Never Fear

by Ian Strathcarron

  Ah, Thursday Island. The last stop of Australia heading north and west. A place of some notoriety among sailors for being the home of women of easy virtue, as they used to say. I remember sailing around there in the early ‘70s and, being the junior crew and a relatively fit teenager, rowing a stream of pissed-up Sheilas back and forth from bar to yacht. Luckily a doctor’s surgery was next to the bar, or perhaps intentionally, for the next morning four rather sheepish crew members lined up for their penicillin shots.

  Visiting airmen seemed not to enjoy similar visiting rights, as Francis’s welcoming party consisted of a man called Vidgen, a local pearl merchant. Luckily Vidgen was throwing a dinner party for a visiting Dutch captain that evening and invited Francis to spend the night and join in the party. Francis was impressed: ‘The manners of the party were gentle and punctilious, after the Dutch style. We had a huge, excellently cooked dinner, the sort of feast that one had fifty years ago in an English country house in the middle of winter.’

  Talk soon turned to the cannibals thereabouts. After making sure that there was no missionary in the soup, one of the Dutch crew asked Francis what weapons he had if he came down in cannibal country.

  ‘I have a .410 double-barrelled pistol’, Francis declared proudly, ‘and I’ve made the shot solid with candle grease’.

  ‘What range would it kill at?’ asked the Dutchman.

  ‘Ten yards’, Francis replied, ‘for sure’.

  All around the table there was laughter, shaking heads and knowing looks.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ Francis asked.

  ‘My friend,’ Vidgen replied, ‘you will never see any Papuans. They keep behind the trees. They then shoot poisoned arrows at you from 200 yards. The arrows are barbed so can’t be pushed through or pulled out. They won’t approach you until they are sure you are dead. And then they eat you.’

  Contemporaneous cannibal, Merauke

  ‘So this idea of boiling you alive is nonsense?’ asked Francis.

  ‘Yes, nonsense, they prefer you dead, if that’s any comfort.’

  ‘Cold comfort’, said Francis.

  He took off over cannibal country early the next morning.

  Actually the nearest Francis came to cannibalism was twenty-four hours later, when he was preparing to leave Merauke. The town is now just inside the Indonesian half of Guinea but was then part of the Dutch East Indies. Once more, the Dutch had proved hospitable hosts, putting him up in a guest house overnight. On his way back to Madame Elijah’s mooring they passed a column of prisoners being marched off in a chain gang. One of the Dutchmen pointed out two particular prisoners, who were chatting away busily and happily to each other. Turns out they were from hill country and had got into the habit of coming into town, selecting a local fatty, conning him into eating some drugged sago, lighting up a spit and chowing down. They had been caught and tried. The judge thought it unfair to hang them for doing what they had been taught was right. Instead, he put them to work building roads. Apparently they thought the bargain fair as, although having to work hard, they were given food without having to hunt for it.

  This was food for thought for Francis, whose route that morning took him across the middle of Frederik Hendrik Island. ‘No white man had ever seen the interior of this island. All that was known was that natives attacked any ship becalmed near the coast.’

  At Dobo, a completely remote, tiny island en route to the Philippines, Francis landed to spend the night and refuel. It is likely that the islanders had never seen a plane before, even a seaplane. As he taxied up to the jetty, ‘a tremendous press of natives, thousands of them, suddenly burst into a shout, a thrilling sound that would have raised the sky’.

  On the jetty a Dutch official pushed through the crowd. He proudly showed Francis the island’s fuel supply from which he could fill up Madame Elijah. There was quite an array of oil drums, all full … of diesel. Soon the Dutchman found Francis his petrol; in the search for this Francis found three Australian bachelor pearlers, with whom he spent a most amusing night – he doesn’t reveal what they were doing, but knowing bachelorpearlers… They lived in a typical Lord Jim compound house on stilts, with wide verandas and rattan curtains for doors.

