a collection of short stories by david wall
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http://deberigny.wordpress.comTRANSCRIPT
The phone rings!
January 14, 2009 at 11:01 pm (Short Story) · Edit
The phone rang at four in the morning and I thought to myself, ‘who the hell is that? Maybe it will stop ringing and I
can go back to sleep.’ But it didn’t and I had to answer it:
Hello and a vaguely familiar voice answered: James here, I thought I’d better get in touch. I’ve been away for a while
and I want to catch up. In my still sleepy half conscious state it came to me that I’d not heard James’s voice for years.
Well he went on: I’ve been about quite a bit since I left and I’ve run into some interesting people. Dad and Mum are
fine. Joan said that if I meet you to say she is thinking about you.
By this time I was wide-awake and I was starting to think that the voice sounds just like James or Fells as we used to
call him; but could it be? Fells, where are you now? He answered: I’m half way to Canberra from Melbourne; Uncle
and Auntie asked me to check on something they left in Merton. Which I’ve done and I now want to get
to Canberra and fill Geraldine in about a few things. What was it you had to check on in Merton? I asked him.Oh, it
was just a pigskin sidesaddle that Em was worried about.
Em was our great-aunt and the toast of Melbourne as a horsewoman but when was this, I wondered. Merton, the family
house in Brighton had long since gone. So I said: Fells, you’re not making any sense. Oh, yes, I am, it’s all in the
poetry of essence, which you’ll know about eventually.
By this time the conversation with my brother, James, was taking on a surreal character and I didn’t know why. I said
to him: Where exactly have you been and how is it that you saw Mum and Dad? He answered: Well, I’ll tell you. When
you are completely free you can see and meet who you like. You know our great grandfather, Thomas Mason, the one
who lost his finger, he wasn’t too pleased when he heard about the photo of him being burnt. Mum’s brother, Reg, is
still into growth and he told me he has more money than he knows what to do with.
You can’t tell me, James, that you have spoken to all these people. The next thing you’ll be telling me is that you have
spoken to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Without any hesitation he answered: Yes, I have. You can’t avoid them! To
which I said: So, there are three of them? No, he said. But I can’t expect you to understand that. To help you, I can tell
you that the power is as one.
By this time I was inclined to agree that the moon was made of cheese and that pigs can fly, but then James came out
with a long dissertation-like flow of rhetoric:
David, imagine you are in a state where you don’t need to know anything. Every question you may care to ask has been
answered. You know that almost everything you been told before is at best incomplete. You remember my book? What
do we know, what can we believe? Well I can now tell you, sweet bugger all. It’s not that everything is wrong but all
people with their closed minds can’t see the forest for the trees and they can’t see the trees for the woods. You’re not on
the red? I asked. No way! There’s no time. I’ve met hundreds of people who have come into their own. Like poor little
kids from the slums of the world, the aborted and the mistreated, and many others.
Was Fells some sort of an oracle? Before he left I always thought that he was the most intelligent one in the family and
his years away could have only improved his mind, or that is what I figured. I asked him had he spoken to our father
lately. Oh, yes, I saw him speaking to Hilaire Belloc recently. Belloc seems more than ever convinced that he was right
many years ago when he wrote:”The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.” The Faith is, of course, the Catholic
Church. And Europe must return to it or “perish” You can imagine that Dad would have been in complete agreement
with this though their ideas on the Faith are not so defined these days. Oh, I almost forgot to tell that your houseboy,
Kami, from Papua New Guinea wondered how you were. He was telling me he had received a lot of credit for the
thousands of cups of tea he had made for you. Anyhow, he’s doing well now. But he is a bit worried about his family in
Torembi, a village in the Sepik. While talking about the Sepik; our brother-in-law, Kevin was telling me about those
Indian prisoners of the Japanese that he rescued in 1945. He has run into most of them around here and they were very
pleased to see him.
James, what do you mean by around here’? He answered: Here is here and there is there and around here is something
of little importance.
He might think that but to me it was very important as I was trying to focus on a context of persons and places in the
drift of our conversation. I left this as it were and went on talking:I suppose you’ve heard about Caitilin getting a
PhD. Caitilin is James’s daughter. You don’t say, David. I knew she always had it in her to do well. Talking about
degrees; Reg Morrison, you know the brother of Morrison of Peking, told me that he was most upset when he heard in
the twenties that Melbourne University had not granted Dad an MD. Fortune does not always favour the deserved.
James asked me about his sons, Dominic and Jamie and I was able to tell him that they are doing well. I then mentioned
that, Geraldine, his wife had been missing him over the past years. He then said: We’ll all be together eventually. I
then went on to tell him that at least he could have made a greater effort to keep contact but I suppose he had his
reasons:
I certainly have my reasons. You be interested to hear what our sister Madie’s husband, Knut, had to say about the
family situation. According to him he didn’t want any split in the family but for him things were so hard to handle s0 he
more or less left it to Madie. The truth of the matter or otherwise no longer seemed to count. And it seemed easier not
to talk about it. Sufficient to say on the matter is that he now regrets many things and is very sorry.
I told James about my family, sons, Andrei and David Augustus. Andrei teaching in Kuwait and Augustus writing a
fancy story that has great promise. Deborah, my wife, is still very interested in social research into race and identify,
especially of Aboriginal and Filipino people. James then told me that he had recently spoken to Charlie Perkins and
exchanged stories about the old days in Canberra. Charlie said that he knows that a lot more work needs to be done for
his brothers and sisters and by them but some good things had happened. He was heartened by the election of a black
president in the USA.
Do you have any regrets about leaving, James? He answered: I didn’t have much choice about it, if you will recall. But
as things have worked out it was all for the best. That film, “The Passion”, we saw together, you know Mel Gibson’s,
in a funny way prepared me to leave. John Henry Newman and Augustine were quite complimentary about it. The Lord
just smiled when it was mentioned.
Now I knew that James must have lost it. One does not just run into Newman, Augustine and the Lord. Fells, if you’re
not on the red, you must be stoned. He came back and said: In a funny way you are right if stoned explains a heightened
sense of awareness. You are limited by time and space, so all that has been is out of your reach. Why do you think it
strange for me to meet people? I let this pass and just went on listening and talking.
I have to tell you about something great. Joan, our sister, Kevin, her husband and Adrienne are so happy together.
They no longer get headaches. They want to be remembered to all their loved ones: Sarah, Becky, and Elaine’s family.
Thienette de Berigny,our great grandfather, has a homoeopathic remedy for Sarah’s medical problem. He hopes to
visit her soon and dispense some sort of mixture. Mum and all of us around here know that ‘The price of wisdom is
above rubies.” Even Aunt Connie agrees with this.
By this time the Bard’s thoughts came to me: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” By the way, James,
while you’ve been away I wrote a novel: “Sepik Blu Longpela Muruk”. Not much really but I enjoyed writing it. Some
expats from PNG like it. Well, that’s good, David. You always liked PNG.
I looked at the clock, it was 4:30. We had been speaking for half an hour. I was reluctant to put the phone down. James
when can we meet up? You say you are on your way toCanberra. Sydney isn’t far from from Canberra. And then he
said a strange thing: Distance has nothing to do with time and space. It’s really important to give your heart to others.
By helping others, you help yourself. We’ll meet up soon enough, maybe sooner than you think. A lot of my friends
regret not living better lives while they had the chance.
James, you’ve been away for over four years; have you given your heart away and have you seen any women you
fancy? David, life begins in your seventies but the answer is no. But I did recently talk with Margaret More, you know
Thomas More’s daughter.
Now wait a minute, James, what are you on about? Do you mean Henry VIII and all that?Yes, yes, yes, that’s what I
mean. All right, I suppose the next thing you’ll tell is that she gave her father’s side of the story. He than went on to say
what Margaret had said. Her father really had no choice in the matter. He understood the dictates of his conscience. But
his conscience was formed by considering the whole of Christendom; The King’s good servant, but God’s first. We
don’t see much of Henry or Rich around here. He said.
I thought to myself; let him go on there is a bit of sense here but he is the first person I know who has spoken the
Thomas More’s daughter.
Suddenly I became aware that I was watching television; someone was talking about Hillary Clinton and a new
diplomacy on the Middle East. I realized that I must have been sleeping and on the table near me I noticed some
writing in a journal: “James de Berigny Wall (1929-2004) The editor wishes to apologise that this important obituary
was overlooked in 2004.”
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An encounter on the shores of Lake Victoria
January 13, 2009 at 11:13 pm (Short Story) (British East Africa, Hippopotami, Lake Victoria, Riverview,Short
Story, Stonyhurst) · Edit
Many years ago, in my younger days, I spent a bit of time travelling and hitchhiking around Africa. Most countries in
the continent were still under colonial rule and one could still travel in relative safety and sleep cheaply here and there.
Along the way I met interesting people of different races and creeds. But it would be hard to meet a more likeable and
charming fellow than Patrick Cassian, an old boy of Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit school in Lancashire. Pat exuded all
the charm of the Irish with the refinement of an English education. His handsome black Irish good looks and his
polished manners were like a magnet to expatriate colonial women.
I ran into Pat while trying my hitchhiking luck outside Nairobi in Kenya. I waved to a grey Peugeot 403 and it
stopped. I explained to the driver, who was Pat, that I was making my way to virtually anywhere in East Africa. He
informed me that he was going towards Uganda and he could give me a lift. I jumped into the car and we ended up
travelling together for about three weeks.
It transpired in the course of our conversation that Pat was a travelling salesman for Marshalls East Africa, selling
Peugeots and heavy equipment. At this time I would have been in my early twenties and Pat would have been in his
middle thirties. I mentioned to Pat that I was Australian, to which he replied: “I can see that.” Then for some reason the
question of where I went to school came up and I told him I went to a Jesuit school in Sydney: St Ignatius’ College,
Riverview. “Ah, do you remember your school’s motto?” He asked. Not being a terribly bright student and by no
means a classical scholar it was a bit of luck that I did: Quantum Potes Tantum Aude “As much as you can do, so much
dare to do” “Strange, ours was similar but not in Latin, in French: Quant Je Puis, which translates:As Much As I
can. The same old Jesuit mark, I guess. I went to Stonyhurst.”
Not that our old schools formed much of the topic of discussions, from memory the main subject of conversation was
women.
