by Phil Jarratt
‘We call it a surfboard,’ Duke added helpfully. ‘Well, it’s a small world, sir.’
‘And getting smaller,’ said Willie, tapping out the remains of his pipe on the railing. ‘Soon there’ll be nothing but houses out here in the scrub, but none of them built by these hands, I’m pleased to say.’
Back inside the house, the Hawaiians offered their thanks to the womenfolk. ‘Perhaps,’ said Duke, ‘we could repay you in some small way by offering you tickets for the championship carnival next weekend.’
Isabel lit up like a beacon. ‘Oh, I’d love to come.’
Willie cut her off. ‘That’s very kind of you, gentlemen. It may not be possible, but we’ll certainly discuss it within the family. Perhaps we’ll see you at church tomorrow?’
‘Maybe,’ said Duke. ‘We have training obligations back in the city, but I certainly hope so. It’s been a memorable evening. Thank you.’
At the top of Evans Street, Claude said, ‘This way is quicker. I’ll walk you to Boomerang then go sleep in the bunk house at the surf club.’
‘The night is still young,’ said George. ‘I’m for a game of billiards and a glass of ale with Mr Randell.’
Duke weighed his options quickly and waved a casual goodbye to Claude. ‘Men’s business, Claude. I’ll be on the beach at dawn. See you then.’
Chapter 15
Showtime
Duke picked up the newspaper someone had left on the side table of the Oxford dining room and flicked through it while he waited for Francis to take him off to a meeting he dreaded. His eyes were drawn to a large photograph of a group of surf bathers watching a battalion of slouch-hatted soldiers marching off to war. Underneath it was a poem. Duke had never seen a poem in a newspaper before, so he read on, intrigued:
Fall In!
Why do they call, sonny, why do they call
For men who are brave and strong?
Is it naught to you if your country fail
And right is smashed by wrong?
Is it surfing still and the picture show.
The pub and the betting odds
When your brother stands to the tyrant’s blow
And Britain’s call is God’s?
Duke sipped his weak, milky tea. He was bemused by the patriotic fervour of the verse, and even more so by its reference to surfing and the photo of the surf bathers sunning themselves upon the sand, that had been cut and pasted into the foreground. Above the illustration the headline demanded: ‘What are you going to do?’ Duke wondered if the Waikiki beach boys would be subjected to the same ridicule if America entered the war.
Around the beach and the baths in Sydney, he had begun to detect a growing feeling amongst athletic young men that this would be the last summer season they would see until the foe was vanquished. The news of the war that filled the Sydney papers seemed so far away, even further than his own home across the Pacific, and yet he knew that he had only to tilt his head as he swam laps at the Domain Baths to see the tall masts of Australian warships.
Even Cecil Healy, who had long been an advocate of German patriotism and efficiency to such a degree that he had become known for promoting ‘made-in-Germany’ schemes to the Swimming Association, was now an advocate of the ‘duty of every man dependent on the Union Jack for liberty’ to go to its aid.
‘We must put a stop to this now, Paoa,’ Healy had said over dinner at the new Hotel Sydney on Sunday night. ‘Before it puts a stop to our way of life. Just like you, I’m surrounded by remarkable young people of character and real substance in the swimming and surf clubs, and I don’t want to see their futures squandered in the foul muddy trenches on the other side of the world, but we must take a stand.’
Duke had thought immediately of Claude and Isabel, and he thought of them again now as he pushed his tea to one side and folded the newspaper. Would this war go on long enough so that they, too, would be obliged to ‘fall in’?
His thoughts drifted back to dinner with Healy. This had been the first opportunity for him and Healy to converse alone, and Duke had relished the opportunity to hear of his friend’s adventures in the pool, the surf and in the business world, where he was now quickly making inroads. Duke had the utmost respect for the short, powerful, freckle-faced man, and not just because of the events of Stockholm. Cecil Healy was a hero in the pool and in the surf, where not only was he one of the most proficient shooters in the country, but where he had saved two men from drowning. For this he had received a bravery award, but no-one ever heard this from Healy’s mouth, nor did he ever mention it in his numerous and widely read articles about the surf. Likewise, never did he speak or write of what might have been in Stockholm, had not his sense of decency triumphed over his ambition.
