Seen by Judy Tudor

Away From It All With Frisbie

The Wartime Angle on a South Seas Story as Seen by Judy Tudor

mo quote Mr. Frisbie against himself: X “A good South Seas book is avowedly escape reading—and as such has a healing effect on the frayed nerves of civilised man.”

Or civilised woman. Lost in a jungle of towering concrete and interminable pavements; adrift in a sea of wartime regulations, iambus and whatnot, it was with relief that 1 wandered, this past week, through the pages of the latest Frisbian story —“Island of Desire” —for (I quote): “Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery; Else the traveller worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on ... ”

“Island of Desire,” published by Double day Doran, of New York, for $2.50, should, I imagine (had not the publishers willed it otherwise) have been “Marooned by Request,” which we were promised some months ago.

The story comes in two parts: the first, dealing with the events of several years ago on Pukapuka; and the second when, shortly after Pearl the author, en route to Rarotonga with his four children, voluntarily camps on lonely Suwarrow atoll while the ketch Hurry Home, goes off on a bit of business of its own. Here they meet two other sea farers (ex the cutter Vagus ) and together they face a hurricane of full maturity.

But whether or not the story will actually conform to the specifications set by Fris bie, and soothe the nerves of to-day’s civilised beings, is a moot point. I am inclined to think that it is likely to drive them to the final stages of frustrated despair, the foundations of which have already been laid by long years of war.

PERHAPS at this stage of the game it is necessary to explain the civilised world to the untouched (if any) islands of the Pacific, instead of, as for merly, explaining the islands to the civi lised world.

Time was when the dispirited clerk, the hen-pecked husband, the romantic flapper, could, if they so wished, find solace an(T escape from suburban reality per medium of South Seas literature. The things that prevented them following in the footsteps of their heroes emanated solely from within themselves: wherewithal, initiative and the guts to heave themselves out of their own little mud puddle.

But to-day, such is the sorry mess we have brewed ourselves, no amount of money, initiative or intestinal fortitude will get one any place. Had it been otherwise, I too, during this last week, should have heaved my best bonnet over the windmill, got me a ship and headed for the blue horizon, there to dally on a beach or in a blue lagoon, drink me a coconut and let the rest of the world go to the devil —even as Mr. Frisbie.

But alas, there is a war on. are no ships going that way and—even more to the point—l have not yet reached the blessed age of 45. At 45 the Common wealth Government officially loses inter est in the female within her gates—and thus have we had the pathetic newspaper advertisements of the last few years for anything from waitresses to Tivoli ballet girls, always followed by the proviso: “Must be over 45.” After 45 a woman hereabouts may go as she listeth; if she still listeth.

So, like the traveller in the poem, l— and millions like me—have been forced

to voyage on oscillating unhappily between ‘a bachelor unit—suit business lady” and this office, clinging by my eye brows to crowded buses; being encour aged to invest in war-loans; being ear bashed (charming American phrase!) by politicians if I do not; going without meat when the butchers strike; without newspapers when the newspapers strike; without hot baths when the miners strike— ad nauseam ; judging myself for tunate in that I have been ‘‘gainfully employed” and have, so far, thus escaped being thrown into a pickle factory by that bogey, Manpower. Yet all this while I am conscious that in other latitudes palms wave, the sea is blue, and life is comparatively uncomplicated.

IT is sensible, sense that one wayfarer speaks to Ropati towards the end of the story, as together they await the approaching hurricane: ‘‘Even if we have a hurricane,” he says, “it will be nothing to complain about. A hurricane is a thing of Nature; it is one of the inevitable things of the physical world —like earthquakes and seismic waves. A man is a fool to fret over the inevitable.

“But think of the people in Europe suffering indescribable agonies when they might be living in peace and happiness!

Those are the kind of calamities that both discourage and terrify a man, and simply because they are unnecessary.

When I feel like pitying myself, I think

of bombed London; and now, when I start thinking about the danger my cutter is In I turn my thoughts to the on a 1 rubber rafU I( my vesslf°s lost U an act of God; but if those aviators die at sea it will be through the imbecility of man.”

B tT rp . , ~, 1 .j; UT to our story. It tells at first of the romance of Robert Dean Frisbie (Ropati) and a lovely island girl, Desire; their marriage and the* arrival of their four children; and, subsequently, the tragic death of Desire from that curse of Polynesia tuberculosis. And threaded through this main theme are the highlights and sidelights of the lotus-eater’s life on a Polynesian islet, in the true Frisbie style, that we know from his former books. <

Now, having been nurtured in the Melanesian tradition—which, incidentally, Mr. Frisbie dismisses as “all cannibals and square-face gin”—l must admit that the true Polynesian angle is slightly beyond my grasp and that I found Book Two, with its back-drop of stern reality in a hurricane and, to a lesser extent, the present war, easier to reconcile with life as I know it. Perhaps it is a long line of sceptical Scots ancestors; or the aforesaid Melanesian or a deep-rooted belief that even on a Pacific island, life must have some purpose other than drift, if one is not to go completely troppo; or because I know a little of a life of isolation among native people whose culture is so basically different from our own—that I feel a little like the small boy who saw a giraffe for the

first time. That is, that I don’t entirely believe it.

