by Morris West
As they came closer he saw that it was his grandfather’s craft, dismasted, the outrigger torn off, but the hull still sound. They had found it high on the beach, they told him, tossed among the pandanus palms by the big wave. Charlie had made a line from the sennit cords and a hook from a sea shell; and there were fish for breakfast. For a crazy, confused moment, they clung to each other on the beach, babbling, shouting congratulations to each other on their vast good fortune. Adam Briggs said:
‘So you see, he got here! He must be alive!’
‘No.’ Gunnar Thorkild pronounced it like an epitaph. ‘He’s dead. We’ll find him up there in the high place.’
‘Do you know where it is?’ asked Charlie Kamakau.
‘Somewhere up there. Later on, I’ll go up and find it. We’ll do our own work first.’
Adam Briggs looked at him with odd concern.
‘Are you O.K. Professor? You had us worried last night.’
‘A bit weak, otherwise fine. How are the others?’
‘Bewildered, mostly. Young Jenny was sick. And Magnusson was in a lot of pain. None of us got to sleep till very late. Today could be rough, I think.’
‘That’s the truth,’ said Charlie Kamakau gravely. ‘You’re the high man, now, Kaloni. We look to you to make the rules.’
‘We talked about it.’ Adam Briggs pressed the point in his sober, quiet fashion. ‘Lorillard and Simon Cohen and Yoko were making a lot of words about sharing decisions and avoiding the mistakes of one-man rule…Mrs Gilman said that what goes on a ship doesn’t work on a land-based community. Charlie and I disagreed. But we thought you should know about the division of opinion.’
‘We’ll cope with it.’ Thorkild was thoughtful. ‘Let’s feed ’em a good breakfast and then we’ll talk it out.’
The talk proved longer and more difficult than he had expected. The easy comradeship of shipboard was gone now. Gone too, was the unquestioning respect for Gunnar Thorkild as the fountain of knowledge about all things Polynesian. He was the man who had lost a ship and, as the result of a colossal imprudence, had put its survivors beyond all hope of early rescue. Whatever he offered now was only an inadequate reparation. None of it was said. All of it was plain to read in the closed and cautious faces that surrounded him. His preamble was brief and blunt:
‘Like it or not, we are here for a long time. We have all the means of survival. We share enough skills to make our life more than tolerable. We can, with much time and much patience, build a vessel that will take us away from here. To accomplish these things we have to plan and work together…So, let’s establish some priorities. Who wants to speak first?’
‘I do,’ said Sally Anderton. ‘I’m a doctor with certain skills and no medicines at all. So I’m going to give you a couple of simple lessons in preventive medicine.’ She held up her hand, palm outwards. ‘See those? Coral cuts. They’re already infected. Most of you have them. If you neglect them, or any other wounds, they’ll turn very quickly into rodent tropical ulcers which spread rapidly outwards and inwards. So, cleanse them constantly. Keep them dry …’ She pointed down at the litter of food scraps around the pit. ‘That rubbish will bring insects and gastric infections. Burn it after every meal. I noticed all of you going into the bushes to urinate and stool. Don’t!… Go down to the far end of the beach. Do your business at the edge of the water. The tide will carry out the refuse. That’s all for the moment; but remember, it’s important. Later on, with Ellen’s knowledge of botany I may be able to build up a simple pharmacopoeia; but for the present, I’m pretty helpless …’
They understood that and approved it The next question came from Simon Cohen, and there was a certain aggressiveness in the matter of its phrasing.
‘You said we had all the means of survival. Medically it’s clear that we haven’t What about food? Are we sure we can survive with what’s here?’
Adam Briggs was swift to answer him.
‘The lagoon’s swarming with fish. We spotted a pair of turtles. We’ve got a boat. The tackle we can make ourselves. No problem there. What did you find, Ellen?’
‘There’s coconuts and bread fruit and there’s taro growing up the valley. We can cultivate that later. We’ll certainly have enough to eat. We can even make liquor if we want.’
‘You’re the nutritionist, Yoko. Do you agree?’
‘I agree.’ She was very short about it, as though there were other things much more important to discuss.
‘Next question?’
‘Tools,’ said Franz Harsanyi. ‘There’s one fire axe, a couple of screw-drivers, and four seamen’s knives between us …’
‘We make the rest.’ It was Hernan Castillo who spoke now, firmly and positively. ‘We make scrapers and knives from shells. There’s enough stone around to make primitive hammers and axe-heads. It’ll take time; but we’ve got plenty of that. Which reminds me; we’ve got two waterproof watches that are working – and the ship’s chronometer which is broken.’
‘We’re going to need proper shelter!’ Carl Magnusson cut in brusquely. ‘We can’t camp out in the open like this. It hasn’t rained yet. But when it does it will come down in buckets. I say shelter’s a first priority – one big house with a floor and a roof to keep out the rain. We should start that today – as soon as possible.’
They agreed with that too. Then there was a short uneasy silence until Martha Gilman spoke:
‘This question was raised last night. It should be resolved now. How do we organize ourselves? Who says what is to be done and by whom?’
