The PNG soldiers kept to themselves, friendly but uninvolved. Eventually, dinner came. Wilkes and his men weren’t keen on eating the local food and would have preferred to stick with their ratpacks — pre-packaged ration packs — but both the chief and the politicians had been insistent. The first course arrived on bark platters and consisted mainly of baked sweet potatoes, and various cooked taro roots and bananas. Then came the meat.
‘Mmm, delicious,’ said Ellis, tucking in before anyone else. ‘What is it?’
Timbu asked the chief.
‘Longpela pik,’ said the old man.
‘What’s that?’
‘Man,’ said the interpreter.
‘Oh,’ said Ellis with a full mouth. And then the penny dropped. ‘What?’ He spat the mouthful into the fire, and wiped his mouth and tongue on the front of his shirt.
The chief rocked with laughter then spoke animatedly.
‘He says his village has never practised cannibalism,’ Timbu translated, ‘but that plenty of villages in this area have, even up to fairly recently. He says there are rumours the village that attacked them today still practises it occasionally, but personally I doubt that.’ Timbu turned to the chief and said, ‘Mipela laikim tumas dispela kaikai na longpela pik.’ We enjoyed the meal, especially the long pig.
‘Can you ask the chief why they were attacked today?’ Wilkes asked.
‘Already have — payback. No one can remember how it all started. They’ve been fighting back and forth for years. Only now, one side has guns. Back when they used spears, there’d be a few injuries, the occasional death. Now it’s not unusual for ten or fifteen men to be killed and the same number wounded in a simple skirmish. And then there are all the accidents with firearms, like we saw today.’
‘Yeah,’ said Wilkes.
‘What happened when these men chased the others into the jungle?’ asked Beck.
Timbu spoke at length with some of the young men who had gone on the raid, the conversation becoming quite excited.
‘They didn’t get anywhere near the other village,’ he said. ‘It’s a good day and a half’s trek away, maybe more, through the jungle and over a high ridge to the north-west. There was a bit of a skirmish in the trees not far from here, which is where the man took a bullet in the foot. They broke off the chase because they came across a party of Asians they believed were heading to the enemy village. These people from over the border in West Papua have a bad reputation for being cruel and vicious, so the men came back.’
The Australians looked at the faces of the people around them. Most were smiling broadly, innocently. Wilkes knew he couldn’t do anything to help them. It’s not your fight, Tom. ‘Did you say a day and a half’s journey from here?’
‘Give or take.’
Wilkes was due to go back on leave after this job, along with the rest of his men. They’d bloody well deserved it. He’d had a few plans to go away with Annabelle, his ‘gelpren’. If he were a few days late, would that matter? He knew the answer to that — yes, it would. ‘Timbu, you say you know these hills. Do you know them well enough to get us to that village?’
Timbu looked at Wilkes and wondered what the soldier was thinking. ‘No, afraid I don’t. The jungle out there’s so thick you could walk three metres from the edge of a village of a thousand people and not know it’s there. One of these men could take you,’ he said, indicating the locals, ‘but I’d have to go with you as interpreter.’
‘How about it? Feel like a stroll?’
Timbu took a deep breath. ‘It’s tough out there, in the jungle, but I guess you know that,’ he said.
Wilkes nodded.
Laughter and squeals of delight interrupted them as the women of the village presented gifts to Loku, Pelagka and the soldiers: their very own kotekas. Sergeant Wilkes was given the largest of them all, and there was much backslapping and eye-rolling to go with it. When the food and presentations were over, the village men lit enormous marijuana cigars. Wilkes and his troop declined when offered but the smoke hung around the fires and the conversation soon became quite silly even between those not dragging directly on the enormous cigars.
Wilkes’s Wankers had accompanied Loku and his party back to Mt Hagen when the voting had concluded. But now they were heading back to the village, returning with the wounded highlanders, who’d had their injuries dressed.
The village looked small from above as the Blackhawk descended through a thousand feet towards it. Wilkes preferred the view from above rather than the blind approach on the track through the jungle. The village was cut out of the surrounding bush, the terminus for the road, the end of the line. If you wanted to go any further, it was machete time.
He checked the man on the stretcher beside him. The wounded foot was set in a fibreglass cast, a big ski boot. The man appeared anxious, eyes darting left and right. Sergeant Wilkes smiled at him, hoping to provide some reassurance that the popping between his ears was normal. The highlander had been reasonably calm once the helo was airborne and settled into its cruise, but he’d been unconscious during his first chopper ride, so the descent was a new experience. He heaved once and then vomited on himself before Littlemore could get a bag under his chin.
‘Poor bugger,’ Beck yelled through the din.
‘Why?’ said Sergeant Wilkes in Beck’s ear. ‘He looks pretty comfy to me.’ Wilkes envied the man his stretcher. Sitting on the bare floor of a Blackhawk was one of life’s lesser experiences as far as he was concerned. Squatting on your pack was the only alternative. Timbu chose the hard, unforgiving deck. Lance Corporal Ellis and Troopers Littlemore and Beck had decided to come along, giving up some leave to do so. They each had enough ratpacks to last five days in the jungle. With the exception of Timbu, who didn’t know one end of a pistol from the other, the men carried weapons — Minimis for Ellis and Littlemore, M4/203s for Wilkes and Beck. Technically speaking it was illegal for the Australians to be carrying firearms because they were not working in an official capacity but, in the unmapped reaches of one of the most unexplored mountain ranges on earth, it was unlikely they’d be pulled up and questioned about it. And it would have been plain dumb not to bring them. They’d be tracking people who were armed to the teeth, and not likely to be friendly. This time, Wilkes also brought along a few flash-bangs.
The Blackhawk flared twenty metres from the ground, and its downwash flattened one grass structure and blew away two more. The young boys and girls from the village gathered dangerously close to the helo and spun around, arms outstretched, until they fell over giddy. A large number of men and women also came to greet the helo, this time armed with smiles rather than spears, led by the chief. The men hopped out of the Blackhawk, then turned and hauled their packs out. The pilot and co-pilot checked that their rotors were clear, the pitch of the thump-thump changed and the large, heavy machine rose from the ground on a swirling cone of dust, leaves and grass. The chief walked towards them with both hands outstretched in welcome. ‘Gude,’ he said. Hello.
Wilkes returned the pleasantries. ‘Moning. Yu stap gut? Good morning. Are you well?
‘Mi stap gut,’ said the old chief, nodding and smiling. The men shook hands warmly as if the parting had been for months rather than a couple of days. When the chief could be heard more clearly against the noise of the departing helo, he patted Wilkes on the back and said, ‘Taim san i go daun i gat bigpela singsing.’
He wants us to stay tonight for another feast, Wilkes thought, taking a few seconds to translate what was little more than a mumble and formulate a reply: thanks, but we’ve got a long road ahead and we need to hurry. ‘Nogut, tenku. Rot i longpela. Mipela hariup.’