In 1957 James Michener and A. Grove Day devised a series of questions to identify those who really knew the Pacific. The only useful question to ask was to name "best writer about the Pacific," as there was only one 'correct' answer: Louis Becke.
Born at Port Macquarrie in Australia, where his father was clerk of petty sessions, Louis Becke was seized at the age of fourteen with an intense longing to go to sea. It is possible that he inherited this passion through his mother, for her father, Charles Beilby, who was private secretary to the Duke of Cumberland, invested a legacy that fell to him in a small vessel, and sailed with his family to the then very new world of Australia. However this may be, it was impossible to keep Louis Becke at home; and, as an alternative, a uncle undertook to send him, and a brother two years older, to a mercantile house in California. His first voyage was a terrible one. There were no steamers, of course, in those days, and they sailed for San Francisco in a wretched old barque. For over a month they were drifting about the stormy sea between Australia and New Zealand, a partially dismasted and leaking wreck. The crew mutinied--they had bitter cause to--and only after calling at Rurutu, in the Tubuai Group, and obtaining fresh food, did they permit the captain to resume command of the half-sunken old craft. They were ninety days in reaching Honolulu, and another forty in making the Californian coast.
The two lads did not find the routine of a merchant's office at all to their taste; and while the elder obtained employment on a sheep ranche at San Juan, Louis, still faithful to the sea, got a berth as a clerk in a steamship company, and traded to the Southern ports. In a year's time he had money enough to take passage in a schooner bound on a shark-catching cruise to the equatorial islands of the North Pacific. The life was a very rough one, and full of incident and adventure. Returning to Honolulu, he fell in with an old captain who had bought a schooner for a trading venture amongst the Western Carolines. Becke put in $1000, and sailed with him as supercargo, he and the skipper being the only white men on board. He soon discovered that, though a good seaman, the old man knew nothing of navigation. In a few weeks they were among the Marshall Islands, and the captain went mad from DELIRIUM TREMENS. Becke and the three native sailors ran the vessel into a little uninhabited atoll, and for a week had to keep the captain tied up to prevent his killing himself. They got him right at last, and stood to the westward.
It is from this and many other personal experiences that Louis Becke weaves his compelling tales, including one about Bully Hayes, the infamous buccaneer, and haunting tales such as that of Edward Barry, the South Sea Pearler:
"Just after midnight, three days later, Velo, the Samoan, who was on the look-out, came aft to Barry and said,--
"_E manogi mai le fanua_" ("The smell of the land has come").
"Good boy, Velo," replied the mate; "keep a sharp look-out, for on such a night as this, when the sea is smooth, and the land lies low, we shall not hear the sound of the surf till we are right on top of it."
An hour or two later Barry called Rawlings, for right ahead of the brig there was a low, dark streak showing upon the sea-rim, which they knew was the outline of one of the palm-clad islets on the south side of Arrecifos Lagoon. At daylight the _Mahina_ ran through the south-east passage, and dropped her anchor in thirteen fathoms, close to the snowy white beach of a palm-clad islet, on which was a village of ten or a dozen native houses. There was, however, no sign of life visible--not even a canoe was to be seen.
Immediately after breakfast the boats were lowered, and a brief inspection made, not only of some of the nearest of the chain of thirteen islands, which enclosed the spacious lagoon, but of the lagoon itself. The islands were densely covered with coco palms, interspersed here and there with lofty _puka_ trees, the nesting-places of countless thousands of a small species of sooty petrel, whose discordant notes filled the air with their clamour as Rawlings and Barry passed beneath, walking along a disused native path, while the two boats pulled along the shore. The village was found to be abandoned.
After examining the nearest islands, and deciding upon a spot whereon to build a station, the two white men returned to the boats, which pulled out towards the centre of the lagoon. Half a mile due west from the centre of the south-east islet the deep blue water began to lighten in colour, till it became a pale green, and the coral bottom lay dearly revealed at a depth of five fathoms." Read the whole story here.
And there are many more here.
P.S. All of Louis Becke's books are out of print and secondhand copies are hard to come by and often quite expensive. However, thanks to www.archive.org you can read many of his books online. Building the public libraries of the future - that's what the internet should be all about.
The Call of the South
By Reef and Palm and His Native Wife
Yorke the Adventurer
Under Tropic Skies
Wild Life in Southern Seas
Tom Gerrard
The Adventures of a Supercargo
Ridan the Devil
Notes from my South Sea Log
The Pearl Divers of Roncador Reef
The Mutineer - A Romance of Pitcairn Island
Edward Barry (South Sea Pearler)
The Tapu of Banderah
Pacific Tales
Tessa the Trader's Wife
The Ebbing of the Tide
Helen Adair
By Rock and Pool
The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton
