Missteps Perfecting the Shutterbug Strut Read online

  It always seemed the biggest killjoy in her unorthodox travels. She tried to lose herself in a copy of Picturesque Travel. Not even the magazine’s fetching tourist ads or stylish vignettes touting the beauty of the South China Sea could distract from her bladder’s rebellion.

  Seni and Inisi—the two young men manning their quant poles—knew the river and might have an answer to the fundamental question on her mind. They were good-natured lads and Papuan members of the Presbyterian congregation, caught somewhere in that difficult no-man’s-land between the way things always were, and the ways things forever would soon be. Though dressed in torn khaki shorts, sandals, and loose-fitting pith helmets, they did not speak English.

  Alexandra often studied up on language when venturing abroad, but no literature existed on the finer pronunciation of Motu or the other hundred trans-Papuan dialects she’d have cause to use.

  She broke her lean against a water barrel and maneuvered around supplies piled under an angled canopy. Female etiquette could, to some extent, be set aside in the jungle, yet some gender inequities would last eternal, sometimes for practical reasons. Nothing Alexandra considered would be so convenient as her companions’ ability to unbutton, unfurl, and unleash in a proud stance. She inspected the raft for any cracks to squat over, but the bamboo shoots were tied securely.

  It would be easy enough, as she’d cut off her undergarments to use as toilet paper. She moseyed over to Bannister. “Pardon me, but how does a lady tinkle aboard this vessel?”

  He lifted his hat off his eyes and called out in Gogodala. Seni spoke, pointing near and far. Bannister forwarded, “They can stop on Snake Island. This handle is safer unless crocs break from shore.”

  “Snakes or crocodiles... hmm! I’ve tolerated worse company in powder rooms.”

  Alexandra tossed off her hat, which freed her sun-kissed blonde hair to cascade down to the middle of her back; the cloying humidity having yet vanquished the everyday wave to its length. The full force of the equatorial sun was taking its toll. Her throat felt parched and her linen outfit was stained with the many mucks of the wilderness. She was drenched in perspiration, and, worst of all, smelled bad. Such muss could not stand, and there was but one remedy.

  She unstrapped her belt, wiggled out of her waist vest, and feistily battled the laces of her boots until they shared a pile.

  “Tally-ho!”

  The men all cheered as Alexandra cannon-balled with a splash and vanished beneath the surface. It took several determined strokes until the handle was in her grip. She rolled herself over to float on her back. Her eyes soaked in the colorations spawned by the sun as it sculpted faint rainbows in the river’s rising mist. Hanging fruit bats set off to skim their bellies upon the water to cool off. She marveled at where she was and blithely debated whether it was innate courage or mental instability at the root of why she felt so carefree. What made interior Papua so foreboding was not what was known, rather all that remained unrevealed. Native folklore spoke of antediluvian reptiles roving its rainforests and spiders that feasted on human prey.

  Something high in the trees caught her eye. It resembled a hazy outline of a flying fox. Beyond its ungodly size, what rendered it compelling was it did not hang from a branch but sat perched, encased in its wings. In Port Moresby, she had heard of a winged creature the locals called a Seklo-bali, foretold to be a demon guardian of the river. It filled her mind with more wonderment than worry.

  “Something just nipped my foot.”

  Bannister spotted a turtle poking its head above the surface. He reached out a hand. “Come along. I’ll pull you aboard.”

  Alexandra’s saturated shirt was not thick enough to shield her bosom. She noted his interest, flashed a coy smile, and then maneuvered to drift on her belly. “I recall a story about a man-eater shark in New Jersey swimming way up a river and devouring some boys unaware. Are you familiar with the tale?”

  Bannister shook his head and exhaled in exasperation, unsure if her provocations were intentional or just her insouciant manner of being. It’s what had gotten him into this mess to start. “I heard this Jersey place has a lot of sharks... Italian mobsters, mainly.”

  “Well done, Bannister. Not a place for an upright man like you.”

  He pleaded, “I’ll be up a creek if I bring back only half of you.”

  Alexandra grasped her lifeline, and he pulled her aboard. She tussle-dried her hair with a towel and attempted to squeeze moisture from her dripping clothes, but her soggy condition was unsalvageable in such interminable mugginess. She took a squishy seat on a crate to take in the final offerings of sunshine before the full moon emerged to be their guidelight downriver.

  Bannister sat across from her, looking tight-lipped.

  She knew why. “Chin up. In a few hours, we’ll be back at Everill Junction, no worse for the wear.”

  “I’ll reside a penal colony once Government House learns of this.”

  His anxiety was grating on her, as she was on holiday from her own. Alexandra asked, “Why did you ever agree?”

  “You were a young American woman toying with my emotions,” he protested. “When I kissed your hand... the look in your eyes and smell of your perfume captivated me.”

  “Mostly sweat with a touch of jasmine. You wouldn’t have been so enchanted if you met me in Java last month, legless with dysentery.” It was unfair. Losing herself in foreign lands always unearthed the best in her. In such a fleeting acquaintance, he could not know what an everyday wreck she truly was.

  “I should have placed you in handcuffs and taken you back.”

  She abandoned efforts to comfort him.

  The raft drifted toward the reputed kingdom of poisonous black snakes. The long islet cut the river into a narrow course to the left and a wider channel to its right. Bannister adjusted the mounted rudder to ride the faster waters of the narrows.

  Alexandra noticed she was tapping a foot out of cadence with the pulsing choral contributions of frogs, birds, and katydids.

  Bannister scurried up and gripped his rifle. “Do you hear it?”

  She focused on the ruckus. It held a rhythmic quality. She was not imagining it. Seni and Inisi stopped guiding the raft. They all remained in frozen silence: sensing, listening, waiting.

  It was now unmistakable; someone was beating a drum. Inisi shouted, “Marind-Anim ti sasasa!”

  A dozen tribesmen emerged along the riverbank. They took a stance in the shallows, chanting in unison; their bodies rocking from side to side in a traditional war dance or show of force.

  Alexandra could live with the thought of being killed, but to be eaten thereafter was beyond her palate. She looked at Bannister, completely vexed. “Do you think they prefer to barbecue or boil?”

  Chapter 2

  FOR A MOMENT, ALEXANDRA set aside her astonishment to marvel at the tribesmen. The Marind-Anim were arresting in their feathered headdresses, boned necklaces, and grass skirts. War paint marked their bodies, and the spears they brandished were of great length. She coveted a photograph, but sanity prevailed.

  “Do something! I’m too young to be served as a plat du jour.”

  Bannister adjusted the rudder as they approached the narrows. Alexandra stood and reached for her smaller camera. A volley of spears stirred the air. She dove for cover behind the water barrels, as did the others. The frantic rush to starboard sent the craft into a spin and tilting near capsize. Seni grabbed a dock rope and jumped overboard. The raft balanced out, and he remained half-submerged.

  Bannister struggled to work the bolt of his rifle.

  “If I die, and you don’t, tip these lads generously.” Alexandra dared a peek. The warriors were following their progression. “Do you plan to use that or just fiddle with it?”

  Bannister huffed, “The governor frowns on us shooting the natives unless it’s a last resort.”

  A spear pierced the water barrel a few inches from their heads.

  “I think we’re about there.”

 
Alexandra ripped the Lee-Enfield 303 from his grip and chambered the round. She had graded well in her college rifle club and excelled in marksmanship upon horseback. After adjusting the sights, she nodded to Inisi, who looked eager to get to the rudder. The river grew choppy, fueling the raft’s unbridled drift.

  Her aim fixed well above the tribesmen, she fired.

  The shot’s percussion sent thousands of bats to scatter, glutting the sky with rabid motion and an unremitting, deafening screech. Inisi used the distraction to alter their course and pull Seni aboard. It was now up to the current. They would either loop the upper tip of the islet or face doom in the narrows.

  Alexandra admired the courage of the Marind-Anim, but not their tactics. “It recalls the blunder of LeGallais at Bothaville in letting De Wet slip away. If they waited, we’d be well-seasoned by now.”

  “Do you study military strategy at school?” asked Bannister.

  “Forestry management, actually. My father speaks about birds, the Boer War, and little else.”

  “What will you do as a forest manager?”

  Alexandra laughed, not knowing. “I can become a park ranger. Honestly, it seemed the best way to get out of a classroom, shoot a rifle, and take a few walkabouts.”

  He said, “You’ve finally picked up some Australian.”

  The gap between hunter and prey widened. Alexandra retrieved her handheld Brownie camera. She asked, “Do you know who the first person to photograph the Marind-Anim was...? No one does. They were probably delicious. That leaves it up to me.”

  Bannister said, “You’re bonkers!”

  “Don’t be silly. Jim Thorpe couldn’t strike us from this distance.”

  A young warrior ran into the river. Alexandra scored her photo.

  The raft took a deciding turn toward the hostile riverbank, and a sense of doom set in. The last things she recalled seeing were a winged shadow crossing over the water and a hurled object heading her way.

  IT WAS THE NIGHT THE world learned that Rudolph Valentino died and even the women of Port Moresby were crying. Alexandra paused outside a field that currently served as an open-air theater for the capital’s white population, who were but six hundred in number. By happenstance, the featured film was Valentino’s 1925 release, Cobra, and a large crowd had gathered to pay the “Latin Lover” a last farewell. Bannister placed down her camera and travel bag. His ragged uniform and unshaven face bespoke of a sunbaked prospector limping into town empty-handed. He was in no hurry to take the final stretch to suffer the consequences for returning Alexandra in such dreadful condition.

  Neither was she. “Let’s say we finish the show, Bannister. Would you scrounge me a cigarette?”

  Alexandra took a seat under a cluster of palm trees, more so out of feeling faint than any desire to read inter-titles. She rested a hand over her bandaged temple. A black eyepatch applied at the local hospital covered the worst of the bruised discoloration. It was difficult to fathom one’s head could swell so without bursting. While her blood-stained hair proved a feral mess, at least her torn clothing had been laundered on the ship from Kiwai Island.

  Bannister returned with her bounty. He planted it between her lips and lit it.

  Since regaining consciousness, Alexandra had spoken little over their improbable escape. Bannister’s fantastical account had left her flabbergasted. While her busted skull had been bandaged, she’d yet to wrap her head around its implications. Though a cable was dispatched from Kiwai, her father failed to greet her at Port Moresby Harbor. He had every right to be upset, but the penitence of an absentee parent lay in the forfeiture of unimpeachable say-so. Alexandra knew his anger would flash bright, fizzle quickly, and lapse into unspoken regret. He’d then want to hear every detail, which she would oblige, as it was his adventure to partake, and she had seen it through for him.

  Everything had gone fine until it hadn’t. Despite it all her doing, it would finish Bannister. She needed to come up with something to pry his cheek from the hook.

  He had returned her to civilization... such that it was.

  New Guinea had once been split between vying German and British interests. Australia was granted administrative duties over the southern English realm in 1905, and Port Moresby was named the capital of the new Territory of Papua. German New Guinea to the north would be annexed during the Great War, and the Aussies accorded a mandate to oversee the entirety. Alexandra found the port itself an odd blend of Australasian customs, still rickety in its steps. Civil servants, merchants, and plantation owners accounted for most of its permanent inhabitants, with traders, prospectors, naval personnel, and an occasional anomalous tourist more transient in nature. Development into a modern tropical metropolis was proceeding slowly. Electricity had been the latest jolt onward with running water still a mirage, but enough novelties existed to give the place some semblance of livability. Native workers were active during daylight, with most returning each evening to their stilted houses jutting into the Gulf of Papua.

  Alexandra finished her cigarette and broke a silly grin in recalling her first day touring the area. She’d been equally astounded to be served lunch by a tattooed Koitabu woman wearing only a ramis-grass skirt, as in seeing a Motuan man—sporting a suit and spinning an umbrella—humming “God Save the King.” In Alexandra’s everyday world, nudity and body art remained taboo.

  “And truly... who wears tweed in such crushing humidity?” she blurted out to no one in particular.

  Such were the oddities of the place. Peculiar, contradictory, but in its way, beautiful. Papua was the most fascinating destination she had ever traveled to, and it left her wanting further gallivants.

  She rose to allow the passage of an enormous coconut crab carrying in its claws a chunk of its namesake. It was time to atone for her imprudence and find a soft mattress to sleep.

  Atop the hill, the Moresby Hotel stood aglow in flickering lamps. It was a pleasant night, and the warm breeze kicking off the Coral Sea played a gentle game with the leaves overhead. Alexandra and Bannister left the dark road to trample the stone pathway; the calls of the katydids fading secondary to the chatter of men on the outdoor terrace. Two wore the uniforms of the constabulary and were shooting billiards under the shelter of a bamboo canopy. The proprietor lounged, reading the Papuan Courier and shooing mosquitos.

  Archibald Bathenbrook sat speaking over something jocular in his opinion; less so to the distinguished-looking recipient. He was dressed in his standard tropical attire of a pale linen suit, loose tie, and beige Panama hat. Alexandra knew she held a gift for keeping him young, all the while graying his hair. He still offered a competitive reflection of what she could recall of earlier rendezvous. A dimmer fire to his brown eyes, a thinning hairline, and a slight shuffle from an arthritic hip seemed the only irrecoverable casualties of his many years abroad championing new horizons for king and country.

  The gathered men stood briskly upon noting their arrival. Bannister said, “Crikey! Murray’s down from Government House.”

  “You’re late, Alee,” Archibald said. “I feared you pulled a Percy Fawcett and become forever lost to the jungle.”

  “The harbormaster was hesitant to allow me ashore, fearing piracy.” She had left a letter before departure and only missed her proposed timetable by a few hours. “Good to see you, Father.”

  He stepped forward and kissed her non-bloated cheek. “May I introduce Sir Hubert Murray? We first met while serving in South Africa. Governor, my daughter, Alexandra.”

  She managed a curtsy. “Your Excellency. Apologies for my appearance. I assure you my father did not mate with a watermelon.”

  It spurred muted chortles from those loitering the gallery, but none from Murray. “My dear girl, we were fearful for your safety. Bannister! Step forward and explain yourself.”

  Bannister did so, saluting and assuming a regimented posture. He glanced at his billiard peers, who were finding amusement in his predicament. “No good explanation for any of it, sir!”


  Silence ensued. The hotel owner asked, “Can I get you a drink?”

  Alexandra wobbled in her stance. She was prone to say silly things when under duress. All that came to mind was, “I’d like some orange juice to avoid the scurvy.”

  Everyone but Murray laughed.

  A patrol officer, who introduced himself as Hornsby, carried over a chair for her to sit. The owner dispatched a Motuan houseboy to fix a bath. He informed, “Someone pinched my oranges a week ago.”

  “The cretin!” She vaguely recalled being the culprit. “Anyhoo, a Princess Kaiulani will suffice.”

  Archibald took a seat. “Come, Alee. Tell your tale.”

  “Wherever to start?” Alexandra settled into the teak and leather sling chair while Bannister sought refuge with his colleagues. She was not one prone to fib, but circumstances called for some degree of creative recollection. After a weighty pause, she calmly spoke for ten minutes, uninterrupted. She had convinced Bannister that her father was already awaiting them at Everill Junction... He had risked all to track her once she’d gone upriver without warning... As for the rest, she described it as lived. It transfixed her audience in competing waves of delight, alarm, and incredulity. A woman trailblazing the interior was inconceivable, yet they all concluded she had done so in spectacular fashion.

  “Patrol Officer Bannister saved the entire expedition from the dinner table.” Alexandra polished off her drink. “Thereafter, I did not wake until they loaded me aboard the Mataram in Kiwai.”

  “The cannibals scared off by a prodigious winged creature, you say?” the governor questioned. “Your story is unique, yet I fear you’re concussed or hallucinatory with fever.”

  “I am concussed, Your Excellency, as there were two of you when I arrived and three since I finished that cocktail. Perhaps you should hear it from my fearless guide.”

  Bannister came to attention. “She gave a spot-on account, sir!”