To A Bored N.G. Pilot

A NATIVE’S head pickled in a kerosene tin was part of the cargo of an aeroplane flown by Pilot M. Mather from Bulolo to Wau, New Guinea, recently (says Sydney Daily Telegraph).

The head was Government cargo, and officials hoped to establish the age of its owner, and how he died.

“Plane cargoes in New Guinea comprise any thing from birds of paradise to corpses,” said Pilot Mather, who returned to Sydney by the Montoro recently.

“I’ve come back for good,” he said. “I’m sick •f malaria, pilot’s messrooms, and the only means of social intercourse in Salamaua—pub bars.”

SO “Salamaua lacks a Social Life”?

Most sad, most true, your story rings!

Maybe If you had had your spats, a wife, Your polo ponies and such various things So really needful to a chap’s welfare, Whene’er a Goldfields pilot “takes the air,”

You might perhaps have won that social tone And made of it in truth a “Home from Home.”

The old days didn’t boast a social side; But this “gate to adventure” had its pride.

That “old pub bar” was oft a road to fame, Its rafters echoed to many an honoured name— Toasts to Arnold, Pryke and such . . .

And pilots really were not bored so much — Mustar, Parer, Mullins, Shaw; They blazed the air trails and they con quered more!

They flew with fever; messrooms then were sheds; They ate tinned tack; their clothing wat in shreds; But they pushed old buses over all the hills, They sought lost miners and they dealt out pills.

So came some great men to that old beach “pub,”

Cementing there fine mateships, sharing grub, The quitters then were few, though life was rough— It’s men that count, and not the social stuff.

—Alice Allen Innes.

Vaucluse, Sydney.