Base Traders, Proprietary

Short Story: Base Traders, Proprietary

By Bryan Kenwood

LONG AL completed his purchases at the Canteen Issue Point, and drove his truck around to the tent lines at the rear. He pulled up in front of the second row, and sought the third tent.

There were two freshly vacated nail holes in the pole of the tent; the homely name plate, “TRADER TOM” was absent from its accustomed place.

“Owshegoin’. Tom!” called Al.

A grunt was the sole response.

“Spine bashin’. eh?”

“Yeah. I’m full of remorse to-day,” re plied Tom, wearily.

"Well, snap out of it! How about those six Hagen axes you promised me for to-day?”

Tom got up slowly, as though a great effort were involved. “ ‘Hagen’ axes— huh!” he said, “Longun, I have a con fession to make. You’re one of me mates.

I can’t lie to you any longer. Those ‘Hagen’ axes I’ve been selling you were made right here in Lae.

“But, I can explain everything,” he hastened to add. He was disappointed with life; he must unburden himself to someone, even a hitherto trusting client. ♦ ♦ ♦ YOU know Mambu? The Old Man’s native driver? The Old Man’s a bit pally with some high-up in ANGAU; that’s how it happens he has a native driver. Well, this Mambu is no beginner at commerce. Those ‘Hagen’ axes were made by local talent, under his direction.

Mambu has workshops back in Butibum village. just over the river here.

His boongs get the stones out of the river bed, and take ’em around to Base En gineers. The chaps there grind ’em down into axe-heads. Then the boongs take ’em back to the village, and put the handles and basket-work on, and shine ’em all up with boot polish.

“They’re no native curios, Longun.

They’re put together on the production line like tomahawks are back home . . .

Anyway, it’s all over now. I’ve given the game away.”

Al seated himself on an upturned

packing case. “A quitter, eh?” he said, “though confidentially, I don’t know why that Colonel of yours hasn’t closed your shop before. Still, I guess you cleaned up some cash while you lasted.”

“Profits? Chickenfeed!” Tom was con temptuous. “No, the old man didn’t close me up. I bought him. See, a cobber of mine at the 199th Workshops makes little model fighter planes—rough castings, like this one here. Ten bob’s his price to outsiders, but I buy a lot at seven and six each. Now it seems our Colonel has a little sideline of his own—finishing these planes off, polishing, engraving in signia. and so on. I sell ’em to him at five bob. A dead loss, I know, but it’s worth it. Protection money! Anyhow, it kept me open for business, and making a fair thing, as I thought, on axes, skirts, bows an’ arrows, and so forth.

“But one day, a Yank officer comes in to collect his poison dart blow pipe. (I made it myself, that one). Well, he buys this lump of bamboo all right but he spots one of these rough metal planes.

“ ‘Say’, he inquires, ‘You make these up too?’

“I tell him no, I only job 'em out in the casting. But he’s interested enough to dash out to his jeep, and bring back a completed one. Well, it’s neat enough, with the star and panels marked on the sides and wings; but nothing to go raving over, I think. So I look unimpressed, and I say, how much?

“ ‘This is no ordinary model pursuit plane,’ he says. ‘This is real native han dicraft, entirely made by a boy in the New Guinea Infantry. It’ll show my folks back in the States how these natives catch on to modern ideas. Six pounds.’

“Six pounds, Longun, for a job like this one, just a little bit polished up! So I say, where’d you get it? Well, it seems he got it from this boong soldier’s brother, a boy driving an Australian officer in a jeep. This boy can only speak Pidgin, but the way he says things it’s easy to understand.

“Well, I begin to smell some rats.

Mambu, I think, with that almost pure English Pidgin that he puts on. But I don’t say anything; just keep the wheels of industry turning quietly, as usual.

“And then, a couple of days ago when Im on duty in the office, an ANGAU patrpl-officer comes in. He says he’ll be out in the bush for a month or so, and can he buy a few things to last him over?

Whfie I’m fixing him up, I get him talk ing about the intelligence of the boongs.

He’s a bit caustic at the expense of cer tain Fuzzy-wuzzy Angels, but admits there are some coons about with plenty of smart ideas.

“ ‘Your CO’s driver, for instance,’ he says, and I wait for the info. Well, what he tells me makes me feel ashamed.

“This patrol bloke knows Mambu, And he estimates that Mambu averages ten pounds a week from his curio factory alone. But a week or two ago he banked an extra £IOO with the District Officer; and three days afterwards, another £9O!

“ ‘Where he gets these amounts I don’t know,’ says this ANGAU man. ‘But the Major in charge of the Native Police vouches for the boy, so it must be legi timate. I’ve got an idea that Mambu is selling direct to the Yanks.’

“Well, I make a few discreet inquiries, and sure enough, this mean old Colonel of ours is selling those rough cast planes he gets cheap from me to Mambu for ten bob each! Then it seems Mambu takes the planes back to another depart ment of his plant at Butibum, and has

them brightened up, and the marking put on. When a few are finished, he hides them in the jeep, and then sells them, one at a time, with this soldier-brother story, to individual Yanks. I looked in his tool box, and found six of them ready for sale. £36, Longun, just for a little bit of original organising!

“I got so disgusted with my own lousy efforts, I ripped down the “Trader Tonr’

RECENT reports of a Native’s offer of employment to a European in Lae recalls this incident of the war years in the Territory. The scene is Malahang, Lae; the year 1944.

sign, and bunged it away into the coco nuts behind the camp. If a boong can make ten pounds a week steady, with an occasional £IOO on the side, hell! What sort of a chance do I stand? He’d be paying me wages next!” ♦ ♦ • A WOOLLY black head peeped around the corner into the tent.

“Mastah, me like talkim you long catchim something!”

“Oh, shut up that gabble!” wailed Tom “You’ve ruined me, and now, you like catchim something!”

But Mambu continued imperturbably shedding his Anglicized Pidg;in like a mask. “Mastah Tom, I hear that you are wholesaling cast metal planes to Colonel Dudrop at five pound a gross.

Now the Colonel jobs them to me for as much as ten!—That’s no good to me. 111 deal with you direct—six pounds a gross, eh? I want to cut the middleman out of this racket!”

“Then go to the 199th Workshops!

Out of here, you heathen so-and-so!” cried Tom.

Mambu went but Long A 1 followed him.

They might do business. There was the matter of six “Hagen” axes outstanding.

Long Al, too, would exclude the middle man!