house. Once and Again helped her with Kennedy, and they walked him to the pigpens just below the village. There was a roar as the entire structure of the devil-devil house became a great mass of flame, then collapsed. The huts surrounding it were on fire, too, columns of flames rising in superheated boils of crimson and gray smoke. The little band retreated, the moist heat of the burning village scalding their backs.

  Josh led the way. Kennedy, supported by Once and Again, lurched along. As they neared the beach, one of Kwaque’s men unexpectedly erupted from behind a tree and charged with a spear. Felicity was his target, but Pogo leapt in front of her and took the spear in his stomach. Felicity blew the top of the man’s skull away with one well-aimed bullet. Pogo, still standing, pulled the spear from his guts and threw it down. Josh rushed to Pogo, but there was nothing he could do. Pogo looked at Josh and smiled. Pink foam appeared at the corners of his lips. “Pogo finish altogether,” he said, then died.

  “There lies as fine a man as ever lived in these islands.” It was Pogo’s epitaph, and it was Felicity who said it. She holstered her pistol and walked into the clear, fresh air of the beach.

  PART IV

  The LORD will be terrible unto them: for He will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship Him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen.

  —Zephaniah, chapter 2, verse 11

  41

  Kennedy awoke to find himself in a large room with bamboo walls that creaked in the wind. It was night, and an open window revealed a bright crescent moon and a trillion stars that flooded the interior with their silvery light. It was bright enough that a table in a corner could be discerned, and a chest of drawers near it, and another table on which sat an unlit kerosene lantern. He realized he was in a bed, a real bed with a mattress and sheets and a pillow. A mosquito net, suspended from a hook drilled into a heavy, dark beam, tented the bed. He could see now that the beam was a component of a vaulted thatched roof. A cloud crossed the face of the moon, and the room darkened, just before a sudden heavy rain rattled the roof. Then the rain stopped suddenly, followed by a steady drip-drip from the edges of the roof onto the ground. The moon and stars popped out again, and Kennedy could make out the tops of palms through the window, and beyond the trees a glittering sea. He sat up, and his head pounded, and he recalled that he had been struck on the head by the filthy chief named Kwaque. He felt along his skull and found a bandage tied around it. He explored beneath the bandage until he discovered a sore spot on the back of his head. It hurt but wasn’t too bad. He knew he’d been lucky. The blow could have cracked his skull.

  He heard the singsong chant of geckos, leavened by the eerie cry of a distant bird. Kennedy listened to the odd symphony for a little while, then fell asleep, only to be startled awake by something climbing the mosquito netting. It was a rat, hanging like a sailor on mast shrouds. It peered at Kennedy with inquisitive beady eyes, its twitching nose poked through one of the squares of the netting, then clambered on up to the rafters, where it ran along a horizontal beam, disappearing somewhere. Kennedy fell asleep once more. When next he woke, he heard the full cry of a rooster, which sounded as if it were under the hut. Hot, white sunlight streamed through the window. There was a fluttering sound, and a big hen appeared on the window’s ledge and hopped down on the floor of the hut, which was cove
red by a straw mat. It pecked distractedly and then clucked with pleasure when it discovered a pile of dead insects beneath the table that held the lantern.

  Kennedy rolled over and lifted the edge of the mosquito netting and looked directly into a pair of eyes. They belonged in a black face, the very black face of a young boy who scrambled backward as if he had seen a devil. Kennedy realized the boy must have spent the night beside his bed. The boy jumped up and darted to the door of plaited straw, flung it open, and disappeared through it. The boy shouted something in pidgin that Kennedy couldn’t understand. To his considerable relief, he heard Felicity’s voice yelling back and her footsteps shaking the hut as she climbed the steps that apparently led to a porch just outside the door. She appeared at the door dressed in a nightgown, her hair tied in braids that draped over her shoulders, Heidi-style. “I see Mumba told the truth for a change. You’re awake. Let’s have a look at your skull.”

  Without further preamble, she sat on the bed, gently removed the bandage, and inspected the wound. “Healing nicely, I think,” she said, and wadded the bandage up and pitched it expertly through the window, bawling at the same time, “Mumba, you lazy creature! Pick up the trash around Mastah Jack’s hut, if you please!”

