Tulagi,
the Whisky Army
volunteers
to suppress the
rising of the natives
who have killed
District Officer Bell
because they’re
bastards.
Copra is
getting better and better prices,
trochus and
green snail shell confirm themselves,
like ivory nut,
as reliable as
good old bêche de mer.
They see themselves making a killing.
These few
inflated traders set forth
on the Medical Officer’s launch,
hired for the purpose,
with a mountain of supplies and a battalion of servants
(the whisky is
donated).
Some wag back
in the Club renames them
‘Breathless’
when news comes
back
the bearers had
to carry them
up the hills.
They shoot an
old man
too lame to run
away
and are repatriated
the scores of nautical miles
when the
government C O decides
he can no
longer hold himself responsible.
Australia sends
the Adelaide
(Bell was an
Australian after all
and they were
on manœuvres
in the region)
but the crew
gets dysentery.
Wall Street
crashes.
The land,
cursed
because
sacraments and sites were polluted
- particularly
by starving women -
still bears
blighted crops.
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