Healy had sat forward in his chair to address Duke confidentially. ‘Paoa, I have business to attend to here in Sydney that will take me much of the next winter, but unless the situation has changed, I will then be listening to my country’s call. I’m without wife or family, I’m as fit as any man jack. It’s my duty to enlist and it’ll be my pleasure to serve.’
Duke had understood his friend, but he had not been able to hide the sadness in his eyes.
Hugh McIntosh rose up out of a leather armchair to his full height (not much) to welcome Francis Evans and Duke Kahanamoku. He was dapper as ever in a three-piece suit and loud bow tie, and his booming welcome filled the plush surrounds of Thrower’s Billiards Lounge, just off the Grand Central Court of the Hotel Australia.
‘Gentlemen, please make yourselves comfortable. Now, what is your pleasure?’
Although it was way short of the lunching hour, Sydney’s men of commerce were scattered around the lounges by the bar enjoying the quaint English custom of ‘elevenses’, when stiff gins with tonic were frequently employed to see them through to the first uncorking at midday. McIntosh, however, was already halfway through a whisky. The Hawaiians ordered sodas. McIntosh offered cigars, but these, too, were declined. He sat back and lit his own as the drinks were delivered.
‘So, I trust you are enjoying my city?’
‘Very much so,’ said Francis.
‘And what about you, Duke? Our young ladies up to your usual standard?’
Flustered, Duke just grinned and sipped his drink. Better to let Francis handle this one.
McIntosh continued: ‘I’ve travelled everywhere, you know. Last summer, before the war, I was in New York for the shows, then on to London and Paris, where Miss Gaby Des Lys is, how shall I put it, a very special friend. Then drove through Belgium with my chauffeur, gorgeous young peasant girls flinging themselves at me in every bloody village. Women, I’ve known a few all right, but do you know what I’ve found, gentlemen? There’s no place in the world better for giving the ferret a bloody good run than right here in me own backyard. What ho!’
While not understanding all the references, Duke and Francis had a fairly clear idea of what McIntosh was saying, helped by his exuberant hand gestures. Now he was laughing so hard at his own wit that they began to fear for his wellbeing.
‘Ah, but Duke, you are acquainted with young Mina so you know well enough what I’m talking about.’
Francis interjected: ‘I mean no disrespect, sir, but we do have a training session to attend before lunch, so perhaps if we could move on to the business of the day.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ McIntosh leaned forward and stared intently at Francis. ‘When I’m good and fucking ready.’ Then his face creased into laughter again. ‘Lucky for you, Mr Evans, I’m ready now.’ He called for another drink and launched into a monologue.
‘Harry Rickards thought I was mad when I told him I was going to put big Jack Johnson on the Tivoli stage, but I did and we made a fucking fortune. Now Harry’s gone and I own the Tivoli theatres, fill ’em every night. Duke, you must come along and see Miss Isabelle D’Armond—tits, arse, teeth and spangles. Sensationa
l. You’ll love her. But I digress. When I offloaded the stadium to Snowy Baker, I made a deal with him to put prize fighters on my stage every few months, but the truth is sportsmen and vaudeville, it doesn’t always work. People won’t pay to hear some pug with a broken nose whine on about his poverty-stricken childhood. It has to be someone special, an exotic prince who has captured the attention of the world, a dusky warrior with rippling flesh and jet-black eyes …’
‘I know,’ said Duke, leaping to his feet. ‘A noble savage!’ He raised his eyebrows at Francis, who got the message.
‘Mr McIntosh, we really must be going.’
‘Two hundred quid an appearance, once you’ve wiped the arses of our chaps at the Domain next week, of course. Cash under the table so there’s no need for Bill Hill to get his knickers in a knot.’
Duke had his hat on. ‘Mr Evans will be in touch in due course. Thank you for your hospitality, sir.’ Duke led the way to the door, Francis in pursuit.
‘Two fifty, final offer. Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland. That’s a thousand quid stuffed down your woollens.’
Duke and Francis had left the billiard saloon. McIntosh sighed and gulped at his whisky. ‘Silly fucking Kanaka,’ he muttered to himself.
