Tales of the South Pacific (30 page)

Cable, in the boat, wondered too. He wondered if his silly action in taking Liat to the dinner would be reported on his island. It could be embarrassing if it were. He started to ask Benny what he thought, but the druggist was not given to moralizing. He wasn't in Waco, Texas. He was having a damned fine time in the islands, and right now that head was grinning at him from the bottom of the boat. He chuckled and made up all sorts of surmises as to who had owned the head, and when.

A shock equal to the one Cable suffered when the savage gave him the head awaited him when he reached the dock. It was dusk, and as he crawled out of the boat, there was Bloody Mary. "You like?" she asked him, grinning. "You like?" The betel juice was black upon her lips. He could not answer her. Then she saw the head on the tarpaulin. Catlike she jumped into the boat. "How much?" she asked.

"Take it!" Cable cried in disgust.

"Me take?" the old woman asked, uncertain that he was actually giving her this prize.

"Take it and get out!" he cried impatiently. Mary grabbed the head, tucked it under her arm and ran through the crowd of loafers. In a moment she was back, struggling and protesting, in the arms of two Shore Patrol.

"Lieutenant," they demanded roughly. "Did you give her this?"

"Yes. I told her to take it and scram."

"Then get the hell out of here! And don't come back!" They gave the Tonk a shove. She stumbled along for a few steps, clutching madly at the head. Then she righted herself, tucked the head under her arm, turned and heaped profanity on the two Shore Patrol.

"Go on, get out of here!" they threatened.

"So-and-so you!" she screamed. "So-and-so Emma Pees."

The loafers laughed at anything which discomfited the Shore Patrol. The latter, seeking to justify themselves, reported to Lt. Cable. "That your jeep over there? Yeah. Well, we found that old biddy perched in it a while ago. Better see if anything's stolen. We tossed her out."

On the way back to his quarters Cable's dancing mind flitted between a vision of Bloody Mary with a head under one arm, screaming at the Emma Pees, and Liat, standing on the cliffs, waving at him. For she had gone there while the native was trading for cloth, and as long as Cable could see Bali-ha'i, he had been able to see the slow, rhythmic waving of the Tonkinese girl.

Cable thought that by now he had seen most of the island mysteries, but he was unprepared for a phenomenon that occurred one strange afternoon. There had been gusts of wind all day, like the beginning of a hurricane. And rain, too! Lots of it. Then clouds began to disperse, and for a moment you could see Vanicoro beneath them. But just at that moment, in the weirdest manner, a heavy rain cloud must have passed up the channel beside the volcanoes, for Vanicoro itself was blotted out. Free, wonderful in the dark light, a jewel unmatched, Bali-ha'i stood forth.

"I never knew there was an island there!" one of the Marine officers cried. "Look at that damned thing. Does it show on the charts?"

"Never even saw it before!" another answered. "Look at that damned cloud! Isn't that something to see?" Men called out their neighbors, for where there is so little to do as on a tropical island, every passing fancy of nature is commented on by men who keep their minds active in that way.

"Hey, Cable?" one cried. "Did you ever see this island before? Come here a minute?"

Cable, aroused from a light sleep by the voices, shuffled to the door. Through half-sleepy eyes he viewed the phenomenon. Against his will he cried out, "My God! It's Bali-ha'i!"

"What's that name?" an officer asked who was near him. Months later that officer recalled the scene very clearly. Minutely. He was wont to say, over a whiskey, "Damn it all! I should have known right then! I remarked the incident at the time, but forgot it. He came stumbling out of his hut, took a look at the new island, and cried, 'My God! It's Bali-ha'i!' And I would have suspected something then, but right at that moment another officer gave one hell of a shout down the line. It was Oferthal's roommate. Do you know what Oferthal, that dumb fool, had? You'd never guess!"

No, you'd never guess that a Marine officer would buy a human head, skin on it and all! Everyone left studying Bali-ha'i and surged around Oferthal, who was holding this head up by its long hair. "Ain't it a beauty?" he inquired.

"The son-of-a-bitch paid fifty dollars for it," an admiring friend proclaimed. It was sort of nice to think that your outfit had a guy stupid enough to pay fifty dollars for a human head, with skin on it and all! It gave you something to talk about.

