Papua (21 page)

‘We have extended the house,’ Paul said as Jack followed him. ‘You now have a room to yourself. Lukas can sleep in Karl’s room. Get yourself settled in. Maybe go for a swim before dinner.’

Jack thanked his old friend and took his advice. He found the tropical water refreshing and stroked out strongly in the placid sea for a quarter of a mile, before making his way back to the beach where he collapsed on the gritty sand to soak up the last of the setting sun. Lying back, he could hear the gentle hiss of water rushing over the hot sand and the distant laughter of the plantation workers. A great feeling of peace descended on him as he stared up at the sky that was taking on a dark mauve colour.

When the sun was a great red orb on the horizon he rose and walked back to the house, now lit with electric light since Paul had also invested in a generator system.

The boys had hearty appetites and so too did Jack. He had missed Karin’s wonderful cooking. Fresh fruit followed and then the two men retired to the verandah whilst Karin relaxed with the magazines Jack had brought from Australia. The two boys disappeared into Karl’s room where they swapped stories of what they’d been doing since the last time they had been together in Sydney some weeks earlier.

Jack tapped his pipe on the edge of the verandah and refilled it with a plug of tobacco. Paul puffed on a cigar that he had been saving for Jack’s return. For a short while both men simply gazed out into the soft tropical night.

‘How are you coping?’ Jack finally asked, breaking the meditative silence.

‘Times have been better but we are coping well enough,’ Paul answered, watching the smoke curl lazily on the still air. ‘I have thought about diversifying into tobacco growing. I met a young man in Moresby a while ago who was giving it a go over on the Laloki River just north of here. He’d done a bit of prospecting up in Morobe on the fields. Last I heard of him he was back to work a claim he won in a ballot.’

‘Anyone I know?’ Jack asked.

‘I don’t think so. He is from Tasmania. A young fellow by the name of Errol Flynn. He came here in ’27 or thereabouts. Worked for a while chartering a schooner and I heard he had a run-in with the Dutch up around the Sepik when he went poaching bird of paradise for their feathers. He even starred in a film made in Tahiti by the Americans.
In the Wake of the Bounty
, I think it was called. He’s a character with a reputation around Moresby for having an eye for the ladies.’

‘Better keep the lads away from him then,’ Jack grinned. ‘They seem to be at that age where trouble can start with just the whiff of perfume.’

‘Ahh . . . but to be young again,’ Paul sighed. ‘Those days up in Finschhafen and Munich before the war.’

‘Know what you mean,’ Jack responded quietly.

Where had the time gone, he thought sadly. He was approaching middle age and was to all appearances a successful man. But there was a loneliness in his life. He was losing Lukas to manhood and had no one else to share his life and dreams with. Oh, there had been short interludes with some very desirable women in Sydney, but in the end they had left him either because they found him too absorbed in his work or sensed that he was not with them in spirit. It was as if he lived with the ghost of a love that haunted not only him but anyone else who tried to get close to him. And the nights were still hell. The nightmares came less often but he would still feel his hands shake when something reminded him of the terrible war. Would it ever really go away? Almost fifteen years had passed and yet it was all still fresh in his memories.

At length Paul decided that he must retire. The copra ship was due and he would have an early start with Dademo to ensure all went smoothly in the loading. He bid Jack goodnight and left him alone on the verandah. He was not alone for long. Karin came out on the verandah and sat in the cane chair vacated by her husband.

‘Would you like coffee before retiring?’ she asked.

Jack tapped his pipe. ‘I have never told you what a wonderful woman you are,’ he said quietly. ‘You have raised Lukas to be the man I always wanted him to be.’

Karin sat very still listening to the words that poured from his heart. ‘You have a wonderful son,’ she said with a choke in her voice. ‘I would have been proud to be his mother.’

‘You were,’ Jack replied. ‘More than you will ever really know. All those years that Lukas grew up on the plantation he knew your love. A love as good as any mother could have given a boy in need of one.’

