White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1929-08-30
CHAPTER XII
Castaways on a Coral Atoll

ed 1t on this beautiful, isolated coral
atoll in the middle of the Pacific. The
Imperial German flag of war flew from
the top Of the tallest palm. l was the
yiceroy, by chance and not by desire,
Of course, and my sailors and our pris-
oners were my subjects The only
visiting nationals from elsewhere were
the three Kanakas, the turtle catchers
'The White King of the Society Isle
of Mopelia," my mate facetiously
called me. One OF the Yankee cap
tains put it differently. He called me
1.-THE Sea Devil King Of the South
Seas" And he caustically described
our lovely isle as "a poisoned para
disc" Everybody was good humored,
despite our hard luck.
But our little South Sea colony
passed its first nights uneasily. For
sleeping places, we slung hammocks
between the palms. At intervals, a
coconut would fall from height OF
fifty or sixty feet and go whizzing
close by mans head. While our fell
low countrymen back in the cities
along the Rhine were complaining
about the night raids of the French
and British bombing squadrons. we
had our bombing problem also. II
didn't make much difference whether
you were bumped off with falling
coconut or failing bomb. The result
was ali the same. After one whizzed
by your ear, you would very likely
20 down to the open beach to quiet
your nerves. Then If you tried to
sleep there, the land crabs would soon
convince you that the beach was no
place for weary war veteran either.
Patrols of fighting marine crabs would
raid that beach every night After be-
ing chased out by the crabs, you
would 60 back to your hammock and
lie awake wondering when the next
aerial coconut bombardment would
commence. So life during those first
days on our tropic isle was not all
skittles and beer or orchids and COCO
nut milk. You can bet we worked
hard getting up huts! Luckily, there
were no casualties from either crabs
or coconuts.
We cleared a large space for our
village, and built huts out of timbers,
saicloth, and palm leaves. The first
one up was queer-looking thing, but
our architecture improved with prac-
tice. Our prisoners, who were all
Americans, helped US great deal.
They understood the art Of pitching
tents. They built a special town for
themselves, and gave the streets such
names as Broadway, State street,
Pennsylvania avenue, and the Bowery
In time we cOntrived to arrange quite
decent dwelling places. OF course, we
also installed our wireless set ashore
In order to keep In touch with passing
ships and events happening out on
this side of the world. Nor did we
neglect to take ashore heavy arsenal
of arms and ammunition, including
rifles, Luger pistols, hand grenades
and dynamite. In short, we had q
perfect little town with everything ex
cept calaboose. Some Of our men
who had romantic tendencies con
structed Country homes" for them
selves q few hundred yards away In
the jungle. Then we named the place
Seeadlerburg, Sea Eagle Town.
There we're gulls' eggs everywhere
along the shore, but the birds we're
brooding now. and most of the eggs
we collected had halfformed little
gulls in them. We got around this by
clearing q large section of beach and
throwing the old eggs into the lagoon.
Then the gulls focked back and laid
more eggs, and thus supply Of fresh
eggs was assured.
Our American prisoners we're nearly
all CHEEKY fellows. Some of them fit
ted in with the new life better than
my men. They seemed to know all
about the art of fishing, and taught Us
Germans things we had never dreamed
Of They we're accustomed to what In
the states along the Gulf of Mexico is
called spearing cells. They fastened
iron barbs to shafts of wood and with
these speared big fish in the coral Ia
COON.
They also showed Us q clever way
of catching fish on grand scale.
They took some forty men and boys
and, just as high tide was turning,
formed in line about fifty yards off
shore. Then the line came splashing
in driving the fish before 1t toward
shore, just as the natives round up
tigers for rajah In India. Many of
the fish houndered into shallow water
and few minutes later were left
stranded by the receding tide. You
see. the water, as 1t backed offshore,
left large pools on top of the irregu.
llr coral reef, and there the fish were
trnpped. Sometimes we caught five
or six hundred pounds day. and II
was exciting sport.
One night, while we were sitting
around our fire. we heard scratching
sound. 1t seemed to come from ev-
erywhere. We looked and found
lot of crabs with big claws. They
we're hermit crabs. We caught sev
eral and put them in boiling water to
cook. Meanwhile. the crab invasion
continued, and more from behind kept
pushing the rest forward We tried
the ones we had cooked. and they
were delicious They we're as good
as the hest lobster
"By Joe," ! said. boys. let's get
busy"
We spread out a large sail and filled
II up with crabs. like sack We
must have had several thousand of
them. For days we lived on them.