Appendix II
303
Some Flaherty Stories
Flaherty's natural gift for storytelling is remembered by all who knew him. John Huston writes:
"Hullo, John," his voice would say. "This is Bob. How are you?"
"Bob!" I'd say. "When'd you get back?"
"'Just this morning. How about coming right on'over to the Coffee House Club?"
"Sure!"
"Oliver's coming too. Hurry up."
I'd find Bob in the centre of a group in the middle of a story. He'd say, "John, you must hear this too," and go back to the beginning. At about the time he'd reached the middle of the story again, Gogarty would come in, and Bob would say, "Oliver, you must hear this too," and start all over.
You could hear Bob's stories time and time again and never weary of them. He told them in quick cadences, in a high, clear, sweet voice. His voice was a delight in itself-not that Bob had any such notion; he spoke without listening to the sound of his voice, which is one of the reasons he was a great storyteller. The main reason was that the stories he told were great stories-that is to say, they were profound and yet simple. . .
Bob himself never figured prominently in his stories, much less did he ever take the hero's role. As a rule, people are talking about themselves even when they seem to be describing the behaviour of others. Not so with Bob, because he was far more interested in those who inhabited the life around him than he was in himself. Nor did you feel that he took all great pleasure in holding the centre of the stage. No, his sole preoccupation would he with the people he was telling about. (Huston 1952)
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The text of the following stories was dictated by Flaherty in London during the late summer of 1949 at the instigation of Michael Bell, of the BBC, but none of them was ever actually broadcast.
BOZO THE BEAR
Once I had a beautiful fight with a bear,. Well, I was younger then than I am now, and a lot more active. It was in the 20s and I had been prospecting in the land north of Lake Superior, which was then quite unknown country and prospecting was a tough racket.
I was going up a river with one Indian in a birch-bark canoe, and we had to carry our gear over a stretch of rapids in this river. I had got a pack-sack on my back, and I was in the lead with the Indian behind me. Well, we followed the trail-it was awfully hot and there were lots of flies and mosquitoes bothering us-and at last I realised we had wandered off the trail, We were now in the bush, with this pack-sack on my back scratching the branches of the low-hanging trees and scrub, and all that sort of thing.
I kept on floundering ahead, and finally I got out of the depth of the spruce trees in the forest. It was most gloomy, with very little light trickling through, and suddenly we came across a little glade, still very gloomy, but covered with grass and buttercups and so on. Now there were no more branches to impede us, and the grass looked very inviting, so I thought this was a very nice place to take a rest and get this pack-sack off my back for a while.
I was just going to take my pack-sack off when I looked across the glade it was only 20 or 30 feet or so across-and I saw a shadow there. I looked again, and I began to realise what it was. My God! It was a bear!
There he stood up on end. He was nearly seven feet high-quite a big fellow. And while I was looking, he started to come towards me-slowly-on his hind legs with his paws weaving. I had just managed by this time to get my pack-sack off before there he was in front of me, weaving and sparring,Well, I don't expect you to believe me, but I was getting desperate there was only one thing to do. To hit him. And I did it. I hit him hard on the chin. And down he went. By God!
It was sickening to hear the thud as he fell to the ground. And as I looked down at him I never felt so sorry for anything in my life as I did when I saw that bear on the ground. He was looking up at me. He was an old bear-poor old fellow-and he had only one eye. One eye had gone, no doubt in some fight long ago; and he kept looking up at me with his one good eye in the most pitiful manner and a tear was glistering in the corner of his eye. I looked down, and I gulped, and instantly I bent over him and got him to his feet and
straightened him up a little. And he kicked at me in the most reproachful way-you can't imagine how I felt.He was trying to talk-and he almost could. He almost called me Bob I could swear he was mumbling "Bob." And I called him Bozo. My Indian boy was rather frightened-he didn't know what to do; but I told him everything was all right. I said that instead of continuing on the trail, we would pitch camp and stay here and I'd do a little exploring.
