THE INEVITABLE WHITE MAN
"The black will never understand the white, nor the white the black,
as long as black is black and white is white."
So said Captain Woodward. We sat in the parlor of Charley Roberts' pub
in Apia, drinking long Abu Hameds compounded and shared with us by the
aforesaid Charley Roberts, who claimed the recipe direct from Stevens,
famous for having invented the Abu Hamed at a time when he was spurred
on by Nile thirst--the Stevens who was responsible for "With Kitchener
to Kartoun," and who passed out at the siege of Ladysmith.
Captain Woodward, short and squat, elderly, burned by forty years of
tropic sun, and with the most beautiful liquid brown eyes I ever saw
in a man, spoke from a vast experience. The crisscross of scars on his
bald pate bespoke a tomahawk intimacy with the black, and of equal
intimacy was the advertisement, front and rear, on the right side of
his neck, where an arrow had at one time entered and been pulled clean
through. As he explained, he had been in a hurry on that occasion--the
arrow impeded his running--and he felt that he could not take the time
to break off the head and pull out the shaft the way it had come in.
At the present moment he was commander of the SAVAII, the big steamer
that recruited labor from the westward for the German plantations on
Samoa.
"Half the trouble is the stupidity of the whites," said Roberts,
pausing to take a swig from his glass and to curse the Samoan bar-boy
in affectionate terms. "If the white man would lay himself out a bit
to understand the workings of the black man's mind, most of the messes
would be avoided."
"I've seen a few who claimed they understood niggers," Captain
Woodward retorted, "and I always took notice that they were the first
to be kai-kai'd (eaten). Look at the missionaries in New Guinea and
the New Hebrides--the martyr isle of Erromanga and all the rest. Look
at the Austrian expedition that was cut to pieces in the Solomons, in
the bush of Guadalcanar. And look at the traders themselves, with a
score of years' experience, making their brag that no nigger would
ever get them, and whose heads to this day are ornamenting the rafters
of the canoe houses. There was old Johnny Simons--twenty-six years on
the raw edges of Melanesia, swore he knew the niggers like a book and
that they'd never do for him, and he passed out at Marovo Lagoon, New
Georgia, had his head sawed off by a black Mary (woman) and an old
nigger with only one leg, having left the other leg in the mouth of a
shark while diving for dynamited fish. There was Billy Watts, horrible
reputation as a nigger killer, a man to scare the devil. I remember
lying at Cape Little, New Ireland you know, when the niggers stole
half a case of trade-tobacco--cost him about three dollars and a half.
In retaliation he turned out, shot six niggers, smashed up their war
canoes and burned two villages. And it was at Cape Little, four years
afterward, that he was jumped along with fifty Buku boys he had with
him fishing bêche-de-mer. In five minutes they were all dead, with the
exception of three boys who got away in a canoe. Don't talk to me
about understanding the nigger. The white man's mission is to farm the
world, and it's a big enough job cut out for him. What time has he got
left to understand niggers anyway?"
"Just so," said Roberts. "And somehow it doesn't seem necessary, after
all, to understand the niggers. In direct proportion to the white
man's stupidity is his success in farming the world--"
"And putting the fear of God into the nigger's heart," Captain
Woodward blurted out. "Perhaps you're right, Roberts. Perhaps it's his
stupidity that makes him succeed, and surely one phase of his
stupidity is his inability to understand the niggers. But there's one
thing sure, the white has to run the niggers whether he understands
them or not. It's inevitable. It's fate."
"And of course the white man is inevitable--it's the niggers' fate,"
Roberts broke in. "Tell the white man there's pearl shell in some
lagoon infested by ten-thousand howling cannibals, and he'll head
there all by his lonely, with half a dozen kanaka divers and a tin
alarm clock for chronometer, all packed like sardines on a commodious,
five-ton ketch. Whisper that there's a gold strike at the North Pole,
and that same inevitable white-skinned creature will set out at once,
armed with pick and shovel, a side of bacon, and the latest patent
rocker--and what's more, he'll get there. Tip it off to him that
there's diamonds on the red-hot ramparts of hell, and Mr. White Man
will storm the ramparts and set old Satan himself to pick-and-shovel
work. That's what comes of being stupid and inevitable."
"But I wonder what the black man must think of the--the
inevitableness," I said.
Captain Woodward broke into quiet laughter. His eyes had a reminiscent
gleam.
