Memoirs of the Torres Straits

As a journalist my life was spent travelling the world and relaying the events or the people that I saw there. Journalism is not a career that should be pursued lightly; indeed a person must allow the work to engulf one’s life if one aspires to succeed.  The most frustrating part of being a journalist was that  rarely had the opportunity to state my true emotions and make my work subjective.  The following account is an extract from my memoirs, written on my return to Britain in 1953.  When the war ended in 1945 I left Prince Charles’ Island and stayed with my youngest brother near Sydney.  Whilst I was there I struggled with the aftermath of living in a destroyed community and, though few knew it, my consumption of alcohol became habitual.  However; after a while I realised that island life had taught me to put aside my own personal vices and instead consider the fear, sadness and joy of the entire village. I wrote as, and when, I could, though the wet weather and my lack of clothes often meant that my materials were lost.  However, in my heart I knew that the experiences here had to be taken down.  I attempted to use my mind as my notepad, taking every little detail into account.  This story is all of those memories put onto paper.  I am writing this as a reminiscent report to the effect of the Second World War on a people and culture so far away from our own in geography, if not in mannerisms.
         I was sent there in December of 1938 on a 2 year basis, to relay journals to my employer at The London Chronicle. The future of the war in the Pacific was to be determined by the fate of the Torres Strait Islands.  They were a key to the blast-door that divided Japanese Papua New Guinea and the allied Australia to the south. When war broke out in 1939 I decided to stay the course and report what I saw.  Japan threatened the serenity of the islands to try and secure them in order to carve a way into Australia and threaten the Allies’ assault on the Axis powers.  At the time I rather thought of myself as a courageous writer, such as the audacious young Winston Churchill. There were, however, some differences in our experiences.  Churchill faced capture from Boer fighters and constant physical threat.  There was no fighting front on Prince Charles’; no fox holes, no barbed wire, there were no foot soldiers to fear.  Fear was prevalent in the heavy air yet, none knew quite why and spread like a virus among the people.  Hitting first the old and the women, babe’s sensed their mother’s trepidation and the village was soon rife with tears.  Last to be hit were the older children, though many tried to stay brave.
The Torres Strait Islanders felt the effects of war from the moment Imperial Japan threatened their peaceful homes.  Of the small population, over 80% of the men had gone away to join the Australian army, a country that would not accept them as citizens of worth.  When I accompanied them to the barracks at Thompson Island (affectionately referred to as T-I) the colonel there said they were to be the first aboriginal troops to be allowed into the army.  After centuries of inter-island violence the warrior villages came together to fight for their own freedom, that of Australia and certainly the freedom of the modern world.  Indeed when I arrived at Prince Charles’ Island, threats of Head Hunters from other tribes was commonplace; as were hunting parties of my host tribe.  Their aggressive attitude and primitive looks directly contrasted their complex culture and sophisticated living standards.  Different, yet so inherently similar, I found myself bound between two civilisations.  The more time I spent with those intriguing people the more I found myself believing that wherever one finds oneself in the world one can be assured that several constants remain parallel.  Take, for instance, the warriors of a nation:  Aboriginal warriors that are now wearing khaki and firing rifles were long ago wearing feathers and fending off invaders with clubs of wood and stone.  Indeed, one is reminded of the Woad dye and crude steel weapons donned by our British ancestors that fought fiercely to fend off the Roman invaders.
         In the 1940’s a new era of war had hit both societies.  I found more analogous situations and corresponding events that led me to believe that all peoples are the same; regardless of continent or culture.  Watching the women work and complete everyday tasks I could sense the true apprehension of a far away war that binds its way into the intrinsic weave of fragile social systems.  All people work together under the village elders; of whom Magdalene was superlative; she became my mentor and my guide.  Her husband drowned in the coral blue ocean that provides so much life to these people, leaving Magdalene to lead the tribe by herself.  When asked if a white foreigner could impose himself upon a tribe, most islanders would struggle to find an interpreter and then to even consider agreeing to such terms would have been social suicide.  But not Magdalene; she was different.  As the chief elder she received the greatest respect and was warmly referred to as ‘Mother’ by all who knew her.  As a girl she had learnt English; although I cannot be sure where she had acquired the language.  She graciously accepted me into her tribe, but it took me an age to become even a shadow of an islander.  I learnt slowly from Mother as she learnt from me, each of us as thrilled as the other to siphon every last drop of information from one another.
Since joining the community I had tried to keep some distance between the locals and myself.  I could often be found alone on the beach, looking over the variety of vivid colours in the reflection of the water, they were ever changing due to the choppy surface.  I recall the deep, velvety navy blue that blended swiftly into warm golden, red specks.  I told myself that my intentions were to record the natural life without letting my English subjections tamper with the delicate lifestyle of the people I knew nothing about.  I now realise that in my youthfulness I had deceived myself.  I walked alone and spoke only to Magdalene to save myself from deeply changing the jingoistic and narrow views that twenty years of British education had instilled within me.
However; I learnt over the years that human experiences often parallel one another in times of war.  None of my values have changed so much as that of respect for the female gender.  When the men left to fight, the women found themselves plunged into a way of life to which they were not accustomed.  In the past hunting parties of the men had left for days on end, often leaving for up to a week.  Although it must be remembered that before the war the men would leave with the promise of meat; now there was no promise of meat, or even of return at all. 
The women of Britain stepped up commendably when the bugle of war called them to the WAF, WRENS or FANY.  They rose to the duty of working the fields of rural England or munitions factories of Coventry, London and Liverpool.  Their work on the home front helped secure the victory that people began to take for granted.  Similarly, on the island women were picking up the roles that had previously been left to the men of the village.  Women who had previously gathered bush peanut and yam soon found themselves manning the nets in the reefs and setting traps for fowl and rodents in the bush.
I noticed the effects of war were most visible on the children; whose smiles and ditties had all but vanished.  A select few of the younger ones hadn’t a clue of the severity that threatened their lives.  I spoke to those whom I could and managed to translate that all simply missed their fathers; enough, one thinks, to take away any smile for a period.  I had no family back in London, and very few friends.  I didn’t have to worry about evacuation and the like.  After the war I heard stories of villages that had been attacked by a frustrated Japanese dive-bomber after a failed mission.  I also heard of the events a tribe that held three families.  They were forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in the northernmost peak of their island.  I was shocked and slightly humbled to hear how the families learnt to live for the remainder of the war with little more than gathered ‘bush tucker’ and a small fire, lit at the most inconspicuous of times.  I could see comparisons to be made between the steps taken by these families and those of London, Liverpool or Coventry.  Although different in geography, I feel they are the same in culture.