That Summer at Boomerang

by Phil Jarratt

  Nevertheless, Jeannie Letham was adamant that the convoy of automobiles must stop first at Foam Street, where entertainment, tea and scones awaited. In the haste to leave Dee Why in the twilight, Isabel found herself bundled in with Duke and Francis in the back of a vehicle, her mother nowhere in sight.

  ‘You do know what this is all about, don’t you?’ she asked Duke.

  ‘What’s what all about?’

  ‘The tea party at our place. Mother feels she has to make it up to you, after Father’s rudeness yesterday. She wasn’t happy with him, she made that plain enough. She made the scone mix this morning, but he’s had to do the rest. She even made him hire Eric, the pianist from the Violet Club.’

  ‘My goodness,’ said Duke. ‘I sure didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just wanted you to come to Crow-nulla with us tomorrow. You could have shown me around.’

  ‘But I’ve never been there.’

  ‘Well, we could have been lost together.’ Duke laughed, taking her hand and squeezing it affectionately. ‘You were so brave today. You’re a real wahine now.’

  As they turned a corner and began climbing the hill to Freshwater, the sway of the car forced her into his shoulder, his chin in her hair.

  Despite the fact that everyone else had come straight off the beach, Willie Letham sported his best boots, starched collar and necktie as he greeted the arrivals in his most convivial manner. Eric the pianist, also dressed to the nines, tickled the ivories out on the back verandah while the guests helped themselves to refreshments. On a card table around the corner in the sitting room, Willie had laid out ‘something a little stronger’, several bottles of Amos Randell’s home-brewed ale (being dispensed by Randell himself) in addition to his normal ‘wee drams’ of whisky.

  Although most guests had one eye on a fob watch, it was an enjoyable enough interlude, with Duke and Isabel trading amused grins as the eye-witness accounts of their exploits on the board got more fanciful with every round of ale. ‘Never seen anything like it,’ exclaimed Amos Randell, who wasn’t there.

  ‘Come along, fellows,’ shouted Don McIntyre, clapping his hands. ‘We must away if we’re going to make the city tonight.’

  In the shadows beside the house as the motors were cranked, Duke whispered to Isabel, ‘I so wish you were coming tomorrow. I … I don’t even know when I’ll see you next.’

  ‘Soon,’ she said, closing her eyes as if to make a wish. ‘Soon.’

  He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

  Royal National Park picnic lunch, 7 February 1915. Creator unknown.

  ‘The rain’s back,’ said Duke, hoisting his board out of the auto and leading the way into Central Station. ‘We got time for a quick breakfast at the kiosk, Mr Mac?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Paoa,’ responded Don McIntyre. ‘Our train leaves in a few minutes. Don’t worry, there’s a snack trolley.’

  ‘I’ve seen these snack trolleys, Mr Mac. They don’t carry enough food to fix my hunger. It’s been days since I ate anything but a sandwich or a scone. Whoa! What’s that? You got some money, Francis?’

  Spotting a fruit barrow in the distance, Duke made a detour across the concourse, Francis Evans in hot pursuit. ‘Those little bananas look mighty good, brudda,’ he said to the freckle-faced boy in cap and filthy apron.

  ‘Coffs Harbour ’nanas, mister, just off the mail train this mornin’. Penny a ’nana, sixpence the hand.’

  ‘Let’s go the hand, Francis, and a couple pennies for my little buddy, if you will.’

  The transaction completed, they ran for the Illawarra line platform, where Don McIntyre was having kittens as he stood in the carriage doorway, trying to delay the departure. The train travelled through Redfern and into the southern suburbs with Duke sprawled on a bench seat, stuffing himself with North Coast ladyfingers. ‘Delicious, help yourself,’ he said to no-one in particular. ‘Just make sure you leave a couple more for me.’

  The group of committee men from the Cronulla Life Saving Club waiting at Sutherland Station was clearly impressed as the visitors alighted. In addition to the Hawaiians, many of the big noises of the interrelated worlds of swimming and surfing had made the journey, among them Bill Hill and Harry Hay from the Swimming Association, Don McIntyre and Roy Doyle from the Surf Bathing Association, plus Bill Scott and E.S. Marks, representing just about every other meaningful sporting organisation in Sydney.