Travelling around East Africa, one is struck by the natural beauty and contract of the scenery. The mountain
stretches and deep drops of the Rift Valley in Kenya, the tropical splendour of Uganda and the savannah stretching to
the immensity of Tanganyika’s Mt Kilimanjaro; all surrounding great Lakes like Victoria and crowned, as it were, by
the Mountains of the Moon or Mt Rwenzoni, located between the border of Uganda and the Belgian Congo. All the
great mountains of East Africa are snow-capped: Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Kenya and the Mountains of the Moon.
Pat had to visit dealers at a town called Bukoba in Tanganyika on Lake Victoria. After he had conducted his business
we decided to spend the day by having lunch at the local hotel on the Lake and then just to play it by ear; visits to local
African, shall we say, beer drinking stores.
By mid-afternoon we were both pretty well primed. We had started drinking with an Englishman who was leaving
Bukoba by a Lake Victoria steamer/ferry for a port in Uganda. We were both determined to see Fred, I think that was
his name, off in style.
This consisted in Pat driving him to the ferry and having a few more drinks with him on board. This was duly done
and Pat and I, at one stage, decided that we would dive off the deck rather than disembark in the normal way.
Fortunately this course of action was not followed as I’m sure we would have been killed in the attempt.
It was early evening by the time the boat left. Our friend was waved off with gestures of eternal friendship. After this
we made our way to Pat’s trusty Peugeot.
We did get to the car, but Pat was only able to drive it for about 50 yards, and then he more or less collapse at the
wheel.
The car was still parked near the lake and I decided to put the seats in a reclined position, and in this makeshift bed
two intoxicated gentlemen passed out.
The next thing I became aware of was the sound of sniffing and nosing around the car. I looked out of one of the
windows and all I could see were gigantic animals peering in.
At first I wondered if I were suffering from delirium tremens. The dawn was just starting and my senses were
returning and I realized that what I was seeing was hippopotamuses or hippopotami, whatever you prefer. Pat was still
dead to the world.
Looking at the size of these animals I wondered if their sniffs would become shoves and the car and we would go
rolling over; but in time they lost interest in us and the car, and moved on.
Shortly after this Pat awoke and we drove to the hotel where we were staying.
I was later told that hippos are very aggressive animals. When one considers that they can be 2 tons in weight; the
Peugeot would have been little protection if they had decided to attack us.
After this eventful experience we drove back to Nairobi, and from there I parted company with Pat and continued on
my travels, however, we did meet up briefly once again in Mombassa just before I left by ship for Europe and the UK,
but that is another story.
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Short Story by Deborah Ruiz Wall
September 12, 2008 at 3:24 am (Fiction, Short Story) (Add new tag, DEAD-END, Deborah Ruiz Wall,PNG Fiction)
· Edit
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The Recruiter
August 30, 2008 at 5:14 am (Fiction, Short Story) (Add new tag, Stories of PNG) · Edit
By all the rules of sages and psychologists Bob should have been dejected and unhappy
having lived a life that they would have considered futile and worthless.
To claim that Bob experienced no deep night of the soul would only confound our
moralists and theologians but perhaps truth does lie at the bottom of a well. Bob himself
would have agreed that at least it lay at the bottom of a bottle.
To say that Bob had come a long way since his 6th Division days in Greece during the
war would be the understatement of the age. The highlight of this campaign for Bob was
making love – if that is not a too elaborate a word to describe what went on – with a
Greek girl within sight of the Acropolis.
Whatever Bob’s faults many agreed with his friend, Dave, the malaria control officer in
Angoram, that Bob’s attraction lay in the way he squandered the treasure of life with a
seemingly disregard for the future.
At the end of the war Bob took his discharge from ANGAU in Port Moresby. He had
some idea of returning to Australia to see what happened to his wife, who he had married
just before the war, to discover on returning from the Middle East to Adelaide that she
had decided to end the marriage because she had taken up with someone else, or as Bob
so delicately put it, he found another bull in the paddock.
Bob did in fact arrange to go to Australia shortly after taking his discharge but he made
the mistake of contemplating this move in the bottom pub at the Snake Pit bar. Needless
to say, Bob never made the plane.
His deferred pay was coming to an end so he concluded that a man with a drinking
habit needed a livelihood. He decided to try his luck in the Sepik and so he went to
Wewak. Over a beer there with an acquaintance it was suggested that recruiting labour
for the plantations was all the go and the best thing to get into.
With this in mind, Bob moved inland and settled in a place just outside Nuku, a patrol
post. From here he set out on recruiting patrols over most of the inland Sepik, including
journeys on the Ramu and Sepik Rivers.
Over the next few years Bob became a legend in his own time with hundreds of natives
being taken by him to Angoram and Wewak to be signed on for work on plantations
around Kavieng, Madang, Rabaul and elsewhere.
Most other recruiters didn’t have a chance in getting recruits as Bob became so popular
in the various villages that the natives would wait for him to come. Or as they used to say
: Mi laik wetim Masta Bob.
On his own account thousands of pounds passed through his hands. One can imagine
with him getting 10 to 20 pounds per recruit. With a doctor friend of his he bought a
plane which unfortunately crash off the coast killing the doctor.
Perhaps this was a turning point in Bob’s life, as John, the doctor, was a great friend of
his and felt his loss greatly. Recruiting ceased to give him the financial stability it had in
the past. He just didn’t seem to care much about going out to get recruits only making the
occasional trips to keep body and soul together.
He eventually ended up in Angoram in a houseboat that he referred to as his “outfit”. In
Angoram he did manage to keep himself constantly inebriated keeping the locals and
expatriates entertained with stories of drinking sprees and sexual exploits. His faithful
house boy, Yum stayed with him looking after him as best he could, even when he was
on the “whitelady” – methylated spirits.
Perhaps Bob’s life was a journey that was involved more in traveling than in reaching
any destination. If he had been a botanist he would have spent his life in searching for the
famed orchid – the Sepik Blue – but Bob was involved in the art of living, at least from
his point of view, and the Sepik Blue had little interest for him. He was more concerned
with satisfying the “blue throbber”, the term he used to describe his genitalia and even
this search, one suspects, was more in the imagination than in actual fact.
One supposes that in the final count Bob’s end of life was as he would have liked it in
the bar of the Madang Club with a glass in his hand.
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The downfall of Frank Gibson
July 22, 2008 at 5:42 am (Short Story) (Add new tag, Fiction, Papua New Guinea, Short Story) · Edit
He awoke suddenly with a languid feeling, and the first thing he noticed was that the
mosquito net was not tucked in at the side of the bed.
Frank Gibson then became aware of a slight musky yet pleasant smell on his bed
pillow. It then came to him that he had slept with Maria. If slept was the operative word,
he thought, it would not have been so bad, but a vague feeling of emptiness and inaction
in the region of his loins spoke for itself and told another story.
With the full recognition of what had happened he became aware of complications and
difficulties created by, what he thought to be, a moral lapse.
My God, what a fool he had been, he thought. If only he had walked away, as he had
many times before from similar situations. Even the extra glass of Negrita Rhume, he had
had the night before, didn’t excuse his lack of self-control.
The Territory of Papua and New Guinea gave little endorsement to miscegenation,
especially if one were a government officer.
Frank as a European Medical Assistant was fully aware of this. He’d seen officers
suddenly sent South – as the saying went for deportation to Australia – on the strength of
the Native Women’s Protection Ordinance, which virtually forbad cohabitation between
expatiates and native women. He also knew the complications that having ‘a bit of black
stuff’ created, and he thought with terror of how his authority would be undermined in
the native hospital he ran. Maria was his head nurse and an influential person on the
small government station of Dreikikir. A station situated in the Sepik District at the
foothills of the Torricelli Mountains, elevated at a sufficient height to produce mild
climatic conditions. Contact from Dreikikir was maintained with the district
administrative centre at Wewak by radio and light aircraft.
There were two other white men on the station besides Frank, Bernie Porter, a Cadet
Patrol Officer and Fr John Ryan, an American Divine Word Missionary.
Bernie was a fairly average Australian who just managed to pass the School Leaving
Certificate which qualified him for entry into the Department of Native Affairs as a Cadet
Patrol Officer. Frank knew that Bernie had been itching to bed a local woman but was
just too scared to do anything about it.
Fr John was a singular character who before becoming a priest had been a lawyer in
Chicago. Frank knew that John had no time for expatriates who carried on with local
women. Frank feared that if he found out about his affair with Maria – a state that could
hardly be ornamented with the term affair at this stage – it would considerably strain their
friendship.
Frank’s friendship with John was important to him. John was the only real contact with
an educated man who shared many of his interests, for indeed, Frank was not your
average medical assistant. He had completed 4 years medicine at Sydney University and
only left to come to New Guinea because he had insufficient funds to continue his
medical course. The fact that Frank was a practising Catholic strengthened his friendship
with John.
After his fling with Maria, Frank could see problems with his weekly communion at
Sunday Mass. The prospect of going to confession to Fr John did not attract him at all.
Anyhow, Frank thought, I’m not sorry for the Maria episode.
Maria, in any man’s book was a beautiful woman and even the word local did not
strictly apply to her as she came from Kerema in Papua – an area noted for the beauty of
their women and Maria lived up to this reputation with her long limbs and stately figure,
and a face like a Pharaoh’s daughter, but the fact that Maria was not local also created
problems.
The police corporal, Kasimai, also came from Kerema and he had had his eyes on
Maria for months. In fact he had told her that he was prepared to put aside his Sepik wife
and marry her.
Frank knew it would be impossible to keep an affair between a white man and a black
woman quiet.
While he was thinking about this and sitting in his bush material house, Bernie called in
to ask his opinion about the health of his house boy. Apparently, Bernie’s domestic
showed signs of skin discolouration and he enquired of Frank if this could be leprosy.
Frank told him that this was possible as the disease was endemic around Dreikikir. Frank
said he would have a look at the man later. He was tempted to tell Bernie about Maria but
he knew he would probably tell the District Officer in Wewak and then the District
Medical Officer would hear about it. Frank didn’t think that he would be dismissed as the
quality of his medical work was too well known, but it would be a transfer for him.
At least Frank did have the satisfaction at this time of knowing that his reputation in the
Department of Public Health as a practical medical man was without equal – a doctor in
ever way except for degrees. His reputation needed no justification. In Wewak the white
community never seemed to tire of talking of how he saved the life of Joan Johnson and
her baby.
