at sea—a fo’c’sle argument—a native’s confession—sydney harbour
there was a steamer in apia harbour and i was lucky enough to get a berth aboard her. i think i had only been in apia two days when she got steam up to leave for fiji and new south wales. i berthed forward in the forecastle. she was a tramp steamer and carried sail to help the decrepit engines and take the vessel to port when they broke down. just before we left we took on a cargo of natives bound for somewhere! they were a mixed lot, most of them samoans or malay-polynesians, and among them some solomon islanders who had arrived in apia a week before, waiting to be transhipped. they were berthed forward between decks. most of them were dressed in dead men’s clothes, collected in the south sea island morgues, after the first occupants had no further use for them: dead sailors, beachcombers, coolies, suicides; indeed all the derelict corpses of life’s drama who lay in their final resting-place in the unvisited cemeteries of the pacific islands.
these natives were a cheerful, indifferent lot of people—at least when they got over the first pang of parting from their relatives. but that grief was soon over, for they each believed that they were leaving their native isle to return some day with fortunes from the promised el dorado: hope is as intense in natives of the south seas as it is in white people. next day they started to sing cheerfully, and came up on deck in shoals to cadge from the galley, and get the cook to bake their bread-fruit[11] and yams. some had their wives with them, big fat women with glittering eyes. they were supposed to keep down below after dark, but they came up on deck and went pattering by us as we stood by the fore-peak hatchway smoking with the sailors. about three days after we left apia, bound for suva (fiji), a hurricane came on, and the boat rolled and pitched till we thought she would turn a somersault, or turn turtle. the natives between decks were shut down; we heard their yells as the mass of clinging arms and bodies were hurled about as the boat rolled and shipped seas over the bows.
11. the name bread-fruit is more poetical than the flavour of the fruit, which tasted to the writer like sweet turnips.
at midday next morning the wind suddenly ceased and the sun burst out. only those who had experienced the howling chaos of mountainous seas, blackness and wind would have believed what the weather had really been a few hours before.
the boatswain and the carpenter were interesting characters, both typical shellbacks of the island trading type. the boatswain looked like a priest: his face was weather-beaten and his nose twisted; he had no hair on his face, head or neck, and wore a cap to hide his polished skull. his chum the carpenter fairly wallowed in hair, had bristly eyebrows, a bristly beard, head and neck, and a vast moustache; you could only see his fierce, twinkling eyes as he sat arguing in the forecastle with the boatswain. those two never agreed on any subject, but were inseparable companions. the boatswain, i believe, loved to be contradicted by his shipmate, and if no sudden response was made to any assertion he might make, he at once looked round fiercely and said that silence was equivalent to disbelief, and they might as well call him a liar and be done with it.
i recall how he sat by his bunk on his sea-chest and said: “remember ’im? i should think i does. very old man. he had been a skipper on the trader between the samoan and marquesas group; a nice old fellow; he was blind, quite blind in both eyes.” at this the argument commenced immediately, as the carpenter looked up and said: “of course he was blind in both eyes; he wouldn’t be blind if he could still see with one eye, would he?” then, as he hammered at the hinge of the sea-chest he was mending, the boatswain shouted: “stow yer gab, yer clever son of a nigger, d—n yer. isn’t a man blind if he’s blind in his eye?”
“course ’e ain’t, he’s only lost one hye!”
“yer d——d swab! to h—— with yer! if ’e’s lost his eye, ain’t ’e blind in it?”
at this the carpenter’s unshaved face fairly steamed with heat as he appealed to the sailor standing by: “a man ain’t blind if he’s lost ’is one eye, is ’e?”
“well,” slowly answered the sailor solemnly, “if he couldn’t see out of the eye that was blind, i should say that he was blind in it.”
at this the boatswain spat on the deck, the carpenter thrust his bearded chin forward, and they started to bet heavily on the matter; and the norwegian cook, who had come in to see what the shouting was about, wiped his mouth with his dirty sack apron and said:
“mein tear frients, vich eye was the mans vlind in?”
“yer son of a german sea-cook, i said the man was stone blind in both eyes, so, d—n yer, he hadn’t any eyes at all!” roared the infuriated boatswain.
“vell, now,” said the sea-cook, as he stroked his short vandyke beard and looked astonished, “he vash not vlind then; he haf no eyes to be vlind in at all; for how cans a man be vlind in zee eyes if he haf no eyes?”
the boatswain turned purple, spluttered out “yer god-d——d cheeky,” then suddenly lost his temper, made a run and pushed the cook, who nearly fell to the deck.