  ‘This is a serious bunch of blokes,’ whispered Frank Stroud, who had been one of the founders of the Cronulla club seven summers earlier.

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ said Jack Hallett, another club founder. ‘If you’d chucked a jam-tin grenade into that carriage, the Oxford Hotel would have been out of business.’

  ‘And Hawaii would have declared war,’ said Stroud.

  The Cronulla men had five automobiles waiting, and with just a slight delay while they worked out how to secure Duke’s board to the roof, they piled the guests in and headed, in sedate convoy, down the Main South Road, their destination Audley in the Royal National Park. Once they had turned off the highway and onto the winding track through the bushlands, however, the drivers unleashed a more sporting approach to the Sunday drive, screeching tyres around the hairpin bends on descent to the picturesque little village at the base of a deep valley.

  A picnic lunch was laid out on two tables on the grassy bank of Kangaroo Creek above the floodgates (the hosts hopeful that the rain showers that had been threatening all morning would hold off). The Hawaiians were surprised to find that almost none of the Sydney men in the party had ever visited Audley before. ‘But it’s so beautiful,’ said Duke. ‘It reminds me of a place at home, the Pauoa Valley, bit like my name but different. It’s wet and green and everything smells sweet, and the birds sing just like here.’

  ‘Long way from the city for busy chaps,’ explained Bill Hill, slightly annoyed at being found wanting in local knowledge. But Roy Doyle was with Duke. ‘I can’t quite believe I’ve never come here before, either. It’s stunning.’

  Billy Longworth (centre) and team mates, Stockholm, 1912. Photo from the Mina Wylie Collection, Mitchell Library.

  After a pleasant lunch and the obligatory drinking of toasts (Doyle noting in his response to the Cronulla men that the combination of exquisite scenery and death-defying descent of Lady Carrington Drive had already made the day an unforgettable one), Jack Hallett led the Hawaiians on a short walk along the creek and into the surrounding rainforest.

  ‘How often do you get down here, Jack?’ Duke asked.

  Hallett stopped and looked around. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but none of us Cronulla blokes has ever been here, either. That’s why I have to keep the creek in me sights or I’ll never find the way back.’

  A motor launch was waiting at the wharf beyond the boatshed to take the guests down the Hacking River and across the bay to Cronulla, where in the early afternoon, despite the threatening weather, another huge crowd had gathered to see Duke perform.

  In the first event of the carnival, the alarm reel race, Duke, George and Harry Hay were handed the belts while the locals took the lines. Helped into the totally alien contraption, Duke said, ‘Okay, what am I supposed to do now?’

  Frank Stroud took charge. ‘Swim hard out to the buoys as your teammates feed the line out. Release the line and swim back to your reel. You’ll get the hang of it, Duke.’

  On the starter’s orders the three men took off, charging down the sand with the line trailing behind. Duke led Hay on the run and waded through the shallows, but once the swimming began, Hay, one of the fastest beltmen in Sydney, took a commanding lead. Getting the hang of his equipment, Duke started to regain a yard or two, but George found himself hopelessly tangled in his line. ‘Don’t drown yourself, brudda,’ Duke called as he swam past him on the way back in.

  Duke fetched his new surfboard for a demonstration of board shoo
ting while George swam out with him and showed his body-shooting prowess. The crowd, previously spread along the sand, converged on the tide line to applaud the pair’s every move and shout their encouragement when George and Duke rode the same wave together, George spinning through corkscrews while Duke spun around on the deck of his board, mimicking him.

  The Cronulla lifesavers proved less adept at surf shooting than they were with belt and reel, falling awkwardly every time Duke attempted to push them into a wave. But they were persistent and kept coming back for more until their instructor found himself amongst a school of large jellyfish and had to repair to the clubhouse to seek treatment for the stings.