"I'm just wondering what the niggers of Malu thought and still must be
thinking of the one inevitable white man we had on board when we
visited them in the DUCHESS," he explained.
Roberts mixed three more Abu Hameds.
"That was twenty years ago. Saxtorph was his name. He was certainly
the most stupid man I ever saw, but he was as inevitable as death.
There was only one thing that chap could do, and that was shoot. I
remember the first time I ran into him--right here in Apia, twenty
years ago. That was before your time, Roberts. I was sleeping at Dutch
Henry's hotel, down where the market is now. Ever heard of him? He
made a tidy stake smuggling arms in to the rebels, sold out his hotel,
and was killed in Sydney just six weeks afterward in a saloon row.
"But Saxtorph. One night I'd just got to sleep, when a couple of cats
began to sing in the courtyard. It was out of bed and up window, water
jug in hand. But just then I heard the window of the next room go up.
Two shots were fired, and the window was closed. I fail to impress you
with the celerity of the transaction. Ten seconds at the outside. Up
went the window, bang bang went the revolver, and down went the
window. Whoever it was, he had never stopped to see the effect of his
shots. He knew. Do you follow me?--he KNEW. There was no more cat
concert, and in the morning there lay the two offenders, stone dead.
It was marvelous to me. It still is marvelous. First, it was
starlight, and Saxtorph shot without drawing a bead; next, he shot so
rapidly that the two reports were like a double report; and finally,
he knew he had hit his marks without looking to see.
"Two days afterward he came on board to see me. I was mate, then, on
the Duchess, a whacking big one-hundred-and fifty-ton schooner, a
blackbirder. And let me tell you that blackbirders were blackbirders
in those days. There weren't any government protection for US, either.
It was rough work, give and take, if we were finished, and nothing
said, and we ran niggers from every south sea island they didn't kick
us off from. Well, Saxtorph came on board, John Saxtorph was the name
he gave. He was a sandy little man, hair sandy, complexion sandy, and
eyes sandy, too. Nothing striking about him. His soul was as neutral
as his color scheme. He said he was strapped and wanted to ship on
board. Would go cabin boy, cook, supercargo, or common sailor. Didn't
know anything about any of the billets, but said that he was willing
to learn. I didn't want him, but his shooting had so impressed me that
I took him as common sailor, wages three pounds per month.
"He was willing to learn all right, I'll say that much. But he was
constitutionally unable to learn anything. He could no more box the
compass than I could mix drinks like Roberts here. And as for
steering, he gave me my first gray hairs. I never dared risk him at
the wheel when we were running in a big sea, while full-and-by and
close-and-by were insoluble mysteries. Couldn't ever tell the
difference between a sheet and a tackle, simply couldn't. The
fore-throat-jig and the jib-jig were all one to him. Tell him to slack
off the mainsheet, and before you know it, he'd drop the peak. He fell
overboard three times, and he couldn't swim. But he was always
cheerful, never seasick, and he was the most willing man I ever knew.
He was an uncommunicative soul. Never talked about himself. His
history, so far as we were concerned, began the day he signed on the
DUCHESS. Where he learned to shoot, the stars alone can tell. He was a
Yankee--that much we knew from the twang in his speech. And that was
all we ever did know.
"And now we begin to get to the point. We had bad luck in the New
Hebrides, only fourteen boys for five weeks, and we ran up before the
southeast for the Solomons. Malaita, then as now, was good recruiting
ground, and we ran into Malu, on the northwestern corner. There's a
shore reef and an outer reef, and a mighty nervous anchorage; but we
made it all right and fired off our dynamite as a signal to the
niggers to come down and be recruited. In three days we got not a boy.
The niggers came off to us in their canoes by hundreds, but they only
laughed when we showed them beads and calico and hatchets and talked
of the delights of plantation work in Samoa.
"On the fourth day there came a change. Fifty-odd boys signed on and
were billeted in the main-hold, with the freedom of the deck, of
course. And of course, looking back, this wholesale signing on was
suspicious, but at the time we thought some powerful chief had removed
the ban against recruiting. The morning of the fifth day our two boats
went ashore as usual--one to cover the other, you know, in case of
trouble. And, as usual, the fifty niggers on board were on deck,
loafing, talking, smoking, and sleeping. Saxtorph and myself, along
with four other sailors, were all that were left on board. The two
boats were manned with Gilbert Islanders. In the one were the captain,
the supercargo, and the recruiter. In the other, which was the
covering boat and which lay off shore a hundred yards, was the second
mate. Both boats were well-armed, though trouble was little expected.
