A Yankee doctor in paradise

by S. M. Lambert

Early in the School’s career we organized their teams, intramural affairs. True, it was not American football, but the more open Rugby. With the gusto of old gridiron experience, I saw that their play could be just as rough as ours. Men like Mesalume played for the glory of Fiji, for the Fijian is “unco’ proud” of his strength and skill. The only disharmony that ever arose in the Medical School was when the boys were choosing players; the Polynesians all ganged up against the Fijians, and vice versa, most definitely. When we crystallized into a unit we played against the Police Team, the Agricultural Department and about six other organizations. The pick of our boys got the “shield,” and some were chosen for the much coveted All Fiji Team. The chosen ones were Fijians, with no exception. And Mesalume, of course, was one of them.

In a series of inter-island battles the All Fijis met the famous New Zealand Maoris, who had bowled over about everything they had met, wherever Rugby was played. When Fiji met Maori it was a different story, “all blood and guts,” as an Australian critic expressed it. Our native boys had the advantage because they could kick barefoot—wonderful, how they could do it. They would come on the field in the regulation Rugby uniform, but after the first scrimmage the air would be full of shoes and stockings—the Fijians were rushing into battle as their cannibal grandsires did, with naked toes and tiger hearts. Then larger objects would come soaring out of the huddle; the bodies of Maoris, falling with a deadly plunk. In reprisal the flying Maoris would come back with a thud that was like a convulsion of nature. Their convulsion was more deadly in the last game of one series. We of Fiji were small-minded enough to say, “Well, let ’em have it this time. The officials were all New Zealanders, and they couldn’t let their champions go home again with nothing to show for it.”

Pride of race takes some queer turns. The one Negro in Fiji was a coal-black American who said, “Yassa, I was de first white man on the Mba River.” Pride of race was rampant in Peti, one of our Samoans, who never failed to boast of his American blood. His grandfather was a Negro sailor. On the strength of this distinction he won the hand of a well-born Fijian half-caste and took her back to Samoa. He was another one who did great credit to the School.

Our Fijian N.M.P. Eroni came from Lau, where the people are fair-skinned as Polynesians. When he worked alone on Rennell it was quite understandable that he should have gained the reputation of being the first “white man” who had penetrated half the island. Eroni’s success among white residents of the Solomons was so great that one lady wrote to a Sydney paper to thank him for saving her life and her sister’s. Such achievements are a commonplace in Fiji; Britishers in the back country argue about the attainments of an N.M.P. as we people at home discuss the family doctor.

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One of these days, a Fijian basso will sing Otello’s role in the Metropolitan Opera House. If you have ever heard their deep, true voices you will agree with me. And if you have ever watched the action of their mighty thews on the playing field, you may well believe that a world’s heavyweight champion will also emerge from one of these dark islands. So far, however, they have much to learn. I read of one who went to London to meet a middleweight; but since the sports columns are not featuring him, I think he may not have done so well.

There is a gigantic fellow named Ratu Mbola who has degenerated into a half-Europeanized show-off, and throws out his chest when the boats come in in hopes that somebody will buy him a drink. To distinguish himself from the common herd he wears golf socks, and tennis shoes, and carries a fly-brush over his shoulder. “Bar Fly” is the name both he and his brush have earned.

In days gone by when Jack Johnson became champion of the world by defeating Tommy Burns in Australia there was rejoicing in every Fijian village. “One of our race has conquered!” was the cry. At that time Ratu Mbola was in his prime, a muscular chief of Mbau. On the way home from his defeat Tommy Burns stopped off at Suva and the hushed word went through the villages, “He’s running away from the black man who beat him!” So Ratu Mbola came forth as a local black hope, and challenged Mr. Burns. The evening of the fight the arena was packed with natives who thronged in to see a white man crumple under a volley of Fijian blows. But somehow Tommy didn’t crumple. He played cat and mouse for two rounds, pretending to be groggy from Mbola’s blows. In the first minute of the third he got tired of making false passes and floored Mbola with one heartbreaking uppercut. The referee did not render a decision. He didn’t have a chance. Mbola went through the ropes on all fours, and when next seen was running down the street, waving his boxing gloves.

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All of this was quite unfair to the Fijian. It was like taking him to the piano and asking him to play a Bach fugue. Mesalume, as an athlete and professional man, was of a quite different pattern. We sent him to the New Hebrides, a field that would try the soul of any man. His reports came in; he was administering medicine in feverish jungles that had been beyond the reach of government officials. He was treating thousands for every disease under the tropical sun. Mr. Paton, always the stanch friend of my N.M.P.’s, took him in when he could and worried because the boy was so overworked.