THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS TAHITI is the largest of the Society Islands, so named by that famous navigator, Captain Cook, after the Royal Society, for which he did much valuable work of exploration and research in the Pacific Ocean—then called the South Sea.
The Marquesas, a group of eleven wild and rugged islands, were so named in 1594 by their Spanish discoverer Mendana, who had been sponsored by Don Garcia Mendoza, Viceroy of Peru. He named them Las Islas Marquesa de Mendoza—or the Islands of the Marquis of Mendoza. Today they are known simply as the Marquesas. The vast collection of coral atolls known as the Paumotus lie about five hundred miles to the south of the Marquesas. They are true 'South Sea Islands'. The native name Paumotu means literally 'a cloud of islands'. Set in a coral sea, they were for many years the dread of mariners, by whom they were named the Dangerous Isles, or, sometimes, the Low Archipelago, on account of the fact that the islands are sometimes only a few feet above the sea at their highest point. During hurricanes, seas have been known to sweep right across them, with appalling loss of life.
I T was a perfect morning in early spring, when Major James Bigglesworth, better known to his friends as Biggles, with his two comrades, the Honourable Algernon Lacey, M.C., and 'Ginger' Hebblethwaite, turned into Piccadilly on their way to the Royal Aero Club where they had decided to take lunch. They walked slowly on the Park side of the great thoroughfare, enjoying the sunshine, and it was with some reluctance that they finally crossed over to the Club entrance.
A short, slim, clean-shaven man with bright red hair closely cropped and a somewhat bellicose expression on his sun-tanned face, was standing at the top of the steps smoking a battered briar pipe and gazing reflectively across the greensward opposite. Biggles glanced at him casually, and was about to pass on when he stopped abruptly and swung round, staring hard. 'Great Scott! he exclaimed. Ìf it isn't the greatest of all Scots—
Sandy Macaster, the boy himself. And how's Sandy?'
The little man with the red hair snatched his pipe from his mouth. His eyes opened wide.
`Biggles! By the beard of St. Andrew! The one and only Biggles. And the fair Algernon—none other. What's this—a reunion party?'
Ìt begins to look like it, doesn't it?' smiled Biggles, introducing Ginger. 'Meet Captain Macaster,' he said, òtherwise known as Sandy. Sandy was in our squadron in France—
until he hit a telegraph pole on the wrong side of the lines. I never heard how you came to do that, Sandy; I don't think we've met since. I have a faint recollection of somebody telling me that you were leading a life of ease and luxury on a South Sea island.'
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`Then whoever it was he was a liar,' asserted Sandy promptly. 'For I've found neither ease nor luxury in the parts I've been travelling.'
`But what are we standing here for?' asked Biggles. `This seems to be an occasion for celebration. Have you had lunch, Sandy?'
`No. I was just thinking of going into the Air Force Club for a change.'
`How about joining us? If we go in right away we can get a table near the window. You can tell me about the prize coconuts you grow—Or is it bananas?'
Ì don't grow coconuts and I hate the sight of them; so would you if you'd had to chew as many as I have,' muttered Sandy, as they went in through the swing doors and settled themselves at a window table laid for four.
`What are you doing in England?' inquired Biggles, as he passed Sandy the menu card. '
Are you home on holiday?'
`Holiday! What's a holiday? I've never heard of it,' grunted Sandy, passing back the menu card.. 'I think I'll sink my teeth in a steak if it's all the same to you.'
The others gave their orders and Biggles once more turned to Sandy. 'Then what brings you home?' he asked.
Ìf you want to know the truth, I'm looking for money.'
`Then you've, come to a bad place, laddie,' declared Biggles seriously. 'There are about nine million people in this burg and they're all doing the same thing—looking for money.
'
`You seem to have found some, anyway,' suggested Sandy pointedly.
'Oh, we've managed to pick up a little here and there,' admitted Biggles lightly. 'If you're short I can let you have a bit.'
À bit's no use to me, old comrade,' returned Sandy sadly. 'I need a tidy wallop—not just a loan, mind you. I'm trying to get a little company together.'
`What exactly do you mean by a tidy wallop?' Ì should need about five thousand pounds.'
