The Solomons

How Solomons Planters Returned To

They Loaded "Southern Cross" in Sydney and Then Signed on as Crew

AROUND dozen old residents of the British Solomons sailed out of Sydney Harbour on March 12 on a refurbished and jaunty “Southern Cross” (the well-known communications yacht of the Melanesian mission).

It was a happy occasion. The planters and traders were returning to their homes after bitter experiences in “the jungle”—which is how most people, who were forced out of their islands by the Jap invasion in 1942, describe Australia, where they have spent four years, earning a living as best they could.

The “Southern Cross,” 250 tons, built in the early '3o’s, was seized by the Navy about the same time; and. for four years, she carried out dangerous jobs in dangerous waters. But the marks of war and rough usage have disappeared under a coat of gleaming white; and she seemed to be as eager as the planters to shake herself clear of the Sydney waterfront and head out into the blue waters of the north-east.

A photograph of the returning Solomon Islanders, and a list of their names, are published on the front cover of this issue.

They are not only sailing the “Southern Cross” back to the Solomons. Before they could sail, they had to load the ship themselves Australia’s famous “waterside loafers” refused the job. mHE BSI Administration let it be J. known some time ago that residents might return, if they could find transport—and at their own risk, so far as getting supplies in the archipelago is concerned. But there were no ships going to the Solomons. The unhappy evacuees in Australia looked forward to a further period of misery.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the “Southern Cross” was released; and, thanks to the tireless efforts of the tireless secretary of the Melanesian mission. Major H. S.

Robinson, she was reconditioned and refitted for her work in the Solomon Islands in a very short time.

The mission wanted a crew to take

the little ship from Sydney to the Solo mons, where the usual crew of trained Solomon Islands natives will be em barked. The evacuees wanted a passage to the Solomons.

The matter was very simply arranged.

The mission supplied the passages. The passengers supplied the crew. Every man of them undertook to carry out some necessary duty or other, All were smiling. The ship was sche duled to leave on March 1. That was when the front-page photograph was taken.

T>UT the smiles were premature. The £> s hip was not permitted to sail. On the wharf there lay a considerable cargo foodstuffs and ‘various supplies which were urgently needed in the Solo mons. For some reason which no one qu it e understands, the Sydney wharfies —the most notorious organisation of work-dodgers and cargo-pillagers in Aus tralia—refused to load the ship.

After some davs of hold-up the mis sion secretary, Major Robinson, nut his pr ide in his Docket and called upon the waterside czars. It was a mission affair, he said; neither the ship nor the cargo represented profit-making of any kind; would the czars graciously permit his team of amateur seamen to load his non profit-making ship? The czars of the Waterside Union graciously gave per mission.

And so, on March 6 and 7, the spectacle on the wharf at Darling Harbour would have gladdened the heart of all Solomons old-timers.

The lads pictured on the front-cover put their backs into it, with a will. There was “Tony” Olsen at the winch; A. M.

Andresen (decorated as an AIB man in World War II) was at the guide-rope; burly G. R. Younger was tossing sacks 0 f flour around like the athlete he was 25 years ago; Seton (another decorated AIB man)—big and powerful—and the younger Elkington—lean, brown and fit,

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A recent photo of the “Southern Cross.”

and smiling cheerfully—were down in the hold, stacking the cargo; Mill and “Dick” Laycock—whose sardonic sense of humour was given full play—were hand ling the cargo on the wharf; even “Pop”

Markham, now over 70, was giving a hand—and all the cargo that was wait ing was stowed in creditable time.

A similar scene was enacted on March 7. And then Captain Upwood and his officers and passenger-crew stood by.

Surely now they would be permitted to get away.

First one formality and then another held up the ship. But she finally sailed on March 12.

FEW of the returning Islanders knew, when they left how they were going to get from their port of disem barkation to their homes. They did not know whether there was anything left of their homes, except a few charred sticks.

But they went gladly, nonetheless.

Take the case of Mr. H. A. Markham, which is typical. The veteran was sent away from his beautiful plantation on Marovo Lagoon—one of the show places of the Solomons —in 1942. He has spent most of the intervening four years in hospital. His plantation was In the middle of one of the major Solomon Is lands battlefields (Munda), and there is nothing of it left —even the coconut trees were cut down to make way for an air field.

But Mr. Markham was one of the most excited and sprightly of the returning Islanders. He did not know what he was going to do —he wanted only to get back to the site of his old home, where he would make plans for the future.

“Better to sleep on the beach, and try to build up something again, than kick your heels uselessly in this goddam place,’’ said one of the travellers; and they all signified hearty agreement.

That started them off on tales of their battles with Australian officialdom battles for passports, battles with ration ing and taxation authorities, battles for permission to carry luggage endless, merciless battles with bureaucrats whose one apparent ambition is to knock back the urgent suppliant, and who cannot get the idea that these were people gladly de parting from a strange land for their own homes, and rehabilitation. rERE are no general stores in the Solomons, yet. Every returning resident has to make his own arrangements. Consequently, every man was anxious to buy foodstuffs, clothing, tools, engine parts and supplies—a hun dred and one things needed on a remote plantation, dependent on its own re sources.

It is the hot season in Sydney. Goods generally are hard to find, and sales people unfriendly and unco-operative.

The evacuees' task, in trying to buy and ship stores, in the circumstances, was very difficult and discouraging. How ever, after days of effort, most of their goods had been bought and transported to the wharf beside the friendly “Southern Cross.”

Then, as already described, they had to set to and load the ship themselves! fITHERE is one man who will fervently X welcome the sprightly white ship, when she arrives in the Central Solomons —namely, Dr. Baddeley, Bishop of Melanesia.

The “Southern Cross” —seventh of her line —was specially constructed for his work, in the ’thirties. Everything to

make life in the tropics more endurable —refrigeration, ventilation, cleanliness and comfort had been provided for; there is a chapel and an altar, alongside the Bishop’s suite. This is the handy little ship that was taken from the Bishop by the Navy, and sent to war, crippling the mission’s far-flung activities, which are carried on mostly by water trans port.

But the Bishop of Melanesia stayed on in the Solomons and got around some how in anything that would float. Came May, 1942, and the Jap invasion. Still the Bishop stayed, ducking from native village to native mission station, mostly afoot, and often just one hop ahead of the hurrying Japs. As he himself des cribed it, he “lived like a rat” —but he did not leave the Solomons until the Japs had gone; and he carried on the work of the Melanesian mission.

If —as so many of us believe—ships are sentient beings, the “Southern Cross” probably will wag her tail when she greets the Bishop, after this long parting.