Joan was the wife of Les Johnson, the hotel manager, and Joan was rushed to Wewak
Hospital for a very difficult confinement.
Jan Vertias, the Hungarian doctor in-charge – a man more trained in psychiatry than
general medicine, rushed Joan to the theatre and promptly passed out himself, when Joan
started to come into labour. Joan’s condition indicated that a caesarean operation was
needed. There was no one able to do this, what with Vertias passed out. One of the nurses
remembered that Frank was visiting Wewak and staying at the hotel. A car was rushed to
collect him and he came to the hospital and performed the caesarean successfully. Les
Johnson always insisted that the drinks were on him whenever he ran into Frank.
Frank knew he would have to go to the hospital for the morning out-patients and he
also knew he would see Maria.
On approaching the hospital, a short distance from his house, Frank could see the usual
line up of mothers, children and old men with one or two younger ones - colds, malaria,
yaws, tropical ulcers; the usual diseases presented for treatment. He gave instructions to
the orderlies – 4cc penicillin, 3 tablets of chloroquine and so on and so on, but all the
time he was wondering where Maria was.
After a while she arrived and addressed Frank in the usual way: ‘good morning, sir.’
With this Frank gave a sigh of relief – she was not going to take any advantages, he
thought. He could end it now and not continue with the affair but on seeing her he knew
he would be unable to do this.
When the day ended at the hospital Frank asked Maria to come to his house after dark
and with her smile of acceptance he knew to expect her that night.
On his way home he ran into Fr Ryan who asked him to come to the mission for drinks
later.
When he arrived at the mission Bernie and Fr John Ryan were sitting on the verandah
and sharing a bottle of Victoria Bitter. John called out to his house boy to get a glass for a
Frank.
With the beer freely flowing conversation developed among the three men on the state
of the country; the natives and the dishonesty of old Kimmins who ran a trade store
outside Wewak.
An outsider would have observed three men who were themselves outsiders in an alien
land with little new to say to each other - thrown together by forces outside their control
by motives and imperatives both mundane and sublime directing them to a place where
some would say they had no business to be.
The conversation got eventually around to sex as it is want to among men isolated from
their own kind. The more bawdy aspects of the subject were avoided out of deference to
Fr John, but in the final count it was all there, if in a somewhat dignified tone.
The subject came around to relations with native women. John made his views clear in
that he strongly disapproved of such behaviour. Bernie in so many words justified it
along the lines of any port in a storm. Of course, he maintained that he would not indulge
himself. One could be forgiven for thinking that he was only trying to impress John.
Frank said that he had an open mind on this question. After all what could he say
knowing that unlike the other two he would have the company of Maria in the night.
After about an hour all three were two-parts-gone and well on the way to being
inebriated. John asked them to stay for a meal. Frank and Bernie sent word to their
respective houses that they would not be home to eat. Frank in his own mind thought this
was a good idea as his house boy, Joseph, would be out of the house when Maria arrived
later in the night. He was embarrassed about Joseph knowing about him having sex
Maria. Why exactly he didn’t know as Joseph was anything but a prude but he suspected
that he had a high opinion of him and he did not relish the idea of destroying this.
By about 10 o’clock the gathering broke up with Frank and Bernie making their way
home and Frank wishing Bernie goodnight at Bernie’s house. He then proceeded home
guided by the full moon and the mounting desire of expectation of what was waiting for
him. Sure enough Maria was there in his bed half asleep.
What followed was a night of sensual and emotional pleasure made in some perverse
way more intense by the illicitness of their union.
Maria left Frank at about 4 am and he slept the sleep, if not of the just, but of the
exhausted.
Maria arrived back at her house just as Corporal Kasimai was re-entering his house
after relieving himself at a tree. He saw Maria returning.
The plot of the tale from this point on has all the elements of tragedy, melodrama and
just plane bloody mindedness.
Frank’s affair with Maria became common knowledge on the station and news of it
soon passed to Wewak but for some time there were no official complaints so the powers
that be and the natives by in-large chose to ignore it. That was before Corporal Kasimai
driven by intense jealousy hinted to Bernie that the doctor (Frank) was causing trouble on
the station and unless something was done he would have to make a report to the police
in Wewak. Bernie told Frank that the matter might be taken out of his hands if this
happened. He did not actually say that he knew that Frank was carrying on with Maria
but hinted that he knew and more or less said half his luck but the time had come to stop
whatever was going on.
Frank it appeared was powerless to stop seeing Maria for added to his obvious
infatuation he had taken to drinking to excess. He was often seen the worse for drink in
the mornings at the hospital. He had given up attending Fr John’s weekly Mass on
Sundays and seemed unable to maintain a conversation with John except in his cups. Fr
John too seemed unable to help and give him spiritual advice. The camaraderie that the
pair had, seemed to be of no account in this crisis that Frank was going through.
Frank’s fate took on a life of its own with the twists and turns of a road eventually
leading to disaster.
In the whole affair Maria seemed the only one not affected, if anything, she seemed to
blossom into life and sparkle with the parcels of dresses that arrived from Wewak at
Frank’s expense.
Everyone except Frank and Maria became an audience awaiting a climax in a drama of
life. The principal actors were only two but a third emerged, the wildest card of all;
Corporal Kasimai loaded his 303 rifle and shot Frank dead one evening on his way home
from the hospital.
Frank was dead by the time Fr John administered the last rites. It took Bernie a three
days patrol to catch the Corporal in the bush.
Some would say that Frank died from love, others might say he was a fool, and still
others that he was a victim who dared to cross the colonial barriers of race and propriety.
Whatever might be said, Joan and Les Johnson never ceased to sing the praises of Frank,
the medical assistant who was more than just that.
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Progressive and reactionary mix, do opposites attract?
April 17, 2008 at 5:26 am (Fiction, Short Story) (Aborigines, Add new tag, Islam, married life, Sydney inner-city life)
· Edit
Rachael and Andrew Mason resided in an inner city Sydney suburb and to all intents and purposes lived in
matrimonal bliss to the wonderment of Rachael’s many friends.
Rachael was at the forefront of most progressive social issues from saving the Aborigines to saving the
whales. Andrew on the other hand spent most of his time, since retirement from paid employment, in front of
his computer or walking around the house muttering about: “the spirituality of indigenous” and the “power of
Islam”. To the superficial observer this might be interpreted to mean that Andrew in some ways identified
with Aborigines and Muslims in Australian society. An impression that would be contradictory, to say the
least. Andrew’s only real exposure to Aborigines had been to inner city types mainly around Redfern. For the
most part he considered these to be anything but spiritual. The only hunters and gatherers among them that
he could see were those lurking around Redfern Station intent on snatching bags from unsuspecting
passersby or poor ravished individuals begging for “spare change”. As regards Muslims he did not know too
many apart from the young Lebanese Australians he saw misbehaving on the trains. On a philosophical
level he considered Islam a rather misinformed theological and spiritual way of life that if unchecked could
undermine Western Christian values. Of things historical and political he whole heartily agreed with George
MacDonald Fraser that the British Empire was “the greatest thing that ever happened to an undeserving
world”.
Rachael practically gave up on trying to change Andrew’s views, however, she did point out to him the family
values of Aboriginal people and the beauty of Islamic art but this was only occasionally as it lead to futile
arguments. Instead she got on with her life of involvement, fighting for various causes. Her social action in
the fields of indigenous and multicultural affairs and in battles for social justice in general were recognized
by the Australian Government with the award of the Order of Australia Medal.
Rachael and Andrew remained practising Catholics. In later life Andrew still attended Mass on Sundays and
kept to most of the rules. He often asked himself if he still believed in it all. Certainly questions of
transubstantiation became meaningless for him in later life but he still occasionally went to confession and
usually confessed sins of illicit sexual desire, not of action, as there no longer remained much physical
sexual ability in him. He did often say that Catholicism had ruined his sex life. For the last years of his
married life to Rachael the marriage bed had been given up. They both seemed content enough with this.
Andrew liked to say that in his own bed he could fart with impunity. Rachael’s religious practice did not put
much faith in doctrine but she strongly related a love of God to a love of humankind.
In his seventies Andrew developed a chronic heart condition. His health became so bad that he was rushed
to hospital for bypass surgery. Unfortunately he expired on the operating table.
Rachael was quite devasted with Andrew’s sudden death but she was cheered up with the provisions of
Andrew’s will: Andrew had left the bulk of his estate to her but he had also left money so that the services of
an Aboriginal elder and an Islamic iman could be employed at his funeral. He said he wanted the Aboriginal
elder to perform a smoking ceremony and the iman to read Muslim prayers for the dead.
Rachael found that she had no trouble getting an elder but it proved impossible to get an iman. Apparently,
“in the Quran, God prohibits all believers from offering pryers for disbelievers or idol worshippers regardless
of whether they are dead or alive.” She suspected that Andrew would have known this and his request
would have appealed to his sense of humour.
Rachael arranged a traditional Catholic funeral with the smoking ceremony and to replace the Muslim
prayers she insisted that only sausages, mash and green peas with sao biscuits and tea be served at the
wake. Andrew, she thought, would have liked this as food had always been a bone of contention in their
marriage. She always liked exotic garlic and ginger laced food while Andrew’s liking was for tradional
Aussie/English food.
In a sense the last laugh was with Rachael and Andrew would have liked that!
Permalink 1 Comment
Sex Rears Its Ugly Head
January 9, 2008 at 4:04 am (Short Story) · Edit
Peter Davies was seventy years old when he developed an overwhelming desire to visit a house of ill repute. This
sudden surge of virility came like a shot out of the night and his desire to be serviced by the ladies of the night took on
erotic dimensions with a compulsion that was hard to control. Dreams of French knickers in black chiffon and
suspenders with females ready to provide a sensuous and tantalizing service filled his waking and sleeping hours. His
occasional viewing of phonographic sites on the Internet only added fuel to the fire.
One of the troubles of old age is continuing sexual desire when the old themselves are no longer sexually desirable.
Somerset Maugham considered this “one of the misfortunes of human beings”. He further supposed that “it is not
improper that they should gratify [these desires] but… they would do better not to talk about it.” Poor Davies, alas, was
landed with the difficult and unfortunate mix of human nature and a Catholic conscience which would in time induce
talk to others or to a priest in confession.
