“Almost nothing worthwhile growing here, Ned. Poor soil and too long a Dry. Few people living here, and them hungry half the time before the whiteskins decided the harbour was too good to leave empty. You know the story, Ned?”
Ned did not, listened in fascination to the combination of far-sighted wisdom and bumbling inanity that had led to the creation of the two colonies, the one more or less British, the other German, in the eastern half of the island of New Guinea.
“Really, honestly speaking, Papua is a colony of Australia, Ned, which makes it the colony of a Dominion of the Empire, and I doubt there’s another one of them anywhere on Earth. It’s all the Russians’ fault, really, they brought it to a head. You see, every bugger from Europe had turned up along the coast, north and south, one time or another, had a look, raised a flag for ten minutes and then decided it was too hot, too wet, too poor to bother with and gone away again. Then the Russians sent a half-Scottish bloke, Mikloucho-McClay, to poke about along the north coast, over on the New Guinea side, and he reported a couple of good harbours and some usable plantation land, so it looked like there might be a Russian colony not a thousand miles north of Queensland, and most of Australia is still empty, Ned.”
Ned nodded, the Russians would not have made good neighbours.
“So, about the same time the Germans came poking about and they came across Rabaul and Queen Emma’s place at Ralum, and she’s a problem all on her own, Ned, being half-American as she is but with close connections to the British. Anyway, they took over the islands and the coast where the Russians had been, because they see Russia as their great enemy and always want to do the Tsar in the eye, and so they’ve got the great harbour at Rabaul and soon enough they’re thinking of Port Moresby as another base, looking again at the empty land in Australia, and Germany came late to the colony game... That led to the Queensland and New South Wales governments raising the flag up here and London telling them to take it bloody down, there ain’t no money for a colony up here, which is true enough, as the place can’t pay for itself. Anyway, five years or so of barneying and the Poms finally agree that the Germans and the Russkis have got to be kept out so they give the nod to a base up here, but, of course, they still ain’t got round to spending any money on it.”
“Who’s Queen Emma?”
“Ah… now that’s a difficult one to explain, bach – roughly, more or less, as far as anyone knows, she was the daughter of the American consul in Samoa and she became the mistress of the Earl of Caernarvon when he came out on a Pacific tour in the eighties, and then, when he left, she took up with Bully Hayes who was the last of the American pirates in the Pacific. After a bit of a gap she turned up on Buka, north end of the Solomons, with a few followers and a fair bit of money. She recruited a good few families and warriors from Buka and landed on the Gazelle Peninsula at Ralum, a few miles round the harbour from where Rabaul is now. They built her a big house and took over a few square miles of plantation land and she settled down with a series of husbands and grew rich. The Catholics built their big mission at Vunapope next door to her along the coast and then Parkinson, the British naturalist, settled a bit inland and married her sister, Phoebe. When the Germans came they just left her alone to get on with it – I believe, in fact, that they would have needed a small army to get rid of her, and they hadn’t got one and it would have cost millions to bring one out here. She’s there now, rich and the people there content enough, or so we are told.”
Ned shook his head, it took some believing, but so did many things in this part of the world.
They rode quietly along the slightly more fertile plateau, three or four hundred feet above sea level, it was thought, there had not yet been an accurate survey and mapping of the coast, past a couple of small villages and along the wider road through Boroko, the first of the inland settlements, some five miles from Moresby.
“Different people here, Ned. Fuzzy haired, browner skin than the coastals in the villages west of Konedobu. They speak a different language, too, but that’s usual enough up here – it’s no good trying to learn any of the local languages because they change every ten miles or so, as different as Welsh and English either side of a little bit of a valley. There’s at least a hundred different languages just along the fifty or so miles of coast round Moresby. The Police are using a sort of Motu – a local form of pidgin English, which they’re trying to spread, and down in the Islands they’re trading in a variety of the Chinese pidgin from Hong Kong – that’s been in use for donkey’s years, the Chinks have been pearling down there forever. Big missionary place here – the women are all covered up, look, no tits here.”