  Later the visitors were guided in the gathering dusk by kerosene lantern back to Frank Stroud’s small bungalow opposite the beach for a beer-soaked singalong, accompanied by a member of the ladies’ auxiliary on piano and occasionally Jack Hallett on piano accordion. Only the presence of the female pianist prevented the occasion from reaching a truly bawdy level, although the Hawaiians helped move things in that direction when Duke got out his ukulele and encouraged George to sing the most popular hapa-haole tune on the Moana Pier the previous summer, one written by George’s uncle, Sonny Cunha, titled ‘Honolulu Hula Girl’, while he gyrated a highly physical hula:

  Out at the beach, with your dear little peach

  Where the waves are rolling in so high

  Holding her hand, while you sit on the sand

  Promise you’ll win her heart or die

  You start in to tease, you give her a squeeze

  Her heart is all in a whirl

  If you get in a pinch, go to—it’s a cinch

  When spooning with a hula girl

  Before departing, Duke presented the club with his surfboard, moving a tired and emotional Jack Hallett to tears. ‘Don’t cry, baby, I’ll come back.’ Grinned Duke, giving Hallett a warm hug and turning an embarrassing moment into a joke in which all could share. There were three cheers for the Hawaiians, then the visitors were bundled back into the cars for the journey to the railway station, Duke carefully avoiding travelling in Hallett’s auto, which wove a pretty pattern down the King’s Way.

  Chapter 20

  Billy

  The Hawaiians’ final swimming engagement in Sydney was scheduled for the tiny Drummoyne Baths on a Monday night, causing Francis Evans to caustically remark to Bill Hill, ‘I guess we’re not the drawcard we were six weeks ago.’ But people were queuing outside the single turnstile three hours before the carnival was due to begin, and a capacity crowd chanted his name as Duke was spotted alighting from a Tourer with his teammates at the officials’ gate.

  The feature race was a 100-yard handicap that would not figure in the official record books, but there was tremendous interest in seeing the Hawaiian matched against lightning-fast Albert Barry, who had been given two seconds by the handicappers, while Harry Hay and Tod Solomons had been given three.

  When Cecil Healy visited the Hawaiians in the change rooms, he told Duke, ‘Albert has clocked some formidable times this past month. He’s no pushover.’

  Duke looked at his friend and laughed. ‘I read the papers, Cec. And while I don’t know much about Tod, I know Harry ain’t no slouch, either, not with three seconds to the good. But I feel fine, Cec, and I got a secret weapon.’ He stood and lifted his robe to reveal a string of small welts around the back of his legs. ‘Genuine Crow-nulla stingarees—I got jelly blubbered good and proper yesterday and I’m all fired up.’

  From the start the race fulfilled its promise. Healy, cheering from poolside, wrote:

  The Duke tore after the vanguard and gained appreciably going down the first stretch (33yds). Barry, however, more than held his own during the progress of the second. With a terrific shove-off at the last turn the Hawaiian lessened the Sydney Club man’s lead, but failed to make further advancement until more than half the remaining lap had been disposed of, when he came with a superb burst, which enabled him to touch down a fraction of a second before Barry, who similarly anticipated Solomons. The whole four competitors seemed to finish practically in a line, which happening gave rise to an animated scene amongst the onlookers. The Duke’s time was announced as 55 sec dead, which speaks for itself, and needs no embellishment, suffice to say that it comes under the category of things marvellous.

  In the pandemonium that engulfed the tiny baths after his race, beyond the noisy circle of press men and admirers, Duke spotted Mina Wylie in the grandstand, sitting with Fanny Durack and her sister, Mary. As excited as the rest of the spectators, Mina was waving and laughing. When their eyes met Duke used hand signals to indicate she should meet him outside the change rooms, and when he emerged from the small, dimly lit shed, she was waiting for him.

  ‘You didn’t telephone me. I guess you really don’t know how to use that thing.’

  ‘But you got my message through George?’

  ‘I was sick and couldn’t attend the carnival, but I got the message from Fanny. And now here we are.’

  ‘Yes, here we are. I hope you’ve recovered from your illness.’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing really. Father tends to panic and withdraw me if there’s the slightest question mark over my health. I think he’s been taking tips from Billy Longworth.’

  Duke laughed a little awkwardly. Billy had been all over the papers, challenging him over the 220, despite the fact that on almost every occasion they might have met, he had declared himself unavailable through illness. Still, it was not the done thing for an athlete to make jokes about a rival. He said, ‘Billy’s just Billy. Maybe his health really is delicate. But let’s not talk about him, let’s talk about you.’ He looked around to acknowledge several autograph hunters. ‘But maybe not here. Would you like to join me for supper later? In the city? We have a car.’