The physiological and psychological causes for his sudden increase of libido were perhaps related to a rigorous
exercise program, he had undertaken, and a treatment for a benign prostatic condition, that he suffered from. The
formula of natural herbs, he was on, was said “to support normal male physiology and sexual function.” Anyhow, with
this toxic mix it took all of poor Davies’s will power to keep his hand away from his manhood.
The big question for Davies was, was he to take the bull by the horns, as it were, and plunge himself into the
commercial delights of a high class bordello?
It has been said that in most stories of the human condition sex rears its ugly head but, of course, its attractiveness is the
very honey pot that moralists would say was set to trap the unwary. Is the Song of Solomon a trap? Or the seductive
words: “I am black but comely”?
The speculative rights or wrongs of Davies visiting a house of pleasure had a strong objective reality but subjectively
he was still felt unfulfilled physiologically and this is the problem he had to cope with.
Davies decided that action had to be taken. He made a phone call to the House of Liaison, a rather unusually named
bordello, near where he lived. The phone was answered by a friendly woman anxious to be as helpful as possible:
“Hello, this is Gloria, can I help you?” Davies answered: “Yes, I’m wondering when Almira would be available.” He
had read about Almira on a computer advertisement for the establishment. She was described as “a woman talented in
many fantasies; that she would love to share with you.” Her other attributes were that she came from the West Indies
and had coffee-coloured skin with a gorgeous figure and a sensuous manner. This alluring mix was almost too much for
Davies. He always had a fascination with black women which probably sprang from the years he had spent in Papua
New Guinea. Gloria informed Davies that Almira was available from 7pm to 12 midnight on Mondays to Fridays. She
then asked Davies where he had heard of Almira and he said: “A friend spoke very highly of her.” Gloria said: “She’s
great!” Davies then made a tentative appointment to meet Almira on Wednesday of the following week.
As the reader, what is your bet that Davies would go ahead and keep the tentative appointment with Almira? At best
there was only a fifty-fifty chance of this happening. A lot could happen in a week: The surge of libido could end
without fulfillment. His Catholic conscience could get the better of him. The payment of $300 for Almira’s services
could become a problem.
The Biblical passage from Matthew 26:41: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit is willing, but
the flesh is weak”. For Davies the juxtaposition of this quote was, the flesh was strong – or he imagined it was – and
the spirit was faltering.
Well to make a long story short, both in the figurative and literal bodily sense, Davies didn’t visit Almira, but did visit
the confessional; revealing to the priest his inner most thoughts and desires.
Following the usual formula: “Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s a year since my last confession and I accuse
myself of the following sins.” In the post-Vatican II confessional some of the old methodology of the ritual was
retained but the rite had increasingly taken on an informal conversational mode. The penitent no longer knelt before the
priest behind a screen but sat on a chair and, as it were, carried on a conversation with him.
From Davies’s point of view this had its good and bad points. He felt that the informality of the contact made it harder
to reveal one’s inner most secrets but, he guessed, it was a better atmosphere to engender the giving and receiving of
spiritual and psychological advice. However, for him, the process of a person confessing and been shriven of sin was as
much magical as sacramental. The words of absolution uttered by the priest articulated mystical powers of forgiveness.
The sins associated with lust, and his craving for sexual pleasure, were duly confessed, together, with doubts he had
about the Catholic faith. The priest said nothing about his carnal sins and he told Davies that all thinking people have
doubts. He gave him absolution and, for his penance, he told him to tell the next person coming in that he would pray
for them.
Leaving confession, he felt that a burden had been lifted from him. Maybe, he was on the straight and narrow again and
sexual desire was firmly back in its box, or he hoped it was.
Davies liked to think that the happenings in this narrative were a one-off episode in his life. It has not been mentioned
before but Davies’s wife of some twenty-five years had died ten years previously. The memory of her, he hoped,
should keep him pure in the Catholic sense.
But deep down there was in Davies a craving for a woman.
Contrary to his traditional Catholic beliefs Davies retained a vague belief in reincarnation and he said to himself once:
“If it’s true, I want to come back as Hugh Hefner.”
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Family affairs
December 8, 2007 at 11:08 pm (Fiction, Short Story) (Add new tag, Sexual improprieties, Sexual
indiscretions, Family relations, Family breakup) · Edit
“Keep your hands off my daughter”, Mary Collins said to her brother-in-law, Klas Olsen, one Sunday
morning in his house in suburban Sydney in the early 1990s. This sparked an unholy row, leading to the
disintegration of extended family relations with a litany of lies, denials and abuse.
You may wonder if this was a spur of the moment outburst or a considered decision to make a stand against
a pattern of behaviour that no one in the family had directly confronted Klas with. There had been rumours
for years about Klas’s endeavours at family social gatherings to get female members alone and make sexual
advances to them. Most of the older women just laughed about this but when he turned his intentions to
teenage nieces, the family seemed at a loss to know what to do. Mary could see how her daughter had been
affected by Klas’s behaviour and, as it appeared nothing was being done about it, she was determined to
make a stand.
Klas, a Danish seaman, had arrived in Australia in the early 1950s after jumping ship in Sydney. He was a
strong and fit man and had no trouble finding employment of a physical nature around the city. His English
at first was practically non-existent but in time he became quite fluent, speaking with an Aussie working
class accent.
The Sydney of the fifties offered Klas a life that he thoroughly enjoyed. His Scandinavian good looks and his
capacity for alcohol facilitated his access to women and fun around town. His chance for social and financial
stability came when he met a beautiful young woman in a night club and was smitten by her. She was
equally taken by him.
Angelica Collins was the nineteen-year-old daughter of George and Rebecca Collins. George was a
successful solicitor from Wagga, in country New South Wales. Angelica and Klas had a whirlwind romance
and 10 months after meeting were married in the chapel of her old school, Rose Bay Convent. Klas had
converted to Catholicism and had been well accepted by Angelica’s family. George, Angelica’s father, was a
little concerned about Klas’s drinking but he felt that he was a hard-working New Australian and should do
well. Rebecca, her mother, was taken with Klas, particularly with his European good looks. She even said: “I
like him, he likes a beer.”
Early in the marriage, one of Klas’s old girl friends got in touch with him through her lawyer and threatened
to proceed against him for breach of promise. She must have heard that he had done relatively well by
marrying into a family with money. Angelica’s father bought her off with a payment of £1,500 which left a
sour taste in his mouth.
After this, the couple settled down and Angelica gave birth to three daughters. Angelica’s father helped Klas
buy into a small clothes and blanket manufacturing factory in the inner city. The business was virtually run
by his partner and Klas did general labouring and driving tasks for the firm. His involvement in the business
did a lot for his self-image and he liked to describe himself as a small businessman. He became more and
more conservative in his political views and was a great supporter of the Liberal Party.
Over the years, Angelica and Klas’s house became a meeting place for Angelica’s brothers and sisters and
their families. Klas was a wonderful host and on weekends food and drink were always on offer for visiting
relatives. Angelica was a woman with an engaging personality and she became a significant person within
family circles. Her status within the family increased when her mother, Rebecca, moved in with Angelica and
Klas after the death of her husband, George. Rebecca contributed a lot financially to the household.
At family gatherings, Klas was the life of the party, holding forth, while consuming copious amounts of
alcohol and chain smoking, on a variety of topics from religion to small business. Some of his more notable
remarks included: “The woman is made for the man.” “Life is like this box of matches, the product is only
produced after much effort and work.” “The big clothing manufacturers would offer hundreds of thousands of
dollars for our firm.” A folksy red-blooded approach to life exemplified the philosophical drift of his
conversation.
From time to time, Angelica’s nieces would stay with her. They all loved her and looked up to her. Some talk
surfaced among the fathers and mothers of these girls that Klas’s approach to their daughters was perhaps
a little inappropriate but it was generally felt not to be too serious. So for a long time nothing much was said.
Early in the marriage Angelica realised that Klas would never be able to provide her with an upper-middle-
class life style and if she was to send her daughters to private schools, she would have to do something
about it herself. Her mother was a great help but Angelica knew she needed more help than her mother
could afford to give her. This she partly solved by striking up a friendship with a wealthy Melbourne
businessman. At first their friendship had to be conducted discreetly as Klas was intensely jealous, but in
time Steve, Angelica’s admirer, became part of the family and regularly visited from Melbourne. Steve
discreetly supported the family by giving cheques to Rebecca, Angelica’s mother, for school fees and
mortgage repayments.
Perhaps this happy family circle with the matriarch, Rebecca, installed and Angelica obtaining financial help
through her friend was more complicated than it first appeared. What did Klas think about Angelica’s
association with Steve? Why was he willing to accept it? Perhaps he liked the material benefits that
indirectly flowed to him. He may have felt put down by Rebecca and Angelica’s class values. Maybe he
considered that he could not live up to their expectations and the help that Steve gave to the family in some
way compensated for this and figuratively speaking got him off the hook in relation to their expectations.
Mary Collins had given birth to a beautiful daughter, Helen. By the time she was 16 years old and attending
boarding school in Sydney, she had ripened into a beautiful young woman though still emotionally very
young. Angelica was only too happy to have her niece, Helen, stay on weekends and holidays from school.
Helen’s proximity to Klas proved too much for him to maintain appropriate behaviour in an uncle- niece
relationship. Helen told her parents that she was uncomfortable in Uncle Klas’s presence. There were
reports of French kissing and of visits to Helen’s bedroom at inappropriate times. At first, Geoff, her father
and Mary, her mother, didn’t think things were too serious, though Mary was more concerned than Geoff.
Helen went on telling them how ill at ease she felt and Mary said to Geoff: “Something should be done. You
must talk to Angelica.” However, nothing was said. There seemed to be a general feeling among some
family members that any revelations would do more harm than good. Maybe there was the expectation that
with the truth coming out their relationship with Angelica would be finished. Subsequent events proved this
assumption to be correct. In exasperation because no one had said anything, one Sunday morning Mary
said to Klas: “Keep your hands off my daughter.”
When Angelica heard what Mary had said to Klas, she proposed a family meeting. Angelica told another of
her brothers, Kevin, that Mary was saying terrible things about Klas. When Kevin indicated to Angelica that
he was not inclined to support Klas, Angelica cancelled the proposed family meeting.
