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Before I left the Islands I went off on a schooner to Ellice Islands and then on to Santa Cruz and called at the Islands of the Solomon Group. In a typhoon that struck us fifty miles north of Rotuma we lost the chief mate, Herberts, and a Chinaman who was a deck hand. I was asleep on deck at the time right aft, snug by the stern sheets. Before I went to sleep the night was calm and clear, the stars shining brilliantly all around, and we were just drifting to a lazy breeze at about four knots an hour. Suddenly I was awakened by a terrible crash and an awful typhoon was on; the seas were rising rapidly and it seemed that hail and rain were falling in a deluge, but the sky was quite clear overhead, for it was the rifts of the waves all around being whipped off by the wind. I scrambled along the deck, the skipper was calling me. “Hi, hi, sir,” I shouted, and in a trice we got the sails in, and then, as I stood by the skipper holding on to some cordage for dear life as she lay over, the seas lifted their heads to windward and as their tops hissed and foamed a tremendous sea came over. I distinctly felt the boat sink under the weight of that ocean of water. The skipper grabbed hold of me and I grabbed hold of him; the sailors forward by the fo’c’sle saved themselves by rushing in the fo’c’sle alley-way. We heard a cry above the thundering of the waves and then the vessel righted; the skipper was overboard head and shoulders, half through poop bulwark bars and cordage! I had hold of his leg! I was holding on to save myself, and so saved my life and his too! Two sailors came to our assistance; we were both half insensible but scrambled to our feet as Alf, the bos’n, shouted “Sir, the mate and the Chinese hand have gone overboard.” I shall never forget those words, and the sudden realisation of what it meant, as we all stood and gazed out across the black waters as the mountainous seas arose slowly and grandly, blazing with phosphorous foams, and as they travelled onward the typhoon blew with such terrific force that our clothes were ripped up! It was impossible to attempt to save them, our boats were all washed away; once we all thought we heard a faint cry across the waters, and that was the last of John Herberts, chief mate, and Ching the deck hand.
I stuck to that skipper and eventually arrived back at Vanua Levu, and went over on a cutter to Samoa again, and for a long time I was despondent and had sleepless nights, as I would lay awake and remember.
Before I left Samoa I went over to Savage Island with Castle, who seemed at that time mighty pleased with himself over some contract he had got to take a cargo of copra and other stuff to Tonga. It was at Savage Island that I stayed with an Englishman who had married a native woman. He had several children and they seemed very happy. I stayed with him for two weeks before returning to Apia with Castle. He would often talk to me about England in a sentimental way and knock the ash out of his pipe and sigh, and yet he seemed, as I have said, happy in his free life, for he had a beautiful plantation and grew all kinds of tropic fruit, and his wife was a most pleasant woman; indeed I think he was much happier than thousands of English people in old England who live in the London suburbs and toil their lives away to bring up their children,
And for their sakes eternally
Ride up to London Town,
Each morning pulled up in the train
And each night pulled back down!