The Ebbing Of The Tide

THE COOK OF THE “SPREETOO SANTOO”—A STUDY IN BEACHCOMBERS

We were in Kitti Harbour, at Ponape, in the Carolines, when, at breakfast, a bleary-eyed, undersized, more-or-less-white man in a dirty pink shirt and dungaree pants, came below, and, slinging his filthy old hat over to the transoms, shoved himself into a seat between the mate and Jim Garstang, the trader.

“Mornin’, captin,” said he, without looking at the skipper, and helping himself to about two pounds of curry.

“Morning to you. Who the deuce are you, anyway? Are you the old bummer they call ‘Espiritu Santo’?” said Garstang.

“That’s me. I’m the man. But I ain’t no bummer, don’t you b’lieve it. I wos tradin’ round here in these (lurid) islands afore you coves knowed where Ponape was.”

“Are you the skunk that Wardell kicked off the Shenandoah for stealing a bottle of wine?” said the mate.

“That’s me. There was goin’ ter be trouble over that on’y that the Shennydor got properly well sunk by the Allybarmer (history wasn’t his forte), and that – Wardell got d–d well drownded. Hingland haint a-goin’ to let no Yankee insult nobody for nuthin’—an’ I’m a blessed Englishman. I didn’t steal the wine. Yer see, Wardell arst me off to dinner, and then we gets talkin’ about polertics, an’ I tells ‘im ‘e wos a lyin’ pirut. Then he started foolin’ around my woman, an’ I up with a bottle of wine an’–”

“Why, you thundering liar,” said Garstang, “you stole it out of the ward-room.”

“I wouldn’t call no man a liar if I was you, Mister—by G–, that Chinaman cook knows how to make curry.”

He ate like a starving shark, and between mouthfuls kept up a running fire of lies and blasphemy. When he had eaten three platefuls of curry and drunk enough coffee to scald a pig, the skipper, who was gettin’ tired of him, asked him if he had had enough.

Yes, he had had enough breakfast to last him a whole (Australian adjective) week.

“Then clear out on deck and swab the curry off your face, you beast!”

“That’s always the way with you tradin’ skippers. A stranger don’t get no civility unless he comes aboard in a (red-painted) gig with a (crimson) umbrella and a (gory) ‘elmet ‘at, like a (vermilion) Consul.”

The mate seized him, and, running him up the companion way, slung him out on deck.

“What do you think of him?” asked the skipper, a man fond of a joke—it was Bully Hayes. “I thought I’d let you all make his acquaintance. He’s been bumming around the Ladrones and Pelews since ‘50; used to be cook on a Manilla trading brig, the Espiritu Santo.”

Then he told us how this wandering mass of blasphemy got his name of “Spreetoo Santoo.” While in the brig he had been caught smuggling at Guam by the guarda costas, and had spent a year or two in the old prison fort at San Juan de ‘Apra. (I don’t know how he got out: perhaps his inherently alcoholic breath and lurid blasphemy made the old brick wall tumble down.)

After that he was always welcome in sailors’ fo’c’s’les by reason of his smuggling story, which would commence with—“When I was cook on the Espiritu Santo” (only he used the English instead of the Spanish name) “I got jugged by the gory gardy costers,” &c, &c.

When we came on deck he was sitting on the main-hatch with the Chinese carpenter—whose pipe he was smoking—and telling him that he ought to get rid of his native wife, who was a Gilbert Island girl, and buy a Ponape girl.

“I can git yer the pick o’ the (crimson) island, an’ it won’t cost yer more’n a few (unprintable) dollars. I’m a (bad word) big man ‘ere among the (adjective) natives.”

Hung looked up at him stolidly with half-closed eyes. Then he took the pipe out of his mouth and said in a deadly cold voice—

“You palally liar, Spleetoo.”

He slouched aft again presently, and asked the mate, in an amiable tone of voice, if he had “any (ruddy) noospapers from Sydney.”

“What the devil do you want newspapers for?” inquired Hayes, turning round suddenly in his deck-chair, “you can’t read, Spreetoo.”

