PATROL

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1930, Page 4

PATROL

NEW GUINEA EXPLORATION. The game is still going on, but the end appears in sight, (writes “Bisi” in the Sydney “Morning Herald.”) • In a few years patrolling will be a monotonous business of census-taking and inspection, with nothing new to find. Trudging through the mud will still be the patrol officer’s lot, so too -will be the ascents and descents of “perpendicular scenery,” the bush itches, the septic scratches, wet camps, worn-out boots, soggy clothes, swollen rivers. But the delightful uncertainty of life will be gone. No more waiting in hiding outside a village while the guides go forward to announce our coming. “Will they fight, run, or welcome us?” passed through the leader’s thoughts. It will surprise most people to find that the hulk of exploratory patrols in New Guinea have been conducted by

one white officer, six to ten native police, and twenty to thirty carriers. Though some white officers have been wounded, not. one has been killed during the Civil regime, and it appears that parties of small strength travel in reasonable safety, the only danger lying in being overwhelmed by weight of numbers in an ambush. It was revealed during the trial of the Nakanai murderers that there was an ambush of more than two hundred men, who waited for three days for the patrol officer, Nicholls, to march into it with his handful of mein. Fortunately his plans did not. include a journey in that direction, for not one member of the patrol could have escaped from the attack. It was nerve-wracking business, especially when one was travelling through areas that had been disturbed by tribal fighting. One was fully equip-

ped as for war, but fight was the last | thing to bo desired. How often I . have wished it was war when my party •stood on a. hill parleying for hours with warriors who were determined . that they would have nothing to do with the Government. Especially on , the New Guinea mainland, where the natives are very courageous, have I had to endure insults flung back to the interpreter, who shrugged his shoulders after translating for me. The great drawback is that the bush native does not know the power of firearms, and on appearance of a small party concludes that his arms are as good as ours, and that his gods are with the big battalions. In one engagement, natives stood up to us at a distance of fifty yards, and pelted us with slingstones, and kept up desperately fighting for half an hour, until we scored a fatal hit on a. chief. This ignorance

of the outside world sometimes has a. humorous touch, as when 1 -was patrolling on the Sepik plain, which is fairly densely populated, I thought l' would allay a tense situation by hoisting the Australian Ensign. “Pah!” said the corporal, “All he savvy along flag? No fear!” Which meant., “Don’t be silly!” Fortunately this story did not leak out, thereby depriving officialdom of a good laugh. But the eno about, the American recruiter did. He confronted a howling mob of savages led by their chief, in his hand an ■jutsize revolver that used to blow out

at the side, and yelled desperately at the chief, “I’ll have you know, sir, that I’m an American citizen!” His action was as futile as mine. A TASK FOR LUNGS AND LEGS. Patrolling is principally a physical feat. One runs through, maps the country, establishes village government to suit our administration, and ; reports; but without good lungs and legs these things would be impossible.

Often when lousy in a bush village, and pestered with sandflies, rats, and scrub-itch, did I wonder whether the Domain orator’s satirical description of Empire,builders as having “hearts of oak and hears of concrete” did not fit me. When younger I thrilled when I found new tribes, new rivers, but with advancing years these things seemed commonplace. That thousands of men and millions of boys would love the adventure was nothing. Stand at the headwaters of the Warangoi River, in the Baining Mountains, after the carrinrc* /I _j* j ... . .

tiers have cut down an acre of trees so that one could take bearings, and gaze at Gazelle Peninsula five thousand feet below; forget that to reach that eminence there were waterless stages along hunting tracks, .when the party looked longingly at rice needing only water for cooking in those camps in kneedeep moss on the dividing range; forget the ascents and descents from root to root, the exhausted carriers who threw down their loads and gasped for breath, while ignorant friends blew down their throats, the shivering against diminutive fires made of rotten wood until daylight allowed us to move through the treacherous moss; and look at that eighty-mile vista below us that clear morning in the south-east monsoon, and know that you are the first white to survey that scene. Then you feel that New Guinea is a cruel and beautiful land. Press on to the villages below, stand tn nrmc oil

ia S es> ueiuw, siami to arms all night neat one and not find out for some months the cause of the alarm; and , then on to the coast, drop your sick j men in a coastal village to be collected later, and plod on to the station feeling that you could not stand an ex--1 perience like that again. These are glimpses of patrolling in , New Guinea, patrolling a country that was heaped up and broken by devils, ’ a land of sago swamps traversable on ' logs three feet below the surface of the mud; or grass plains where the sword grass cuts one’s arms to ribbons, and the sun burns until one’s head is bowed with aching; of mossy mountain and jungle. The game is going on. The red tinting of tho map is widening each year. The tinting will spread until there are no blank spaces—then white eyes will have seen everything.