—Puk-Puks

There They Were —Puk-Puks All Round Us!

By Seahorse

I’M abandoning crocodile hunting in favour of tadpoles. Over the years, I’ve had quite a bit to do tvith our New Guinea pukpuks, but always per knee-length boot along the mud flats in daylight. So the suggestion the other evening of a hunt from a canoe sounded exciting, “I know the very spot where pukpuks were invented,” said young Ken eagerly.

Eight o’clock that night found our launch outside the entrance to Ketsiwero Lagoon, and ourselves outside some sand wiches and cocoa prepared obligingly by Ken’s wife. We made the launch fast to a tree just inside the lagoon, and took to the out-rigger-type canoe we had towed with us. I sat in the bow with one rifle; Ken behind me with another; Len, armed with a shotgun which fired a solid lead musket ball instead of shot, sat just abaft the platform amidships, on which Freddie was stationed with the battery and spot light. In the stern sat two native paddlers.

We glided noiselessly half a mile along the mangrove lined shore without seeing a thing.

“I’m going to roll meself a smoke,” said Ken. He did so; licked it, and placed it between his lips. While he was digging for matches, Freddie gave a warning hiss and there centred in the spotlight’s beam we saw the glowing coals of a croc’s eyes.

Ken smothered a gasp of excitement and flung the unlighted cigarette into the water. All the safeties came off as the canoe shot towards the croc, Ken fired at about 30 yards, but struck a few feet short. The target submerged. We searched around for a few minutes with out locating him, and then continued silently along the shore.

“And I did me flamin’ cigarette in over him, too!” growled Ken. ‘Shush, another one,” said Freddie, excitedly. And there he was, about eight or nine feet long, moving in an arc that would take him round the canoe. His eyes glowed with a strange red light, un like those of any other animal I had seen.

“Now don’t fire until you’re right on top of him,” we warned each other in whispers. And so, when about 10 yards separated us. the canoe was swung broad side on to the croc, and the sinking of the Bismarck was re-enacted; The water jumped and spouted all round the croc’s head.

However, theire was one important difference between our operation and that which deprived the Kriegsmarine of one

of its most powerful units. Bismarck was sunk! Our enemy languidly submerged and, followed by the faithful Freddie’s spotlight, passed leisurely under the canoe and disappeared with a disdainful flick of his tail.

“Hey! What’s wrong with you blokes!” yelled Ken. “I thought I was the world’s worst shot, but Gawd ...”

We suggested that it was probably the excitement. “Sh-h-h,” said Freddie again.

Ken hadn’t exaggerated when he said we’d find plenty of sport in this lagoon.

“Let me have a go at this one myself,”

I suggested. The croc swam slowly to wards us and turned sideways at about five yards.

“Go on, yer mug, let ’im have it or he’ll get away,’’ Ken hissed in my ear.

But he didn’t. My round lifted the top of the croc’s skull out as neatly as a boy pulls the top off a hot pie. He rolled his yellow belly up in a smother of bloody water and the two paddlers pulled him into the stern.

When a croc is killed in the water like that, it is necessary to secure him within half a minute or so, because as soon as he belches he starts to sink and the hunter loses him.

“There you are,” I said proudly, “that fixed him!”

“So it oughter,” scoffed Ken. “You put the muzzle of your rifle in his back pocket and pull the trigger. Of course it’d blow his skull off!” He fished out his tobacco tin again. “Now perhaps I can have that smoke.”

HE made a very neat job of the cigarette, pushing the loose strands back in and tucking the ends with a match stick. He stuck it in his mouth, scratched a light, and we all found our selves looking into two lovely red eyes a few feet from the canoe and coming slowly for us. I fired in a flash and hit the croc in the neck. He charged.

Ken fired and struck him in the snout.

He flew through between the canoe and outrigger, and opened his jaws at the boy in the stern, who promptly walloped him with his paddle. Len swivelled round with his shotgun and shot a three-quarter inch diameter lead ball into the scaly monster from about two feet. The croc

thrashed madly, and throwing himself backwards he clamped his jaws on the outrigger. Freddie let go into the broad back with a .45, holding the spotlight in one hand. Ken seemed to be having trouble with a jammed bolt, so I leant out past him and put a round into the red eyes from six feet or so. He promptly belched and sank, leaving the now familiar stream of blood.

“Confound it, we’ve lost him,” Ken cursed. “I’d rather not hit a croc at all, than get one and then lose him!”

We agreed.

“Another confounded smoke, too!” he added disgustedly.

We forgot the lost pukpuk and roared.