“i vill show you vat a vlind eye is,” shouted the enraged norwegian sea-cook.
“bear witness,” shouted the boatswain, looking at the sailors and members of the black squad, who were all standing around to see fair play. “the cook has insulted me by saying that a blind man has no eyes.” then the norwegian made a rush at the old boatswain. it gave the whole crew a lot of trouble to separate them. then the boatswain cooled down and said it was his own fault for not simply saying the man was blind, and saying nothing whatever about his eyes if he hadn’t got any. then they all had a drop of rum together, and were good friends till the next argument cropped up and they took sides once more.
at other times they would sit yarning, and as i listened, sitting on my sea-chest, i heard many terrible and indescribable things: true enough too, i have not the slightest doubt, but only fit to be told here after considerable prunings from the facts. there was an old solomon island native just by us, down in the fore-peak. he was a kind of overseer, and had to look after the natives in the hold, and separate the various tribal characters if they fought, which they often did. now this overseer was a garrulous chap, and though he was hideous enough it was interesting to hear what he said. he was over fifty years of age, and we gathered from what he let out that he had eaten “long pig” in his youth. one calm, hot night, when the engines were clanking steadily away, while the skipper walked the poop and the steward slept, we were all sitting in the forecastle; some of the sailors were in their bunks, and a few others smoking and playing cards beneath the dim oil lamp. the garrulous native overseer was talking away for all he was worth, when suddenly the boatswain leaned over his bunk and said: “shut up, yer son of a cannibal.”
“me no heathen, i good christian man. once long ago i eat ‘long pig’; but since then i have saved white sailor from being eaten, and been friend to white girl.”
“eh?” said the boatswain, as he pricked his ears up; the carpenter said, “gor blimey, you’ve eaten——”; quickly a sailor nudged him, so that we might hear all about it, and one of the crew who had been playing cards shuffled the pack and said quietly: “tell us all about it.” the grim-looking, half-naked savage nodded his head and started off.
“many years ago now a terrible hurricane was blowing off the solomon isle of bourka, when the islanders suddenly sighted a full-rigged sailing ship in distress. sunset blazed behind her, and they could see the torn sails and the decks taking the seas over, as she helplessly drifted before the gale that was bringing her shoreward. that night, when the stars were flashing through rifts in the clouds, which had broken up and left pools of blue in the sky, they saw the great ship within a mile of the shore, with walls of living waters breaking over her. one or two sailors were just discernible, clinging to the spars aloft; and then suddenly a mountain of water rose and the masts disappeared.
“in the early morning the natives gathered the bodies of the dead sailors together, put them in old salt-beef ship’s barrels and hid them on the sands just under the water near the shore. for the bloodthirsty tribe who found them were cannibals. four of the crew were still alive—the boatswain, the chief mate, the cook and the ship’s doctor; and a girl, who was the skipper’s daughter.” the boatswain dropped his pipe on the floor, the sailors all looked round and left their cards, and one or two went phew! then listened, and the half-savage native continued to this effect:
“they took the four living men up the shore and put them in a cave, and hid them so that a rival tribe they had lately been fighting with should not get hold of them before they could eat them. the chief of the tribe claimed the pretty white girl; she was not more than seventeen years old. they took her up to the stronghold, made a big festival fire and had a feast from one of the dead sailors who had been washed ashore.
“while the whole tribe sat squatting in a circle, watching and waiting while the flames of the fire flickered and hissed, the white girl, tied to a coco-palm by the hands, looked round at them all with staring, frightened eyes. then the hideous cannibal chief caught hold of her and told her that if she would be his wife he would save the four white men who were alive in the cave. for a while they could not stop her screaming, and then she looked up at the chief and said: ‘bring me the white men first’; and he shook his head and said, ‘no.’ later, when they were eating, and dancing wildly round the terrible fire, another chief, of a tribe inland, came suddenly out of the forest close by and joined in the feast. when he saw the white girl staring, tied to a palm just behind them, he looked at her longingly, and offered to buy her from the first chief.
