Benbow’s Return—The Old Blackbirder at Home—The Broaching of the Rum Barrel—A Musical Evening—Benbow and his Daughter—Fatherly Discretion

FOR several days Grimes and I sweated away unloading a schooner that arrived from Papeete with stores and lay in Hatiaeu Bay. Being cashless, we were obliged to work at times. The heat was terrific. I wore white duck pants, a dirty shirt and a native hat made out of a banana leaf, and we both looked like sunburnt niggers. One night as we crept home along the Broom Road, dying for a drink—for we’d been working in the schooner’s coal hold—we heard sounds of wild revelry issuing from the grog shanty. Waylao’s father, Benbow, was back in Tai-o-hae!

The fun had commenced, and the shellbacks had welcomed him home like a lot of expectant, ragged schoolboys.

Benbow was something of a Captain Kidd. I have kept his correct name back, but it will not hurt his posthumous reputation to say that he had been one of the old-time blackbirders, and he was indeed a wonder, if half of his yarns about himself were true. He was a burly, typical Britisher, with a big beard of reddish hue, fiery, like his temper, and very expressive-looking eyes.

Though the shellbacks and derelicts of those days congregated eagerly in that little parlour of his snug homestead, they trembled in their sea-boots when he roared at one hint of contradiction. Yet a kind word at the critical moment made those blue, steely eyes of his soften. He was the biggest bluffer I’ve ever met.

Benbow gave me twenty dollars to go to his place and play the fiddle, so I know all about his idiosyncrasies. I think I would have accepted the job if only for the fun of the entertainment. That old cottage fairly shook on those spree nights. Should one rash member of that convivial, unshaved troop express doubt of his host’s word, the great Tai-o-hae gathering became plunged into the deepest gloom.

It is recorded in the Tai-o-hae annals of beachcomberism how the great meeting of shellbacks at a certain date of the year had been suddenly dispersed in the very midst of a glorious beano. Like the voice of Doom, Benbow had yelled forth his fierce invectives. Men still live in those parts who can recall how the echoes of the night hills recorded, like some mighty gramophone, the voice of their exasperated host.

“Shiver me timbers! You doubt me? By God! Eh? You doubt me? You dare, you son of a b—— nigger!” Then would come the final crash, as, lifting old Lydia’s family heirloom—a war-club—he would strike the rim of the mighty keg of rum, the bung of the barrel of fiery liquor that had been specially broached to celebrate his return home. One more crash and the bung was driven into the head. Ere the awestruck, broken-hearted shellbacks rose and filed out into the homeless night, they would gaze pathetically in silent appeals. Benbow was relentless. Out into the night they would go, muttering deadly imprecations on the one who had doubted Benbow and so brought unutterable sorrow on their heads.

But often the winds of Fate blew fair, and the cottage in the hills trembled with ribald song, as, with his red, bushy beard shaking, Benbow sat enthroned in his old arm-chair. Behind him the old grandfather clock merrily ticked, as he yelled forth some chantey:

Then would come the chorus from a choir of wrinkled, pulsing, groggy throats as those ragged, sunburnt shellbacks clinked their rum mugs. Those derelicts would roar forth glorious toasts to the glory of the most highest—Benbow—as eyes looked into “eyes that spake again, and all went merry” in Tai-o-hae. Old Lydia steamed from head to feet as she shot to and fro replenishing the rum mugs. Father O’Leary would hear “the sounds of revelry by night” in the distance, lift his arms to the sky and say: “Oh, those white men!”

I know it nearly broke the drums of my ears the first time Grimes and I responded to the invitation. They sang Blow the Man Down that night, and the ancient sea-song reminded me of my first voyage on a sailing ship. It is a melody that seems to mysteriously express in a few bars the true atmosphere of ocean life. As those old shellbacks sang it, in their inimitable style, I fancied I saw the old wooden ships going down the English Channel when the world was young. I saw the old sailors singing that capstan song as they toiled. I saw their bearded, crooked-nosed faces shine in the moonlight as they climbed aloft, disappeared among the wide grey canvas sails, and vanished in the sky a hundred years ago.

It was only when the night grew old, when Benbow’s fist struck the table with indisputable conviction, and all the assemblage enthusiastically believed his yarn that their songs resembled chaos.

