33. Hoil'n Cock
Hoil'n Cock is Tristanian for Island Cock. I heard the word many times during my visits to people's homes. Interestingly enough, everybody knew about the Moorhens stealing albatross eggs, but of all the knowledgeable people I have talked to, nobody ever saw it happening. They all pointed to another eyewitness, and that one to yet another one, going around in a circle. Broken eggs, obviously picked at, have been found every now and then, but that also happened before the Moorhens arrived. Then, the Skuas would simply be blamed. But now, people say, sometimes an egg is found with only a small hole in the blunt end. That cannot be explained by anything else but a Moorhen bill. Can it? Moorhens have been seen curiously circling albatross nests, and one was even observed standing on top of a deserted nest. Lots of circumstansial evidence, but no real proof.
These observations can be explained differently. Gough Moorhens have been studied on Gough. They are scavengers, inspecting petrel burrows, looking for abandoned eggs or dead chicks. Stomach contents showed petrel bones and egg shell fragments. They also frequent albatross nests to look for spilled food, like squid or fish. And a broken egg, or the remains of an egg predated by a Skua, they will certainly feed on. But on Tristan a deaf ear is turned to such stories. Even if nobody ever saw it happen they all know how it is done. It is a piece of island culture that, as an outsider, you have to stay away from. This phenomenon is not unique to Tristan. Friesland, the northernmost province in The Netherlands, has a long tradition in collecting Lapwing eggs, which is controversial nowadays. But don't you dare, as a non-Frisian Dutchman, to say anything about it.
This outsider feeling, the outsider label, was given to me on one of the very first days on Tristan when we were all invited for a reception at the house of Chief Islander Lewis Glass. His wife prepared delicious lobster bites and home-made Tristan crisps. Inevitably, conversation included Moorhens. Lewis confirmed once more how devious and clever these birds are, operating in pairs, the one distracting the albatross, the other one taking the egg. Had he ever seen something like that? No, but he referred me to other eyewitnesses.
Then we talked about the Mollies, which were eaten in the past but were now fully protected. I told the story of Dugald Carmichael, kicking albatrosses off the ridge left and right, and throwing one into the abyss, where it could not regain flight and dropped dead. Lewis did not believe that story.
"I have seen those things," he said, with a devious smile, clearly meaning that he himself had thrown albatrosses from a cliff. None of those ever fell down, they all just flew away. My story was only good for the rubbish bin. The look on his face: you poor outsider, you don't know anything about these things. My companions fell away from me, choosing Lewis' side.
"Here's someone who knows what he is talking about," Pat laughed. I could have tried to explain that I was not airing my own opinion, just quoting an early eighteenth' century source, but I let it go, it was useless. We talked pleasantly about other topics and Lewis has been very helpful in introducing me to other Moorhen connoisseurs.
With Joyce Hagan I had a different Hoil'n Cock project. We had agreed that she would knit me a sweater, not with the obligatory Tristan silhouette plus albatross, but a special design of my own. She gave me a piece of squared paper on which to draw my design. What else could it be but an Island Cock? After she finished mine she must have produced more. Years later I saw her Island Cock sweaters for sale in the craftshop. I should have asked for royalties.
On murky days I started to deliver the Tristan da Cunha Association Newsletters to Tristanian members. I went first to Herbert Glass, the most knowledgeable man on Island Cocks, I was told. He was not there as he was on the mountain with the Whale People again. His wife offered me tea. He was not only the best Moorhen catcher, with his softmouthed dog Dandy, but he also came nearest to being a true witness. He once found an egg with just a small round hole, right after he had seen a Moorhen near an albatross nest. He took the egg to show it to the Admin. Where the Pigbite trail goes over the edge of the Base he hid the egg under a fern because he had a sheep to shear. After that he forgot about it.
Harold Green offered me tea. He had been Chief Islander a few times, knew a lot about nature and was a guide on Gough with the British expedition, and on Inaccessible with the Denstone boys. He had two definite opinions about Island Cocks. One: it is absolutely true that the birds steal eggs. Two: nobody has yet seen it actually happen, not even he him. Being over sixty, he just remembered the wooden shoes arriving in 1937. As a little boy he had walked in them but he did not really like that.