  Dobo

  Before leaving this tiny paradise, Francis was introduced to the local prince. It made his morning: ‘The Rajah was small, quiet, delicate and aristocratic, and he wore white flannels with a Savile Row cut. His wife was perfectly charming, with tiny feet and hands, a perfect little figure’.

  Feeling that all was perfect in the world, Francis took of for the Philippines. Half an hour later he was writing up his log when, suddenly: silence. The nightmare comes to life. He turned ‘instantly from a tolerant philosopher into a primitive animal’. He turned into wind to land, switching the magnetos on and off, when equally suddenly the engine cut back in.

  Two hours later he had a Spot on! landfall at Cape St Augustine in the Philippines. Feeling again that all was well in the world, he switched off the engine and circled the lighthouse in a steep, spiralling glide. When level with the lighthouse, he switched on the engine again. Nothing happened. And this time he had little height with which to bargain. Primitive animal again, he flicked the mag switches frantically. Just before the forced landing the engine cut back in again. He flew on without further playfulness, determined not to risk his luck a third time.

  The first overnight spot in the Philippines was at Mati, on the island of Mindanao. As he climbed up on to the jetty there was an even bigger crowd of curious natives than there had been at Dobo. In front of them stood a handsome young Filipino.

  ‘I am the Chief Postmaster. When do you leave? Doctor Mendez wants you to take our mail bag.’

  Francis replied: ‘Very well but I must get some petrol first.’

  ‘Petrol?’ he said as they swayed to and fro, jostled by the surging crowd. ‘There is no petrol here.’

  Francis grew uneasy; he knew Mati was cut off from the rest of the island except by steamer, but here was the steamer in the harbour. It seemed incredible that there was no petrol. He asked again, ‘Have you no petrol at all?’

  ‘No, no petrol here on the island.’

  ‘But your radio station’, Francis replied. ‘How do you work that without petrol?’

  ‘Press a key, just the same as for telegram.’

  Just then three more Filipinos forced a passage through the crowd and strutted up. The Postmaster said quickly, ‘I introduce you to Chief of Public Works, to the President-elect, and to the Chief of Police.’

  Francis thought: ‘Public Works – petrol’. He asked the Chief about it; the Chief shook his head: ‘No, no petrol here.’

  Francis thought of trying the steamer in the harbour, but it was impossible to force a passage though the throng, so he asked the Chief of Public Works to make an inquiry on board. A messenger was dispatched to the steamer.

  The messenger returned; the captain regretted that he had no petrol; could Francis not use gasoline instead? But the question was theoretical rather than hopeful; whatever you called it, it was not actually to hand. Francis took the Chief Postmaster by the arm and asked him if he could find his favourite stalwart, a nice cup of tea.

  Now a new uniform arrived and announced, ‘I am Commandant of Military here. The Governor-General has wired me about you. You will stay at my house. Do you carry passengers?’ Francis replied he only had room for one. ‘Do you know that the President likes flying? It is possible that the President might find you some gasoline.’

  As they walked towards the Commandant’s house, it became apparent that not just the President but the Governor-General, the Chief of Public Works, the President-elect, the Chief Postmaster, not to mention the Head of the Police and his co-walker the Commandant of Military all thought that they would like flying too. Francis was beginning to fear that they would be offended when at last the Army chief said, ‘What would happen if Governor-General Davis,12 Governor-General of all the Philippine Islands wanted a ride in
your plane?’

  Francis felt he was being made into an early version of the Philippines Airlines. ‘He couldn’t have one’, he said promptly and firmly, hoping that if he refused the Governor-General the rest of the bigwiggery would not feel insulted.

  On the Commandant’s veranda the guest’s party was served tea, cigars and brandy.

  ‘About the gasoline?’ Francis asked after a polite interval.

  ‘No problem, no problem’, said the Chief of Public Works. ‘But first you must see the President.’

  ‘Oh, I’m really very tired’, Francis replied, ‘it’s getting dark. I’d really like to sleep first. If you don’t mind’.

