Tropicaities

A STORY from Time: A Lieutenant-Commander had been ashore on Leyte, and was tired. From a small boat in San Pedro Bay he pointed out whatr he thought was his ship, and the coxswain headed for her.

What neither of them knew was that from among the mass-produced ships, as like as Mike and Ike, he had picked out the wrong one.

The Lieutenant-Commander went aboard; crawled into bed in what he thought was his cabin. Presently an officer came around and awakened him. “This is 017, isn’t it?” asked the man from Leyte. “No, that’s down the other way,” he was told.

In 017, the weary Lieutenant- Commander found another officer’s gear. That was too much. He got mad.

He had the gear hauled out on deck and began to throw it overboard.

Observing these wild acts of rage, a messenger rushed to get help from one of the ship’s officers, a full com mander.

“There’s an officer from another ship throwing gear he re ported.

The commander laughed indul gently. The messenger went on: “But it’s your room and your gear, sir.”

The commander remembered that there was a war on. “Well, you’ve got a gun. haven’t you?” he roared.

“Why don’t you shoot the son of a bitch?” * WHICH has points of resemblance to the old New Guinea story.

Way back before the Army dis covered that territory, two Adminis trative officers were hurrying hot-foot to the scene of a native “stouch.”

On the edge of hostile country they stopped for the night in a village rest house. It was the usual grass hut, with a door at each end, and the officers erected their bunks and mos quito nets, one to a side.

Later, each placed his revolver and his torch under his pillow and retired.

Later still, one went out on a noc turnal prowl, somehow got twisted around, came back in the wrong door and, naturally, went to the wrong side of the house to get into what he thought was his bed.

He lifted the net and sleepily began to crawl in. The occupant woke with a start, gave a yell to awaken the dead, grabbed for his revolver, but got the torch and proceeded to belabour the prowler over the head with it. Prow ler, for his part, thinking that he was being attacked by hostile natives, also gave tongue and started in with his fists.

Police-boy guards arriving on the scene, seconds later, with rifles at the ready and electric torches blazing, found two bewildered “Maps” sitting hpH^ 6 ? 00r m £ he ruins of one camp t b rvln^ d « ne shredded mosquito-net, trying to figure out just how it hap pened. *

EXTRACT from a letter from an RAAF lad, somewhere in New Guinea: “We are (but briefly) living with the Yank Navy. And are we living? A long hut on top of a hill where we get all the breeze; sleeping on spring beds with real mattresses and sheets; eating piles of fresh food over which we cannot see!

“In fact it was so comfortable that I couldn’t sleep last night, being a mere Aussie Serviceman and not conditioned to such things. One of our lads took one look at our quarters when we were shown in, then turned and said, ‘Some trenches, huh?’

“We will dream of this food when we shortly move on elsewhere and back to plain Australian bully-beef. Fresh meat and four vegetables for lunch—followed by bread and butter and ice-cream cake.

Mumma!

“Their canteens are terrific. One here is done out in chrome, with all the green tiles and fixings of a high-class soda fountain. Their barber shop has eight chairs going full blast, with everything in the way of equipment from electric clippers upwards.”

The old idea that Australians, by nature, preferred to rough it, is outed by the enthusiasm, if not envy, these young sters show for the equipment and treat ment of American brothers-in-arms.

The Americans have shown beyond all doubt that they can win a major war yet provide some of the comforts of home for their men.

At the same time, one of the major mysteries of wartime Australia is the des tination of so-called luxuries which civi lians have been asked to give up for their fighting men. Servicemen deny that they ever reach the ordinary fighting soldier; where they do go no one knows.

SUVA seems to be having a wet summer.

Because of it an anonymous poet was moved to verse in the “Fiji Times” as follows: It rained and rained and -rained and rained— The average fall was well maintained, And when the roads were just like bogs It started raining cats and dogs; And after a drought of half an hour.

There came a most refreshing shower; And then— most curious thing of all— A gentle rain began to fall.

Next day was also fairly dry, Except for a deluge from the sky, Which wetted the party to the skin/ And after that the rain set in. * ON any comprehensive map of the New Guinea mainland, you can see marked along the long stretch of coastline between the northern tip of the Huon Peninsula and Bogadjim, the name Maclay Coast. Probably few Territorians know where this coast got its name.

F. S. Greenop, in a book “Who Travels Alone,” recently published in Sydney, tell of how a Russian scientist, Nicolai Miklouho Maclay (descendent of one of the many Scots who went to Russia with Peter the Great, in the 17th century, and stayed there) went to Astrolabe Bay in 1871 to study the natives, and who sub sequently gave his name to that part of the coast referred to.

This was 14 years before the German annexation of New Guinea, but in ways known only to himself Maclay was able to establish friendly relations with the natives, who apparently believed that he was some kind of divine creature. Greenop states tha,t years after Maclay returned to civilisation, British scientists to whom he had told his secrets had a sure-fire password to safety and friendship amongst these people near present-day Madang, in the name Maclay.

Maclay was bom in the Ukraine, in 1846, studied law, medicine, and science at different universities in Russia and Germany, and became famous as an explorer in North Africa, Arabia, Asia Minor, the Malayas, Papua and New Guinea.

Practically nothing has been known of Maclay or his work in Australia. From scientific societies in Russia and some of Maclay’s own notes in 'Russian and Ger man, deposited in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, Greenop was able to piece together this story of the first European to live among the people of the New Guinea mainland. * THIS is an “Oh yeah?” story, direct from America. According to one of their Navy newspapers, when Army construction gangs in New Guinea were recently building a couple of miles of road they just seized any old rocks they could lay their hands on and threw them into the rock-crushers and concrete mixers.

Imagine their surprise, then, when the road dried out and they found that it positively “glittered in the sun.” Closer investigation proved that they had used 45,000 ounces of pure gold in the con struction.

The gifted historian who recorded this gem failed to state whether maddened ex-mining members of ANGAU or other Australian Service personnel bore down on the gold-paved highway and tore large pieces out of it. That would perhaps have spoiled a good story.

Lieut.-Colonel F. G. Forster, who for merly commanded the Labour Battalion in Fiji, has taken up duty as District Officer in Rotuma, in succession to the late Mr. A. E. Cornish.