Chapter 14 Island Interlude; Yeoman; Luncheon on Corvette; Sailor's Prayer

ISLAND INTERLUDE

0NE of the strangest, and perhaps one of the proudest places over which the White Ensign of the Navy flies is a small bay of a tropical island off the coast of Australia. Until recently, comparatively few white men had been there.

The interesting fact about this bay is, the people who live there.

On our first visit we stopped outside the bay to allow a launch to approach us. The launch seemed full of black boys, but as it neared we were able to distinguish a tall, gaunt, sun-tanned white man dressed in the khaki uniform of a R.A.N.R. lieutenant. He, however, did not board us but sent one of his boys up to our bridge. This "boy" was about fifty years of age and wore an old petty officer's cap and a shirt with the crossed anchors of a petty officer on the sleeve. He was Paddy, our pilot.

Identities having been established, we began weaving our way into the bay around reefs and sandbars, with Paddy directing the captain by "li'l bit port", or "li'l bit starb'd". This was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and by five, after we had been safely anchored for some time, the lieutenant whom we had seen in the launch came aboard to pay his respects. He brought with him enough fish, crabs and oysters to feed seventy men, with a turtle thrown in for good measure. Incidentally, up to that time he was the only white man on two thousand square miles of tropical, native-inhabited island. He had a small radio and received his supplies in three monthly lots. It is what he has accomplished, though, that is the most amazing part.

By his kindness and understanding attitude towards the natives, amongst whom he has lived for twenty-nine years, he has become a person of supreme importance in their lives. They know about God, they know about King George, but far and above them comes this solitary white man. He represents all that is most wonderful, and for him they would eagerly give their lives.

From the native men he has selected about fifteen, ranging in age from ten to fifty years, and trained them in naval traditions and customs. He has raised the White Ensign, and every morning and evening the guard falls in to present arms for colours. Orders are carried out in obedience to a bos'n's call, and to those boys, who have also known the A.I.F. and R.A.A.F., Navy is "number one service, sir".

Their life, however, does not consist only of such ceremonies, which they love and carry out whether their beloved lieutenant is there or not. They have saved countless lives of airmen forced down into the sea, and fed them and cared for them. They even have their own system of intelligence, co-ordinated with their own bush wireless. They can tell at a glance whether a plane is friendly or not, when we are still peering through binoculars. They can speak good English, and have an amazing conception of what war, the war of the white man, means, and what it entails in the way of personal sacrifices.

As far as conditions go, the white man is little better off than they are. He lives in a round native-built hut, of mud and bark, with an iron bed, a chair and a table. His one apparent item of comfort is a kerosene refrigerator, which is generally out of action. His three months' stores being often inadequate, he exists for weeks at times on a diet of fish and crabs roasted over an open fire.

It is in this bay that the war is being fought with a fervour unequalled in Australia. However it is not without humour, as something happens every day which causes a laugh. One of the queerest customs they have adopted is when a new piccaninny is being born. Be it midnight or midday, a friend of the mother to-be comes to the naval officer hourly with news, until at last she is able to say, full of excitement, "Boomboom piccaninny, sir" (a beautiful baby). She is then given a little tea and sugar and a little nicky-nicky (tobacco), which she takes back to the mother for postnatal treatment. Next day the baby is brought to him to be named with a good English name, instead of names like "Strangler" and "Frying Pan", which older natives have adopted.

Occasionally a corroboree is staged for a visiting ship, and for this great preparations are made. All the bush natives gather, decked out in war paint, around a huge fire on the beach. Everyone is there, from the king, a patriarchal figure, down to the youngest initiated boy. Unlike their old dances whose
subjects were animals and the like, they are now based on air raids, the landing of a Catalina in their bay, or the visit of a particular ship. Who says Australia is not war-minded!

Although the king is there, the naval officer is still "Number One Boss", and he is the governing factor in all things. His word is law; from regulating the number of dogs allowed in the village, to the settling of local marital problems. He will tackle any problem with a confidence and understanding born of long years in such an environment, and some of his duties are the strangest that any naval officer has ever undertaken.

"MAC III."

THE YEOMAN

THE Yeoman has nothing to do-well, that is practically nothing to do except:
- Decide what is to be done-
- How it is to be done-
- Why it should be done-
- Tell somebody to do it
- Listen to the usual reasons why it should be done by somebody else
  - (just a matter of passing the buck),
- why it shouldn't be done in a different way-
- and then prepare arguments, which should be convincing and conclusive for the defence of tradition.