With no admission of guilt by Klas, numerous other incidents of his inappropriate behaviour came to the
surface. Older female family members told of how Klas had put the hard word on them. One recalled that
when she was sixteen years old, Klas had placed her hand on his erect penis.
The extraordinary thing in the whole affair was how wholeheartedly Klas’s immediate family supported him.
His daughters abused Helen for supposedly lying about their father. Rebecca, the matriarch of the family,
seemed to forget that she was a mother and grandmother to others and not just to Angelica’s immediate
family. Whatever she really felt, she gave every appearance of fully supporting Klas. However, this may
have been support primarily for Angelica, her favourite daughter. Angelica said:”I believe Klas.”
Geoff and Mary Collins and other relatives felt that the evidence against Klas was just too strong to be
ignored.
Angelica rallied her supporters and virtually established a fortified unit against those in the family who did not
support Klas.
The family was broken apart because of pride, self-respect, class values and whatever else motivates and
drives the human condition. Perhaps Angelica could not face the terrible truth within her family. She made a
great point of saying; “Klas has brought up three daughters and nothing untoward has been said of his
relationship to them.”
Family secrets have to be lived with and for Angelica and Rebecca the prospect of the truth setting them
free seemed to offer few attractions.
The advice of Jennifer Frances in Secrets may be relevant to this family drama:
“If only we could have spoken the unspeakable. If only we had understood that our darkest secrets can
never be laid to rest until they have been extracted from their emotional wrapping and shared.”
Permalink 2 Comments
The brittleness of life
November 19, 2007 at 12:36 am (Short Story) · Edit
Colonial PNG was a fascinating place for anthropologists, artists, botanists, geologists, lawyers, linguists
medicos and various other academic specialists but it also held considerable attraction for just plain
travellers, with a roving disposition and a desire to meet fellow humans.
The expatriates in the country all seemed to have a story. Some were running away from the law or from
personal problems. Others were making a new life. All were forsaking their home countries, for reasons
known and unknown to them, and this perhaps added a certain lustre to otherwise ordinary lives.
On a volcanic island about 60 miles from the mainland town of Madang, two expats were listening to the
radio in a house substantially made of bush materials. The late news from the ABC reported the arrest of
Brian Cooper for sedition. In between cans of beer, Frank Warne, known as Warnie, said to Steve Callahan:
”It’s either a poofter case or he’s had his hand in the till.” Both were inclined to think sedition had something
to do with seduction. Frank called out to his wife, Doreen, “You know that young bloke Cooper, you
remember the co-op officer, he’s been charged with sedition. Do you know what it is?” Doreen answered
with a puzzled expression on her face, “I think it’s got something to do with activities against the
government. It doesn’t really surprise me. He said to me once that Australians should allow the locals much
more say in their own country. I always felt that he was a bit of a Commie, but a nice enough young chap in
his own way.”
Frank and Doreen ran a small trade store, or more correctly, it was Doreen who mainly worked in the store
and Frank supervised a bit of grass cutting around their small plot of about four acres, planted with coconut
palms. He also had a little pet project in the grounds, a bowling green. He mowed it and kept it in
immaculate condition. No one had actually seen bowls played on the green but Frank was full of ideas about
future competitions.
Frank was in many ways your typical story book Australian; a tall, lean and lanky man, independent and with
an ability to seemingly just survive the vicissitudes of life. He was on an enduring search for a good deal.
This attitude to life made him an inveterate gambler and a menace to himself and a source of contention for
Doreen.
During the First World War, he had served as an Able Seaman on the famous Australian submarine AE2.
This was the first vessel to breach the Turkish defences by making the passage of the Dardanelles into the
Sea of Marmora, and causing considerable damage to Turkish shipping during the Gallipoli campaign,
before falling to Turkish gunfire, and being scuttled to prevent it falling into enemy hands. The crew spent
the rest of the War in captivity in Turkey. This experience probably made Frank see the whole of life as
something of a gamble. After being repatriated after the War, he returned to Australia and knocked around in
various jobs before ending up in Papua and New Guinea as a plantation manager, gold miner, labour
recruiter and hotel manager. Between these occupations and on visits to Australia, he married Doreen who
was working as a barmaid in a small Sydney pub in Pitt Street.
During the Second World War, he enlisted in the army and served in the Middle East and in New Guinea.
After the War, Frank and Doreen returned to Papua and New Guinea and, according to Doreen, Frank had
won and lost a fortune many times at cards. During one of their more extreme financial downs, Doreen
managed to keep just enough money to buy the small trade store and land that they were now on. She was
working to get a little financial stability in their old age. This depended on keeping Frank away from
gambling.
Steve Callahan managed a copra plantation owned by WR Carpenter and in many ways he and Frank were
as different as chalk and cheese. A young man in his early twenties, Steve felt life’s problems weighing
heavily on his shoulders, mainly as a result of religious scruples and sexual frustration, in a country that
discouraged any sexual relations between young white men and the local women. Given the findings of
sociological research and general wisdom on the subject, for most white bachelors lacking the courage to
initiate sexual relations, masturbation would have been their only relief. Unfortunately, Steve in a state of
paralytic drunkenness was observed while involved in self-abuse by two other young bachelors. It did not
take long for reports of his behaviour to do the rounds of the island; much to his shame and regret,
particularly so as he had no memory of his behaviour. He felt that life had dealt him an unfair card and he
was reminded of the Shakespearean Sonnet:
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate…
Steve’s religious dictates made it compulsory that he confess his sins to a priest. On the island there was a
Catholic Mission Station run by a German Divine Word Missionary, Fr Joseph Engel. Fr Engel was a
convivial character who loved a drink and was very often the life of the party at gatherings of expatriates. On
one occasion, according to Frank Warne, his behaviour went beyond the pale and he made improper
approaches to Doreen and Frank punched him. On recovering and getting up from the floor, Joseph was
heard to say to a young guest who happened to be a Catholic: “He hit me, did you see that, John? Hit him
back.” Other members at the party intervened and ruffled nerves were placated. All in all, Joseph was a
character, traveling around the island on his motor bike, calling into the various plantations, enjoying a drink
of anything on offer and smoking hand made cigars made from local tobacco leaf or brus as it was known.
Jo loved these trips and was rarely the worse for wear. Occasionally, he fell off his motor bike and, until he
got himself leather leggings, burned his leg on the exhaust of the bike. A prominent planter on the island,
John Middlebrook, once said of Jo: “A great bloke but I wouldn’t fancy him much as a spiritual adviser.” Jo
was generally liked and had many qualities of human kindness.
Frank and Steve continued their conversation, and Frank said to Doreen: “Oh,I’ll have to go to Madang to
buy supplies for the store soon.” Steve could see a rather pained and doubtful look on Doreen’s face. She
answered: “We’ll discuss that later.” As it was now quite late and Steve had about a twenty-minute walk
back to his plantation, he decided that it was time to say good night.
Outside it was a beautiful tropical moonlit night, so bright that Steve could read the time on his wrist watch.
He followed a foreshore path that passed one village settlement before arriving at the outskirts of his
plantation. The salt-tinged air and the sounds and smells of the tropics had all the ingredients for romance.
The clear night skies with the constellation of stars seemed to promise endless possibilities for socialising
with the village people but given the puritanical attitudes of the time, Steve hardly considered this. His mind
turned back to Frank and Doreen: “What if Warnie convinced Doreen to allow him to go to Madang with
money to buy stores?” Steve remembered the look of concern on her face when this was suggested.
After a short walk through the coconut palms, Steve arrived at his house. He found a Tilley lamp burning and
his domestic servant asleep in the kitchen. Gamalu, a Sepik contract worker, awoke when he came in. Steve
told him to make tea and then go to his own quarters. He had a shower and drank his tea and went to bed.
The next morning Steve was up at the crack of dawn to allocate tasks on the plantation.
Thebosboi (foreman) came to the house to tell him that all the workers had assembled.Masta,olgeta ol i
stap. Some were told to cut grass, others to collect coconuts and husk them, loading them on the trailer, for
transport to the dryer. A group was sent to the copra shed on the foreshore, near the small inlet anchorage
for vessels. Steve expected a vessel to arrive early to be loaded with copra in bags. This was done by the
vessel anchoring and then lowering a boat to go ashore to collect bags of copra and taking them back to the
ship.
After breakfast, Steve walked to the copra shed to await the arrival of the ship from Madang. When he got
there who should he see but Frank Warne.“Hi Warnie, what’s happening?” he asked.“Steve, I’m going to
Madang to buy stores for the trade store. I heard on the radio that a ship was due here sometime this
morning. I’ll go back with her when you’ve loaded it.”“OK, but you might have a bit of a wait.” Steve
replied.As he said this, they both noticed a ship approaching on the horizon. Frank exclaimed:
“Here she comes!”
The vessel was duly loaded and Frank boarded her for the return trip to Madang. Steve wondered how
Frank had talked Doreen into letting him go alone to Madang, presumably with a considerable amount of
money to buy stores. He had heard that there were a couple of lively poker schools operating among the
expats in Madang. He supposed that Frank had promised Doreen that he would go nowhere near them. The
analogy of kids in a lolly shop came to his mind.
Five days later, Steve was sitting on his verandah after lunch when he heard the sound of a motor bike
approaching. Lo and behold it was Fr Engel and he greeted him: “Hi, Father, would you like a drink?” The
offer was like nectar to a bee. Joseph’s face lit up and he said: “If you have?” After they were comfortably
seated and drinking beer, Joseph said to Steve: “You’ve heard the tragic news, haven’t you?” “No, Father,
what’s that?” Steve replied with a puzzled look on his face. Jo elaborated. “Oh, Mr Warne shot himself in
Madang.” “Bloody hell! Excuse me, Father, but when and how did this happen?” Jo then went on to tell him
what he had heard:“It appears that shortly after arriving in Madang Mr Warne got into a card game. The
game, I was told, went on for some hours and after breaking up, the players left. Mr Warne lost a lot of
money. The game took place at George Martin’s place, the manager of the Bank of New South Wales. As
well as Warne and George Martin, there were three others, Ralph Wall, Paul Howard and Ross Williams.