"Four of the sailors, including Saxtorph, were scraping the poop rail.
The fifth sailor, rifle in hand, was standing guard by the water-tank
just for'ard of the mainmast. I was for'ard, putting in the finishing
licks on a new jaw for the fore-gaff. I was just reaching for my pipe
where I had laid it down, when I heard a shot from shore. I
straightened up to look. Something struck me on the back of the head,
partially stunning me and knocking me to the deck. My first thought
was that something had carried away aloft; but even as I went down,
and before I struck the deck, I heard the devil's own tattoo of rifles
from the boats, and twisting sidewise, I caught a glimpse of the
sailor who was standing guard. Two big niggers were holding his arms,
and a third nigger from behind was braining him with a tomahawk.
"I can see it now, the water-tank, the mainmast, the gang hanging on
to him, the hatchet descending on the back of his head, and all under
the blazing sunlight. I was fascinated by that growing vision of
death. The tomahawk seemed to take a horribly long time to come down.
I saw it land, and the man's legs give under him as he crumpled. The
niggers held him up by sheer strength while he was hacked a couple of
times more. Then I got two more hacks on the head and decided that I
was dead. So did the brute that was hacking me. I was too helpless to
move, and I lay there and watched them removing the sentry's head. I
must say they did it slick enough. They were old hands at the
business.
"The rifle firing from the boats had ceased, and I made no doubt that
they were finished off and that the end had come to everything. It was
only a matter of moments when they would return for my head. They were
evidently taking the heads from the sailors aft. Heads are valuable on
Malaita, especially white heads. They have the place of honor in the
canoe houses of the salt-water natives. What particular decorative
effect the bushmen get out of them I didn't know, but they prize them
just as much as the salt-water crowd.
"I had a dim notion of escaping, and I crawled on hands and knees to
the winch, where I managed to drag myself to my feet. From there I
could look aft and see three heads on top the cabin--the heads of
three sailors I had given orders to for months. The niggers saw me
standing, and started for me. I reached for my revolver, and found
they had taken it. I can't say that I was scared. I've been near to
death several times, but it never seemed easier than right then. I was
half-stunned, and nothing seemed to matter.
"The leading nigger had armed himself with a cleaver from the galley,
and he grimaced like an ape as he prepared to slice me down. But the
slice was never made. He went down on the deck all of a heap, and I
saw the blood gush from his mouth. In a dim way I heard a rifle go off
and continue to go off. Nigger after nigger went down. My senses began
to clear, and I noted that there was never a miss. Every time that the
rifle went off a nigger dropped. I sat down on deck beside the winch
and looked up. Perched in the crosstrees was Saxtorph. How he had
managed it I can't imagine, for he had carried up with him two
Winchesters and I don't know how many bandoliers of ammunition; and he
was now doing the one only thing in this world that he was fitted to
do.
"I've seen shooting and slaughter, but I never saw anything like that.
I sat by the winch and watched the show. I was weak and faint, and it
seemed to be all a dream. Bang, bang, bang, bang, went his rifle, and
thud, thud, thud, thud, went the niggers to the deck. It was amazing
to see them go down. After their first rush to get me, when about a
dozen had dropped, they seemed paralyzed; but he never left off
pumping his gun. By this time canoes and the two boats arrived from
shore, armed with Sniders, and with Winchesters which they had
captured in the boats. The fusillade they let loose on Saxtorph was
tremendous. Luckily for him the niggers are only good at close range.
They are not used to putting the gun to their shoulders. They wait
until they are right on top of a man, and then they shoot from the
hip. When his rifle got too hot, Saxtorph changed off. That had been
his idea when he carried two rifles up with him.
"The astounding thing was the rapidity of his fire. Also, he never
made a miss. If ever anything was inevitable, that man was. It was the
swiftness of it that made the slaughter so appalling. The niggers did
not have time to think. When they did manage to think, they went over
the side in a rush, capsizing the canoes of course. Saxtorph never let
up. The water was covered with them, and plump, plump, plump, he
dropped his bullets into them. Not a single miss, and I could hear
distinctly the thud of every bullet as it buried in human flesh.
