THE FLOATING ISLAND PHILIP FITZPATRICK Copyright © 2014 Philip Fitzpatrick All rights reserved. ISBN-10:1502344424 ISBN-13:978-1502344427 Cover Images: Staffan Lindeberg. DEDICATION For the Beachcombers and Dreamers of the South Seas. “...war creates situations in which the moral framework of peace time ceases to be of any practical use. In looking at the acts of individuals caught up in such extreme situations it is imperative to remember that guilt and innocence, the status of the perpetrator and that of the victim, are often indissolubly intertwined.” Gillian Nikakis, He's Not Coming Home CONTENTS 1 Escape 1 2 Seduction 19 3 Motive 39 4 Voyage 58 5 Recruited 72 6 Mission 88 7 Sojourn 105 8 Fair Wind 140 9 Quest 170 10 Fortress 201 11 Captives 230 12 North 271 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Floating Island is a work of fiction but much fact is interwoven into the narrative. The Tokwai, under various local names, are well-known in the islands of Papua New Guinea. There is a degree of reticence about discussing them, because of their relationship to sorcery. I am therefore grateful to the old men and women who shared their secrets about the little people of the forest as well as other supernatural matters. The interpretation of this information is mine alone. 1 ESCAPE HE HEARD a gunshot echoing behind him. He tucked the rifle carefully under his right arm and began to cross the road. Halfway across a bullet struck his left thigh and knocked his leg out from under him. He didn’t feel any pain and thought that he had tripped over something. The rifle was still tucked under his arm but his glasses had fallen off. He sat back against the haversack and picked them up and awkwardly cleaned the lenses on his sleeve before replacing them. Then he looked down at his leg and saw the wound and the widening pool of blood. He glanced over his shoulder but couldn’t see anyone. The rickety bamboo watch tower was still fuzzy in the early morning light. Perhaps someone up there was awake and playing games or just shooting at shadows. The soldiers seemed to blaze away at anything and from that distance he probably looked like a villager. He hoped it was a random shot and there would not be another one. Maybe the soldier on guard outside the Chinese trade store has woken up and was shooting from somewhere nearby? He dismissed the idea, it would have been physically impossible for such a fat man to have caught up to him already. He guessed the shot would have woken the other soldiers but resisted the urge to panic and placed the rifle gently on the crushed coral surface and sat still for a moment and then loosened the straps on the haversack and freed his arms. He pulled his old cotton jacket over his head and tied it tightly around the wound. He readjusted his glasses and slipped his arms back into the haversack straps and 1 The Floating Island heaved himself upright. He picked the rifle up and tucked it back under his arm and continued on his way. On the other side of the road he descended into a grassy ditch and then broke into forest. His leg began to throb as he hobbled through the trees. The diffused light under the trees confused him for a moment and he had to stop to reconsider the direction in which he was heading. A tremor had also crept into his movements and he guessed it was shock from the wound. He scanned the many tracks and paths among the trees and breathed deeply before moving off again. After a while he picked up the scent of the sea. He stopped twice to rest and to tighten the soggy makeshift bandage on his leg. He thought he must be moving too fast to make the wound bleed so much and slowed down. It was only then that he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A grey shape seemed to have appeared and then faded into the shadows. He began to move quickly again. He was glancing over his shoulder when he came across the woman. She was sitting against a tree in a patch of sunlight. She seemed to smile at him as he edged past but didn’t turn her head. Her dress was on the ground beside her and she was sprawled with her arms and legs outwards as if to catch as much sun as possible. She blinked and quickly brought her arms and legs together. “It’s been a hard night and I’m just sore,” she said, “The sun helps. But you must hurry or they will catch you; the path to the beach is that way.” He put his head down and kept going. He could hear something coming through the undergrowth behind him. When he got to the beach the dinghy was still there. He leaned the rifle against the transom and heaved the haversack into the boat. His shoulders ached and he stretched several times before hobbling to the edge of the mangroves and retrieving the oars that he had hidden in the branches. He pushed the dinghy into the water and climbed aboard. He let it float on the outgoing tide while he adjusted the bloody jacket around his leg. He then put the oars into the oarlocks and pulled hard on the port side until the dinghy swung round and its bow was pointed out to sea. He began to pull towards the channel. Once on board the boat he undid the bloody jacket and inspected the wound. The bullet seemed to have gone through cleanly; there was a small entry point and a jagged exit. The exit wound was the one that was bleeding heavily. He guessed that the bullet had missed his femoral artery by about two inches. He cleaned the wound and 2 Escape bound it with a proper bandage. He stowed the goods from his haversack in the locker in the galley, coffee, tea, sugar, cooking oil, rice and tins of bully beef. He then limped to the bow and wound up the anchor. By the time he had the mainsail up he was feeling quite weak. There was very little wind and the boat worked its way slowly along the channel between the coral. He looked back towards the shore where smoke from a thatched house was curling lazily into the sky and noticed a large grey dog swimming in the wake of the boat. He watched it for a while and then looked up at the slack sail. The dog was valiantly keeping pace with the boat. Once beyond the mouth of the channel and the shelter of the headland the wind would pick up and he would be able to leave it behind. It would eventually drown if it wasn’t first taken by a shark. He thought about this for a while and then picked up the rifle. He nudged the mainsail slightly to port to steady the sway and drew a bead on the shaggy head. He wondered whether a shot would attract attention. He then put the rifle down and swung the helm hard to starboard. When he fished the dog out of the water it collapsed on the deck panting with exhaustion. Its ribs were still visible when it stopped heaving for breath. When he had the boat back in the channel he went to the galley and fetched a bowl of water and one of the tins of stolen bully beef. The dog looked up at him with large bloodshot eyes and then the shaggy head slowly bent to rest on its paws. “Maybe later?” he said and put the tin away and returned to the helm. The man and the shaggy grey dog sailed west along the coast. By then the bully beef had gone and the dog had developed a taste for fried fish. The man’s leg failed to heal well and left him with an awkward limp. They passed the days staring at the horizon. The man had no idea where they were going. “Just away,” he told the dog. Sometimes they talked. Or at least the man talked and the dog, with its shaggy head tilted to one side, listened. They talked about nothing in particular and nothing of moment. The dog nodded sagely at these ramblings and the man fell silent. After a while he said, ‘It doesn’t really matter does it?’ and they both resumed staring at the horizon. Islands appeared off the coast in the distance and slowly drifted 3 The Floating Island towards them. If there were people on them he traded for food with the bolts of coloured cloth, fishing line, hooks and the other goods he had stashed forward in a tin trunk. The food was mostly local produce but sometimes he got battered old tins of meat and fish and musty packets of navy biscuits retrieved from the depleted island trade stores. Sometimes in the night he would hear the knock of a canoe against the side of the boat followed by the pad of bare feet and the rustle of a discarded grass skirt. More often it was the sound of a lithe wet body pulling up onto the deck. He guessed that those ones hid their skirts in a safe place on the beach. Occasionally he was awake when they arrived and could admire the sleek, seal-like body, flashing smile and halo of droplets shining in the moonlight around a head of fuzzy lime-dyed hair.