Wall, as you know, is the local SP bookie in Madang and Howard and Williams own plantations just outside
of Bogia. They are all known as inveterate gamblers. Martin is only a social player and given what has
happened, and his position, he is said to be very worried. The rest is a bit sketchy and Bob Cross, the
Assistant District Officer, who told me about it, said that the whole story would only come out in the coronial
hearing. But from what is known, Mr Warne shot himself in his hotel room.”Steve said: “What about
Doreen?” Jo told him that she had been informed and taken to the airstrip and flown to Madang two days
earlier.The findings of the coronial hearing established the essential facts. Frank Warne died by his own
hand, and the verdict was suicide.
Some weeks later, Steve was visiting Madang and ran into Paul Howard in the bar of the Madang Hotel.
Howard was drinking alone at a table near the bar and Steve introduced himself, saying that he had been a
good friend of Frank Warne and he wondered if Paul could tell him more of the circumstances surrounding
his death.:
“Well, from what I heard,” said Howard, “Warnie arrived in town, and visited the Bank of New South Wales
and had some business with George Martin. This is off the record but I’ve always thought that Martin is a bit
of a twit and from what I can gather, Martin told Warnie that there was a little poker game at his house that
evening and he was welcome to come along. What a bloody fool he was. Everyone knew that Frank had a
problem with gambling and fancy a bank manager making such suggestion to him. We all turned up at
Martin’s place. You know the others who were there. Ross Williams was a bit concerned to see Warnie there
and he told me on the quiet that it promises to be a bigger night than he expected and he was not sure how
things would pan out.
“We got down to playing at first with a cap on the betting. For the first twelve hands or so, I’ve never seen
such amazing luck. Warnie had a series of hands that you would only dream about – royal flushes, full
houses and four of a kind. Even though at this stage we did have a cap on the betting, he was still winning
quite a bit. With the prolonged winning streak, anyone could see that he was in a rush, and for the
uncontrolled player this is about the worst state to be in.
“Looking back, we all should have stopped the game then, but at this stage we had all lost except Frank and
we only wanted to get our money back. So we agreed to remove the betting cap. For the next few hands,
Frank’s luck held out. You could see that he thought he was invincible. At this stage, he was about five
thousand pounds up. I would say that Frank was a good poker player but not a savvy player. He had no idea
how to set boundaries and when to quit. Well, of course, his luck changed, first losing everything he had won
and the money he had come to Madang with, which was about two thousand pounds. We allowed him to
operate on IOUs for another two thousand but he lost that too.
“The game then broke up. Ross Williams had Warnie’s IOUs and he came out the overall winner. The rest of
us came out pretty even. Well we just finished up and we all went home. It wasn’t until the morning that we
heard what had happened. Apparently, Frank got to his hotel room and put a bullet through his head, using
a .22 sporting rifle that he had brought to Madang for repairs. Ross said he would not have demanded
payment on the IOUs, especially when he heard how Doreen was struggling to keep things together.”
Steve thanked Paul for what he had told him and reflected on the fragility of human nature and the
brittleness of life.
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Colonial conditioning
October 22, 2007 at 12:03 am (Short Story) · Edit
Adrian McKinnon, looking back in time said to himself: “I do regret meeting Jansen.”
The meeting took place over half a century ago, in the District of New Ireland in the Territory of Papua New
Guinea, on a copra plantation south of the small town, Namatanai, on the East Coast.
The plantation was planted before the First World War by a Belgian national and unlike the surrounding plantations
was not expropriated by the Australian authorities after the war, because it was not German owned. Subsequently, the
Belgian sold the plantation to New Guinea Company, a subsidiary company in the WR Carpenter corporate body.
Charles Jansen was New Guinea Company’s plantation manager, a man of Burgher descent from Ceylon, who had
been living in the Territory for the past four years. The plantation was not on particularly productive land and the palms
were coming to the end of their economic worth but it still was able to sustain a force of about 150 workers and
produce sufficient copra, to make it a worthwhile concern for New Guinea Company.
Jansen was suffering at the time with gallbladder disease and he informed the Company that he would have to go to
Australia for an operation and he wanted a relieving manager while he was away.
McKinnon duly arrived to act as relieving manager. A man in his early twenties and still to all intensive purposes a
rather callow youth, while Jansen in his early forties was a manipulative and brutal man who went to great lengths to
create a persona of himself as a full-blooded British colonial.
Jansen’s proclivity for physical violence towards the labourers was borne out in the frequently dished out
backhanders, he gave to workers, who in some way did not measure up to what he wanted. McKinnon observed this
and in his naivety thought that this is the way things should be done. The brutal aspects of plantation life were not
entirely foreign to McKinnon as he had seen a bit of this in plantations in Papua and he had been lead to believe that
this was the way native labour should be controlled.
McKinnon arrived on the plantation, on a small ship from Rabaul which was to be loaded with copra, after leaving
him. When loading operations were finished, Jansen and McKinnon walked through the coconut palms to the plantation
bungalow.
On meeting McKinnon, Jansen seemed pleased enough with him and on reaching the bungalow he instructed his
domestic staff to serve lunch, which consisted of massive amounts of rice with a fish curry and vegetables cooked in
coconut milk. He informed McKinnon: “I’ve at last succeeded in teaching that lot in the kitchen to cook a decent curry.
In Ceylon, we always had trained staff, a butler and a chef but alas the Australians have no idea how to train staff.”
McKinnon was most impressed with Jansen’s apparent air of sophistication and almost immediately came under his
influence.
Jansen prided himself on running the plantation with what he thought was military precision. He stood at about
5’10” and during the day dressed in khaki shorts, shirt, wearing a slough hat, longs socks and boots. He always carried
a stout cane or kanda, which he not infrequently used on workers he was displeased with. On one occasion, McKinnon
saw him severely beat a bosboi, a foreman of a gang of grass cutters merely because he was unhappy with the work
they were doing. In explanation after, he said, his gallbladder was playing up and this was known to cause a loss of
temper. He considered himself medically knowledgeable claiming to have done three years medicine in the UK. Young
Adrian was further impressed with this and with his supposed diploma of tropical agriculture from Jamaica.
Charles Jansen seemed to live life under a sense of threat. The analogy of an army under siege was the perception
of his life situation he liked to portray: “Like Field Marshal Slim I’ll turn defeat into victory.”
Parcels came from Ceylon addressed to Captain Jansen. On his right leg the shin bone had been broken and had
obviously been poorly set, an injury, Jansen claimed, he received during the War in Europe, when he stepped on a
German land mine. After being wounded he was taken prisoner by the Germans and his life was saved by the skill of a
German Surgeon. A dramatic story, true or not, who would know, but Adrian was awed.
In the course of handing the plantation, or estate, the preferred word for Jansen, over, he impressed on Adrian that
all the machines were to be kept in perfect order. The Ferguson tractor was to be regularly painted and the motorbike
kept clean. He claimed an expertise with motorbikes having taken part in the Great Motorbike Road Race on the Isle of
Man. The way things appeared was very important to Jansen and obvious spots around the plantation were always kept
clean and tidy. For instance the grass along the main road going through the plantation was always kept cut.
Jansen’s descriptions of the sexual antics of some of the other Australian planters were somewhat amusing.
According to him, one village women of loose virtue made the claim that: Mi save kok bilong olgeta man, masta,na
Saina, na olkain kanaka. I know the genitals of lots of men, whites, Chinese and village men. The native women of
New Ireland had a reputation of being rather obliging. Jansen maintained that mainland contract labour loved to work
on New Ireland. White men carrying on with natives he found distasteful, or this is what he said. He had some story
about falling in love with a beautiful Indian doctor in Ceylon, but if the truth be known, he did not seem too interested
in women. A British colonial according to him: “must always be dignified. One could not maintain one’s dignity and
drink.” He did not drink alcohol, at least not in public. A psychologist might think that he feared alcohol because by
imbibing he could let his guard down and reveal his real self. McKinnon found a bottle of brandy and he asked Jansen
about it. “I use it only for medicinal purposes.” He said.
Jansen’s reputation with the Sub-District Office was to say the least rather poor. He had already been charged
with two counts of assault and found guilty on both. If he were to be found guilty again he faced the danger of being
deported from the Territory. Of this, he said: “The law has little to do with justice.”
In conservation Jansen affected a unique brand of English pronunciation by stressing syllables in unusual places.
Thus in ‘mechanic’ the last syllable was stressed and in ‘diploma’ the first syllable. This gave a disharmony and jerky
flow, on occasions, to his speech. He was not impressed with what he perceived to be the indiscipline of the Australian
troops during the War. Telling a story of being an officer commanding a group of Australians on a troop ship, he
challenged a digger for not coming on deck when the bugle sounded. The soldier apparently replied: “My bowels don’t
answer to the sound of a bugle.”
The process of handing the plantation over took about a week and Jansen left, after giving detailed instructions
on the care of the horse. The horse was ridden to inspect work around the property. A vessel, after loading copra, took
Jansen to Rabaul, on his way to Brisbane for his operation.
McKinnon was now left on his own, to manage the plantation, but Jansen had left him still largely under his
influence. The management may have improved slightly in relation to the treatment of the workers. The tractor was
always kept clean and the grass cut in open areas. The motorbike was not ridden and was only started and polished.
Adrian kept his distance from the village people and like Charles before they were kept away from the reef in front of
the plantation, even if they wanted to fish. He very rarely left to visit nearby Namatanai. He did have some social
contact with the manager of a Burns Philip plantation to the South. As for arranging some sort of relationship with a
local village girl, this was never seriously contemplated. The Australian Administration had a rather ambivalent attitude
to liaisons of whites with natives. Officially they were frowned on and whites could be deported if the Native Women’s
Protection Ordinance was in any way contravened, but relationships, if discretely carried out, were more or less
ignored. In the old days of German New Guinea most of the single planters quite openly had their natives mistresses,
subsequently the Australians followed the same practice but not so openly. The Germans had a reputation of being
harsh but in matters of sexual conduct they were much more realistic than the Australians. The official attitude of the
Australian Administration to sexual contacts with the locals was grounded on racism and puritanical nonconformist
Methodist views, which did not really protect the local women from exploitation but only tended to hide what went on.
