Covered by the Sea: Surviving a Hurricane – Part 8
Lever Brothers, the giant English soap manufacturer, had leased Suwarrow from the New Zealand government in 1903 to grow gold-lipped pearl oysters in the sheltered lagoon, to extract guano deposited by the colonies of birds living on the motus, and to grow coconut palms for palm oil.[1] Termites are not native to Suwarrow, and one possible explanation for their presence is that they were inadvertently transported from Australia either in the soil or in the young coconut palms planted on the islets.
Only 14 years earlier, in 1889, Captain William Castle on the British warship HMS Rapid had landed on Suwarrow, then uninhabited, and claimed it for Queen Victoria. The previous year the major chiefs of Rarotonga had asked the British to make the Cook Islands a protectorate. In 1900, with England’s blessing, New Zealand annexed all the Cook Islands. Suwarrow, with its navigable but protected lagoon, had already been proclaimed a British Admiralty Reserve. Beyond its desirability as a naval anchorage, the atoll was considered a prime location for raising oysters for pearls and pearl shell. Thus the New Zealand government leased the lagoon to a succession of companies and individuals who endeavored to carry out aquaculture projects.
Suwarrow’s earliest recorded contact with the outside world occurred in 1814, when Lieutenant Mikhail Lazareff, from the Russian American Company’s ship the Suvorov, landed there on his way around the world. He named the atoll after his ship, which in turn had been named after a famous Russian general, Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov. The name was Anglicized by both the New Zealand and Cook Islands governments, and while Suwarrow was populated intermittently by small groups of oyster growers and copra cutters, for the most part it had slowly baked in isolation until the years just preceding the Second World War.
The hot, wet weather continued. Most of the men painted their ankles with kerosene to keep from being bitten by the mossies. Work dragged on but at a slightly slower pace. On December 7th they received startling news. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day the Allies, including New Zealand, declared war on Japan. Three days later they heard that the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse had been sunk off the coast of Malaya by Japanese warplanes.
Before December 7th the threats to New Zealand had come mostly from German raiders. Now the little country, with a population under three million, faced the possibility of not just a Japanese attack, but an invasion. The government and, indeed, the whole population were deeply worried.
On Suwarrow, the three New Zealanders were determined to do their part in the defense effort. The Manihikians may or may not have understood the extent of the threat. After all, the remote little island of Manihiki had not been threatened by anyone for eighty years. In the early 1860s Manihiki and some of the other northern islands were raided by the crews of Peruvian slave ships who abducted young men and women, relegating them to lives of slavery in Latin American mines or on plantations. Those who tried to fight or to escape were murdered. Whether the Suwarrow Manihikians equated the horrors perpetrated on their ancestors with the possibility of Japanese domination is not clear. Nonetheless, everyone participated in coastwatching.
Clark established schedules: During daylight hours all the men were supposed to take turns making a coastwatching circuit around the island at least every hour. Although this plan seems to have fallen by the wayside fairly rapidly, the men kept an eye on the horizon no matter what else they were doing.
On the 14th, Ellenden remarked in his diary, “Hear news that Xmas passenger rail traffic restricted in N.Z. over 100 miles.” Clearly, the war was affecting the lives of people even in far-off New Zealand.
On December 21 and 22 the men received “Xmas greetings” from Rarotonga and Wellington. Ellenden prepared messages to send to his family. He did not mention that any were to be sent for anyone else.
Neither Clark nor Ellenden reported any celebrations or gift-giving on Christmas Day. And no prayer service either. Two roosters were served for tea, however. Ellenden also notes that a large sea was running, the biggest waves he had ever seen while on the island.
On the 29th Nahora caught a 200-pound turtle. He had to “walk it” up the beach because it was too big to fit in his canoe. Jimmy cut up the turtle into steaks and cooked some on the grill. Everyone had been looking for Cambridge and the Taipi, which was long overdue from the northern islands. The Manihikians especially were upset that its arrival was delayed. Perhaps they were expecting Christmas greetings and gifts from their families. The weather continued to be very hot, with temperatures in the nineties and humidity that approximated a steam bath.
Unlike Christmas, New Year’s Eve was cause for celebration. Ellenden notes, “boys kill a pig this morning − some job.” The festivities got underway about seven that evening. According to Ellenden, “Boys holding a midnight supper. We congregate in the kai house − play cards, draughts, dominoes and drink beer. I sample pandanus [beer] − very potent. Midnight we have big Kai [feed], etc, and all revelry to see the New Year in − Boys take it very seriously.”[2]
Appropriately, the next day Mrs. Trenn, the remaining female goat, ushered in the New Year by giving birth. Ellenden helped her by following medical advice he received over the radio. Still no sign of the Taipi.
Finally, on January 10, they sighted the long-awaited vessel off the reef, and on the following day, when she actually made it into the lagoon, she brought with her surprises that would turn their orderly world upside down.
[1] Coconut meat is extracted from the shell, then either sun-dried or dried over a fire to produce copra. The copra is transported to a refining station, where it is squeezed in large presses to produce coconut oil, a traditional soap base.
[2] The midnight supper that Ellenden refers to was a traditional Polynesian feast called an umakai, which means food – usually a pig or big fish – cooked underground. A large fire is built and chunks of coral are placed on the coals. Another fire is built over the coral. When the coals have died down, a layer of green leaves is placed over them. The pig, or fish, is laid on the leaves and another layer of leaves is placed over it. Then the pit is covered with sand and left for four or five hours while the meat slowly steams.