Karin leant across and touched Jack on the arm. ‘I will always treasure every letter that he has sent to me from school, every hug he ever gave me, every time he and Karl were naughty little boys. And now we are about to let our sons go out into the world and learn to be men. Oh Jack, I only wish that you had found the love that Paul and I have.’

‘I nearly did.’

‘Erika,’ Karin scowled. ‘She was never meant for you. She was not the person that you imagined, Jack. Although, as the sister of my husband I shouldn’t say it, Erika was a disturbed young woman. I think that even Paul knew that an evil existed in her that no one spoke of in his family.’

Jack took in a deep breath and sighed. Karin could sense his pain and wanted to reach out and take it from the man she had come to love, a wild and reckless foil for her Paul. ‘You still miss her.’

‘Not a day goes past when something doesn’t remind me of her,’ Jack said. ‘Not a woman I meet who I don’t search for Erika in. It’s been almost ten years and I still find myself wondering where she is and what she is doing.’

Karin fell into a silence as she struggled with what she knew. ‘I can answer some of your questions,’ she finally said, and Jack looked at her sharply. ‘Erika is married and living in Munich. She has a daughter just a little older than Angelika.’

‘Has she contacted you?’ he asked in a calm voice, attempting to hide what he felt.

And for a moment Karin regretted telling the Australian what she knew when she saw the pain etched in his face. ‘Paul received a letter some weeks ago,’ Karin replied. ‘It is from an old friend of his in Munich.’

‘Who is she married to?’ he asked.

‘A young man she met just before we left for Australia.’

‘Definitely not this Adolf Hitler who the papers are all talking about,’ Jack said with a short, bitter laugh. ‘She mentioned that she knew him when we were in Sydney and I suspected at the time that she was a bit taken by the bastard.’

Karin’s face clouded. She vaguely remembered Hitler when he had visited their home in Munich during the winter of 1919. She had instinctively not liked him but had never imagined in her wildest thoughts that the man would rise to such prominence. ‘Her husband’s name is Gerhardt Stahl. He is very high in this Nazi party that I have read about.’

‘Never heard her mention his name,’ Jack muttered. ‘Must be a mate of Herr Hitler. But how did Paul get the letter all the way out here?’

‘Through the office of Sir Hubert,’ Karin answered. ‘It was simply addressed to him via the Australian authorities here. Paul feels that his sister is in some kind of trouble.’

‘Like what?’ Jack frowned.

‘As much as Erika appeared to dislike Paul, it is not in her nature to remain so silent for so long. He has what you would call a gut feeling that his sister needs him.’

Jack could see the pained expression in Karin’s face. It was as if she were struggling with unpalatable facts. ‘Do you think that she is in serious trouble?’

Karin turned to stare directly into his eyes. ‘I think so – and I think it has something to do with the events unfolding in Germany. I fear that the things that we left behind in the old country will drag Paul into a dangerous situation, one beyond our control.’

‘I would never let anything happen to Paul,’ Jack consoled gently. ‘He’s my mate and mates stick together, no matter what.’

Tears glistened in Karin’s eyes. ‘He has not told you yet but he plans to return to Germany to see Erika. I cannot tell him that I fear his life is in danger if he returns to Munich. I am his wife and I love him. And I know that even if you were to try and convince him not to go he would still return because he loves his sister and feels responsible for her.’

Jack stared up at the Southern Cross. He had missed its brilliance when he had served in France. If he died he wanted to do so under its crystalline comfort and nowhere else. ‘If he goes to Germany,’ he said quietly, ‘then I will go with him.’

‘Thank you, Jack,’ Karin said and wiped away the tears that spilled down her face. ‘I know that my husband will always be safe in your company. You were born to be brothers.’

Jack broke into one of his broad smiles. ‘Tried to kill each other once,’ he reminded her. ‘But what else would you expect between brothers? Kind of a family thing, I suppose.’

Karin laughed at his twisted reflection on the bond between the two men. Jack was truly the other half of the man she loved. And in loving her husband she also loved the Australian in ways she knew she could never tell him.