After a long training session at the Domain, the Hawaiians were met outside the baths by Tommy Adrian in the Tourer, glistening in the sun after a very recent wash and polish. Duke greeted the young swimmer warmly and, as had become his custom, climbed into the passenger seat next to the driver, while George and Francis took the rear seats.
‘Bonzer day for a drive,’ said Tommy. ‘Thought you might like to see Bondi Beach and maybe shoot a few.’
‘Sounds fine to me,’ Duke responded, and there were murmurs of approval from the back. Tommy skirted the city and turned left onto Oxford Street, crowded with pedestrians and slow-moving trams this sunny summer afternoon. The crowds began to thin as they left the city behind, passing fields and market gardens. The road narrowed after Bondi Junction and dropped down a long hill towards the water. Before they reached the beach, however, Tommy turned into a side street and climbed up a smaller hill until they were looking out over a tiny, picturesque horseshoe bay.
‘This is Tamarama,’ Tommy said. ‘Prettiest beach this side of the harbour if you ask me, and it used to be the most exciting.’
Duke looked at him quizzically. ‘What do you mean, Tom? Big waves?’
‘No, big fun! See those shells of buildings off to the left of the gully, well all of that and a lot more used to be Wonderland City, the biggest amusement park in the world. My folks used to bring me and me brothers here once a year in the holidays. They had skating rinks and a sideshow alley with a haunted house, and this incredible airship that ran along a cable from one side of the gully to the other. It was called the “Airem Scarem”, and I tell you what, it scared the shit out of me.’
Tommy had reverted to his schoolboy persona in his excitement, but he had a willing listener in Duke, who was beaming. ‘Man, I went to Coney Island when I was in New York City a while back and I just loved it. So why have they closed this place and torn down the rides?’
‘Well, the surfers didn’t like it because their access to the beach was restricted, so the management would put up a high barbed-wire fence to keep them out, and the boys would come down at night and cut the wire. I know, my Uncle Wally was one of ’em! The coppers would come down and arrest people, but in the end the community backed the surfers rather than the carnie men and the place was closed down.’
They drove back over the hill and down onto the wide street in front of Bondi Beach where, even at this late stage of the day, there were hundreds of people spread out on the broad, sandy beach, and hundreds more out swimming in the small breakers at the southern end of the bay. Tommy parked and waited in the Tourer while the Hawaiians changed into their bathers and waded out through the crowd to body-shoot a few waves. On his way back up the beach Duke was stopped several times by groups of men wanting to shake his hand and wish him well. Pausing to chat with one group, he noticed a redwood surfboard, similar to his own back home, lying in the sand.
‘You’re welcome to use it,’ said one of the men. ‘Maybe give us a few tips.’
Duke shook his head and smiled, mindful of the public-appearance concerns of the Swimming Association. ‘Not this time, but thank you. Aloha.’
Suddenly ravenously hungry, Duke suggested a meal across the street at one of the cafes that formed a neat row along from the Royal Hotel. Tommy leapt out of the car. ‘I know just the place! It’s time you ate Bondi style!’
A few minutes later the men emerged from the Kostopoulos Fishmongers’ shop bearing huge packages wrapped in newspaper. They crossed the street and sat along the Tourer’s running board while opening up their feast and spreading out the papers on the dusty ground. Duke was amused to notice that Tommy was picking up his battered fish off the oil-spattered photograph of the surf bathers and the soldiers. ‘What are you going to do?’ This morning’s news, this afternoon’s fish wrapping, he thought.
‘Best fish and chips outside of Manly,’ said Tommy. ‘Yez can take my word on that.’ He squeezed lemon over the big flathead fillets and then sprinkled a tin cup of vinegar over the thickly cut potato chips. The men ate in silent satisfaction, looking out over Australia’s most famous beach as the surf bathers and sunbakers made their way up the steps to catch the tram home. Although they were now in evening shade in front of the Campbell Parade façade, along the beach to the north the lowering sun cast a beautiful golden light over the last waves of the day.
