Coincidences

By Henry Dexter

OF all the yarns told by the “old timers’’ on the verandah of the store in Milne Bay (Eastern Papua) none interested me more than one in which Bill Guy—then a well known identity—was concerned.

Bill, with a party of other men, was leaving Samarai in a cutter for Woodlark Island. The skipper in charge of the ves sel was named Einar Johanessen. The parting from old friends had been an un usually “wet” one, and Bill was almost a cot case.

It was the Nor’-west season. The cutter had a fair wind through China Straits.

As soon as sail was set one of the boys dropped a towline overboard. Bill was sitting right aft, on a camp stool.

Suddenly, the party noticed a commo tion in the water about ten fathoms astern. Bill, unnoticed by the others, had fallen overboard; and the hook on the tow-line had caught him by the instep.

The vessel was immediately luffed into the wind, and Bill was hauled on board, with a badly torn foot, and his lungs full of salt water.

The vessel brought him back to Sama rai. He made a complete recovery, but his foot was badly scarred.

Bill joined up in the early days of the war. On one occasion, he was on leave in London. A party of soldiers were re lating outstanding happenings that had occurred in various parts of the world.

Sid Bishop was among those present.

He told the above story; and was a very surprised man when Bill tapped him on the shoulder and said: “I’m the bloke you’ve been talking about!” He then stripped off one of his puttees and showed the scars.

Bill returned to Papua after the war; but later he died in Australia. Sid Bis hop blew himself up with dynamite while “shooting” fish there in Milne Bay.

There was another outstanding coinci dence in connection with Sid Bishop’s war service. He was a member of a machine gun section, which had been having a particularly hectic time.

Sid, in an undertone, said: “I’d sooner be back in New Guinea!”

“What do you know of New Guinea?” asked the man next to him.

It was Brossey, who left his desk in Port Moresby in the early days of the war. He was badly wounded, but he re turned later to Papua, and now is in Nor folk Island.

Incidentally, Sid Bishop was one of the whitest of men. Peace to his ashes.