A Smile from Neptune.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4802, 26 June 1939, Page 2

A Smile from Neptune.

(Copyright.)

A.. fact story from Dauan and Sabai Islands, in Torres Strait off the south-west coast of New Guinea. (Copyright.) JNTENSE excitement reigned at Dauan. The very palms whispered joy as they rustled above the village. Swift canoes shot out for Sabai and Boigu, to share the tidings of a great gift from the sea. The “Gubinmint” on Sabai awoke next' morning to find his subjects flown. Only the older school children and the very old people remained—and the very angry policeman. Even the native pastor was gone. The remnant shook uneasy heads to Authority’s questions. Then Gubinmint stormed in vain on discovering that every canoe was missing. Marooned in his own village, the schoolmaster sought his glasses to uneasily spy on this latest prank of his grownup children. Not five miles away stood up Dauan, old-man mountain out of the sea. At that distance, amongst shrubbery, grey houses clung like goats grazing upon its steep slopes; but the schoolmaster knew they were huge granite boulders reflecting back the sun. He focussed the glasses on the tiny beach past the reef, that fronted the small village under the palms. The native schoolhouse door was swinging idly; but the

sparkling- waterway over the reef was alive with craft. Grimly the Gubinmint noted its own big Sabai canoes amongst the vessels of Dauan; men, women and children massed on the outrigger platforms, while bounding towards them with a followingbreeze halloaed the crowded canoes of Boigu. “See what you can make of it; sergeant!” And the puzzled Gubinmint handed the glasses to the huge brown islander in khaki coat and blue lava-lava. That official’s resentment increased the more as his local knowledge assured him he was missing something:

“Those mans find somethings,” he declared emphatically. “They dive longa sea. Plenty jail wait longa them what time they come back—plenty build him road,” he added grimly. With which verdict the powers that be had to abide in ill content.

While fishing out from the reef a secret of the sea had been unfolded to Baku, diving-boy of Dauan. He had located an old wreck, its ribs encrusted with the corals of a century. There rest many such in the Coral Sea, but this relic yielded treasure. For Balm had hitched an anchor rope to a rounded block of coral and with much labour his comrades had hauled it up to canoe deck. Careful chopping with the tomahawk had displayed musty wood intergrown with corals. With rising excitement, they had cut a hole in this wood and suddenly liberated an aroma fit for the

By lON L. IDRIESS.

AUSTRALIA’S MOST POPULAR WRITER

ing the rear

very gods. It scented the air with a sweetness that tingled their deepest insides. Baku had smelt first, then screwed his face tight into the chapped coral and poked his tongue down the hole. His comrades gazed breathless as the face came up, unfolding its wrinkles in ecstasy to the rolling tongue. It bobbed down for more. Instant hubbub, while clawing hands lugged him away. Heads humped in a rush to sample the hole. It was Samsu who developed the brain-wave. Samsu who had once been to Thursday Island and drank “ginger-beerah” white man fashion. He pulled a bamboo from the canoe and thrust it down into the keg and sucked and sucked—until his comrades pulled him away and snatched the straw. For that old keg .held a golden wine into which Neptune had lullabyed the dreams of a hundred years. A hilarious and joyous crew later sailed their canoe slap-dash up on to the very beach of Dauan. The villagers watched amazed while the sails flapped protestingly at the singing antics of the crew standing on their heads perilously out on the outrigger booms.

The village policeman walked to investigate; the native deacon followed with the puzzled villagers crowd-

It was Baku who with great cunning had urged the discoverers to leave just a sip for the policeman and deacon!

