The Police Move In On The

St. Crispin's Day At Taskul The Police Move In On The New Hanover Cargo Cult

From Keith Adam, Who Was There

St. Crispin’s Day is in October, but ours was fought at the end of June. St. Crispin’s Day, you may remember, was when King Henry V’s men got among the French at Agincourt and showed them what was what.

ON our St. Crispin’s Day, which in its own small way was just as memorable, we didn’t set out from Dover, but from Kavieng, New Ireland, in a wheezy Administration workboat that took four hours to reach New Hanover, only 20 miles away, “We” were three Administration officers —the patrol officer from Taskul, the patrol post on New Hanover, and two reinforcements in the form of Assistant District Officers —and myself, who went along for the ride.

This St. Crispin’s day was deemed necessary because the people of New Hanover had got themselves involved in a cargo cult, had refused to pay their taxes, had threatened patrols and had generally “destroyed law and order”, in the words of P-NG’s Director of Native Affairs, Mr. I.

K. McCarthy.

The Johnson Cult The cult started earlier this year when many of the locals refused to cast their ballots at the House of Assembly elections because they weren’t allowed to vote for “Presi dent Johnson bilong America”, who didn’t happen to be among the six local candidates. But it was Lyndon Johnson or nothing.

The House of Assembly in early June (PIM, July, p. 12) gave the Administration a mandate to move in on the cultists and restore law and order, and now here we were, the eyes and ears of P-NG upon us.

The workboat wheezed in and out among the little islands on the way to Taskul while we huddled on the deck in whatever shade we could find . . . the cabin was jammed with supplies for the 40 police who were already at Taskul waiting for the battle to commence.

Finally the old tub arrived, but too late for any expeditions to set out

that day. The Administration men spent the afternoon discussing strategy and poring over depart mental regulations and ordinances, arguing out the correct legal procedures to use against any recalcitrant citizens they might meet.

As the police inspector who joined us pointed out: Those people in Moresby would throw out the case if there were any irregularities in the charges.

They had decided to start on the Tsoi Islands, a little group 30 minutes away from Taskul, where the villagers had already refused to pay their Local Government Tax, and had even thrown out a couple of patrols which had tried to make a collection.

Battle To Be Joined Things brightened up a bit in the late afternoon, when the inspector started off down the hill to the police encampment to give his men the stirring news that the battle would be joined, come tomorrow.

The clear notes of the bugle were echoing around the hills as I followed him through the police lines. All the police were gathered around cooking fires, or else in the small smoky mess hut which someone had built.

Here was the moment for some Henry y stuff, I thought—some good resounding lines in iambic penta meter. But it didn’t turn out like that. The inspector merely said: “It’s on at seven o’clock in the morning. Tin hats, rifles and bayonets. All right?”

There was a chorus of “Yessirs”, and off we went to test the shooting irons.

“Very toey, these fellows,” the inspector told me with a glow of pride in his voice, “especially the young blokes. But we’ve got some good old fellows here with 25 years