I find that I have wandered too far in advance of my time, and also
away from the North-Eastern Division. Some six months after I had
opened the new Station at Cape Nelson, the Government Secretary, the
Judge and Treasurer, and in addition, my old enemies of the Government
Store, all came down upon me for irregularities in making and sending
in Court and Gaol returns, copies of the Station Journal, and receipts
for stores received: the Treasurer and Government Store-keeper
complained bitterly that I was seriously delaying the clerical work of
their Department in consequence. I reported that nothing else was to
be expected; that I had an enormous new district to bring into order,
the work in which necessitated frequent and long absences from my
Station, and that when I was away, my Station was solely in charge of
a Corporal of Native Constabulary, who could neither read nor write,
and I begged that a Malay or Manilla man, like Lario or Basilio, might
be sent to me to act as native clerk and overseer. The Governor was
away in Australia, and the Judge in the Western Division; accordingly
Mr. Musgrave dealt with my request. In due course, a vessel came in
bringing a sallow, lank, unwholesome-looking youth of about twenty
years of age, a cockney, bearing a letter from Muzzy saying that he was
to act for me as clerk and overseer.
“Do you know anything about book-keeping?” I asked him. “No, your
worship,” he replied. “Don’t call me that, except in Court, you
fat-head; Sir is quite enough,” I said. “Do you understand building?
There is much of that going on at present.” “No!” was the reply.
“Agriculture, then? We grow most of our food here.” “No!” ”Drill?”
“No!” “Can you shoot?” “No!” “What in Heaven’s name can you do?” I
asked; “surely something?” “I was a fishmonger’s boy in London; then I
got a job as steward on a tramp steamer; I left her at Thursday Island,
and learnt billiard marking in a pub there, while I was employed as
a waiter; then, hearing that there were some billiard tables in Port
Moresby, I went there to try for a job; I could not get employment,
and went to the Government Secretary to apply for a free passage
out of the country, and he sent me here.” “Holy Moses!” I said to
myself, “this is exactly what I expected Muzzy to do; I suppose I
am lucky that he did not send me a mid-wife!” “You don’t seem very
promising material for me to work upon,” I remarked aloud, “but I will
see what we can make of you. First, I will render you able to defend
yourself. Sergeant, take away this man and teach him to shoot; then
tell off a couple of men to teach him to swim.” “What will the police
call me?” he asked; “Sir or Mister?” “Hoity toity!” I said, “this is
beginning early! What were you called when you were a waiter?” “Bert.”
“Very good. Bert you will be to the constabulary, until we have made
something of you; and I shall call you by your surname without any
prefix at all.” “Shall I live with you or the constabulary?” he next
queried. “I don’t like niggers.” I saw my orderly, who was standing
stiffly at attention, watching for an opportunity to tell me something,
give a quick glance at the sergeant, who still waited with a motionless
face. “With neither,” I replied; “I will send the gaoler into barracks
and give you his house, until we have one of your own built. But
remember this: the term nigger, as applied to a native of this country,
is strictly forbidden; it is an objectionable term of contempt, and
especially so when applied to men wearing the King’s uniform. You have
already done yourself harm by using it in the presence of men who are
at present in the position of your teachers.”
I was at my Station for about a month after that, endeavouring to make
the man useful, but he was exceedingly useless for anything except
copying letters and keeping check of the stores that had been used.
I then went away for a couple of weeks, and on my return found that
a blackguard, beach-combing trader, whom I had once gaoled for four
months and whom Sir Francis Winter had also incarcerated for another
period, had called at the Station and fraternized with the agreeable
“Bert”; the pair of them had then scandalized the whole Station by
going on a wild drunk for three days and nights, during which period,
the constabulary told me, a large whaler had passed the Cape, filled,
they believed, with runaway carriers from the gold-fields. The police
had not cared to leave the Station while the drunken riot was going on,
for fear that the drunks should do some damage either to themselves
or the Station, therefore the whaler passed unchallenged. I was
exceedingly annoyed; the more so, that recently I had been keeping a
strict watch on large and strange canoes or boats passing, on account
of a habit miners’ carriers had developed of stealing their employers’
fire-arms and goods, and making a bolt for their homes in either stolen
boats or canoes. They then, in some instances, added to their crimes
by shooting stray natives or plundering the gardens of small, weak,
outlying villages; on one occasion the offenders had had impudence
enough to refuse to produce or surrender their stolen fire-arms, when
they were overhauled by my whaleboat, under command of my corporal;
and it was not until the corporal had ordered the police to load their
rifles, and had clearly shown that he meant fight, that they yielded
to the superior force. “Bert” begged hard to be let off this time,
and swore that he would be good in future; he wailed that he had been
lonely and miserable when the trader arrived, and, in his joy at having
a white man to talk to, had lost his head.
I overlooked his offence upon that occasion, at the same time
administering a severe reprimand; but his culminating act came when,
on my next absence, a large canoe was sighted, and he went in the
whaleboat with the police in pursuit. When they got within a short
distance of the canoe, the police hailed her and found she was a Kaili
Kaili canoe loaded with fish, which her crew were in a great hurry
to land and smoke; the constabulary told “Bert” this, whereupon he
demanded that the canoe should stop and give him some fish. The Kaili
Kaili did not like him in the first instance, and, in the second,
they knew that he had no right to demand their fish so they continued
on their way; whereupon the jackass fired several shots at them with
a rifle, fortunately killing no one. Upon my return, an indignant
deputation of Kaili Kaili waited upon me to know why “the man without
either strength or sense” had fired at them. I sent for “Bert” and
demanded an explanation, which he gave thus: “These natives don’t treat
me with enough respect; I must do something to show my authority.”