In five months, Jansen returned after his successful gallstone operation and proceeded to find fault with
everything that McKinnon had done while he was away. The fact that his domestic staff had cleared out just before he
returned did not put him in a good humour. The copra drier had been rebuilt and he reluctantly conceded that this was a
good job. But most of what took place after he left he disapproved of. Anyhow, one thing lead to another, and he
refused to accept the return of the plantation to his management, by signing the cash book, but he did give McKinnon a
cheque for some personal goods that he had been paid for when he left, a wireless, kerosene refrigerator and kitchen
utensils. McKinnon left and arranged to have his gear moved to Namatanai and caught a vessel to Rabaul.
On arriving in Rabaul, he reported to New Guinea Company and explained what had happened. The Company
Director told him to wait in Rabaul until they had heard from Jansen. In the meantime, he went to the Bank of New
South Wales to cash Jansen’s cheque. The bank informed him that Jansen had stopped the cheque, whereupon,
McKinnon went straight to a well known solicitor, Warner Walls, who was practising in Rabaul, at this time. Walls
sent Jansen a radiogram along these lines: Unless you allow your cheque in favour of my client, Adrian McKinnon, he
intends to take legal action against you. Warner Walls On the same day a radiogram was sent to the solicitor
from Jansen: Cheque allowed, I also intend to take legal action against your client. Charles Jansen
To make a long story short there was no legal action from Jansen and he informed the Company that the
plantation books were in order.
Adrian decided that he needed a holiday and he went South on a Burns Philip ship, but unfortunately, this is
not the end of the Jansen/McKinnon encounter. They were to meet again some years after to the disadvantage of
McKinnon.
The expatriates in the inlands were a mixed bag of saints and sinners and many things in between. Because of the
nature of the Territory, before independence, most tended to be big fish in a small pond and whatever they did tended
to create waves.
The Territory was the making of many but equally the destruction of many.
This is just another stori long taim bilong masta, a tale from colonial times.
The blindness of belief
October 20, 2007 at 7:38 am (Short Story) · Edit
George Skinner liked things to be in order and be predictable, and heaven knows this was hardly the situation he now
found himself in. He had been in Patlangat Plantation on the west coast of New Ireland for four hours, having arrived
by boat early in the morning from Rabaul. As soon as the small inter-island copra boat dropped anchor, he sensed that
something was wrong. There was no crowd to greet the arrival of the vessel and he saw no copra bags stacked up on the
foreshore ready for loading. He was rowed ashore in a small dingy and he asked the one native he saw where the
manager of the plantation was. This individual pointed towards the plantation house a few hundred yards away.
Skinner’s ability to communicate with the New Guineans was limited to those who could understand English as he had
only been in the Territory for a month. He lingered before walking to the house and for some reason he had a feeling of
apprehension. A dread of something, he knew not what, and out of character with his usual habit, he lit a cigarette and
smoked before he had eaten anything.
Skinner was a man in his fifties and was of middle height. He generally took the conventional approach to
things. His job working for WR Carpenter & Co Ltd as an inspector of plantations seemed anything but conventional,
though his employment history was fairly ordinary. He was born in the English county of Derbyshire and as a young
lad, joined the London office of Morris Hedstrom & Co as a clerk. The company was a plantation and trading firm
operating in the islands of Fiji. This was shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. During the war he was
in the army service corps in the ranks. After the war he approached Morris Hedstrom & Co to get his old job back. He
was told that there was nothing in London but there was a plantation position in Fiji as an assistant if he wanted it.
In Fiji he did quite well. He was a man of sober habits and he managed to rise steadily in the company from
plantation assistant to plantation inspector. When Morris Hedstrom & Co was taken over by WR Carpenter & Co in the
late 1950s, he was transferred from Suva to Rabaul, retaining his position as a plantation inspector. His transfer was
made with little fuss as he had never married and had no immediate family.
After finishing his cigarette, Skinner walked the short distance to the house, passing the labour quarters on the
way. There he was joined by a New Guinean from the Sepik who was a contract worker on the plantation. The contract
worker told Skinner that the Masta had not been seen for a few days. The plantation dwelling was a substantial building
in the Queensland style constructed on piles and elevated off the ground. Steps gave entrance to the house. On entering
the house, Skinner noticed an unpleasant smell and the general untidiness of the place. The house was full of blow flies
and empty bottles. In the living room, overlooking the Bismarck Sea, clothes were strewn around the room and a
terrible smell seemed to be coming from the next room. Skinner went across and opened the door. The room was
darkened because curtains had been drawn across the large open shutters but there was sufficient light to make out a
body hanging by a rope from the ceiling beams.
Skinner called out to Pita, the Sepik labourer, to help him and they cut the body down. The corpse had gone
beyond rigor mortis and had started to decay. Skinner estimated that death had occurred at least four days previously.
Pita told him that this was the body of Jack Jones, the plantation manager. Skinner hurriedly scribbled a note to the
captain of the boat he arrived on, to come to the house as a tragedy had occurred.
The captain soon arrived and greeted Skinner with these words: “George, bloody hell, this place smells like
rotten fish in a rundown Chinese brothel.” “I wouldn’t know about that,” replied Skinner, “but things are much more
serious.” Skinner then showed him the body and for a moment the captain was lost for words.
Captain Albert Forrester was the skipper of the Theresia, a motor vessel of seventy or eighty tons. He was a
plump man who looked the worse for wear. During the war he had run small ships around New Guinea and afterwards
he had just stayed on in a variety of positions on vessels around Papua New Guinea. On this occasion he acted
decisively. He went straight back to the ship and reported to Rabaul by radio. In the meantime Skinner sent word to all
the workers to assemble. Thebosboi or foreman, Simogun, told him that the plantation had been pretty much in chaos
for the last week. No rations had been given out and work had come to a standstill.
Forrester had got through to Rabaul and told Skinner that a government vessel would be leaving Rabaul almost
at once and should arrive sometime in the evening or early next morning. Skinner then concentrated on getting the
plantation back to some semblance of order. Rations were issued and work allocated. The plantation house was cleaned
up and Jones’s body covered and put in a makeshift coffin. What copra there was, was loaded on the Theresia. Skinner
could not see any reason why Captain Forrester and his vessel should remain, so after the vessel was loaded, the order
was given to up anchor and away it went on its scheduled voyage.
Jones’s domestic staff had returned to the house and Skinner made arrangements to camp in the living room.
Jones’s body had been moved to a back shed. By this time it was late afternoon and Skinner treated himself to a stiff
whisky, after which he had a meal of bully beef and bread that he had brought from Rabaul. Skinner felt that he had
done all that was necessary and now he could only await the arrival of the government vessel and the investigation into
Jones’s death.
Skinner was conventional in his life style and work practices but intellectually he was anything but ordinary. He
read widely in literature and philosophy. Shortly after arriving in Fiji, he had embarked on an extensive self-education
reading programme. He read the great Elizabethans – Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe and subsequent literary periods.
He was something of an expert on Tennyson. The Greek and Roman philosophers had stimulated his interest in modern
philosophy and he was now reading Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Existentialist philosophy, he felt, explained much
of present day life. Skinner suspected that Sartre would consider suicide dispassionately and not condemn it out of
hand. From an existentialist view, life is ‘absurd’ anyway and this largely accorded with Skinner’s thoughts. Jones’s
death, he concluded, must have been suicide. This was a stark reality in contrast to the beautiful approaching tropical
evening. Skinner felt at peace with himself but unquestionably Jones had not.
Jones’s domestic staff wanted to clean up more around the house but Skinner thought it better to wait until the
government vessel arrived from Rabaul. He decided to retire early and he showered and went to bed on a camp
stretcher in the living room. The smell around the house had abated since the body had been moved.
Early the next morning he was awakened with the call: Masta, sip i anka i stap. (The ship is lying at anchor).
Shortly afterwards three white men arrived at the house. Harry Carruthers, the District Officer, was accompanied by
David Hobhouse, a police sub-inspector, and Dr Roger Charing, a medical officer. Introductions were quickly made
and Skinner took them all to Jones’s body. Dr Charing examined it thoroughly. He could find nothing to suggest that
Jones’s death was anything other than suicide. He found the hyoid bone in the neck intact but strangulation was
consistent with a simple obstruction of the airway caused by the rope that was still around his neck. In his report he
concluded that Jones had died by his own hand four or five days previously. He recommended immediate burial.
Carruthers and Hobhouse accepted the doctor’s recommendation and Skinner arranged to have Jones buried.
Carruthers and Hobhouse interviewed a number of the plantation workers and about all they could find out was
that for the last week or so Jones had not been seen around the plantation. Jones’s domestic staff said that he had been
drinking heavily. Back in the plantation house Skinner and the officials reached the conclusion that this was another
case of a white man gone ‘troppo’. Jones had lost it and Skinner could not help wondering why.
The interment of Jones’s remains and the formalities were finalised and the officials decided to return to
Rabaul. Skinner remained on the plantation to await the arrival of a newly appointed manager. Normally an
investigation into a death would have been conducted from Kavieng, as the plantation was in the New Ireland District
but in this case a quicker response could be mounted from Rabaul and being the death of a white man the authorities
opted for Rabaul to handle matters.
It would fall to Skinner to write to Jones’s relations in Sydney and he wondered what he would say. At this
stage he had no idea why Jones had killed himself. In his experience of life, Skinner had found that tragedy was often
associated with sex, money and religion, with one or all three playing a part. He wondered what, if anything, these
factors had contributed to Jones’s death. Being of a philosophical turn of mind, Skinner determined in his own quiet
way to try and understand why Jones committed suicide. He did not know what sexual problems Jones might have had
but there was talk among his domestic staff that he was visited regularly by a young woman from the nearby village.
Young white men on the plantations did not usually have money problems as in their relatively isolated situations they
were usually able to save most of their salaries. Skinner could not detect any signs of misappropriation by Jones in the
plantation stores and accounts. Jones was said to have been a follower of the Church of Christian Science but not a
fanatical believer. Skinner found out from the plantation workers that it was not always satisfactory to seek treatment
from Jones for medical complaints like fevers as he was not keen to give out medicines.
While he was pondering Jones’s demise, Skinner was visited by the village headman or luluaifrom the nearby
village and what he had to say explained quite a lot. It appeared that Jones had been carrying on for some time with a
village woman and she had given birth to his child some months previously. Recently the child had become sick with
what was probably malaria and the mother had brought the child to Jones for treatment. It seemed that Jones had not
given the child any anti-malaria tablets but only told the mother to sponge the baby with cold water and in time the
fever would go. The child died and when Jones heard this, he went to his house and stayed there, eventually killing
himself.
