Thirsty Island

by Banjo Paterson

　　

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Travellers approaching a bush township are sure to find some distancefrom the town a lonely public-house waiting by the roadsideto give them welcome. Thirsty (miscalled Thursday) Islandis the outlying pub of Australia.When the China and British-India steamers arrive from the Norththe first place they come to is Thirsty Island, the sentinel at the gateof Torres Straits. New chums on the steamers see a fleetof white-sailed pearling luggers, a long pier clustered with a hybrid crowdof every colour, caste and creed under Heaven, and at the back of it alla little galvanized-iron town shining in the sun.For nine months of the year a crisp, cool south-east wind blows,the snow-white beach is splashed with spray and dotted withthe picturesque figures of Japanese divers and South Sea Island boatmen.Coco-nut palms line the roads by the beach, and back of the townare the barracks and a fort nestling among the trees on the hillside.Thirsty Island is a nice place -- to look at.When a vessel makes fast the Thirsty Islanders come downto greet the new-comers and give them welcome to Australia.The new-chums are inclined to patronise these simple, outlying people.Fresh from the iniquities of the China-coast cocktailand the unhallowed orgies of the Sourabaya Club, new-chums think they havelittle to learn in the way of drink; at any rate, they haven't comeall the way to Thursday Island to be taught anything. Poor new-chums!Little do they know the kind of people they are up against.The following description of a night at Thursday Island is taken froma new-chum's note book:"Passed Proudfoot shoal and arrived at Thursday Island.First sight of Australia. Lot of men came aboard, all called Captain.They are all pearl-fishers or pilots, not a bit like the bushmenI expected. When they came aboard they divided into parties. Some invadedthe Captain's cabin; others sat in the smoking room; the rest crowdedinto the saloon. They talked to the passengers about the Boer War,and told us about pearls worth 1000 pounds that had been found lately."One captain pulled a handful of loose pearls out of a jarand handed them round in a casual way for us to look at.The stewards opened bottles and we all sat down for a drink and a smoke.I spoke to one captain -- an oldish man -- and he grinned amiably,but did not answer. Another captain leaned over to me and said,`Don't take any notice of him, he's boozed all this week.'"Conversation and drink became general. The night was very hot and close,and some of the passengers seemed to be taking more than was good for them.A contagious thirst spread round the ship, and before long the stewardsand firemen were at it. The saloon became an inferno of drink and sweatand tobacco smoke. Perfect strangers were talking to each otherat the top of their voices."Young MacTavish, who is in a crack English regiment,asked the captain of a pearling lugger whether he didn't knowTalbot de Cholmondeley in the Blues."The pearler said very likely he had met 'em, and no doubt he'd remembertheir faces if he saw them, but he never could remember names."Another passenger -- a Jew -- was trying to buy some pearls cheapfrom the captains, but the more the captains drank the less anxiousthey became to talk about pearls."The night wore on, and still the drinks circulated. Young MacTavishslept profoundly."One passenger gave his steward a sovereign as he was leaving the ship,and in half an hour the steward was carried to his berth in a fit --alcoholic in its origin. Another steward was observed openly drinkingthe passengers' whisky. When accused, he didn't even attemptto defend himself; the great Thursday Island thirst seemed to havecommunicated itself to everyone on board, and he simply HAD to drink."About three in the morning a tour of the ship disclosed the followingstate of affairs: Captain's room full of captains solemnly tight;smoking-room empty, except for the inanimate form of the captainwho had been boozed all the week, and was now sleeping peacefullywith his feet on the sofa and his head on the floor. The saloon was fullof captains and passengers -- the latter mostly in a state of collapseor laughing and singing deliriously; the rails lined with firemenwho had business over the side; stewards ditto."At last the Thursday Islanders departed, unsteadily, but still ontheir feet, leaving a demoralized ship behind them. And young MacTavish,who has seen a thing or two in his brief span, staggered to his berth,saying, `My God! Is ALL Australia like this place?'"* * * * *When no ships arrive, the Islanders just drop into the pubs,as a matter of routine, for their usual evening soak.They drink weird compounds -- horehound beer, known as "lady dog",and things like that. About two in the morning they go home speechless,but still able to travel. It is very rarely that an Islander getshelplessly drunk, but strangers generally have to be put to bed.The Japanese on the island are a strong faction. They have a clubof their own, and once gave a dinner to mark the deathof one of their members. He was shrewdly suspected of having triedto drown another member by cutting his airpipe, so, when he died,the club celebrated the event. The Japanese are not looked upon with favorby the white islanders. They send their money to Japan --thousands of pounds a year go through the little office in money-orders --and so they are not "good for trade".The Manilamen and Kanakas and Torres Strait islanders,on the other hand, bring all the money they do not spendon the pearling schooner to the island, and "blow it in", like men.They knife each other sometimes, and now and again have to berun in wholesale, but they are "good for trade". The local lock-uphas a record of eighteen drunks run in in seven minutes.They weren't taken along in carriages-and-four, either;they were mostly dragged along by the scruff of the neck.Billy Malkeela, the South Sea diver, summed up the Japanese question --"Seems to me dis Islan' soon b'long Japanee altogedder.One time pa-lenty rickatta (plenty regatta), all same Isle of Wight.Now no more rickatta. All money go Japan!"An English new-chum made his appearance there lately --a most undefeated sportsman. He was put down in a diving dressin about eight feet of water, where he bubbled and struggled aboutin great style. Suddenly he turned, rushed for the beach,and made for the foot of a tree, which he tried to climbunder the impression that he was still at the bottom of the ocean.Then he was hauled in by the life-line.The pearlers thought to get some fun out of him by giving himan oyster to open in which they had previously planted a pearl;he never saw the pearl and threw the oyster into the scupperswith the rest, and the pearlers had to go down on all foursand grope for that pearl among the stinking oysters. It was funny --but not in the way they had intended.The pearlers go out in schooners called floating stations(their enemies call them floating public-houses) and no man knowswhat hospitality is till he has been a guest on a pearling schooner.They carry it to extremes sometimes. Some pearlers were out in a lugger,and were passing by one of these schooners. They determinednot to go on board, as it was late, and they were in a hurry.The captain of the schooner went below, got his rifle and put two bulletsthrough their foresail. Then they put the helm down and went aboard;it was an invitation almost equivalent to a royal command.They felt heartily ashamed of themselves as they slunk up on deck,and the captain of the schooner eyed them reproachfully."I couldn't let you disgrace yourselves by passing my schooner," he said;"but if it ever happens again I'll fire at the deck. A man that wouldpass a schooner in broad daylight is better dead."There is a fort and garrison at Thirsty Island, but they are not needed.If an invading fleet comes this way it should be encouragedby every possible means to land at the island; the heat, the thirst,the horehound beer, and the Islanders may be trusted to do the rest.

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