Then one afternoon, whilst I and the two boys were digging out wash dirt and feeding the “sluice box,” he suddenly squealed, “What in the devil’s name are you sending me now? It’s a porphery leader and giving a weight to the dish,” i.e. a pennyweight of gold, worth about three shillings and fourpence. Brady then came and looked at the place where I was digging, and remarked, “Cover it up with mullock at once, it’s a good thing and we don’t want a crowd here.” I remonstrated, saying that we wanted all the gold we could get; but Brady said, “Yes, and we want all the ground we can get and enough money to clear from this blasted country; that leader wants capital, for which we shall have to arrange.” In obedience to Brady’s instructions I covered up the leader, and had hardly finished doing so, when an excited digger dropped into our claim exclaiming, “Have you heard the news? Mackenzie has struck a new gully with an ounce to the dish.” Brady and I at once bolted for a newly opened store to arrange a credit for tucker, to enable him to proceed to the new find. In the meanwhile, I was to remain and work our present claim to cover expenses. The store-keeper, one Thompson, was obdurate, refusing to give us any credit or even to sell us sufficient supplies for gold, to enable Brady to go to the new rush, he wishing to assist his own friends, or rather those men who could be depended on to spend all their earnings in grog at his store.
Brady and I were sitting most disconsolately outside the store when a cutter, the White Squall, came in loaded with diggers, but no supplies, when I suddenly overheard a remark of Thompson’s: “By God, I must buy or charter that cutter for Samarai for stores.” The cutter brought a mail, and amongst my letters I found a notice from Burns, Philp and Co., that £100 had been placed to my credit at Samarai; whereupon Thompson’s remark recurred to my memory. “Jim,” I said to Brady, “how much gold have we?” “Ten ounces,” he said. “Hand it over,” said I, “I have a ploy.” Brady handed it over, and I sought the owner of the cutter, saying I wanted to buy her. He said he was asking Thompson £100 for her, but Thompson was a ... Jew and only offered £60. I replied, “Well, here are ten ounces on deposit, and an order on Burns, Philp and Co., of Samarai, for the rest, and this letter of theirs will show it is all right.” In five minutes the deal was completed; and the White Squall papers being handed over to me, I returned to Brady. “Jim,” I said, “you need a sea trip and so do I; also we will set up as yacht owners and store-keepers. Let’s go up to Thompson and tell him the good news.” We found him and told him we had bought the White Squall, and intended to sail her to Samarai ourselves. I also pointed out that there was an absolute dearth of supplies at Woodlark, and we expected to make a good thing by store-keeping. Thompson’s language, as Bret Harte has it, was for a time “painful and free”; then he rushed off to the former owners of the cutter, to try and persuade them to cancel the deal as we were “dead broke,” and could not pay for the vessel. Unfortunately, however, for him the vendors chose to consider us as honest men, this apart from having completed the deal, and told Thompson to go to a warmer region. He then came again to me with an ad misericordiam appeal. “Look here, if I don’t get this boat I am a ruined man; how much do you want? I never thought that you two dead beats could buy a vessel, or I would have bid higher.” I gently pointed out that all Brady and I had wanted was fair treatment from him, which we had not got; also that we had no wish to become store-keepers or traders, but as he had forced us into the position, he could either buy us out or count on our opposition in his own business. I then remarked that I would leave the negotiations to Brady.
Brady’s terms were short and sweet: £100 for the vessel, £100 on top of that for ourselves, together with Thompson’s original offer of £60. Thompson squealed loudly, but as we were ready to go to sea, accepted the offer and took over the White Squall. In passing I might now remark that later knowledge showed me the White Squall was not worth £5; she was thoroughly rotten, the only good things about her being her pumps. She had sneaked out of a Queensland port without the cognizance of the authorities; but of these facts at the time I was ignorant; and Brady and I were much surprised to hear later that, after three or four highly profitable trips for Thompson, she had sunk. Her sinking was caused by an irate master leaping suddenly down into the forecastle to deal with a recalcitrant member of the crew, and in his energy sending his legs through her rotten planking.
