Was Bergmann

A Spy?

By Edwin Gold

rE “PIM,” long before September, ’39, warned Polynesia (and Mela nesia) of Nippon’s aims. I, here at Mangaia, Cook Islands, agreed with every word.

No Jap “tourists” came this way; but a very mysterious German did! His name was Walther Bergmann. He put up at the old Procter home, at Tavaenga, and began soon after to explore Mangaia.

It was the caves that Bergmann was interested in, I observed.

Now, Mangaia Island is honeycombed with caves, in its coral-limestone Makatea cliff, and also inland. Our Teutonic friend set out to penetrate, and examine, all of them that weren’t “tapu.” He wanted, he said, to arrange an export trade in “keo” (cave “marble” —from stalactites) for Mangaia. He said “marble” to be used for fancy-goods, in place of lime carbonate from Mexico, previously sent to Germany, This seemed harmless, and even an advantage to the island, so Bergmann was allowed the run of Mangaia. But the trade never came off; though Bergmann did, in spite of being a Doktor of Science, like Goebbels!

Walter spent his days on Mangaia in cave after cave. He had with him a mysterious black bag, that I’ll swear did not contain bottles. He always went armed with a Luger automatic pistol, too.

He claimed that, as a Nazi officer, he had a right to carry the weapon.

Bergmann was most friendly to me, visiting me several nights a week to hear my gramophone—Wagner and Liszt, “by request.” At times, he’d talk quite casu ally about a World War 11, and the “triumphant vindication of the new Ger many.” There would be, said my guest, a New Order. He described the plan.

We should all be equal; and Germany would be boss. There’d be give-and-take.

That is, we should pfve Deutschland what she asked for, and she would give us aspirin and harmonicas.

He said that Germany could use our orange-blossoms (to distil scent) and she might, when the oranges grew to full size, buy them, to, for juicing, to feed the infant Nazi.

That was a slip! What sort of “scien tist” was this, to expect oranges on branches that had been already robbed of their buds? fI\HE natives told queer tales of the A activities of “te Tiamani” in the vari ous districts of Mangaia. Bergmann went everywhere alone; but apparently did not know that suspicious Mangaians were shadowing him. These Sherlocks heard a whirring noise in the cliff grottoes that the “Herr Doktor” entered, and “a voice speaking in a strange langu age.” But—remembering the automatic! —they dared not be too nosey. Walther entered a different grotto, or cave, each day; and —I suppose, to give versimili tude to his cave-marble yarn—brought out and had fashioned into “penu” (“poi”powders) a number of samples of the local lime-carbonate. When he heard that I’d seen the treasures of Piri-te- Ume-Ume, he was all afire to enter that highly-“tapu” repository of ancient artifacts. But he didn’t get in—we saw to that.

This queer specimen of Nazi world traveller at last quarrelled with the authorities, and was “persuaded” to leave the Group. Some say that the powders he had made at Mangaia are—were, rather!—seen in Spitz’s Papeete curio shop.

Of the Herr “Doktor,” who hadn’t known that oranges grow from orange flowers, but claimed a degree in science, nothing further was heard. Only one thing we remember about him—he had plenty of money, and he fried his fish in butter.

Commencing on November 20, the Qantas Liberator air service to Great Britain will have its terminal port in Sydney.

Planes Will fly direct from Sydney to Learmonth in Western Australia, and from there direct to Colombo across the Indian Ocean—over 3,000 miles and the longest trans-ocean hop in the world.