Accordingly, I showed my own authority by telling him to pack his goods
and get away next day to Samarai, by the s.s. _President_.
To that point I also went in the same vessel, with the intention of
trying to find a more suitable man. I did get one, a splendid chap
named William Mayne, a Scotch ex-ship’s carpenter, who had gone broke
at the gold-fields, got loaded up with fever, and wanted to recuperate.
He was, like most Scotsmen, a man of good education. I made him
acting gaoler and overseer, pending the Governor’s approval. When the
_Merrie England_ with Sir George arrived, some months afterwards, I
sang Mayne’s praises. “A really good man, sir; he can repair a boat
and build a house; he has taught some of my men blacksmithing and
armourers’ work; he keeps his books well and cleanly, and only gets
drunk on New Year’s Eve. He has an old certificate of character from
a Scotch minister, and all his ship’s discharges are marked V.G.” “He
seems to be the very man I require as Head Gaoler and Overseer of Works
at Samarai,” said his Excellency; “I have had great difficulty in
finding a suitable man for the post.” “But, sir,” I wailed, “I found
him, and really I cannot get on with ex-billiard markers, waiters or
tailors; they are no use to me, and they get on my nerves the whole
time.” The Governor laughed. “I shall not ask you to,” he said; “I
will give you a full Assistant R.M., young, strong, competent, and a
gentleman. Barton, send Mr. Yaldwyn here.” Yaldwyn came, was introduced
to me, and then left the cabin. “He will do, sir,” I said, “I like his
cut.” Poor Yaldwyn! I did not foresee, within a few months, firstly,
his disgrace, and then his death.
Yaldwyn proved to be an uncommonly cheerful and bright person; nothing
ever made him down-hearted, and the more I worked him the better
he liked it. He became very popular on the Station, both with the
constabulary, prisoners, and natives at large; he was perpetually doing
them small kindnesses. A child of the wife of one of my constabulary
would be sick, Yaldwyn would mix up condensed milk or meat lozenges for
her, and show her how to give them. Once, an elderly prisoner moped and
pined, and Yaldwyn came to me. “Old so-and-so is bad, I think he should
be let go.” “Do you, Mr. Yaldwyn? But only the Governor has power to
remit a sentence once passed,” I remarked. “Yes, I know; but he won’t
be here for months, and the poor old blighter, who has only got six
months, will die unless he sees his home, he’s fretting awfully; do let
him go for a week or two.” “Can’t be done, my dear man, by the visiting
justice for gaols. I am here to administer and uphold the law, not
to break it,” I said. The first time he turned dolefully away; then
I called him back. “Mr. Yaldwyn, I am going to Cape Vogel to-morrow,
and shall be away for a fortnight; if so-and-so should happen to spend
that time in his village, and be safe in gaol and in good health upon
my return, of course I cannot be expected to know of it, and it is no
one else’s business.” “Yes, but you would know; you always find out
everything,” he said. “Perhaps if you dropped a hint to my orderly that
I did not wish to know on this occasion, I might remain in ignorance;
in fact, I might be even as dense as you appear to be!” Yaldwyn thought
for a moment, then permitted himself the liberty of winking at his
superior officer before departing. Yaldwyn loved to sing, and thought
he had a singer’s voice. He had: it was as bad as mine--only useful
for scaring crows! As a general rule, I forbade him to sing; but when
I felt unusually cheerful and strong, I would permit him a stave or
two in the evening. He would begin “Maid of Athens,” in a bass that
shook the window, and then wander into a rusty baritone, streaked with
falsetto screeches. On one occasion, after suffering in silence for
quite ten minutes, I broke in upon the melody. “Yaldwyn, did your voice
ever break when you were a boy?” I asked. “Yes, of course it did. Why?”
“Because I wondered why your parents did not have it mended with giant
cement or seccotine or something,” I remarked, as I went off to the
barracks, leaving him thinking. When I returned, half an hour later, I
found him chuckling, having at last grasped my very feeble joke. “I’ve
seen it,” he said, “it is very clever; I’ve written it down to use on
some one else!”
Some time afterwards, Macdonnell, district surveyor, was attached to
the North-Eastern Division staff; he had a very nice trained voice,
and was in the habit of singing as he worked at his plans. He came to
me one day and said, “I say, R.M., is Yaldwyn all there?” “Yes,” I
answered, “a little slow in the uptake, but he has plenty of brains.
Why do you ask?” “Oh,” replied the surveyor, “I was singing at my work
just now, when he came in and looked at a piece of paper; then he said
to me, ‘Why did your parents not have your voice mended with cement or
gum?’ and sat down and roared with laughter. When I said that I could
see no joke, and only thought the remark rude and pointless, he said it
was something very clever you had said to him.” “I did say something of
the sort, I remember now; but you tell him a story and then hear him
repeat it later, and you will understand,” I replied.
