Chapter V
Table of Contents The Augustuses had notified us that on the fifteenth of February there would be a birthday feast at Matauea to celebrate Susanna's unhappy appearance on the mundane scene. This meant nauseous heaps of half-cooked pork, scraggly fowls, tari, and coconuts, with perhaps one of those poisonous things that Susanna calls "cakes." But luckily, at 9 p.m. the night before, a vessel's lights were sighted to southward.
Desire and I saw the lights while we were walking on the outer beach, and, because we were close to Matauea, we hurried there to tell the Augustuses the news-then we leaped back into the shadows, appalled by the scene that followed. Have you ever seen a stampeding herd of cattle "milled"-that is, driven so they move like a whirlpool? That is what our casually stated, "There's a big steamer in the offing," did to the Augustuses. They started milling, noisily, like a panic-stricken herd of cattle. They lost contact with the familiar realities of the Danger Island world.
"Don't forget to ask them for some banana extract!" Mrs. Augustus shrieked while her long-legged, self-important husband rushed to the cookhouse, forgot what he had gone there for, thought of something in the sleeping house, rushed there, then recalled what he wanted in the cookhouse but forgot what he had returned to the sleeping house for.
"And bring some butter ashore by the first boat!" Susanna screamed at her distracted husband. "I got to make them some scones for tea tomorrow, and I got to have butter, because white people would despise us if we didn't have butter, and I know they will despise us, because white people always have butter on their tea, and you'll forget all about the banana extract...Oh, Horatio, you're such a trial, and here I am now, and can't find your store teeth!" And so on, while Horatio flew panting to the canoe, started stepping the mast, then joined Susanna in hunting for his false teeth, forgot them, and hurried to the end of the point to ascertain that the vessel was still there.
Desire and I, back in the shadows, snickered sardonically.
Somehow-God knows how!-they left Matauea for the main islet at about 11 p.m.; but when they were halfway across the lagoon Horatio found he had forgotten his teeth, so back they came to Matauea, remembered what they had come for, and at 1 A.M. started a second time for the main islet.
Next morning Desire and four of her sisters-Tangi, Vaevae, Pati, and Tili -sailed the Honorable Ropati to the main islet. Araipu was waiting for us on the beach. He told us the strange vessel was H.M.S. Percival, and scarcely had he mispronounced the name when the stirring music of a military band came crashing on our ears!
Sons of Adam! We caught our breath! We turned our eyes! Desire squealed! Tili started crying! Every pig and fowl on the island dashed for the bush! Down the road of Central Village marched a military band!
I was simply flabbergasted-let it go at that!
With a drum major leading, the band marched four abreast. The clarion notes of the cornets pierced the foliage of coconut trees; the shrill piping of the piccolo roused even old Mr. Scratch from his sleeping mat. The umph pom-pom of the tuba caused scores of miscarriages among the village hens quaking in the magnolia bushes. The boom of the big bass drum silenced completely the lonely rumble of combers on the barrier reef! A military band marching down the road of Central Village! Never had such a spectacle been dreamed of. The people were dumfounded. Men, women, and children stared with stupefied eyes, their mouths open.
I came to my senses with Desire standing behind me, supporting me. She said later that she had been afraid I would fall over backward like the man in the comic paper. When the band had passed, the music had stopped, and only the snare drum rattled its tap, tap tap tap, tap-tap tap, Desire had again to support me. Following the band came a crowd of officers and men from His Majesty's ship, led by Honorable Horatio himself, and beside Honorable Horatio a perfectly spherical man, red-faced, perspiring like a tropic squall, continually mopping his face with a big handkerchief from which he would now and again wring the sweat. It was Honorable Tibbitts, I learned later, but even then I knew he was a politician.
A few steps behind Honorable Tibbitts scuttled Deacon Bribery, stubbing his toes and wobbling from side to side, his eyes riveted on the politician's cigar. Deacon knew that soon the precious perfecto would be tossed away, and Deacon was determined to pounce on it before that old fellow Scratch got it.
When the lot of them had passed, Araipu looked at me with an expression of imbecile bewilderment, but he did not trust himself with words. Then we were brought to our senses by Desire, "Come, Ropati," she said in a thin, shaky little voice, "we'll go to the govemment shed and see what it's all about."