"The niggers spread out and headed for the shore, swimming. The water
was carpeted with bobbing heads, and I stood up, as in a dream, and
watched it all--the bobbing heads and the heads that ceased to bob.
Some of the long shots were magnificent. Only one man reached the
beach, but as he stood up to wade ashore, Saxtorph got him. It was
beautiful. And when a couple of niggers ran down to drag him out of
the water, Saxtorph got them, too.
"I thought everything was over then, when I heard the rifle go off
again. A nigger had come out of the cabin companion on the run for the
rail and gone down in the middle of it. The cabin must have been full
of them. I counted twenty. They came up one at a time and jumped for
the rail. But they never got there. It reminded me of trapshooting. A
black body would pop out of the companion, bang would go Saxtorph's
rifle, and down would go the black body. Of course, those below did
not know what was happening on deck, so they continued to pop out
until the last one was finished off.
"Saxtorph waited a while to make sure, and then came down on deck. He
and I were all that were left of the DUCHESS'S complement, and I was
pretty well to the bad, while he was helpless now that the shooting
was over. Under my direction he washed out my scalp wounds and sewed
them up. A big drink of whiskey braced me to make an effort to get
out. There was nothing else to do. All the rest were dead. We tried to
get up sail, Saxtorph hoisting and I holding the turn. He was once
more the stupid lubber. He couldn't hoist worth a cent, and when I
fell in a faint, it looked all up with us.
"When I came to, Saxtorph was sitting helplessly on the rail, waiting
to ask me what he should do. I told him to overhaul the wounded and
see if there were any able to crawl. He gathered together six. One, I
remember, had a broken leg; but Saxtorph said his arms were all right.
I lay in the shade, brushing the flies off and directing operations,
while Saxtorph bossed his hospital gang. I'll be blessed if he didn't
make those poor niggers heave at every rope on the pin-rails before he
found the halyards. One of them let go the rope in the midst of the
hoisting and slipped down to the deck dead; but Saxtorph hammered the
others and made them stick by the job. When the fore and main were up,
I told him to knock the shackle out of the anchor chain and let her
go. I had had myself helped aft to the wheel, where I was going to
make a shift at steering. I can't guess how he did it, but instead of
knocking the shackle out, down went the second anchor, and there we
were doubly moored.
"In the end he managed to knock both shackles out and raise the
staysail and jib, and the Duchess filled away for the entrance. Our
decks were a spectacle. Dead and dying niggers were everywhere. They
were wedged away some of them in the most inconceivable places. The
cabin was full of them where they had crawled off the deck and cashed
in. I put Saxtorph and his graveyard gang to work heaving them
overside, and over they went, the living and the dead. The sharks had
fat pickings that day. Of course our four murdered sailors went the
same way. Their heads, however, we put in a sack with weights, so that
by no chance should they drift on the beach and fall into the hands of
the niggers.
"Our five prisoners I decided to use as crew, but they decided
otherwise. They watched their opportunity and went over the side.
Saxtorph got two in mid-air with his revolver, and would have shot the
other three in the water if I hadn't stopped him. I was sick of the
slaughter, you see, and besides, they'd helped work the schooner out.
But it was mercy thrown away, for the sharks got the three of them.
"I had brain fever or something after we got clear of the land.
Anyway, the DUCHESS lay hove to for three weeks, when I pulled myself
together and we jogged on with her to Sydney. Anyway those niggers of
Malu learned the everlasting lesson that it is not good to monkey with
a white man. In their case, Saxtorph was certainly inevitable."
Charley Roberts emitted a long whistle and said:
"Well I should say so. But whatever became of Saxtorph?"
"He drifted into seal hunting and became a crackerjack. For six years
he was high line of both the Victoria and San Francisco fleets. The
seventh year his schooner was seized in Bering Sea by a Russian
cruiser, and all hands, so the talk went, were slammed into the
Siberian salt mines. At least I've never heard of him since."
"Farming the world," Roberts muttered. "Farming the world. Well here's
to them. Somebody's got to do it--farm the world, I mean."
Captain Woodward rubbed the criss-crosses on his bald head.
"I've done my share of it," he said. "Forty years now. This will be my
last trip. Then I'm going home to stay."
"I'll wager the wine you don't," Roberts challenged. "You'll die in
the harness, not at home."
Captain Woodward promptly accepted the bet, but personally I think
Charley Roberts has the best of it.
