Papua (30 page)

‘Well,’ Caroline sighed as she sipped her wine. ‘I will tell my little pet that you cannot help her. A pity,’ she added. ‘I was so much looking forward to sharing her with you.’

When Erika received a telephone call at the hotel from Caroline to explain the difficult circumstances, she slammed the phone down. Damn her, she thought. She would find someone else to support her claim for British citizenship. The need to do so was now a matter of life and death. Hitler was in power and she well knew the lengths his government would go to in the future to eliminate anyone they felt was the slightest threat to them. Since her husband had planted her name in the files she knew there was no going back, despite her innocence. Damn him for taking away all that she had gained with her body. He deserved the worst she could think of. She had always plotted her revenge but had fooled him for the moment into thinking she had changed. It was time to take from him the only thing he considered precious and worth dying for.

Erika had not planned on continuing her journey to Papua. But getting citizenship of a country not under German influence was not to be. Suddenly the thought of continuing their journey to Papua had a great appeal. Erika had been told by Caroline that Jack Kelly was in Papua – around the Port Moresby district, she’d been informed when she had casually asked of his whereabouts. Caroline also told her of Jack’s rise to wealth in Sydney and his sudden financial collapse. Caroline had given Erika an enigmatic look when she had asked about Jack. But Erika had an idea of why Jack Kelly would support anything she proposed.

T
he
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lay at anchor in the broad waters of the Fly River. With his son at the helm Jack had navigated through a maze of islands to a point Paul remembered as close to Serero’s village. Joe Oblachinski’s cameramen had been filming the river at intervals while Victoria was busy making notes in her journal. Joe himself had relaxed on deck, puffing on a fat cigar, which he also used as a pointer to direct his cameramen to specific shots. ‘It would be a real bonus if we could get some of the natives to come out of the bush and fire some arrows at us,’ he said to Jack. ‘Got a few Tarzan movies in the works where it sure would be great background stuff.’

‘Probably on the cards,’ Jack said dryly, ‘from what Paul says about O’Leary’s activities in this part of the world.’

‘Who’s this O’Leary guy you mentioned?’

‘Someone you wouldn’t want to know,’ Jack replied as he scanned the jungle-covered shoreline for a place to land the rowboat.

‘Well, time to go ashore and see if we can make contact with this canoe builder your German friend has told us about,’ Joe said launching himself to his feet.

‘I will be coming too,’ Victoria said as she emerged from below decks wearing her jodhpurs and a clean cotton shirt.

‘Not a real good idea,’ Jack grunted. ‘We don’t know what kind of reception we might get ashore.’

‘Too bad,’ the young American woman countered, staring Jack directly in the eyes. ‘You are being employed by Joe and I have full rights to go wherever he chooses to.’

‘Okay,’ Jack replied and turned his back on her to prepare the small boat.

‘Lukas, you remain with the
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. Karl can come and issue arms.

Lukas was disappointed that he was not going ashore, but he also realised that someone had to look after the lugger. Karl grinned at his friend standing at the helm as he took a .303 rifle handed to him. ‘See you when I see you,’ he said and glanced at Victoria who was stepping down into the rowboat at the side of the lugger. Two cameras were then carefully lowered and when all were aboard Jack and Karl took the oars while Paul stood at the rudder to steer. The river was running and after ten minutes of hard rowing they reached the shore. As soon as they stepped ashore the drums began to beat.

‘Looks like we might get a few arrows sent our way after all,’ Jack muttered within hearing of Joe Oblachinski, who only beamed a smile as he prepared another cigar. Jack had to admire the man. The humidity onshore was extreme, as was the heat, but the American seemed to take it all in his stride. Nevertheless, he was sweating profusely and the extra weight he carried around his midriff could not have helped in the jungle.

‘This is exciting!’ Victoria exclaimed. ‘It’s just like a Johnny Weismuller movie.’

Jack did not comment but checked the safety catch on his rifle. He was no expert on the meaning of the drums but hoped they were peaceful messages being passed up and down the river.

‘The village was around a quarter mile from here,’ Paul said, hefting his rifle over his shoulder. ‘At least it was ten years ago.’

He stepped forward and the others fell in behind him. Victoria seemed to stay close to Jack and within a short time they had slashed a track to where Paul remembered the village to be. But the jungle had long reclaimed what had once been a place of habitation. Just a faint outline of the logs that had once supported thatch huts remained in a clearing of high grasses.

