THE LANCASHIREMAN FROM THE SOUTH SEAS AND A "CUCKOO."

Otago Witness, Issue 3403, 4 June 1919, Page 59

THE LANCASHIREMAN FROM THE SOUTH SEAS AND A "CUCKOO."

HIS PREFERENCE FOR THE LADY DOCTOR. Miss Elizabeth Robins tells an extraordinarily good story in Reveille of "what a South Sea Islander—apparently born in Lancashire —did in the war, and of his grievance against a "cuckoo" doctor who " took five pieces of shrapnel out o' me. Five. An' never gives one of 'em back!" Miss Robins came across this hero at a certain Women's Hospital, where she and others kept the men supplied with books. This Grey Slum Product. — " Here was this grey slum-product, with the lifeless wisps of straight black hair hanging over a damp forehead; his weak eyes seeing everything; his longlipped mouth, with not one upper front tooth left, uttering disaffection; restless, talking, for ever alking. On the smallest provocation, or none, he would shoot out a skeleton arm to fumble in a backhanded way behind ' the locker-curtain. Out he would bring a horrible little bag of trophies; the nozzle of a bomb, some battered souvenirs, two German buttons. He would tell the story that belonged to each, and by an implacable sequence go on to describe how he got his wound, and how 'that cuckoo •

" The back of my forbearance broke the day he engaged a newcomer in the next bed.

Why a Cuckoo? —

"' Why do you call your doctor a cuckoo?' I demanded.

" ' Was a cuckoo,' he- said, laughing that toothless laugh. 'You see, I was hit

just— ' " ' Yes, yes.' I knew about the dreadful business. "'An' this cuckoo of a doctor took five pieces of shrapnel out o' me. Five. An' never gives one of 'em back ! l "' Oh, that's why ' I began to turn over in my mind the possibility of letting the doctor know how she had outraged the passion of ownership for metal fragments which had been carried with so much inconvenience in the hero's vitals. "' I said to' him : "Is that all there is?" Yes, that cuckoo of a doctor at Boolong I'm tellin' you about. "I ain't sayin' but there's more," says 'e. "There is more. But that's all I'm going to meddle with." ' " And then at great length the pleading of the cadaverous patient jand the fiat refusal of the Boulogne-surgeon to operate any further. When I Come 'Ere. — „ "'I says to the lady when 'I come 'ere ' And then, if you would fancy such a thing, you were to believe that the patient had explained the exact situation- and what the surgeon was to do. 'I got to have it out, lady,' I says. 'lt ain't worth me thinkin' o' going home with that shrapnel worrin' me inside like that.' He'd much rather die and be done with it. '' The lady had said the Boulogne surgeon was right. The irritant fragment was in a bad place. ' But we'll feed you up- and get you to sleeping better, and then we'll see.' "Again that motion I'd grown familiar with. The bony forearm shot out of the covers, and plunged behind the curtain. ' And now you can see! She don't go chuckin' away other folks' belongin's. Not she! Had it there, all ready for 'em to show me, when I came round.' " He fished out of ( his calico bag a ragged piece of iron. He pointed out a yellow stain. ' Poison, that is. Think o' carryin' that home in your gizzard 15,000 miles. I says to that cuckoo in Boulong: " I come too far, doctor, and I got too far to go to be carryin' that about."' Where He Lived.— " I looked at the slum face. 'Where do you~"live?' I asked. '' He named an island in the South Seas. Eighteen years ago an enterprising Lancashire builder had accepted a contract for a bank and a block of offices to be erected in the prinicpal town. Among the workmen taken -out, my clayfaced friend, then 16 or 17, ' thought it'd be good for me 'ealth.' He had prospered, done a little contracting on his own account, married, had several children, felt himself a pillar of the little community, consisting of 1200 British, in addition to the native population. The first ship that took to those remote shores the news of August, 1914, sailed home with volunteers.

"' How many' did I think took that first chance to go and fight a battle 15,000 miles away? That 1200 British included babies and old men, women, and children. How many did I think came back to fight with the first ship? 'Fifty of us able-bodied men. That's 20 per cent, of our population. By the first ship. I says to that cuckoo ' " -- The Men Who Came.—

"In return for his story," says Miss Robins, " I told him how on my first trip back from America after England declared war, the Atlantic liner was crowded with British—men from Manitoba and the farthest North; ranchers from Texas and Colorado; orofessors from the colleges; business men from everywhere, leaving their material advantages behind them, like my South Sea islander—steaming home along all the lanes of ocean. . . ■.

''We talked about what that stood for. And often we had spoken of the hold England had upon her sons. We spoke of English gentleness. I told him if I hadn't learned before what the English tradition stood for I -would have learned it in that hospital—from soldiers. It had fallen to me to know the plain people

of a good many lands. I could compare. A Bargain. — " I drove a bargain with the South Sea islander. He was to add this miracle to his war experiences, and I would spread abroad the storv of the English in the Pacific. His delight when I came back and said I had been talking about him to a county magnate, who had found the South Sea- story one of the most effective passages in his recruiting speeches. ' That 15,000 miles of yours has shortened to the nearest recruiting station for more than one man!' "He smiled his toothless smile: ' Pity your friend couldn't have shown 'em the piece of shrapnel; that cuckoo said he didn't dare ' "He had the bag out in a trice, and the trophy on the counterpane." ' I've been wanting to ask you. How'll I have it set"? Silver, or gold?' " I thought silver. But he inclined to gold; he pointed out it would match the poison stain. It would also go 'with me watch-chain.'

"I could see it dangling, I could hear him leading the conversation round to it all the way back to the South Seas."