They said there were no white men on the island, and we longed to go ashore. With our scurvy-swollen legs we could hardly stand, however. It wouldn't do to be hauled ashore as cripples. It would not increase these warriors' respect for Germans as fighting men: Cripples do not fare well among savage peoples, and we thought it best not to reveal our impotence. So, we refused the natives' invitations to partake of their hospitality, told them we must hurry on to fight the British, and asked for fresh water and bananas. They brought great gourds full of water and bunches of bananas. We drew up to the dock and they handed these precious supplies down for us.
We had our fill of bananas and water, and, with shouts resounding from the shore, set sail again. This lucky spot was Niue, an outlying isle of the Fiji group. The sun blazed down upon us, but a fair wind carried us along briskly. The first day after leaving Niue we felt better. The second day we were on the road to high good health. It is amazing the curative effect of fresh fruit, especially bananas, when you are suffering from scurvy. They seem to put new life and blood into you and draw the sickness right out of the body as though some huge and marvellous poultice had been applied.
Our cure was completed at the isle of Katafanga. It is quite a large isle and inhabited by more natives. But we hit upon a stretch of shore that seemed permanently deserted. At any rate, we remained there for five days and saw not a soul. When we went ashore, we all walked with a comical staggering gait. You know the characteristic rolling gait of the sailor accustomed to having a deck under his feet? Ours was an exaggeration of it. After two weeks in our constantly pitching boat and never a foot on land, we could not get our legs used to solid, unmoving earth. Even after five days of extensive pedestrianism on the beach we rolled along rather than walked. There was plenty of fruit around, and many streams ran down to the sea. We ate enough fruit to expel all the scurvy in the world and bathed luxuriously in the clear water.
On the island was a deserted house. We inspected it and saw that it had been owned by a German planter. We afterward learned that, at the outbreak of the war, the planter fled to the interior of the island, and an Englishman had taken possession of his house, then, not liking the island, had left it pretty much to itself. Among the rubbish in the house was a German mercantile magazine, and on the first page that I turned to I saw an advertisement of the paint firm of Erdmann and Kircheiss. One of our sailors was named Erdmann and my lieutenant was named Kircheiss. No relations of the paint firm, but we took it as a good omen. At any rate, coming upon the planter's house was certainly good luck. It had gone to seed a bit, but there still were Christian beds in it. For the first time since sailing away from Mopelia, we slept comfortably, and between sheets, too.
We were now getting near the larger islands of the Fiji group, where the sailing ships loaded with copra would be encountered. If we did not succeed in capturing a ship here, we never could hope to capture one. We found a handsome little sailboat belonging to the Englishman who had taken over the German's house, but we left her where she lay. She was more comfortable than our battered old lifeboat—but the latter was a last relic of our old Seeadler. She had brought us this far, so we wanted to keep her until we had captured a ship. We raised sail, knowing that, for better or for worse, we were on the last leg of our voyage in the lifeboat.
We came to the main body of the Fijis, and sailed into a large gulf surrounded by distant islands. It was night, and we decided to wait till morning to see how many ships were passing and what island they were bound for. We reefed our sails and threw out our sea anchor, that sacklike drag of canvas that keeps a boat from turning broadside to the wind and waves and from drifting too fast. We lay down for a decent night's sleep. We would need all our energies for the morrow.
A sudden shout. I awakened. It was just daybreak. Straight ahead was a wild white line of surf. It broke over a long, low coral reef, and just behind it was a high cliff. We had run into a strong current during the night. Krauss had awakened just in time to see that it had carried us perilously near the reef. The wind was sweeping us toward the breakers.
"Raise sail," I shouted.
We scrambled frantically and raised the canvas. The wind was inshore. We could not head into it. We were being blown slowly, inexorably on to the reef.
People accustomed to the surfs along ordinary coasts have no idea of what breakers are like off the islands of the South Pacific. The surf all over the Pacific is particularly strong. But when it breaks over a mid-oceanic coral reef nothing can live in it. The strongest swimmer is sure to be dashed to pieces against the jagged coral.