That night Jack lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Outside a full moon glowed over the plantation. His thoughts were in turmoil: Erika and Germany, Lukas and losing him. Sleep came in the early hours and his terrible dreams returned, but this time Lukas stood by him in the trenches. He could hear his son screaming one word: ‘Why?’ Jack woke with a start and felt the sweat clinging to him. He sat up and propped himself against the bedhead. This had been the first time that he had dreamed of his son. Maybe he was unconsciously accepting that his son was now a man and it was natural that he should share a part of his nightmare. At least there would be no more wars such as that. The GreatWar had proved how futile it was to use science and technology to wage a war no one really won. Admittedly armed conflicts were even now being waged across the globe but they were restricted by national boundaries. Surely no truly civilised nation could ever entertain the idea of starting another global conflict? Jack rose from his bed and found his pipe. He lit it and sat on a chair in his bedroom to watch the sun rise over the coconut trees.

The following day an incident occurred that was to mar Lukas’s stay at the plantation. Isokihi the Japanese boat builder arrived in one of his launches to drop off supplies for the Manns. Dademo sighted the wooden craft puttering into the bay and went down to assist with the unloading. Karl and Lukas were lounging around on the verandah, taking in the early morning sun.

‘Isokihi comes in his boat,’ Dademo called to them as he passed the two boys. ‘You want to come down to the beach?’ The boys glanced at each other and rose from their comfortable cane chairs. ‘What the heck,’ Lukas shrugged and they followed the boss boy.

Isokihi had already launched a dinghy with a large pile of goods balanced in the stern. When the two boys reached the beach they noticed a tall, well-built young Japanese man with the solid, little Japanese skipper.

‘Fuji,’ Karl said quietly. ‘That bastard is working with his old man now.’

Lukas squinted against the shimmering seas and focused on the figures. He too recognised the man in the boat staring back at them from his days at the primary school in Port Moresby. Fuji had been a fellow student who neither boy liked, always surly and refusing to make friends with the others. It was as if he carried an air of superiority towards those not of Japanese blood. And now here he was years later with the same sneering expression on his face.

Dademo waded into the sea and helped guide the boat to the beach. Fuji jumped from the boat and turned to stare at the two boys a few yards away.

‘G’day, Fuji,’ Karl said by way of greeting, but the young man simply stared at him with an expression of contempt. ‘See you haven’t changed,’ Karl added with the slightest trace of a grin.

Without a word Fuji turned his back to take the anchor rope and secure the dinghy to the beach. His father clambered over the side to stand beside his son. Dademo carried on, unloading the boxes and parcels of supplies.

‘Better give a hand,’ Karl said and the boys walked towards the boat. As Dademo worked one of the parcels fell from his hands and splashed into the surf. Isokihi swung on Dademo with amazing speed for a man of his age and the Papuan went down in the water. It happened so fast neither Karl nor Lukas had time to intervene. When Dademo struggled to his feet gasping for air, blood ran down his face. Isokihi had his fists raised again to strike, but this time Karl leapt forward. With all his strength he swung at the side of the Japanese boat builder’s head. The blow was true and the solidly built man staggered, his ear ringing from the impact. Fuji spun to deliver a kick to Karl but missed as the heavily built young man moved with unexpected speed for one so big. He retaliated by moving in on the young Japanese man before he could regain his balance and hammering his face and body with hard, stinging blows, driving Fuji into the sand.

‘Your old man doesn’t have the right to hit Dademo,’ Karl gasped. ‘What happened was an accident, you bloody Jap bastard,’ he continued as he stood over the young man. ‘No one has a right to maltreat Dademo.’

Fuji glared up at Karl. The battering had felt like a series of steam pistons pounding his body. Already one of his eyes was swelling to the point of almost closing. Fuji turned to seek out his father who stood in the surf, holding his damaged ear. The impact had burst a drum and the pain was acute. Lukas stood between Fuji and his father, obviously covering Karl’s back against a possible retaliation.