Shortly after Yaldwyn’s arrival, I went to Samarai in search of Mr.
Macdonnell and his assistant, both of whom had been appointed to
the North-Eastern Division some time before, and had failed to put
in an appearance. I found them there, engaged with a boat’s crew of
six survey boys, superintending the reclamation of land; they had a
whaleboat and full camp equipment. They had received instructions from
the Chief Government Surveyor to proceed by steamer to Samarai, do
any little thing that required doing there, and then come on to the
North-Eastern Division, where I had plenty of work for them. “What the
dickens are you doing here?” I asked Macdonnell. “You are a charge upon
my Division, the poorest in the Possession, and here you are doing
gratuitous work for the richest!” “The fact is,” he answered, “there
has not been an opportunity of getting up to you.” “You had your whaler
and crew,” I replied, “and it’s a fair wind all the way at this time
of year; trot out another excuse.” “I can’t get Turner, my assistant,
away; he has fallen in love with the publican’s daughter, and spends
all his time spooning with her. He has got a couple of hundred a year
of his own, as well as his pay, and is deuced independent.” “Oh, he is,
is he!” I said; “well, we sail at midnight, with or without him.”
Moreton, R.M., was away on leave, and Symons acting in his place;
accordingly, I went to him. “Mr. Symons, I want the _Siai_ to take
the Survey party and myself to Cape Nelson.” “I am very sorry, but
I can’t let you have her without orders from Headquarters,” he said.
“I will give you a written requisition for the vessel’s services,” I
replied. Symons would not let me have her, however; afterwards I heard
that he had arranged a picnic party on board her for the white women
of Samarai, for two days ahead; it was a case of while the cat, in
the shape of the R.M., was away, he--the mouse--was to play. I then
chartered a cutter for Cape Nelson, and sent Macdonnell a formal notice
that we left, as previously arranged, at midnight. He replied, that
Turner had said that he could not be ready, and would not come. “Very
good, Mr. Macdonnell,” I said, “he is your subordinate, not mine;
but you, your whaler and boat’s crew, come with me. I shall report
to Headquarters, that Mr. Turner having refused duty, I shall act as
your assistant myself until a substitute is sent to you, or lend you
Yaldwyn. I shall also report that I have taken upon myself to suspend
Mr. Turner, until the decision of the Chief Government Surveyor be
known.” Turner then resigned himself to his fate and the missing of
Symons’ picnic, and sailed with us.
I had taken a strong liking to Macdonnell, who was a most pleasant
companion, and on one occasion, I flatter myself, I saved his life. As
we were very crowded and he was a much older man than the others, I
asked him to share my bedroom, for I had a spare field bed and there
was plenty of room for two. One night, a beastly hot close night with a
thunder-storm on the point of bursting, we both woke up sweating from
the heat, and Macdonnell said he would go into the next room and get
a whisky; I declined, and he left to help himself; then, changing my
mind, I got up and followed him into the ante-room. He always drank his
whisky--Scotch custom--neat, and took the water afterwards; he poured
out a tot and waited a minute while I did the same, then, just as I
poured water into mine and started with surprise at seeing it turn a
milky white and hastily sniffed at it, he tossed his off. I did not
wait to look at him--he had got hold of a whisky bottle full of pure
carbolic acid, which I had filled that day, and had never noticed the
large red “Poison” I had written across it--but I made one jump for
the medicine shelf, snatched down a pint bottle of olive oil, shoved
him on to his back, and poured the oil down his throat; then, yelling
loudly for Yaldwyn and Turner, I found and poured about half a pint
of Ipecacuanha wine after it. “Is it burning?” I asked. “No,” gasped
Macdonnell, “only my lips.” Yaldwyn and Turner appeared. “Macdonnell’s
poisoned by carbolic acid,” I said, “bring me a pound of butter, and
tell my cook to make a quart of luke-warm salt and water, and tell him
to jump like hell about it, or I’ll murder him.”
The butter came, of course in a semi-melted state, as tinned butter
always was, there; then, with my fingers I began to cram it into his
mouth and throat. “I shall be sick,” groaned Macdonnell, as he tried
to shove me away. “You infernal idiot,” I replied, “that is just what
I want you to be.” Then came the hastily prepared luke-warm salt and
water. “Down with this,” I told him. He took a gulp or two. “I can’t,”
he gasped, “it’s too beastly.” “If you don’t take it,” I said, “Yaldwyn
and I will belt the very life out of you.” He got it down, though, at
the finish, he was swelling like a bull frog. “Can you be sick now?” I
asked. “No,” he said. “Hell!” said Yaldwyn, “either his guts are clean
burnt out, or he has got an inside like an ostrich!” “Get some cotton
wool and some string,” I ordered. “What are you going to do now?”
asked the unfortunate victim. “Shove the cotton wool down your gullet,
and haul it up and down, until that copper-lined still, you call your
stomach, rejects something,” I said. “Help me to the edge of the
verandah,” said Macdonnell. “Verandah be damned; be sick here on the
floor at once if you can,” I ordered. He shoved two fingers down his
throat, and then vomited like Jonah’s whale. I retired hastily, and did
a minor performance on my own account, from sympathy. Macdonnell went
on at intervals, once he had begun, for quite two hours; then he got
better and complained of hunger. “As much milk as you like until midday
to-morrow, but nothing else,” I said. The sole ill-effects Macdonnell
suffered from half a gill of pure carbolic acid were badly burnt lips,
where the oil had not at first touched, as it had been poured direct
into his mouth from the bottle.
I have mentioned an approaching thunder-storm as the reason of
Macdonnell and myself wandering from our room in search of the drink
that had such dire effects upon him. Well, Cape Nelson, and in especial
the point upon which our Station was built, was very subject to
thunder-storms; and, until I at length induced the Government to give
me a lightning conductor for my house, it was our invariable custom,
when a really bad one came on, to bolt for the gaol or lower ground,
where the lightning apparently never struck. When Captain Barton was
staying with me after the first Doriri expedition, I had, stored in
my house, several cases of gelignite and dynamite, which I used for
blasting a road up a rocky precipice; when it first arrived I noticed
that the nitro-glycerine was oozing through the paper covers of the
cartridges, and that it was really unsafe; but, as it had been very
expensive, I did not like destroying it as my Station could not afford
a further supply, and I knew that the Government Store people would
swear it was quite good, and that I should get no refund; accordingly,
I found a place for it in my house, where I could keep an eye on it,
and watch whether it got worse.
One night there came on a most awful thunder-storm, and I thought of
the stuff and showed it to Barton. “You understand high explosives,” I
said; “there is enough gelignite here to blow this house and ourselves
into atoms so small that one would have to search the universe at large
with a fine tooth-comb to find any remains. I am doubtful as to the
effect of an electrical disturbance upon it; have a look at it.” Barton
looked. “The stuff is fairly oozing nitro-glycerine; get rid of it, or
put it in a safe place at once, is my advice.” I called my orderly,
Private Oia, and told him to get a couple of men and remove the stuff
with great care to a safe place. “Where shall I put it, sir?” he asked.
“Oh, chuck it into the sea,” I replied. “Very good, sir,” and he called
a couple of men and removed the boxes. Twenty minutes later there came
a terrific flash of lightning; deafening thunder and an awful sound
on the iron roof of the house followed instantaneously. My flagstaff,
seventy feet high and three feet thick at the base, situated only
twenty feet away from the house, had been struck and splintered into
shivers, some as small as wooden matches, which had fairly rained on
the roof. “Thank the Lord,” I remarked, as we gazed at the spot where
once had stood that lordly pole, “that we had first got rid of that
gelignite.”
The next morning, I walked into the storeroom under the house, and
the first thing my eyes lighted upon was the gelignite! My very blood
froze! “Oia,” I yelled, “come here and be killed!” “What is the matter,
sir?” asked he. “I told you to remove that stuff to a safe place, and
you have put it here. Do you call this a safe place?” I asked. “You
told me, sir, to put it in a safe place; there was nowhere else I could
put it last night without it getting wet; and when I asked you where
I was to put it, you told me with the double meaning you often use,
[_i.e._ irony] ‘to put it in the sea.’” Oia, poor man, had thought I
was being sarcastic at his expense, by way of impressing on his mind
the necessity of keeping the stuff extra dry.
The time came for me to go again to Samarai, a quinsy in my throat
forcing me to visit the nearest doctor--Vaughan, medical officer at
Samarai. Vaughan was not really a fully qualified doctor, but was a man
who had been for a length of time in the Indian Medical Service, in
which he had gained a considerable amount of experience. He had come to
the country as the manager of a company, which he had formed himself
in Australia, to exploit the rubber lands of the Musa River, but his
company had gone bang, and Sir George Le Hunte had appointed him to
act as medical officer at Samarai; this appointment was afterwards
much questioned, but really at the time there was no duly qualified
man available. Moreton, R.M., was back, and accordingly--as of old--I
took up my quarters with him. In gossiping with Vaughan, who, by the
way, was a great friend of the Rev. Charles Abel, he told me that the
Mission had got hold of some serious outrages perpetrated by miners in
Milne Bay, and in which they alleged Symons was concerned. “But Moreton
is in entire ignorance of all this,” I said. “Yes, Abel is going to
spring it on the Governor, upon his return from Australia,” said
Vaughan. “That is a nice Christian performance,” I thought, and then
said to Vaughan: “It is probably only some cock-and-bull Mission yarn.”
He answered, “It is nothing of the sort, I know the evidence they have
got.” “Pooh! Medical officers are like missionaries, hardly competent
to know what is evidence and what is assertion or mere rumour.” Vaughan
had a warm temper, and I saw that I was working him the right way. “If
I had not promised Abel not to say anything definite about the charges,
I would soon shatter your self-conceited sufficiency,” he snapped. “All
right, don’t get warm, I am going to look at my men,” I replied. “I’ll
leave you sitting on your mare’s nest,” and off I went, leaving Vaughan
snorting.
