Farming in
New Caladonia
Meanwhile
on the farm circuit, I met Sgt. V.T. Kallus who was in charge of a small group
of American soldiers in Bourail, New Caledonia involved in a cooperative
arrangement with French farmers to provide fresh vegetables for American
troops, one of three such units in New Caledonia. Vaclav Kallus was a Czech. from South Texas,
a 1930 graduate of Texas A&M, and a County Agent from Kingsville, Texas
prior to WW II.
Seeing things were falling apart at the Homestead in Noumea
and sensing an EVEN better deal, I volunteered to move from the big city to
help Sgt. Kallus provide fresh vegetables to the troops brought back from
combat if he could swing a transfer for me.
He was delighted at the prospect of having another Aggie in his group
and somehow pulled it off. I remained a
member of the 27th Station Hospital, but on Detached Service to the
large Quartermaster organization that provided the fresh vegetables.
Now THAT was the sweetest LEGAL deal I ever heard of in
World War II. In addition to Sgt Kallus
and me, there was Joe Comstock (a nephew of the Comstock of INSECT TAXONOMY
fame), Jim Wiler and Lewis, (a former
fullback at the University of Georgia).
We lived in a Quonset hut in a coconut grove on the largest farm in the
area, Gabe, owned by someone in Noumea but operated by the Renivier family.
The
farming was done under contact between the French farmer and the US
Government. The farmers provided the
land and we furnished seeds, fertilizer and all tractor work. They did the harvesting (all but personal use
going to the Americans) and we arranged for the pickup and purchases. It was all on paper; no money changed hands
and we didn't even get a commission, but we did have a lot of friends on both
sides of the business.
We had a Farmall F20, a Farmall H, a Ford Ferguson and a
Caterpillar (a bulldozer without the blade) that was used mostly for clearing
virgin land. Kallus spent full time
managing the operation: working out what should be planted and when; procuring
the seeds and fertilizer; scheduling the tractor work (plowing, disc harrowing,
fertilizing, planting, cultivating and, with root crops like potatoes,
harvesting); arranging for the purchase (by requisition) and pickup by eligible
military organizations and ensuring the crops were harvested, of acceptable
quality, in the quantities stipulated and ready to be loaded on the
trucks.
The latter responsibility was particularly important; none
of the truck drivers and few of the Quartermaster or Mess personnel who
sometimes came along to overview the transaction knew much about either quality
or quantity in fresh vegetables. Besides, it wasn't THEIR money being spent; it
was the Government's and it wasn't REAL money, they just signed a
requisition. In contrast, the French
Farmers knew it was REAL money and they wanted to sock away as much as they
could while the bonanza lasted. They
were colonials and had been scratching to survive on mostly a subsistence and
barter system (New Caledonia's most important prewar export was deer hides);
now there was an opportunity to make American dollars in amounts they had never
dreamed of. Most were as honest as farmers
anywhere, a few weren't; but if someone wants to overpay you, it makes up for
the times that the crops failed or prices were depressed.
Wiler was the mechanic and spent most of his time working on
the tractors and accessary equipment and the two or three pickup trucks
assigned to our unit, but he filled in on the tractor work when all the
equipment was working or we were under real pressure. Lewis spent most of his time on the
"Cat", clearing land for new crops; we had approximately 450 acres
under cultivation when I got there, but it wasn't enough. I got little time on the Cat, but what a
feeling of power to uproot trees with a huge "brush plow" or pull
even larger ones out of the ground with a cable.
That left the bulk of the routine
tractor work to Joe Comstock and me. I
don't know how he, from an upstate New York and University of Cornell
background, felt about our job; but I knew I had found a bird's nest on the
ground. With my only previous farming
experience being a Georgia Stock (a single mold board, hand held, walking plow)
and a mule, this was the way farming should be done. Besides, I was not only not in Guadalcanal or
Bougainville or even downtown Noumea, I was driving a tractor, wearing whatever
I wanted to wear, and watching the soil turn up behind my plow, harrow or
middle buster.
We ate with the farmer for whom we were working; lunch if it
was a one day job or near enough to Gabe to return to the Quonset hut by
tractor for the night or multiple meals and sleeping accommodations if several
days work were involved.
Because
none of them spoke any English, learning French was both a necessity (if you
wanted something at meals or the location of the toilet facilities) and made
easy by total immersion for days at a time.
It didn't take long for me to become comfortable in the language, but I
was amazed one day to realize that I was thinking
in French when I was talking in
French.
