The Ambassador's Son Read online

  Joe Gimmee sat serenely on his throne in the great tomako. His paddlers were chanting with each dip of their paddles into the sea. The sky was breathtakingly clear. Noa-Noa rose in the east. The heavens and the earth and the sea were coming together just as he was certain they would. “All we have to fea-yah,” he said in a whisper to himself, “is fea-yah itself.”

  Joe Gimmee had no fear, not today, the day when the secret of treasure would finally be revealed to him, and to all the people of the Solomon Islands.

  55

  Josh and Kennedy walked, Felicity rode on Delight, and John-Bull was on Blackie. Felicity had ordered John-Bull to stay home, but once the boy got a whiff of something extraordinary happening, he made it clear he was going to Chuma, even if it meant he had to sneak through the bush to get there. His sense of adventure made Felicity proud, but she tempered her pride by insisting to the boy, “You’ll stay near me at all times, understand?” John-Bull understood very well, but he was not afraid. He was packing an M-l carbine Ready had given him and was ready to use it to defend his mother. For her part, Felicity carried her Webley, and Josh and Kennedy had their forty-fives strapped aboard their web belts. They were ready to fight but hoped they wouldn’t have to.

  The village of Lahana proved to be completely empty of people. They kept going until the path turned down to the beach, and there they stopped to see what they could see. The first of what they presumed were Joe Gimmee’s canoes were being paddled ashore, about a mile ahead. “The sand’s too hot for us to take the beach,” Felicity counseled. “Not to mention the sand flies will devour the horses. Let’s stay on the path. It’ll take a bit longer, but there appear to be many canoes still well out to sea.”

  Felicity was correct. It took another two hours before all of the canoes, including the big tomako carrying Joe Gimmee, pushed up onto the sand. By then, Josh, Kennedy, John-Bull, and Felicity were waiting for them. Penelope leapt from the war canoe and splashed through the water onto the beach until she stood before Josh. “I am so glad to see you,” she said. “The Japoni can’t sink my man, can they? But if they had, I would have found that submarine somehow and taken the heads of all aboard.”

  Josh was astonished all over again at the depth of feeling Penelope had for him. He couldn’t imagine it, but then he knew himself better than she did. “I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye,” he offered, “but I hoped to see you today, and now here you are.” Then, even though it embarrassed him to do it in front of Kennedy and Felicity, he folded her into his arms.

  Penelope took him by the hand and walked a little way away from the others. “Whitman will hear of this gathering and will come here today,” she confided. “He will not be able to stay away, because he knows I will be here. This time, I will kill him.”

  “I’ll kill him for you, but it’s David Armistead I’m after.”

  “You should let Armistead go,” she said. “He means to do good. Why not let him try?”

  “Because I have orders to the contrary.”

  “I love you, Josh darling.”

  “And I love you, Penelope dear.”

  They looked into each other’s eyes, and it seemed as if something were joined between them. Penelope understood it, but Josh did not. “What is to become of us?” she asked without hope, though he did not catch her opinion.

  “Let’s get this day behind us,” he answered, which was to say he didn’t know, and that she was not his greatest priority. She also understood that very well, and he also not at all. Love stood before him, but Josh did not recognize how gossamer it was, or care. He left her and went back to the others, his hand on his pistol. Penelope watched after him. “You are a great fool, Josh Thurlow,” she said to herself, though her heart yearned for him more than life.

  The people of the canoes unloaded plaited palm fronds and bamboo crates and carried them inland on their shoulders while Joe Gimmee stayed on the beach. He was being ministered to by a number of women, and it was difficult to see what they were doing. When they backed away, a transformation had occurred. His face was painted completely white, a straw Panama hat sat on his puff of frizzy hair, and he wore a crude, Western-style suit, complete down to the lapels, although it had the appearance of being sewn together from at least a dozen different-colored lap-laps. Between his upper teeth and lower gums, he had placed a straight twig, pushed up at a jaunty angle. He sat on his throne, which was picked up and carried inland on the shoulders of four huge men, fierce in their demeanor. They trudged into the forest, taking the path that led to the interior of the Chuma plantation.