So now the three islands, men, women and girls of Sagai, Boigu, and Dauan, dived for the gift of the sea. There were plenty of casks but treacherously hard to find, deep down in the sea, where the coral walls grew all over and through the old wreck. After much diving the boys would locate a cask; then four went down and with tomahawks and levers toiled to break it away from the coral’s encircling arms. After two stupendous minutes they would rise with bursting lungs, but others were already swimming down to the task, while yet others were poised waiting on the canoes above. Women, those hefty island girls whose strength ofttimes puts a man to shame, helped enthusiastically. And the sunlight echoed to rollicking fun and laughter, for was not all life a joy, made sweeter as they gazed across at low-lying Sabai and shrieked with merriment at Gubinmint’s expense. For they had not defied Gubinmint; they had not done anything they were told not to do; they had merely gone a-visiting to Dauan and were not to know that Gubinmint might want a canoe to voyage across himself. After it was all over they would return quite innocently, and tell him all about the white man’s ship. They knew he dearly loved to talk of the quiet old ships that sleep deep down among the corals. They might even bring him a little of the entrancing firewater. They might!

BY lON L. IDRIESS.

AUSTRALIA’S MOST POPULAR WRITER.

And so, as the day wove on, they would prise away another keg and in triumph haul the shapeless coral lump to a canoe above. It would be left for all to see, lashed to the outrigger platform while they slipped below for more. For now the Council had decreed that no keg must be opened until they were all comfortable around the feast fires at night. Wonderful feast nights these were. Marvellous singing, lovely dancing, the like had never been known before. The islanders became certain they were gods and goddesses. They rose to that height wherein they actually shrieked defiance to Gubinmint across the starlit water; the girls in particular making ribald statements as to his personal beauty and figure, encored by the rollicking laughter of the men, of Sabai particularly, as they recalled the wiping off of old scores against both Gubinmint and policeman. As lords presiding over the feasts, on the best village mats, sat solemnly the police of Dauan and Boigu, backed up by the island councillors. And due deference was accorded to their ordering of the proceedings, although they sat on a volcano, for nightly the old irreconcilables arose to the point of rattling their bows and shouting “to hell with the Gubinmint an’ missionary an’ white man.” But the wine was never in quite sufficient quantities to finally force the tide into a bloody revolution. One evening, with three kegs grudgingly left in care of the police and deacons, the Sabai and Boigu peoples set off with low chuckles to their island homes to raid their own gardens, for Dauan could not indefinitely feed such a crowd. The Boigu men were quite safe, for no white man lives on their island, but the Sabaites were uncertain of what awaited them. Very quietly at high tide they ran their canoes into the mangroves away from their own big village, then crept through the black mangroves and out to the open grassy plain which is a swamp in the wet season. A million frogs croaked to the skies as they sneaked through the ankle-deep water. A line of shadows, they emerged through the tall grasses at the rear of the village, and melted into the gardens. Then what mad grubbing in the dark for maniocs and yams; a hasty cutting of banana bunches and rummaging around for taro. Some eager shadows slipped amongst the silent houses, for what mother when so near her children would not dare to at least hear them breathe! In his fine house, all alone, Gubinmint slept, tired out with watching and wondering what it all meant. He was just one white man alone in the Coral Sea, with the destiny of three islands under his hands and hat, and a savage New Guinea coastline only a stone’s throw away. So the village policeman alone watched in the shadow of the banana trees and grinned savagely whilst he listened and learned. Resentment flamed as two lads whispered laughingly under the very banana' palm by which he stood. He let out and clouted Samsu on the ear, and threw his great weight on Goabar, while his bull voice roared for “Gubinmint!” In an instant the policeman was sent sprawling, for frantic fear lends unbelievable strength to the slightest of men.

