My pearl fishing on the northern shores of Goodenough came to an abrupt end. Billy the Cook had foregathered with me one night on the Mizpah, when our divers and tenders had asked permission to collect on one boat, the Ada, for a Malay jollification; the crew of the Ada meanwhile visiting friends on the other vessels. When morning came there was no Ada, and no divers or tenders; and Billy gently suggested to me that they had taken a pleasure trip to the Trobriands. The first thing to be done before we could sail in search of our truants was to return Saturday to his home on Wagipa, as the law did not then permit any unindentured natives being taken more than twenty miles from where they lived, except for the purpose of being indentured, or as it is called “signed on.” Saturday made it very clear indeed that if we landed him at the point at which we were then, the chances were greatly in favour of his finding his way into a cooking pot instead of his home. It would not do to send the Hornet with him, because, firstly, the crew were only armed with knives, and secondly, they were quite likely to follow the evil example of their mates and sneak off on pleasure bent. I thought of sending Billy in the Curlew with a couple of armed boys, he having his own rifle and revolver; but my boys objected to leaving my own vessel, and Billy said he was a married man and had not shipped to be sent alone into a Goodenough harbour. Also he pointed out that I might require the full strength of my New Guinea boys, the only men I could depend on, to deal with our confounded divers and tenders when we found them. The result of our deliberations, therefore, was the loss of two valuable days in returning Saturday.
Upon landing that worthy native we struck straight away from the Straits to the Trobriands, and had a horrible nightmare of a passage, for coral mushrooms and reefs seemed to strew the sea like plums in a pudding. Safe enough to navigate amongst when the sky was clear, they were, however, a deadly peril during the passage of a rain squall. The danger of a coral mushroom lies in the fact that it is so small that the sea seldom makes any noise upon it, also it springs up so suddenly from the bottom that the lead line proves no safeguard against it. No bottom at fifty fathoms one minute, a nigger head or mushroom with its head a couple of feet below the surface the next, is the pleasing habit of the sea between Goodenough Island and the Trobriands.
We did not attempt to sail at night, but either anchored over a submerged reef or hung on to the lee side of a shallow one, with our anchor on top of the reef and a kedge out astern. It is a risky proceeding anchoring in small vessels among coral, where the depth of the water is more than six fathoms, if unprovided with diving gear, or more than twenty, if fitted with that apparatus. For in nine cases out of ten, the chain or anchor becomes entangled in the coral mushrooms, and it is necessary for a man to go down and clear it before the anchor can be raised. Sometimes even a diver is unable to clear the tangle, especially if there is much current or wind keeping the vessel straining at her anchor; and in that case the last resource is to heave the chain in until it is up and down—that is, descends in a vertical line from the ship’s bow to the bottom—and fasten big charges of dynamite fitted with burning fuses to a heavy iron ring, and slide them down the chain in the hope of smashing away the obstruction. Even this method sometimes fails, as some coral is of a dense cheesy consistency, and capable of resisting for a long time repeated explosions of dynamite. When this occurs, then one loses a valuable anchor and chain, a loss one cannot afford too often.
CHAPTER VI
At the Trobriands we sighted our missing Ada at anchor and, upon the Mizpah running alongside, discovered that she was full of native women. At first ugly looks and hands upon knives were the reception accorded by the deserters, but that was soon altered by my New Guinea boys. The divers and tenders expected bribes, argument, and persuasion to be used in order to induce them to return to their work, the sort of thing they had been accustomed to in the Torres Straits; instead of which, they got a curt order to get into the hold, and the next minute found their toes being smashed and their heads bumped by the brass-heeled butts of heavy Snider carbines. The New Guinea boys had always been rather despised by the Malays, and therefore were only too glad to get a little of their own back when opportunity offered. Spitting, cursing, and threatening, the Malays were all bumped below, and the hatches clapped on.
The next operation on the part of my crew was to throw all the women overboard, and let them swim ashore as best they were able. I may remark that all the Trobriand women could swim like fishes. A nice state we found the Ada in: stores, coats, spare gear, everything portable and of any value had been given to the women, not even the cooking utensils were left. If we had not arrived when we did, even her sails would have been cut up and disposed of. After viewing our damage and loss, Billy and I held a parley with our men under hatches, and found the Malay dignity was hurt by the treatment our boys had accorded them; the result was, they said they had no intention of resuming duty. I plainly saw that if I gave in to the brutes I should be utterly undone, and my quest would become quite hopeless; at the same time, without them I could do nothing. Billy now suggested that if I could depend on my New Guinea boys, the best thing we could do was to lie at anchor where we were, and trade for pearls and bêche-de-mer; in the meanwhile keeping our mutineers confined, until in a more reasonable frame of mind. This policy I adopted. Putting a couple of my boys on the Ada, we hauled her up and made her fast to the Mizpah, leaving her recalcitrant inhabitants still under hatches with neither food nor water.
For twenty-four hours I kept the Malays below; and then, outside the sand-bank forming the harbour, we sighted Moreton’s patrol schooner, the Siai, signalling to me to come out. Whereupon we moved the Ada from alongside the Mizpah to alongside the Curlew. The clatter and row made by this operation excited the curiosity of our prisoners, who, questioning the boys on deck, were told that the Siai was in sight, and that the Mizpah was going off to ask that they be taken and tried as pirates or ship-stealers. Awful howls and yells then came from the hold begging for an interview with me. Upon my going to the hatch and ordering the removal of one plank in order that the imprisoned men might talk to me, frenzied petitions for mercy were put up, accompanied by all sorts of strange oaths that, if forgiven, they would be good and faithful men in the future. Billy said, “Let ’em off, they will be all right in the future, and we can’t afford to have them jugged; also we can’t keep ’em below with a Government ship in sight or we shall get into trouble.” I therefore accepted their promises of good behaviour; at the same time I pointed out how magnanimous I was, and ordered them to disperse to their several vessels.
Then I went out in the Mizpah to the Siai, where I found Moreton, R.M., and Judge Winter. The latter had come down to try a white man for murder. Moreton explained to me that there was a lot of sickness in Samarai gaol, beri beri and dysentery, and he wished to fill the Siai with yams. As her draught would not permit her to approach closely to the anchorage, he wanted me to act as tender with the Mizpah, and load the Siai. I jumped at the offer; my whole expenses at this time amounted to £5 a day, and, as Moreton offered me that sum, I was glad for a few days to leave my Malays and the conversation of Billy, for the cabin of the Siai and the company of Moreton and Winter. While the Mizpah was running yams to the Siai, she was steered by one or other of the Malay tenders, and the Judge complimented me upon their polite manners and civility. I grinned an internal grin as I told him they were really not bad people if treated in the right way.
The Trobriands are a great yam-growing district, the yams grown there running up to 150 lbs. in weight. Throughout New Guinea, the group was famous for three things: the cowardice of the men, the immorality—or rather I should put it the total unmorality—of the women, and the quality of its yams. The islands are all perfectly flat and the soil consists of decomposing coral and humus, and is wonderfully rich. One of the staple foods of the islanders consisted of the oyster contained in a small pearl shell, found in great quantities on the mud banks lying in the vicinity of the group, the oyster being termed by the natives “Lapi.” Out of this pearl shell, which, by the way, they opened by throwing it upon the fire, they obtained a large quantity of pearls which they sold to wandering traders; the shell, which would have otherwise have had a very considerable market value, being utterly ruined by the action of the fire.