MAROONED

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 201, 26 August 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAROONED

Seen from a ship close in to th« shore, the const, of the great coral ttoll of Suwitrrow presents a wall of lofty waving coconut trees, extending fur on each hand. That is the view ot t ho principal island, whielt is Ffomo Island on the chart, also called Anchornso Tslatul, beenn«o vessels sailing in through the |uissage which connects tho large lagoon within tlio

riit;.* of island* ami reefs, round up ami anchor close under the sheltered shore. Ilia I is where the homestead or trading .slut i*■ ri of ilijo was established. Now the plaee is used only for I lie growing of coconuts. I >ni which copra is maile. This is iiKcd for many purposes, from soapmaking to a n ingredient of explosive*. At tir- dalo of this story Stiwarrow • w Inch is no a* one of t lie nianv tropic I 'la lids under Now Zealand's llagi was nut. occupied: it "Ws a true do«ert island, except for the "a > l IIM palms iiii.l other tall trees and I lie II lII.i/ingly noisy bird 1 j fo.

By JAMES COWAN

It wns lit the first Mink of dawn fine tiny of tho lir«t of tti.- S,<\it* i,-« that I lin American whaling barque Grand Sachem, ot Now Bedford, found liprso 1 f cluso in to tho lino of (link trees nnd the surf-white roofs of Hitwurrow. Tho small barque drew abeam of t.lio ono and only entrance to tho lagoon, 11 passage which led in hot wo nn whito sandbank an<l reofknol>« and tho wooded inland. The captain stood on tho vessel's narrow |ioop rlosoly surveying tho atoll through his toloseo|>«. Just as ho wn« aliout to slmt up Ills long spyglass, In order to attend to tho navigation, ho saw n figure running up and down on tho whito lieaoh below 11 IWigstuir and waving excitedly. In n few moments another figure appeared from tho dark trees and camo quickly down to tho bench-side. Tho Hailing Directions for the South Seas gavo Huwarrow as an uninhabited Island, thereforo here was a clci'r caso of shipwrecked mariner* in need of assistance. So concluded tho captain, as lio gave the order to back tho mainyard. Immediately tho barque had been liove-to, n whaleboat was lowered, in charge of tho socond in|ite, and quickly pulled ashore and embarked the men.

The Old Man attired in amazement an the strangers climbed aboard and approached him. They certainly were astonishing figure*. They wore long, bushy, iintrimmed beards, and their hair fell almost to their shoulders. On their heads were huge hats such an Robinson Crusoe might have worn, made roughly from coconut fronds. Ono of them wore the tattered remains of a calico suit, which left more than half his body bare. Tho other wm attired fn a jacket made of Hour-bags, with a ragged kilt of the «nni<j material about his waist. Their foot were bare, and their skin was burned to Kanaka colour by the tiopical sun. Until they syoke, to

<• xpros-* their gratitude to the captain li>r j>i• ■ kill thorn up, it was <1 itlicn 11 to toll whether they were white men <>r South Sea natives.

Kit eh limn in turn thanked the captain. but neither addressed a word to th(> ot her, and the Grand Sachem's men saw tli.it whenever the one happened to eat eh the other's eye it was to exchange malignant glances of hat red.

1 lie Old Mnn soon gathered that the name of one was Oscar Jolinnsen. i Swede by nationality, sailor by • ■ailing: other was Thomas Kvans, a Welshman. also u sailor, with a second mate's t ickot. They had been •mi the island for more than a year, and during that time not a single \ossel had called, though several had passed in the distance. Jolinnsen was -cut torward to Ix-rtli with the men, I.Mins found comfortable enough • luirters with the boat-steerers. Whenever they happened to meet on Ic.-k they sco«lod blackly at each other in melodriimatie fashion, but neither spoke a word to the other all the voyage. Anil this was the »tory that Kvnns gave in private to the commander of the barque.

Fifteen months previously Evans and .Johanson had been landed there oil Huwarrow, lying iu inconceivable solitariness in tho great ocean, ">OO miles east of Samoa, and 2000 miles north-east of Now Zealand. The trading schooner from Apia, Samoa, which brought them, sailed cautiously right in through the reefentrance and anchored for a few hours under the leo of the long island. There they were set ashore, with their trafie and a small boat for use on the lagoon. Then the schooner hove up anchor and sailed out about her business again, the captain promising to call for the two in four or five months' time on his return from the eastward. She probably was wrecked, because she never returned to Suwarrow, and there the two sailor® had to remain until the N'ew Bedford sperin-whale chaser happened along.

