A hike up an active volcano in Papua New Guinea exposes a sinister mystery.
The hike up Mount Tavurvur began in the coolness of dawn, but the heat soon became intense as the tropical sun rose higher and blasted down onto the dark volcanic rock. At the top, I was confronted by an alien world. Sloping steeply down from the rim of the volcano into the heart of the crater below was a barren landscape of black pumice stained bright yellow by the sulfur ejected from the smoking fumaroles. As the wind direction changed, pungent sulfur gasses escaping from the vents filled the air. The place had a sinister, lifeless feel about it, contrasting with the fertile green vegetation surrounding the town of Rabaul, visible in the distance. There, the silver corrugated iron roofs of the single storey houses clustered around the edge of the bay. On its flat, windless surface, small fishing boats left ever widening wakes behind them as they moved slowly across the calm water. It was a peaceful scene, calling me away from the desolate landscape where I stood.
I had been working as a doctor on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea and had taken some leave to visit Rabaul. The town was on the eastern tip of the island of New Britain, and I had been keen to visit it since I had first arrived in the country a year earlier. It was an appealing destination for me, partly because the location and its surrounding bay were regarded as one of the most picturesque in the region, but also because it was possible to climb Mount Tavurvur and walk up to the crater of one of the most dangerous and active volcanoes in the Pacific. Rabaul was situated on the side of a caldera, a huge, cauldron-like hollow that had formed after a powerful volcanic eruption hundreds of years ago. Now filled by the sea, the cavity had created a large, deep-water harbor, almost completely surrounded by land. On the upper edge of the caldera, on either side of the narrow sea entrance, the twin volcanic peaks of Tavurvur and Vulcan stood brooding over the town, known by many as The Pearl of the Pacific.
The downhill path from the volcano was rocky and strewn with loose stones, making the descent difficult, so I stepped into the bushes beside the track to look for something to use as a walking stick. Pushing aside the vegetation, some bones on the ground caught my eye. They looked like a dead goat, but then a pair of shorts became visible amongst the fallen leaves. As it dawned on me that goats don’t wear shorts, I realized that the decomposing body of a man in the undergrowth lay at my feet. The putrid smell of rotting meat filled the air, and maggots were busy removing the decaying tissues. Bones had become visible through the purple flesh, suggesting he had been lying there for several months. Holding back waves of nausea, I forced my way back through the bushes, stumbling over roots and ignoring the branches scratching at my face until I reached the main path.
As I hurried back down the track to Rabaul, I tried to process what I had just seen. Who was this man and what was he doing there? It seemed unlikely that he had become ill while simply taking a walk up the path. If someone had been ill or dying, they would not have been able or willing to climb the steep track to the edge of the volcano, and the corpse’s location in the undergrowth suggested that he had been hidden there. Maybe he had been murdered in that isolated spot, and his body hidden in the bushes. Stories of volcanic spirits and human sacrifice were not unknown in these parts, and my mind wrestled with all the possible explanations of my discovery as I walked, the awful smell still strong in my nose.
As the path descended towards the outskirts of the town, the air became cooler, and storm clouds formed in the sky, obscuring the sun. Small banana plantations lay on either side of the track, and local people working in the fields smiled and waved. I waved back but pressed on, keen to report my discovery.
The policeman on duty at Rabaul Police Station sat at his bare metal desk and searched several empty drawers before finding a pen to write down the details of the dead body. Taped unevenly to the wall behind him, torn posters showed graphic images of the dangers of drunk driving, and on the corrugated iron roof above us the tropical rainstorm had started to hammer down. The noise from the rain, combined with his informal Pidgin English, made it hard to follow the conversation.
“OK, so where did you find dis pela die man?”
“Just off the path at the top of the volcano. Hidden in the bushes.”
As I explained the location, I drew a map of where they could find the body. He studied it carefully, chewing thoughtfully on a mouthful of betel nut, a mild stimulant used by most local men. The red juices of the nut had stained his teeth dark red, giving him a frightening appearance. I was glad I was in the police station as a witness, and not as a criminal.
“Tenk yu tru. We will investigate this.”
As the exchange ended, he didn’t convey much urgency. It was probably unrealistic to expect teams of forensic scientists to hurry up the mountain, seal off the area, and investigate the case as might have happened elsewhere, but I did hope that they would locate the corpse, perhaps find out who he was, and give him a proper funeral.
Alas, nothing happened at all. Back at my clinic in Bougainville a few weeks later, I asked a nursing colleague to check with her brother, who was a policeman in Rabaul. The police responded that they had been unable to find the body and had closed the case.
This was astonishing. Had I really seen a human corpse, or had the fumes and sinister atmosphere of the volcano made me hallucinate the entire experience? No. My recollection was still vividly clear, and it was no fantasy. It was more likely that the police had taken the view that it was better to let sleeping dogs (or hidden skeletons) lie.
Although the thought of the body lying unburied and anonymous troubled me, forces may have been at play which I knew nothing about. Traditional rituals could have taken place that I would have found incomprehensible and unacceptable. I decided to interfere no further and allow nature to take its course.
It did.
On September 19th, 1994, a few years after I had left my job in Bougainville and returned home to England, I saw on the news that Mount Tavurvur had exploded suddenly, destroying most of Rabaul and covering the area for miles around with volcanic debris. As I watched the television footage of huge plumes of smoke and rock erupting violently into the air, my thoughts went back to the skeleton in shorts, and I felt a sense of relief. By now he would have been covered by several feet of lava and ash.
Nature alone had ensured his dignity and finally provided the complete burial that he deserved.