  But they would have none of it, hinting that the matter of the gasoline would be helped enormously by seeing the President.

  Soon Francis was a passenger crammed into the back of a car coming down a country road. Every now and then they forced aside a bullock and cart driven by a Filipino boy in a large, floppy, strawplaited hat smoking a fat cigar. Every time Francis asked about the coconut grove or banana plantation they were passing through he was told, ‘This belongs to President Lopez’.

  They drove up to Lopez’s palace with terrific horn-blowing and carved a way through the throng of supplicants. President Lopez himself greeted Francis and took him upstairs to a wide veranda. Lopez wore expensive golf trousers of pepper-and-salt flannel, black silk stockings and white kid shoes. A handsome .32 calibre automatic with a mother-of pearl handle made his cartridge belt sag at one hip. He gave Francis a superb cigar, the best he had ever smoked. Fireflies spangled the darkness, like twitching stars. The tropical night was cool and scented. Endless formalities took ages. Francis was now hungry as well as dog tired.

  Next Lopez took Francis to see his crocodile. He shone his torch on a tough, leathery brute about nine foot long lying beside a concrete pool against some wire netting twelve inches high. It had a merciless, unwinking stare. Then the President shone his torch round the wall of the snake house.

  ‘Where are the snakes?’ Francis asked. The president flashed his torch round again, but all Francis could see was a thick brown beam under the rafters on top of the wall.

  ‘Can you not see it?’ asked the president. ‘It dined on a cat the other day and is sleeping it off. Surely you see the cat in its stomach?’ Then Francis noticed that the thick bar all round the hut on top of the wall was mottled, and he saw a bulge in it like a football.

  They went back to the veranda and sat there forever. Nine o’clock came and went; ten o’clock too. Finally dinner arrived. Francis sat next to the President, the various henchmen and chief of this and head of that around them at a circular table. They spun this round and stabbed at whatever morsel they fancied. No one said a word; the only noise was the clatter of knives and forks and the creak of the revolving table. It was quick work while it lasted. One after another the guests finished abruptly and moved away, to let the women have an innings. Francis was by now desperately tired and every few seconds his eyes closed.

  ‘Is there any chance of sleeping here tonight?’ he asked the President. ‘I’m really all in’.

  ‘Sleep?’ Lopez replied, surprised at such an early request. ‘Oh, no, no, no. The Chief Postmaster has arranged a dance at the Commandant of Military’s house, and we must return to Mati. And party.’

  So off they went again, but not only after the President had presented Francis, in full show in front of his lined-up household, with three tins of gasoline, some of those splendid cigars and a freshly salted wild cat skin. He had, he boasted, shot it himself the day before.

  The Presidential Palace at Mindanao

  They returned to the Commandant of Military’s house to find the vast central room clear of furniture. Francis woke up a little at the prospect of a lively evening among the maidens of Mati. But although some coy maidens did drift in from the darkness, they were tightly cased in Spanish-looking dresses of stiff brocade and each was guarded by a chaperone with the eye of a bird of prey. He was led round and introduced to everyone, one by one, with a long speech in each case.

  By these early hours Francis could take it no longer, literally falling asleep where he stood. After great protestations from his hosts he was led to his bed next to the big drum of the dance band. In spite of the booming banging, he fell asleep as soon as he lay down.

  Francis’s sticky end came in Japan. After the ramshackle informality and gentle chaos of the Dutch East Indies and Philippine islands, the deep formality and spick-and-span suspicion of imperial Japan brought a cultural clash of no mutual comprehension. No wonder the islands to the south came to a sticky Japanese end too.