  ‘I’d love to, Paoa. We could go to the Australia and meet Father there.’ She sensed a momentary flash of disappointment in his eyes at the mention of a chaperone. ‘Paoa, I should tell you, I’m seeing someone.’

  ‘Oh, good for you, girl. So am I, as it happens.’ Duke didn’t know why he had said that, so he moved on quickly. ‘I’d better say hello to some folks before we go, so how about I meet you at the gate right after the last race? The auto is back in there someplace.’

  Henry Wylie, having put a few away in the Tattersalls Club earlier in the evening, was effusive when he stood to welcome Duke and greet his daughter in the supper room off the Grand Central Court. The three sat in a booth and discussed all that had happened since Stockholm. It was a pleasant enough supper, Duke told himself later. Mina was as sweet as ever, and Mr Wylie amusingly tipsy. Pleasant was the word for it, but perhaps not quite what he’d had in mind, and as soon as he had finished his braised rabbit he made his excuses, citing an early-morning start for Newcastle as the culprit.

  He shook hands with both of them, then thought better of it and drew Mina to him and kissed her on both cheeks, the musky scent of her perfume fuelling a slight sense of regret as he walked out into the warm night.

  While the Hawaiians were touring Queensland in late January, Billy Longworth had issued a challenge to Duke Kahanamoku that was widely reported around the country, and forwarded by telegram directly to Duke by a reporter from the Brisbane Sunday Times on the evening of Saturday 23 January, after the third Brisbane carnival: ‘Duke Kahanamoku, Hotel Gresham, Brisbane. Longworth challenges you to race him 220yds or over, at Domain Baths, Sydney, on February 20. Proceeds of the carnival to go to the patriotic distress funds—Sunday Times.’

  Longworth explained his challenge in an interview with the Times: ‘When the 220-yards race was on the other day I was not well enough to compete. I am not satisfied to let my whole year’s training go for nothing. I want a chance to swim against Kahanamoku … Duke is a sport … I think we could make a splendid race of it.’

  The following morning Francis Evans responded, telling
the Times to refer Longworth to Bill Hill, who passed on the request to the NSW Swimming Association, who replied that such a meeting was ‘practically impossible’ since the Hawaiians already had a full schedule and would be departing for New Zealand the day before the nominated date. That should have been the end of the matter, but Longworth had personalised a debate that had been raging in sporting circles all summer, over whether the trudgen stroke, the Australian crawl or the American crawl worked best over the longer distances. Cecil Healy contended that, while he had enjoyed considerable success with the two-beat Australian crawl at middle distances, Duke’s version of it, with his exhausting ‘Kahanamoku kick’, was the reason he had disappointed at longer distances throughout the tour. Healy had no doubt that Longworth would beat Duke, but Longworth had missed his chance, just as he had done so at Stockholm. In The Referee, Healy put his position politely and concisely. In private he told friends that Billy Longworth was becoming a pain in the posterior.

  Duke asked Francis to rearrange their departure date so that he could swim the challenge. ‘I’ll race Billy alone if it’ll shut him up.’ But no-one thought that having Longworth beat the great Hawaiian by a big margin under such artificial conditions was an appropriate way to end the Australian tour, even if it could have been arranged.

  Hunter St, Newcastle, 1912. Photo courtesy Mitchell Library.

  No-one doubted that Longworth was an exceptional swimmer at most distances. Back in 1911 the Australian crawl was to be put to the test at the NSW Championships. Had Healy sufficiently perfected the stroke for distance races to win the three-quarter-mile championship? Would he defeat Frank Beaurepaire, the greatest all-round swimmer of that time, and establish once and for all the functionality of the crawl stroke for distance races? The race drew the biggest crowd on record to the Domain Baths and brought to light the relatively unknown Billy Longworth, from the Sydney Club, who caused a sensation when he led all the way to win by 20 yards from the two famous swimmers. Using the two-beat crawl, in 1912 Longworth went on to win every Australian championship from 100 yards to the mile, a feat only achieved previously by Dick Cavill.