  “Felicity,” Kennedy said, “where are we?”

  “You are on the island of Noa-Noa. This is my plantation.”

  “Thurlow. . .”

  “Thurlow and his men sailed on to find Joe Gimmee, a local holy man. They have reason to believe that Lieutenant Armistead is with him.”

  “The last thing I remember we were leaving that village. It was on fire . . .”

  “It exists no more, thanks to Commander Thurlow. He is a decisive sort, I will give him that.” Her expression changed to one of melancholy. “The little bushman, Pogo, was killed on the way back to your boat. It happened very quickly. Poisonous spear. It was meant for me, but Pogo stepped in front of it.”

  Kennedy absorbed the terrible news, then said, “Thurlow just took my boat and left me here? Without asking me what I thought of it?”

  “Is it so horrid?” Felicity responded. “You were—are—hurt. You lost consciousness, hardly in shape for a sea voyage. It was at my request Commander Thurlow left you here where I could tend to you. I hoped you would be pleased.”

  “I am, Felicity. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s just. . . dammit all. The Rosemary is my boat, not Thurlow’s!”

  There was a shuffling at the door, and the boy who’d slept in his room came inside, carefully balancing a tray containing a steaming pot and twin sets of cups and saucers. “Tea, missus,” he said.

  “Well, set it down. Not there, Mumba. How many times must I instruct you? Yes, there on that table. Now get out. Don’t look at me with those big eyes. Out!”

  “I pour,” the little boy replied stubbornly, his lower lip stuck out.

  “You will pour with a bloody nose if you aren’t careful,” Felicity warned. “I will not tell you again. Get out!”

  Mumba left, though with a resentful glance over his shoulder. Felicity poured the tea, a very strong, nearly black tea. She offered neither sugar nor cream, and Kennedy supposed neither was available.

  Kennedy was dressed only in his skivvies, but since it didn’t seem to bother Felicity, he didn’t apologize. Together in silence they drank the hot, bitter tea. Then Felicity rose and picked up the tray. “Now, Jack, I will leave you. Mumba will come back and instruct you as to your toilet. I fear in my absence the plumbing has gone to hell. I am washing in the sea until further notice, and you will have to do the same. I have the boys working on all that they have left undone. They should have the old place up to snuff in a few days.”

  “Might I help?” Kennedy asked. “I’m not much of a plumber, or carpenter, or much else in that line, I’m afraid, but I’m willing to add to the effort.”

  “Perhaps you might be more valuable in the fields,” she answered with a twinkle in her eye. “But that is for tomorrow. Today, you must rest.”

  Kennedy saw no more of Felicity for the remainder of the day. Mutely the little houseboy Mumba showed Kennedy his toilet, an outhouse near his hut, and then led him to the sea. There Mumba stood, his chin raised proudly, a snowy white towel draped over his arm, while Kennedy bathed. Then he led Kennedy back to his hut, which sat beside the main house. The main house was set on a ridge within a cluster of hardwood trees. The placement allowed an excellent view of the front lawn of short-cropped very green grass and the white sand beach and the glittering blue sea. When Kennedy asked Mumba about Felicity, he said, “Missus go along Delight, go along fields.”

  “Delight?”

  “Horse, mastah.”

  Kennedy was given a rather tattered maroon silk robe to wear, along with threadbare house slippers, then was shown to the east veranda of the main house and there served a breakfast of boiled fish, breadfruit fritters, and an ancient pot of jam that was so crusted over he had to use his spoon to break through it. It spread nicely on the fritter, however, and had a surprisingly good taste. The fish was hideous, having been boiled with the skin and not a few scales still on it. Still, he ate it, all but the head. Afterward, he wandered into the parlor and found a book of poetry on the table. He opened it at its marker and discovered a poem by Emily Dickinson:

  Wild Nights! Wild Nights!

  Were I with thee,

  Wild Nights should be

  Our luxury!

  Futile the winds

  To a heart in port,—

  Done with the compass,

  Done with the chart!

  Rowing in Eden!

  Ah! the sea!

  Might I but moor

  To-night in Thee!

