Wilhelm Grube

Pioneer:

By Nettie Frater

WILHELM GRUBE was one of the more colourful identities who reached the New Hebrides at the beginning of this century.

He was a native of Schleswig- Holstein, but had run away to sea on an English sailing ship when he was 13. The English he had learnt there had a ruddy tinge.

When he left the sea he settled down as a trader on the island of Paama, in the New Hebrides, with a missionary as his neighbour. The two liked each other from the start.

In appearance, Wilhelm was a typical “wild man,” with bushy hair, long beard and careless clothes. He was over six feet tall and his feet were so large that his boots had to be made to measure on his rare visits to Sydney. Till the boots were ready, and back in the islands after they were worn out, he wrapped his feet in bath towels.

Wilhelm’s appetite was as large as his frame. He ate a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread at a sitting, or a fowl and a large fruit cake.

Twenty-five bananas a day filled-in between meals.

Wilhelm’s wife was English; a tiny, fragile gentlewoman. To everyone who saw them together the question inevitably arose, how? why? It was never answered. He was good to her in his own way and her house was full of the un practical presents he gave her. In Sydney, he found it less trouble to pick her up and carry her across the street than to take her arm and guide her over.

After a few years in the islands, Mrs. Grube became very ill, so her husband took her to the hospital on Ambrym. The doctor there could do nothing for her and asked Wilhelm to break it gently to his wife that she would not recover. He sat down heavily beside her bed.

“Missus,” he said, “the doctor says you’re going to kick the In spite of the trader’s fierce appearance and manner, he was gullible. The supercargo of the inter-island steamer found him a good customer and stock that was unsaleable to any other trader could usually be sold to Wilhelm.

After it had mouldered on the shelves of his store for several years he gave it away to the natives.

The biggest opposition to his trade came from a one-eyed native trader called Maki Malo, who had a store a few miles away. One day Wilhelm set out in his whale-boat for the island of Lopevi, to buy copra. As they rowed close to the steep wooded shores of Paama the boat soon came abreast of Maki Male’s village. The one-eyed trader called out, “Where are you going?”

“To Lopevi,” came the answer.

“No use,” shouted Maki Malo, “I

was there yesterday and got all their copra.”

Wilhelm, who believed what he was told, changed his direction for another island. As soon as he was out of sight, Maki Malo got his crew together, put his boat in the water and went off round the north end of Paama to get the Lopevi copra.

This island of Lopevi, five miles east of Paama, is all volcano. The cone rises pyramid-like from the sea to a height of 5,000 feet, while the grey track of an ancient lava flow sweeps down the mountain side from the summit to the shore.

In those days there was usually a wisp of smoke rising from the peak.

Lopevi is a landmark for the area.

When Wilhelm was caught at sea in a hurricane he and his “boys” in their whaleboat raced before the storm till Lopevi was only a tiny dot on the horizon. Wilhelm’s superb seamanship was well known and his Paamese crew were daring boatmen, but when his boat failed to return there was deep anxiety felt in the mission house and the villages. The hurricane blew itself out and as soon as the sea had gone down sufficiently to launch his boat, the missionary and his boats crew went off to look for the trader.

A few hours later, Wilhelm re turned round the other end of the island. In spite of his six days’ ordeal in an open boat, as soon as he heard about the rescue party he would not even wait to eat, but set off to find the rescuers.

Wilhelm liked his neighbour’s company and often spent the even ing at the mission house, but he did not care for misisonaries en masse. When the missionaries met at Paama for their annual Synod, nothing would persuade him to go

to the house to meet them; but the steamer that took them away had barely disappeared round the rocky headland before he was on his way there. He sank thankfully into a chair, saying, “I’m glad to see the last of those damned missionaries.”

The trader did not, in general, approve of swearing in front of a missionary. On his visits to the mission station his speech was always slow and hesitating with long pauses where he left out the swear-words. But his solicitudes were wasted.

When Wilhelm’s boat came to anchor in the bay he roared orders mingled with curses at his crew, while his voice reverberated through the mission house and native village.

The missionary’s children and the native children imitated his vocabulary with gusto.

The Paamese said, “His tongue is bad but his heart is good.” They had reason to know, because the village nearest the store practically lived on his bounty.

During Wilhelm’s last illness the missionary was constantly with him.

A night came when the trader felt he would not live till morning and he told his boy to call the Missionary.

With a native’s unwillingness to waken a sleeper, the boy made some excuse, and when the missionary arrived in the morning his friend had gone.

U A Melbourne psychiatrist, Mr.

Alex Sinclair will begin a three months’ survey of mental health in Papua-New Guinea in mid-June. (This seems to be a task that has boundless possilibities —although perhaps the survey might more fittingly begin in Canberra).