“The prophecy came true,” he told me. “A PBY patrol plane based at Espíritu Santo was returning from a night mission. It was passing over Dalvalo when there was an eruption from the volcano. Rocks and lava were propelled skyward like surface-to-air missiles. The plane was hit by volcanic debris and was forced to make a crash landing in the jungle of Dalvalo. All on board the plane were killed except the pilot.”
Waltham stopped the story and unbuckled the watch he was wearing on his left wrist. He handed it to me. It was obviously an old spring-wound wristwatch, and I couldn’t help but notice that the manufacturer’s name was printed on the face with a pair of aviator’s wings etched beneath it.
“Waltham Watch Company,” I said.
“Turn it over,” Waltham said.
On the back, etched in the metal, were these words: TO LT. J. D. KEED—PENSACOLA, 1940.
Goosebumps ran up my arms to the back of my neck. Since I had first heard Keed’s name spoken by Jetfuel Joe back on Vanuatu in the Coolidge Bar, it hadn’t really occurred to me that the story might actually be true. Holding that watch, I immediately felt the connection. “Jesus,” I said.
“No, Keed,” Waltham replied. “That was given to my father by Captain Keed. That is how I got my name. But I am getting ahead of the story here, and we need to move on.”
Waltham shouted an order to Berkeley, who passed the word on to the villagers still frolicking in the waterfall. Instantly the little parade reformed. Soon the terrain became much steeper, and the trail ahead took the form of a switchback, snaking its way up into the low-hanging clouds.
As we walked, Waltham continued the story. “My father and the men of the village pulled Lieutenant Keed from the wreckage. They knew his name and where he came from because of the inscription on his watch. They buried the dead crew members in the cemetery. Those were the tombstones you were asking about. The spirits of the dead crew are our angels.
“Captain Keed was taken to Huakelle and nursed slowly back to health by the shamans and healers. Word had spread among the villagers that a messenger from the gods had fallen from the sky. It was quite a shock to the folks on Espíritu Santo when Lieutenant Keed, who was presumed dead, was delivered back to his base in an outrigger canoe parade.
“When he was put ashore at the Navy base, he gave my father the watch and thanked the people for saving his life. He promised he would never forget them. It was also the beginning of the special relationship between the U.S. Navy and the villagers of Huakelle. Captain Keed convinced the commanders at the base that my father and his men were excellent fighters, fearless in combat, and versed in all the island dialects. That was when the guerrilla unit was formed.
“When he wasn’t on missions, Captain Keed would always make a run down to Huakelle and drop off supplies. These were dangerous times for an island even as remote as Dalvalo. The Japanese had occupied parts of the Solomon Islands, and the Vanuatu chain was a logical next target as they attempted to control the sea-lanes to Australia. Lieutenant Keed was promoted to captain and squadron leader, and he organized a special force—a combination of guerrillas from Dalvalo and Navy frogmen. They constantly harassed the Japanese ship installations in the Solomon Islands. You will see more of the story when we reach the top.
“After the war, Captain Keed did not return to Pensacola, Florida. He came back to Huakelle to live. He bought one of the old PBYs and eventually a tramp steamer. The guerrilla force he had organized went from fighting a war to running an island freight business. They bought huge amounts of war surplus that the Americans left behind and supplied the villages and outposts throughout the Pacific with goods. Then one day, Captain Keed took off from the bay on a routine flight to Pentecost Island and was never heard from again. My father and his men searched all over the ocean for years, but nothing was ever found—no wreckage, no life preservers—nothing. And that is why we know that he flew back to Pensacola, Florida. And that is why we pray for his return. And that is why, on this night, we light the lamp once again to show him the way home.”
The climb to the top of the volcano continued for the rest of the day. Fortunately, as we gained altitude, the heat dissipated. We were rained on occasionally, but it did not dampen the spirits of Waltham and the villagers. The energy and excitement of the climbers seemed to intensify the closer we got to the rim of the volcano.
Luckily the followers of Captain Keed had picked the extinct volcano as the destination for their march, but the rumbles and steam clouds that came from the sister peak, Poodi, only five miles away, could be felt and seen by all of us.
The final segment of the climb took us through a very thick jungle canopy. It was like being inside a wet sponge for about thirty minutes, but finally the rim of the crater came into view. A strange object angled up toward the sky, and it obviously did not fit the surrounding landscape.
“Wait here!” Waltham commanded as he headed up the trail. I stood in place as directed while the villagers passed me and fanned out in a semicircle along the rim and around the strange object.
Prayers, chants, and wild drumbeats filled the air when Waltham motioned for me to move up the trail. As I topped the mountain, the noisy crowd parted in front of me, and I stood, motionless, staring at what I knew to be the tail section of a PBY.
It didn’t take more than a second to figure out that it was the remains of the plane that brought Captain Keed to Dalvalo. Although the wreckage was more than sixty years old, the tail sported a fresh coat of black-and-white alternating stripes. Just below the horizontal stabilizer, perfectly blocked letters formed the world SACOLA.
“Welcome to Sacola,” the villagers all said in unison.