After the completion of the White Squall deal, Brady went off to the new rush, where he pegged out a good claim, I remaining to shepherd our old one. A few days after his departure I received a note from him saying I had better abandon the claim I was holding, as our lode was safely buried, and come to the new rush. On my way thither I dropped into a gully and began prospecting it, just as another white man, accompanied as I was by two boys, started the same game. We both struck highly payable gold at about the same time, and each claimed the gully by right of discovery. For two or three minutes we—each with drawn revolvers, and each backed by our boys armed respectively with a rifle and fowling piece—argued the question; and in the end, as an alternative to murdering one another, decided to go into partnership and work it jointly, each to divide our share with our former mates.
My new partner was named John Graham; he had previously been an assistant Resident Magistrate in the service of the British New Guinea Government, and later the owner of some pearl-fishing vessels. We worked together very amicably for some months, when, receiving a good offer for our claim, we sold out and separated, he to buy the wreck of a vessel with the intention of refitting it and resuming trading. After about a week’s work again with Brady, some severe attacks of malaria gave me a distinct hint to go to sea for a short time, and at my suggestion we dissolved partnership, Brady remaining in the claim, and I, with my two boys, going to Suloga Bay with the intention of there finding a vessel bound for Samarai.
CHAPTER IV
At Suloga Bay I found Graham still waiting, in charge of a small cutter owned by a local resident, which he had undertaken to take to Samarai for repairs and a new crew, the original boys having deserted to the mines. Graham had a couple of natives as crew, but, as the cutter was leaking badly, had been afraid to put to sea weak-handed. My arrival with my two boys, however, relieved him of this difficulty, and away we went for Samarai.
Never since then have I known such a wholly beastly trip as that one was. We were all rotten with malaria, the cutter’s decks were warped and leaking everywhere from lying in the sun, consequently day and night we had to pump the wretched boat out, or she half filled. The North-West Monsoon was on; and the weather principally consisted of flat calms, during which we grilled under a burning sun, or fierce squalls accompanied by torrential rains, in which our rotten sails burst, and beneath decks was more like a combination of Turkish and shower baths than anything else. Pumping ship, patching sails, drying our clothes, and belting our sick boys into performing their necessary duties, formed our occupation; cursing freely, and betting on our temperatures taken with a clinical thermometer, our diversion; mouldy rice, stringy, oily, ever-warm tinned beef, pumpkin and stodgy taro, our diet. Vile tea and dirty-looking sugar we abandoned for a more healthful beverage, consisting of five grains of quinine and one drop of carbolic acid to a pannikin of water, always of course luke-warm. Dysentery beginning amongst the boys added to our woes; but fortunately for us, we crawled through the China Straits into Samarai on the day following their being taken ill, and gladly handed over our rotten tub to the boat-builders.
Here, Graham and I separated; he, after a week’s rest, going to see to his wreck, and I remaining to recuperate as the only guest in the “Golden Fleece Hotel,” which had recently been instituted by Tommy Rous upon a capital of ten pounds. The hotel consisted of one large room with a verandah all round it, a small room used as a cook-house detached from the other, and a bar-room next to Tommy’s bedroom. All the buildings were made of palms laced together and thatched with the leaf of the sago palm; with the exception of Tommy’s bedroom and the bar-room the whole place was innocent of doors and windows, other than square holes in the walls to admit light and air. The guests were expected to provide their own blankets, plates, knives, forks, and pannikins, and to sleep on the palm floor. A long wooden table ran down the verandah, at which meals were eaten. Meals never varied; Tommy’s cook, a New Guinea boy, had but two dishes: “situ,” which consisted of tinned meat, yams, sweet potatoes and pumpkins all stewed together; and “kari,” the same meat mixed with curry powder and served with rice. Anything else, fish or fresh game for instance, the guests were supposed to provide for themselves.