Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

“‘Go down again!’ he commanded. ‘Cut down those three trees. If they fall they will strike us.’

“Monsieur, that was my father, the American, who spoke, though nearly dead. He was wise. We did as he said, as quickly as we could, and climbed back to the platform. The great breakers of the ocean were now far up on our beach at each end of the tide. The whole width of the land from the edge of the beach to the lagoon is but the length of four or five cocoanut-trees. The water below the atoll was forced up through the coral sand, Monsieur, until it was like the dough of the baker when he first pours in the cocoanut juice. People still on the ground went up to their arms in it. We feared the atoll would be taken back to the depths. Our platform was nearer the lagoon than the moat—to be exact, two hundred feet from the moat, and a hundred from the lagoon. My father had us tie him to the platform and to the trees. We had brought plenty of ropes for that.

“Mon Dieu! Below the poor people were tying themselves to the trunks of the cocoanut-trees, and climbing them, if they could, and roosting in the branches like the wild birds of the air. They were shrieking and praying. There were many whites, too, because all the pearl-shell and pearl buyers, and the keepers of stores like us, were there from Papeete. The little children who could not climb were crying, and many parents stayed with them to die. The sea was now like the reef, white as the noon clouds with foam. We had bound my father’s wounds with my shirt, but the blood dripped on the boards where he lay with his eyes open and watching the cyclone.”

The chief, who had accompanied me, became restless. He understood no French.

“Monsieur l’Americain, do I detain you?” Hiram Mervin asked me.

I signed for him to continue.

“Then came the darkness. There were only the sounds of the wind and water, the crash of the cocoanut-trees as they fell with their human fruit. We heard the houses being swept away; we thought we caught glimpses of vessels riding on the breakers, and we imagined we caught the shrieks of those being destroyed. But the wind itself sounded like the voices of people. I heard many calling my name.

“‘Hiram Mervin, pray for us! Save us!’ said the cyclone.

“Ah, I cannot tell it! It was too dreadful. It was hours after darkness that the sea reached its height. Those below were torn from hummocks of coral, from the roofs of houses, and from trees. We knew that the sharks and other devils of the sea were seizing them. The sea rushed over the land into the lagoon and the lagoon returned to the sea. When they met under us, they fought like the bulls of Bashan. Hikueru was being swallowed as the whale swallowed Iona, the perofeta. We held on though our trees bent like the mast of a schooner in a typhoon. We called often to one another to be sure none was lost. When morning came, after night on night of darkness, the waters receded, and we saw the work of the demon. Almost every house had been cut down, and most of the trees. The cemeteries were washed up, and the bodies, bones, and skulls of our dead for decades were strewn about or in the ocean. The lagoon was so full of corpses old and new that our people would not fish nor dive for shells there for a long time. The spirits are still seen as they fly through the air when there is a gale. But, Monsieur, our four cocoanut-trees had stood as the pillars of the temple of Birigi’ama Iunga. Not for nothing was my father born in America. Mais, Monsieur, the chief is waiting. The mitinare will be glad to see you. Au revoir.”

Hiram took a step to return to the quay when he called back to me. “Ah, there is Teamo, who is the Living Ghost,” and he pointed to a Paumotuan woman who was coming up from the quay towards where we three stood. Teamo had the balanced gait of one who sits or stands much in canoes, and she strode like a man, her powerful figure showing under her red Mother-Hubbard which clung close to her stoutish form. Short, she was like most of the Paumotuans, of middle height, but with her head set upon a pillar of a neck, and her bare chocolate arms, rounded, but hinting of the powerful muscles beneath the skin. Her hair was piled high on her head like a crown, and upon it was a basket in which were two chickens. A live pig was under her arm. She was carrying this stock from our boat.