Biggles whistled softly. 'Jumping crocodiles!' he exclaimed. 'What do you want to do—
buy a whole island for yourself?'
Ì don't need an island,' snortd Sandy. 'I could have a 6
thousand if that was all I needed. The seas down south are stiff with them; you can just go and help yourself. No, my idea is a wee bit more ambitious than that.'
`Well, go ahead—maybe we can help.'
Sandy's face lit up. 'Ye really think you can put me in the way of finding the cash?'
Ìt depends on what you want to do with it, old son. If my memory serves me, some of your ideas in the old days were not exactly what I should call overloaded with sanity. I'm a bit more cautious myself than I used to be, so I'm having nothing to do with any wildcat scheme.'
Sandy set down his knife and fork with studied deliberation. He leaned forward and stared into Biggles's face. `Would ye call a hatful o' pearls a wild-cat scheme?' he hissed. Biggles smiled. 'Come, come, Sandy. Not a hatful.'
À hatful I said, and a hatful I mean,' declared Sandy indignantly. 'And none of your finicky seed-pearls, either. It's pearls I mean, pearls the size of peanuts—maybe larger than that.'
`Well, that sounds marvellous,' admitted Biggles. He shook his head sadly. 'But I'm afraid you're going to have an awful tough job persuading the stiffnecks in the City of London that these pearls really exist. Have you got any with you?'
'If I had I shouldn't be here,' snorted Sandy. 'But I've seen them.'
`You don't mean that somebody else saw them, and told you about it?'
Sandy set down his tumbler with a bang. His slight Scotch brogue became more pronounced under the strain of his enthusiasm. 'I tell ye, mon, I've seen 'em—wi' me own eyes. Now d'ye understand that?'
Biggles nodded. 'Pardon my scepticism, old sharpshooter—but when you saw 'em, why didn't you slip a few into your hat?'
`For a thundering good reason. Get me a wee drop o' whusky and I'll tell ye the story; then maybe ye'll understand.'
Biggles passed the order to a steward, laid his cigarettecase open on the table, selected a cigarette, and lighted it. 7
`Go ahead, Sandy,' he said. 'I haven't heard a good story in years.'
Ìf ye're no goin' to believe me, then I'm wasting me time a-tellin' ye,' grumbled Sandy.
`You'll stick to facts—no romancing?'
tell ye just the plain sober honest truth—every word of it,' said Sandy emphatically. '
Now, this was the way of it. The person who told you that I was down in the South Seas was right up to that point. I couldn't stick civilization—or maybe civilization couldn't stick me. Anyway, I couldn't get the sort of job I wanted; the people who gave away the sort of job I had in mind had no time for a feller whose sole qualifications were flying and fighting. Ah weel! I should worry. I just sold everything I had —which wasn't much—and bought myself a third-class passage to Papeete, in Tahiti, which is the sort of headquarters of those who live on, or around, the Islands. Honest men and the scum of the seven seas, gentlemen and roughnecks, traders and beachcombers; white men and black men, brown men and yellow men, the odds and ends of every seaport in the world get together sooner or later at Tahiti. On the whole they're a good crowd—but tough, mind ye.
You wouldn't expect them to be otherwise. But there are some skunks among them, too—bound to be.' Sandy took a reflective sip of his drink before he continued. Ìt's a good spot, Tahiti—which, incidentally, in case you don't know it, is one of the Society Islands. They belong to France now and, being French, nobody bothers much about anything—you soon get that way in the South Seas. There are a lot of Chinese there: they're all over the Islands these days; but on the whole they're a decent, harmless crowd. The harbour is a fascinating place; all sorts of shipping, mostly schooners for island trading, old and sun-bleached, but tough—like their skippers. Copra, which is dried coconut, is the chief trade, although there is still a fair amount done in shell and pearls. All the pearls that are found around the islands are brought to Papeete, where they are sold to the agents of the Paris jewel firms. But I must get on with my story.
