Читать книгу The Gifts of Frank Cobbold - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 10

1.

The fine weather continued all the way from Sandwich Island to Levuka Harbour, but it was then at the beginning of the hurricane season and the Fiji Archipelago lies well within the hurricane belt.

The toll of lives and ships taken by the Fiji hurricanes is very heavy. Several days before reaching Levuka, Wetherall sensed a potential weather change. The day the Margaret Chessel dropped anchor in Levuka Harbour, the peculiarly leaden sky and the long, oily rollers sweeping by from the south-east told him that the hurricane was coming.

It was towards the end of February 1871 when Francis Cobbold went ashore and once again put up at the Albion Hotel; there were seventeen or eighteen vessels in Levuka Harbour. The enormous Mr Unwin showed his fatherly interest, and his daughter - seeing the ravages of malaria - served him with her best culinary efforts. The hurricane struck Levuka one morning, coming out of the south-west with a rising scream of wind and a wall of white water at its foot. Of the anchored vessels all but three were driven ashore and wrecked, the three fortunate ships being the Margaret Chessel, the Meteor Barge - a regular trader from Sydney - and a steamer that only escaped by steaming hard up to her anchors.

Houses were flattened as though built of cards: others were whirled away. The Albion Hotel rocked like a boat at sea and was one of the few buildings of any consequence that escaped destruction. Cobbold saw the ships come piling ashore, watched house after house being destroyed, and witnessed palm trees growing on the brow of a hill being whirled away like wisps of straw. It was one of the worst hurricanes experienced during the settlement of the white man in the Archipelago, its entire centre having passed over the western part of the group.

When life at Levuka again became normal, the lads brought their remaining goods ashore and settled their account with Doig with part of them. They deposited the balance with the British Consul - a Mr Marsh who had recently arrived. For some time they waited for Pilbrow to turn up and, when he failed to do so, they dissolved the partnership.

2.

During this time the schooner Swallow came into Levuka Harbour, commanded by Captain Bartlett, who for most of his life had been a mate on a whaling ship. 'Bluenose' Bartlett was old, tough and bitter, powerfully built and of medium height, a heavy drinker and, to use an Australian aphorism, a hard case. However, despite the man's apparently wild nature, Francis Cobbold found a certain amount to admire in him, and after several weeks of slight acquaintance he agreed to sail with Bartlett on his next cruise.

Meanwhile O'Neill - the ex-naval officer - had left the Margaret Chessel and been appointed to the command of King Cakobau's Royal Yacht. She was formerly a well-known crack Sydney craft, and had been brought to Fiji by a businessman who had decided that a place without bailiffs would be ideally suitable for him. O'Neill had to go to the island of Taveuni on the King's business and, since that island was just over a day's sail from Levuka, Cobbold accepted the invitation to accompany him to fill in time until the Swallow was again ready to go to sea.

The cruise continued beyond Taveuni, and eventually Cobbold became anxious that he would miss the Swallow. Accordingly he took passage in a trading cutter bound for Levuka where, to his consternation, he was informed that Bartlett had left.

That was a fortunate miss for him, since if he had sailed on the Swallow he might well have left his bones on a New Hebridean island where savages attacked the ship in the night. They had swum out from the shore and had gained a footing on the deck before they were discovered. Bartlett managed to escape from the ship and hide in the jungle, where logically he should have been found and butchered by the savages. However, coincidence is far more prevalent in life than in fiction, and after a further two days spent in the jungle he was rescued by the crew of a schooner that had put in to the same harbour for water.

Unscrupulous recruiters of labour for the plantations had inflicted so much trickery and violence on the natives, and so much success had been gained by the savages in their acts of retaliation in treachery and murder, that in 1874 no less than twelve labour-recruiting vessels returned to Levuka from the New Hebrides with their crews reduced by attacks made by the natives.

3.

Malaria having got a firm hold on Francis Cobbold, he visited the only chemist in Levuka, a Mr Thomas Parker, who advised him to take a long sea voyage during which he should not land at any malaria island.

Messrs Unwin and Nieman were both enterprising men who owned, beside the Albion Hotel, a plantation on the island of Taveuni. It so happened that they were fitting out a 20-ton ketch, the Trent, which they were despatching to the Gilbert Islands - a thousand miles or more north of the Fijis - to engage in trade and to recruit labour for their plantations. An interview with them secured an agreement on terms whereby Cobbold was to sail with Captain Bruce in no particular capacity.