Skinner wondered about Jones’s state of mind. Did he become disillusioned with his religious beliefs when he
realised that his child had died without life-saving medicine? Perhaps this was what had driven him to suicide. Skinner
said to himself: “There you are, human tragedy is always associated in some ways with sex, money and religion.
Perhaps money did not figure in Jones’s case.”
A week later, a young man arrived from Rabaul to take over the management of the plantation and Skinner
handed over the plantation’s affairs and returned to Rabaul.
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Nostalgia
October 20, 2007 at 6:28 am (Short Story) · Edit
Peter Davis had heard all the views: You can’t go back. You can’t recapture the past. The dreams of old men are just
that. Nostalgia is said to be a yearning for the past. A seeking for a bygone time and place. He knew that the stream of
life was just that, a flow thatpasses and changes. So what was Davis doing back in Angoram after thirty years? A
broken down river settlement on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea which had little to recommend it, apart from
past memories. It was now largely a dysfunctional town. No electric power, airstrip or wharf and government office to
assist and drive the daily lives of the residents. There was a hospital without patients, a condition that did not
necessarily indicate a healthy population. He walked the muddy roads and dreamed of people long since gone, a
colonial past of people and events. An expatriate life erased from living memory, or was it?True, no longer was there a
club. The sub-district office, hotel and notorious Tobacco Road were gone. The opportunity to drink a brandy with
Sandy, the former manageress of the hotel, was no longer there. The eccentric Dutch priest, if still alive, had long since
left and with him, lively conversations about philosophy and theology. Young New Guinea women of bygone years
were now either dead or old. The men who remembered Davis were, like him ―old.
In this walk down memory lane, there was one considerable constant ― the mosquitoes.They were just like those of
old and still as eager to practise their bloodsucking techniques.
Poor Davis himself was a shadow of his former self, an old man with piles, an enlarged prostate and a heart condition.
Age had certainly wearied him physically but not mentally, he remained as cerebrally sound as ever. The normal
desires of life were still his. He still had an eye for a comely wench and he reflected that perhaps age was something
like alcohol: it left desire unimpeded but in Shakespeare’s words: “taketh away the performance”. Some would call him
“a dirty old man”. His retort would have been: “But I was a dirty young man.” Davis liked to think that he was a man
who could confront the past and live the truth. Little did he know the past was about to catch up with him. Like a mirror
on the wall, the past reveals the good, the bad and the ugly.
In a rather nondescript trade store near the former airstrip, Davis was to see his past reflected in a surprising way. He
needed to purchase one or two items, and he asked the woman serving behind the counter for some soap and tins of fish
and then looked into her face and asked: Wanem nem bilong yu?(What is your name?) She told him her name was Ipa
Davis. He then asked: Wanem nem bilong mama bilong yu?(What is your mother’s name?) Ipa answered: Nem bilong
mama, Elizabeth, em i dai pinis.( My mother’s name was Elizabeth and she is dead.)
It was then that Davis realized that he was looking at his own daughter. The whole experience was too much for him.
He said nothing to Ipa and just paid for his purchases, and walked away.
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EMA on the grog
October 20, 2007 at 4:49 am (Short Story) · Edit
EMA on the grog
It was in the Sepik District of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea within sight of Mt Turu that Jim Kelly,
European Medical Assistant, was camped in a village near the patrol post of Yangoru. He had just got out of bed and
was listening to the ABC news on a portable wireless. The news was full of the Cuban Missile Crisis and what
Kennedy and Khrushchev would do. At the time Jim could identify with any crisis as he was going through his own
crisis; he badly needed a drink.
He thought to himself what a fool he had been not to have secretly planted a bottle of whisky in his patrol box,
to tide him over the next day or so. Apart from coordinating a smallpox vaccination campaign in the area, he had been
expressly sent on patrol by the Medical Officer in Maprik to ‘dry out’. The officer said to him: “Jim, this is your last
chance. Any more boozing on the job and I’ll have to report you to the Regional Medical Officer. Anyhow, your
behaviour is not fair on Marge.” Marge was his long-suffering wife who was also the District Nurse.
Kelly first came to New Guinea during the War with the army as a medic and after the cessation of hostilities,
he joined the Health Department as a Medical Assistant with the Civil Administration. He was for a number of years
highly regarded in the Territory for his medical work. In the Highlands he did ground-breaking work in treating leprosy
in the Tari area. He was put in charge of the native hospital at Telefomin after the murders of Patrol Officers Szarka
and Harris. He had also enhanced his position with the Health Department by marrying Marge, a trained nurse. She
found ready employment and for a period, kept him on the straight and narrow. Jim needed this as his drinking had
increasingly become a problem He was becoming a bottle-a-day man with an increasing inability to hide it. For years
his redeeming qualities were that he always fronted up for work immaculately dressed and did not, as a rule, drink on
patrol.
He noticed that his hands were unsteady as he tried to drink a cup of tea before starting the day’s work. He
thought to himself, “Thank god I’ve got good doktaboi”, native medical orderlies. His work really only consisted of
sending them out to the surrounding villages with medical supplies to do the vaccinations while he stayed at the
village, where he was now, carried out some medical examinations in a quiet and unruffled way, and hoped his craving
for a drink would abate. If the going got too much, he could always get the driver of his Land Rover to take him to the
nearby patrol post and cadge a drink from the patrol officers. He didn’t want to do this, if he could avoid it, as he was
not keen that word should get back to Maprik that he was hanging around the patrol post.
After issuing instructions to the medical orderlies; Luke from Manus, Tobis from the Middle Sepik and John
from Rabaul, Kelly sang out for his mankimasta, his domestic servant, to bring him another cup of tea. The cup of tea
put him in a better frame of mind and he was about to start a medical examination of a group of natives, when an out of
breath and agitated villager informed him in garbled Pidgin and English that a plane had crashed some distance away
towards Mt Turu, with the death of all on board.
Kelly swung into action and sent his driver and Land Rover with a note to the patrol post stating that he
intended to walk immediately to the crash site and render what assistance he could if there were survivors. The site was
only accessible by foot through the jungle. He packed a patrol box with essential medical supplies and arranged carriers
from the village.
The purpose and dynamism that Kelly now displayed was nothing short of miraculous. In his eagerness to get
moving, his craving for drink abated and he concentrated on the task at hand.
The walk to the crash site took a good two hours, some of which was through dense jungle. On his way there,
Kelly thought to himself, “I wish Marge could see me now.” He knew that he was at times a terrible embarrassment to
her with his drinking, guests arriving at their house to find him in a drunken sleep on a chair and awaking hours after
just as they were about to leave. Marge once said to a young visiting doctor, “I would rather have anything than an
alcoholic husband, even a philandering one would be far better.” It was now years since he had had any physical
relationship with Marge. His boozing had virtually made him impotent. He knew that drink had often made him
ineffective in his medical work. This at times had led to dire consequences. European Medical Assistants, at this time in
the Territory, were very often the only medical help available. He thought of a botched birth delivery he had done while
stationed in Dreikikir. This was all because of his inebriated state at the time. Kelly was very conscious, as it were, of
letting the side down and this only made him drink more. His life seemed to him full of pride and shame. He was proud
of his Irish descent and he spoke with pride of visiting his father’s relations in Dublin. Drinking in a pub just off
O’Connell Street with a distant relative, a man came up to the relative and said, referring to Jim, “What’s that
Englishman doing in the bar?” Whereupon the relative said, “That’s no Englishman but the son of Daniel Kelly visiting
from Australia.”
All these thoughts were going through his mind as the team moved towards the crash site. When they came
upon the plane, Jim saw that the fuselage was more or less intact. One wing had been severed. There were four people
on board. The two natives behind the cockpit were both dead. In the front, the passenger, a white woman, was dead and
still strapped to her seat. The pilot was just outside the plane lying on his back and obviously very seriously injured.
Both his legs were broken and he was suffering with extensive internal injuries, but he was still conscious and able to
converse. Jim immediately recognized him. He was Fr Pat Ryan, an Irish priest with the Mission in Wewak. Before
entering the priesthood, Fr Ryan had been a pilot with Aer Lingus and for the past year had been flying Catholic
Mission planes.
“Don’t worry, Father we’ll have you as right as rain in no time,” Jim said, making him as comfortable as
possible and giving him a shot of morphia. In spite of being conscious, Jim could see that he was not going to last long.
“Ah, Jim, it’s good to see you and how fitting for one Irishman to see another into the next world.” “Don’t worry,
Father, you just settle down.” In a short time the morphia started to work and Fr Ryan’s pain somewhat abated, but he
was still intent on talking. “I did my best to avoid any villages. There was just nothing I could do. There must have
been a blockage in the fuel line. I tried the auxiliary tank but it would just not come into play. These bloody single-
engine Dorniers.” On saying this, he went into rapid decline and he just managed to say to Jim:”Let’s say the Our
Father.” They started the prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be…” He lost consciousness, Jim held his
hand and finished the Lord’s prayer. Fr Ryan then died.
Just as this happened, two patrol officers arrived from Yangoru. Arrangements were made to remove the bodies and
secure the site for the Civil Aviation Department investigation that would follow.
Jim returned to his camp still in a state of heightened motivation but also with an anticlimactic sense of, “Oh,
well, so what.” He told himself that he had done all he could for Fr Ryan but he could not deny that his death had
profoundly affected him Death was nothing new to Jim but the appropriateness of the good priest’s words of one
Irishman seeing another into the next world and the dimension and refuge implied in the Lord’s prayer in some strange
way gave him comfort.
Kelly was born a Catholic but as an adult had not practised. In the terminology of the day, he had married
Marge outside the Church in a Protestant ceremony but like most lapsed Catholics of his generation, he was not entirely
comfortable outside the Church.
The patrol officers from Yangoru had asked Jim to join them back at the station for a few drinks. “Damn it”, he
said to himself. “I need a drink.” But for some reason, before leaving, Jim got down on his knees and prayed:”Help me
Lord, I’m powerless.” He did not go to Yangoru for drinks and a fortnight later returned to Maprik. Word soon got
around that Kelly was no longer drinking.