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Well, we got our tent up, and got a fire going, and, of course, just before I had out a rope round Bozo's neck and tethered him to a stake. But we didn't need it; right from the start we were really pals. We got our fire going, and our bacon and beans fried, and we sat round the fire eating our supper-and, of course, we shared some with Bozo. Then we turned in for the night.
Next day we went through a cross-section of the area, to see what the country was like-what the rock formations were and all that sort of thing, you know. When we got back that evening, Bozo was still there all right. I had kept him tethered, though there was no need to really-it was more for appearance sake. And that sort of thing went on for several days-our friendship developing all the time. He would always grunt us a welcome when we came back into the camp.
On the fourth day we came back to camp a bit earlier than we had expected. And Bozo was not there. Then, by God, I heard something which would make any man fear God. There was an Indian reservation just across the river, and I heard someone shouting for blue murder. The Indian boy and I jumped up and rushed over just in time. By God! This Boo had the Chief's daughter in his arms and was squeezing her to death! As I came up, the Indian Chief and the others came up too. And that Chief was white with anger. He told me, through my Indian boy, that they knew all about this bear. He had an evil name-he was the durndest bear in the country-and they weren't going to put up with him anymore.
I could see the Chief was furious, and while he was caressing his daughter who was by now out of the bear's arms and examining her scratches, I slipped across to Bozo. Bozo looked at me again with that reproachful expression in his one eye. I could see the situation was going to be pretty serious unless something was done quickly; so I told Bozo I was very ashamed of him and he'd have to go without food for his bad behaviour unless he apologised. Well, I managed somehow to quieten all the others, but the Chief I could not quieten. He said, "Look here, you've got to get that bear out of this Country at once. We don't want him around here any more. We know all about him everyone knows all about that bear. Get out!"
Well, I thought discretion was the better part of valour, too, and I decided anyway that it was as well if I finished my exploration pretty soon and got the next train, which started some hundreds of miles further east. And I thought it would be a marvellous idea to take Bozo with me. I could tell the story of our friendship in these northern woods and of all that had happened. It would make a good story.
We got down to the railway, but we had to wait that night for the "Overseas Limited"-the great train from the west which normally would not stop here. I got the station-master to flag the train. It came to a grumbling halt and finally pulled up-and there was I with a bear and an Indian and a lot of luggage ready to board this train.
There was the conductor looking down at us, and the brakeman behind him. I told him I wanted to take the bear with me. He said he wasn't going to take a bear on his train. But I thrust a twenty-dollar bill into his hand. He swallowed a bit and then said, "Oh well, I'll fix a place in the baggage-car until we can figure out something better."
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So Bozo and I clambered aboard, and the Indian passed up our luggage, and I said "Goodbye" to him, the conductor pulled the bell, and the train rolled on through the night. The conductor gave us a place of a sort-the train was packed absolutely full. It was a "swank" train of the Canadian Pacific-but the conductor gave us what he could, not a Pullman, of course, just a rough and ready place next to the baggage-car. Anyway, we were on the train; and I fixed my pack-sack in the corner and settled down into a seat, tethering Bozo to an iron leg of the seat. And I finally fell asleep, and Bozo did also. And the train went on roaring through the night.
Some time in the early hours of the morning I woke up and looked around. My God! Bozo was not there! I looked out of the coach and called him-but there were no signs of him, not a sign anywhere. My heart began to race. What had happened? I knew the train hadn't stopped at any place. Where could he have gone? Was it possible that this bear with such a famous reputation among the Indians was clever enough to have got away from me and found himself a seat in a Pullman?
I didn't know what to think-I daren't let myself think what might have happened. Well, I had to call the conductor, and as soon as he came, he was even more surprised than I was. There was only one thing to be done-we had to start to look for Bozo.
We came to the first Pullman, and the Negro porter asked what we wanted, and when we said we were looking for a bear, you can imagine his expression. We looked in the gentlemen's washroom, and I called out in the most wheedling tone I could muster, "Bozo, are you there? Bozo, come on." Not too loudly, of course, because we didn't want to wake the sleepers. But there was no answer.
We went through the Pullman, and peeped behind the green curtains into the upper and lower berths full of people snoring and whistling-all sound asleep. I kept calling Bozo's name, but the only sound to be heard was the roaring of the train through the night. Finally, we got to the ladies' room at the end of the car and we looked in there, but there was still no sign of Bozo. We had gone through Pullman after Pullman, the whole length of the train. And there was no sound to be heard of the bear.
And it was not until we got to the end of the very last Pullman, that we heard anything-a voice-a lady's voice-just a whisper from behind the curtains of a sleeping-berth:
"If you're a real gentleman, take off your fur coat!"
RED-NOSE JONES
One does meet some very queer characters in the South Seas, and one of the queerest I have ever met was a chap who went by the name of "Red-Nose" Jones. I often used to see him sitting on the verandah of the Cercle Bougainville with a "rainbow" thrust in his hand-all by himself, looking dreamily out over the sunlit blue seas.
He had a Pompadour shock of gray hair, and a great bulbous peaked red-blue nose, and the saddest expression you could ever imagine. And as the
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seas sighed over the coral-reefs, you'd hear him sigh too. Then he'd take another drink.
He had first come down there many years before, and for a long time had lived on the beach-beachcombing, as they say in the South Seas. Finally he had become such a nuisance to the police that they told him to clear out.
What he did was to get tangled up with a Tahitian girl-and she would follow him just like a dog, and take care of him. Of course, he had to have his liquor, and the only way he could get it was to cut copra-that is to get the coconuts from the trees, cut out the meat, and bring it back down the jungle trail in a sack and sell it in the market.Well, of course, Red-Nose himself couldn't climb a coconut tree-his wife would do it for him. She would get up the trees and drop down the coconuts, and then the two of them would crack open the shells and build up a pile of this copra until he had enough to make it worthwhile taking down to the market.
But sometimes things didn't go very well; they quarrelled. Then she had a curious way of climbing up to the top of a coconut tree and sitting there, sulking, and not coming down. She would be sitting at the top of the tree and he would be at the bottom, pleading with her to come down, because without her, of course, he was absolutely helpless and had no chance of surviving, Finally, when she was in the right mood, and he'd apologised for his bad behaviour, she would descend. Then life would be resumed.
One day they were going through the jungle and he slipped and almost broke his ankle-which is a bad enough thing to happen to 'anyone at any time; but she managed to nurse him through it, and finally got him on his feet again.
Well, as I say, they used to cut this copra and bring it down through the jungle trail to the port where he'd sell it in the market. And, of course, as soon as he'd sold it, and got the money for it, he'd start drinking again. This girl would follow him faithfully until all the money was spent, and then they'd both go off into the jungle again. And this sort of thing went on for a long time-for years, as a matter of fact; but at last the chap solved the riddle of his existence. He began to distil perfume from one of the most rare odorous flowers in the world-the Tahiti-which grows only in one island of the South Seas.
Of course, you know what distillation of perfume is-how you have to learn a most intricate process-indeed it calls for the qualifications of a most expert chemist, and all that sort of thing. Now, what it was that Red-Nose had done, I never found out-but it transpired later that at one time he had been one of the chief chemists in the great American corporation of Duponts, at an enormous salary. But he'd run into some sort of trouble with his family, and had launched out into the South Seas eventually, where he was living this life. An old friend one day got a pile of money together and bought him a passage back to 'Frisco, but it was no good. As soon as he got to 'Frisco, he took one look at it all, and came back on the return of the ship.
Well, to get back to the perfume. When I last saw Red-Nose Jones he was still distilling this perfume in Tahiti; but he was very careful only to distil
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enough to keep him in liquor. When the ships came in once a month, to or from 'Frisco, there he would be on the wharf selling this stuff to the passengers and getting enough money for more drink.