The Yeoman must follow up to see if the thing has been done and, if it has not been done, to inquire why not. Then listen to excuses from the person who should have done it. Tell him to get on with it, under threat. Then follow up for the second time to see if the thing has been done. Discover that it has not been done correctly and conclude that it might as well have been left as it was reflecting that the person at fault is a native and had had a heavy night or that the Wran in question had her boy friend home on leave, and that no other Yeoman would put up with him or her for a second.

The Yeoman thinks how much simpler that coding job would have been if he had done it himself. Reflects sadly that if he had done it himself he could have finished the task in twenty minutes. Reflects also that, as it was, he had to spend four hours trying to find out why it took somebody else three hours to do wrong.

"HALYARD."

LUNCHEON INTERLUDE A LA H.M.A. CORVETTE

MY forenoon watch is nearly over. Into the wireless office comes six feet of feminine heart throb to whom I hand over my watch. Before leaving the "perso boy" to his four-hour vigil I remember to pocket my fag makings; as a very new telegraphist I once neglected to do this.

Dinner is now on, and I avoid a stoker with an armful of scrans which he expertly carries, very little custard getting mixed with the stew or vice versa.

I am last man on the queue at the galley, so collect the usual abuse from the leading cook. This I ignore, having heard it for the last two years.

In the safety of my mess I examine the scran. The women's newspapers would call it "plain but wholesome"-the fourth stew in two days, and the tenth for the week. Disguised with tomato sauce and relish, I swallow it blindly whilst listening to the signalman giving the latest scandal from the bridge. As I eat my duff the conversation turns to an argument on literature, a change from the evils of officers and other mess-deck topics.

Nigger and myself, as the unfortunate mess cooks, abuse the remainder of the mess into leaving the table. We dhoby the dishes in silence, our thoughts far away. The mess is squared up and the watch keepers: move to "daytime sleeping stations". The lights are turned out and, happy in the service at last, we have a quiet forty winks.

R. D. L.

A SAILOR'S PRAYER

Let me live, 0 Mighty Master,

Through this war. Yet if I'm slain,

Tasting triumph and disaster,

Joy, and not too much of pain,

Let me roam the raging waters

For a while to love and laugh,

And when I'm beneath the ocean,

Let this be my epitaph-

"There sleeps one who took his chances

In that war-crazed, tragic hell.

Battled luck and circumstances,

Loved and laughed, but fought and fell.

Victor, then he did no crowing;

Wounded, then he did not wail;

Cursed and swore, but kept on going,

Never let his courage fail.

He was fallible and human,

Therefore loved and understood

By his fellow men and women,

Whether good, or not so good.

Kept his spirit undiminished,

Had a laugh for every friend,

Fought for Freedom till it finished,

Lived, loved, laughed, until the end."

LATE PETTY OFFICER H. B. SHIPSTONE, of H.M.A.S. Sydney.

ON A REEF, ARAFURA SEA REFLECTIONS FROM CHINAMPA'S LOG

STOOD away from Croker Island towards Bowen Strait, with bright memories and a dull sky. Sounded up the strait with two leadsmen in the chains, finding a least depth of nearly five fathoms where the chart shows two.

Cleared the strait and skirted the mainland before heading west round Danger Point. Drizzling rain and low, heavy clouds, a grey world.

On the starboard quarter the dim shape of Croker Island, King Billy's domain, receded into the murk. Farewell, King Billy, kind, thoughtful monarch. I will see that our witch doctors go forth to destroy your debil debil, the Nipponese mine washed up on your beach. Lots of baccy and good wishes and a murrain upon meddling whites. God save the king.

An able seaman was at the masthead on the lookout for shoals, a good sailor, reared in South Australian ketches and wise in the way of the sea. But grey waters and grey squalls cloaked its dangers. On the bridge one hearkened rather to the monotonous song of the leadsman. Suddenly the lookout shouted, "Reefs ahead," and the leadsman cried in warning, "Deep two, shoaling fast."

Hard a-starboard; full astern!

Too late! With a crunch of coral and a horrible shudder she was aground.

So that was that. Falling tide and an eight hours' anxious wait for high water. Fortunately speed had been dead slow. It is now calm, and Chinampa is a stout ship. She is making no water, so we have perforce to await high tide and hope for the best. Beyond streaming an anchor and sounding adjacent water, for the present little can be done. Chinampa is in the hands of Thalassa and my little silver charm, Peter Penguin. Meanwhile, from the bilges, comes an ugly crunch, crunch, as the ship rocks gently on her inhospitable bed.