“Can’t read, eh?” and his red-rimmed, lashless eyes simulated intense indignation. “Wot about that ‘ere (red) bishop at Manilla, as wanted me to chuck up me (scarlet) billet on the Spreetoo S antoo and travel through the (carnaged) Carryline Grewp as ‘s (sanguinary) sekketerry? ‘Cos why? ‘Cos there ain’t any (blank) man atween ‘ere an’ ‘ell as can talk the warious lingoes like me.”

“Here,” said the mate, giving him two or three old Maoriland newspapers—“here’s some Auckland papers. Know anybody there?”

“No,” he answered, promptly, “not a soul, but he knowed Sydney well. Larst time I wos there I sold old Bobby Towns £6,000 worth of oil—a bloomin’ shipful. I got drunk, an’ a (blank) policeman went through me in the cell and took the whole blessed lot outer me (scarlet) pocket.” (Nine bad words omitted.)

“Bank notes?” queried Bully.

“No, sov’reigns—(gory) sov’reigns.”

He asked us if we had seen any men-o’-war about lately, and said that the captain of H.M.S. – had wanted to marry his daughter, but he wouldn’t let her marry no man-o’-war cove after the way that – Wardell had treated him. He thought he would go back to Sydney again for a spell. His brother had a flaming fine billet there.

The Cook of the “Spreetoo Santoo” 243

“What is he?” asked Hayes.

“‘E’s a (blessed) Soopreme Court Judge, wears a (gory) wig big enough to make chafin’ gear for a (crimson) fleet o’ ships; ‘e lives at Guvment ‘Ouse, and Vs rollin’ in money an’ drinks like a (carmine) fish. I thought I might see somethin’ about the – in a (blank) Sydney noospaper. I’ll come in for all his (ensanguined) money when ‘e dies.”

Bully gave him a bottle of gin after a while. Then he hurriedly bade us farewell and went ashore.

LUPTON’S GUEST: A MEMORY OF THE EASTERN PACIFIC

A long sweeping curve of coast, fringed with tall plumed palms casting wavering shadows on the yellow sand as they sway and swish softly to the breath of the brave trade-wind that whistles through the thickly-verdured hummocks on the weather side of the island, to die away into a soft breath as, after passing through the belt of cocoanuts, it faintly ripples the transparent depths of the lagoon—a broad sheet of blue and silver stretching away from the far distant western line of reef to the smooth, yellow beach at the foot of the palms on the easternmost islet. And here, beneath their lofty crowns, are the brown thatched huts of the people and the home of Lupton the trader.

This is Mururea. And, if it be possible, Mururea surpasses in beauty any other of the “cloud of islands” which, lying on the blue bosom of the Eastern Pacific like the islands of a dream, are called by their people the Paumotu. And these people—it is not of very long ago I speak—are a people unto themselves. Shy and suspicious of strangers, white or brown, and endued with that quick instinct of fear which impels untutored minds to slay, and which we, in our civilised ignorance, call savage treachery, they are yet kind-hearted and hospitable to those who learn their ways and regard their customs. A tall, light-skinned, muscular people, the men with long, straight, black hair, coiled up in a knot at the back, and the women—the descendants of those who sailed with broken Fletcher Christian and his comrades of the Bounty in quest of a place where to die—soft-voiced, and with big, timorous eyes.

‘Twas here that Ben Peese, the handsome, savagely humorous, and voluble colleague of Captain “Bully” Hayes, the modern rover of the South Seas, one day appeared. Lupton, with his son and two natives, were out searching the beach of a little islet for turtles’ eggs, when the boy, who had been sent to obtain a few young drinking cocoanuts from a tree some little distance away, called out, “Te Pahi!” (a ship). A few minutes passed, and then, outlined against the narrow strip of cocoanuts that grew on the north end of the main islet of the lagoon, Lupton saw the sails of a schooner making for the only opening—a narrow passage on the eastern side.