  When he returned to his hut, which was built up on four stout stilts, Kennedy discovered that his khakis had been washed and pressed via some unseen magic. The creases on his trousers were as sharp as he’d ever known them to be. He dressed and went back to the main house, entering accidentally through the kitchen. There a boy, actually a man of about forty, worked at the sink, washing dishes. He looked over his shoulder at Kennedy, and his face changed from surprise to disgust. “Kitchen not for you, mastah!” he exclaimed in an angry voice.

  Kennedy retreated to the veranda and entered the next set of double doors. Inside he found a vaulted ceiling, much like the one in his hut, only steeper. The great room beneath it was light and airy, with cushioned wicker and cane chairs along with great, sagging shelves of books, so many books. Kennedy was excited to inspect them but was disappointed to find few novels. Most of the books had to do with horticulture or hydrology or the many other aspects of fanning in the tropics, even an entire volume dedicated to the coconut and all its components down to the last molecule. There was also a variety of medical texts, the kind that people who have to self-doctor might require. How to Pull Teeth was the title of a pamphlet, complete with photographs.

  The chairs, he noted, were in a poor way, most of them dry-rotted and bound up in cord to hold them together. He chose one carefully, eased into it, and began to read a few selected texts, including the one about pulling teeth. He didn’t last long before he fell away into a light sleep. He was waked by the cook, who roughly shook him by the shoulder. “Mastah, here is food,” he said, then trudged back to his kitchen.

  Food proved to be a bowl of rice with a thin, dark sauce, apparently of beef stock. A tin cup of water sat beside it. Felicity’s plantation clearly was not wealthy, nor a place where a man was likely to get a good meal.

  Toward evening, there was a great commotion. Kennedy had fallen asleep in a chair on the veranda and awoke to see that Felicity had returned. She was riding a great brown stallion, and John-Bull a black, stumpy-legged gelding. Smoothly she leapt from her saddle and thumped up the steps. She wore jodhpurs, tucked into knee-high leather riding boots, and a white blouse that was wet with her sweat and clinging to her breasts. Her hair was tied back in a braided bun. “Well, Jack,” she said, a bit breathlessly, “you look refresh
ed. Mumba, we’ll have our tea here, if you please. Don’t just stand there looking at me, you ugly creature. And tell cook not to burn the toast again!”

  She watched the houseboy scurry into the kitchen, and then she pulled off her sweaty gloves. John-Bull was seeing to the horses, leading them to a corral, which was a rickety fence draped with bougainvillea. Jack rose to greet her, and a book on rare tropical flowers fell to the veranda floor. Felicity took his hand. “Sit. I can tell you have been sleeping. It is exactly what you need.” She stooped to pick up the book. “Bryce and I considered raising exotic flowers, perhaps shipping them overseas. But we couldn’t solve the refrigeration problem. Mumba, where are you? We need our tea!”

  She fell back into one of the sturdier chairs, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. “I must say the day has been a revelation. I fully expected the plantation to be falling down around our ears, but Gogoomey has been industrious in my absence. He’s my overseer. Bryce always liked him, but I have long suspected he plotted against us. It appears I am wrong. He has managed to round up several local villagers. The village is a place called Lahana about five miles down the coast—we will go there tomorrow or the next day if you’re up to it. In any case, he has recruited three men, surprisingly willing to work, and together they have laid in quite a harvest. The drying shed is laden with coconut flesh, and they already have quite a great number of sacks of copra ready for shipment. I tell you, Jack, if I can get transport for my copra, I may be able to not only make up the interest owed on my loan but perhaps dent the principal more than a little!”

  “I am glad to hear it,” Kennedy said. “But tell me. I’ve never understood what copra is. I’ve heard much about it, but it’s always been a mystery. What’s it used for?”

  “Ah, here you are, Mumba. Well, stop staring and put the tray down. Would you like cream for your tea, Jack? I understand most Americans require it. And also sugar? Off you go, Mumba, cream and sugar for our brave and handsome naval officer! You ask what is copra? Here, do you like margarine on your breadfruit toast? It’s very good, isn’t it? Margarine, Jack, is made almost entirely of copra. Copra is the source of coconut oil. Most commercial soaps are predominantly derived from copra. So what is it? Simply the nearly dried meat of raw coconuts, but the moisture content is critical. Drying has to be done before shipment and is as much an art as a science. There, you are now an expert on copra.”