So we walked across the islet to the government residence and arrived there in time to see Honorable Tibbitts shaking hands with everybody, slapping backs right and left, and to hear him saying nice things about the babies, the coconuts, and the island in general. It was like old times: I could fancy myself at a county election in Fresno.
Presently the Danger Islanders gave the foreigners the usual presents of mats, hats, fans, and pearl-shell hooks, and Tibbitts presented the school children with three tins of hard candy. Then Tibbitts made a long speech which Horatio, nervous, stiff, stern-eyed, his ego exalted to the sky, translated. Susanna buzzed about; Araipu pressed his eyeballs back in their sockets; Ropati calmly smoked a cigarette.
The neighbors seemed scarcely aware of the startling events taking place under their eyes. They stared this way and that, mouths open, brows perplexed. Now and again a Village Father would note some minute personal detail and straightway make a pointed remark, as: "He's got a wart on his nose!" Or Deacon Bribery-as he cut a slice from the dry end of the perfecto and jammed it in his pipe-would mention casually: "His pants aren't buttoned!" Or the roughneck village girls would talk about sexy things, and giggle, and plan how they could make dates with husky sailor boys. But that was as far as their cognizance led them. Luckily only I among the whites could appreciate the exquisite humor of the neighbors.
In Honorable Tibbitts' speech he told us the government was establishing wireless stations on all the outposts of progress. "Aye, even on Danger Island-even now, this very day!" And with a sweep of his stumpy arm he pointed to a heap of packing cases, on one of which sat a flashily dressed native of the Lower Islands, presumably the wireless operator.
"Wireless telegraphy will be a great blessing to the palm-encrusted isles of the Southern Sea," Tibbitts told us, "a great blessing to the brown brothers, so happy, so free from the trials and tribulations of the outside world!" Smiling beatifically, Tibbitts stated that the government had donated thousands of pounds to send this great and beautiful warship. "And even now," he claimed, his voice bathetic, "your white brothers are tossing on their sleeping mats, harassed over the plight of the poor Danger Islanders, so happy and free from care, who have no wireless communication with the outside world. But your white brothers will weep with joy and relief"-and here Tibbitts shed a tear by way of illustration--"when they learn that even the last outpost is blessed with that marvelous creation of the intellect of modem man-wireless telegraphy!"
Through force of habit Tibbitts paused here to give the neighbors an opportunity to applaud, but as none of them had ever heard of that manner of recognizing forceful oratory he covered his confusion with an "Ahem!", delivered another neat peroration, and then followed Horatio to the banquet hall.
He had to pay for his blarney by eating great gobs of Susanna's nauseous birthday feast, but there was a spark of heroism in him: he ate with a semblance of heartiness and even made an after-dinner speech in which, incidentally, he repeated his former one.
The neighbors were regaled with music, but it did not harmonize with the primitive background. The stirring march, the seductive waltz, the frisky mazurka made us laugh. We felt a sort of vicarious humiliation because of the humiliation we believed the bandsmen must be feeling, and because of this we gave each musician a pandanus-leaf hat as a solace for his failure to lift us on the wings of song.
While the band played, the politician drank tea and shook hands, the Augustuses dashed every which way without the slightest idea which way they were dashing, I assorted some of the mail and made the acquaintance of Pure, the wireless operator. Then the navigating officer of Percival suggested that I go aboard with him and "have a spot."
Now, "friends" have been quoted as stating that I am both irresponsible and incapable of sustained exertion. These "friends" should have seen me aboard the great warship-after the spot. God knows how I got through with everything. There, being a dentist aboard, I went to him as soon as I was through with the navigating officer. He was a very young and pleasantly ingenuous dentist. Like all dentists, he asked me questions when my mouth was full of things. Why do dentists invariably ask-"What is your opinion of the European crisis?" when one's mouth is full of lint, mirrors, cotton wool, rubber gadgets, instruments, and fingers? Are they sadists? If so, do they not derive enough vicious pleasure from drilling into nerves and pulling the wrong teeth without adding to their depraved satisfaction by observing the poor fool trying to reply courteously when his mouth is full...
