14. Homeward Bound

“When we awoke the next morning, I think that every one of us was nursing a sore head.” Bahla continued. “It was only later, I think, that we realised how lucky we had been that we were not attacked in the night. Even if the men who had been on sentry duty remained sober and alert (and that is something we will never know) the rest of us would not have been able to defend ourselves. Fortunately, however, we awoke to find that the night had passed safely and, as the camp gradually awakened, life resumed its normal course.

Somewhere, in the course of the evening’s festivities, an agreement had been reached that Ezeka and his people would help us to contact other bands in the forest. The result was a series of more or less clandestine encounters with small family groups who traded with us on condition of absolute confidentiality and discretion so that a week or ten days later we had almost exhausted our supplies of trade goods and were ready to set out for home.

In the forest we had seen a number of model tractors, some in the course of construction, some already destroyed and, although we were sure that their cult was completely irrational, we had not been able to have any more sensible discussion on the topic. Even Ezeka’s group, with which we spent a good deal of time either refused to discuss the issue or, if they did, simply stated a blind belief in the necessity of destroying the model tractors as a means of purifying the land and returning it to a natural state.

At last, as the new moon approached, we said our farewells and set off to retrace our path to the Village. I suppose that our success in contacting and trading with the tribes had given us a false sense of confidence and, although we still travelled in a defensive formation through the forest, the edge had gone from our alertness. We were tired after nearly three weeks on the road and all our minds were fixed more on our arrival home than on the difficulties of the journey. The first two days were uneventful although, as we were running short on some provisions, the evening meals were somewhat frugal and the Gardeners, in particular, were feeling the pinch.

The third day was humid and, shortly after we had broken camp, it began to rain; a heavy tropical downpour that left us soaked and steaming as the day warmed up. The sound of water dripping from the trees was also a distraction. I think that we were all more concerned with avoiding the showers of water that had pooled in the leaves and flooded over the unwary person who disturbed them than with keeping a lookout so that the ambush, when it came seemed even more of a surprise than it actually was.

The first sign of something wrong was when one of the Guardians half way along the column fell suddenly and silently to the ground. The man behind him assumed that he had tripped and it was only when he stooped to help him up that he saw that he had been felled by an arrow through the neck and was lying jerking on the ground, bleeding copiously and mortally wounded. By the time he had raised the alarm another three men had been skewered and two more lightly cut by poisoned arrows.

‘Get down and defend yourselves!’ the Sergeant shouted as the column spread out from the path and took up positions to resist further attack. The two riflemen moved to the left and right but, at least at first, there were no targets to be seen. For a few seconds, nothing moved and then, as if from nowhere, the forest was filled with warriors, screaming bloodcurdling battle cries and charging in, attacking ferociously with machetes and axes.

The Guardians stood their ground and returned cut for thrust and blow for blow. We were outnumbered, I think, but not by many and the Sergeant led the resistance heroically, moving about and supporting first one, then another of our fighters.

At first it seemed that we would be overwhelmed but, as the advantage of surprise dissipated it became clear that we were holding our own. Both sides were suffering casualties and our men fought more desperately because they had no alternative. In addition, the rifles were beginning to show their value and, whenever there was an opportunity for a clear shot, one of the attackers would be picked off.

The turning point came when the Sergeant, fighting with a machete in one hand and an axe in the other, engaged three of the attackers. Hacking one in the side of the neck so that the blood spurted in a fountain, he turned his attention to the second and, feinting with the machete, killed him with a blow from his axe. For the third man, this was too much, and he turned and ran as fast as he could.

The Sergeant made to follow but, in his moment of victory, an arrow flew out of the forest, striking him in the temple and felling him instantly. Had this happened five minutes earlier, I think that all would have been lost but, as it was, the heart had gone from the attack and, once the tide had turned, it was only a matter of time before the rest were driven off and we were left to count the cost.

Aside from the sergeant, seven of our men and the gardener’s wife had been killed and many of the others had been wounded. Starling had lost two fingers on his left had and others had been gashed by axes and machetes so that we were occupied for some time in dressing their injuries. Lieutenant Haziki stood silently over the sergeant’s body then turned round to face the rest of us.

‘I need volunteers to dig a trench,’ he said. ‘We can’t leave the bodies of our friends to be eaten. And I promise that I will come back and teach these animals a lesson they will never forget.’
‘What shall we do with these two?’ One of the Guardians gestured to two of the attackers who had been taken prisoner in the attack.
‘Bring them over here.’ Lomu, the Gardener spoke. ‘I need to talk to them before they die.’

The two men were led over to him and, by his orders, laid down on their backs on the ground.
‘You men!’ he addressed them. ‘You have attacked a party moving in the name of Our Granny. For this disrespect, you will pay with your lives. Have you any last words to say? What could you possibly hope to gain by attacking us?’

Neither of the captives answered and he began kicking one of them in the groin. There was still no reply and he turned to one of the Guardians.
‘Build a fire. Then we will see how long these two can remain silent.’