Well, he's dead now. His great pals were Gouvernor Norris, Norman Hall and Harrison (Borneo) Smith. Yes, he's been dead several years now-Red-Nose has gone. But I can see him still sitting there, outside the club, sighing with the reefs and shouting, "Give us another drink." A great character was Red-Nose-a great chemist.
CAPTAIN ALLEN
Another of these great South Seas characters was one known as Captain Allen. He had a boat-the Dawn-a queer boat with an old brass bell-mouth; and she was humped in the middle-her back was humped-and she wasn't allowed entrance to any civilized port of the world because she'd been condemned for years. But he had got this boat and a crew, and he'd got a plantation somewhere in the Islands, no one knew where.
He was a typical fellow-and a bit of a blackguard; and during the days when Samoa was a free port and there were no laws, he had murdered someone. He was a wonderful chap. He had a very neat way of clicking his teeth together. And he had a great big flamboyant Samoan wife, who was dressed in silks, and he had two sons who followed behind him like two dogs-terrified of him, they were. He was good-looking himself, but he would do you in very quickly and neatly if he felt that way.
He had a whole gang of people working for him-natives-getting copra for him, and the Dawn would come in as near the shore as possible-she would have to wait out on the high seas because she wasn't allowed into any harbour-rolling this way and that. And he'd come ashore and sell his stuff, and then get out, and sail away again to his mysterious island. Yes-he was a great fellow-with wonderful white teeth, and a wonderful chap to talk to.
LADY WOLSEY
Once, many years ago, I got aboard a P & C ship in Tahiti bound north from Australia to 'Frisco, and I was given a seat at the Captain's table. The Captain, of course, sat at the head of the table, and next to him sat Sir Someone, Governor of one of the states of Australia, and on the other side sat his wife; then there was the British Consul in Tahiti and his good wife, and next to me was a little old Queen Victoria sort of woman-like one dumpling on top of another, and wearing a cloyley on her white hair-who looked at everything and everybody through her lorgnettes. She was introduced to me as Lady Wolsey.
Well, we subsided in our seats, and the steward brought the soup. Up went My Lady's lorgnettes and she looked at me and said, "Are you an American?" I said, "Yes, Lady Wolsey, I am." "Oh," she said, "I don't like Americans."
After that pleasing introduction, we got on with our soup. The soup
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plates were taken away and another course came in; and up went her lorgnettes-more microscopically this time-and then she said, "Don't tell me you're a Catholic too?"
By this time I fairly frowned at her as I said, "Look, Lady Wolsey, as a matter of fact I'm half-Canadian, half-American; my mother was a devout Catholic and my father was an Irish Protestant." Lady Wolsey had nothing more to say.
So we limped through the meal, which was one of the dreariest I have ever sat through; and when it was over I went to the steward and said, "Look, would you transfer me from the Captain's table-I have some companions whom I'd like to join." And, as a matter of fact, I wanted to play cards all the four thousand long miles to San Francisco.
So the steward took note of my wish, and next morning Lady Wolsev and I met in one of the passage-ways. I think she was rather conscience-stricken about what she'd said at dinner the night before. At any rate, she wanted to know would I not please come back to the Captain's table? I forced a smile and tried to be as pleasant as I could, and explained that I have found some very dear friends of mine on board, and that I had some very detailed business to discuss with them on the way to 'Frisco-and would she please forgive me? But she didn't-she said nothing more, but justswept on.
And all the four thousand long miles to 'Frisco I walked up and down the deck, slipping past Lady Wolsey, who no longer even acknowledged me.
Finally we got to 'Frisco, and immediately I had run the gauntlet of the customs I managed to get my luggage and impedimenta on to a taxi and I was chugging up the hilly streets of 'Frisco to the hotel. Well, I got in there and registered, and the bell-boy snatched my luggage, and we stepped into the elevator and shot up to the top-floor. The bell-boy opened a door and we got into my room. We stood there a little while talking about what was on in town, and as he left he thrust a newspaper into my hands. I opened it.
Headline: "Lady Wolsey Arrives. Lady Wolsey, formerly Miss Mary Murphy of San Francisco."
