From Raft to Raft

by Bengt Danielsson

  Eric called ‘Come in!’ and his new visitor entered. He was an extremely short but powerfully built man who could not have been more than twenty-five. His manner was direct and bold, and he made a very pleasant impression at once. Eric introduced him. His name was Alain Bran, and he was one of Eric’s four companions. Alain wanted to know how and where the provisions, which had just arrived, were to be stowed. Eric replied with a touch of impatience that Alain was a good enough seaman to be able to decide this question himself, and continued our discussion vigorously. He had embarked upon a long, critical analysis of a new objection to this theory which I had put forward, when he was interrupted by a fresh knocking. This time it was an autograph hunter, who had forgotten both his pen and his book but wanted an autograph all the same. Almost simultaneously the three other members of the crew arrived to ask Eric’s advice about some important matter. I took a hasty leave of Eric and hurried home to get on with my unpacking at last.

  Eric sailed a fortnight after this conversation. His departure was the occasion for a real popular festival, of the kind which is rarely seen in Tahiti except during the annual canoe races held as part of the Fourteenth of July celebrations. All the Europeans in the island, headed by the governor, and thousands of Tahitians had made a pilgrimage to the quay. Other Tahitians had come in outrigger canoes and paddled slowly and expectantly round the flower-decked raft. Lively talk, laughter and song were heard on all sides. Suddenly a roll of drums fell on our ears. The noise ceased, and everyone looked wonderingly in the direction from which the roll of drums came. Next moment a band of Tahitian hula girls in straw skirts emerged from the scrub along the shore and swayed rhythmically forward towards Eric and his companions. When the girls had danced an exciting Tahitian u’paupa and sung a pretty farewell song, specially composed for the occasion, they took off their wreaths of white time flowers and hung them round the necks of the delighted raftsmen. It was a typical Tahitian farewell, of the kind which in old times the population only gave to really important chiefs who were about to undertake a long and hazardous voyage.

  Eric and his comrades, visibly moved, went on board Tahiti Nui and climbed up on to the cabin roof, while a waiting tug took the raft in tow. I followed the two ill-assorted craft with my eyes till they disappeared behind Tataa, the Cape Farewell of departing souls in the Tahitian mythology. To the last moment the five men—one slight little figure in a white vest and khaki shorts and four athletic forms in loin-cloths—stood on the roof waving cheerfully to the crowds on shore.

  Two years later almost as large a crowd assembled on the quay at Papeete to welcome the raftsmen back. But this time no jesting, laughter or singing was heard, and the grave-faced hula girls who had mingled with the other spectators were all dressed in white Sunday frocks. All Tahiti had known for several days past that the raft expedition had ended disastrously and that Eric de Bisschop was dead.

  The French gunboat which had been sent to fetch the survivors glided slowly in towards the quay with her flag at half-mast. While the officers and crew stood rigidly at attention, and many of the men and women on the quay sobbed aloud, a simple wooden coffin was hoisted up out of the interior of the vessel and placed cm the deck of an army troop transport lorry. Not till some time after the lorry had driven away did the other members of the expedition come slowly down the gangway. They were very laconic and tight-lipped, as if they had not yet recovered from a terrible shock, and their curt phrases were soon drowned in the deafening babble which broke out around them. But the little I heard conveyed clearly that Alain Bran was the hero and that the perilous adventure would certainly have ended in a still greater tragedy if he had not kept his promise to Eric de Bisschop and accompanied him on the return voyage from Chile to Polynesia.

  By a lucky chance, only a few days later Alain became my neighbour in the Paea district on the west coast of Tahiti. Our many common interests soon led us to seek one another’s society more frequently. To begin with, Alain found it difficult to speak openly and freely of the painful memories which seemed unceasingly to occupy his mind. But then one evening he suddenly thawed, and slowly and circumstantially, as if making a confession to me, he at last told me in plain language what had happened during the two long years from his cheerful departure from Tahiti in November 1956 to his melancholy return in September 1958.

