Also rounding the bend and speeding downriver was a war canoe.... the paddlers stabbing at the water to a menacing war chant ... . all in perfect unison ... they were all feathered and painted up with spears and bows across their backs .. they stood upright ... a question of balance. They too, saw a a sight. A crazy white man standing in the forward part of the canoe... arms stretched outwards like wings ... they faltered .. and looked .. only to be barked at by the coxwain .. and they returned to the rythmic chants. It was from their villiage that Maurie tried to buy their Agiba. These people frightened me... the elders held out on the Agiba but I got to see it. Maurie filled the freighter canoe with purchased artifacts and we sped downstream back to the Cessna 182.
The Aztec provided the vibrating syncronic buzz . Heidi gazed out of the starboard window and I gazed at her softly heaving bosom ... I felt a stir in my loins....
Maybe an hour out of Goroka ... abeam Karimui, where we had a trade store, and where I had made the legless man dance ....flying higher and more effortlessly than I had in the Cessna ... to Paradise. The Bird of Paradise , that is , the pub.
In this Shrine of Aviation , bullsh*t was the intellectual mainstay of the era. But I had a new whore and I was proud.
The next two years of flying were spectacular ... dipping down into the mouth of the extinct volcano on Lab Lab island , flying down a chain of islands , strung like pearls , down to the Solomons .. and Guadacanal , a scene from World War II where we explored wreckages of Hellcats , Corsairs , zeros and half submerged landing craft , peppered with bullet holes.
Wow! A TBM Avenger ...one day I would fly one of these.
Heidi had returned to Australia leaving me in despair.
Well ... not for long...
I smuggled dogs , chicken eggs and of course , croc skins. The dog smuggling had earned a new knickname for the old Aztec , Bravo Papa Woof.
Most of the hosties at the mess knew of my deeds , I told them so. I traded tales of daring doo for passionate interludes.
But one day, I saw a vision.
I had been summoned to the airport by the Operations Manager of Territory Airlines , and, says he "You won't believe what you will see."
She strolled the lawn at the terminal ... in a silky dress flowing like a watercolour in the rain .. but you could see through it .. just enough. And a flower in her hair .. a backpack .. and a smile. The cautious but gathering crowd of natives could see through the dress too ... and I sensed danger ... she had to be saved .. and Gadzooks!!! .. the Duke was for once in the right place at the right time.
"You can't stay here." says I, as I dare to touch this flowering Goddess on the arm to lead her away to my Land Rover."Where are you from?" I ask .. gulping as I catch a glimpse of a nipple perched at the end of a shapely little brown ski-jump shaped breast... "The Year of The Cat" she whispers .. a brown leg escaping through a slit in the Thai-dyed hippie dress, as she glides into the Land Rover.
"Come with me , child." says the Duke.