An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Author's Note Introduction by Noel Barber PART ONE - The Years of Waiting Chapter 1: Wanderlust in the Sun Chapter 2: Shopping List for a Desert Island PART TWO - On the Island: October 1952 - June 1954 Chapter 3: The First Day Chapter 4: Alone at last Chapter 5: Fishing, Cooking - and Improvising Chapter 6: The Killing of the Wild Pigs Chapter 7: Gardening - and the Chicken "Farm" Chapter 8: My First Visitors Chapter 9: Down with Fever Chapter 10: The Pier - and the Great Storm Chapter 11: Saved by a Miracle Chapter 12: Farewell to the Island I TABLE OF CONTENTS PART THREE - Civilisation Again Chapter 13: Six Frustrating Years Chapter 14: Return to Suvarov PART FOUR - On the Island: April 1960 - December 1963 Chapter 15: Visitors by Helicopter Chapter 16: Five Hours in the Water Chapter 17: The Castaways Post Script Remembrance - by Kenneth R. Vogel (Reproduction from ISLANDS Magazine, Sept/Oct 1987) Post Post Script - Taori's Notes Stella’s Epilogue Island Photography II Author’s Note: An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale For George Moore Taggart III - My American Friend in The Old Tahiti Days My thanks are due to "Peb" Rockefeller who took the photographs opposite pages 68, 69, 125, and 126 in this book when he visited Suvarov in 1954. The remaining photographs were taken by Noel Barber and Chuck Smouse when they visited me for the Daily Mail in 1961, and my thanks are due to the Daily Mail, London, for permission to reproduce them. Author’s Note This is the story of six years which I spent alone, in two spells on an uninhabited coral atoll half a mile long and three hundred yards wide in the South Pacific. It was two hundred miles from the nearest inhabited island, and I first arrived there on October 7, 1952 and remained alone (with only two yachts calling) until June 24, 1954, when I was taken off ill after a dramatic rescue. I was unable to return to the atoll until April 23, 1960 and this time I remained alone until December 27, 1963. Tom Neale Tahiti and Rarotonga, 1964-1965 - 1 - An Island to Oneself: INTRODUCTION by Noel Barber For four rough days I had sailed due east from Samoa in a rusty old vessel called the Manua Tele which I had chartered in Pago Pago. Our destination was Suvarov atoll, a tiny group of islets in a coral reef normally uninhabited but where, it was said, a white man had lived alone for five years. When I awoke on the fifth morning, the swell had gone, the Manua Tele’s engines were still, and the old tub was rocking gently at anchor. I donned a pair of shorts, picked up a tin of beer and some bananas and went on deck. Ahead of us the reef thrashed the water in a line stretching for miles; beyond it, drenched in sun, was man’s most elusive dream, a coral island. Suddenly, as the Samoan at the wheel searched for the pass through the reef, I saw a flash of movement where the palms met the coral, and a man bounded out and started waving. Through the glasses I saw him run to a tiny boat, push it into the water, and a few minutes later he had a sail up to help him as he rowed towards the Manua Tele. Within twenty minutes he was climbing aboard with the agility of a boy of twenty. "Not bad for fifty-eight," he grinned; and this was my introduction to a man who had done what millions of us dream of doing, but never seem to do. For Tom Neale, a New Zealander, had left the world behind for life alone on a coral island so remote from the trade routes that he was fortunate if one ship a year called by chance to disturb his solitude. What had made him do it? Was he intelligent–or was he slightly mad? He didn’t look a crank, as he sat there on the deck, the Manua Tele rolling gently in the swell. Tall and spare, his skin was stained dark brown; he wore tennis shoes, a pair of ragged sorts, ("Usually I wear a strip of pareu, but I thought there might be women aboard!") and a battered old hat. His greying hair was close-cropped. But it was his eyes that fascinated me. Brown and watchful–the alertness accentuated by the wrinkles the sun had drawn on his burned face–they were never still. They had a laugh in them, but they were always restlessly watching–a cloud in the sky, the Samoan mate’s brown back, the size of a wave, me, each time I spoke. Though I am delighted that Tom has asked me to write an introduction to his book, it is not my place to describe the island and how he met the challenge of living on it. Tom has done that in a story I have found fascinating. I am more concerned with the man himself–with perhaps some aspects of his character that he has not put forward, for I found him very modest, quiet and intelligent, with a wonderful sense of humour and a lively curiosity about events in the world he had left behind. No, this was no crank. - 2 - He kept a journal, and its pages were crammed with neat, careful writing. He used an old-fashioned nib–in itself an indication of a character far more fastidious than I would have imagined; for any thoughts that Tom Neale might have lowered his standards simply because he was alone were quickly dispelled. Indeed, of all the anomalies of Tom’s island, nothing struck me so forcibly as the sight of him carefully washing up; holding a glass to the light to be sure it was clean–all incredibly incongruous, for outside, the coconut palms rustled, the sea lapped on the beach, and beyond the reef the lonely immensity of the Pacific started rolling to the nearest coral atoll two hundred miles away. But Tom was the most house-proud man I ever met. Every cup and saucer was in its right place. The dishcloth was stretched to dry. When I dropped a bit of coconut shell on the veranda, he quickly kicked it away, and twice on that first day he swept out the hut with his home-made broom of palm fronds. And when he made his first cup of good tea for months with the tea I had brought him, he carefully heated the pot first. "Even when I use old leaves over and over again, I always heat the pot first," he said, adding almost severely, "I hate tea out of a cold pot." I can see him now after dinner, sitting on an old box, leaning forward, drawing an aimless pattern in the white coral dust, enjoying the sheer pleasure of talking, of forming words, for mine was the first ship he had seen for eight months. But as he talked, I realised with something of a shock that though he was obviously pleased to see me, and was delighted with the stores I had brought him, he would not miss me when I left. He had never even bothered to inquire how long I intended to stay. Only when I asked him the inevitable question "What made you do it?" was he silent for a long time, and I can remember the scene now on that long, black beautiful night; the hurricane lamp between us, Tom’s mahogany-coloured face half lit, two cups and the empty teapot on the roughly hewn table, one of his cats sitting upright, still as an idol. "Many people asked me that–even before I left to come here," he said finally, "and I must admit I’ve answered the question in many different ways; probably to get rid of them because I felt they would never really understand. Sometimes I’ve tried to put my feelings into words. But even then I would wonder, ‘Is that really why I came?’ "The real truth is, you don’t make decisions like this all at once. I’d been growing towards the idea for thirty years." - 3 - Then suddenly he added, half teasingly, "Don’t go getting the wrong idea, though, and thinking I’m a hermit. Do I look like one?" He leaned forward. "I like people–I honestly do. I’m not just evading responsibilities. I suppose really– honestly–I don’t quite know why I did come here in the first place." We sat talking far into the night. The moon came up, silhouetting the Manua Tele framed in palms, reminding me of a scene in Treasure Island with the Hispaniola anchored off-shore. But that had been a beautiful island of violence; this was a paradise of peace. Everything was calm and still on the beach. Even for me, a casual visitor, the world had ceased to exist. Here was nothing but peace, for even nature was not hostile. When the time came for me to leave Suvarov, something very curious happened. I had, in fact, rather dreaded the moment, possibly thinking of those endless embarrassing farewells on railway platforms; but when the actual moment arrived and the Manua Tele’s boat was ready to take me off the beach, Tom squeezed my hand firmly and said: "It’s been wonderful seeing you, Noel, and I can’t thank you enough for all the stores you brought." I wondered how he felt, but I had no time to find out, for as the crew pushed the boat into the turquoise water, he loped back up the beach and vanished in the shade of the coconut palms.