Then arose a noise as of hurrying cattle as two hundred feet tore through the gardens. A pyjama-clad figure jumped straight out on to the schoolhouse vendah, with starlight glistening along a rifle-barrel. Frightened children cried from the quiet houses. The policeman, his blood well up, thundered in pursuit, roaring his whereabouts to Gubinmint who raced manfully after, painfully handicapped by bare feet. At the forbidding blackness of the mangroves, the policeman halted. A stake had whizzed viciously past his ear. Pie listened to the crackling of mangrove roots, to the pantings and the squelching of mud growing rapidly. He realised that discretion would save him a broken head, so awaited in impotent rage until the ghostly Gubinmint should pluck the thorns from his feet and come limping up. Back in the village, a crouching woman crooned over a child. She had recognised her laddie’s voice and just could not leave him when he called, even though she knew it was only for a few heavenly days. The others all got back to Dauan, flooding the waterway with song and laughter hysterically joyous. Midway out, they met the returning canoes of Boigu and their blended voice musically sweet made Gubin-

mint quite angry as he limped back along his lonely veranda.

The return of the commissariat

was hailed with masked solemnity by the police and deacons and councillors of Dauan. The garden raiders were so exhilarated retailing their adventures that they did not notice that the guardians of the wine seemed incapable of rising from their mats to greet them, nor that the Dauanites listened smilingly though a trifle abashed.

However, the kegs were immediately attended to in a spirit of hilarious comradeship. Those wells of joy were full, but after the first one was emptied the commissariat raiders but doubtfully guessed that half the other two was water. However, day dawned bright and clear and happy with a guarded understanding amongst the visiting islanders that a closely representative watch would be kept on the kegs in future. Clare was enjoying herself immensely. She had not been so happy for years and years. Her slender creamy form stood out distinctly against the strong brown and black figures of the island girls. Her hair too drew instant attention; it clouded to her waist, thick, quite straight, and jet black. The island girls’ glory was beautiful but short and prettily frizzed in a million tiny curls. Clare’s eyes were black, her nose and lips small. She smiled quite sweetly with this excitement and just loved to dive deep with the men. Of course, she could not stay down so long nor work so furiously as the deep-chested island girls, but she had all the excitement of plunging into the darkening gloom and peepwatching those bronze figures busily working amongst the wonder things of the sea. And strangely, she felt proud that this happiness from the sea was the gift of a white man’s

Poor Claire! A half-caste aboriginal, she pined for her great open country around the Mapoon Mission station, so far away on the northwestern peninsula coast. Rama, while visiting on a pearling-lugger, had married her and carried her far to the little island in the sea. The island girls were quite nice to her; she knew they were sorry for her, that she had never borne a woman’s pride. Little Clare, lonely exile. I saw her recently; the visiting missionary shook his head. Consumption !

But Clare was happy this bright day, and continually she swam down into the silence to spy the ghosts at work. And Baku and Samsu smiled at her, their smiles looking so friendly in the green twilight and strange, too, because their mouths could not open and no soul made any noise. They pointed once as if daring her to do something. She hastily glimpsed what appeared a blacker hole below this hole, for she was within the hold of the old ship. But she must have more breath, so she glided up like a white shadow dodging the purple corals.

She got her breath on the canoe above while mentally seeking courage to accept the challenge: As the workers shot up from below she told them she would swim into the hole, and they all, girls and men, laughingly dared her, never dreaming that she had the courage or the capability to do so. When their turn came again, she swam down, down, down between Baku and Samsu. The twilight clouded within the coral ship and her heart went faint at the little black opening below. But she swam straight on thinking to turn in the darkness below and then swim straight up through the misty water to triumph. •Both men snatched too late as they realised she had gone. They crouched on the edge of the den in agonised fear for they knew the demon that waited within. A gaping purple cavern opened before Clare, and surrounding it were rows of gleaming teeth. The sleepy giant groper that could have bitten her in halves never moved. She doubled in a frantic terror that caused her to miss the opening above. Something snatched down at her hair. She struggled away in agonised fear but a vice gripped her wrist and clung. She tugged and kicked and heard her heart hammering up through the blackness, then opened her mouth to scream and all the sea roared in and her ears burst. Only when her struggles lessened could Baku and Samsu pull her out, then with bleeding noses and bulging eyes, they thrashed up with her to the sunlight above.