The moment of grounding yields a sickening, catastrophic sensation. At that instant the bottom may be torn out of the ship, or she may break up in a pounding sea, or remain stranded until time and tide destroy her. That feeling of utter dismay is mostly for the ship, which, to a seaman, is a live thing. She is part of him and he of her. She has her vagaries and her tantrums, her capabilities and her limitations, her good days and her bad. She is a shining genius or a prosaic plodder, a beauty or a beast, but always to a true seaman, from bridge to fo'c'sle, she is "My Ship" and let no man play her false.

It could not be other-wise. For down the ages ships have played a high share in the shaping of man's destiny. It was a red-letter day in human story when man discovered that a floating log would bear his weight. Then in his first canoes and coracles he found new hunting grounds and strange new peoples. He came to understand the pulse of the ocean and the power of the wind. His coracles grew to caravels, his clippers to Cunarders, and the spread of their sails and the form of their hulls reflected the art and the skill of the breed which built them. Phoenician galley and Greek trireme, Arab dhow and the highprowed craft of Vikings, Chinese junk and the argosies of Spain, all mirrored the questing spirit, the valiant spirit, of the race. Striding the seaways or at rest in their havens, ships, most of all man's handiwork, have Inspired literature and song. From Homer and Virgil to Shakespeare and Masefield, from countless writers of all lands and ages, their triumphs and their tragedies have become legend. So have they become part of the mind, part of the heart, part of the soul of man.

Apparently undamaged, Chinampa came off the reef at nightfall. Peter Penguin has come good.

Lieut. N. K. W.

GRASS SKIRTS AND ROMANCE

Were the native girls really attractive? " Sadie had asked in one of her letters, and Leading Seaman J. A. Martin, despite his being a kellick with one, hadn't been able to find out. He'd been in the "Med", and the "Med" had been the beginning and end of the war when he was there-but now in New Guinea there were fresh fields to conquer.

If the native belles looked like Dorothy Lamour, they might be conquered, too. There was Sadie, of course, and Dulcie, the Sydney girl, but Pincher Martin liked variety and, well, who knows?

Despite his excursions ashore, Pincher had never seen a native girl, and had had to restrict his sightseeing to the American queens of the celluloid.

Then came the fruit trip. On a quiet afternoon in a New Guinea bay with nothing much to do, a sail in the whaler was suggested with the ostensible object of buying fruit from the natives. Tobacco was produced, and there were bright shillings and many pennies to lure sales.

This was the home of tropical fruit, the know-alls said bananas and papaws grew wild, and coconuts could be had for the asking.

Calling the trip a "sail" was a formality. Instead, it was a row from start to finish for naval seaboats are not built for zephyrs. But they rowed cheerfully - and walked her across a coral reef - for about five miles to get away from inflated prices.

Martin and his crew, sweating in the tropic sun, landed at an Army camp they did not know existed, and they were warned off. "Try a few miles along there," said a friendly buddy.

To Pincher, this village was his heart's desire-a native village as authentic-looking as anything Hollywood had turned out for Dorothy Lamour. Perhaps he could get a grass skirt from the local Dorothy, by fair means or foul.

Delectable thatched houses on stilts nestled among sixty-foot palm trees growing down to the water's edge, and among the vivid green background were scarlet patches of hibiscus ten feet high, or more. Everything was tidy, and on the green sward mothers were playing with their children, and small boys lined the waterfront to welcome the traders.

It was a shock to Pincher's ideas of native villages when he saw the former head-hunter in charge of the shore party was wearing a pair of khaki shorts which anyone in the boat would have been pleased to exchange for his own.

But reclining against a coconut palm, with a poise which Hollywood inculcates after months of tuition, was Pincher's dream: a lass of eighteen, or maybe sixteen, whose firm figure was accentuated by the graceful flow of three grass skirts curving from her hips. In her hair was an hibiscus flower, and as Pincher approached, she smiled. Pincher wasn't the only one enthralled!

Martin had eyes only for the dusky belle. "Yes," he would tell Sadie-a fellow had to be honest-"they are really attractive."

But surely the poor girl had something wrong with her mouth? Was it the light, but then he realized the truth-she chewed betel nut, and the dark-red juice had stained her lips and all round her mouth. Her teeth were like so many pieces of dark red brick. The illusion had vanished, and as she was beckoned into the background by the other women, Pincher wanted no dusky maid.

He'd get himself a grass skirt, though, as Sadie, or even Dulcie (though it was unlikely), might wear it for him one day.

"Have you any fruit?" asked Pincher, back to business, faintly hoping the missionaries had been there to teach a little English.

"Yes, banana, coconut," answered the khaki-trousered head-hunter.

"How much?" asked Pincher, trying frantically to conceal his ample stocks of "ready rubbed".