`Well, I drifted around from one island to another,
sometimes doing supercargo on one of the island
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schooners, sometimes helping a trader to run his store, and sometimes doing nothing at all. The trouble is, you don't have to do anything if you don't want to; you can usually find somebody willing to keep you for the sake of company. If not—well, you can always manage somehow. But I didn't want to stay down there for the rest of my ife—
don't get that idea. There were times when I'd have given the whole blessed boiling of islands, pearls, and lagoons complete, for a glimpse of old Scotland on a misty day. I wanted to make a fortune, easily if possible, but I wanted one, anyway, so that I could come home for a bit when I felt like it. There were plenty of fortunes about, but they always just seemed to miss me. More than once I had one almost in my grasp, but it always just slipped out of my reach.'
`How?' asked Ginger, who was very interested.
`How? Oh, I could sit here all day if I started telling you hard-luck stories. But I'll give ye an example. One day I spotted an old diving-suit in a trader's store on one of the Paumotus. He agreed to lend it to me on the understanding that if I found pearls I was to give him a third. That suited me. I went off to a chap I knew who had an old lugger and made the same deal with him. So I had a boat and a diving-suit, and could keep a third of all the pearls I found. I did well. I worked like a nigger for nearly a year, doing most of the diving myself, by which time I had a nice little bag of pearls—enough to keep me comfortably for the rest of my days even with a third share. So I pulled up my mudhook and made for Papeete. The next day a cyclone hit me. I got ashore at Mareita on a bit of driftwood, with most of the skin burned off my back by the sun. I went to hospital to grow a new hide. The pearls were back where they came from—on the bottom of the sea with the lugger. Another time I was supercargo on a schooner when we found ourselves becalmed near a Marquesan skin-diver,' working with a pal in a canoe. They'd got about thirty big shells, unopened, in the bottom of it. Having nothing better to do than whistle for a wind, I offered them two old pipes and a stick of tobacco for the I SKIN-DIVING. An expression used for diving without a diving-suit; it is confined chiefly to natives, ho work nude except for goggles to protect the eyes. 9
shells. They jumped at it, naturally, for you can open a thousand shells without finding a pearl. In the long run it's shell that makes the money, not pearls; there's always a demand for it. In case you don't know, shell is the source of mother-of-pearl. It's worth from a hundred to four hundred pounds a ton, according to quality. Well, I squatted down on the deck and started to open the oysters, to see what the luck was like. Incidentally, I'd better tell you that the South Sea oyster isn't a little squib like a Whitstable native; it's a big fellow, weighing several pounds. There was nothing in the first one. There was nothing in the second one, either. Presently I had twenty-nine shells opened on the deck and not so much as a seed pearl for my trouble. There was only one shell left, and I hadn'
t much faith in it. It was the smallest of the lot—you always take the biggest first, whatever you are handling, even if it is only a plate of shrimps. Well, I cut the shell open and ran my fingers through the muck inside. There was something there. I thought it couldn't be a pearl because it was too big. It was about the size of a thrush's egg. I took it out. It was a pearl, such a pearl as you never saw in all your life. There it lay on the deck, gleaming with all the iridescent fire that a pearl has when it first comes out of the sea, and is still wet. In Paris it would be worth maybe five thousand pounds. It was the loveliest thing you ever saw in your life, with just a faint tint of rose in it. I couldn't believe my eyes. I just sat there blinking at it like an owl, sort of dazed and limp. At that precise instant a slant of wind hit the schooner. She heeled over. I went over. So did the pearl—into the sea. I let out a yell as it rolled gleaming across the deck, and flung myself after it. I grabbed—just a tenth of a second too late. My fingers hit the deck not more than an inch behind it. Lying there I could see it going down into the blue depths like a little white electric light. I tell you, I nearly howled. But it was gone. After that I began to think that there was something in the old saying about pearls bringing bad luck, and sooner or later going back where they came from. My trouble was, the pearls always went back before I could sell them. But let me get on with the real story. Àbout eighteen months ago I was flat broke, so I took
a job as supercargo with a fellow named Louis Castanelli, 10
a dirty little Corsican. He had got a bad name—oh, I knew all about that. You soon get to know about people in the Islands. But I'd no choice. As I say, I was broke. Nothing else was available, and he was just off round the Marquesas and the Paumotus in his schooner, the Avarata, a dirty tub with cockroaches and copra-bugs squinting at you out of every crack in her warped deck. I'll tell you about these tropical cockroaches one day—they'll eat the soles off your feet if you don't watch out. Well, we set sail in Papeete Harbour, and off we went for a cruise that might last from six to nine months.