The huts in Boroko seemed better built than those Ned had seen around Moresby itself and there were three Chinese owned trade stores along the road.
“Some of the men here work for money, Ned, down at the wharf or as government labourers, so they’re a little bit better off, but getting poorer quick, like.”
“Wages being cut?”
“No, Murray wouldn’t let that happen. Wantoks, mate – relatives who’ve come to share in the wealth and, hopefully, to get jobs themselves, only there ain’t enough work for them all. In the villages it’s share and share alike, bach, they all eat from the same gardens or fishing catch, every man in the family as well-off, or poor, as every other. So, when one of them gets a paid job they all expect to take a cut of his wage.”
Ned thought this through, scratched his head, replaced his hat rapidly, the sun was hot even this early.
“What’s the point of working, Davy?”
“Not much, unless you can move right away from your home village and never want to go back again.”
“That is going to be a first-rate bastard in a few years, mate!”
“It is already for a lot of ‘em, Ned.”
They walked the horses quietly through bush that was, according to Davy, very much like the Outback, mostly dry, grass covered, wide-spread trees, occasional pockets of fertility where there was water, poor land that could carry only the thinnest population and that not far above starvation. About nine miles out they crossed a very low hill and turned into the swampy valley of the Laloki River and found a series of small villages where the soil was wet enough to support sweet potato and taro gardens; there were hundreds, possibly thousands of people.
“No fish in the river but there’s a bit of life in the swamps, mate – small crocs, frogs, that sort of thing – to add to the roots. I wouldn’t mind betting there’s still a bit of cannibalism on the quiet as well. No street gangs here, mate - any of the kids run wild they get knocked over the head and into the pot with ‘em. I’ve seen South Africa, a little bit of India, Brisbane and this place, Ned, not to speak of Swansea, that is – and, I’ll tell you boyo, I’ve never seen any place as quiet and peaceful as this, and I don’t reckon it’s because they only breed well-behaved youngsters here!”
As an ex-delinquent Ned was inclined to disapprove of cannibalism as a cure for street crime; it certainly seemed effective, however.
They halted for half an hour at a Chinese trade store; it was a large building a hundred feet long by forty wide, evidence of local prosperity. Importantly, it was the proud possessor of a paraffin/kerosene fridge, sold cold soft drinks to those with cash money.
“No booze, Ned – just one bottle of beer going out of the door and he’d be busted, five years in the calaboose, family deported and him to follow, no matter what nationality he might lay claim to. He may well have been born here, he’s only a young man, but he’d be out on his ear anyway.”
“Not a bad thing, all in all, Davy. There’s enough drunks up here amongst the whiteskins from all I can see.”
“Mostly missionaries, and there’s sod all to be done about them, Ned. The local money comes from a few croc hides, small stuff, no big buggers left up here, and from copra – a lot of the villagers are planting now, not just relying on bush trees. A few of them are growing vegetables for the market down in Boroko, would be more bu
t there’s no wagon service, they have to carry everything on their backs.”
There was no livery stables attached to the store, Ned noticed, presumably too little traffic to warrant it. If the rubber took off, which was unlikely, it seemed, then maybe the villagers’ needs for transport would be met.
“Where are the rubber trees, Davy?”
“Some along the river, here, a few further up the hills, some out to the north of us, towards Brown River. Laloki ain’t the ideal place for the collection point, it’s a distance to travel, but there has to be a plentiful, year-round supply of water, so that means the river fairly close to the hills.”
Too many compromises, too much bodged up – wishful thinking in place of good business sense, Ned suspected.
The track along the river was shaded to a great extent by a mixture of rain trees, coconut and gums, easier riding as a result even though the valley was trending slowly upwards and the hills closing in upon them.
The river took a bend to the east and the valley naturally widened. There was a stretch of a mile or so of grassland and a small terrace showed over a low bluff, the Rubber Company station built along the top, above the Wet floods level.