  Here is his story in the complete form which it finally assumed when Alain had told it over again once or twice and thoroughly searched his memory. That those who have never had the advantage of meeting personally the man who became Eric de Bisschop’s last intimate friend and worthy deputy as leader of the expedition, may be able to get to know him pretty well at once, I will begin at the beginning and describe the long chain of strange events which led to his first meeting with Eric.

  So I call upon Alain to take up the tale.

  Chapter 1

  APPRENTICESHIP

  It is really my brother Michel’s fault more than my own that I have spent more than a year of my life on board different rafts, all of which have shown an unpleasant inclination to sink under my feet or to fall to pieces. But now, when I sit at ease in a comfortable chair in a cool palm-thatched house on the shore of a shining lagoon, and think over my experiences, I cannot feel any grievance against him. On the contrary, I am grateful to him. For without his unsought intervention I should probably never have settled down in Tahiti and should most certainly never have known that remarkable, fascinating man, Eric de Bisschop.

  On closer consideration, however, I think I can claim for myself some credit for the turn my life has taken, because it was I alone who made the vital decision, immediately after the end of the last world war, to go to sea. I was only fourteen and had lost my father and mother a long time before. I had spent the years of the war in Algeria, in various children's colonies and with a series of temporary foster-parents. As soon as traffic between North Africa and France got going again I went over to Marseilles to find my brothers and sisters, from whom I had heard nothing for years.

  With the exception of Michel, a year older than myself, I gradually found them all in different children’s homes or with different foster-parents. My first idea was to become a baker, so as to be able at last to gorge on bread and sweet cakes after all the deprivations of the war years. But all the bakers whom I approached seemed to divine my intentions at once, for they only roared with laughter and turned me away. Instead, I entered the school of navigation at Marseilles in the hope that I might thus get a free trip to a distant country unscarred by war and still flowing with milk and honey.

  Three months later my theoretical training as a seaman was finished; and to my delight I was immediately engaged as a ship’s boy on board a vessel bound for Indo-China. Certainly we never got farther than Madagascar, where we were hung up for several weeks with engine trouble. But like most of those on board I did not mind at all, and spent every centime of my pay on tropical fruit and visits to restaurants. During the next three years I continued to sail between Marseilles and various African ports in old tubs which ought to have been scrapped long ago, but were kept in service on account of the desperate scarcity of tonnage. It was a hard and rough life, but at least I was sure of my board and lodging, and that was all I asked at that time.

  At the beginning of 19491 was signed on in an—even for French post-war conditions—unusually rusty and ill-kept ship which was bound for Australia and the French possessions in the Pacific. I was only moderately pleased, for it was a five months’ voyage, and there were long intervals between the short calls at ports. Forty-seven days after leaving Marseilles we had got no farther than Tahiti, at that time only a name on the map to me. The first person I met on the quay was my brother Michel, who without my knowing it had also gone to sea shortly after the war. He had arrived some weeks earlier in a Moroccan ship, which also was in a wretched state and in great need of repair. Although he had risen more quickly than I and had very good pay as second officer, he had left the ship almost at once.
>
  He strongly advised me to follow his example, and described in glowing language the merry, free, delightful life in Tahiti. Twenty-four hours’ leave convinced me that Tahiti was the right place for me too, and I immediately went to the owners’ agent and asked to be allowed to sign off.

  Unfortunately it appeared that the French shipping laws were rather different from the Moroccan, under which Michel had sailed, for the agent promptly read out a paragraph in my contract which made it clear that I was not entitled to sign off before we returned to Marseilles. The temptation was too great, and I made up my mind to desert. In most of the books of adventure I have read desertion is a most exciting and dangerous business—especially when it takes place in a tropical port—and every deserter is pursued by at least half a dozen armed men, of whom, of course, he is always able to rid himself, for example by plunging into a dark, exotic forest or disappearing into the crowd in a picturesque sailors’ quarter. To tell the truth, my own desertion was much less dramatic: I simply sat on the verandah of a bar in pleasant company and saw my ship steam out of the harbour.

