The Call Of The

Islands

Crowding Memories of Papua

From a letter by Henry Dexter, late of Milne Bay, Papua, who writes feelingly of his com fortable, snow-covered house in England—but wants to know “what is happening in Papua!”

GERMAN HARRY,” a well-known identity about the coast of Papua, twenty-five years ago, knew what he was talking about when he told Jack McLaren: — “Once you hear that call you have to answer it. I tried to turn deaf ears to it and failed. Four times I cast the sands of the Islands off my feet, finally and for ever, as I thought; and four times I had to return. At Moresby they said that I was making a habit of it.

“While you are in the Islands, theatres, pretty women, good cooking, horse-racing, and all the rest of it looked jolly fine; but, somehow, when you got among those things it wasn’t the same.

“A man soon gets fed up with city life. For one thing, there’s so much hustle. You see a chap twirl round a corner on one leg merely to buy a packet of cigarettes. And there is always such a thumping noise going on, and fellows trying to take you down for all you’ve got, and the people seem unreal, artificial-like. And very soon the pretty women don’t seem so pretty, and you get tired of young skirts, and old faces.

“That sort of thing is no good to a fellow accustomed to knocking about with easy-going cannibals, and after a while you’ll be nosing around the shipping office, seeing about a pas sage back, and calling yourself a goat for ever having left. It is the Call getting to work.

“You take my tip, and get out of this country as soon as you can. Its damned unsettlin’, I can tell you.”

Yes, “German Harry” was right— the Islands get hold of a man. And if, from force of circumstances, one is away from them, how eagerly one looks for news from the place which one probably cursed while in it, but can never forget.

Take that little group who assemble every Thursday morning at a cafe in Sydney. All ex-Papuans, they are men who were planting, trading, or storekeeping. An ex-Commissioner for Native Affairs, an ex-Government Storekeeper, or Commissioner for Public Works. They meet to talk of

old times, and with the hope that someone on furlough will turn up to give them news of the old spot. Listen to some of the tales of the old days.

THE “Laurabada” is lying alongside the wharf at Samarai. Sir Hubert Murray was on board, also the Commissioner for Public Works. The island is to have its electric light in stalled. There has been a lot of argu ment about installing a light on the wharf. The idea was strongly sup ported by the local R.M., but just as strongly vetoed by the C. for P.W.

Darkness comes on, the C. for P.W. has a dinner appointment ashore. He appears on deck in all the splendour of a white tropical suit, a lighted cigar in his hand, and an umbrella. He steps on what he thought to be the wharf, but is really only a shadow. In a moment he is swimming strongly.

The boys haul him aboard, still grasp ing the cigar.

One can just hear H.E. saying, in his dry way: ‘Well, I suppose the R.M. will now get his light on the wharf”.

That these men are sportsmen is proved by the fact that it is the ex- C. for P.W. himself who tells the tale.

Now they are talking of an old timer known as Jimmy. Jimmy had a plantation in Milne Bay. He owned a small motor boat. Occasionally he ran over to Samarai for a bender.

Although one of the quietest of men when sober, he was one of the most objectionable after he had had one over the eight. He’d accost a stranger, and roll off the most vile language.

When it ended in a row, as it some times did, he was one of the poorest exponents of the noble art.

A COPRA ship was loading at the wharf. One of the crew, a de cent little fellow, had come ashore to have a pot of beer. Jimmy was there, well primed. He looked at the sailor and opened fire.

For a time, the little chap stood it;

then he knocked Jimmy down. Jimmy refused to get up. “You can’t hit a man when he is down”, he said.

“No,” replied the little man, “but I can get down, too”. Suiting the ac tion to the word, he lay down along side the bigger man, and knocked seven bells out of him.

Now, Jimmy always stored this up as a grievance. Seven months passed’ and the same ship was loading at the wharf. Fletcher was in charge of the hotel. Jimmy appeared, and ordered a long-sieever of beer. Having dealt with this, he stood waving his arms in the air.

“Why the physical jerks, Jimmy?” asked Fletcher. ‘Tin going looking for him,” was the reply.

An hour later, Fletcher went along the street, by the B.P. store. There m a doorway, was Jimmy. He was sopping a bloody nose, and his eye was rapidly closing. “I see you found him Jimmy”, was Fletcher’s only re mark. J