"Five bob bunch," was the staggering reply. Pincher queried it.

"Five bob bunch," repeated the native stolidly.

"Bunch how big?" Pincher demanded, never having seen a bunch big enough to be sold for five shillings, even in Sydney.

The bunch was produced-fifteen green bananas-at fourpence each!

The trousered gentleman knew what "five bob" was, too, and stuck to his price.

"Coconuts bob each," he added hopefully, but the fruit party left him, wandered into the village, and found a solution by giving each small boy sixpence for being a "good boy" after he had climbed the coconut trees and knocked down a few coconuts.

Still with an eye on a grass skirt, Pincher stayed behind to look after the whaler", and passed over an ounce of pipe tobacco as a peace offering.

"How much grass skirt?" he inquired, casually.

"Fifteen bob to quid," he was told.

Pincher knew that enterprising members of the A.I.F. had been making grass skirts on a mass-production system with the aid of hair-combs and were selling them for nine shillings each to very willing buyers, but Pincher regarded "fifteen bob to quid" as being too much even for a genuine native-made one.

Pincher brought out two two-ounce packets of tobacco, but the chief knew the brand, and wasn't impressed at all. Then he produced a bright shilling, and put that on top. Still no takers! He added a three-pence, and two of his bright pennies, but that was still much under "fifteen bob to quid", and the coloured man in khaki shorts knew it as well as his fellow Australian in the same rig. Pincher's pipe would have bought the grass skirt, but Sadie had given him that, and trading it was out of the question.

It was a stalemate. But from the back of the village came his dusky maid. She had a grass skirt in her hand, and as she approached, there was an angry cry from the headman, and the women joined in. Pincher held his peace, wondering what was going to happen, still holding out his tobacco, shilling, threepence and two bright pennies.

The noise subsided and the girl handed him her skirt. On getting a "yes" to his cautious query "All right?" he handed over his goods.

The head-hunter apologized profusely that anyone in his village should stoop so low as to sell a grass skirt for less than "fifteen bob".

"She very poor," he said, apologetically. "She need the money".

Pincher has no dusky maid, but he has a grass skirt. What salty dits he'll spin - in varying company - of how he came by it!

"STANLEY."

CONVOY SIGNALMAN

THE scene was Prince's Pier, Port Melbourne, in the month of October 1943-The rousing notes of the ship-borne U.S. Marine Corps Band was rendering the "Marine's Hymn". Three short blasts sounded
from the Liberty ship's siren and stiff, tight-lipped Guadalcanal veterans gazed with almost nostalgic eyes at the waving crowd ashore who were receding slowly but surely.

A yeoman of signals R.A.N.R. and his staff of three R.A.N.R. signalmen (C) unheedingly carried on with their task of rigging a radiotelephone set and emergency fixed light signalling gear. Time was short, for soon they would be on the high seas and messages would be coming thick and fast.

Many difficulties and problems arose in maneuvering, the convoy of U.S. transports by British systems of communication, but these were surmounted, and they ploughed their way northwards with their escort of R.A.N. and U.S. destroyers. In all, it was truly a combined force.

By the time we were nearing our destination the convoy signal party had almost become Americanized and were certainly enjoying the new environment; in fact they were rather sorry the trip was nearing its conclusion. Milne Bay and Samarai disappeared in the turmoil of the convoy's wake, and a blinding tropical rainstorm had swept upon the transports. The escorts reported hostile aircraft, but that timely act of providence which provided that impenetrable blanket of rain shielded the convoy from attack, for when the squall lifted no aircraft could be seen.

As suddenly as the tropical rain had swept upon the leading ship of the convoy, she grounded and crashed upon a treacherous coral reef and lurched over on her starboard side to an alarming angle. "Am aground-Am aground!" chattered the two twelve-inch daylight signalling projectors and the R/T, reminding one of the futile cry of a stricken bird. The alarm given, the remainder of the convoy sheered away to port and churned their way off by proceeding full speed astern.

Twelve hours were spent dismantling radio gear and disembarking valuable stores before the Commodore of Convoy Signal-staff was transferred by lifeboat to H.M.A.S. Warramunga. This Australian-built Tribal Class destroyer made five or six energetic attempts to refloat the stranded vessel, but each time was unsuccessful. The following morning found the Warramunga-having left the refloating job to others-many miles from the scene of the grounding and speeding at over thirty knots on south-westerly course. Arriving at Milne Bay the signalmen (C) were ferried ashore and left to their own devices for almost a week. Embarked In an H.M.A. sloop their return to Australia was soon accomplished. After arrival at that port, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne followed in quick succession and within the month they were back at their base ready for another convoying task.