A pressing and insistent mission took them there, a search for treasure, quite in the manner of Spanish Main questings for pirates' hidden hoards. The prize, Hi,ooo dollars in gold, as could be, all stowed in an iron flv. Some ten years previously, the story went, a brig owned by a wealthy Spanish merchant of Valparaiso hnd come to grief on Suwarrow'a coral reefs. Her owner, weary of the interminable revolutions of his Chilian homeland, where neither life nor property was safe for very long, had decided to emigrate with his family and poods to a land where existence would be less precarious. From his agents in Sydney he had heard accounts of Australia, where the gold-dijrsings were transforming raw, new country into a rich and

qA Story of Treasure Finders and Losers | ~ ife

I" . iiloiis one, and to Australia he resolved to His brig sailed for Sydney. She was an old Nova Seotian vessel, built of soft pine, and in a gale she sprang a leak, which increased in spite of pumping night and day. Being in the vicinity of Suwarrow, the captain determined to run into that lagoon, where he thought he might find a suitable boaeli on which to heave the ship down and get at the leak. But in ontorinjr the passage the brig struck one of the coral knobs that upjutted t here and became a hopeless wreck, pounded to pieces by the surf.

Morcifully the crow wore able to launch the two boats on the lee side find haul them along tho narrow lane <>f water between the ship and the land. The owner nnd his two eons contrived between them to get their two heavy boxes of gold out of their cabin nnd up on deck, whence one was safely lowered into a boat. The other slipped overboard and was last. All hands landed safely, and led a "Swiss Family of Robinson" life on Suwarrow for several weeks, watching anxiously for the sails of a passin? ship.

At last the owner and the captain and his officers decided that the best course would be to put to sea. in the two boats and make for Samoa, 500 miles away. As the boats were small, and barely held with safety the passengers and their crew and water nnd provisions, the merchant found it impossible to take with him his heavy box of gold. So he shifted it by boat one nipht, with the assistance of his sons and the captain and a trusted sailor, to a small, sandy inlet on the circling line of reef, about a mile away from the, large island on which the shipwrecked party were camped. There the gold was.buried securely in the sand, at the foot of a cluster of coconut palms. The bearings and appearance of the inland were carefully noted.

Next day the whole of the brig's People pulled out through the reef passage to the open sea and hoisted sail for Samoa. In that group the merchant hoped to be able to charter a small vessel and recover all that was left to him of hi« solid cash. But he did not live to reach Samoa. The boat in which he and his family and the captain and a number of the crew embarked failed to make land and. no doubt, was lost in foul weather. The other boat, in charge of the mate, reached Apia safely. After waiting vainly for the captain's boat the sailors dispersed on various trading vessels.

All but on£, a man who hung about Samoa, doing \ prions odd jobs, and ever and always tryinjr to persuade one or other of the Apia business men to finance him for a treasure liunt. He w«a the sailor who had helped to bury the gold on Suwarrow.

Falling ill, he gave up the idea o trying to reach the isle of gold, and for a few dollars sold his secret to the sailors Evans and Johansen, whom he had met in a grog shop on Apia beach, they for their part promising him a share in the gold should they ever obtain it.

The Welshman and the Scandinavian had little trouble in finding the islet of the buried gold. The sailor had kept his eyes open that night, and marked particularly the aspect of the trees which tufted the low-lying cay. They explored the place in the boat which the schooner captain had left them. Eagerly they Landed and in a fever heat they sank pick and shovel into the coral rock and sand.

Ihree feet down they found the box.

Shaking with excitement, they levered and hoisted it out. In a few moments they had smashed the lock and were plunging their hands into the golden pile. Then, in a very simple way, a quarrel arose.

Johansen was eagerly cramming his pockets with the gold dollars in order to make sure of some of the hoard, suggesting a* he did so that hvans should follow his example; but the Welshman objected, and insisted that every coin should remain in the box until they had removed it to the main island, where they could settle the division at their leisure. The Swede resented the Briton's peremptory manner, but Evans, very determined, slapped down the heavy lid and, as the look had been broken, he passed a length of cord round the l>ox and knotted it. Then he began *o drag the box toward the boat.

The Swede, now thoroughly angry nnd dangerous, put his hand on his sheath-knife. The Welshman, in a white temper, leaped at him and planted a blow on the point of the jaw that sent the foreigner down in a dazed condition.

"That'll teach you to remember I've an officer's ticket," he said. "I'm boss here, you Seandihoovian."

The sulky Swede had to admit as much when he arose, and he helped Kvans drag the box of dollars down the sands to the boat, which was living half out of the water on the beach. Just where she was drawn up the shelf of coral sank very suddenly in a deep hole, a depression not unlike a geyser well in a volcanic country. The water was very clear; every pebble and shell on the glistening sea-floor lay plain to the eye. The sailors launched the dinghy before lifting the box aboard and, wading out, they carried the heavy treasure case between them and rested it on the boat's bow a moment before stowing it, as they had designed, amidships. Now, however, it happened, whether by intention on the Swede's part or not, the box slipped from the gunwale and before it could be gripped and stayed sank into the water on the further side from the two seamen. It slid down the steeply shelving bank into the hollow in the coral, and there it lav, clearly visible, but quite 20ft beneath the surface of the lagoon.

(Continued on page 416.)