‘What next?’ Joe asked, with a note of disappointment.

‘We just sit and wait,’ Paul replied. ‘It is the way of the people in this country to come to you.’

‘How long?’ Joe asked and Paul shrugged his shoulders.

‘Who knows,’ he replied. ‘But we will wait until near sunset and if they have not made contact by then we will leave the box of trade goods for them. Then we can come back tomorrow and they will see that we have come to talk and not make war.’

They settled down in the shade of a great rainforest giant that had stood long before the now deserted village had existed. Jack prepared a billy of tea and Karl opened cans of bully beef to be handed around as their meal for the day. Victoria took one look at the gooey pink meat melting in its own fat in the tropical heat and passed it to Malip who grinned his appreciation at the extra rations. The men ate from the cans with their fingers and waited whilst the smoke from Joe’s cigar curled in lazy clouds in the still air of the clearing.

In the mid afternoon they came. ‘God almighty!’ Joe swore as he raised himself into a sitting position to stare at the fully armed warriors emerging from the tree line on the far side of the clearing. ‘I didn’t think that there would be so many!’

Paul stood and shaded his eyes with his hand. They were a formidable force with their bows and long, deadly barbed arrows. They stood in curious silence as if considering whether to string their bows and release a volley down on the white men. Jack released the safety catch on his rifle and glanced at Victoria to check that she was near him if it came to a fighting retreat back to the boat.

The seconds that ticked by were tense with fear for what might happen next. But at the front of the line of warriors with their bows and plumes was one man with a very battered pipe in his mouth. ‘Serero!’ Paul Mann called, hoping that he had identified a friendly face. ‘Serero, is that you?’

The man with the pipe walked forward and burst into tears. It was indeed Serero the canoe builder and he was overjoyed to see that his long dead brother was once again visiting him in his old age. The two men met in the centre of the clearing to embrace and the warriors swarmed forward to surround the party.

Victoria was the centre of their attention. She had to remind herself that she was doing all this for her country as they poked and probed her to ascertain whether she was in fact a female. Jack stood very close by and watched for any sign of distress from her. She glanced at him and saw the concern in his face for her predicament but shook her head to indicate he was to do nothing for the moment. Reluctantly he stepped back.

Serero began his high warbling speech of welcome and warned his fellow warriors to give the white woman space to move. His dead brother had returned to give him tobacco for his pipe, as he knew he would. They obeyed and Paul handed out the few trade goods that he had brought to the clearing as the cameramen frantically worked their cameras to record the moment. These were a people whose exposure to Europeans was negligible. It would make for rare footage indeed, back in Hollywood.

‘Malip, you tell Serero that our friends from across the sea have many such gifts for all of them if they will do some things for him,’ Paul said and Malip translated as best as he could.

Serero understood and held Paul’s hand in his as he nodded.

‘Mr Oblachinski,’ Paul said, ‘we have been very lucky and I think you will get the finest footage for your friends in Hollywood that can be taken.’

Jack supervised the pitching of the camp. With Malip’s help in translating he had some of the warriors return down the track and stores were ferried from the
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.

Victoria was photographing the events and found herself snapping many of Jack as he stood in the clearing and went about the task of setting up a base for the American film-maker and his crew. He was stripped to the waist and his tanned and muscular body reflected his hard life. With his rifle slung over his shoulder and a revolver at his waist, he well and truly fitted the Jungle Jack title that Victoria had secretly bestowed on him. The sight of him working amongst the colourfully plumed warriors was uncomfortably attractive for her and she tried to dismiss the next thought that came to her: the two of them making love. She knew that to do so would be to make a commitment to this man whom she had already guessed was not willing to be taken from this savage yet beautiful world of warriors and jungles. She clicked off another photograph of Jack attempting to communicate his orders to a couple of bemused warriors carrying bows and stone axes and shook her head. ‘Girl, what are you thinking?’ she muttered to herself. Whatever it was, it was tinged with sweat and passion.

By nightfall the camp was set up and Karl had hiked back to relieve Lukas on his watch aboard the anchored boat. A fire was lit and the night sky filled with sparkling stars. A haunch of beef that had been kept in the refrigerated locker of the lugger was cooked in a camp oven with fresh vegetables and served with a few precious bottles of wine hoarded for the occasion. The sumptuous meal – by expedition standards – was washed down with good coffee and tea. There was soft laughter and risque yarns spun about Hollywood celebrities under the sparkle of tropical stars until the rain came in a sudden, violent downpour, forcing all to the tents that had been erected in the late afternoon.