They followed the track that looped up a hundred feet, stopped a few minutes where it topped out and it was possible to survey the whole compound.
On the river side there was a large, very English-seeming open-sided barn housing a couple of wagons and a low dray, and with space for another dozen. Next to that a stables, two lines of boxes, perhaps forty horses. Three warehouses in a row completed the commercial side, the last of them having a smokestack sticking out of the roof.
Against the hill and sheltered to an extent against high winds and rain there was a large clubhouse with a roofed verandah and half a dozen bungalows, Indian style, and, separated by fifty yards, twenty or so of three-room wooden shacks.
“Single quarters for young men, apprentices and management juniors. Bungalows for the three married men, who’ve none of them got their wives with ‘em, and the senior managers – me, you and Charlie, who runs the labour line.”
Ned was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was a senior.
“You are the ranking copper out here, as well, Ned – the young men are all sub-inspectors.”
They rode into the stables, apparently deserted as they approached. Two boys appeared at the horses’ heads as they swung down from the saddle and others ran across to unload the packhorse.
“Take the pistol, rifle and ammunition yourself, Ned, everything else will be dealt with for you. We’ll go across to the club, they’ll be expecting us and the bosses will be there.”
Fitzgerald was absent, as they knew, and Mr Alexander Urquhart, Regional Manager, was in charge, which he was more often than not, Fitzgerald having little sympathy with the Papuan way of life – it wasn’t like Malaya, not at all, my dear chap.
Urquhart, like Fitzgerald, was the product of an English public school, born to the Scots gentry and longer in pedigree than cash and still not quite able to enjoy working for a living. His wife, who was of similar English background, had returned to England, ‘to supervise the children’s education’, in a previous year – she was not to be mentioned, Davy said.
Urquhart stood and shook Ned’s hand and offered him a cold beer – they had a refrigerator and a plentiful supply of paraffin. He introduced the other whiteskins on the site and promised that Ned should visit the six plantations when he had met their managers, all of whom were single. It transpired, in fact, that there were no wives at all in country, but no doubt that would change in time.
“Have you experience of stationary steam engines as well as marine, Ned?”
Urquhart seemed inclined to patronise, to wish to emphasize his superior position.
“Crane, brewery, sugar plantation and traction engines, sir – double expansion, compound and even one ancient single, the first ever built in Cairns, I think. I would expect that the sugar engines are nearest to what we ‘ave ‘ere, they provides steam for processing as well as for power.”
“Your predecessor had worked on traction engines only, I believe, so his engine will be similar to theirs.”
“Double expansion and in-line, I expect, sir, necessary because the plant is mobile and on a narrow bed. I expect the steam lines to work separately off the boiler, that’s ‘ow I would do it, anyway. What of fuel, sir, if it’s a wood-burner, ‘ave we got stocks of dry logs?”
Richard, senior plantation manager and directly responsible for the facilities at Laloki, made his first contribution to the meeting, saying, very quietly, that he suspected that the kitchen boys had been firing the ovens from the stockpile, it might be rather low. He was told, sharply, to deal with it, Urquhart seeming to have little respect for him.
“Still, Ned, no need to worry about that today! Settle yourself into your bungalow and we’ll all have dinner together in here this evening. We always welcome newcomers, everybody who can will come in to meet you. It’s Friday, so there’s no need to get to work till Monday.”
The welcoming party broke up; there was still work to do, it seemed, though clearly only at a slow pace. Davy explained, once out of earshot of the two big men.
“Ticking over is all, bach – everything is ready, like, for the rubber to come in, has been for a year now. Warehouses built, yard organised, boys hired on, horses in their boxes, track graded as far as Laloki village, there ain’t bugger all left to do, which is why Mr Urquhart was none too pleased that the woodpile was down. No worry, your place is clean and ready for you, boy in the quarters and all set up, like.”
Ned wondered what they had been doing with their free time over the past year or two.