The spot where the tail section had been erected commanded a stunning view of the island to the west. The sun was suspended out over a stretch of the horizon that was framed between the two volcanoes.
For a moment, as I stood near the monument, I thought we had come an awfully long way to see the wreckage of an old seaplane. What a task it must have been to drag it up the mountain. I figured we were there to pay our respects, and some kind of ceremony would transpire at the setting of the sun. Then Waltham would make a speech, introduce me, and I would say something that hopefully the villagers would appreciate. After that, we would head back down the hill for the long walk back to Huakelle.
Boy, was I wrong. The blinding light from the angle of the sun slowly melted into the ocean, and the floor of the crater became visible. The sun continued its time-tested disappearance, and when it was no longer visible, the crowd roared.
I just stood there in shock at what lay below me on the floor of the crater. Carved out of the lush green foliage was a perfectly manicured grass runway that looked to be three thousand feet long. Along the edges, flaming tiki torches outlined the long rectangle, and a line of guards in uniforms surrounded the airfield. Near the center of the runway to the left, a bamboo control tower stood above several other small buildings.
As I stared down with my mouth open, a rumble came out of the jungle, but it was not a tremor from Poodi. It was a power of a different kind. The muffled rumble of a diesel generator purred in the distance, and lights popped on like flashbulbs in the tower and the small buildings below it.
A voice echoed from a set of loudspeakers that hung from the tower. “Testing, one, two, three. Testing, one, two, three.” With that, the villagers danced their way down the path to the runway, and the party began.
I walked with Waltham, and we were greeted by a strange group of aviators. They all wore headphones made out of coconut shells that were covered with wire and wooden antennas. Waltham told me these were the high priests of Keed and the keepers of Sacola. The priests each held a carved wooden replica of a tower microphone into which they chanted collectively, “Cleared for takeoff, cleared for takeoff.” They split into two groups, each taking one of my arms. Then they led me to the runway.
I was anxious at first, but they seemed happy, not hungry. When we got to the runway, all the v
illagers lined up in two rows. They were making loud engine noises and flapping their arms. The priests joined in the acrobatics but were even louder.
“Are you ready for takeoff?” Waltham asked me. “I will lead the first group. You take the second squadron.”
“What are we doing?” I asked above the hum of human engine noise.
“Captain Singer, you are a pilot, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we are going flying.” Waltham held his arms out behind his body in a winglike fashion.
“Squadron is cleared for takeoff,” the voice from the PA speaker blared out. With that, the priests roared down the runway like sprinters at the Olympics. Waltham and his squadron followed the priests.
“Squadron Two, you are cleared for takeoff,” the voice echoed across the floor of the crater.
I never hesitated. I ran the imaginary throttle forward, and my verbal engine roared to life. I took off.
Who is to say that some of the human planes did not defy gravity? Surrounded by the places and the circumstances, I sure as hell thought I left the ground on a few occasions.
Somehow we all finished our flights. I was looking up at the first stars of the night sky that were perched on the last of the orange rays of the setting sun when I noticed something else was in the sky. It was closer to us, and it was moving. The crowd on the runway saw it too. From somewhere, the chords of a guitar sounded, and soon all the fliers were looking at the object and singing in perfect English:
You are cleared for landing, Captain Keed.
Can you see your loyal crew?
We can touch your heart and feel your speed.
Dalvalo waits for you.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir never sounded any better, and as the melodic voices of the praying congregation echoed off the walls of the crater, the object took shape. I knew immediately that it was a hang glider, and the pilot maneuvering it knew his stuff. He made wide, beautiful figure eights above the runway. As he did, small parachutes began trailing down from the glider, and the people plucked them out of the air.
One floated within my range, and I grabbed it. Attached to the parachute were pieces of beach glass on which were painted the words YOU ARE CLEARED FOR LANDING, CAPTAIN KEED.
When he was through with his drop, the hang-glider pilot banked left over the field and came around on the east side. He returned to the earth, stepping from the air like a ballet dancer. As he touched down, the singing stopped, and a huge cheer went up from the crowd.
Waltham made his way over to me. “And those Bible-thumpers call us a primitive, archaic cult. I picked the hang glider up from a haole over on Villa who had come here to try and do a tourist thing, but it never got off the ground—pardon the pun. I thought it would add a little flair to our yearly celebration. Those TV evangelists up in America have corporate jets that their congregations rarely see. At least our people get to see our aircraft as part of the ceremony. The pilot is Jetfuel Joe. He flies well, no?”
“He flies well,” I said.
Tully, I have to tell you, I was brought up a child of the Mardi Gras. I was taught to believe in the magic of carnival since the days my dad held me high on his shoulders so I would have a better chance to catch the boxes of Cracker Jacks being thrown by grown men dressed as pirates, gods, devils, and cartoon characters. I was an ex-Jesuit-trained altar boy who was force-fed Catholicism for a third of my life. I had been taught to believe in things like Jesus raising the dead and turning water into wine—and, my favorite miracle, the loaves-and-fishes picnic—along with resurrections, ascensions, and the Last Judgment. So it wasn’t a big stretch for me to believe that Captain Keed might actually zoom in from heaven on a hang glider and drop gifts that floated to the earth on little baby parachutes. Tully, I have to say, I was getting quite fond of a religion that worshipped pilots.