The joke was too good.

“Anyway, I’m to have a smoke now no matter what happens. If the biggest puk puk in New Guinea shoves his head up he can wait till I’ve smoked a cigarette!”

Freddie switched off the spotlight and we drifted in the dark while Ken dis coursed on cigarettes. At last a match flared, and was extinguished; the cig arette glowed fiercely as Ken sucked a charge down into his very boots.

“Oh boy,” he sighed as he let it trickle back into the night air.

Fred carelessly flicked on the spotlight.

“Oh, my god!” he gasped. “Look at him!”

He was worth looking at indeed! The croc we had in the canoe was seven feet long. “This bloke is as much as that be tween the eyes!” Ken said in a hoarse whisper.

The cigarette sizzled as it hit the water.

I ruffled another five into my magazine and we opened rapid fire in an instant.

But the monster disappointed us. He opened his four-feet-long jaws and made a sound like a cough, then leisurely sub merged.

“You coward,” yelled Ken, “come out an’ fight.”

“Hey!” I said, “don’t say that so loud.

He might hear you!”

“But this bloke’s worth getting. His skin’s worth three bob an inch. Come up, yer scaly so-n-so.”

“Quick then,” I said, “light another smoke.”

We fired on several smaller crocs hid ing among the rocks in the next couple 9 f hundred yards, but they all escaped into the water. And Ken still hadn’t managed to get a smoke.

Then we arrived in the mouth of a muddy gutter about 12 feet wide. The spotlight revealed two sets of eyes in the gully’s mouth and we approached them cautiously. The water was about three feet deep here. The boys were touching the muddy bottom with their paddles.

The first fusillade killed one croc out right. Then Ken fired at the second, smashing his upper jaw. He slithered diagonally away for about 15 feet, then charged straight at me, where I was sit ting in the bow of the canoe.

I fired, hitting him in the head. Ken followed suit and also hit him in the head. He went under near the out-rigger.

L s “?° d x up ’ • r l ifle ready - “I wonder if he’s dead,” I said.

“Yes, he’s dead,” said Ken. N ° lt?s Jl i st ; a scaly trick,” said Fred die. “Be careful.”

Ken got one of the paddles up from the S^6I J I started feeling about in the mud. The “he’s dead/he’s not” argument went on till the pukpuk himself the question by rearing up right along ™ trying to get lnto the canoe With me. I poked the muzzle in his eve and pressed the trigger.

AND that was cur undoing. The ex plosion, an inch from the hewn side of the canoe, made a hole about six

inches in diameter and running in a split for about three feet aft.

In about 10 seconds the canoe was resting on the bottom; and the hunters had become the hunted.

To get away in the general direction of home and mother, was now imoerative.

Situated as we were just then, we constituted manna from the pukpuk’s special heaven. And the minute or so that it took us—loaded with the spotlight, battery, arms, ammunition, etc.—to reach a strip of mud a few feet wide between the water and the mangroves, kindly left by the receding tide, was the longest I hope I ever have to live through.

I lost my sandals with the first two steps away from the canoe, and at the same time I didn’t feel much like pausing to search for them.

We found a spot solid enough to support the battery; then searched the roots of the mangroves behind us finding them free from reptiles. There didn’t appear to be any more in the gully either. But out in the lagoon, and further up the shore, the telltale red eyes moved malevolently about. We considered we were safe for a while at least, with caution. «Af _y__ ... -

cheerfulness,bfablf get a sSoke

now ‘ “NO!” we shouted in chorus.

“But why?” he said, “man’s got to

have a smoke some time.”

“Every time you light one of those, a pukpuk pops up. Put it away,” we told him.

And by constant reference to this poor joke we sustained our sagging spirits for some time.

Now, we had moved right round the shore of the lagoon, and our mishap had occurred just inside the entrance but on the opposite side to where we had left the launch. The little point behind which it was moored was quite plain in the spotlight—only 40 yards away.

There was a native village about 400 yards from the mouth of the lagoon, and we exercised our vocal prowess for a while in the hope of attracting some body’s attention. It was good practice, but a bit strenuous, and we had to give it up after a few minutes with no results.

Then it was noticed that on the other side of the gully the ground seemed pretty high. I handed my flashlight over and the two native paddlers set out to try and reach the village along the higher ground. They’d be safe up there, of course.

And this proved to be the right move.

Twenty minutes later a large canoe shot into the lagoon and we weres able to re lax somewhat.

“Yes, there we were, pukpuks all round us . . .”

Tadpoles for me, definitely!