1957-08-17 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1957.

ACREWLESS CRAFT SAILED 400 MILES INTO ITS OWN HARBOUR

A runaway girl

dies-the others

native medical practitioner Sowani, and when this happen- cd, he and I would ngree in od- vance upon a day for her return.

drift on

I remember it was the day before we expected her back from one of those trips with Sowani that word came in of a Despite all appearances, some- I had no theories. I preferred. man tying with a smashed thigh thing assured us deep down to hug a single shining thought at Buariki, Tarawn's most inside that all was going to be to my heart; the Flotsam would northerly village.

was a well, And when we had been never have been there to rescue compound tracture by the four hours in the water, and either our etro party or the had perhaps, another 20 minutes man with the smashed thigh to drift before the reef got us, I hadn't had the good sense

caine

booming a month or so before to scrounge We didn't have to hall all that gear from the Govern her; she was steering straight ment. Heaven was obviously all for when Sowanl caught out on my mide ngainst those sight of our heads-so straight, asses 1 headquarters. But I that he had to atter course so never made an offdel sern and as not to run us down.

dance about the

account,

The news

had been relayed the Floisam from runner lo ninner down along. Tarawa's 35-mile length. The passage across-lagoon was too rough for any ordinary canoe, as the south-east trades had been blowing hard for over a week.

But our station canoe wasn't an ordinary one; also, it was going to take 12 hours to get medical tip to Buariki on foot, and it's better not to keep com- pound fractures waling as long as that in the tropics.

an hour

So there we were, after the call for help arrived the dresser, the station éanon explain, and myself-clinging to

capsized cance in a wild sea- way, 12 tulles from our starting point and right from our objec» tive, The sing bad Licen tremendous while I Insted, bul even the morsel of sell carried had proved too much for her in the sudden fury of buster we hadn't seen coming,

3

The first thing to do with an overturned outrigger canoe la to - get it completely free of the ghastly tangle of sail, mast, and cordage that a capsize always produces, That dene, you mount upon the, upside down outrigger Boat (s many o! you possible) and trend under waicr.

it

The deeper you

thrust it raturally, the more the bottom up hull will be levered over lo le upon its theek; and if you can keep that turning move- ment going, the iloat, travelling down and under, will eventually come up of its own buoyance on the other side of the hull, which will then be right side up.

Dragged towards the

reef

AFTER that,

takes no more

«

than a kind of seesaw Jerk that the Glibcrlese use to nick half the water out of the hull, so that I fleats again with few inches of free-board, The rest is child's play. The only Condition-, you have to have faly calm water to bring it off.

We did give the method a try out that day, and we got as for ns righting the hull. But nothing we could do in that steep, save De sea wau emply her of water. Then the tide began to fall, and we found ourselves be- ing sucked rearce and nearer to the bellowing macistrom of the barrier reel.

There wasn't a hope of being picked up.

Nobody wou nishing on a day like that, eight miles from land. But oddly enough, I don't remember any- one feeling very panicky about

It.

OPEN

The canoe was a total loss, ás

we had nothing to anchor he: Always

with; but we salvaged the spars and sall, turned the

Flotsam

north again, picked up the man with the broken thigh at Buariki, and had him lodged before nidalght in Betlo central hespital, where an immediate operation by Sowani raved bell his leg and his Bie.

Sowani had finished his work up at Abalong twenty-four hours sooner than we had expected,

That

all there was to it, brondły speaking. All the same, ene or two other delalis do seem to be worth mentioning: especiai, iy the fining of his start from Abalong.

He changed his mind

HE had planned to sail at 7 am. and the mainsall was at five actually being hoisted suddenly remembered minutes to the hour when he that I

had asked him to bring me back a dozen island fowls for the pot,

So he got to dcelda' in advance that, when the sails were ready, both these and the engine should be tested out on a trial run to Ablang and back.

Little remained ther but to make sure of not being locked up in the gaol, on the night of nights. He managed that amply by developing engine mubic, the evening he ard Manmau took the culter out to her moorings.

Marmau 185 the polleeman

up to who had acted

mischief

YEARS passed, Mrs Grant sold

Y

her trude store and retired to Australia. I hud. gone on to be reskien conmissioner, and a district officer who had better be called X- was at Tornwa in charge of the northern Gilberts when that restless character Kauil, as tite villagers culicd him, came cutting LCROSS the

lutsum's pervetul and indu-

trious course.

Kaall (or Karl) wus the orphaned son of a Glihcrtuse mother by a German trader in the southern islanda,

up to

his OVE- peer at the boat harbour Gil along, and had also been, in- videntally, his willing slave and fellow conspirater from the be- ginning.

