Boys

Papuans Will Be

Some Experiences With Cooks

By “Misima”

OMI was as black as ink and had woolly kinky hair. Nothing remarkable about this, as he was a full-blooded Papuan native.

The most remarkable thing about him was his intense stupidity, coupled with an engaging smile. That smile saved him many a time from an exasperated over seer. The whole top of his head seemed to drop backward, and his face split from ear to ear. Even his ears lay back at big jokes—usually his worst mistakes.

When Omi came to work in the “Hole”,

as the mine was called, he was tried on various jobs, and finally finished up trucking. Plenty of brawn and not too much brain was needed for that. He knocked off various bits of skin, until one day the other truckers ran to the overseer and reported that Omi had hurt his hand badly.

The overseer went to investigate and found Omi pushing his truck with one hand and holding the little finger of the other, which had the top joint missing, up in the air.

“How did you do that?”

“Tsuck hit him.”

“Where this piece from on top?”

“Oh. Taubada, he fall down shute.

Bimeby he go Bom-Bom” (stamper bat tery), and Omi grinned a bigger grin than ever, as he scrambled up the ladder

on his way to hospital.

Toby was also a full-blooded Papuan.

His career, until I met him, had not been without its highlights and excite ment, but to look at him none would suspect that he had been the cause of many a man’s headache, and also tummy-ache. He was well built, and had an intelligent face. Normally, that in telligence was dormant; but, when it really worked, its machinations were quite remarkable. He could always find a wrong way to do a thing, and look both clever and happy doing it.

One day, he came to me and confi dentially informed me that he was a cook. As my cook had got himself en tangled in the domestic life of a lad much bigger than himself and was suffer ing a hang-over while waiting for the police, and as Toby looked 0.K., I gave him the job.

However, he remained only six days, during which time he carefully ab stracted four of my best handkerchiefs and two pairs of shorts for himself.

When found out, he emphatically denied it, and blamed the previous boy.

As he also blamed the previous boy for a lot of other things of which I knew nothing, I made enquiries, and discovered that the only mistake he had made was that it had not been the previous boy who was responsible.

The limit of my endurance was reached when he put cochineal in the bread. The first time I saw it, I took ten grains of quinine and two aspirins and a nip of whisky, and went to bed. But the con scientious lad brought me some sand wiches.

He is a good lad in the fields—and will stop there.

SPEAKING of cooks, and of Islands cooks in particular, here is one of my experiences.

He was youthful, full of good humour, anr< we called him Dick. He was fat and soft-looking, and liked butter and sugar, taken neat. We often wondered whether it was better to lock the sugar and butter up, or lock up Dick. We tried the first method with a great reduction in quan tity used, and gradually extended the lock and key to everything eatable.

Dick would have a go at anything. He was a true experimenter. When taxed with having eaten anything, he promptly denied ever having seen it. But the tummy-aches he had at times were ter rible, if his expression meant anything.

Only once did I ever see him at a loss for an excuse. A horse had just been brought to the job, the first one Dick had seen, and it got into the garden, Dick was sent to chase it out. He got within twenty yards of the horse, and waved his hand, and said: “Go on horsey, you go, Taubada talk you go.”

The horse still cropped the herbage, and Dick went closer and said; “Go on, shake it up, close up Taubada wild.”

The horse took no notice and Dick, getting brave, picked up a small stick and carefully struck the horse on the nose.

What happened next was like an ex plosion. It was too quick for the eye to follow. The horse threw up his head, and snorted, about two feet from Dick’s ear.

Dick was off the mark like an Olympic runner. He grabbed his calico with one hand, turned round, his ears lay back, his eyes stuck out, and his elbows worked madly, as he left the vicinity, all in one movement.

I drove the horse out, and we found Dick behind the stove. Before he came

out, he asked if the horse had gone, but he never explained why he ran. It was the only time he did not have a really ingenious excuse.

We had to get rid of Dick as general factotum. He had been given orders to prepare a fowl for dinner. It was to be plucked and cleaned by the time we got home, so we could look it over. In such cases, we had learned, it was best to look first and cook afterwards.

We (three of us) got home about the samei time, and were having a spot, when Richard brought the fowl in a dish. It looked reasonably clean, outside, but Dick explained that he had not yet removed its innards. Leaving the fowl and dish on the table, he got a dipper of hot water and carefully poured it over the plucked bird. For a second things were normal; and then, with a terrific squawk, and a flurry of water, the bird left the aish and went through the door like a bullet.

With great presence of mind, Dick gave chase, and eventually the fowl was re trieved. Dick was very excited, and was helpless with laughter—until one of my mates took him grimly Into another room and closed the door.

We had a new cook, next day, and we did not eat that fowl. It did not seem right to eat a thing that had been tor lured like that. But Dick reckoned it was the right method to clean a fowl, as the feathers did not get dirty. Of course, he wanted them for his hair.

Mr, J. H. MacDonald, District Officer in Manus, New Guinea, has arrived in Aus tralia on furlough. The European resi dents of the Admiralty Group gathered at a farewell party on May 20, and ac corded good wishes to the popular DO.