Perhaps Ropati does not either; but in the pleasant blending of truth and fic tion in his latest book, he has at least combined all the ingredients to tickle the imagination of the stay-at-home Ameri can, for whom, doubtless, the book is written. This passage, for example: “For in the quiet hours of night, while lying on our sleeping mat, only vaguely conscious of the-snores of the Watch and Ward out woman-chasing in their dreams —while longine once again to drink tea and read Browning—while pondering chastity, purity in thought and deed, sup pression of the bestial craving of the lower man—how often do we hear the crunch of poraf gravel under bare feet, a soft incontinent laugh, husky girl voices whispering! * The stairs creak; the folds of the mosquito net ripple; the odour of scented coconut oil insinuates itself into our thoughts as welcomelv as the fingers, the lips, the breasts of an atoll Calypso hungry for love.”

If that doesn’t make the hackles rise on every tired, war-wearv American from Seattle to New Orleans, and engender a desire to start out for Pukapuka forth with, then I don’t know anything about Americans.

BUT it is a goodly tale, and fascinating withal, even for a Melanesian real ist. The description of how Frisbie (now a trader) disposes of a gross of' lady’s bloomers and a gross of jews’ harps, at 2/6 each, to a population which has hitherto had no truck with either, is worth the cost of the book; and the other streaks of humour, therefore, come to you gratis: “Desire’s sisters are diving from the little wharf I have built into the lagoon,” the author observes, at one point. “Three native boys are with them, but they seem unaware that they are swimming and playing with four naked maidens. When I was their age such a sight would have shocked me beyond measure. Even now I cannot look at them without an impulse to snort and paw the earth; the native boys look at them with clean uncon sciousness of sex. Howbeit. if I am to tell of the Christmas holidays I must turn my eyes from the lovely and (to me) exciting scene.”

PART two of the story is, as I say. a closer relation to reality, as a Melanesian traditionalist might understand it. Captain Prospect, of the decrepit ketch, Hurrv Home, who dreamed up a tourist resort on Suwar row. complete with beach umbrellas and a golf course running from islet to islet alone- the encircling reef; Ropati and the four “cowbovs,” Johnny, Jakey, Elaine and Nga; Takataka, the Hurry Home’s second mate, a native of Palmerston Island, who speaks the strange Engj|sh introduced by William Marsters, long ago; the ship’s cook, Oli-Oli; Tagi, the first-mate; and John Pratt and Ronald Powell, who arrived later at the atoll in Vagus —all these are real people, and their story is one with which it is easy to cdme to grips.

When America came into the war in 1941, Frisbie decided to do what he could to help Uncle Sam, and he and his chil dren headed for Rarotonga on the first leg of their journey to civilisation. They travel with Captain Prospect, on the Hurry Home, but are voluntarily marooned on Suwarrow atoll while the ketch makes a round-trip to Nassau and Manihiki. Their camp life on the atoll is fascinatingly described; and then, in the van of the hurricane, which almost destroyed the atoll, two visitors, Pratt

and Powell, come into the anchorage on the cutter Vagus.

The hurricane is a full-fledged fury of nature, which blew the earth and vege tation off the islets into the lagoon and lashed the sea into mountainous waves which pounded across Anchorage Island where the party was camped, slicing two channels through the jungle-clad earth and sand, and reducing it to three small sand cays. The three men and the four children saved themselves from the holo caust only by lashing themselves to the topmost branches of the strongest trees.

This is the climax: “Those were three hours of madness.

We experienced something there is no name for in my vocabulary: a sort of insane exhilaration. The violence of the wind had broken through our material bodies to enter our spirits, so we experi enced a wild madness in keeping with the storm itself. Once I wanted to scream louder than the wind, and I believe I did scream, but my poor voice was in audible even to myself. Of physical sen sations I remember only that my eyes burned.

“ . . . About 2 a.m. the wind shifted suddenly . . . and then it was that the awful thing came down on us—but alas, I have used my superlatives, I have no words left to describe it. When we saw the comber looming out of the rain we were struck dumb with awe. Distinctly

I remember bracing myself for death.

Its noise could be heard above the shriek ing of the wind. It raged towards us, engulfing everything in its path. It -seized the fallen tamanu tree and flung it at us. The comber loomed above us, its crest 30 feet high; .and I remember clos mg my eyes tightly, gritting my teeth, holding my breath, feeling every nerve come up taut.

“There was a moment of crashing branches, rushing water. My life rope bit into my flesh; then the ends were jerked from my hands. The comber grip ped me and rolled me under. It pitched me this way and that. My head struck something and I nearly lost conscious ness. I thought I could hear my children screaming for help . . . then the water subsided; and then, sudden quietness.

“It was fully a moment before I opened my eyes. When I did I saw Johnny lying face downwards directly below me her arms and legs gripping the branches. I was wedged in among a great mass of branches high above her. The big tamanu had been flung against the two others in whmh the tree house had stood; these had fallen, with Jakey, Elaine and Pratt tied to their limbs, and then all three trees had been pitched against the one Johnny was in. It had stood! Jakey, his arm badly lacerated, was clinging to his limb, which now lay horizontal, three feet off the ground. Elaine hung limply from her life rope and I thought her dead until I had climbed down to her and found her only stupified by the shock.

Pratt was hanging to his limb, one rib broken, limp and unconscious. Johnny and Nga were unhurt, and Powell and I had escaped with scratches.”

IT is good stuff. A “green isle” in a war-torn world that should and could, one somehow still believes, be beautiful if it were nol for the civilised antics of we Europeans who have taken two thousands years off to perfect ‘a system which is swiftly driving us to the borderline of cynical despair, and from which there appears to be no escape other than self-destruction.