Wille Karl kept the engine making realistic nolses at the jetty-heed. Maemzu came rshare and extracted authority from X-for both of them to

go on looking for the defeel all night long if necessary.

X, whose house was down by the lagoonside, get so used to the sound of the engine that his cars gave up listening at last.

Not a soul noticed-probably everyone was asleep-when the moise stopped altogether. The moon set. In the dark of the

Flotsam vanished. night the from Tarawn lagoon as secretly as she had entered ft 12 years

before.

He was always

mis- chief of some kind. But he had pleted up a sound knowledge of marine motors and boat bulla-

Jay swooning for uncounted days the mainsail was draped over their ration of a crumb or two Only Kcall, the cause of nil ing, and this made him a wel-

the in the fearful stillness of a sea the boom for shadic; the

when fore, a day

Flotsam these deaths, came through. come guest when, having got into

revealed When dawn

the of oil eblaze under the Equator's staysall was rigged as a water found her end ofier 11 weeks at trouble with the native court of night it was found

never was keen on retributory that Livo savage zun.

catchment; only the jib re- sea, smushed to splinters nearly justice for the simple-minded, his home island, he was sent to is under 20 from Betio vill-

a thousand miles from home on but I can't say I much regretted Tarawa central prison.

age had gone with them, per of water. Very quickly one of

They finished the last drop mained stending.

three the Banks seeing him shut up for Drilling so, doomed puppels an island rect in poor children, by the girls diled. A torrent of rain

group. of the winds and currents He was put to work at once in subded,

years on his return. were three survivors knows what glittering came, not an hour later, to save blistering calms of the doldrums, The station buat harbour. He heaven told me afterwards that his plan hopes of felicity and fortunae her friends, but only for further they came to the last few pounds rescued living from the surf, but NEXT WEEK: The strange began to take shape the instant down under the western her days and weeks of torture. They of their Navy biscuits.

the girl and Maamau died the Flotzan. zon.

more of navigation; thought no

They were nearly

the

lie lowered sall at once and returned to shore. But the he set eyes on fowls were shy that day, bless their wild hearts! They came in so slowly that he decided to sall at 11 am, with only eight. In this way it came to pass that he left Abatang neither

to ensure

1

of

Something inside him claimed her then and there for his own. His Ar step was to tinker at the engine of an old wreck,

of a motor launch that lay for-

until

She fought to get home

hey were unlucky from the

start. The southeast brecze failed them as soon as the first day dawned, and the engine hegan to play tricks on them. it stopped, they were

a bit of auxillary power and that when

The engine.

lot too early nor a bit too late, gotten in the boat-house, but at exactly the right moment, he had it turning over Flotsam smooth as silk. That dene "that the would arrive, 10 miles out on proceeded to persuado

X- her southward run, at the Pin- the district officer, that the point in space which we oc- Fiolsam would be the better for cupied at eight minutes past 5 p.m. after a northward run about twelve miles followed by a westward drift of, say, three,

Then again, there was the whim that took Sowant about 20 minutes after his start to enter Tarawa ingoon by the northern passage. He never could explain why he chose to do that: he knew perfectly well that his best course in that kind of wea- lion, which X-immediately Flotsum was ther was to stand on outside the accepted, was thal a case of struggle to get her away lagoon, under the Ice of the bully beef, a couple of crates of her home. barrier reef, unill he reached Navy biscuits, and a dozen Uns until their

he. Kouli, was the man to Instal swent back by a heavy castward set to within sight of the tree- easy tops of Bello; when it started, It carried therm barely beyond view of the treetops, only to slop

gain.

the southern entrance.

Kaall found it fairly after that to get approval for a new suit of sails and, while he was making them

his own pace, he cannily followed up the idra el all-round safety.

His

very reasonable sugges-

For the better part of a week they tolled to lose the land, but could nat. I was as if the fighting thelr

The battle

from

Jasted

12 precious line of

of petrol should always be kept petrol were all consumed.

in the hold as a reserve against

But this would have brought every possible emergency.

him in five miles to south of

มร.

So something obliged him The stores safely aboard and

to come, the other way: ar at the now soils nearly Bnished, doing all they knew to get them

least, this was how Mrs Grant put it, and by "something" she naturally meant nothing but the Flotsam herself,

was time for him

darl

orangise his getaway. The main point about this was that it had to be in the He must be not only out The craft had acquired a of the lagoon but also over the super-human personality for her horizon before day dawned to by that time, But for myself, proclaim the Flotsam missing.

SKIES

By then the two girls, terri- fled, were begging to be put ashore again and the boys were

there. But it was too late. Wild wrather blew up from the east and north-cast; they were driven for five days and nights, before 11, 400 miles and more deep into the solitudes where no land was. There the wind left them, They

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