One Blood by Graeme Kent Page B

beginning of the track leading inland between the trees. One of the groups comprised forty or fifty sullen Malaitan men in lap-laps or shorts. The other was made up of a dozen white technicians, probably Australians. With a sinking heart, Kella saw that some of the latter, for the most part weedy specimens, were carrying rifles. To make matters worse, it did not look as if many of them were familiar with the use of the weapons. None of the white men was relishing the situation. Kella had met others like them on the handful of expatriate-owned cattle farms, copra plantations and fish-canning operations among the islands. These were mostly drifters, aimless fugitives from the law and domesticity, possessing minor engineering skills meaning nothing back home in Australia but which were still sufficient to earn them a comfortable living in some Third World countries. For the most part they were unprepossessing physical specimens, but their rudimentary sense of survival, honed in many similar situations across the Pacific, was sufficient for them to know that at this moment they were in danger of being overrun by the incensed Malaitans.
    Kella increased his pace towards a big white man wearing unpressed grey trousers and a once white vest, who was standing angrily a little in front of the other expatriates, expostulating with the sullen Malaitans. He was the only whitey in the group making any effort to confront the resentful islanders. He was a ruined avalanche of a man in his forties, some six feet six inches in height and broad-shouldered, but with all his physical attributes beginning to melt and sag downwards. Jowls swung from his chin like wind chimes, and a once impressive chest had slumped obscenely to his stomach. While his body drooped, the big man’s face seemed to have a life of its own and had expanded sideways, although at the same time his features had shrunk to those of a carelessly constructed snowman, with two buttons for eyes, a truncated carrot of a nose and a mouth that was little more than a perfunctory slash. His head was completely bald. He reminded Kella of an extra in an Ed Wood horror movie. He glanced briefly at Kella as the policeman approached him.
    ‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded in an Australian accent.
    ‘I’m Sergeant Kella, British Solomon Islands Police. I’ve come about the vandalism on your station.’
    ‘I’m Jake Michie, the logging manager,’ said the Australian abstractedly, not taking his eyes from the Malaitans before him. ‘What’s the matter, don’t I deserve a white officer?’
    ‘Believe me,’ Kella told him, summing up the situation, ‘the last sort of policeman you want now is a white one.’
    ‘Is that so? Well, black or white, you’ve chosen a bloody bad time to get here. As you may have noticed, I’ve got a bit of a mutiny on my hands at this precise moment in time.’
    Kella looked over at the
wantoks
. They were ominously quiet. If this had been a normal work dispute, the demands, insults and accusations would have been flying through the air by now. But the islanders, most of them young and rope-muscled through years of harsh manual work, were plainly preparing for a fight.These were the itinerant labourers of the islands, with no land of their own at home, a close-knit industrial force that toured the Solomons restlessly, picking up work wherever it could. These Malaitans, and others like them, forced to leave their own overcrowded island, usually toiled hard and uncomplainingly for their meagre pay and uncaring employers. It would have taken an important matter of principle or custom for them to down tools like this. They were plainly disturbed by something that had happened. If they decided to charge, the Australians with firearms might possibly be misguided enough to pluck up enough resolution to shoot. The gods only knew what the consequences would be if that happened.
    ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Kella.
    ‘I don’t have any idea. The first