AustLit

Jim Shervinton is a trader on Tarawa Island in Kiribati. Discontented and afflicted with malaria, his greatest ambition is to win fame as one of the great voyagers of the Pacific. Following a fight in which a German trader is killed, he leaves the island accompanied by three Islanders, two men and a woman, and the German trader's mistreated wife. They sail from Kiribati to Guam, a distance of more than three thousand miles, and encounter many adventures on the way. Although Jim has achieved his ambition, the outcome is tragic.

Becke relates several anecdotes about incompetent or stubborn ships' captains and the damage they caused.

A trader, Martin Flemming, lives on the island in the Paumotu group with his Hawaiian wife and their three children. One night his two sons go out fishing with a group of islanders, including the family's two much-loved servants. The next morning the boys reach home in distress, telling their father that all the men in the fishing party have been abducted by a Peruvian slave trader. Flemming searches for his friends for ten years, but it is his elder son who eventually finds them in Samoa.

'Flash Harry' is a deserter who has been taken up by a Samoan chief and roams the island with a gang of youths, terrorising anyone who opposes him. When the narrator insults him by refusing to shake hands, Harry swears revenge. His attempt fails, however, and he eventually meets a gruesome end.

The narrator looks back to the days of uncontrolled blackbirding and bemoans the restrictions introduced with legislation and military patrols, which limited the activities of blackbirders. He relates a number of anecdotes about the notorious Bully Hayes whom he appears to regard as an heroic figure, despite his brutality, dishonesty, and callous treatment of Islander women.

Armitage is notorious in Samoa for his immoral and violent behaviour. He brutally mistreats his cook Amona, a man from Niue, but the Islander stays with him to try and protect Armitage's wife and child. Mrs Armitage dies of tuberculosis and Amona continues to care for the child, eventually taking him away to Australia.

One evening eight-year-old Becke is waiting with his mother and sisters for his elder brothers to return home from school. The front doorbell rings, but when the door is opened there is no-one there. This is repeated numerous times until the family finally discovers the culprit.

Becke describes the behaviour of a variety of creatures occupying a number of groups of islands in the Pacific. His anecdotes include, among others: saltwater-drinking cockatoos and pigeons in New Britain; birds that whistle hermit crabs from their shells in Tuvalu; and the revulsion that the natives of the Caroline Islands feel for eels.

Becke describes an encounter with the warlike King Apinoka.