Authentic Story

Of The

Coastwatchers

There are probably dozens of novels to be written out of the exploits of the wartime Coast watchers of Bougainville and the Solomons. Olaf Ruhen has written the first of them, Scan the Dark Coast.

The theme is a simple one—a coastwatcher, stationed on an island at the top of New Georgia Sound with a small band of Solomon Islands police, has only one purpose in life: to keep tabs on the Japanese planes that fly overhead on their way to Guadalcanal and report them by radio to headquarters before they reach their target.

He is not required to carry out search-and-destroy missions on the small Japanese garrison at the other end of the island; on the contrary, he is required to remain out of their sight. He must keep on-side with the local villagers and above all avoid involving them in any dealings with the Japanese that would invite reprisals.

No heroics

Someone has recorded somewhere that New Zealanders make the best commercial pilots because of their stolid and commonsense national background. Steve Burroughs was a New Zealander and made the right kind of Coastwatcher for exactly the same reasons. He did not expect to be spectacular or heroic. He had to carry out a patient and not parti cularly rewarding job.

But first Costello, an Australian pilot, was shot out of the sky and joined his camp; then two wounded civilians and a white woman arrived from across the Sound and added their complications to the party.

Costello was the get-up-and-go type who saw no merit in patient coastwatching. Within days he had a girl-friend in a local village, and with the help of her brother had knocked off two Japanese scouts for their rifles.

The brothers two friends coveted rifles of their own, and two other Japanese similarly met their fate.

With the Japanese stirred up like an angry nest of bull-ants, and taking hostages from a local village, with

Burroughs trying to keep his cool, deal with a minor sex angle and at the same time retain his status as a Coastwatcher, the story moves quickly to a reasonably-to-be-ex pected climax.

Olaf Ruhen’s professional expertise comes out in the excellent characterisation and the way he deals with the interplay of four different personalities in an explosive situation.

Good adventure stuff against an authentic background.—JT. (SCAN THE DARK COAST. Hodder and Stoughton. $3.25).

"Kovave", New Journal

Of New Guinea Literature

A pilot edition of Kovave, which the publishers hope to be a regular journal of New Guinea literature, to be seen each June and November, has made its appearance. It’s edited by Ulli Beier, of the English Depart ment of the P-NG University, and most of the contributors of poetry, prose, folklore and drama in this 56-page issue are university students.

The journal is meant to be a work shop magazine, a progress report on New Guinea creative writing, and an encouragement for writers. The pilot edition is most promising. Jacaranda Press. Brisbane, are publishing it.