“Not a lot, mate – boozing too much, for most of the buggers. Me, I’ve been fossicking, up the valley and into the foothills here. There’s copper in two or three places along the coast and there’s a mine and wharf about ten miles east of Moresby that’s producing a profit and I’ve found traces of colour up here. No gold though, and that’s the only thing for a small man – you need a company for a copper mine or iron or wolfram or silver. Keeps me occupied, like, and you can always hope.”
Ned preferred working to hoping, had nothing to say.
The boy was waiting outside Ned’s bungalow, transpired to be a man of twice Ned’s age, grey-bearded and grave. He was an elder of the local clan, which was appropriate because Ned was of significance in the Company’s local hierarchy, could not be served by a lesser mortal.
“Name bilong mi, Poki, Master.”
“G’day, Poki, glad to meet yer.”
Ned knew enough not to attempt a handshake – it would have caused great embarrassment. He contented himself with looking Poki over – a ragged khaki shirt and a blue laplap cloth wrapped round his very spare middle, barefoot, no taller than Ned, one of his toes missing, he saw.
“Poki speaks good Island pidgin, Ned, and more English than he’ll let on, and he’ll teach you Police Motu as well over the next few months.”
Ned nodded, it was obvious that he would need the languages.
“The Company pays Poki a wage and supplies his family with quarters and they get free rations from our store. Just basic rice and tinned fish and bully but enough to get by in itself, and his first wife, his meri, has got clan rights to some garden land up on the hillside, so they’re well off in local terms. Any extras you want, you negotiate with him, your personal affair, that will be. Some of the blokes like to have the garden about the house put down to grass and flowers, for example, and pay ten bob a month for their boy’s family to do it. Others arrange for a niece or cousin to take a room in the house – never a daughter, Ned, that would be a very bad thing to ask – and pay a couple of sovereigns a month for the privilege. Let him make the suggestion, he’ll know how to make the arrangements properly according to custom. I’m buggering off to my place now, boyo, I’ll let him show you round – I’ve got some catching up to do with my young friend!”
; “Before you go, Davy, what happened to his toe, do you know?”
“Anything, mate – snakebite, stonefish out on the reef, blood poisoning in a small cut, spider, maybe. It’s common enough and they’ve got the savvy to cut off a rotten toe before it can turn to gangrene and kill them.”
With a jack knife and no anaesthetic – casually said and a reflection on local life here – hard and ungiving, unforgiving too.
The bungalow was large, too big for a single man, had been built in the expectation that there would be a family. The Company had evidently thought to create a new Malaya, and the Malay plantations had been modelled upon Indian standards of comfortable living for tea planters. It was not going to happen, it seemed, but for the while Ned had a very large and well-furnished house of his own, something he had never experienced before.
There was, of course, a large verandah looking north-west across the valley, which would be pleasant in the late afternoon. It was furnished with a pair of tables, four wooden chairs to each – he was expected to entertain, afternoon drinks, it would seem. A single twenty foot square sitting-room was set out with empty book cases on two walls, table and dining chairs, a settee against the inside wall. The windows were all louvered, wooden to waist height, glass above, covered outside by tiny-meshed fly wire. There were four bedrooms, two of them with double beds, two empty. Kitchen, shower and toilet were all downstairs at the back of the bungalow – it was built on the slope of the hill, naturally had a lower level.
“Can we have a work table in one of the empty rooms, Poki?”
He wanted a place to make the drawings that were to occupy his spare time. It would be there next morning.
The gun cupboards were next to each other in the master bedroom, served to define it in effect. Each was made of solid sheet steel and had a sturdy mortise lock with two large keys on a ring – there was nowhere on the Papuan coast to cut copies or replacements so they were security enough. Ned put the rifle into its rack, the pistol in its holster on the shelf above it, having carefully checked both to be unloaded as Davy had shown him, then set out the ammunition boxes in the second cupboard.
Long Way Place (Cannibal Country Trilogy, Book 1) Page 9