I then strolled over to the house Moreton had allotted to my men;
they were sitting, chatting and smoking, on the verandah. “I hear,”
I said, after a little casual conversation, “that these Samarai boys
say, that we, of the North-Eastern Division, are ignorant bushmen
‘with no knowledge,’ that we only come here at rare intervals because
the Samarai people are ashamed of our being seen by strangers.” “They
shall pay for that,” said my men. “Yes, but how?” I asked; “I can’t let
you fight them.” “Can’t you put them in gaol, sir?” asked they. “No,
not without first finding out something they have done for which to
punish them.” “Perhaps we can find out something about them,” said my
men. “You are wise men,” I said, “not fools, as these Samarai people
say; that is the thing to do. Now, you keep your mouths shut, put on
your smartest uniforms and swagger down the street and buy cigarettes,
then go to the ginger-beer shop, buy ginger beer and drink it there.
Some of them are bound to notice you, and follow to watch; offer any
that do so, cigarettes and ginger beer; then go to the stores and buy
sardines, salmon, and sweet biscuits, that will attract more attention;
they won’t miss a feed like that, if you give them the slightest
encouragement. Get them back here and, as you feed, brag of all your
fights and the arrests you have made; they will almost certainly answer
by telling you what they have done lately, then keep your ears open
and your mouths shut.” “Oh, master, it is good. We go dig a pit for a
pig, a deep pit. But what about money?” questioned they. “You put in
one shilling each, and here is a sovereign. To-night my orderly will
bring me what news he can, to-morrow you will parade near Mr. Moreton’s
house, and each man will tell me what he has learnt,” I answered. Then
off I went to Moreton’s, where, later, I heard sounds of laughter and
revelry coming from my own men’s house, and concluded the pig was in
the pit.
Shortly afterwards, my orderly appeared. “Master, we have a fence round
the pig and it does not know it.” “Where is the fence?” I asked. “In
Milne Bay; some white men and the Samarai boat boys caught some men
there and killed many pigs, and the white men killed some people.” “In
fight?” I asked. “No, murder. One man was led away into the bush by
the white men, with a rope round his hands, and was never seen alive
again.” “Was Mr. Symons there?” I inquired. “At the killing, we do not
know; at the capture, yes,” he returned, in answer. “Phew!” I whistled,
“the Mission have got a bomb for Moreton! This sort of thing twenty
miles from his Headquarters, and he in ignorance of it!” Then, to my
orderly, “Go back to your house, and tell our men not to let the pig
discover the fence.” It was high time now that I sought Moreton. “Did
Symons tell you anything about trouble in Milne Bay?” I asked him.
“Yes, he said that there had been some gold stealing, but that he had
arrested the offenders and all was quiet again,” he replied. “Well,
Moreton, there have apparently been some serious outrages there, in
which Symons is alleged to be concerned; the Mission have got hold of
it and are waiting until his Excellency returns to report direct to
him, in order to get you into grave trouble for being in ignorance
of the matter,” I told him. “How do you know this?” he asked. “A
hint dropped by Vaughan of knowledge possessed by Abel, in the first
instance; next, I have had my boys pumping Symons’ boat’s crew, and
they confirm it,” I replied.
“It is a bad business,” said Morton, “but I don’t see how I can be held
responsible. Symons has had charge of Milne Bay for a considerable
time. These things have also occurred during my leave of absence, and
while Symons was acting as R.M.” “I see plainly how you will be held
responsible,” I said; “Symons was your subordinate, and if you choose
to give him entire charge of a district in your Division, you should
have occasionally looked in there, to see how things were going;
you know perfectly well that the R.M. is the person responsible for
anything wrong in the Division, whether his fault or not, and to plead
ignorance is the worst excuse you can make. It is clear to me, that
you must have lost entire touch with the village constables in Milne
Bay, for they are trotting in and out of Samarai every second day, and
yet you have heard nothing.” “I have allowed Symons control of the
Milne Bay village constables; they report to him and are paid by him,”
said Moreton. “What!” I exclaimed, “have you been egregious ass enough
deliberately to allow the control of a district of village constables
to pass out of your hands, the one service that allows you to keep your
hand on the pulse of the district, and informed of what is going on?
Moreton, if the crimes have taken place in Milne Bay, that I believe
have been committed, then a fairly big scapegoat will be wanted by
the Governor, and you will about fill the bill.” “Symons had charge
of Milne Bay with the Governor’s consent and approval, and Symons did
not like to be interfered with there,” said Moreton. “The fact remains
that Symons was an officer subordinate to you, he had not joint control
with you, he had control subject to your approval of his management of
the district; anything he has done there, unless expressly disapproved
of by you, can only be held as done with your approval,” I replied.
“Symons reports direct to Port Moresby,” said Moreton. “Don’t you
ever read his reports, or the copies?” I asked. “No,” said Moreton.
“Then you are in the soup up to your neck,” I remarked; “for, on your
own showing, you have entirely neglected and ignored one portion of
your Division, and that portion a district right under your nose.”
“What am I to do now?” said Moreton. “A little advice would be better
than a scolding.” “Do!” I said; “investigate at once, and if there is
anything in the charges, take immediate action against all concerned;
you will then have shown that you are alive to what is going on in your
Division, and that you are doing your duty.” “Will you see Vaughan and
the Mission, and first find out for me what they know?” he asked. “Yes,
I will do it at once, though it is not my affair,” I replied.
Off to Vaughan I then went. “Doctor, I have been talking over what you
told me yesterday about Milne Bay with Moreton; he has decided to make
immediate and full inquiry, and has asked me to ascertain what direct
charges the Mission is prepared to bring against any person or persons.