Some banged mugs on the table, others thumped the floor with their sea-boots, as their bearded throats roared out the choruses. No barbarian cataclysm of joyous sound could outrival that pandemonium of jangled melody. It resembled the steam-organ of a circus roundabout with the pipes at full blast and out of tune. It seemed that the stops, the bassoons, clarionets, double basses, horns, sopranos, cymbals, bagpipes, drums, faint tinkles of the banjo and weird piston-rods of sound still crashed forth, toiling on in some terrible ensemble as the great musical engine broke down.

Ye gods! it was a pandemonium! Grimes and I stood at the door seeking fresh air that night. We couldn’t stand it.

The natives came creeping across the hills. They heard that singing from afar. Those awestruck Marquesans looked like happy ghosts as they crept beneath the moonlit bread-fruit trees and listened. What did they think of it, the great white man’s barbarian festival?

“Go it, allee samee nicee!” said one great tattooed warrior from Anahao when Grimes gave him a bit of tabak (tobacco).

Once more the roof of Benbow’s cottage vibrated as the chorus of I owe Ten Shillings to O’Grady struck the silence of those South Sea hills. In the middle of the songs came the hubbub of various calls for rum, terrible oaths and enthusiastic encores. It sounded like some mighty gramophonic record coming on telegraph wires through the earth’s centre, rumbling and humming from far-off civilisation, from the other side of the globe, ay, from London town itself, as the thousand echoes struck the silent hills of heathendom. The native children also flocked across the slopes. Standing on their curly heads, they clapped their tiny hands, and fairly screamed with ecstatic delight as they shouted “Joranna!” One little dusky beggar, who was stone blind, but had ears, wrung his tiny hands, and ran round and round under the moonlit coco-palms. I saw his little tawny face gleam with joy in the moonlight as once again came the thunder of that jovial chorus:

(Here came tremendous crashes of sea-boots, thumping mugs, and shouts of “Go it, you b—— son of a sea-cook!” Crash! Thump! Then a howl of extreme delight as old mother Lydia lifted her chemise and danced!)

“He wants me to pawn the grand piano!” came the second verse, followed by the “Ta! Ra! Ra! Ra! Ra!”

No living musician, no Wagner of wordy mirth could describe the expressive thunder of that final “Ta! Ra! Ra! Ra!”

“It’s glorious, Grimes,” said I. “Listen to the echoes of advancing civilisation, the echoes of the ghostly footfalls of the coming tramp of white men, salvation armies, bands of hope, the advance guard of the great unwashed! Hear it, Grimes? It’s the sound of the great sign of the London Cross arriving under the Southern Cross, that cross up there inscribed in gold letters across the vault of infinity—the oldest cross in existence.”

By this time the natives had commenced to dance on the hills. Though they had been converted, they forgot their vows and joined in with the white man’s hilarity. I saw their legs go up in the moonlight! They looked so happy. The very sight of those handsome, tattooed men and fine-looking Marquesan girls inspired me. I turned to Grimes and rattled off ex tempore:

I can see Grimes’s grin in the moonlight now. The tune was fine. Of course I didn’t mean it exactly as I sang it. Nor is there any need to explain what I really meant. No one but a fool would suggest that missionaries and men who strive to do their best are not a thousand times better than the millions who are not missionaries.

Dear old Grimes! Writing in this strain brings back the old memories.

I often dressed him up, lent him a white collar and nice clean tie, and very well he looked. It’s true that when I took him to the Presidential Ball, given by the French commissionaires at Papeete, he got drunk, disgraced me, went on his knees before the President’s wife, kissed her hand, and murmured “Vivy L’ImpÉratrice.” I must admit she was a fascinating creature. He cried afterwards and begged my forgiveness. But there! my memories of the hallowed Grimes are too sacred to recall his little failings.

But to return to the home-coming of Benbow. As I have said, there was a terrible rumpus when he arrived. He came to the grog shanty ere he went up to his home, accompanied by Ken-can, his chief mate, who had a face like a death’s-head and on his lips a sinister, everlasting grin.

