TORRES STRAITS 1^3 



A boat was lowered and hurried in towards the beach where 

 so recently the campers and their gear had been landed. As the 

 boat neared the shore the tide-watchers were seen standing up 

 to their necks in the sea off the blazing coastline. There was no 

 place on the island where they could have remained, and here 

 they were braving the sharks and the venomous sting rays. 



Their paraffin cooking stove had exploded and this had ignited 

 the tent, and the dry scrub soon followed. It was a fortunate thing 

 that the ship had not been further away when the fire started, 

 for with the radio and all their food supplies gone the two campers 

 would have been in a desperate position. 



The islands in the Great North-East Channel are small and 

 featureless apart from the usual clumps of coconut palms, which 

 so obscured the view that in many cases it became necessary to 

 build survey marks over 60 feet in height. The Admiralty Manual 

 of Hjdrographic Surveying includes a set of instructions for erecting 

 such marks, and as Thomson had not built one of these before, 

 he took this book with him when he landed, 'With resources 

 normally available', reads the manual, 'pole marks up to a maxi- 

 mum of seventy or eighty feet in height may be erected without 

 difficulty.' Thomson followed the directions as they went on to 

 describe the procedure, using such resources as barlings, bainboos, 

 tail-blocks, mast-ropes, heel-ropes, smiting lines and five iron 

 stakes — 'nine if the ground is soft,' said the manual. However, he 

 felt that the phrase 'without much difficulty' was perhaps an 

 understatement. By late afternoon the mark was up, towering 

 proudly above the palms, but unfortunately so was the gantline 

 and a boatswain's chair with a sailor in it all lashed to the top 

 of the mark. 



After a further hour or so this sailor had been rescued from his 

 pole-squatting position and the party were ready to return to the 

 ship. On the beach they found the coxswain of the motor skiff, 

 which they had left anchored offshore, shivering with fright. He 

 had got bored in the boat as she lay tossing gently beyond the reef 

 and had swum to the shore. The man swore that he had been 

 chased by a shark, and sure enough there was the beast in the 

 shallows waiting for his supper. With much splashing the shark 

 was frightened away into deeper water, and then of course some- 

 one had to go and get the boat. The men's eyes turned meaningly 



