“How Many Miles to Christmas?”
| Published date | 01 April 1980 |
| Author | Michael Hook |
| Date | 01 April 1980 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8005300210 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
MICHAEL
HOOK,
O.St.J.,
C.P.M.,
previously Chief Officer
of
Police. Gilbert
and
Ellice Islands.
"HOW
MANY
MILES TO
CHRISTMAS?"
My wife said,
"You
won't be back in time to meet the children
when they come
out
for the summer holidays."
"Of
course I will," I assured her. "Allowing five weeks for the
round voyage, Ishould be back on Ocean Island afortnight before
the children fly
out
from England. Even supposing they do not have
to wait for a phosphate ship in Melbourne, the voyage up here will
take at least
another
eight days on top of that."
"Something
may delay you. It would spoil it for everyone if you
were
not
here when the children land -
and
they haven't seen you for
a year.
Can't
you postpone
your
tour?"
But to me the risk seemed slight
and
the opportunity
too
good to
miss. At
that
time I had been in the Gilbert
and
Ellice Islands Colony
for three years as the chief police officer
and
I had as yet been unable
to visit three small police stations - on Christmas, Fanning
and
Washington -over two thousand miles to the East in the Line
Islands. Once or perhaps twice a year one of
our
tiny Government
ships would make the return voyage to the Line Islands from Colony
Headquarters on
Tarawa
(250 miles from Ocean Island),
but
now a
comparatively large, comfortable
and
fast ship, Burns Philp's 3,000
ton
"Tulagi", was coming to Ocean Island at the
start
of a voyage to
the Gilbert and Line Islands.
She
was to recruit Gilbertese labourers
to replace those who wished to be repatriated from coconut
plantations in the Line Islands, where there was no indigenous
population.
Accompanied by Sergeant .Mote
and
two or three other
policemen who were to relieve men in the Line Islands, Iboarded
"Tulagi"
and
we sailed for the Gilberts, where we recruited over a
hundred labourers, many of whom brought their families with them,
These passengers slept on mats laid on deck or in the 'tween decks
and
settled
down
at once to shipboard life in the adaptable, happy
way of the islanders.
The
officers, most of whom were Australian,
and
the Indian crew wereefficient, cheerful
and
kind.
Captain
Sadler
undertook
to
put
me ashore on Ocean Island five weeks from the day
he had picked me up.
It
promised to be a happy voyage.
But trouble was in store. Arorae,
our
last island of call in
the
Gilberts, lay four hundred miles astern. Christmas Island was over a
week's
run
beyond the eastern horizon. It was Thursday. Yesterday
had been
Thursday
also, because we
had
crossed the
date
line last
163 Police Journal
April
1980
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