Now vessels came but rarely to Mururea, for Du Petit Thouars, the French Admiral of the Pacific fleet, had long since closed the group to the Sydney trading ships that once came there for pearl-shell, and Lupton felt uneasy. The vessel belonging to the Tahitian firm for whom he traded was not due for many months. Could the stranger be that wandering Ishmael of the sea—Peese? Only he—or his equally daring and dreaded colleague, Bully Hayes—would dare to sail a vessel of any size in among the coral “mushrooms” that studded the current-swept waters of the dangerous passage.

What did he want? And honest Frank Lupton, a quiet and industrious trader, thought of his store of pearl-shell and felt still more doubtful. And he knew Peese so well, the dapper, handsome little Englishman with the pleasant voice that had in it always a ripple of laughter—the voice and laugh that concealed his tigerish heart and savage vindictiveness. Lupton had children too—sons and daughters—and Peese, who looked upon women as mere articles of merchandise, would have thought no more of carrying off the trader’s two pretty daughters than he would of “taking” a cask of oil or a basket of pearl-shell.

His anxious face, paling beneath the tropic bronze of twenty years’ ocean wanderings, betrayed his feelings to the two natives who were now pulling the boat with all their strength to gain the village, and one—Maora, his wife’s brother, a big, light-skinned man, with that keen, hawk-like visage peculiar to the people of the eastern islands of Polynesia, said—

“‘Tis an evil day, Farani! No ship but that of the Little Man with the Beard hath ever passed into the lagoon since the great English fighting ship came inside” (he spoke of 1863), “for the reef hath grown and spread out and nearly closed it. Only the Little Bearded Devil would dare it, for he hath been here twice with the Man of the Strong Hand” (Hayes). “And, Farani, listen! ‘The hand to the club!’”

They ceased pulling. From the village came the sound of an almost forgotten cry—a signal of danger to the dwellers under the palms—“The hand to the club!”—meaning for the men to arm.

Lupton hesitated. The natives would, he knew, stand to him to a man if violence to or robbery of him were attempted. But to gain the village he must needs pass close the vessel, and to pass on and not board her would savour of cowardice—and Lupton was an Englishman, and his twenty years’ wanderings among the dangerous people of some of the islands of the Paumotu Group had steeled his nerves to meet any danger or emergency. So, without altering the course of the boat, he ran alongside of the vessel—which was a brigantine—just as she was bringing to, and looking up, he saw the face he expected.

“How are you, Lupton, my dear fellow?” said Peese, as the trader gained the deck, wringing his hand effusively, as if he were a long-lost brother. “By Heavens! I’m glad to meet a countryman again, and that countryman Frank Lupton. Don’t like letting your hand go.” And still grasping the trader’s rough hand in his, delicate and smooth as a woman’s, he beamed upon him with an air of infantile pleasure.

This was one of Peese’s peculiarities—an affectation of absolute affection for any Englishman he met, from the captain of a man-of-war (these, however, he avoided as much as possible), to a poor beachcomber with but a grass girdle round his loins.

“What brings you here, Captain Peese?” said Lupton, bluntly, as his eye sought the village, and saw the half-naked figures of his native following leaving his house in pairs, each carrying between them a square box, and disappearing into the puka scrub. It was his pearl-shell. Màmeri, his wife, had scented danger, and the shell at least was safe, however it befell. Peese’s glance followed his, and the handsome little captain laughed, and slapped the gloomy-faced and suspicious trader on the back with an air of camaraderie.

“My dear fellow, what an excessively suspicious woman your good Màmeri is! But do not be alarmed. I have not come here to do any business this time, but to land a passenger, and as soon as his traps are on the beach I’m off again to Maga Reva. Such are the exigencies, my dear Lupton, of a trading captain’s life in the South Seas, I cannot even spare the time to go on shore with you and enjoy the hospitality of the good Màmeri and your two fair daughters. But come below with me and see my passenger.” And he led the way to his cabin.

The passenger’s appearance, so Lupton told me, “was enough to make a man’s blood curdle,” so ghastly pale and emaciated was he. He rose as Lupton entered and extended his hand.

“My friend here,” said the worthy little Ishmael, bowing and caressing his long silky beard, “is, ah, hum, Mr. Brown. He is, as you will observe, my dear Lupton, in a somewhat weak state of health, and is in search of some retired spot where he may recuperate sufficiently–”

“Don’t lie unnecessarily, sir.”