  A few days later, when I felt safe, I reported to the authorities. To my great disappointment they did not appreciate my straightforwardness. I was tried in record time, sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, and immediately placed under lock and key. Fortunately I was allowed to kill the time by reading, and my extremely mixed supply of literature included Herman Melville’s book Omoo, which gives a most humorous description of how the author and several of his shipmates, on a visit to Tahiti a hundred years earlier, had also been sentenced for desertion and shut up in a ‘calabooza’ which had obviously stood on almost the same spot as my prison. If Melville is to be believed, he obtained his release in an unexpected manner: the Tahitian warder gradually grew tired of looking after the prisoners and therefore discreetly allowed them to disappear. Unfortunately times had changed, and my Tahitian warder, though pleasant and good-natured, never forgot to shut the door of the cell properly. I was obliged to leave Tahiti two months later in another of the company’s ships without having seen much more of the island than a few bars, the court of justice and Papeete gaol.

  I continued my wandering sailors life for a few years longer, till it was time for me to do my military service. Although I was enrolled in the Navy, I was sent straight to Port Lyautey in Morocco, where for some unknown reason I was immediately put to drive a jeep. By a curious chance only a few months later my brother Michel began his somewhat belated military service in Casablanca, so at last we had an opportunity of getting to know each other a little better.

  I was due to leave the service in a few days when, one morning at the beginning of February 1953, Michel rang up from Casablanca and told me that a French ship had just arrived which had a Tahitian crew and was on her way to Tahiti. He wanted me to come to Casablanca at once. I took this news a good deal more calmly than Michel, and was by no means as convinced as he was that the captain and crew would be particularly interested in a meeting with us. Nevertheless I took the bus to Casablanca when I next got leave.

  The Tahitian vessel proved to a motor-ship of a little over 100 tons and was called Kaumoana (which I discovered later was not actually a Tahitian, but a Tuamotuan name). The crew most certainly consisted of merry Tahitians, who not only provided a regular feast for us, with raw fish, boiled bananas, roast pork and red wine, but also entertained us with guitar music and songs from their distant native island. I do not know if the red wine or the melancholy and nostalgic songs were most to blame, but when we went ashore from Kaumoana early in the morning we both had a violent longing to return to Tahiti. We plodded meditatively along the quays. Michel had still several months to serve. But I should certainly be able to get away before Kaumoana sailed.

  I had made no plans for the future whatever. So there was nothing to prevent me from returning to Tahiti—if only I could get permission to join Kaumoana. Four days later I was back in Casablanca in civilian clothes. Kaumoana was still lying at the quay, and the owner, who had just bought the ship in France and was now.taking her to Tahiti himself, was on board. With a thumping heart I explained what my business was. The owner listened to me amiably, but told me at once that he could engage no more seamen. My spirits fell: but after long and profound thought he added quite unexpectedly that perhaps I might come as a non-paying passenger if I was willing to take a watch. Of course this was only a rather more roundabout and elegant way of saying that he did not mean to pay me any wages. But what did that matter? I was afraid of his changing his mind and accepted at once.

  Apart from the owner being so seasick that not only he, but all the rest of us on board, really thought he would die, all went well as far as Martinique, in the West Indies. The original intention had been that we should refuel there, but when the owner heard that diesel oil was much cheaper in Panama he decided to proceed there at once, the engineer having declared that we had more than enough oil left for this short voyage. The owner’s calculation was far from stupid, and the chief engineer’s measurement was correct. But neither of them had considered that there are often violent gales in the Caribbean Sea, and that in such circumstances a ship consumes much more oil than usual. And of course a gale was just what we met with. When on the third day it at last began to moderate, the chief engineer came clambering up on deck and announced with a blank face that we had just enough oil for another half-hour at half speed. We were still more than 100 miles from Panama. The captain, whose advice was now asked at last, had the engine stopped and rigged up an improvised sail with a tarpaulin. We did not go fast, but we could at least keep a course.