Can you arrange that I see the Rev. Charles Abel in the matter?”
Vaughan arranged it, and I saw Abel, who, after some demur, gave me a
list of alleged murders and outrages in Milne Bay, committed by three
miners attached to a Government party commanded by Symons. I took the
list to Moreton; and then, at his request, went to Milne Bay, where I
obtained sufficient evidence to show that one miner had deliberately
shot an unarmed native, and that another had shot a woman: there was
also evidence to the effect that a man arrested by Symons’ boat’s crew
had been handed over to the miners and led away into the bush, after
which he had never been seen alive again, though there was no evidence
of his death, other than that the natives had found a body too far gone
to identify. There were a lot of other charges, in which the evidence
was not clear. “What is to be done now?” asked Moreton. “Arrest the
miners, charge them with murder, suspend Symons from magisterial
duties, and leave at once for Port Moresby to consult with Sir Francis
Winter,” was my advice.
On the top of everything else, there was a village constable missing,
named Lailai; he had been appointed by Symons some nine months
previously. Symons, by the way, had no authority to appoint village
constables; this could only be done by the Governor, or by the Resident
Magistrate by delegated authority. Lailai belonged to a village named
Daiogi, one of a group burned by the miners accompanying Symons’ party.
The following, an extract taken from my notes at the time, is the sort
of evidence I elicited:--
“Lulubeiai, of the village of Daiogi, says, ‘I am the only child and
daughter of Lailai. Lailai is dead. I know he is dead though I have
not seen the body. He was a village constable. He went one day to the
camp of the white men; he never came back. Gamadaudau, of my village,
told me that he had seen my father tied up and beaten by the white man,
Steve Wolff. My village is burnt and my people scattered. I know no
more.’ Gamadaudau says, ‘I am a native labourer in the employ of Robert
Lindsay, a miner, and I knew Constable Lailai. He came to the white
men’s camp, and was tied up and beaten by Wolff and Morley, and his
uniform was taken away by Wolff. Lailai was thrice flogged during the
day by Wolff, and was left tied up to a tree for two or three nights;
he was then led away by Wolff, Lindsay, and two other white men whom I
do not know. He was tied up with ropes, but in such a fashion that he
could walk. What happened after that I do not know.’ Two months later a
native of Buhutu found the skull and some portion of a human skeleton
in the bush, and from the fact that Lailai was the only man dead and
not accounted for, and from the fact that near the remains were a pair
of arm rings such as Lailai was in the habit of wearing, he came to
the conclusion that he had found Lailai’s body, and so informed his
fellow villagers. Then this. Charles Ward, miner, sworn. ‘I remember
going with Mr. Symons to Wolff’s house, Wolff gave Mr. Symons Lailai’s
uniform. Mr. Symons asked where he had got them. Wolff said he had
found them in a deserted house.’”
This case afterwards broke down in the Central Court, for though
Moreton and I conclusively proved that Lailai was missing, the evidence
of his death was not strong enough; and even if we could establish
that, then the only thing that we could prove was, that he had been
maltreated by the miners, but not that they had murdered him. I had
listened to the dead Lailai’s daughter, and seen her grief at losing
her only relation; and I swore that, even if Wolff escaped on technical
grounds on the first charge, he should not on a second, if effort on my
part could prevent it. There was a second charge. Wolff had shot a man,
who was running away, and a native with Wolff had seen the shot fired,
and knew the running man well, while others with him had seen the
killing, but could not swear to the identity of the dead man. The dead
man’s relations, however, were able to identify his body. In this case
there was no possible weak link. I arrested, upon Moreton’s warrant,
Lindsay and Morley in Samarai; they were on their way to a new gold
rush at Cloudy Bay, whither Wolff had already gone.
There was now no doubt that very grave offences had taken place in
Milne Bay; and that if Symons had not condoned them, he had at all
events shown a lamentable ignorance of such things as a missing village
constable, a shot woman, and sundry other strange events, such as the
always strictly forbidden burning of villages; and all these things had
taken place in a locality in which a village constable’s truncheon was
the only force likely to be required.
Moreton was frightfully distressed when he learnt the full extent
of the mischief done. “What am I to do, Monckton?” he asked; “it is
dreadful to think that these things have occurred in my Division.” “If
it were my Division,” I answered, “I should arrest every one, however
remotely concerned, Government official, boat boy or miner, and send
them for trial to the Central Court; but as such a measure might appear
too drastic a one, and you would bear sole responsibility for it, up
sticks and away for Port Moresby and Sir Francis Winter is still my
advice. You have to go half-way there, in any case, to arrest Wolff
at Cloudy Bay. In the meantime, I will hie me back to my own Division
and work.” “For the Lord’s sake, don’t leave me now, laddie,” said
Moreton, using the old name by which he had called me when first I came
to the Possession; “I would not leave you in the lurch.” “All right, I
will stick by you, old man,” I said; “but we must sail at once to Sir
Francis, report, and get his authority for me to remain with you until
this matter is cleared up.”
That night we sailed for Port Moresby in the _Siai_, reaching there
after a prolonged passage. Sir Francis Winter instructed me to remain
with Moreton, and that we were jointly to investigate every criminal
charge brought by either the Mission or others against any person, but
not to bother about vague assertions or rumours unsubstantiated by some
concrete evidence.