Repetto faces are among the most typical Tristan faces, recognisable in all old pictures. A long, angular face with pronounced ears and a large, hooked nose, and a very dark complexion. These characteristics, however, did not come from ancestral father Repetto himself, but from his wife, Frances, granddaughter of pale, round-faced Peter Green, so the 'typical' Repetto features come from Saint Helena. The brothers Ernie and Michael clearly had this Frances-look, just like their sister Millie, who travelled with me on the Agulhas. Ernie's grown up children have left the island. He was an exception having no opinion about Island Cocks. But he had a strong opinion about the wooden shoes. They were terrible, useless. On a wet day in the garden you could use them perhaps, but walking in them hurt badly and you could easily sprain an ankle. On rocky soil the soft wood would quickly wear, so they were all gone within two years. But, so he whispered in my ear:
"They made lovely firewood."
Sidney and Alice Glass offered me tea. Their small living room was, like in other Tristan houses, lined with masonite. Glossy paint. They were both very old, and Sidney had trouble breathing and talking. They had not been on the mountain for a very long time, so they left the Moorhen problem for the younger generation. But Brander's wooden shoes they remembered very well. Great fun! There was a huge pile in assorted sizes and you could just take your pick. They liked walking in them, with nice dry, warm feet. Useful around the house and in the Potato Patches but not good for real walks. And they wear out quickly, so in one or two years they were all gone (or perhaps burned by the Repettos). Alice showed me pictures she had received from another Dutchman. In April, this year, retired whaler Albert Veldkamp from Vlissingen was here with his wife, on the RMS Saint Helena (which rescued Michael Swales after seven weeks marooned on the island). Alice made them lunch but then there came a hoot from the ship. Because of increasing wind everybody had to be back on board as soon as possible. Alice quickly packed the lunch in a bag. In the picture she showed me Veldkamp and his wife were enjoying her goodies in their cabin on board.
In the house of Nelson and Winnie Green (glossy blue masonite walls and ceiling) I also found traces of Dutch visitors. There was a signed sketch of the yacht Hadewych, in which Eerde Beulakker and his wife had visited Tristan a little while ago. Here our paths crossed for the second time. Two years earlier he had sailed from Elephant Island, in the Antarctic, to South Georgia, in Shackleton's wake. I was on Elephant Island just before him, but here on Tristan he beat me to it.
The Nelson and Winnie names have nothing to do with the Mandela's. They were both in their seventies and had been married almost fifty years, long before anybody had ever heard of the other Nelson and Winnie. Nelson was already over sixty when he joined the Denstone boys on Inaccessible and he was Mike Frazer's best friend. Knowing nature, he was convinced that Moorhens take eggs, but his judgement was rather mild and he did not believe it was a real problem. When I brought up the wooden shoes they both laughed. Yes, they were young, and they had a lot of fun with them. Useless, but fun.
Nelson's garden looked neat with beautiful geraniums in flower. His great pride was a non-flowering plant with large, glossy green leaves: Peperomia tristanensis, the Tristan Pepper Tree, one of the rarest plants in the world, only to be found in the Chilean Juan Fernandez Islands and on Inaccessible Island, where they only grow in one small valley on the western slope, no more than a handful of plants.
Some Association members offered me tea, others a beer. I had had five beers already when I came to the last of the day, Neil Swain, the shepherd. He had a friend visiting. They had assembled a pile of empty beer cans around their chairs and I soon started building mine too. When the conversation came to Island Cocks, he turned red and became very angry. It was all Michael's fault. First introducing the monsters, and then coming up with intellectual chit-chat that the birds were not so harmful. Come on! Everybody knows they take the eggs! Island Cocks do not belong on Tristan.
When I told him that in the previous century there had been Moorhens on Tristan, he exploded. First Michael, and now me with my useless diplomas, talking nonsense about Island Cocks.
"There's no Hoil'n Cocks on the hoil'n before Mister Swales put them there!" he yelled.
"My father is ninety years old, and he can tell you there never were Hoil'n Cocks!"
I tried to explain that I was not talking about his father's time, but a century earlier, but now I had done it. Mister know-it-all, stubbornly insisting on knowing better. I still had to learn a lot about diplomacy, my fault.
"There's no Hoil'n Cocks on the hoil'n before Mister Swales put them there!" he yelled again. "Shouldn't 'ave dunnit!"
I agreed on that one. He certainly should not have done it. Messing around with species on remote islands only spells trouble.
We talked a bit on various other topics and Neil calmed down. I declined the next beer and left. From the kitchen his wife gave me a shy, apologetic smile. But, in fact, I was the one who needed to apologise for my impolite stubborness.