A WHALER'S MEMORIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19474, 2 November 1926, Page 6

A WHALER'S MEMORIES.

PICTURES FROM THE PAST. ASHORE ON SUNDAY ISLAND. GRAVE OF A MIDSHIPMAN. . BY LONEHANDF.n. " Where lie not England's dead?" In 1876 the writer landed in Denham Bay on the west side of Sunday Island. On that occasion four marooned sailors were taken oft bv the ship on which ho was then engaged. Near to where they had their camp was a copper plate with lettering on it, which no doubt the writer must have read, but all he could remember was the word " sacred." More than half a century had rolled by when quite by chance he happened on an old friend of over forty years ago in the person of Mrs. Bell, late of Sunday Island, who lent him a copy of the inscription on the memorial tablet he had seen so many years before and which one of her children had found some years later. Mrs. Bell located the grave and had a stout post erected to which was securely fastened the memorial tablet that reads: "This little bit of England is sacred to the memory of Fleetwood James Denham, the dearly-beloved son of Henry Mangles Denham, Captain of Her Britannic Majesty's Ship Herald, and Isabella. Denham. He died on board the Herald on July 8. 1854, aged 16 years, leaving an afflicted parent to mourn his loss here, and many more at home who dearly loved him. This tablet was erected by his bereaved father and shipmates as a last testimony of their esteem. Sunday Island, South Pacific, July 9. 1854." The Old Story of Empire. What a story for some gifted pen artist. A lonely Pacific Island. In the offing, England's grief-stricken ship, her flag where naught else can put it. On the beach, a party of British sailors, toiling through the surf and up the steep sand beach, bearing their dead shipmate to his last resting place! Then the solemn burial service, and afterwards the awful loneliness for the poor boy, with the whole of the world between him and his mother, who will always believe the story and in fancy see the white beached isle where her boy was laid to rest, as her husband with faltering speech told her it was and not as the writer knows Denham Bay, nor ac a great number of slaves who are buried near the end of the beach must have known it. These poor wretches were landed from a plague-stricken Peruvian slaver, but as the particulars concerning them are outside the writer's personal experiences, they must be omitted from these articles. Haps and Hazards. In memory's hall hang many pictures, each with a story, not of whale-hunts only, but of other haps and hazards that one adventured on when youth and wanderlust were shipmates; but the last is the saddest of them -all, and it has awakened remembrance, to vision in another of these pictures a long sand beach on the north side of the same island. On a terrace above the beach a woman and two children are standing anxiously gating seaward. To the left and nearer tho sea a man and two girls are similarly engaged. Apparently they are looking at the whaler Splendid, the ship on which Frank Bullen is said to have got his whalehunting experience for his famous story of " The' Cruise of the Cachalot." The old bluff-bowed ship lay with her courses up and her hcadyards aback. Presently two boats are seen to leave her side and row shoreward. Evidently this was what thS watchers on shore were so anxiously waiting and hoping for. The woman followed by the two children hurried down the rough path to the beach below and joined the man and his two companions, thus grouping the Bell family. These interesting people at that time were the sole inhabitants of Sunday Island. The fad ing picture gives way to the storv. People on the Beach,.

When the Splenaid's boats left the ship that morning to go fishing, the world understood that Sunday Island was uninhabited. Judge then the surprise of the mate, who was in tho leading boat, when upon reaching' the. ■ limit of safe approach to the shorn fcw wv the group of people on the beach: They evidently were not sailors from some vessel that was making a casual call, but were apparently people who urgently needed assistance, and as the appealing wave of a white cloth gave colour to this idea he felt justified in deciding that the skipper's order of "not to attempt to land"— was not intended to apply to such a situation.

The six and seven combers rolling in on the flat beach with the push of the open ocean behind them promised a thrilling ride to the but there was no hesitation. The mate, after telling the second mate that he was "going to give it a go," put the L.B. at it. In mounting the outside comber she took it a hit short and did not get the right balance before the onrushing mass of water rolled from under, and -she fell back apparently doomed to be overwhelmed by the following mountain of water that was rushing up; but somehow she managed to keep her bows clear, although almost upended. The sea had her head down, but not beaten. Inch by inch she worked back until,' fairly balanced on the crest of a giant comber, she raced madly for the shore. Her crew, thrilled dumb, was of little assistance, but the little ship stuck to her position until the mile-long breaker thundered to death on the hard sand beach and shot the L.B. high and dry at the feet of the Sunday Islanders. The Bell Family.

The boat was dragged to a safe position and introductions followed.- Mr. Bell, when asked by the mate why he had been invited through "that"—the awesome sight to seaward —replied, "I did not. I was waving you to go to the end of the island where the landing is better." "All right," said the whaler. "We are here now, and by the look of it out there we will eat you out of house and home before we ire able to get off again.'" "Come up and look in our larder," returned the islander, leading his guests by way of a rough path to the terrace above on which was the Bell homestead

There, one glance was sufficient to dispel any anxiety the whalers might have had regarding food. Less than thirty feet from the kitchen door was a patch of kumaras that guaranteer] vegetables for a considerable time. Everywhere mutton bird warrens assured an ample supply of poultry. On the hillside the green rotundity of hundreds of melons said, "Cut and come again." The patriarch of the goat fiock, with more vigour than courtesy, proffered seats to all or any of the newcomers. Ona man, less agile than his shipmates, reluctantly sat down on his bony head and that started everybody moving, some to the melon patoh, others after mutton birds. Kumaras were soon in the pot, but not before the second mate and his crew came on the scene. He-had found a landing at the end of the island, so now there would be twelve, "instead of six, to feed, but there was plenty. A Fight With the Breakers. TWsrd evening the mate thought a try ought to be made to get off. so L.B. was put at. it again. The end of a whale line was left with the people on shore and the little boat started. Three big breaker.', were hurdled all right. The fourth upended her and men, melons and boatgear were jumbled together. Another attempt was also unsuccessful and next day three, or four more were made with a like result. The day after, L.B. was put at it again and this time wood and iron parted. The. strokes left the keel and the damaged boat was taken ashore and put in safety. On the afternoon of the same day the ship stood close,ill and sent another boat shoreward. This was encouraging to the men cn shore, for it guaranteed relief outside the fringe of breakers, where the sharks could be seen. This time,_the sea having moderated, the sound boat was launched and the two crews mounted the breakers successfully and soon were aboard the ship.