After working for a few minutes, I was startled be the sound of unintelligible voices which seemed to be coming from downstream.  I thought my ears were playing tricks, for often times before the swift river water shooting across the stones had sounded like people talking. 

So I went on about my business. But this time the noise continued to grow in volume, like an audience whispering during the intermission of a show.  I jerked my head toward the bend in the river. 

Pushing into view behind a clump of trees that flanked the near side of the stream was the slender nose of an outrigger canoe followed by a crowd of natives jabbering and singing as they waded through the shallow water.

My first impulse was to run into the bushes and hide, at least until I could find out whether they were friendly.  But my feet were paralysed; I couldn’t make them move an inch. 

Suddenly a tremendous shout rose as the natives spotted my naked figure crouched in tall bamboo grasses.  The game was up.  I couldn’t have escaped had I wanted.

As they approached me, their talk sounded garbled, and I strained my ears to make out some intelligible sound.  Then I thought I heard one of them yell, “Mastah, mastah, you numbah one!”

“My God,” I thought.  “What does he mean by that?  Am I number one friend or number one for the soup pot?” 

Then a wiry, dark-skinned native with short curly hair stepped forward.  Probably their chief I guessed and tried to remember the words in the jungle guide which meant ‘greeting’ in native dialect.  But my mind was an absolute blank.

Finally, I screwed up courage enough to start toward the canoe.  I moved cautiously, wondering if these people had been sent out by the Japs to look for me and bring me back. 

The man I had picked as the leader of the group came closer.  I looked straight into his deep-set eyes, hoping for some amicable sign.

I wasn’t watching where I was going, and nearly toppled over as my toe stubbed on a sunken rock.  The leader reached out a strong arm to steady me, and then all my fears vanished as I saw a warm and sympathetic smile flow into his face.

“You numbah one fellow too,” I gulped, my first words to another human being in thirty one days.

He grinned excitedly and shook my hand. One of the others rushed up waving a notebook. 

Scribbled on the second page, in the unmistakable handwriting of an Australian, was a note addressed to ‘Whomever It May Concern’:

“The bearer of this letter, Luluai Lauo, has proved his loyalty to the Allied Forces by assisting in the rescue of three American airmen who were shot down by the Japs.  These natives can be trusted and anyone finding themselves in similar circumstances will receive good food and care.” – John Stokie. A.I.F.

Before I could finish reading, the tears began to trickly down the side of my cheek.  Then it suddenly dawned on me that the ‘Great White Master’ was standing here without a stitch of clothing on. 

I hadn’t mentioned the girl sitting modestly in the rear of the canoe until they all began to giggle like school children.  Hoping to salvage what dignity I could, I dashed back into the hut and slipped on my tattered trousers. 

When I reappeared, the canoe had been pulled ashore and the whole tribe gathered around me for a closer look.  I felt like a prize poodle at the dog show, though I had a month old beard and hair hanging down to my shoulders.

Turning then to Friendly Fruits I read several paragraphs from the section on ‘Conversation with Natives’.  But each of my questions brought back the same reply, “Me no savee, Mastah.”

Then I recalled a lecture I’d heard at a class on Jungle Survival back at the squadron operations base. The lecturer had advised resorting to words of simple English if the natives failed to understand the lingo in the jungle guide books.

“Japan he stop?” I queried.

The chief shook his head. “No got. All Yapan he go finish time before.”

I took that to mean that the Japs had left and felt better about the whole thing. 

Then, following the recommendations in Friendly Fruits, I reached into my pocket and passed out a few Australian coins which I had saved. 

There were more friendly smiles.  Feeling better all the time, I pointed to my stomach and gave an empty look.

“Mastah, he like catchim kai kai? He got big fellow hungry, no?”

“Yes,” I nodded, “Me hungry too much”.

Things were certainly picking up.  The chief rattled off a long speech and two little boys ran down to the canoe, returning with a bunch of bananas, pineapples, some smoked fish and a piece of meat I later learned was roast pig. 

Then a terrible thing happened.  My appetite suddenly vanished.  The excitement was too great.

The man who had introduced himself as the ‘doctor boy’ had the name ‘Joseph Gabu’ tattooed across his chest.  When I called him by this name, his eyes sparkled and from that moment we were strong friends. 

He was an admirable man.  When someone discovered that my fire, which had burned for twenty days, had finally died, Gabu simply shrugged his shoulders, produced a couple of dry sticks from his basket and began rubbing them together.  A tiny curl of smoke drifted up.

Gabu bent down and blew life into the single spark.  Then he placed the tinder carefully under some dry bark shavings and blew some more.  Smoke poured out and in a second the whole pile of twigs and bark burst into fire.  I felt very humble.

Sleep was out of the question that night.  I felt like a kid trying to sleep the night before Christmas. 

I lay awake in my hut, listening to the singing and chanting of the natives, feeling very good about being a member of society again.

