Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [135]
Young men and women now left the kraal to gather branches for the great fires that would be built. The chiefs talked among themselves for a moment and then deftly cut out the lower jaws from the heads of the dead pigs. From each jawbone two tusks, of varying quality, protruded. Some were mere circles. Others had grown back into the jawbones. All were dirty white against the dark red of the bloody bones.
The old men discussed long and ardently the attributes of each tusk. Never, they agreed, had any chief in their lifetime given away such fine boars. Lovingly the tusks were appraised, but when the double-circle ones were reached the men sat in silent admiration. Such tusks might never again be seen in their declining lifetimes.
Delicately the chief who had dispensed this largess picked up the jawbone with the sacred tusks. He deftly knocked at it with his knife. Then he grasped the tusks firmly and with a harsh, wrenching motion, tore them loose from their long tomb of misery. One he gave to Fry, one to the chaplain. He smiled at them and then nodded. They must go. Soon there would be dancing and feasting and love-making. That was a private affair.
Down the long trail to the ocean they went. The chaplain, after carrying his messy tusk for a short distance, said, "Benoway, do you want this?" The doctor leaped for it. Chappy smiled. "The appurtenances of the religion are slightly revolting."
"I feel that way myself, sometimes on Sunday in Connecticut," Fry laughed.
"You're right, lieutenant," the chaplain said. "But it takes strong ritual to affect some sinners."
Luther Billis swung along the jungle trails, pushing lianas from his face, shifting the heavy bundle of pork from time to time. He was singing snatches from an old South Seas song he had picked up from a Burns Philp trader: Right above her kidney Was tattooed the "View of Sydney."
He was terribly pleased with the day's expedition. Close behind him followed the little native boy, dreaming his heart out as he watched the pork slapping Billis on the back.
WINE FOR THE MESS AT SEGI
I THINK that Segi Point, at the southern end of New Georgia, is my favorite spot in the South Pacific. Opposite the brutal island of Vangunu and across Blanche Channel from Rendova, lies Segi promontory. Behind the point hills rise, laden with jungle. The bay is clear and blue. The sands of Segi are white. Fish abound in the near-by channel. To the north runs the deadly Slot.
I cannot tell you what the charm of Segi was. Partly it was the natives, who made lovely canes of ebony and pearl. Partly it was the mission boys, who, as you will see, sang in Latin. It was the limes, too, best in the Solomons, the fishing, the great air battles where your friends died, and the blue-green coral water. But mostly, I guess, it was Tony Fry.
On my trips up and down The Slot I made it a point to stop off at Segi whenever I could. Tony had a small hut on the hillside overlooking the tiny fighter strip. There I was sure of a welcome, a hot bath, some good food, and a native boy to do my laundry. I think the Roman emperors made war the way Tony Fry did. No man worked less than he, and few accomplished more.
An unkind critic would have called the indolent fellow a cheap Tammany politician. A friendly admirer would have termed him an expediter, such as they have in big plants to see that other people work fast. I, who was Tony's staunchest admirer, call him a Yale man. Since I am from Harvard, you can tell what I mean.
Tony would never have died for Yale. Don't misunderstand me. I doubt if he even contributed much money to the college's incessant alumni drives. But when he pulled out the cork of a whiskey bottle, draped a long leg over a chair, pointed a long