“i was a young man then, about twenty years old, and i had been a servant off and on to the white missionaries who lived twenty miles away round the coast. i made up my mind to steal away at daybreak and tell them about the white girl and the four sailors in the cave. for that old chief who had come and tried to buy the white girl was a bloodthirsty cannibal, and he only wanted to buy the girl so that he could eat her. it was well known by all the tribe that he loved the flesh of women, and would risk his life to eat a white girl’s breasts.
“in the shadows by the trees she still sat, with her wildly staring eyes, appealing to the glittering eyes of the chief and to dumb heaven. most of the tribe squatted or lay at full length round the dying fire, their hideous appetites satisfied and their bellies distended. i saw the two powerful chiefs stand arguing; and then the chief who longed for the white girl turned away from the other and looked with fierce, hungry eyes at the shivering girl a moment, ere his dark, naked limbs strode away into the forest. my heart leapt with joy as i saw his big form go. i felt that i could now easily save the white girl; for i knew that white men were brave and would come directly i arrived before them and told them all that had happened. walking as near as i dared to the white girl, i spoke to her in english. i said four words only: ‘i see white men.’ i could not see her glance, as i dared not look her way; for the chief sat close by, rubbing his chin and grunting sleepily. i sat myself down by a tree and slept, thinking to go off and get help before the day broke. suddenly i was awakened by a great noise of shouting and running. i jumped to my feet. the tribal chief was lifting his war-club and dashing it to the ground to ease his terrible rage; and then crash! he smashed the sentinel’s skull; it cracked like an egg-shell. the man had slept instead of watching; the white girl had gone! at first i was delighted, for i thought she had escaped; but instead of that she had been carried off by the great girl-eating chief!”
directly he said that all the forecastle swallowed their tobacco smoke and said, “well, i’m——”; the boatswain muttered, “holy heaven!”; and then one of the sailors said, “how did you know the stinking swine of a chief had her?”
we all somehow listened hopefully; for the overseer looked so earnest, and we did not want to think we were hearing the truth. a yarn was all right, but this made the hands restive and the eyes blaze. however, he continued:
“some of the tribe, who were camping by a lagoon not far inland, were suddenly awakened by an agonised scream. looking through the jungle, they saw several canoes being rapidly paddled across the moonlit waters, and in the foremost canoe they recognised the feared, bloodthirsty cannibal chief, torao. he was a giant of a fellow, nearly seven feet in height and of tremendous girth, and so there was no mistaking him. he was paddling with one arm, and held the white girl under the other as you would hold a strangled rabbit.”
“lummy!” said one sailor; as one or two others wiped their perspiring faces with their red handkerchiefs, listening as they held on to the stanchion in the middle of the forecastle, while the tramp steamer rolled and pitched along across the pacific, heaving at intervals to the heavy cross-swell.
“vell, vell now,” muttered the norwegian cook, as he sat on the side of his bunk taking his trousers off. the solomon islander continued:
“i was young then and could run with the swiftness of a horse, and, knowing that there was no time to lose, i never stopped once as i ran across country and round the coast for miles. at length, about midday, i arrived at tooka village, which is on the coast, rushed up the shore and thumped at the door of the first white man’s bungalow that i saw. they all came rushing from their houses when they heard what i had to say. directly they heard all they rushed back to their homes and got their guns and revolvers, and in no time were all astride on horseback galloping across the country.
“at sunset we arrived at the village where the caves were. i was brave, for i knew the white men would protect me, so i led the way at once to the caves; but we were too late; they were deserted; the sailors had been taken away. at once the leader of the white men, who was a big man with a heavy grey moustache, shouted to me that i should take them to the spot where they had eaten the sailor. quickly i ran on in front, and they all came behind, their faces stern and white-looking. when we reached the place they said nothing, but all quietly tightened the reins of the horses and then, dismounting, crept together to the edge of the forest. the white man who led them made a terrible oath when they all peeped through the bamboos; for the savages had just clubbed two of the sailors and a great fire was blazing in the middle of the cleared patch by the huts; and not far off from the dead bodies stood the chief mate, bound hand and foot, waiting to be clubbed too. the white men hesitated one moment, then rushed across the cleared patch, firing their revolvers. several of the natives fell dead as the tribe scampered off into the forest. they only saved the chief mate out of the four men who had survived that shipwreck. they burnt the village to the ground and buried the bodies of the boatswain and the cook. not far from where the fire had been they found some shrivelled clothes and a small peaked cap; in the pockets were some little medicine phials, and, close by, the ship’s doctor’s feet—still in his boots! i told them about the ship’s salt-beef barrels hidden under the shore sand. they dug them all up and took the bodies miles away and buried them. the skipper’s daughter was never heard of any more. about two years after that high chief torao, who stole the white girl, became a christian, and taught the native children lotu songs in the mission rooms. i went and lived with the white men at tooka; they gave me good clothes, and i was their servant, and found them good and kind masters.”
