'Finish-Time’

By Jps

IHE engine room telegraph jangled faintly and the whine of the isel motor eased to a lower rumble.

The kuss-kuss dropped his book, ung his legs over the side of the nk, slipped his feet into a pair of ! sandals, and reached for a shirt, it visible from the single port e, ahead on the starboard bow, 5 the extremity of a low island.

Je thumbed through the Bills of ling—l 2 cases of meat, 2 bales ira sacks, 2 cases beer—awaiting usual call.

Masta! Captain ’e like talk along I ”

Alright, Mapu.” Just the usual ding.

"he Old Man was leaning over bridge rail watching the boats ig prepared.

Well, there she is. Mister,” he I. “The boss-boy knows the pas- J. Just keep the copra shed on end of the pier in line with the se ashore. That’ll lead you up the entrance. And keep ’em ring. We’ve got to get to-hell -gone out of here before sunset.

II hold old Harper’s beer till the Tell ’im it’s buried under other ;o, or something. Otherwise we sn’t got a hope of getting away, won’t like it—but he’ll keep ’em nng till that beer comes ashore. ! remember those finish-time boys we’re taking back to Rabauf.” he engines were at dead slow , and the pinnace in its slings * the side, ready to drop in the it. There was no anchorage here, little ship would circle slowly all afternoon as the motor-pinnace tied back and forth from ship to e, the boats with plantation cargo mpty on the shoreward trip, and (-laden with bagged copra from shore. innace and first boat overside, the -kuss dropped into the boat signalled the pinnace-boy full id. Already there, with their den trade-chests, were twelve new k boys coming to replace the ; ashore who had finished their years’ contract. They were the :al scrawny bunch of raw recruits, witted, lack-lustre-eyed, stupid leep. Even the boat’s crew, their race, made fun of them, push them around. ow the hell could one get any jI work out of a bunch like this, kuss-kuss wondered. And yet, x months, they would be different Amazing what regular and le food could do to them. Soon would be almost fat, their skin

sleek, eyes bright, and vastly more alert of mind.

But, even so, these Sepiks depressed the kuss-kuss. More like faithful dogs than human beings. Seemed to have no emotions whatever.

Imagine them being in love, for in stance . . , All afternoon the work went on.

Harper had disappeared towards the house to read, and reply to his mail; reappearing at intervals to curse the Mate for having let the beer get buried. Wasn’t it an unwritten law that the liquor was always to come ashore in the first boat? What kind of a bloody Mate was he. Three months since the last boat. Hell!

With the sun already low, and the last 20 bags of copra crossing the weighing machine in the shade of the big fig tree, the kuss-kuss sent a chit to the Mate to lift all but one of the boats, and release the beer.

Yes, the finish-time boys were down at the end of the jetty with their boxes. There’d be no delay.

The kuss-kuss and the plantation manager walked down the coral pier.

“Well, there’s your dozen Sepiks” said Harper. “We no sooner break them in than we lose them. Always get the rough stuff out here in the Western Islands. Well, they‘re all yours. Sign here.”

The kuss-kuss, in a quick glance, saw that they were all present, signed, and jumped into the stern of the boat.

“Alright you-fella; get along boat quick-time,” he said to the Sepiks.

Slowly, almost sullenly, the Sepiks rose, shouldered their boxes and moved to the waiting boat. What the blazes is wrong with them, the kuss kuss wondered. After two years on this lousy, mosquito-ridden sand-spit, you’d think they’d come at the gallop.

Then, suddenly, the men were sur rounded by local women, many of them nursing babies, the women crying bitterly. Desolation in their eyes, each clung wailing to her man.

Momentarily, the kuss-kuss hesi tated. But with Harper’s cynical, al most amused gaze on him, and the distant, dull, insistent bellow of the ship’s hooter sounding the Old Man’s impatience, this was no time for sentiment. Still, it made you think.

“Alright, come on you-fella. Maski this-fella fashion all man ’e cry allasame piccanny. Now get along boat quick-time.”

At the same time the boat’s crew seized the boxes and passed them quickly down. Reluctantly the Sepiks pushed the women aside and stepped down. “Alright, passim line ’long pinnace. Well, so long, Harper. See you in March.”

As the tow-line took the strain

with a jerk, and the boat swung her bow seaward and surged away from the pier, the Sepiks, their faces streaming with tears, suddenly burst into a spontaneous, deep-throated chant of farewell, almost as though they realised that it was most unlikely that they would ever set eyes on these erst-while wives and their children again.

Well, what the Hell, the kuss~ kuss thought. This was nothing new.

It was going on everywhere around these Islands. After all, you could hardly expect a plantation-owner to hand out good money on the trans port of labourers’ wives and children.

They didn’t do any useful work on the place. Anyway, these fellows would have forgotten the whole business by to-morrow. Still, it cer tainly made you think, didn’t it. Let’s get away from this bloody island-