`Castanelli was even worse than I expected. He's a crooked, foul-mouthed little swine, and his crew of eight native boys, whom he'd picked up some time in the Solomons, were not much better. Maybe that's why he selected them. As a rule the native boys are good—anyway, the Tahitians, Marquesans, and Paumotuans. But those with Castanelli were a bad lot. I heard later that they'd all done time in Australia for cannibalism—and that didn't surprise me. I knew I was in for a rough trip, but if I'd known how bad it was going to be I'd have stayed on the beach at Tahiti. Not until we were at sea did I discover how much booze Castanelli had below. I knew he couldn't drink it all, so I guessed what it was for. It was his "trade" stock. Now selling spirits to natives is against the law, and quite right, too. Unfortunately, knowing no better, the natives will always buy it, so crooked traders get round the law by all sorts of dodges—putting brandy up in scentbottles, for instance. The stuff is traded as perfume, or hair oil—but the natives put it inside, not outside. I spoke to Castanelli about it and he admitted it. He didn't bother about camouflage like scent-bottles. He sold the stuff straight. I told him that I didn't agree with that sort of business. We had a row, at the end of which I threatened—
foolishly, perhaps —to report him to the first French governor I saw. I say it was foolish, because, knowing Castanelli, I might have reckoned that he'd take steps to see that I never got near the authorities.
`Well, we went on, me keeping to myself and Castanelli drinking-most of the day with his gang of Solomon Island cut-throats. You might ask me how we got anywhere in such circumstances. The answer is, drunk or sober, Cas1 1
tanelli's boys were good sailors. All the Island boys are like that. They can weather a big sea in a canoe, and make a landfall two thousand miles away without a compass—and that's no lie. First we worked round the Paumotus, which is a long chain of low-lying coral atolls, sometimes called the Low Archipelago; the old navigators used to call them the Dangerous Isles, which was a good name, because navigation there is as tricky as anywhere in the world. We' went on towards the Marquesas, which are an entirely different
proposition, being volcanic rock covered with jungle. Scientists reckon that the islands are the tops of the mountains of a sunken continent, and that's just what they look like. They're all jumbled up with mountains thousands of feet high—some of them are pretty big, too—but I must get on with the story.
`Now the two groups of islands may look close together on the map—and so they are, comparatively speaking. But they're over five hundred miles apart—not very much when you're in the South Seas, because distances there bear no relation to distances at home. It'
s all on a much bigger scale. The Pacific is a big place, don't forget, and you can sail before a wind for six thousand miles without seeing so much as a reef. Now it happened that we had got a bit to the east of the Marquesas on account of making the most of a useful breeze, but we were beating up towards them when we made out an island which even Castanelli said he didn't know—and he reckons to know every reef and atoll between the Galapagos and the Ladrones. Not that we paid much attention to that. There are islands everywhere, in the Pacific, and if you called at 'em all you wouldn't get anywhere. We shouldn't have called at this one, anyway, because it was pretty certain that there was nobody on it. And this is where the story really begins—and where my life nearly ended.
`Castanelli had been drinking for days, so I'd got into the habit of taking the ship's position. I'm certain that when we passed that island Castanelli didn't know where we were to within five hundred miles. That's important—you'll see why presently. The sea was flat calm, but there was a swell. There nearly always is a swell in the Pacific, but it may be so big that you don't see it. It was midday, and blinding hot. The island, an atoll, had drifted away
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astern. I had taken our position and put the sextant down near the wheel, in case Castanelli sobered up and decided to check my readings. Making a mental note of our longitude and latitude, and thinking that I'd enter it up in the log later on, I lay down on the deck and stared down into the sea, waiting for a wind. And there I lay, staring down into the blue water, thinking about Castanelli, and myself —anything. And it was while I was lying there like that I saw something that shook me from my Adam's apple to my insteps. The bottom of the sea—where there hadn't been any bottom, you understand—
Biggles In the South Seas Page 1