Brentwood College School - Brentonian Yearbook (Mill Bay, British Columbia Canada)

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Brentwood College Magazine Oh, replied the little man, Twenty twelve, twenty twelve. This conveyed little meaning to us except that there might be a number of men on the island. And it was our duty to investigate their mysterious presence. That some white men should be on the island was strange in itself, but that they should ask for magazines instead of for a passage to civilization was most peculiar. So, too, thought the captain. Without delay he ordered two of the crew to lower away the lifeboat and row the three of us ashore, leaving the mate in charge of the ship. The nearer we came to the little island the more impressed I was by its beauty. The white, sandy beach, tall coconut palms and green undergrowth were fascinating. When at last we were carried up on to the beach by a foam- crested breaker, I felt that I could live here for ever, playing in the sands, swim- ming in the clear green water, or lying under the trees eating the fruit as it fell and drinking from the coconuts. Leaving the two seamen with the boat and led by the four kanakas, who had followed silently in our wake, we made our way along a well-beaten path into a grove of royal palms. We passed the little native village, and further on came to a spring of fresh water which bubbled up in the sand. Beyond this we came to a clearing where we discovered the men. In various attitudes they lay sprawl- ing on the grass, some with hardly any clothing on and all looking very dissipated. As all the men seemed to be in a drunken stupor from which nothing could arouse them, we carried them down to the sea, and one after the other pitched them into the ocean. The shock of the cold water brought them to their senses and they climbed into the big boat very shamefacedly. All we heard from them as we rowed back to the ship was some muttering under the breath as if they resented the interruption of a very pleasant life. It was a few days after we left Nukulailai that the story came out, for Douglas had once been the bos ' n of the three-masted barquentine Mary Lang, which had been wrecked on a coral reef to the east of the island in a terrible hurricane two weeks before. The ship had pounded itself to pieces against the reef, and Joe and barely half the crew had reached the shore. Soon the spell of this island paradise passed over the little party. The natives had left them alone, only exchanging their home-made liquor, extracted from the fermented pulp of the coconut palm, for the clothing of the new arrivals. Douglas had been the last to succumb to this lazy life of luxury and had asked the chief to get some news of the outside if any ships happened to come near. He was quite satis- fied with his present condition, but did not want to go to the dogs like his mates had, and thought it would help to have something to read. He had made friends with the chief, and soon they had been able to talk with each other fairly well. Then the old man, who had taken his friend ' s request to heart, had kept a good look-out for passing ships in hopes that the mysterious papers would save the white man from the pitiable fate of his comrades. R. LATTA. Page Eight

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Brentwood College Magazine In Circe ' s Toils TARBOARD the helm, cried Captain Olsen as he signalled Slow Ahead on the engine-room telegraph. Steady, now. Keep her clear of that point and watch the tide. As the above orders were issued and the big freighter turned in closer toward the first land we had seen for three weeks, a thrill of excitement ran through me. The circumstances that led up to this sudden change of course were most unusual. My friend Oscar and I had been eagerly scanning the shores of the lonely little atoll, searching for possible inhabitants. Suddenly and at almost the same time, we noticed a black object bobbing up and down in the surf off the sandy beach. After drawing the captain ' s attention to it, we noticed an oar raised with a white flag on the end. At this signal the captain had ordered the quartermaster to steer in-shore, and from then on we watched the little boat through the glasses. Sometimes it seemed to have sunk beneath the waves, so long did it disappear from sight in the hollow of the swells ; till again the canoe and its occupants would ride on the summit of another wave and be silhouetted against the deep blue of the sea. From the deck we anxiously watched the tireless paddlers drive the heavy- laden canoe slowly nearer with every stroke. We marvelled that they did not turn turtle in the surf, till we saw that the boat was a catamaran, a type of canoe used largely by the natives of the Ellice Islands as well as throughout the Cook Archipelago. The long, clumsy outrigger greatly reduced the speed of the craft, but prevented capsizing in any weather. We kept going slowly to maintain head- way against a two-knot current, and it was some time before the boat caught up with us. When the canoe drew alongside, an old man, whom we had mistaken for a European clothed in white ducks and a pith helmet, rose on unsteady feet, raising his soiled cap in one hand and waving a bunch of green bananas in the other. We saw that his hair was snowy white and that all he wore was a long cotton shirt. This distinguished the old fellow from his naked comrades, and hence we inferred that he was their chief. He addressed us in a high, quavering voice ; but at first we could make nothing of his curious mixture of pidgin-English and Polynesian, especially the captain, who was born and bred in Norway. Finally we gathered that he wished to exchange his fruit for some magazines and papers. It seemed an absurdly trivial excuse for stopping a steamer on the high seas ; and, moreover, it seemed very curious that savages like these, who could not speak decent English, much less read or write it, should want reading matter. Our curiosity was now fully aroused, and the captain was growing angry and im- patient at the vexatious delay. Some carefully-directed inquiries made by Oscar brought out the fact that there were some whi ' mans on the island. How many? asked my friend. One? Two? Three? indicating with his fingers. Page Seven

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Brentwood College Magazine Brentwood My School — such words are often heard; We, too, shall use them later on, When memories are rather blurred, Of happy school-days, come and gone. The pride we have in our Old School Is born of many qualities ; Of pride in work, respect for rule, Of manliness in jollities. If we take pride in all our acts, We ' ll build tradition first of all ; And then we ' ll add to all the facts That make our Tower of Honour tall. So let us each do what we can, To pass the torch of learning on, That by it, boy may turn to man, And think of Brentwood when he ' s gone. P. H. KkElinc,. Page Nine