“Well, I have to go and get ready for tonight,” Waltham said. “I will see you later in the tower. Berkeley will bring you. Watch out for that high tide out there. Remember, you are the messenger from our god.” His words suddenly reminded me of the speech I hadn’t written. What was I supposed to say?
As Waltham had predicted, the kava bowl got a big workout. The villagers partied like combat pilots, sang and danced all night, and then there was the food and sex. All in all, it was some kind of an evening. Just before midnight, as I was enjoying the festivities and dancing away at the luau, Berkeley came up to me and said, “It is time to go to the tower.”
Waltham’s little army stood guard with carved bamboo machine guns and mortars, all of which sat atop sandbagged bunkers at the base of the tower. As I began climbing, I noticed that the noise level at the party below me dropped a few decibels as the generator sputtered to a halt, and the revelers began to walk to the runway. They all carried torches that at first looked like big fireflies dancing on the breeze.
As I climbed, I passed a gaggle of hissing pipes, valves, and several large pressure tanks. I stopped to catch my breath at the top of the tower, and when I looked down, the torches outlined the full rectangular border of the grass strip. I was nearly knocked from the tower by the sudden, deafening voice from the loudspeaker. It was now three feet from my ear.
“We have a visitor with a message from Captain Keed.”
A roar came from the crowd below as I reached the door to the control tower. Berkeley guided me inside. I looked at my watch. It was four minutes before midnight. The tower room was bathed in an eerie red light—like the night-lights in our plane.
Waltham was standing on a set of winding stairs about three feet above six of his men. They stood their duty stations in front of fake radios and radar screens. Waltham held a hurricane lantern that illuminated the dress-white Navy captain’s uniform he now wore. There were scores of medals on his chest and gold-braided epaulets on his shoulders, and a silver parade sword hung by his side. He looked up at the hands of the old military clock. The minute hand was inching toward the hour hand at the twelve o’clock position. He smiled and said, “Welcome to the tower. It is time for the message.” Then he walked up the stairs and motioned for me to follow.
At the top of the stairs was a small, round room where a real radio transmitter sat on a desk. A canvas cover concealed a very large object in the middle of the room, but I was not admiring the furniture. Tully, I was panicking. There I was, a messenger from a god with no message, and there was no burning bush or parting of the seas to cover my ass. It was like that dream I sometimes have when I am on the stage doing a show, but something is not quite right. I don’t have any pants on, or the seats are empty, or the band is playing a different tune.
Through the clutter of my own brain, I heard Waltham say, “Captain Singer, I know that you were not sent by Captain Keed, and I know you didn’t write a speech. You were actually sent here by Parfait as a favor to me.”
If my thoughts weren’t confused enough, this revelation came as a shock. “I don’t quite understand?” was all I could say.
“Singa Mon, paradise as we have lived it and known it is disappearing fast. All we are trying to do here is hang on to our ancestral beliefs as long as we can. They may be whacked-out beliefs according to the standards of governments and missionaries who try to modernize us, but we were here first. I know that kind of rationalization didn’t work too well for the native people in your country, and they struggled for hundreds of years until their gods came to them with the idea of Indian casinos. Now they are gathering the money to control their own destiny. That is all Parfait and I are looking for here.”
Parfait was working on this? I didn’t quite follow Waltham’s logic, but I was in no position to analyze this problem. I had a speech to make.
“Parfait?” I asked, surprised.
Waltham chuckled. “He may look like a phony-baloney French PR man, but he is originally from this island—our village. He made it out, but he keeps close ties to his family here and does what he can to help us survive. That is how you got here.”
/> I was finally starting to connect the dots.
“When you arrived in New Caledonia in the plane, and the gods allowed him to rescue you from the authorities at the airport, he knew you had been sent for a reason, and he contacted me. Since it was so close to Captain Keed Day, and spirits have been a bit down, we thought it would be a good thing for the village to receive a message from Captain Keed.”
I smiled back. “So you two pirates lured me here for what?”
“To show the people that the gods still care about them.”
“So the whole story about you knowing something about the soul of the light was just a scam to get me here?”
“No, that part is true.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, I would like a little proof,” I told him.
“I will make you a deal,” Waltham snapped back. “You give a speech of hope to my people, and I will show you what you came for. But we have to hurry. It is almost midnight.” Waltham picked up the microphone and handed it to me.
“What do I say?” I asked.
“Hell, you are a performer. Do what you do when you forget the words to your own song. I saw it happen back in Orlando. I went to one of your shows, and you know what? The audience sang the song for you. Think about your journey here, where you have been and what you have seen. And now that you know what is at stake, think of something that will uplift them and make them believe in the future.”
I took the microphone from Waltham and made my way out onto the catwalk, dragging the cord behind me.
“Remember, keep it short too!” he yelled out the open door.
I pressed the talk switch on the mike, and the words came. I said a few words of welcome and thanks in the little pidgin I knew, and then it all came gushing out. “Friends,” I began, “like Hank Williams said, I saw the light.”