At this point, one of the men lying on the ground began to speak. ‘We ourselves gain nothing by attacking you. But The Shadows will not allow you to succeed. We defend the forest and the people of the forest, the island of Morakeewa and the Fundamental Truth of Granny Frum against the lies of the Great Shai Hathan.

Kill us, if you want to. Burn us and tear us to pieces. For every one of us that you kill, two will rise in his place. We will protect the people of the island and defend them to our deaths and beyond.’
‘What do you mean, you protect the people of the forest?’ Lomu demanded. ‘You have killed Thumbs and his family. How did you protect them and from what?’
‘We protected them from you and from themselves. They were half way to having their souls eaten by the Shai Hathan. They had already decided to run to it. They had decided that they wanted the cargo of the Shai Hathan and the evils of the Village. They had given in to the temptation and the only way to save their souls was to send them away. Their bodies have died. Their souls were not eaten.’

‘So, by exterminating them, killing innocent men, women and children you think that you saved them from something? You do not understand the benefits of the Village. Our people are happy. We have food and clothing, all the necessities of life. They are protected by Our Granny. Is that what you want to save them from? If you had seen how people can live in the Village you would understand how wrong you are. We have spent a week in the forest and we have seen how the people want what the village has to offer.’

‘Many of our people have lived in the Village. We have seen how souls are eaten there. We have seen the bodies that are fat and the souls that are eaten. Yes. The people of the forest are tempted by the trinkets of the Shai Hathan. They are hungry and they think that they will be happy if they can eat. They feel pain and they think that they can still that pain with rum and corn liquor. Hama Batu has taught us the danger of that. He teaches us the Fundamental Truth of Granny Frum, who comes to speak to him.
Yes, you can kill us. Yes, you can burn us. But we are right and right will always prevail.’

At the word ‘fat’, you could see the Gardener bristle and now he turned to Haziki. ‘Lieutenant,’ these men have spoken against Our Granny. Now they must die.’
Haziki thought a moment. ‘They cannot travel with us. We must deal with them now and bury them with the others.’
‘But Lieutenant,’ it was Starling. ‘If we kill them, will we not be exactly like them? I do not think that the Sergeant would have wanted to kill them. He would have treated them as men and not as animals.’
‘Perhaps that is true, Starling.’ The Lieutenant answered firmly. ‘Perhaps that is true. And if the Sergeant were alive we would know. These men might have benefited if they and their friends had not killed him. But as he is no longer here to tell us, then I have decided that their deaths will go towards paying for his. Take them away.’

As I said,” Bahla continued, “We had lost eight of our party. Those of us who remained were more or less in shock, but somehow Haziki managed to pull it all together. When we checked our perimeter we found ten bodies. That helped, as we would appear to have triumphed over the attackers.”

For the purposes of my history of the island, I was taking most of this down word for word, and I was interested in precise numbers, so I asked Bahla about the two men they had captured.
“Including the two that were executed,” he replied, “they had lost twelve. Another of our wounded died on the journey back, so you can assume that they might also have lost men who died later of their injuries. In any case, they did not attack us again so you can think of the encounter as an initial skirmish in what, everyone now knows, was to be a long and bitter war.”

When I commented that Lomu, whose reputation was, to a large extent, built on his achievements in bringing the expedition safely home, did not seem to emerge with the sort of credit I had expected, Bahla just laughed.

“I’m telling you this in confidence.” He said. “I would never say anything against the Reverend Lomu. His sensitivity to criticism is well known and it would be as risky for you to publish any of this today as for me to have told you. You would be wise to accept that, with regard to the great Lomu, discretion is the mark of wisdom.

As I remember it, however, Lomu said hardly a word from the ending of the attack until we reached home, when he declared himself the hero of the hour. Our safe return was almost entirely due to Lieutenant Haziki and his ability to motivate the troops and get them back on the move. As you know, of course, he received very little credit for the achievement and the fact that he had lost a quarter of his platoon counted more than bringing three quarters back. But, again, you didn’t hear that from me.”

He rubbed his chin reflectively then continued. “When we returned, I reported back to the Chief Reader. It was clear to both of us that we needed to resolve the problem of trade with the forest. In particular, we needed charcoal for smelting iron so we could not simply give up on the people we had traded with. We needed an active presence there. As a result, I began to scour the Books to see what wisdom the Americans had left us regarding situations of this type.

To my surprise, I found many accounts of similar situations in the recent past of America as they encountered savages in the parts of their country they called the ‘Wild West’. They had resolved the issue by building forts where they stationed soldiers mounted on horses – a large animal that they used for swift transportation in those days – to protect their people living in the wilderness.

Lomu, when he returned, was very keen to send an attack in force to wipe out Hama Batu and his Shadows but, thankfully, good sense prevailed. On the recommendation of the Chief Reader the system of fortification and protection that served so well was set up instead.
We could not, of course, be everywhere, but we were able to control enough of the forest to serve our purposes at the time. There were casualties and Ezeka, the chief who had helped us was one. He was killed by the Shadows but fortunately, most of his band were spared and they remained friends of the Village almost to the present day.”