Victoria grabbed Jack by the hand as she sat by him on a log near the fire which was now sizzling under the weight of water. ‘Quick,’ she said with a laugh, ‘ we can get to my tent before we drown.’

Jack let her lead him and they both burst inside her tent drenched to the skin. She collapsed on her camp stretcher in the dark and Jack fumbled for the lantern which he found and lit. The soft light flooded the tent as the rain pounded the canvas and ran in little rivulets across the earthen floor. He hung the hurricane lantern on a post and wiped his face with his hands. ‘Don’t think we were very successful,’ he said with a smile as he sat in a portable camp chair and gazed at Victoria stretched out on her bed.

‘I do,’ she answered quietly. ‘I have you alone on a night when I doubt that anyone is going to come visiting.’

It took a second for the meaning of her reply to dawn on the tough Australian. He stared into her eyes and saw a strange softness that he had not noticed before. ‘Victoria?’ he asked, and she reached up to draw him down to her. Without further conversation she slowly undid the buttons of his shirt. He felt her lips on his and her tongue probe his mouth. Then she pulled him down on her and he felt the softness of her breasts against his chest. His head was spinning at the suddenness of events unfolding as the rain roared in his ears. He was barely aware of her whispered words but found that he was reacting, as she had wanted him to. His hands were inside her shirt and he found her nipples under his fingers, large and erect. Then he was kissing her back with the intensity of long concealed desire. But he was also tense for reasons he could not fathom. Yes, he admitted to himself, he had wanted her from the day he had laid eyes on the beautiful young woman stepping out of the car on the Moresby wharf.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked somewhat obtusely, and she smiled at his words. Any other man would have taken advantage of the opportunity she was providing.

‘Of course I am sure,’ she laughed softly. ‘You are such a maddeningly desirable man, Jack Kelly.’

He felt himself relax and they undressed each other under the yellow glare of the lantern. Jack marvelled at her perfectly smooth skin while she touched the welts and raised skin where bullets and shrapnel had scarred his body. They told her so much about him: the pain he had suffered as a younger man in war and the way he had lived with the memories of another time. How many other women, she found herself wondering with just a touch of jealousy, had also touched those scars and felt his hard body covering theirs? But his kiss and his hands holding her face swept away the thoughts as she felt her arousal heighten. Very gently she lay back and spread her legs to allow him to become part of her. She gasped the moment she felt him enter her. Their lovemaking lasted until she was exhausted. He was like a wonderful, tireless machine. But in his intensity, she also experienced the great depths of his innate tenderness.

When they had finished she lay back and felt his kisses on her stomach, thighs and between her legs. The storm outside continued to rage and she felt so content that she fell asleep as he held her in his arms without any further words being spoken.

That night Victoria slept as soundly as she could ever remember. She only awoke when she smelt the earthy scent of damp wood burning and heard the low murmur of a camp coming to life in the early hours just on dawn. Jack had gone but this did not surprise her. She guessed that he was the kind of man who would not want their time together to be known to anyone but themselves.

But perhaps it had all been just a dream. As Victoria dressed she realised that she could still feel his wetness in her. Definitely no dream, she muttered to herself as she stepped from the tent into the rising and oppressive heat of another day in the tropics.

Jack was squatting by the fire with a mirror, cutthroat razor and some hot water. His face was lathered in soap as he prepared to shave and he glanced up at her with a gentle smile. She returned the smile and stepped from the tent entrance to pour a cup of steaming coffee from the pot that the cameramen were brewing to one side of the campfire. Only Lukas noticed the subtle exchange of looks and glowered his disapproval. He had seen his father going toVictoria’s tent the night before and he had not returned to their tent for some hours. What could such a beautiful young woman see in an old man like his father? Lukas shook his head. He wondered whether he should tell Karl that they no longer had any reason to compete for the American girl’s attention. But on the other hand, maybe Victoria would realise that she could have a much younger and more virile version of his father in him. It was not all over yet.

Lukas found an opportunity to corner his father later that morning as they walked back down the track they had cleared to the shoreline. ‘It looks like you are a bit keen on that Yankee sheila,’ Lukas said and Jack glanced at his son.