Billy Bunter Among the Cannibals by Frank Richards.

 Published by Charles Skilton in September 1950 (Reprinted 1953, 1959, 1963)

illustrated by R.J.MacDonald.

Ezra Huck slouched into the shady veranda of the ramshackle bungalow, back of the beach, & stared out at the sea.

    It was morning on Kamakama.

    It was late morning, for Ezra was not an early riser. The sun was well up in the sky, & it was already hot. The lagoon glistened like a sheet of silver, & beyond the reef the Pacific rolled bright & blue to infinity. Blue sky, blue sea, dazzling white sand, palm trees nodding in the breeze of morning, tropical flowers of almost unbelievable colour, natives with brown skins in white lava-lavas lolling or strolling on the beach, natives fishing from canoes on the lagoon; a ketch lying at anchor, it's cable dropping a clear sixty feet, straight as a string, to the coral bottom - that was the view under Ezra's eyes, as he leaned on the veranda rail & stared.

    And he muttered savage words in his shaggy beard. It was the view that met his eye every day, week after week, year after year, till the weariness of it was in his very bones. Ezra had been twenty years on Kamakama: & he had always been going to get off the island, as soon as luck came his way: but luck never came. And more & more, year by year, the trader of Kamakama had sunk under the temptation of all white men in the tropics, which he had not the moral fibre to resist: & innumerable long drinks had sapped away whatever energy he had once had. So many drinks, of so many kinds, had so long been mixed up in Ezra Huck that he was little more than a chunk of disagreeing chemicals. His looks were sulky & savage, his eyes bloodshot, his temper so ferocious that his house-boy, Suloo came near him only in fear & trembling.

    Ezra Huck kept the only store on Kamakama, where he traded & chaffered with the islanders, exchanging trade goods for copra & pearl-shell. He put up the rare visitor to the island in his bungalow, the only place on Kamakama where accommodation of any kind was to be had - but visitors were few & far between. Schooners and ketches came occasionally into the lagoon, to pick up his trade, but even these were rare. Once in months a steamer came in, staying only long enough to land a few supplies, & old newspapers, & pick up cargo. Staring across the dazzling sea, Ezra's bloodshot eyes discerned a bar of smoke on the distant blue horizon. That meant that the "annam" was coming - his only link with civilisation.

    He scowled at the blur of smoke.

   Beginning of chapter X11, "The Trader of Kamakama"

   The "Annam" was bringing visitors to Kamakama, in the shape of Billy Bunter & the Famous Five.

   The obscure verb, 'chaffered', the bizarre sentence construction, both idiosyncratic & evocative. The eccentric use of colon & semi-colon - this is all typical of the writing of Charles Hamilton.

    This is a brilliant piece of writing. Quite untypical of what we might expect to see in a Billy Bunter book. This is writing for adults.

    Billy Bunter Among the Cannibals re-hashes one of Frank Richards favourite themes. In the early twenties, in the old blue & white Magnet, Billy Bunter & Co had accompanied Captain Corkran on a mission to Africa, where, naturally enough, cannibals were encountered. This was a theme to be repeated several times, right up to this one in 1950.

    Hamilton's innocent & naive racialism allowed him to portray black men as "boys", woolly headed, and thick brained, spears always ready to hurl, & cooking pots at the ready.

    We begin, appropriately enough, at Greyfriars School. Bunter is gloomy & morose, having been warned his father is visiting him that day. He fears the worst, that Bunter senior is fed-up of getting bad reports from that beast Quelch. Mr Quelch has never understood what a credit to the school Bunter is - in his last report he had actually used the word untruthful, much to Bunter's astonishment.

    However, Mr Bunter has a pleasant surprise in store for his hopeful son. Apparently Mr Bunter is a director of The Comet Copra Company. This company, with many offices in the South Seas, require a junior manager. Who better to fulfil this role than the director's son?

    So, Bunter, along with the Famous Five, set of for the Island of Lololo. They travel via Singapore, where Bunter has an unfortunate experience with a flimsy rickshaw. Later, the board the steamer "Annam", and encounter the ferocious cannibal chief Mefoo with his band of savage natives in a war canoe. Steam beating paddle, they soon leave the bloodthirsty cannibal chief astern.

    After the obligatory seasickness invariably encountered by Bunter on any boat, they arrive at Ezra Huck's island. Mr Huck has been hired to take them onto Lololo in his ketch.

    It does not take Wharton & the chums to fall foul of Huck's evil temper. They deal with him in the good old Greyfriars way, leaving Huck vengeful & bitter. Worse, he refuses to carry them further in his ketch.

   Marooned on the island, & sleeping on the beach, Wharton & Co ponder their next move. They encounter Ken King, "King of the Islands" in his smart white boat, but, Ken is headed the other way.

   A bloody, weary, bandaged native arrives in a canoe, with a message for Huck. Ken King spies him and realises he is a native from Lololo. Huck suddenly changes his mind & offers the chums a passage after all.

   On the voyage to Lololo Huck is apprehensive & watchful, and he wastes no time in depositing his passengers ashore and scuttling away.

   Only after Huck has left do the Greyfriars fellows realise the awful truth. That Mefoo & his war-like cannibal tribe have invaded the once peaceful island of Lololo.

   So begins a ripping yarn. Bunter - naturally - gets himself captured, and is horrified to learn he is destined to the cooking-pots.

   Ken King makes a re-appearance, and a battle & a rescue are affected. The fatuous Bunter, once so happy to have left Greyfriars, is now only too anxious to return.

The book is illustrated by R J MacDonald. As usual with his pictures, only Bunter is obviously recognizable. His Famous Five had none of the individual, identifying characteristics that Chapman gave the chums.

Personally, I rate this story highly. The "cannibal" aspect may well have been hackneyed & clichéd, but overall the standard of writing is very high. I will go so far as to rate it 9 out of 10.