Ken-can was a mystery, and, God knows, he looked one. They even hinted in the shanty that he had once been a hangman in Sydney. Be that as it may, no one on earth knew why Benbow liked, or even tolerated, that shadow-like, silent figure by his side. He seldom spoke, his eyes seemed always staring, as though he knew his destiny, and moved towards it with a grin. He looked and behaved, for all the world, like a peaked-capped, ragged, walking scarecrow, watching over old Benbow and striving to frighten off his jolly pals. He would stand at the shanty door while Benbow drank, waiting like some Nemesis. When Benbow was in his homestead, and the shellbacks roared forth their songs, that ragged figure would stand before the door, staring at the stars. Waylao would run by him half scared out of her wits, as if he were a ghost.

He roused my curiosity, and one night as he stood outside the shanty staring up at the heavens I asked him for a match, put out my hand to receive it, and lo! I touched nothing—the figure, that sardonic face, had vanished.

“Rum,” you say. Well, perhaps you haven’t lived near Tai-o-hae. It may have been a joke of Ken-can’s; he knew that we discussed him, and called him “that mystery.” He looked unearthly enough for a joke of any subtle kind.

Well that night when the beachcombers were sitting in Benbow’s snug parlour roaring forth song in the good old style, while their host was reviving his wonderful tales of his good old blackbirding days, Waylao crept out of the forest, returning from her tryst. The sounds of that rollicking chorus told her that her father was home from sea. She was trembling, for she had just crossed the hollows where the officials had but a few days before found a dead convict, an escape with gyves still gripping his cold wrists. As the girl approached her home she saw that everlasting figure, Ken-can, standing at the door, pointing with his finger to the stars. His shadow on the moonlit taro patch by the door was the first hint of his presence to Waylao. That shadow stood erect in the moonlight, magnified on the mossy slope in front of the brightly lit parlour window. Even the bearded faces of the shellbacks, lifting mighty shadow rum mugs to their lips, were distinctly visible on that little slope outside.

Waylao crept by Ken-can with her face half averted; like a terror-stricken child she rushed by him, entered the doorway and nearly fell into her mother’s arms. I could easily understand Waylao’s fright, for I had often felt that way myself, in the dark. Old Benbow embraced his daughter. His pride at seeing her developed beauty was immense. He held her in his arms as he sat there in the old chair surrounded by his ragged, impecunious courtiers. Old Lydia opened her mouth with astonishment and pride as Benbow told of his wonderful deeds.

Grimes became quite sentimental as he gazed at Waylao: it was he who suggested that the crew should arise and drink her health. His voice, as he sang beside me, sounded quite sweet as he joined in each old English song that the wild men of the sea yelled.

Benbow ordered Waylao out of the room ere he began to tell the latest Tahitian love stories. He prided himself on being a wise and just parent. “Mates,” he said, as he gave a knowing wink, “it’s best to keep such tales from young ears, and so let a girl remain innocent of such ribaldry.”

Grimes and I saw her that night. We were just off home to the hulk when she came out of the little room. Grimes hiccupped, and gave her a flower, falling forward gallantly on one knee and kissing her hand as he presented the innocent gift. Waylao looked very pleased, as I held Grimes’s arm tightly and helped him away, and she waved her hand till we got out of sight. When I look back and reflect, I feel how much better it would have been for her to have died that night, so dark was the morrow and the many morrows to come.

In a week Benbow had sailed away; he was off to New Caledonia. The rum barrel was empty, and the shellbacks were blessing his name for all the joy he had brought them.

After that night Grimes and I secured a berth on a tramp steamer. We went to Honolulu and to Samoa on a trip that lasted three months.

When we returned things were much about the same. Many of the old faces were still there. Some had left and had been replaced by others who were as wonderful in their way as my former friends. Uncle Sam was delighted to see me again. The old Scotsman’s face beamed with pride as Grimes treated them all to saloon drinks, and Mrs Ranjo put on her holiest smile and even blushed at times. Of course one must bear in mind that I seldom drank strong liquor. I have explained that this one virtue of mine was due to a weak stomach. But it was no good offering those old shellbacks religious tracts and olive oil to make them smile. I wanted to see them happy, and so I had to treat them to the juice of the grape: it was the golden key to the temples of their dreams.