BOKO’S LONG WAIT

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 May 1934, Page 10

BOKO’S LONG WAIT

SAVED IDS PATROE OFFICER. •Sitting-dowii-noihing" in Rabaud anxiously scanning the horizon every dawn for a glimpse of the chequered funnel of the B.P. steamer which will bring back his young white master, is Boko, of Nakanai. Boko has only six months more to wa’t: his master, Patrol-Officer J. K. McCarthy, is on long leave in Melbourne. and but for Boko his leave would be longer and farther away —in fact, in whatever heaven is reserved for patrol-officers from New Guinea. Nakanai is familiar, says the Melbourne "Star.” as the name of the district, where, in 1926, half a dozen white prospectors were surprised, while peacefully lunching in their camp, by u, horde of yelling savages, who murdered and mutilated four of them out of revenge for a wrong which, it transpired, had been done by the native servants of other white men long before.

Tho murders and the events which followed raised (he whole countryside. and Patrol-Oflicer McCarthythen a. cadet —was seal, in to pacify it. Despite his youth—he is only 29 now — he succeded so admirably that within a. year, when his one-man police post, at Malulu. in the hinterland of Nairn uai, took fire and the ammunition ‘ lores started popping in the night, na fives came armed from miles around, and determined to protect him.

IN TIGHT CORNERS. From (he wild men of Nakanai. McCarthy chose as his servant Boko, a tousled stalwart, whom he has faugh! to read and write —and cook —and who new refuses to leave his stile. McCarthy lias boon in many tight corners ■.■.lnce then, and Boko has been there, too. Ho enjoys tight corners more than his master does. Last, year McCarthy went into Mo-obo. behind the Edie Creek goldfields, to arrest the savage Kukukukus. who had. killed tho prospectors Clarius and Naylor. Attacked suddenly, his party, of which he was the only white mam suffered many casualties. One of them was McCarthy. When an arrow got. him in the place he had reserved for his breakfast, he went, down as if note-axed.

Tlie savage was drawing a bead on him again to finish I lie job when Boko Ict.ned over bis master’s prostrate formed, seized his Coll, .11. and shot Cm Knkukuku dead on the spot. What wa:-; more. Boko saw to it that the prisoners did not escape. fie mountid guard until they could be taken down to the station to stand their ; rml. When he had boon patched up in Urn Salainan Hospital, Io which he was i-'k'.m by aeroplane, Patrol-Ofiicer McCarthy, who, you migh' have thought. p-:d h id enough of bother Io iasi him lifetime, look a trip on a tramp steamer Io South Africa, ami spent li'S cm!vaicseem-e studying unlive life in a, Zulu kraal. Meanwhile Boko, paid a retainer by Jc’ yiunig master, ‘'sat-dcwmnotliiiig" In Ih'baui ami waited. !> seems long- ; jne-100-miich, but Boko still sits down extraordinarily ingenious.