Modern Crusoe’s Risky Voyage

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 38, 7 May 1927, Page 1

Modern Crusoe’s Risky Voyage

“ISLAND” ESCAPEE IN DINGHY

FREEDOM, AND THEN GOAL

The clucking, gurgling sound of water lapping against the hull of a dinghy moored alongside the wharf at Roto Roa Island, in the very early hours of a Jan uary morning, would have meant nothing to anyone else who might have heard it, but to Charles Marshall Fyfe, the sound spelled freedom.

Fyfe had told Major Horne, who rules the destinies of the inmates of the Salvation Army Inebriates’ Island down in the Gulf, that he’d escape as soon as an opportunity offered, and he meant to keep his word.

The oars were kept under lock and key, but that was an obstacle easily overcome. The main thing was the boat.

At 2 a.m., when all was quiet about the home, Fyfe stole silently down to the wharf, unmoored the dinghy and shoved off. As the boat drifted away from Roto Roa with the tide, he might have been seen rigging an improvised sail of bags. The wind eventually carried him ashore on a small island down off the Coromandel coast. He was in fact a shipwrecked mariner, for the rocks had put an end to the dinghy’s sea worthiness for the time being. A passing trawler sighted him, and rescued him from the prospect of spending a Robinson Crusoe existence in this out-of-the-way island and brought him back to Auckland, landing him at Devonport. To the crew he told a story of having lost his oars overboard and been blown out to sea.

was heard of Fyfe until a week or so ago, when he was arrested on his discharge from the Waipukurau Hospital (where he had been under another name) and brought to Auckland.

In the Police Court this morning, Major Horne asked for the full pen-

alty. He did not want Fyfe back on the island on account of his influence on the other inmates. Fyfe, who is a qualified chemist, was committed to Roto Roa in February, 1925, the Major said, he escaped once before from the island and went to Sydney. He was subsequently arrested there and deported. He was taken back to the island without being: brought before the court and punished for the offence. “He told me that he wouldn’t stop, and that he’d escape as soon as he grot the chance,” Major Horne told the court. Senior-Sergeant Edwards then added a chapter to Fyfe’s history. He had been in the Waipukurau Hospital as a result of taking drugs (the reason of his commitment to the island), and he had also gone round Dannevirke seeking drugs from chemists. “He can’t leave drugs alone,” concluded Mr. Edwards. The magistrate asked Fyfe if he wanted to say anything. “He made things unbearable for me,” was the reply, indicating Major Horne. “Oh. nonsense,” said Mr. Hunt. “I was two or three years at the war,” continued Fyfe, “Shell-shock caused me to take to drugs,” and he asked for leniency. “If you’ll give me a chane ” “I’ll give you three months, and that will get the drugs well out of you I” was all the sympathy he got from the Bench.