‘Used to be nothin’ but sand hills up there,’ mused Tommy. ‘It was wild, like Freshie. You could catch a rabbit on your way to the beach. Now the houses are springing up thick and fast, but it’s still a bonzer place. Jeez, I’m going to miss all of this.’
‘What do you mean, Tommy?’ Duke asked.
‘When I go to war, Paoa. When I go to join me mates.’
‘You’ll be back here on the beach before you’ve even had time to miss it.’
‘Maybe, but you have to be honest with yourself, I reckon, and not everybody does. Come back, I mean. Still, a bloke’s got to do what a bloke’s got to do, right?’
They drove back towards the city in the gathering dusk, the setting sun in Tommy’s eyes causing them to moisten just a little.
Father hadn’t come. That’s why they were late arriving at the ferry wharf.
Isabel and Jeannie had watched patiently as the holiday crowd, all parasols and boaters and picnic baskets, clambered down the gangway, laughing and shouting, then they joined an equally high-spirited crowd getting onto the ferry, many of them well-known surf bathers and swimmers from the village. But Claude was not one of them. Isabel had scanned the wooden benches bow to aft, then walked the perimeter of the deck, but Claude was not on board.
Then she saw him, scurrying through the turnstiles, waving his hat in the general direction of the wheelhouse. The gangplank was up and the surly youth in charge of it showed no signs of reversing the procedure, but the wheelhouse door slid back, and after the skipper had made eye contact with the deckhand, the ropes were released and Claude was on board in two gangly strides.
‘How is it possible that you almost missed this ferry when we were supposed to meet here in time to catch the previous one?’ Isabel scolded him. He had no answer. It was typical, she thought, and now they were late.
It was midday mayhem as they emerged from the long walk up from the Quay through the Royal Botanic Gardens and passed through the gates to join the sea of people flowing along Mrs Macquarie’s Road towards the Domain Baths. Everyone was hurrying now, even though there was more than an hour before the scheduled start of the championships. Sydney had never seen a swimming carnival like this. It was an event, and although she would never admit it, Jeannie was as excited as the two teenagers.
Once they were
past the ticket office, they were ushered away from the crowd and up a flight of wooden stairs to a long, terraced stand. Brimming with people at the rear, the stand was less than half full along the front sections, to which they were directed by the smartly uniformed usher, who lifted the velvet rope to allow them entry, just like at the opera. To their far right, at the end of the section where the seats had been stripped out and replaced by a trestle table bar with two wooden beer kegs behind it, a veritable who’s who of the sporting community of Sydney had gathered in the crush.
Then loud siren blasts, followed by a crackly voice over the new public address system, signalled the start of proceedings.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, a very warm welcome to the Municipal Baths on a very warm and very exciting afternoon,’ said Freddie Williams, professional megaphonist and Manly’s best body-shooter, his normally clear baritone distorted by the huge, tinny speakers. ‘Please now take your seats so that the championships of New South Wales may begin.’
Suddenly the din of conversation was replaced by the urgent slurping down of grog as the men filed out to find their seats. Cecil Healy waved to Isabel and Claude as he followed Hugh McIntosh, Snowy Baker and artist Norman Lindsay down to the front row. There was Bill Hill from the Swimming Association with Mr Holman, the premier of New South Wales, and next to them, Jeannie pointed out, the man in the ridiculous plumed hat was Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, the governor-general.
The poster for the “Kahanamoku Carnivals”, January 1915. From the Snow McAlister Collection, Surfing Australia.
No sooner were the dignitaries seated than Freddie Williams crackled out a request for them to be upstanding for the national anthem. Standing, Isabel could take in the length and breadth of the public terraces, the pontoon at the far end of the baths and every vantage point between. The place was packed to the rafters, and the crowd’s rousing rendition of ‘God Save the King’ drowned out the military band down on the apron of the baths. The swimmers were lined up in several rows adjacent to the band, most with their dressing-room robes on. Isabel spied Duke, alongside George Cunha and Francis Evans, all three men with their hands on their hearts. They remained in this position when the American national anthem followed, but Isabel noticed that none of them sang. She recalled the evening at Boomerang when Duke had sung so beautifully that song from his boyhood, and wondered why he didn’t help out the few in the audience who were attempting ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.