  Japan was by 1931 in military hands and Francis was permitted to arrive from Shanghai at one place and time only: Kagoshima at 3 pm on 13 August 1931. Awaiting him were three launches with ten officers in each one. The launches and officers were immaculate: the former of varnished mahogany and shiny steel, adorned with a plethora of Japanese flags, the latter in blue uniforms with white caps and gloves. Awaiting them was an unkempt young Englishman, alone, unshaven, ununiformed, unwashed, windblown from a solo flight half-way round the world, standing on a float of a tiny civilian seaplane, throwing an anchor into their sea, waving an informal salute. He thought they were a comic opera. They thought he was a spy. You can see their point. How else to explain such blatant eccentricity as a civilian flying for private pleasure other than by a typical gaijin double bluff?

  After an excessive display of politeness, when each officer had bowed his respects and Francis grunted a hello in reply, the party disembarked at the jetty. They found a civilian interpreter, Hayashi-san, and once out of sight of the public the questioning began. On one side of the table sat Francis, alone. Facing him was the interpreter flanked by a dozen officers, now slightly less polite.

  ‘Where did you cross into Japan?’ Each officer asked it several times. At first Francis thought it was just each one having to ask it to save face, but then they each asked the same question again and again.

  ‘What was your course to Kagoshima? Show us on your chart.’ Again, the question did a couple of laps of the table, each officer having a turn by seniority.

  ‘What is your trade?’ Francis told Hayashi-san that he was a company director. That really got them excited. Impossible! You are far too young. Again and again, they fired back the question, then came the turns that Francis was by now expecting.

  ‘You are really an army officer, aren’t you? You must be a military pilot.’ Francis tried to explain the concept of private aviation, flying for fun, flying solo for fun being even more fun. They had absolutely no comprehension of how it was possible governmentally, and why it should be enjoyable materially. The line of questioning was going round in increasingly aggressive, insistent, tight circles. Francis recalled he ‘got bored with this line of questioning after a while and, to liven the party up, said I was in the Territorial Air Force. The party was electrified’.

  Kagoshima in 1930

  Of course he really was in the New Zealand TAF but it was impossible for him to explain – or for them to understand – the concept of a territorial force. Francis upped the stakes, mischievously, when he said he was ‘Reserve, I am in the Reserve’. ‘Then you are officer in Army, yes?’ they shot back. Francis was by now tired and exasperated: ‘Yes, no, yes, damn it!’

  All this while other officers were searching Madame Elijah and going through his bags and equipment. Great enthusiasm was shown for every aspect of his and Madame Elijah’s paperwork. Then the Mayor, the Chief of Police and Customs Superintendent arrived, to a whole new round of bowed introductions and fresh questions. Poor Hayashi-san was as tired as Francis. Sandwiches arrived and to Francis’s great relief he heard the sound of a popping cork, ‘for a glass is as good as a bottle to a tired aviator’.

  Now the Chief of Police pulled rank and insisted that Francis be handed over to him for the night. Francis found him ‘affable, easy-going, smooth-mannered and pleasant and it was just in
credible that any human being could be so polite’. With Hayashi they motored along interminably long, narrow ways through a densely settled area towards the hotel. Each time Francis dozed off he would be jerked awake by another polite question.

  You can sense Francis’s relief when the day was nearly over:

  We arrived at a hotel as per a state visit. As we entered, a row of smiling girls knelt on the raised floor before us, bowed till their foreheads and palms touched the floor, then settled back on their heels repeating it all time after time. Hayashi and the policeman bowed profoundly in response; I did an Englishman’s best. My shoes were removed by dainty fingers. They tried to fit me with a pair of slippers from a row of them on the ground, but the largest only just admitted the tip of my toes. I heartily agreed with Hayashi’s suggestion of a bath.

  As usual, Francis was too discreet to continue.

  The next morning the questions turned to the future. Francis, by now in the hotel’s kimono, asked for his chart. He showed them his route to Kochi.

  ‘But it is not permitting to go to Kochi’, said the Chief.

  ‘Oh, but it is; I have permission’, Francis replied, producing a letter from the British Consul-General saying that the Japanese permitted him to alight at Kochi.