Topicalities

EXTRACTS from a letter from an American serviceman “somewhere in the New Hebrides” ;- “You told me that once the island virus got into me I would find it hard to get out. Well, I think it has got me now.

No foolin’. When the time comes for us to go home I’m going to be a sorry lad.

I have made one or two good friends among the Europeans here and have gotten along well with the natives. I have investigated the various means oi earning a living and find that several would be suitable —there’s just one thing has me stumped. And that’s the ‘Pan demonium,’ Such a balled-up mess that is! What I’m wondering now is—what would be their policy towards an Ameri can? All of the Britishers to whom I have spoken seem to be taking a beat ing, while the French prosper. What the hell kind of a business is that?” * A FORMER resident of Papua, who feels strongly for certain “dumped"

Public Servants, writes to suggest that an alternative to ANGAU might be AUPAP (“Papua” in reverse) and that it could be taken to mean “Australian Unit of Papuan Administrative Piracy”! * AN “ it-can-now-be-revealed ” story comes from Fiji concerning the defences of Suva in the early days of the Pacific war. These were con spicuously absent.

For one particular battery, although sites had been prepared, there were no guns. The authorities decided to fool the enemy and, one dark night, two cylindrical objects were unloaded from a ship. There was a lot of fuss about get ting the traffic off certain carefully dark ened Suva streets, along which the “guns” were to be hauled, and the town buzzed with rumour and suppressed excitement.

A climax was reached when a lorry driver, while the procession was in the centre of the town, “inadvertently” turned on his headlamps, revealing the unmis takable shape of the weapons to the gathering multitudes.

History does not say whether the infor mation leaked through to the enemy; but it does seem a pretty cumbersome way of fooling old Tojo. Were there so many Fifth Columnists in Fiji at the begin ning of the war? * Lieutenant-colonel j. b. k.

TAYLOR, OC Fiji Military Forces, tells how, during all the months they were waiting in the Solomons to go into action in Bougainville, they did not see a drink. Then, one afternoon, Major Dick Freeman rang up Colonel Taylor to ask him to come to afternoon tea. The Colonel went; and, after he arrived, Major Freeman said that for some unaccountable reason someone had

sent him a cake. However, all the other officers also had cakes and this one had been lying around for weeks—tossed about from pillar to post. “But,” said Freeman, “we’ll open it this afternoon and give it a go.”

He gave the parcel to the boys and, after a while, one of them returned and said: “This isn’t cake, sir.”

“Well, what is it?” asked the Major.

“It’s whisky, sir.”

Colonel Taylor thus concludes his story: “I wish you could have seen Free man’s face!”

HOW this civilisation gets them! There seems nothing for it but to coin another word—“Civ vo“—being the direct antithesis of “Troppo.” A nostal gic extract from a case-hardened Terri torian of long standing: “When I read that Wewak article of Judy Tudor’s, I thought of the many nice walks I had had around that country— along the pretty beach, and then off the road to Waganara, up and over the mountains to Aletoa, upwards and down wards, and so on to Kabiliwop, How I'd like to be there to-day! I would walk it, and like it. If I ever get back again’

I’ll never moan about bad roads, kunai, dirty house-kiaps, etc. In fact, I might even apologise to the natives for having gone crook at them ‘along before.’ ” * DR. THOMAS WOOD is remarkable in many ways. He is a composer and conductor; but, unlike some top ranking English musicians who toured Australia, he did not, when departing hurl abuse or make loud remarks about “colonial lack of culture.*’ Instead, he wrote two books—“Cobbers” and “Cobbers Campaigning"—which were as popular on this side of the globe as in England.

Recently, he re-visited Australia, and made a tour of New Guinea, where he conducted the brass band of the Royal Papuan Constabulary, Picturesque in their blue and red uniforms, the boys played Handel’s “iargo,” “O Sole Mio” and (of course) “Colonel Bogey.” It is reported that Dr. Wood was delighted with the performance.

He later visited some of their villages, where they sang some of their songs for him. He scribbled down the scores, and in one instance, recognised a German folk-song. Inquiries brought the informa tion that it had been taught to the village many years ago by a Polynesian mission teacher who came from the former Ger man territory of Western Samoa. * RAPE-VINE wireless transmitted this story from New Guinea to the “PIM Two natives are standing on the beach, watching a procession wading ashore from a ship’s boat. The prqcession is led by a dishevelled gentleman, in a very new solar topee, and with trousers rolled up to his knees.

First native: This big fella Minista ’e come when?

Second native: No got. ’E no come.

First native (indicating gentleman now splashing ashore with wet and muddy trousers): What name this fella?

Second native: O ’im, ’e something nothing—’im ’e kanaka belong Sidinee, The Rev. J. FI Metcalfe, of the Methodist Mission in the Solomons, expects to take up duty in New Zealand while waiting to return to his overseas work.