surprising Michael

Into the interior with the surprising Michael

Any comparison between District Officer and New Guinea Venture, by Michael Courage and Dermot Wright is not only coincidental but downright impossible.

The Venture was actually per formed by Michael Courage alone and where Dermot Wright comes into the picture will remain as obscure to the reader at the end of the story as at the beginning.

Perhaps he is responsible for the unusual words that creep into the book—like pan pan meaning papaw and haro meaning taro. The jacket flap says of him that he “lives in a black and white cottage in Surrey”; and he joined a group of publishing companies after the war as a director and chief photographer and that he contributes to the constructional trade press.

How this fits him for writing a book about New Guinea, God knows; it might have been better if he had remained decently out of sight as the editor and let Michael get all the credit.

The entertaining parts of this book couldn’t have originated in a black-and-white house in Surrey and for this we give Michael alone an “A” (for accomplishment).

For example, when he is decanted straight from London into Madang and then sent off with an Anglican Mission party to walk eight days into S'imbai, a patrol-post on the southern fall of the Schroeder Range, the strain is considerable. But at last they top the last rise and see their objective, the mission house, in the valley below.

Relief!

The knees of Michael and another tenderfoot turn to water with relief but the Rev. Peter Robin, who led the party, is of sterner stuff, and a

tried-and-true Territorian. Besides, they have to pass the Kiap’s house on the way to the mission and naturally a call on the Patrol Officer is obligatory. To quote: “. . . Now that we had actually arrived the only thing that seemed to matter was a hot shower followed by a long, long rest to relieve the tension. Instead, we were stuck in an unbearably hot native house drinking warm Australian beer out of cans and trying to appear light heartedly excited at meeting a fellow human being, I suppose at any other time I could have taken quite an interest in this tall character [the patrol officer] with his shock of red hair and gingery beard. He was mad keen to go to Paris, during his leave, to see a man who had invented a one-man helicopter. He was certain that such a machine would solve many of the transport problems in New Guinea.”

How he got there

As one who has had similar ex periences from time to time, I can vouch for the fact that this is pure New Guinea and a long, long way from Surrey.

But to return to the beginning:

During his last term at Eton, Michael Courage, of the English brewery family which is now about to take on Carlton United in Melbourne (may God protect them), decided that he wanted to do his bit for mankind. He therefore joined the British Voluntary Service Overseas and was assigned to the Anglican Mission in New Guinea.

He duly arrives in Port Moresby, gets transit accommodation at the Anglican mission near the town, makes his acquaintance with a deep pit latrine and fearsome creatures that run about the ceiling over his bed (gekkos) and so on to Aiome to prepare for the trek to Simbai.

At Aiome there are more head on encounters with the rigours of the country. At breakfast, on his first morning, while he was eating his “pau pau” he noticed that small brown spots were gathering on it.

“You’ll get used to the spots,” another missionary-in-training warned him. “They are only cockroach droppings. If you keep quiet you can hear them chewing away at the reeds in the roof. . . .” He advised Michael to always wear a hat in doors.

That night, in bed, Michael

listened to cockroaches chewing an heard rats scuttling about.

There was plenty to think aboi At Simbai they were on the edge ( Pygmy country—in fact, it w; necessary only to go outside tl mission house, blow on a whist and hundreds of them poured from the adjacent jungle.

Michael was amazed—and so wi your book-reviewer. I seem i remember, in the 1930’5, that anoth( member of Britain’s brewaucrac Lord Something-or-Other of Guinne fame, made an expedition to Ne Guinea and in the Ramu discoven what were said to be pygmies.

Whether these people are pygmii (or negritoes) has been argued aboi ever since and most anthropologic opinion seems to be in the negath —that they are merely a stunte version of the other tribes surroun* ing them.

Eton to the rescue

After he had sampled tl exertions of foot transport Michae like most other people who ha\ tried it in New Guinea, started 1 think of ways and means of easir the human burden. He appealed 1 the boys still at Eton, who provide something like £BOO and this in tui allowed Michael to import a strir of donkeys. How he got the« donkeys up from Madang to Simb; takes up the latter part of the boc and provides some hila r i o u moments.

Any reader of hard-core Ne Guinea literature will have few du moments from Michael’s story. Tl blurb on the dust-jacket, designe to bemuse stay-at-homes in Wappin or Tooting, is a load of old rubbis and should be disregarded.

The story should be read for win it is: the reactions of a well-endowe English youngster to a head-o encounter with New Guinea.

He sees things that a lot of r have forgotten how to see; some c the snippets of information he hah digests are quite mad and wide c the mark but his pertinent reflection on missions, missionaries, VSO, th native inhabitants and New Guine generally are generally fascinatin and frequently valid.

The Courage venture took plac in 1961. Since then he has joine< the family brewery and now, at 25 is a director. Pity, really. In t'im he might have made a damn goo<

Territorial! !-

JT.

(NEW GUINEA VENTURE. Robert Hale $3.25.