Peese bowed affably and smiled, and the stranger addressed Lupton.

“My name is not Brown—‘tis of no consequence what it is; but I am, indeed, as you see, in a bad way, with but a few months at most to live. Captain Peese, at my request, put into this lagoon. He has told me that the place is seldom visited by ships, and that the people do not care about strangers. Yet, have you, Mr. Lupton, any objections to my coming ashore here, and living out the rest of my life? I have trade goods sufficient for all requirements, and will in no way interfere with or become a charge upon you.”

Lupton considered. His influence with the people of Mururea was such that he could easily overcome their objections to another white man landing; but he had lived so long apart from all white associations that he did not care about having the even monotony of his life disturbed. And then, he thought, it might be some queer game concocted between the sick man and the chattering little sea-hawk that sat beside him stroking and fondling his flowing beard. He was about to refuse when the sunken, eager eyes of “Mr. Brown” met his in an almost appealing look that disarmed him of all further suspicion.

“Very well, sir. The island is as free to you as to me. But, still, I could stop any one else from living here if I wished to do so. But you do look very ill, no mistake about that. And, then, you ain’t going to trade against me! And I suppose you’ll pass me your word that there isn’t any dodge between you and the captain here to bone my shell and clear out?”

For answer the sick man opened a despatch-box that lay on the cabin table, and took from it a bag of money.

“This,” he said, “is the sum I agreed to pay Captain Peese to land me on any island of my choice in the Paumotu Archipelago, and this unsigned order here is in his favour on the Maison Brander of Tahiti for a similar sum.”

Signing the paper he pushed it with the money over to Peese, and then went on:—

“I assure you, Mr. Lupton, that this is the only transaction I have ever had with Captain Peese. I came to him in Tahiti, hearing he was bound to the Paumotu Group. I had never heard of him before, and after to-day I will not, in all human probability, see him again.”

“Perfectly correct, my dear sir,” said Peese. “And now, as our business is finished, perhaps our dear friend, Lupton, will save me the trouble of lowering a boat by taking you ashore in his own, which is alongside.”

Five minutes later and Lupton and the stranger were seated in the boat.

“Good-bye, my dear Lupton, and adios my dear Mr. Brown. I shall ever remember our pleasant relations on board my humble little trading vessel,” cried the renowned Peese, who, from former associations, had a way of drifting into the Spanish tongue—and prisons and fetters—which latter he once wore for many a weary day on the cruiser Hernandez Pizarro on his way to the gloomy prison of Manilla.

The boat had barely traversed half the distance to the shore ere the brigantine’s anchor was hove-up and at her bows, and then Peese, with his usual cool assurance, beat her through the intricate passage and stood out into the long roll of the Pacific.

When Lupton, with his “walking bone bag,” as he mentally called the stranger, entered his house, Màmeri, his bulky native wife, uttered an exclamation of pity, and placing a chair before him uttered the simple word of welcome Iorana! and the daughters, with wonder-lit star-like eyes, knelt beside their father’s chair and whispered, “Who is he, Farani?”

And Lupton could only answer, “I don’t know, and won’t ask. Look to him well.”

He never did ask. One afternoon nearly a year afterwards, as Lupton and Trenton, the supercargo of the Marama sat on an old native marae at Arupahi, the Village of Four Houses, he told the strange story of his sick guest.

The stranger had at first wished to have a house built for himself, but Lupton’s quiet place and the shy and reserved natures of his children made him change his intention and ask Lupton for a part of his house. It was given freely—where are there more generous-hearted men than these world-forgotten, isolated traders?—and here the Silent Man, as the people of Mururea called him, lived out the few months of his life. That last deceptive stage of his insidious disease had given him a fictitious strength. On many occasions, accompanied by the trader’s children, he would walk to the north point of the low-lying island, where the cloudy spume of the surge was thickest and where the hollow and resonant crust of the black reef was perforated with countless air-holes, through which the water hissed and roared, and shot high in air, to fall again in misty spray.