Thirteen Such Years

by Alec Waugh

  New York gave Europe a false impression of itself during the boom period. It has given Europe a false impression of itself since the crash. Europe which has faced and weathered so many storms, particularly during the last ten years, cannot understand, certainly cannot sympathise with the present widespread panic, inclining to be contemptuous of New York in depression as it was resentful of it in prosperity. Europe does not realise how the very structure of New York that was so intoxicating through the rich years, is correspondingly intimidating during the lean. The tall towers that have risen so arrestingly overnight may collapse as startingly before nightfall. The European is preserved by antiquity and insured by it. The sight on all sides of him of old buildings, the presence about him of old institutions, the knowledge that the eyes of long dead ancestors rested on these same landscapes, are amulets against foreboding. That which has taken so long to build cannot crumble in a few hours. But America is so big; it has been built so fast. The speed and size which were such thrilling symbols in moments of success, are minatory portents in moments of adversity. New York is like a fairy city, its beauty has an unearthly quality. The New Yorker wonders whether it may not dissolve as swiftly as it has been built. The European has sustained so much adversity that he has become inoculated in the same way that he has become inoculated against measles; an epidemic of which would destroy Greenland. The United States have not absorbed depression into their system as Europe has.

  §

  The crash on Wall Street meant much more than the loss to individuals of so many million dollars. It introduced a new sense of instability into life. It proved that the New World was no more immune than the old had been. I fancy that many Englishmen visiting the United States in the nineteen-twenties returned to their own country with the discouraging feeling that England was behind the times, that Europe was tending to become a museum piece; that the New World had taken what was best of the Old World, and dispensed with what was stale and tiresome. The crash on Wall Street, proved that the New World had avoided Europe’s mistakes only to make others of its own. There was nothing stable beneath the sun. The foundations of the world were rocking. Its maladies were world-wide. England’s decision to go off gold was for the English the sudden reining-in of a steed that was out of control. It marked a climax. It was parochial, while the crash on Wall Street was a world event. It signaled America’s entrance upon the universal rout. We had thought in the spring of 1919 that we were on the brink of an easier, more harmonious world. One by one the various countries of Europe proved the contrary. As long as America remained prosperous, it was possible to believe that someone was the better off. Then America joined the rest. For two years the world drifted from one low level to another. England’s decision to leave gold called, as far as England was concerned, a halt. It was a saying “This has gone far enough. Whatever in the future we may evolve, the former basis of negotiation will not work.”

  §

  The weeks that followed the Bank of England’s decision I spent in Devonshire. It was a very lovely autumn. Morning after morning a red gold sun shone on to a lawn glistening with dew and mist. It was so warm that I could sit in the garden working. The sky was blue: with an occasional dove-coloured cloud drifting slowly over it. Beside the wall flanking a Tudor gateway ran a bed of chrysanthemums dotted with a few late roses. It was six years since I had spent an autumn in England in the country. During those years I had seen much beauty: the palm trees of the Pacific, the blue mountains of New South Wales, the brown rivers of Malaya; but the rounded, varied, many-coloured beauty of North Devon had a softer, deeper, tenderer appeal.

  There were stables close to the hotel. Most afternoons I rode for a couple of hours through high hedged lanes looking down over low hills, across patterned valleys to the smoke of villages; the thatched roofs; the square-spired churches. Very calm it was, and peaceful. It was hard to believe that its security was menaced: that English people would not live here dreamily in peace; for centuries as they had for centuries.

  Most evenings I stopped for a glass of cider at the Ring of Bells in North Bovey; letting my horse graze upon the green. North Bovey is a very lovely village. Thatched, low-built, whitewashed, it is built on a slope and in a circle. The Ring of Bells is set back a little. Seated in its porch you see framed in the oblong gap between the two white walls through the wide-spread boughs of an oak tree the outline of the church: and the gilt hands of its clock. The innkeeper is a little old woman close on eighty. She is grey-haired, wrinkled and a spinster. She wears a long, black silk dress with a miniature set as a brooch in its high-boned collar. The house has been in her family for three generations. Farm hands and an occasional groom would sit beside me in the porch. We would chatter casually of football and the weather. Dusk would be falling when I left. The horse with its nose set for home would canter back through the narrow lanes. Low mists drifted along the hills. Lights would show from the far valleys. The far purple of Dartmoor deepened into black. The newspaper leaders about sterling seemed very distant from the reality of English life.

  §

  In a way the entire press campaign of those unexpected weeks read like an anachronism. It was necessary no doubt to restore the foreigner’s confidence, and to prevent a panic in the cities, but its appeal was directed very largely to a sentiment that has been outgrown. Its patriotism was Chauvinistic; was insular; was a challenge and a defiance. The word 1914 was quoted very often: but the idea of patriotism to which the appeal of 1914 was made is different from the idea of patriotism to which an appeal must be made to-day. No national appeal is valid that involves the setting of one country against another; whether in the way of trade or war. If anything has been learnt during the last fifteen years it is that the world is interknit; that the welfare of one country is the welfare of every other country; that we are bound together like Alpine mountaineers. We stand or fall together; if one slips the others must pull him up. The patriotism that islands one country against the world is as much a primitive instinct as those other instincts of property and possession by which one section of society profits to another’s cost; instinct that the vanguard of thought has gone beyond; that belong to the world’s youth.