"Yep," Oferthal announced blandly. "I bought it off'n an old Tonk woman. I gave her fifty bucks for it. And to me it's worth every cent."

"Why in hell do you throw your money away like that?"

"What better can I do with it? Shoot craps? Play poker with you sharks? Hell, no! Now I really got me something. Know what I'm going to do with it?"

"Bowl?" an irreverent Marine asked.

"No! I'm gonna take this home and hang it right up in my basement. Right in the rumpus room. Right where we have sandwiches and beer!"

"I hope you have a nurse in attendance, buddy, because one look at that grisly and you can serve my beer all over again to somebody else. It will be right on your floor!"

At that moment Cable, too, felt sick. He felt involved in a net of two colors. One was delicate brown, the other the color of dried betel juice. And no matter which way he twisted, he was not free. About this time he stopped writing to his mother.

The next time he saw Bali-ha'i was when Benny took him there on his regular visit. Four things happened. Six canoes set out from Vanicoro this time, and all the owners were dressed in red loin cloths. He slept with Liat again, more passionately than ever before. She gave him a charm she had carved from the strange ivory nut. And Sister Marie Clement stopped him as he went home past the hospital.

"That is an interesting charm," Sister Clement observed. "Is it from the ivory nut? That is a peculiar nut, is it not? Have you seen one? No? Well, stop by a moment." She disappeared into the hospital and produced a small object about the size of a man's fist. It resembled a small pineapple, brown and with a covering like a pine cone. "If you cut this covering off, there is an interior like the matting of a coconut. Inside that there is a fruit, and if you cut that off-it's like potato-you will find this very hard nut. When it dries, it's like ivory, as you can see. It's one of the strange things of the islands." She paused a long time and then asked, "Did Liat give you the charm?"

"Yes, Sister, she did."

"My son," Sister Clement began. "You know what I have to say. I say it only to reinforce your own conscience, for you must already have said it to yourself. What you are doing is no good. It can only bring hurt to you and disgrace to the girl. If life is so urgent, so compelling now, marry one of the lovely French girls who live on this island. Some of them are beautiful. Some are fairly wealthy. Some are surprisingly well educated. And there are Protestants among them, too. If life is so urgent, it must also be important. Do not waste it, I pray you."

Cable could say nothing for a long time. He stood looking at the channel, this time a greenish blue, lovelier than before. Bali-ha'i was in his heart, and the island fought there against the wisdom of the little birdlike woman from Bordeaux. Finally he asked, "What of Liat?"

"I don't know what has passed between you, lieutenant. That is your affair, and God's. But I think I am doing no harm if I say that Liat can marry almost whom she wishes. Many Tonkinese want to marry her, for she is an industrious girl." Sister Clement bit her lip. She knew she should never have praised the girl. She knew Cable would grasp at those words and remember them long after the rest of her sermon had been dismissed. She continued, more carefully, "There is also a planter who wants to marry her. You have probably heard of him. Jacques Benoit. He could give her a good home. It would be a step up in the world for her. And although Jacques drinks a bit, I think he might make, with Liat's help, a good Christian home. Lieutenant, I beg you to think of this."

Cable studied the channel again. The six canoes from Vanicoro were returning to their own side of the greenish water. He hoped that Benny had accepted no more heads. Dry of mouth he turned his gaze to Sister Marie Clement, who was waiting.

"You see, lieutenant?" she said, weighing each word. "I know you have been on Guadalcanal. You are probably a hero, too. I have been patient, hoping that reason would overtake you. We, here on this island and on all of these islands, know that we owe our homes and perhaps our lives to you men who stopped the Japanese. But you owe yourselves something, too. Remember that. Therefore, I have said nothing, but if you come here again, I shall report it to your commander. I shall have to do that. And not for Bali-ha'i's good, and not to make my own work easier. But to help you to save yourself." Sister Clement smiled frankly at the young man, insisted upon shaking his hand warmly, and returned to the hospital. Cable walked down to the boat in silence. He was dreading the moment when he would have to look in the boat and see a couple of dried heads from Vanicoro.