‘There can only be one boss.’ Carl Magnusson spoke again, harsh and imperative. ‘We’re a tribe, not a goddam municipality. So let’s name him and get it done with.’
‘I nominate Lieutenant Lorillard,’ said Simon Cohen.
‘And I nominate Professor Thorkild.’ It was Jenny’s voice, tremulous but defiant.
‘Any others?…None. Then let’s have a show of hands. For Lieutenant Lorillard, how many?’
Martha Gilman, Simon Cohen, Yoko Nagamuna and Hernan Castillo raised their hands.
‘Seems you’re in the minority, Mister Lorillard.’ Carl Magnusson smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll concede with good grace. You’re elected, Thorkild.’
Thorkild sat silent a moment, gathering himself for a moment critical to all of them. Then he heaved himself to his feet and stood looking down at the small shabby assembly. His face was grim and unsmiling. His voice was solemn as if he were calling the genealogies, like the old high ones of the past.
‘I want to tell you something; and then you will vote again, this time understanding what you do. We have all stepped back in time. We’re twentieth-century people, reduced at one stroke to a primitive situation. So, relative values change. Some of the things we know are useless junk. Knowledge that we counted as trivial may be vitally important. Personal roles change too. And relationships that were once exclusive have to be widened to include a whole group. If you elect me, you make me a chief, not a puppet. You put your lives in my hands. You engage yourselves to obey. I will seek counsel from each and all of you. I will engage to act on it only if I deem it wise. You will engage to obey what I order. That was the way of my people, the people who came to this island in olden times. It is the only way I know, to be a tribe: one people caring for the many within it. Think about this. Speak to it if you want. Then vote again. If you choose Mister Lorillard or anyone else, I will give him the same obedience that I should expect from him. Think of another thing. Should there not be two of us, a man and a woman, so that each sex has its own recourse?…I see you smile as though I have said something amusing. Is it really a matter for humour? I am not thinking of a consort, a wife, though the question of how we mate and breed will come very soon. I am thinking of a wise woman, who can be the high mother of this community – the kapu one to whom other women may turn for their special needs. I am going to leave you while you discuss and decide these things, but I want you all to decide – You Charlie, and your wife and Tioto
and you too Willy and Eva Kuhio. One last word. Like it or not, you are one people now, in one small land from which we cannot depart for a long time yet. Try to think like that. Try to act like that…And take your time, because tomorrow stretches a long way.’ He relaxed then and moved away and tapped young Mark Gilman on the shoulder. ‘You come with me, young fellow. We’ll go look for a place to build our house …’
It was a relief to leave them with their fears and their jealousies and plunge into the green tangle that grew where once, centuries ago, the lava had broken through the lip of the crater and flowed down into a boiling sea. The vegetation was dense, the ground covered with a thick, spongy layer of rotting leaves and decaying tree trunks; but after a while they became aware of contours, a series of wide flat terraces, where giant bamboo and pandanus and fei trees and papaya, and red hibiscus and blue and green tapo-tapo thrust themselves up in wild profusion. The air was heavy and full of insects, and the sunlight filtered down through a thick lattice of leaves and branches and palm fronds. Sometimes they heard bird-calls and caught the iridescent flash of wings. When Thorkild reached up to pluck a plantain from the fei tree, a tiny fruit rat scuttled away from his touch.
The fourth terrace was wider than the others; and, as they hacked their way across it, Thorkild’s foot caught under a projecting stone and he fell forward, clouting his shoulder on the trunk of a large tree. He recovered himself and bent to examine the obstacle. It was a long ledge of stone, overgrown with moss and fern. As he scraped away the growth he turned up a shard of pottery, large as his hand, with a curious reticulated pattern around the edge. He cleaned it carefully and showed it to the boy.
‘Look at this carefully Mark. It’s very important. What does it tell you?’
‘I don’t know. What is it Uncle Gunsmoke.’
‘Pottery. Lapita pottery – the oldest thing you find in the islands. This sort of thing was made and carried through the Pacific nearly a thousand years before Christ.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘That people lived here a long time ago. They made these terraces and planted them.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘I don’t know. They died out. They went away. But their memory remains in the memory of my people. The thing is, my boy, they lived here, just as we’re going to do. This is where we’ll build our first house – with these bamboos over there, and those palms – and we’ll plant our first garden around it. We’ll name it for you: Mark Gilman’s dwelling place. Go on, carve your name on that tree, while I chop out the first clearing. Then we’ll mark a path as we go back…’
‘Gee, Uncle Gunsmoke, there’s so much of everything. How will we ever get it cleared?’
‘Listen to me young Mark! There’s an old Chinese saying: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” That’s the step you need guts to make…How do we clear it? We cut one bush, then another, and another, until we’ve made room for a house and a garden. Then we’ll clear another terrace and another and by the time you’re a man the whole valley will be a garden.’
‘By the time I’m a man! You mean we’re going to be here that long?’
‘Well, if we want to get off, we have to build the kind of big boat my ancestors did. That takes time too. We have to find the trees and fell them, and clear a slide to get them down to the beach to work on them…Tell you what. Why don’t we pick out a tree or two on the way back?’
