12. Contact

‘Anyone can see that it is a tractor,’ the Gardener, Lomu, snorted derisively. ‘Why on earth didn’t the scouts just say so?’

‘They couldn’t believe their eyes and they didn’t want to make fools of themselves.’ The Lieutenant replied. ‘And Sergeant, get those men back out on guard.’ The whole party was thronging into the clearing to look at the strange green object.

‘Why would anyone want to waste their time making something like that?’ The Sergeant wondered, voicing the perplexity of the whole party.

‘Perhaps they don’t understand that there’s more to a tractor than what it looks like.’ One of the Guardians speculated.

‘Or perhaps they made it for good luck?’ another suggested uncertainly.

The clearing buzzed with discussion as the group tried, without success, to find an explanation. A quick search of the area revealed nothing so, in the end, the column moved on and, as it turned out, our ration of events for the day was not exhausted. A few hundred metres from the clearing we came upon a group of shelters. They had been abandoned in a hurry and a few wisps of smoke revealed that the inhabitants had not even had time, properly to douse their fire. Some food had been left behind and, had we not been delayed in the clearing, we might even have made contact with them.

‘It doesn’t look as if they want to meet up with us.’ The Lieutenant said. ‘No chance we’ll find them in the dark.’ He gave the order to move back into the forest and find a camp site for the night.

In the event, a slight rise in the ground that offered both shelter and a good defensive position was very nearby. A foraging party was sent to fetch water and the evening camp fires were lit. The discovery of the tractor and the deserted shelters had briefly distracted everyone from the threat of attack but once the camp had been set up, there was no need to underline to the watch the importance of staying awake and alert. Lieutenant Haziki had conferred with the Sergeant so that, when the fires died down and the camp settled down for the night, two shadowy figures slipped quietly out into the darkness and, two hours later, returned.

‘Only two of them, sir.’ The sergeant reported. ‘They’re very jumpy so we couldn’t risk anything, but they definitely didn’t see us. Let me and a couple of the men stay behind when we move out in the morning and we’ll do what we can.’

‘I want to talk to them, Sergeant. Don’t damage them if you can help it.’

As we set off the next morning, not even the members of the column would have noticed that we were three short. As the day warmed up, the scouts led us out on a trail that moved on from the clearing with the green tractor. We walked as before, in single file, with the scouts moving ahead nervously. After perhaps an hour, the scouts halted, alerted by a movement ahead.

As they waited, a single tribesman came down the path towards them. He was armed with an axe and a bow and arrows and, when they called out to him, he started in fright and ran away as fast as he could.

‘He looked completely terrified.’ The scouts reported back to the lieutenant. Our hopes of contacting the tribes looked quite slim if they saw us first. Some time later, we halted again and news filtered back along the column. The scouts had found a second clearing and, inside it, another of the dummy tractors.

As we approached it, however, we could see that the tractor itself had been burned. Although the shape was still distinguishable only the thickest and greenest parts remained in position. The front ‘axle’ had burnt through on the left side and the cage forming the engine had collapsed into a heap of charcoal and ash. Of the leafy circles that had formed the wheels, blackened patches on the ground were the only trace. Surrounding the remains of the tractor, a circle of burned grass was already beginning to shoot up green again. The fire must have been set within the previous week or ten days.

Again a thorough search of the clearing revealed nothing of the motivation for the construction of the model tractor or what might have led to its destruction. Based on what we had seen of the fire in Thumbs’ camp, we were inclined to interpret the burning of the tractor as a hostile act but beyond that, there seemed to be no sense in any of this.

As we completed our examination of the clearing and were about to return to the path, suddenly we heard a single shot fired in the jungle behind us and slightly to the north. The Lieutenant ordered a halt and the men were deployed in a defensive position, watchful in all directions. We waited half an hour until we heard movement in the forest in the direction from which the shot had come and, after a short while, the sergeant, Starling and one of the forest born Guardians emerged. In front of them, a tribesman walked with his hands bound in front of him with vines. He looked a little dilapidated and one presumed that he was not a volunteer.

‘Only one, Sergeant?’ The Lieutenant raised an eyebrow.