Captain Bruce was a little old Scotchman and one of the finest navigators who ever sailed the Pacific. He plotted his course with unfailing accuracy with the assistance of only a sextant and a chronometer, and throughout the voyage on which Cobbold sailed with him he never proved to be out of his reckoning when drunk or sober. Like so many of his class and time, he was a hard and persistent drinker.

It should be remembered that it was a drinking age, before tea became popular; an age which had begun with the Georges and at this time had not yet ended with Victoria. Proper allowance should be made for the early white Fijians such as Bruce, Bartlett and Wetherall - and many others who Cobbold met during these years. All kinds of spirits were both cheap and plentiful. Life was extremely uncertain and death always lurked round the corner. Malaria and ague were fevers easily contracted and difficult to banish, and the hard spirit drinkers appear to have been better able to withstand these fevers than did those who were more moderate.

The mate of the Trent was of German nationality and as good a sailor as Bruce. He was superior, however, in that he was sober and upright in his dealings. In addition to the Cockney cook, the crew comprised Kanakas - young Melanesian boys. There was one other passenger in addition to Francis - a gentleman named Clark, who was determined to reduce his addition to alcohol by going native on one of the islands at which the Trent would call. Drunk, he was a squalid beast; sober, he was a refined, likeable fellow.

Their first port of call was Wairiki on the Island of Taveuni, where Captain Bruce managed to exchange two casks of beef for two cases of rum. He then proceeded to enjoy himself, with Clark to keep him company, and until the rum was consumed the Mate took the Captain's place while Cobbold acted as Mate. One might have thought that the consumption of two cases of rum at one sitting would be sufficient to ensure the Captain's retirement from this world, but long before the ship reached the southernmost of the Gilbert group he was as chirpy as usual.

Arurai, or Hurd Island, is formed of coral and sand, with no harbours and no anchorage like those to be found at the island further north, and for nine or ten days the Trent lay on and off beating up against the mild trade wind and set of the current. To land was a difficult and dangerous undertaking because of the tremendous surf always beating against the reef.

The natives were particularly skilful at bringing their canoes through the reef surf which, though probably not too dangerous for themselves since they were such expert swimmers, nonetheless could easily have caused the destruction of their craft. Being an old man, they especially favoured Captain Bruce by taking him ashore in a canoe several times, but if any other member of the crew wished to go ashore he had to be content to go as far as the reef in the ship's boat and swim through the surf to the land.

Francis Cobbold tried it - once. He would have fared badly but for the Kanakas with him in the water. The mate, being unable to swim, remained on board the ship but Clark, liking the look of the place, decided that it was his spiritual home. He was landed with his few belongings to work out his destiny - which ultimately proved not to be to his liking.

Sailing north from Hurd Island they passed Rotcher Island away to starboard, and eventually sighted Byron Island - named after a sailor who had either deserted his ship there or who had been marooned for bad conduct. The place had an evil reputation, created no doubt by its overlord, Byron Bill, who came off to meet the Trent in a native-built whale boat manned by eight native paddlers. A man of conspicuous, if wild, appearance, he came to meet the visiting ship as should a gentleman of the South Sea - accompanied by a dozen native canoes each with two to six paddlers. Whale boat and canoes skimmed over the crests of the green water mountains and cut down through the valleys, the paddlers working madly and urged to even greater efforts by Byron Bill standing at the great steering oar, a huge semi-naked man whose unkempt hair and beard were whipped by the breeze. He was a man not easily forgotten.

The island fleet surrounded the Trent with vociferous welcome in what appeared a friendly manner. Captain Bruce, however, would have none of them. He had not been sailing those seas for several years to remain unsophisticated; he had heard reports of Byron Bill and his 'subjects' which, true or not, did not encourage trust. The canoe crews began throwing their grapnels on board, while Byron Bill in his whaleboat metaphorically expressed concern for the Captain's health. Acting on orders, the crew of the Trent severed the grapnel lines with hatchets as soon as they were heaved on board. Despite the apparent welcome, it was more than likely that the intention was to drag the ship on to the reef, where the crew would be murdered and the ship quickly broken up by the sea leaving no trace - after her stores had been transferred to Byron Bill's camp. Byron Bill must have been a picturesque ruffian, and one who was not likely to die peacefully in his bed.