  “What a lot of foolishness all this is,” Josh said to Kennedy. “But it don’t matter. As long as it brings Armistead in.”

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  “Exactly what I promised Burr. Deliver him to Melagi.”

  “It’s odd. I’ve always had the feeling you were going to kill him.”

  Josh said nothing, and his face betrayed nothing, which Kennedy took as an answer. “I don’t think he’ll come easily,” Kennedy said.

  “David’s always been a good marine,” Josh replied, still betraying nothing. “He’ll understand what I have to do.”

  “I’m not sure he thinks he’s a marine anymore,” Kennedy replied.

  Josh gave that some thought and then wished that Eureka Phimble were with him. Eureka always knew the right thing to do, and Josh, despite all his bravado and confident ways, knew he didn’t. He suddenly felt very alone and needful of unconditional support for what he had to do. He looked around the beach for Penelope, but she was gone.

  David Armistead was found, along with Victoria, beside the inner edge of the network of vine-connected palm trees. He was wearing a lap-lap with a dilly bag across his shoulder, and on his waist a web belt with a K-bar strapped aboard, and a holster, filled with a forty-five pistol. The tattoos down his arms were bright blue in the sun, and bone rings dangled in his ears. Josh walked up to him. “Well, David, you’ve given me a run for my money,” he said. “Come along, now. They want you back on Melagi.”

  Armistead nodded to Josh. “Have you met Victoria?” he asked.

  Josh touched the brim of his cap, though he didn’t take his eyes off Armistead. “I lost one of my boys looking for you.”

  “I regret that more than you can possibly know,” Armistead replied, his eyes telling as much. “But I think I know how to stop all the killing.”

  “You’re coming with me,” Josh said, and was about to make his move to grab him when Victoria stepped between them. “Not now, please,” she begged in her wispy voice. “Let my father’s miracle occur first.”

  Josh eyed her without mercy. “I’m sorry, ma’am. This is between David and me. There’s no time for miracles.” Josh reached past Victoria to put his hand on Armistead’s arm but found himself surrounded by Joe Gimmee’s men armed with spears. Josh stepped back. “You’re making a mistake, David. No amount of spears will keep me from my duty. You can lay to that.”

  Victoria hugged Armistead’s arm. “Leave us alone for now, Commander Thurlow. Let my father have his moment, then you and David can talk.” She led Armistead away while talking low into his ear. He put his arm around her waist.

  Josh watched them go, then admonished the spear holders still surrounding him. “Get on! I don’t have no fight with you.” He pushed their spears aside and found Kennedy, Felicity, and John-Bull. They were standing in a small clearing watching men build some sort of structure out of bamboo. It had all apparently been worked out in advance, and it was going up quickly, a platform on four tall, rickety legs. Plaited palm fronds woven into rectangles of bamboo were hoisted onto the platform and joined together with vines to form low walls. A vine was stretched from the platform into the trees, tied off somewhere out of sight. Two men climbed the platform and placed halves of small coconuts over their ears, tied on their skulls with strings.

  “What the hell are they up to?” Josh wondered. There was no answer from his companions, who we
re as mystified as he.

  Men next came carrying a long pole. They stuck it in a hole beside the platform, and Josh saw attached to it a crude version of the American flag. There weren’t enough stars in its blue field or enough red and white stripes, but it was recognizable as Old Glory. Stones were brought and piled around the base to make the pole and its flag stable in the light breeze.

  Then came the sound of stamping bare feet, and, lo, a formation of men came marching, each dressed in at least a scrap of military uniform. Some men wore utility shirts, some utility pants, others khaki shirts and pants. They were remnants of authentic American uniforms, although all were threadbare. On the shoulders of the men were short poles being carried as if they were rifles. Josh realized that he was seeing a parade much like the one accomplished on most of the American-occupied islands every morning across the South Pacific. They were reenacting the raising of the flag at reveille. Three conch blowers managed an oddly effective version of the bugle call.