Well, there is an aftermath, as it were.
Years later-about ten years have gone by-we had just come back from India. We got off the train at Waterloo, and amongst the other people who met us was a news-correspondent of one of the London papers. After we'd shaken hands and passed a few words, he said, "Bob, I've a wonderful idea for you-Iceland-that's where you've got to go next. I want a talk with you about it is soon as possible. There's a man crazy to meet you."
So, we parted, and a few days later this correspondent of the newspaper came along and brought with him this man from Iceland; and we sat discussing the Iceland programme. The Icelander suggested that we go to the Danish Ambassador and have a talk with him about it because apparently there were a lot of people getting interested in this idea-and he was one of them.
We had lunch at the Danish Embassy, and the Ambassador said, "If I remember right, there is an exhibition of Icelandic paintings on in London now-why don't you take Mr. Flaherty to see it." But the Icelander said, "The
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exhibition is over now, but by chance I happen to know where some of them are; they're in Kensington, a friend of mine is there." "All right," said the Ambassador, "why don't you take Mr. Flaherty there?"
And a few days later this chap calls for me in a car, this Icelander, and off we go to Kensington. There we come to a fine old house, and get into a fine large room and see the paintings. And then our hostess swept in-it was Lady Wolsey. It was her house and her paintings.
SNAKES!
You know what snakes are in India, don't you-they're very deadly, you know; and the little Kri, which is no longer than a pencil, well-if that bites you, you drop in about two-and-a-half minutes. It's simply terrific the amount of venom in this little thing.
I remember an instance of a cobra getting loose in a bus in Madras and all the people piling out of that bus to get out of its way. The cobra had crept into the engine of the bus one night for warmth, and of course next morning when the driver got in and started up his engine, the rocking and shaking of it disturbed this cobra and he got into the bus. It fairly scared all the Indian passengers, I can tell you-but it managed to strike four people and these four people were all killed. Yes, I think that will show you that people think twice about snakes out there-you don't want to get struck-if you do, it's all up.
Well, one afternoon we had been shooting some scenes for Elephant Boy and we were going home, and we were wandering through the jungle, and somehow I got lost from the rest of the crew. I was awfully tired and I finally got to a little open clearing in the jungle, and I sat down to rest for a few minutes. I may have had a touch of the sun because I wasn't too careful about wearing my pith-helmet-anyway, I sank down on the ground and finally I fell asleep.
Now you know, when I sleep I usually sleep on the broad of my back and my chest heaves up and down-and not only that, but the family tells me I snore, and, so I'm told again, I whistle at the end of the snore.
Well, I don't know how long I had been asleep, but after a while I began to be conscious of something heavy on my chest; and as I became more and more awake I realised what it was. It was a cobra!Now, whether it had been attracted by the free ride up and down on my heaving chest, or by the snore with the little whistle at the end of it-I don't know-or whether it was an accommodation of both. All I do know is that there was the cobra lying on my chest.
And as I came to realise this, I became frightened and froze; and as soon as I did that it became angry and his tail began to wiggle down in the pit of my stomach. My God, how it was tickling-it was all I could do to stop myself from laughing-and me within an ace of being struck. What a situation to be in!
And as I looked up at him I could see he was weaving over me, his great hood swelling enough to cover the whole wide world. And I could see his beady eves. And as he moved his head this way and that way. and that tail of his
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keeping on up and down in the pit of my stomach, I had to hold myself in check as much as, possible, because at my slightest movement he would strike.
I kept watching his every movement. All I could see was his beady black eyes and that enormous hood swaying to and fro above me, and all the time his tail was tickling my stomach. But I dare not move. And there was his tongue darting to and fro across my eyes. And I became conscious of nothing but that tongue. By this time I was in desperate fear lest I was losing my senses.
I watched that cobra and I became conscious of nothing but that vicious tongue. And what did I do? I had the feeling that I'd stick out my tongue too. And as soon as I did, he struck. But my mouth was open, and all I had to do was to bite, spit out the head, get up and walk away!