the body or head of some hapless num.
It was expected of Wooreddy that he too would go on such an expedition. After giving the subject some thought he settled on one which he believed would be cancelled or postponed for an unknown length of time. This did not happen, and next day he found himself part of a column moving through the rainforest. The dozen men left the jungle, climbed up through the mountains and descended into the foothills on the other side. They grouped on a ridge and surveyed the village below. A harsh bare clearing had been eroded out of the trees and in the centre stood the alien square of a ghost hut. Wooreddy had never seen such a dwelling place. He examined it, noting the rough slabs of tree-trunks which made up the walls and the roof of flattened bark pieces held down by a framework of poles. A strange animal trotted out and barked once or twice. He had heard about such an animal. It was a panoine, and the people living along the frontier had them. A ghost came to the door, looked out, then went back inside. The men waited for an hour before drifting down the slope to surround the hut. Each man held a bundle of spears in his left hand and one poised in his right. The leader of the squad yelled. His spear thudded into one of the rough, wooden wall-slabs. They waited. They could hear the frantic barking of the animal inside the hut. They flung more spears at the walls. Some embedded themselves and quivered, others bounced off. Wooreddy began to find the attack a little tedious. It could last all day and night. He leapt to his feet, ran a few metres and flung himself down just in time to escape a musket ball. A comrade followed his example and no shot sounded. Did this mean that there was only one gun inside? Another man raced towards the hut and dived to the earth in time to escape the shot. Yes, only one was inside! All the men raced in to fling blazing firesticks onto the roof. The dry bark burst into flame with a whoosh. The num and his animal came charging out. He rushed directly at Wooreddy with his gun clubbed. The panoine snapped at Wooreddy’s heels and tripped him up. This saved him from having his brains splattered across the clearing. The ghost did not get a second chance. Wooreddy lifted his club and brought it down. A sodden thud and it was all over. The panoine left off worrying his heels, sniffed at the fallen num and wailed. The men rushed into the hut, looted what they could find, then watched it burn before moving off. The animal attached itself to the party and followed after them.
On the return trip the men walked along carelessly. They bragged of past fights, heroes and cowards. Wooreddy did not join in the conversation. Then the talk shifted to tactics and weapons. Was it advisable or even permissible to use num weapons? This was a never-ending dispute and Wooreddy’s carefully considered opinion met other carefully considered objections. The debate had dragged on for years and would drag on until no one was left to take sides.
Wooreddy smiled as he remembered how happy his wife’s father had been to receive the strange animal as a gift. Now their village too had a panoine! He thought all this as he strode along the road leading south. Behind him followed his wife and children. She carried one in her arms, the other trotted at her side. It was a slow, leisurely journey and the woman had not once complained. Wooreddy, basing his opinion on what he had observed and heard about, found this strange. But he had no intention of being kept in a foreign woman’s basket like part of her harvest. No, this would not happen, as it had happened to others he had seen so long ago.
II
Wooreddy stood on the shore staring across the narrow stretch of water. He saw the familiar dips and swells of his island and recognised the few thin lines of smoke as those belonging to his people – but at one point thick foggy masses of num smoke hung in the air like a bad omen. As he watched, fog streaked in from the sea to unite with the thick masses of smoke from the fires used to render down whale-blubber into oil. Things had indeed changed since the good doctor had been away. The island vanished from his view, and muttering a spell of protection, Wooreddy set about building a catamaran large enough to transport himself and his children.
Using the sharp num hatchet which had been his share of the loot from the hut, he hacked away at the bottom of reeds. He cut and collected a large pile. After laying them out and separating them into three bundles, he bound them together with the thin grass-cord his wife was twisting together. He went to the trees above the beach and using his hatchet cut out long squares of bark which he trimmed to the length of the reed rolls. These he bound around the bundles. If the voyage had been longer, grease would have been smeared over the outer surface of the bark to make them watertight. Wooreddy placed the long three-metre roll in the middle of the two shorter ones, then tightened them together with the net his wife had roughly woven. Now the catamaran had a canoe-shape with the bow and stern higher than the middle. Wooreddy hesitated to push it into the water. He trusted his work, but he did not trust the sea with all its lurking demons or demon, depending on the viewpoint held. He evaded any urge to ponder on the mystery and set about the ritual to keep it or them at bay. After patting mud into a square-shaped fireplace on the high stern of the catamaran, he lit a small fire there while singing the appropriate spell. The earth and the square shape of the fireplace and of the netting held the magic and not the fire. Wooreddy carefully finished the ritual and spell. Everything had been just right. A mistake, even a tiny one, might cause disaster. Gingerly, he pushed the craft into the surf until it floated. After putting the two boys aboard, he scrambled on. The catamaran settled a little, but still rode high fore and aft. His wife, Lunna, protected by her femaleness from the sea, pushed the craft into deeper water, then clinging onto the stern propelled it forward with kicks from her powerful legs.
Wooreddy’s eyes clung to the shape of his approaching island. This kept his mind from the encircling water; it gave him solace, and then the earth, which had formed his body and given the hardness to his bones, did have the power to draw him back. This, in a sense, was what was happening now. He had not determined to return home, but forces had determined that he return home. One such force was that of the earth of his home. He dreaded what he would find there. Then he noticed that the catamaran, for apparently no reason, was making a wide detour around an open patch of water. His nervous eyes had glanced down for a second. Now they stayed on the water. Alarm thudded his heart. If he had been able he would have returned to the mainland at once. But then, what if he had returned to the mainland? Only the west coast remained free, and for how long? In the long run, to survive meant accepting that the ghosts were here to stay and learning to live amongst them, or at least next to them until – until the ending of the world! This was the only reason why Wooreddy wanted to live on – and in a friendless world! It was one of the reasons why he had left the relative peace and security of his wife’s village.
He let the sight in the water enter into his mind. A bloody patch slowly spreading in circles of pinkish foam as a drizzle of rain fell from the grey sky. He shivered, feeling the presence of Ria Warrawah. The patch of blood turned a dull red, the colour of the ochre smeared in his hair. Just below the surface of the water, the dark body of a man drifted hazily like some evil sea creature. It quivered and turned dead eyes on him as Lunna’s powerful kick sent the catamaran past and scooting towards what might be the safety of the shore.
At last they grounded. Wooreddy leapt out and raced to the shelter of the undergrowth. Behind him pelted his wife and children. Safely hidden, they stared back toward the beach. The waves marched in assault lines against the land. Wooreddy saw the smoke rising from the stern of the catamaran and remembered his vow always to protect fire. But he hesitated and caused its death. The waves had driven the catamaran broadside to the surf. Now they capsized it. Ria Warrawah killed the fire. Then he found that he had left his spear behind. It floated in the surf. He left it there. He still had his club, and a spear, these days, was too much like a broken arm. Calling to his wife and children, he walked along the remembered track leading off this side of the bay. They followed it up over a rise, through thick undergrowth, then around the edge of a small cove. There another sight struck them a blow. The island, Wooreddy’s own earth, had been taken over by ghosts. His wife and children huddled in terror at his side, but the good Doctor Wooreddy donned his cloak of numbness and observed the scene with all the detachment of a scientist.
On the soft, wet beach-sand a naked brown-skinned woman was being assaulted by four ghosts. One held both