  After two anxious days we sighted, at nine in the evening, the flash of the lighthouse at the entrance to the Panama Canal. The captain was delighted: he set the engine going and steered into the basin which, according to his manual of sailing directions, was just inside the lighthouse. Presumably there had been a basin there when the manual was published. But that, as subsequent inquiry showed, was in 1914, and at any rate when we arrived the harbour had quite a different layout. Unfortunately we did not discover this before a nasty scraping noise was suddenly heard under the keel. When it grew light the owner sent for a diver, who immediately discovered that the propeller was seriously damaged.

  There were two ship-repairing yards in the Panamanian twin towns of Cristobal and Colon, one smart and hyper-modern in the American zone, and another dirty and old-fashioned in the part which belonged to the Republic of Panama. The American yard was dear and one had to pay in dollars In the Panamanian yard the prices were considerably lower and one could pay in easily obtainable balboas. This decided the matter. Kaumoana was laboriously hauled up on to the slip in the Panamanian yard and entrusted to a gang of dark-faced men in dirty overalls, who seemed anything but contented at having been compelled to break off an animated game of cards.

  The yard had assured us that the repairs would not take more than a few days. In fact they took a whole fortnight, which all the shipping agents in Panama thought extraordinarily quick work. We took possession of our ship again, as happy as a party of schoolboys on an outing, and chugged off through the canal. We were soon rolling in the heavy swell of the Pacific on our way to the Galapagos Islands, our last port of call before Tahiti. But we had been no more than two days at sea when the chief engineer came up on deck again with the same deep wrinkles on his forehead which we had seen at the time of our earlier mishap in the Caribbean Sea. This time it was the shaft bearing that had become overheated. The chief engineer strongly advised the owner and the captain to return to Panama and put it right while there was still time, and after some hesitation they agreed to do so.

  No more was needed to make the bearing cool down at once. Several hours passed. The motor was still working faultlessly. The longer they listened to the level beat of the engine, the more the chief engineer, the captain and the owner were agreed that it would be a fearful waste of money and time to have a bearing repaired when there was obviously nothing wrong
with it. The owner, visibly relieved, finally ordered that the ship should turn round again and continue her voyage. Notoriously, a motor can be as capricious as a woman, so in the first hours after we had resumed our westward course we feared every moment to hear new and depressing bulletins from the engine-room. But these, to our astonishment, did not come.

  On the other hand, there now seemed to be something wrong above decks, for the captain and mate began hurrying anxiously in and out of the owner’s cabin. Of course it was not long before we found out what was happening. The owner had suddenly been taken ill: that is to say, he was not merely seasick, as he had been ever since we left Casablanca, but was also suffering from a violent colic. Or could it be iliac passion? No one really knew. The only thing that was certain was that his condition was rapidly becoming worse. It was obvious that he needed more efficient and expert care than anyone on board could give him. The only place where he could get expert medical treatment was Panama. So we turned round once more and went back at full speed.

  We tried to relieve the owner’s pain in every conceivable way, but he gradually grew worse. The hospital at Panama was still at least twenty-four hours away. The situation was desperate. But while I happened to be at the wheel the captain had an inspiration. Perhaps there was a doctor somewhere nearer, for example on the great peninsula which projected from the upper half of the isthmus of Panama on our port side? I was ordered to steer for the peninsula. In a short time a small and incredibly rusty and dirty coasting steamer, with smoke pouring from her funnel, crossed our bows. Feeling sure that her captain would be able to tell us where the nearest doctor lived, we at once began to pursue her. We were soon so close that we could distinguish both the flag and the men on board. She was Nicaraguan. Some of the men—presumably the captain and mates—seemed to have their eyes fixed to long telescopes and to be staring uninterruptedly in our direction.