There were no heads, and this fact so roused his uncertain spirits that when the boat cleared the headland he threw caution away and made frantic gestures to Liat. "There," he pointed. "There. At the bottom of the cliff!" The girl gave no hint that she understood what he meant. Benny, whom Sister Clement had lectured while Cable slept exhausted upon the earthen floor, studied his fellow passenger in silence. Repeat the lecture he would not, come hell or high water. In Benny's fine philosophy there was "too damned little lovin' in the world, and if a guy is knockin' off a legitimate piece now and then, why, more power to him!" He wondered what had happened? What was happening? He wondered, for example, what Tonkinese women wore under their strange costumes? And he bet that the lieutenant could tell him. In fact, Atabrine Benny rarely had a dull moment in this life, not even when he was with his wife, because his active mind could wonder the damnedest things! In the Renaissance, if a Medici had got hold of him soon enough, he might have made a fair country philosopher, for native inquisitiveness combined with judgment he did have.

At the dock Bloody Mary was waiting. Her persistent question was persistently shot at Cable once more. "You like?" she asked, in a singsong voice. She did not expect an answer, nor did she expect to see any heads in the bottom of the boat. Her disappointment not great, she waddled through the gaping crowd and did not even fight back when some soldiers called after her, "Fo' Dolla'. Hey, Fo' Dolla'."

In the morning Cable's commanding officer demanded to see him. The young Marine reported and saluted stiffly. "Cable," the older man began brusquely, "your work has been going down badly. What's happening? Are you in trouble of any kind?"

"No, sir!" Cable replied promptly. He spoke with considerable assurance, for he did not consider himself to be in trouble.

"Then snap to it, sir. Hold your musters with more snap. Get your reports in on time. Pull yourself together. Set a good example for the men. This sitting around and waiting is tough duty, and you officers must set the example." The colonel spoke sharply and impersonally.

"Yes, sir!" Cable responded. "I'll attend to that, sir." He started to leave.

"And another thing, Cable!" The young officer snapped to attention. "That job I gave you to do some time ago. That Tonkinese woman. I see she's down there by the tree again. I told you to clean her out of there. See that it's done!" The colonel raised his head, then turned to his papers. Cable was dismissed.

In his own quarters he flopped upon his hard bed and stared at the ceiling. He still hadn't written those letters. Damn it all, he'd write them this very afternoon! Right after he saw Bloody Mary and gave her hell. Damn it all, he'd kick her out of there, if necessary. That's what he'd do. Meanwhile, he'd catch a little sleep.

The morning was very hot. No breeze came off the placid ocean, and the white sun beat furiously upon the whiter coral. A thin haze of tropical heat, scented by the sea and strange flowers, hung everywhere, even in Cable's hut. He lay as he had fallen upon his return from his meeting with the colonel. His shoes and trousers were on; his shirt was pulled open.

As he twisted on his hot bed, sweat started forming under his knees, in his arm pits, around his middle. Then, as his body heat rose, perspiration crept upon his forehead, behind his ears, and along his shin bones. His hot clothes resting heavily upon him, his hot bed pushing up from below formed a blanket of sticky, salty sweat that soon enveloped him.

Uncomfortable in his unnecessary sleeping, he tossed and twisted until his clothes began to bind. Sweat ran down the seams in small rivers. Now, as the sun upon the coral grew hotter, his discomfort rose and a kind of half-waking nightmare overtook him, as it attacks all fitful sleepers in the tropics. There were no proportions to his fantasy; like a vision of marihuana his dream consisted merely of geographic shapes propelling themselves into weirder shapes, until his entire mind was filled with whirring and wheeling objects.

At noon some fellow officers endeavored to waken him, but he rolled over soddenly. With a wet forearm, he shooed them away, and continued his sleeping. The same officers, upon returning from chow, decided to have some fun with Cable. One hurried to a near-by shack and returned with an object that caused great merriment among the conspirators. With the aid of string they rigged a suspension over the sleeping man's bed. Then they retired to a corner. When they were hidden, they made a loud noise. What happened next they did not fully anticipate.

Instead of drowsily opening his eyes at the noise Cable, for some unknown reason, sat bolt upright. As he did so, his steaming face hit the object which he was supposed to have seen upon waking. It was the grisly head from Vanicoro! It was hanging by the hair. The force with which his face hit the grim object caused it to swing in a long arc. Before he was fully aware of what was happening, the head swung back and bounced several times against his wet face, spreading the tropic sweat. The moisture felt like blood.