“clear out of this fo’c’sle, yer god-d——d son of a cannibal!” shouted the boatswain directly the overseer had finished; and though he had befriended our countrymen we too felt a bit disgusted, and knew how the boatswain felt as we looked up at the thick-lipped solomon islander’s face.
the foregoing is as much as i can tell you of the main facts of the native’s story. i have left out all the gruesome embellishments and the heart-rending cruelty of the native’s description of the white girl’s grief in the hands of the cannibal monsters. let us hope it was not true; but i must admit many things made my heart thump as i listened to all that seemed too true. the boatswain and his shipmate never argued over that tale. the norwegian cook at last pulled his trousers right off and said, “vell now, it’s too terrible to tink of,” and swung his legs round into his bunk. i turned in also, just opposite him, and said: “let’s keep the lamp on; i don’t feel sleepy to-night.”
next day we dropped anchor in suva harbour and stayed there two days. i had previously been to the fiji group and stayed there for a considerable time, having various experiences with the natives and traders, experiences which will appear in the second half of these reminiscences.
the crew went ashore and had a fly round, walked the parade and visited all the drinking establishments. the boatswain and his mate came back arm in arm, arguing at the top of their voices; they had been drinking rather heavily. when they got on board the boatswain sighted the natives poking their heads out of the fore-peak hatchway, and, thinking of the tale the overseer had told us, he shouted at them, “get down below, yer d——d cannibals,” and then made a rush for them. we were obliged to hold on to him to keep him from going down between decks. at last we got him into his bunk; but none of us had any sleep, for he shouted about cannibals all night and swore that we had got thousands of them on board.
next day, just before we left suva, a passenger came on board. he was an old gentleman with bristly eyebrows, who wore a monocle. he carried two large portmanteaux and came puffing up the gangway, and directly he got on deck he started shouting: “stew-ard! stew-ard!” spying the boatswain by the main hatch, he mistook him for the steward, and, looking through his eyeglass, said: “where’s the saloon?” at the same time he handed him the largest of the portmanteaux. with disgust wrinkling his florid nut-cracker face, the boatswain pointed forward. off went the old man, muttering something under his breath about the discourteous behaviour of sailors. “down there,” shouted the boatswain, as the passenger got up against the fore-peak and called once more: “steward!” then down the fore-peak he went. in a few seconds we heard a wild yell, and up came the old fellow, hatless, with his face pallid with fright. he had landed in the middle of the huddled natives below.
“help, help!” he shouted. i told him it was all right, put his hat on for him and went down quickly and fetched up his portmanteau, which he had dropped in his fright. he was “all of a-tremble”; his hand shook visibly as he clutched his property. the german steward came hurrying forward and, when he sighted the old gentleman’s massive gold chain and jewelled fingers, almost fell forward on his face, bowing and scraping in his apologies.
when the old fellow recovered he swore he’d sue the boatswain, in sydney, for damages.
we had a fairly fine passage across to new south wales and in a week sighted sydney heads.
we dropped anchor out in the stream, and the old passenger went off in a tender. he had got over his adventure, and shook his umbrella good-naturedly at the boatswain, who grinned at him over the fo’c’sle head.
i was pleased to see the lovely shores of sydney harbour again. that same night i stood on deck and saw the beautiful sea-board city rising grandly, with her spires and walls, as moonlight crept over the horizon.
sydney by night is a sight that makes you easily understand the cornstalks’ pride in their beloved city. next day we berthed by circular quay. it was fearfully hot, real dog-day weather. hospitality abounds in sydney, and one never need feel lonely, for on stepping on to the wharf i was once more enthusiastically welcomed by an immense crowd of mosquitoes! we can joke after, but i did not see life then as i do now.
how i recall it all, my beautiful youth—aye, as a woman’s heart secretly remembers her first love, and gazing back feels the old passion, sees the rosy horizon of dreams, the absolute certitude of old vows, spoken by that voice that expressed all the happy universe! yes, so do i remember the sleepless, hungry nights under the stars that shone over the trees, nights radiant with dreams!