The Redoubtable Captain
pp. 67-68 · Read in the full issue
Walkup
Early in 1909 Captain Walkup was sup plied with a new vessel. After calling at Ocean Island, under the command of the ex-pugilist, she sailed for Butaritari, in the Gilberts, but unfortunately never reached her destination. There were nine on board the Hiram Bingham No. 2 —a native crew of four, and four passengers for the Gilberts. Three of the latter were children, and three of the crew were Gil bertese. The fourth was a broad-should ered young Banaban named Teta, the adopted son of the native pastor of Ocean Island.
During a sudden squall on the voyage the little Hiram Bingham capsized. Teta supplied a graphic description of the mis hap. For three days Walkup and the sur vivors attempted to row in the ship’s dinghy to Butaritari. On the fourth day some rain was caught in the captain’s coat. On the eighth day they still had not sighted land, and their plight was desperate.
At last, after many days at sea, in which they covered nearly 300 miles, from the vicinity of Butaritari in the Gilberts, to Ebon, the southernmost island in the Marshall Group, they were rescued by a canoe.
The dinghy was a mere cockleshell.
“For a boat of that size with nine people aboard to make such a voyage in the open sea,” says Mr. Ellis, “must surely be an unparalleled achievement. That voyage . . . should surely have a worthy place in the annals of Central Pacific drift voyages! ”
But, on the third day after landing, the
American missionary whose courage had upheld his companions in their dire need, died. The ordeal was too much for him.
Mr. Ellis says that the real hero of the voyage was Teta. Few men of any race or colour could have met the emergencies as “did this descendant of people who, for generations, have had a strenuous struggle with the sea for their very existence.”
Had not Walkup dissuaded him, the author is of opinion that Teta would have entered the water and tackled one of the sharks that kept vigil beside the boat.
The book is written with simple charm; There is no straining after effect. Within the pages of Adventuring in Coral Seas is much information that is all the more valuable as it is the record of an eye witness. Albert F. Ellis has been in the truest sense of the expression—a pioneer
of the Pacific.
Eric Ramsden.
Adventuring In Coral Seas By Albert
F. Ellis, C.M.G., author of Ocean Island and Nauru, with a foreword by the Right Hon. Vis count Bledisloe of Lydney. Published by Messrs.
Angus and Robertson, Castlereagh St., Sydney.