Such is the life of a convoy signalman, a life of packing, unpacking and of continuous travel.

E. C. R., Yeoman of Signals,

HUNGRY FISH

T'was the first time that I had met "Nobby" since he had been overseas; and with both his hands in bandages, and myself still a civvie, I felt that I owed him something that I could not repay. But in a good attempt to do so, I took him down to the "Exchange" for a drink.

He was still very awkward with his hands, holding the glass between his thumb and the bandages; you could see that there were no fingers under the bandages, only the thumbs sticking out and the stumps of the others.

"How did it happen?" I asked him.

"Oh, just one of those things that happen in war, I suppose," he said carelessly.

"Shrapnel?

"No."

"Machine-gun fire?"

"In a way."

"All right," I said, "keep it to yourself."

"Well," he said, "my shipmates and I are so sick of being called liars, that we have given up talking about our hands. I'd tell you, but you'd only call me a liar in the end, like the rest of them."

I resolved that I would not.

"Well," he said, emptying his glass, "we were lying off Syracuse in Sicily, on one of those warm days when the sky is perfectly clear and the Med. is smooth as glass and blue as a flower, waiting for the Alex.-bound convoy to come out and form up. That was when the fighting was round Catania, and though the planes came over us at night they didn't bother much in the daytime.

"We were lying about in the waists and on the fo'c'sle, browning ourselves in the warm sun, sleeping or telling sailors' lies to each other, when suddenly my cobber said, 'Look at that disturbance in the water, Nobby. Looks like there's a sub. breaking water.' I looked, but it was not a sub. It was more like the disturbance you get with the first puffs of a strong blow.

"'It's wind,' I said, as we watched the disturbance coming nearer and nearer in a long line, a mile or so long. Broken and tossed, and capped with white, it was a strong contrast to the glassy water in which we were lying.

"'No! It's fish,' he cried. 'Thousands of them.' And he dashed down below to get some fishing lines and bait from the cook.

"Those fish were hungry. They were so hungry that you could see them fighting each other to be first to the hooks. We just baited. cast, hauled in and baited again. We caught hundreds of them as they milled round the ship in their thousands, like punters round the Tote at Randwick on Saturdays. There was no skill in it, of course; but our main diet for months had been Yankee tinned food, and a good haul of fish was valuable to us. It wasn't long before there were heaps of them on the fo'c'sle and in the waists and down aft-heaps, knee-high.

"In our excitement, we forgot everything else, until suddenly the action bells rang. Longs and shorts-aircraft.

"We rushed to our action stations as a flight if torpedo bombers-Heinkel 111s-came slamming over the water at us. They didn't want us, of course, but the big merchant ships just coming out of harbour. But we didn't mean to let them get that far.

"'Open fire!' ordered the gunnery officer, and the gunners went to town on them. You could see the tracer worming its way into some of them, and the for'ard gun belting away shells at about thirty a minute.

"Then you could see the gun flashes from their turrets, and then the green-coloured tracer worming toward us.

"'Duck!' yelled someone, but we had already ducked behind the bulwarks from habit, and from there we could hear the shells striking the ship's side-Tack-ack-ack pinge!- and hear some of them ricochet off.

" 'Down in the engine-room,' yelled the first lieutenant in my ear. I belonged to the damage-control party; so I scrambled down into the engine-room, where the water was spurting through the holes in the ship's side.

"'Block 'em up!' I yelled to the others, and shoved my fingers into two of the holes. So did the rest of the damage-control lads; and they sent down a lot more, because there were dozens of holes.

"Then they started flashing up the boilers, so that we could get out of it quickly and get to the dry dock in Malta. But flashing up a ship's boilers from only half of her proper head of steam is a long job; and after about a half-hour my fingers got so cold and aching, that I began to wonder if they were still there. It got pretty near unbearable after a while, and I pulled out one finger to give it a rest.

"It was gone! I pulled the other one out and it was gone, too.

"Shove your fingers back, if you want to get out of here alive, you dam fool!' yelled the stoker P.O. at me. So I shoved two other fingers into the holes. Soon they were gone, too; and the next ones, so that I only had my thumbs and little fingers left. They were either too big or too small; so I had to be relieved by another bloke. And I was not the only bloke. Almost every man in the ship lost a finger or two before we finally flashed up and got under way for Malta.

"Blimey, those fish were hungry," he added, taking a long swig of his beer.

"It's quite possible, Nobby," I murmured; but somehow I felt in sympathy with those others who had chosen to disbelieve him.

"NGADURI."