  Patriotism is wider, deeper, more far-seeing. The truest patriot I ever met came of a race that had little use for war. He was a Polynesian.

  §

  It was in the Paumotus Archipelago, that cloud of islands that stretches a day’s to a week’s sail northward of Tahiti that I met him. I was on the Mitiaro, a fifty ton schooner, that was sent every four months or so from Papeete on a trading cruise. It collected copra. It deposited tinned food, cotton goods, wine and such mail as might be. It was a flattish boat that rolled damnably when there was a swell. It had a large cabin, but the smell of copra and machinery was so strong that one preferred to sleep on deck. One took one’s own mattress and a supply of water with one. The cruise lasted anything from four weeks to ten. It was monotonous. In rough weather it was uncomfortable, and often dangerous. But there were lovely intervals.

  The watch during the hour before dawn; when the crescent-shaped outline of an atoll grew distinct; with green settling upon the palm fronds; with attar roofs showing ochre pale between the bending stems; with the coral beach deepening to pink; the luminous quiver of quicksilver on the still lagoon; with ourselves waiting for the welcome of the natives; the canoes rowing out to greet us; the men, bare to the red and white pareo about their waist; the women, with white flowers twined in their black hair; the shouting, the laughter, the Polynesian welcome la ora na.

  There were the nights, calm under the opening sky: moonless: with the sky a starlit velvet: with great coins of phosphorus swishing in the schooner’s wash: with the red lamp swaying on the mast; and a native in the bows, a ukulele upon his knees, with the others round him mingling their soft singing voices. Ave Ave te vahini upipi. There were moments that had an eternal quality.

  It was at Fat-a-uia that I met Mario. I had heard about him in Papeete. He was
chief of the island; had been chief of it for thirty years. There was not a person on the island that did not love him; that did not respect him; that did not obey him. He was their friend, their governor, their guardian. He shared their fortunes, good and evil. When danger came it was to him they turned. It was to his courage and skill that they owed their lives when the hurricane had stripped every palm grove bare, when every hut had been flattened to the ground, when wave after wave had swept over the low narrow atoll. They still talked in Papeete of his courage upon that night. When the first signals of the hurricane had shown pearly white on the horizon, he had set the fishermen on the plaiting of two long ropes. These he had had bound between the two strongest palm trees. When the fury had broken upon the atoll he had ordered every villager to the ropes. He had set himself at the centre where the sag and danger were the greatest. The women and the old men he had placed nearest to the trees. Clasped to the ropes they had waited for the tempest.

  “The ropes will hold: the trees will hold,” he had said to them. “As long as you hold the ropes you are safe.”

  It was going to be less easy than it sounded. He knew that. He had seen other hurricanes. To keep spirits up he started singing. All through that long night his voice did not slacken. At times he sang; at times he exhorted; while the gale crashed round them; while the waves dashed over them, sweeping them off their feet, bruising them, choking them; leaving them breathless, limp, exhausted. Every time as the wave subsided he looked anxiously along the ropes to see if the same number were still upon it. There was little chance for the man who loosed his hold. One by one during the long night exhaustion loosened the clasp of frozen fingers. By morning only half were left of those who had taken their watch by the ropes twelve hours earlier. Those who survived owed their lives and they knew it to the foresight of Mario, to his influence, to the tonic quality that he had given to their spirits through the night. There were enough left to set to work upon the repairing of the island’s fortunes.

  He had saved the island. He restored the island. During the years of his authority there had been no disturbance, no lawlessness, the yield of copra had been plentiful. His people had been prosperous and contented. They had laughed, sung, loved. Whatever might have been happening elsewhere in the Pacific here the old Eden lingered.

  “Whatever you do don’t fail to see Mario,” they had told me in Papeete.

  He was the first person that I met in Fat-a-uia. He was a man of fifty, tall, broad-shouldered, with thick strong legs, thick lips, thick muscles moving under skin that had the glow of pine and the gloss of velvet. He was a magnificent creature; with large brown eyes; superbly white even teeth; and an open smile. He wore nothing but a red and white pareo and a straw hat with a wreath of white flowers round the brim.

  The canoe in which he had rowed out was stacked with green coconuts, poi—the wild banana, whose taste so they say will linger forever on the palate of him that has once tasted it—and a number of small, brightly coloured fish. They were presents. In return he would be given tobacco, corned beef and a new straw hat. With one spring he hauled himself on deck; on his ankle there was an open sore. The legs of most natives are similarly scarred. Coral poisoning is slow to cure.

  In the French islands of the Pacific there is no colour line. It would be difficult anyhow to draw such a line with the Polynesians. They have an innate breeding and dignity, an intrinsic aristocracy of mind, that you do not find with Africans or Asiatics.

  Mario comported himself like the colonel of a regiment being visited by the commanding officer of a neighbouring battalion. For a time he exchanged gossip with the trader.