On our way back from Port Moresby to Samarai, we arrested Wolff at
Cloudy Bay: Moreton was rather bad at the time from malaria, and
asked me to do it; he also asked me to effect the arrest personally
and not to use the police, as the miners objected to being arrested
by natives. Accordingly I went ashore; and, leaving the police in the
boat, I walked up to Whitten Brothers’ store, which was crowded with
newly arrived Australian diggers, strangers to me. Robert Whitten was
in charge of the store, and I went to him at once. “Hello, stormy
petrel!” he said, as soon as he saw me. “There is no trouble here, what
do you want?” “I want a man named Wolff,” I answered; “point him out,
if here; or tell me where he is.” “There is your man,” said Whitten,
pointing to a black-bearded Russian Finn with a villainous countenance,
and plainly more than half drunk. I went up to Wolff, while the whole
crowd of diggers watched me. “Your name is Stephen Wolff?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “and what the hell has it to do with you?” “Oh, nothing
to do with me personally,” I said; “but I happen to have a warrant for
your arrest upon charges of wilful murder, and sundry other felonies.”
“Where?” asked Wolff. “Milne Bay,” I answered; “you must come with me.”
He broke into a storm of blasphemy and abuse of Moreton, Symons, and
the Government, and swore that he would not come; several sympathizers
among the miners also murmured.
I let Wolff blow off steam; then I said very quietly, “Stephen Wolff,
in the King’s name I command you to yield yourself.” Wolff still cursed
and raved. “Stephen Wolff, twice in the King’s name.” Wolff made a grab
at a bottle to throw at me. I slipped my hand inside my jacket, grasped
and cocked my revolver, while Robert Whitten and a miner grabbed Wolff.
“Wolff, I mean to have you alive or dead; I don’t care which. For the
third and last time, in the King’s name, chuck up your hands, quick!”
Wolff was a wise man, he surrendered promptly, the urging of Whitten
and the miners being hardly necessary; but he had gone very near to
dying in his boots.
We got back to Samarai to find our troubles only beginning. Lindsay
and Morley, who were awaiting trial in gaol, had made up their minds
that their present predicament was due to the Mission and Vaughan;
accordingly, in order to get even with Vaughan, they made a sworn
confession that they, with him, had outraged certain native women,
while they were in his employment on the Musa River. Rape at that time
was a capital offence in New Guinea. Moreton and I had perforce to
investigate this charge; but could find no evidence to its truth, other
than the unsupported testimony of the men already under commitment for
murder, whose motive for charging Vaughan was only too evident. We
finished our cases; and the defendants were all lodged in gaol pending
the return of the Governor and the sitting of the Central Court.
Unfortunately the hullaballoo and scandal over the whole affair had
thoroughly alarmed the Milne Bay natives. The trial of Vaughan, whom
they regarded as partly responsible for the bringing to justice of the
miscreants by whom they had been maltreated, finally convinced them
that no one who stood on their side was safe, and accordingly they
prepared to skip for the bush; which, if they succeeded in doing, would
deprive us of all or most of our witnesses. Something had to be done
to reassure them, and that something at once. Moreton and I discussed
the matter and decided that an officer with police should be stationed
there. It was now imperatively necessary that I should return for a
time to my own Division; accordingly I volunteered to lend Moreton,
Yaldwyn and six good constabulary, until such time as the _Merrie
England_ and the Governor returned; assuring him that Yaldwyn’s happy
disposition made him a general favourite among natives, and that he was
the very man to undo the harm that Symons’ unhappy associations with
the Milne Bay outrages had caused.
Moreton gratefully accepted my offer: therefore, on my return to Cape
Nelson, I instructed Yaldwyn to proceed to Milne Bay with a detail of
the North-Eastern detachment of constabulary. “I don’t want you to do
any work, Yaldwyn,” I told him, “I want you to sit down quietly in
Milne Bay and smooth down the natives. Do nothing there, and above all
things avoid any row or fuss with the Mission; Moreton has got a peck
of trouble already, and it does not need adding to.” The next event
was the arrival of the _Merrie England_ at Cape Nelson with Sir George
and Sir Francis on board, and the first thing I was told was, that
they were going to take me to Samarai to hear--amongst other cases--a
charge laid by a missionary against Yaldwyn of outraging a native
girl attached to the Mission. I was simply flabbergasted. “I can’t
understand this at all,” I told Sir Francis, “Yaldwyn is the last man
in the Service to do anything brutal or unkind; why, I can’t even order
a recalcitrant private half an hour’s pack drill without his trying
to beg him off! There is something damned fishy about this business.”
“That is exactly what I think,” said Sir Francis, “and that is why I
want you to take the case.”
[Illustration:
HONBLE. M. H. MORETON, R.M. MR. MANNING, P.S.
SIR GEORGE LE HUNTE, K.C.B. SIR FRANCIS WINTER, C.J.