Because we didn't have enough personnel for a cook or
rations, we were paid $2.40 a day per diem (more than my pay as a buck private)
and required to provide our own food.
That was NO PROBLEM; we had first crack at all the vegetables, our
farmer friends brought us pork or beef when they slaughtered (no one Upcountry
had refrigeration, so there was a short half-life for fresh meat) and chickens
occasionally appeared at our door. Our staple fresh meat, however, was provided
by the resident imported Sambar deer.
Someone and I willingly volunteered, had to walk up the mountain with a
rifle, sit down and wait until a deer came walking by, then shoot it fatally
and drag it down the mountain. We could circumvent that by jack-lighting them
at night while they munched on our corn, tomato, or other seedlings; it was
more efficient and about as productive, but not any fun.
Not only did our farmer friends
contribute to our larder, the army organizations with whom we did business were
even more generous. Almost all of them
brought us cases of canned vegetables, fruit, meat, beer and soft drinks,
bread, etc. every time they came up for fresh vegetables; "we're not
trying to influence you, but we just happened to have more beer or whatever
than we needed and thought our friends up in the country might be able to use
it". At Sgt Kallus' suggestion, I
built a commissary behind the Living Quarters: a wooden floor, sides and frame
for a pyramidal tent, and sturdy wooden storage lockers
with
a hasp and lock to store all our supplies.
Some visitors from various Officers Messes even brought whiskey and we
had to be sure that was adequately secured.
It was not all fun and games; eight or ten hours on a
tractor seat is work and once I was alone at the Quonset hut when three 6X6's
arrived, loaded with 100 pound bags of fertilizer. One of the truck drivers was
kind enough to drag the bags to the back of the truck, the other two slouched
in the cab while I
climbed
onto the bed and dragged the sacks to where I could hoist them onto my shoulder
and carry them to a storage area. I
unloaded, carried and stacked at least 50,000 pounds of fertilizer in two or
three hours.
The French families liked us or at least felt sorry for us
because we were so far from home. The
Reniviers took me in almost as a member of the family; although Msr. Renivier
obviously had some reservations about my intentions in regard to his daughter,
Andre. I could understand that; I also
had some conflicts between my marital commitments and my male hormones.
Fortunately, although I'm not sure I appreciated it at the time, the French
chaperon system (in which NO unmarried female is EVER allowed to be alone with
ANY male, especially a married one) effectively forestalled any test of Andre’s
virtue and my faithfulness.
Madame Renivier treated me like the son she never had, there
was an older daughter married to the Sgt Major of the French Army unit in
Noumea. Not only was I often invited to
dinner, they also included me on their frequent picnics where we fished with
dynamite, and shot pigeons, deer and flying foxes (fruit bats). Dynamite
fishing the way we did it was exciting: each of the fishermen waded out into
the lagoon (New Caledonia is almost completely surrounded by a barrier reef)
carrying a burlap bag and a stick of dynamite with a lighted cigar in his
mouth.
When a school of fish appeared on
the surface, we would try to intercept them.
When in range, we would light the fuse and throw the stick of dynamite
just ahead of the swimming school of fish.
If your timing was perfect, the dynamite exploded near the surface and
in the middle of the school. Then you
ran or swam through waist to shoulder deep water to retrieve the stunned fish
before they recovered, grabbing and shoving them into the bag. Most common were mackerel-like fish or some
species of bonito, averaging about five pounds.
Occasionally we had to compete with small to medium size sharks for the
quarry and adding to the excitement was the knowledge that if you held the
stick too long or had a fast burning fuse you could end up at
best
short one hand. You could also use hand
grenades, but they weren't nearly as effective and a lot less exciting.
I spent a lot of time wading in the
lagoon, collecting shells and observing the snails, crabs and other
invertebrates. I really fell in love
with marine biology on the barrier reef and lagoons of New Caledonia. The mangrove swamps were also fascinating: I
chased mudskippers (a small fish that can breathe out of water) and fiddler and
other shore crabs through the mud with virtually no success. There were no native mammals other than the
fruit bats and possibly a species of black rat.
The Norway rat and Sambar deer had been imported and both flourished in
the absence of their normal predators.
The only snake was a burrowing boa that I never saw and I don't remember
any lizards or frogs. I did find a large
female sea turtle that had come ashore to lay eggs on the beach. She and the eggs were delicious and provided
gourmet food for a lot of people for several days.
No comments:
Post a Comment