  “I suppose you haven’t a doctor with you?” he said at length.

  As it happened we had a medical missionary with us. In addition to a pearl trader from Raratonga he was the only white man on board besides myself. We had taken him on at Fakarava. His term was up, he was going to sail for San Francisco by the next courier.

  “That’s lucky,” said Mario. “There’s something I want to ask.”

  “I’ll fetch him for you,” said the trader.

  The missionary and Mario remained for a long time closeted in the cabin. When they emerged there was a set, stern expression on Mario’s face.

  “I’m afraid that I’ll have to ask you to find room for me on your boat,” he said. “I’ve got to come back to Papeete with you.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “He’ll tell you.”

  We looked interrogatively towards the doctor. His face too wore a grave expression.

  “I’m afraid there is no doubt that Mario has leprosy,” he said.

  In the French Pacific leprosy is a notifiable complaint. There is a large leper hospital at Tahiti. It is a couple of miles outside the town. It is clean and airy. American visitors bring presents to the children. The patients laugh as all Tahitians laugh. Their friends can visit them. They chatter, sing and gossip. But the gates are closed.

  There was silence on the deck of the schooner when the news was broken.

  Then the trader spoke. He was a man of fifty; a quarter caste; the child of a French sailor, and a Tahitian in whose veins ran Chinese blood. He had lived in the islands all his life. He was loved and respected in the islands.

  “Now look here, Mario. You haven’t got to be a damned fool,” he said. “There’s no need for you to do anything like that. You’re an old man: close on sixty. You’ve not so many years left. You’d better spend them among your own people. If you once go back to Tahiti, it’ll be goodbye for ever to Fat-a-unia.”

  “I know that.”

  “No one will ever find out. I shan’t tell. The doctor here’s going to San Francisco by the next mail. This writing fellow’ll be following next month. There’s no reason why any one in the islands should find out. You’re safe enough.”

  “I know that.”

  “Leprosy isn’t a thing to be frightened of. In the East no one bothers about it. It’s infectious, yes; but not contagious. You won’t do any harm staying on here. Live by yourself. You could manage that easily enough.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you’re needed here. Your people need you. For thirty years you’ve governed this island. Think what’ll happen if you go.”

  “They’ve got to manage without me one day.”

  It was said quietly, but authoritatively. Sitting back on a rope against the mast, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes turned towards the low crescent-shaped, palm-crested shelf of land.

  “It is not a question of what I could but what I should do,” he replied. “I have been trusted by France to administer the laws of France. I have been trusted by my people to administer those laws. The law says if a man is a leper he must report himself; and go to hospital. If a friend of mine had leprosy I should send him to Papeete. Can I do to my friend what I would not do myself?”

  He spoke quietly, but very firmly. He had no doubt in his own mind what was right. He had never in his life left Fat-a-unia. France was a name to him. But it was a name that stood for duty. He had sworn allegiance to France: to the people and the laws of France; and to his own people in France’s name.

  The trader tried to argue with him; and in his turn, less convincingly, the missionary. Mario listened politely. But he did not weaken.

  “Should I fail in my trust could I ever look one of my people or any Frenchman in the eyes again? I have been trusted by France and by my people. I cannot fail their trust.”

  I could not follow the speech he made that evening to the islanders. It was in Tahitian: it was very long. The gist of it was translated to me by the missionary. From his tone of voice, from the expression on the faces of his listeners, I could guess at the words he used.

  “My friends,” he said to them. “This evening I shall sail from you on the Mitiaro. It is my misfortune to have been struck by the disease that the white men call leprosy. It is the law of this island that those who are smitten with this disease shall go to Tahiti to be cure
d. I go to-night. To return in a few months, when I am well. It is a sad hour. I have lived upon this island sixty years. Half that time I have been your chief. I knew the grandparents of many of you when they were children. We have worked together, and made play together. To-night I leave you. But my thought remains. You will remember me if the urge to lawlessness should come. Live as we have lived. And should to any of you come the misfortune that has come to me, I can trust you that you will go to Tahiti to be cured, as I am doing. Ia ora na. I will return.”

  They listened motionless. There was silence when he had finished speaking. Then into the silence his voice rang again.

  “We will prepare a feast.”

  In a moment they were busy about the preparations: they built a fire; into the ashes of the fire they flung breadfruit, wild bananas, fish; they covered over the ashes with twigs and earth. Into the milk of the green coconut they poured rum. There was singing and dancing. They wept, but they laughed too. The young women crowned their necks with flowers, the young men vied with one another for their favours.

  It was late when the schooner drew out of the lagoon; but the dancing and singing before the fire had not abated. Round the mast the sailors gathered with a ukulele. Into the sea a baby moon was waxing goldenly. The air was flower-soft and scented.

  In the bows Mario sat alone, his head rested on his hands, looking out upon the familiar landscape that contained everything he prized in life. He was saying goodbye to it for ever, he knew that. Ahead waited an old and prisoned age. “Atqui sciebat quae sibi Barbarus tortor pararet” Through his mind and heart must have run such thought as tortured Regullus when he turned his back on Rome and set his face to Carthage.