  The formation marched around and around the flagpole. One man marched to the side, acting as a cadence counter. “Hup, hup, hup!” he cried. He wore the khaki shirt and pants of an American naval officer although he had the stripes of Marine Corps noncommissioned officers sewn up and down his sleeves. He also wore half of a large coconut on his head like a helmet, a string holding it in place beneath his chin. Finally he yelled something incomprehensible, and the formation halted, more or less. Some kept marching, only to turn around and sheepishly steal their way back into formation. Then they all turned and faced the flag.

  The men on the platform began touching the small coconuts attached to their ears. They mumbled something, then began to point at the sky. Penelope slid next to him. “What are they doing?” he asked her.

  “They are talking to the great Joe,” she answered.

  Josh shook his head. “Why won’t you ever give me a straight answer?”

  Penelope looked at him. “I simply told you the truth.”

  Josh sorted through his situation and discovered he was hot, angry, and thoroughly rattled by Armistead’s refusal to come along. He took it out on Penelope. “The truth don’t ever seem to come out of your mouth.”

  “Here’s a truth, very much to the point,” she said. “I am pregnant.”

  Josh closed his mouth, but after a moment of work, he opened it to demand, “Who’s the father?”

  Penelope slapped him then, with all her might. Josh couldn’t recall ever being hit quite so hard, at least by a woman, and he was knocked back an entire step. “How is it possible you know you’re pregnant?” he asked, while rubbing his jaw. “We’ve only known each other for a little over a week.”

  “A woman knows these things,” she answered. “No worry-worry. I will raise our son to be big and strong and, unlike you, Josh Thurlow, also smart and good.”

  Penelope walked away. When Josh caught up with her, she made disparaging hissing sounds in his direction. Pfft, she hissed at him. Pfft, pfft. “Stop hissing at me, you crazy girl,” Josh pleaded. “We have to talk about this.”

  “Does that mean you will marry me?”

  “You’re already married.”

  “I intend to be a widow very soon. Then will you marry me?”

  ‘Well. . . you’ll have to give me time to think about it.”

  “That would be a no in the language of men,” Penelope sniffed, and kept walking. This time, Josh didn’t follow her, as he was distracted by another blast of the conch-shell trumpeters.

  Now came Joe Gimmee on his throne. He was carried into the clearing and set down in front of what appeared to be a crude bamboo lectern. He rose from his throne and stiffly walked to it. The people all sat down, wearing expressions of hopeful anticipation. The men on the platform stood at attention, their hands over the coconuts on their ears. They were still looking at the sky.

  Joe Gimmee removed the jaunty twig from his mouth, tapped it as if it held ashes, and handed it to one of the men who’d carried him. He gripped the bamboo lectern on its side with his big hands and said, “Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen-forty-one—a date which will live in infummy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japoni.” He paused to allow the people to applaud, which they did politely. There were even a few wolf whistles. They sounded to Josh like a GI audience at a USO show. Joe Gimmee raised his hand and formed a V with his fingers, just as Winston Churchill did in the newsreel. He continued, “All we have to fea-yah is fea-yah itself.”

  Josh stood beside Kennedy, and the two men looked at one another. “That’s the second time I’ve heard Joe Gimmee deliver that line,” Josh said. “He does a pretty fair FDR.”

  “Is this a show?” Kennedy wondered. “Theater of a type?”

  Josh shrugged, then scouted the crowd for Armistead. He found him watching the proceedings, a sad smile on his face. Victoria was clinging to his arm. To his disgust, Josh discovered he had sympathy for the couple. He knew something of lost love, after all. This made him think of Naanni, his deceased Aleut wife, and Dosie, his no-longer girlfriend, and Penelope, his—whatever she was, all at the same time, which made him even sadder, though he forced sadness in short order into anger. Armistead was going to go back to Melagi, that was the only certain thing Josh knew at that moment. Either that or . . . Halsey’s words as quoted by Colonel Burr flickered into Josh’s mind: In my opinion, any American officer who deserts his men in combat is already dead. Some bastard should find Armistead and make it official. Josh knew his duty, and he would do it.

  The men on the tower started yelling, shaking Josh from his grim thoughts. “Roger!” they called up to the sky. “Wilco! Able! Baker! Charlie! Niner zero zero two four six eight! Roger! Go round!”

  Twenty men ran toward the sawn-off palms, clambering up the anchor palms, where they used their machetes to chop loose the vines. All the trees fell within minutes. More men streamed onto the field, hefted the palms, and carried them off on their shoulders, revealing as they did a long open field, not quite flat, but only slightly undulating with the natural contours of the land.

  Josh instantly recognized what had been created. “If that ain’t an airfield!”

  “That was my guess,” Kennedy said.

  “An airfield this far south . . . why, Jap could bring his Bettys down from Bougainville and be back in business all down the Solomons! It would be like we fought the whole battle of New Georgia for nothing.”

  “That’s what I figured, too,” Kennedy advised.

  “This has got to be reported,” Josh said, and turned to John-Bull. “Listen, son, I need to you to go as fast as you can and tell Ready to radio that there’s an airfield on Noa-Noa. Tell him to say Jap built it. They wouldn’t understand, otherwise.”

  John-Bull hesitated. “But I want to see what’s going to happen!”

  “Seaman Markham,” Kennedy said in a stern voice, “I believe I swore you into the service. Do as the commander orders.”

  John-Bull reluctantly saluted, had a word with his mother, then climbed aboard Blackie and was off.

  The men on the platform were getting ever more excited. The ersatz American soldiers, who had all lain down to rest, got up and stood in formation again. At a command from the man playing their drill sergeant, they held their “rifles” in front of them in salute. Joe Gimmee was saying something, very low, but it sounded to Josh like the same thing over and over. Gradually the crowd started to repeat what he was saying. “Joe,” and then after a pause, “Gimmee.”

  “Joe.”

  “Gimmee.”

  “Joe.”

  “Gimmee.”

  “Joe, Gimmee. Joe, Gimmee. Joe, Gimmee!”

  “Boy, they love their Joe Gimmee,” Josh said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Felicity mused. “I don’t think they’re just saying his name. There’s something else . . .”

  Josh saw Penelope in the crowd. She was reaching for the sky with both hands. All the people
around her were staring aloft with rapt expressions of wonderment. He looked at her and saw a savage.

  “Joe! Gimmee! Joe! Gimmee! Joe! Gimmee!”

  “Do you know what I think they’re saying?” Kennedy asked. “Joe, give me. Joe, give me.”

  “Precisely,” Felicity said.

  “Give me? Give me what?” Josh demanded.

  “I understand now,” Felicity said, then shook her head and chuckled. “I should have guessed. It’s a cargo cult, Jack! There’ve been cargo cults out here for years. This is just another variation. Joe Gimmee and his followers built this place for a precise purpose. That bamboo tower is supposed to be an airfield tower, and the men in it are pretending to be airfield controllers. Those coconuts on their ears are supposed to be earphones. The vine from the platform is supposed to be a telephone or telegraph wire. But they’re not communicating with pilots, they’re talking to. . . well, I suppose you might say the cargo gods.”

  “What a load of nonsense,” Josh growled.

  “It may be nonsense to us,” Felicity acknowledged, “but it’s very real to them. They believe the wealth of the English and the Americans have been given to them by the gods. So now they want to contact those gods. They think airfields are one of the places the gods use to give us the cargo they make. So, to their way of thinking, all they have to do is build one, then go through the ceremonies of an airfield, and the gods will give them cargo, too. It’s like when Catholics say mass, don’t you see? The priest goes through a ceremony, and God changes the bread and water into something magical.”

  Josh scratched up under his cap. “But they’re asking for Joe to give them something, and Joe’s standing right there, empty-handed.”

  “Recall Penelope said we are going to see the great Joe today. If Joe Gimmee actually means ‘Joe, give me,’ then our Joe here is just the conduit for the real Joe, the great Joe, who, I suppose, is a god of cargo.”