]
The _Merrie England_ brought me Mr. A. E. Oelrichs to take Yaldwyn’s
place as Assistant R.M. He was a very competent man, and remained with
me up to the time I left the country for good and all; he had, however,
one decided drawback in my eyes, and that was his enormous size; he was
an elephant of a man, weighing, when in fine trim, nineteen stone, and
plainly only suited for Station or boat work. “What on earth did
you bring me that giant for?” I asked Captain Barton; “you know what
patrol work here is like, and this means that I shall have to do the
lot.” “He was due for promotion,” said Barton, “and so I suggested to
the Governor that he should be sent here.” “In order to get him out
of your own Division,” I suggested; “thank you, Barton!” Barton was
taking the Resident Magistrateship of the Central Division. Oelrichs,
however, turned out a good, loyal assistant, a good drill instructor
and disciplinarian, and very competent generally.
He afterwards told me that his first impression of me was, that I was
the most callous brute in the Service, for he had hardly been half
an hour at the Station before he was seized with violent colic and
collapsed in a heap on the floor of my office, groaning like a horse
with gripes. “Here!” I yelled to the police, “get some blankets and put
them in a corner out of the way; then put this man on top of them and
undress him.” I then gave the “fat man,” as he was ever after called
in the Division, a dose of opium and brandy. “How do you feel now?”
I asked. “I am dying,” groaned Oelrichs. “Well, I consider it a most
ungentlemanly thing, your coming here and choosing my office as the
most fitting place to die in: still, I suppose the dying wishes of a
man should be respected; die there, by all means, but do it as quietly
as possible,” I remarked. “What is all this?” asked Macdonnell, as
he came in and gazed surprisedly at the quaking mountain of misery.
“A dying elephant, and a particularly noisy one,” I replied, looking
up from my papers; “see what you can do for him, I’ve no time. He is
grieved also at the lack of a coffin; I’ve told him such luxuries as
coffins are unknown north of Cape Vogel, but I will allow him a blanket
to be sewn up in, perhaps as he is extra large, two blankets.” Off then
I went to the _Merrie England_ and Samarai.
Arriving at Samarai, I went in search of Moreton, and found him fairly
broken up. “This last affair of Yaldwyn’s is the finishing touch,” he
said, “and the Judge has been giving me hell for accepting the charge
in its present form; also for allowing a missionary to remove a female
witness from my Court, and adjourning the Court until your arrival,
instead of fining or jugging the man for contempt. The fact is, there
is such a stew of trouble already, that I didn’t want jugged missionary
added to it.” “Well,” I remarked, “we had better begin at once on
Yaldwyn’s case; you send for Yaldwyn and I will send a couple of my own
men for the missionary and the girl.”
We held and concluded our inquiry. The evidence showed plainly that,
though Yaldwyn had been with the girl in his own camp, yet she
was there of her own will and accord. Some Mission natives knew of
the affair and told the missionary, by whom the girl was promptly
taxed with her offence, and she naturally said that she had been
unwilling; whereupon the missionary--not the girl or her father--had
laid the charge. The criminal charge against Yaldwyn was dismissed;
and I submitted the evidence to Sir Francis Winter, who noted, “The
magistrates were quite right in dismissing this case; there is not the
slightest criminal element in it.” The Governor’s minute was short and
sweet. “R.M., North-Eastern Division, dismiss Yaldwyn at once.” I went
to his Excellency and begged him to permit Yaldwyn to resign; pointing
out that, though his conduct had been highly improper, he had been most
unfairly charged with a horrible crime of which he was not guilty, and
that the disgrace of that alone was a punishment he felt severely. It
was no use, however; Yaldwyn was dismissed. He then slunk away to Milne
Bay, where he moped and pined for a month, and then died. Symons, the
man responsible for the state the district had got into, was reduced
from magisterial rank, and sent as a clerk to the Treasury; the fact of
his being a married man with a family being taken into consideration by
Sir George. Moreton was reduced and transferred to the South-Eastern
Division, the R.M. there being sent to Samarai in his stead. This
was rough luck on Moreton, who was innocent of all wrongdoing, and
had married in Australia during his last leave; for, when he was
transferred from pleasant Samarai to unpleasant Woodlark, his wife
refused to come up and live with him. The miners received varying
punishments, from fines up to sentences for manslaughter.
A man was now wanted for Milne Bay, pending the arrival of Campbell,
the new R.M.; and Turner, Macdonnell’s assistant--who had consistently
loafed ever since he had been in the Service--applied for and got
the job, he pointing out to his Excellency that he intended to marry
at once; that was enough for Sir George, the domestic virtues always
appealed to him, and so Turner got the easiest job in New Guinea at
fifty pounds a year more salary than the sweating Assistants of the
Northern and North-Eastern Divisions. Macdonnell, his late chief,
who had toiled like a tiger, had his services dispensed with; mainly
because Turner’s supineness and laziness on the north-east coast had
prevented Macdonnell doing the amount of work his chief expected.
Turner’s appointment always struck me as a particularly silly one:
the reason that he received it was undoubtedly owing to the fact that
he was about to marry; but Turner was to marry the daughter of Mrs.
Mahony, a Samarai publican. Now, of all things the natives were to be
guarded against, it had always been instilled into us that the chief
one was any suspicion of their obtaining liquor; and yet here, one of
the watch-dogs appointed was to have a direct and intimate connection
with the liquor trade in his own district: a man could hardly be
expected to watch, gaol, or heavily fine his own wife’s mother. My work
in Samarai was now done, and it behoved me to return to my regular
duties; accordingly, I went back to Cape Nelson.