‘I’m scared, Uncle Gunsmoke. This place is creepy.’
‘Hold out your hand.’
The boy held out his hand and Thorkild laid the shard of pottery in his palm.
‘Look at that. Feel it. It’s pottery. A thing people make to hold food and water and liquor that makes them sing. Those are good things, happy things and we’re going to make Mark Gilman’s place happy too. Right?’
‘I guess…Can we go back now, please?’
They were waiting for him, uneasy at his absence, shamefaced at what they had to tell him. They had made Carl Magnusson their spokesman, and he delivered their verdict in his habitual blunt fashion:
‘… The discussion was free and open. The decision was unanimous. You are appointed leader. Molly Kaapu is the consort you asked for. However, no one was completely happy to have you rule absolutely in the old tribal way. We’re in a primitive situation, yes; but we’re twentieth-century people and all of us are scared of absolute power, even if it’s exercised for a common good. So we’ve appointed a council to advise and assist you. The council consists of five members: Charlie Kamakau, Peter André Lorillard, Franz Harsanyi, Ellen Ching and Martha Gilman. If the matter is in dispute, you and Molly Kaapu vote with the council. A majority decides the issue. We review the whole situation in a common council from time to time. I am asked to say that your competence is not in question. The final issue was this: the community wished to set the terms by which co-operation and harmony could be best established and preserved. We all hope you will accept these terms. If you can’t, we’ll appoint someone else in your place. Please feel free to ask any questions of anyone.’
It was a strange mystic moment. The mana that he felt within himself was challenged by another, not hostile but more potent, an emanation from other gods, other high ones, out of other histories. He could fight it or he could acknowledge it and in so doing receive part of it into himself. The outcome of conflict would be disaster, a worm eating at the rooftrees of their small new world. He waited, trying to measure the cost and the consequence of his first, critical surrender. Finally he announced calmly enough:
‘I’d like to ask questions first.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘If a matter is decided by me and the council agrees it, will you all obey?’
‘Yes.’ The answer was a unanimous murmur.
‘Will you enforce obedience on one another?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you agree to communicate openly, either directly to me or through the council, any problems or objections, and to refrain from forming cliques or cabals among yourselves?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you consent that our labour, and the fruits of it and anything we possess or may possess, be regarded as a common trust for the good of us all?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that the only privilege of any person shall be that dictated by need?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. What you have just done is set down the law by which we undertake to live. Do you all understand it in that sense?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then on that understanding, I accept to lead you and to hold myself accountable.’
They cheered him then and came crowding around to shake his hand and wish him well and make their private fealties. After a few moments he silenced them and held up the piece of pottery he had found on the upland terrace.
‘See this! It is a piece of Lapita pottery that Mark and I found up the hill. Understand what it means. Other people did live here long ago. The fruits they planted have reproduced themselves. We can cultivate them again. We’ll clear the terraces and build houses and make gardens. That will take time. So, first, we build ourselves a house down here near the beach. There’s bamboo for the frames and palm thatch for the roof and the walls. Everyone can help but Carl, and two people for the fishing and two for gathering food on the land. Peter Lorillard and Charlie Kamakau will organize the work parties. Molly, you come with me. You too Carl. Get ’em started Charlie! I’d like to see us in shelter before sunset…’
Carl Magnusson was in distress. His limp was more pronounced. His shoulder ached with every movement. His face was grey and his breathing laboured. They propped him against a palm-bole and sprawled on the sand beside him. He told them, painfully:
‘… I’ve had some rough meetings in my time – proxy fights, board-room wrangles, injunction proceedings – but today’s parley was the roughest of all. Everything boiled up at once – race, religion, political attitudes, personal prejudices. Even the ones wh
o supported you had fears and reservations. The tribal idea was new and sometimes repugnant. They didn’t like the thought of rules and orders. They wanted a kind of round-table religious dedication, a hierarchy based on talent, a benevolent anarchy. We arrived at a compromise, but we spilt blood trying to get it. If you hadn’t accepted, Gunnar, we might have had bad trouble.’
‘Be sure of it. We’ll still get trouble,’ said Molly Kaapu dolefully.
‘What sort of trouble?’ Thorkild asked the question. ‘Don’t they understand we’ve got to pull together?’
‘Sure they do – with their heads. But past their heads and down to their toes they feel different. Look what we’ve got! Ten men and a boy – and Mr Magnusson here is out of the running. So that’s nine men. Other side we’ve got eight women – one pregnant and me too fat and old for a man to fancy. That’s nine to six. Bad enough. Then there’s Mister Lorillard that doesn’t like you, and Martha Gilman that’s jealous of Mrs Anderton and Simon Cohen that’s hot for the Japanese girl but she wants Castillo and Castillo’s got his cap set for Ellen Ching and Charlie Kamakau’s wife who needs more than Charlie gives her – and Tioto that’s lost his friend and thinks he’d like to try girls again…Put ’em all in one little house on one little island, you got trouble with a capital “T”. You’re fine, Kaloni. You’re the big chief. You got your own woman. Mrs Gilman goes to Lorillard…The rest you shake up in the box and they never come out even.’