‘Sorry Sir, the other one tried to run away. Starling stopped him but he wasn’t worth bringing back with us. We dumped the body into a crack in the rocks.’

‘And no trace of any more?’

‘Not as far as we could see, sir. This chap is a gibbering wreck. Seems so frightened of us that he won’t even speak. Tell the Lieutenant your name and why you were following us.’ He addressed the tribesman who, on closer inspection, we could see was very young – scarcely more than a child – and he gave him a clip on the side of the head.

The tribesman said nothing and simply crouched down on the ground, curling his head down between his knees. Trying to cover his head with his bound hands, he whimpered incoherently.

‘See what I mean, sir. For some reason he’s terrified of us’

‘I’ll show him what he should be terrified of.’ Lomu, the Gardener, strode forward with a machete in his hand.

‘You see this, you scoundrel!’ he brandished the machete. ‘How dare you sneak around and follow an expedition sent out by Our Granny. Now tell us where you come from and who you are, before we roast you on a bed of hot coals.’

He gave the boy a shove that sent him spinning so that he fell full length against a tree, where he lay moaning softly.

‘I don’t think that you will get any more out of him that way, your Reverence.’ The sergeant walked over to the tribesman and half lifted, half helped him into a sitting position.

‘Here boy,’ he said, passing him a water bottle. ‘We aren’t going to eat you.’

‘He’d better come with us for the moment, at least until he calms down.’ The Lieutenant concluded as the Gardener glared at him. ‘Let’s move along now.’

The rest of the morning and the early afternoon passed without incident, but it was clear that we were now in an area of the forest where the tribes-people were active. We encountered several plantations of taro and two sets of shelters erected off the paths. They were not currently occupied but it was clear that they were used regularly and we had not progressed very far beyond the second when the scouts reported voices ahead of us in the jungle.

‘Gag him.’ The Lieutenant gestured towards our young captive. ‘We don’t want him letting them know we’re here.’

We halted and concealed ourselves off the path while the scouts investigated. They returned to report that a mixed group – men, women and children – were working and resting in a clearing ahead of us. They had posted lookouts but they were not particularly alert, presumably because they were relying on the two observers we had apprehended to warn them if we approached.

‘We must make contact with them.’ Gardener Lomu said. ‘Immediately. Our task is to trade with them and to gather information and we are already in danger of appearing to have failed when we get back.’

‘Perhaps.’ Lieutenant Haziki considered. ‘The danger is that they will all run away.’

‘Well let us capture them, then. There are few enough that you can place them all under arrest. Then I can tell them what Our Granny requires and we can trade and gain information.’

Haziki looked thoughtful. ‘They may not be as prepared to oblige Our Granny out here in the forest as people are in the village.’

‘In that case, they must be taught respect.’ Lomu responded.

‘Excuse me, er, Brother.’ Everyone looked round at the voice of the younger Gardener. To the best of our memory, these were the first words we had heard him speak. ‘er, Brother, I think that perhaps Our Granny would wish us to win friends among the tribes, not enemies. Our duty is to tend and nurture her young plants.’

‘Our duty is also to prune the plants that do not grow as she wishes. Brother.’ Lomu snorted scornfully.

‘Let us not argue about this.’ The Lieutenant said mildly, ‘I think that we should place our men in a circle round them, then you and I, unarmed, can walk into their camp and speak to them.’

‘Unarmed?’ The hefty Gardener looked down at Haziki, a head shorter with his shorts and shirt showing the marks of a week of travel. ‘Would that be safe?’

‘Don’t worry.’ The lieutenant replied. ‘I’ll look after you. And in any case the men will be close by in case of problems.’

With the men in position to prevent escape, the effect of the sudden appearance of Lomu and Haziki on the inhabitants of the bivouac was electric. Some tried to hide in the shelters and behind trees. Some tried to escape and were prevented by the ring of Guardians. Four or five men, armed with axes and bows stood to face them, arrows nocked and aimed at the two intruders. If, for any reason, the strings were released, at point blank range it would be impossible to miss.

Lomu gulped and, in a strange, high pitched voice began to speak. ‘We bring greetings,’ he said, ‘from Our Grandmother, the Saviour and Founder of the village of the Island of Morakeewa.’