The next call the Trent made was at the island of Beru, re- named Francis Island, where Bruce bartered for a score of flying fish and a quantity of coconuts. Trade was done in the open sea as there is no harbour, and when the island was left astern the Trent bore away on a north-west course for Drummond Island, which differs in formation from those at the southern extremity of the group. Narrow and curved like a horseshoe, its enclosed lagoon is well protected by a reef in which there are only one or two passages large enough to pass a ship into a splendid anchorage.

15. The Kiribati Islands (formerly the Gilbert Islands)

The week spent at Drummond Island was occupied chiefly in paying and receiving visits to and from the crews of the Yankee whaler and the Sydney trader. Francis Cobbold saw that the Gilbert Islanders were different from those of the Fiji Archipelago. Their black hair was long and straight, whereas that of the Fijian is crinkly and fuzzed into a mop. They were also of lighter build and colour, handsome, well-shaped and well-built fellows.

Many of them were suffering from the unsightly disease known as 'scaley', due to lack of oil in the epidermis, which caused the skin to peel and fall off in minute flakes. The disease was doubtless caused by their diet, for they appeared to subsist only on fish and coconuts, the fish being caught at night when the canoes would go out into the open sea with flares to attract the flying fish.

These Drummond Islanders were a likeable people. Cobbold got on well with the young men, and vied with them in their diving exploits. Naturally they were more expert than he was in the water, but it is worth noting that he could reach greater depths than they could. To establish superiority in one branch at least of aquatic sport, Cobbold would amuse them and himself by going down the anchor chain hand over hand until he could touch it. His white body flashing in the translucent water was keenly watched by his dusky admirers on deck until one day, when half way down, a swift passing shadow sent him quickly to the surface thinking he had seen a shark. The watchers stated that it had not been a shark but an immense swordfish estimated to be at least twenty feet in length.

At Drummond Island, twelve men were recruited for indentured labour in Fiji, and four more were secured at the next port of call, Ipawara Island. Having called at Tarawa Island, or Cook Island, the Trent sailed south-west back to Hurd Island - their first port of call in the Gilberts, where they had left Clark to go native at his leisure.

Poor Clark had found life on Hurd Island to be much worse than merely boring. His self-imposed separation from alcohol had proved too much to bear, and he had invented a still from an old musket barrel with which he succeeded in manufacturing a most potent spirit from the native toddy. His efforts delighted the natives who encouraged him to such a degree that they kept him at work with threats of diverse pains and penalties should he attempt to go on strike. He became perpetually drunk: they held parties at which they waxed both excited and violent, so much so that many of them received broken hands, while Clark was slashed with shark's tooth swords and prodded painfully with spears.

The still was maintained at full capacity production and, when the Trent arrived, the natives were almost speechless and Clark was in delirium tremens. Unable, of course, to leave him there to certain death - either by the still or by a shark's tooth sword - Captain Bruce had him brought on board to return to Levuka.

By this time the ship's stores were becoming low, and Bruce shaped a course for an island where it was hoped to barter for yams and perhaps a pig or two. When they were a mile off the shore of this island the Mate, with the cook and Cobbold, took the ship's boat ashore and landed about a quarter of a mile from a native village.

The cook was ordered to remain by the boat, while Cobbold and the Mate walked to the village where they were received with unmistakable signs of hostility. The only defensive weapon between them was an old pepperbox revolver carried by the young man, who was the more expert shot. The inhabitants seemingly did not understand a word of Fijian, yet this was the only dialect known to Cobbold. The Mate knew not even that. All the natives were armed with spears and shark's tooth swords, and they appeared much more inclined to fight than to negotiate. There was nothing else for it but to make a strategic retreat, backing all the way to the boat while Cobbold menaced the crowding natives. This way, they reached the boat and were able to row safely back to the ship.

From Wairiki, the Trent sailed to the island's southern extremity, where they landed at Vuna Point. In the course of his stay, Francis Cobbold met a Mr Davene, who was the manager of Holmehurst, the principal plantation.

However, he did not rejoin the Trent. The voyage made in her had distinctly improved his health and the urge to be up and doing something, to be getting on with the serious business of life, was again burning in his heart.