Once in a while I thought I could detect bits of melody taken from church hymns in the singing of the natives, but I thought then I was just imagining it.

Wisps of fog were still hanging in the trees along the river next morning when the natives started to break camp and make preparations for the trek down to the beach. 

Somebody brought me a billy tin of hot fish stew, but the excitement of leaving subordinated any desire I had for food. 

I was too anxious to get started for the beach and what I thought would be eventual rescue.  I thought the natives would have some means of signalling a plane and perhaps get me picked up in a Catalina flying boat.

The outrigger canoe, hand carved from a huge tree, was a long log, about six feet in diameter, to which were attached several smaller poles projecting out at right angles from one side. 

It looked flimsy and unseaworthy, but I remembered seeing similar boats carrying natives up and down the coast near Port Moresby. 

Across the center of the outrigger three heavy planks had been placed to form a platform for me to sleep on. 

With one man poling in the bow position and another pushing from the stern, we eased out into the middle of the river where a strong current reached out and swept us along rapidly. 

My fears for my safety proved groundless, for the natives were skilful in handling the outrigger as it dipped and rocked on the crest of the rapids.

Every time the sound of an approaching plane was heard, one of the natives would sing “Balus” (pigeon).  Then the rest picked up the cry, “Balus, baloos, belong Yapan!”

There would be a scramble while the chief shouted orders and we’d hide the canoe under the protection of the vines growing along the bank. 

The natives believed that the “man belong balus with his glass look-look” could observe every movement of the ground unless it was hidden in the bush.

At noon we pulled into a small tributary and Gabu, armed with a heavy spear, climbed out on the bank to hunt for ‘bolo’. In a few minutes we heard a loud rustle in the bushes and the chief yelled, “Bolo, bolo”. 

A terrifying scream cut the air.  The heavy sound of running feet shook the ground.  Then a dead silence. 

Soon Gabu broke through the underbrush leading two other natives who were carrying a huge wild pig tied to a long pole.  Blood dripped from the pig’s side where Gabu’s spear had struck. 

The natives dumped the pig, still struggling violently, in the front part of the canoe, and I looked anxiously at the vines which bound his legs.  The rest of the party was jubilant.

As the river widened and deepened, I sensed that we were nearing the sea.  Occasionally I’d get a whiff of salt air. 

Then, rounding a bend, I spotted a sprawling garden, planted in a clearing which sloped down to the water’s edge.  Two little Pickaninnies, wading in the shallows, waved, then scurried up the bank. 

Several half naked women straightened up from their work in a patch of sugar cane and jabbered in high-pitched voices. 

The chief, Lauo, exchanged some words with them.  Immediately they got into a second canoe and moved ahead, I learned later, to search for any hostile natives or Jap patrols. 

Our own outrigger stopped in a quiet pool to await the ‘all clear’ signal.  In a few minutes the voices of the women in the second canoe came back over the water.  The coast was clear and we landed.

The village, or ‘Place Kanaka’ was a cluster of little grass covered lean-tos on the edge of a lagoon near the river.  A crowd of excited natives rushed out to help beach the outrigger.

I had hardly reached the shore when they began shaking my hand.  They evidently considered it a privilege, though some of the more timid girls had to be coaxed before they would come near. The nursing mothers held out their babies for me to touch.

The chief then led me to his hut, where a bed had been prepared for me, the honoured guest.  The bed was an affair of three planks stretched across two cross pieces supported by forked sticks.  I tried to smile and look grateful. 

That night my hip bones nearly poked through my skin when I tried to sleep on the bed which the chief had proudly described as “good fellow bed too much”. 

To add to my insomnia was the presence of eight others in the house – the chief, his wife, and her six cousins. 

And when they weren’t jabbering, they snored like a bunch of old sows wallowing in the mud. 

In the morning I tried to explain that I’d like to sleep on the sand, kanaka (native) style, but I was told that it was beneath the dignity of a white man to touch the ground with his body. 

However, some of the natives made me a new bed, using some more slender boughs this time, and I was more comfortable after that.

My appetite revived during the next few days, and I feasted on several native dishes. 

The main foodstuff was a vegetable called ‘taro’ but it did not remind me of the wild taro I had tried to prepare for myself after first crashing.  This taro was shaped like a large turnip and tasted something like a potato. 

Chunks of wild pig and fish were seasoned by salt water.  The natives would simply throw a cupful or two of sea water into the boiling pot. 

I soon tired of boiled pig, but when I tried to talk the natives into giving me some of their juicy roast pig, they tried to convince me that it was better for the mastah to have boiled pig. 

I should have listened to them.  When I finally persuaded them to give me some roast pig, eating it stirred up an illness from which my stomach never fully recovered.

One day a native saw me dab some iodine on a sore and demanded that I do the same for him.  Word spread through the village like wildfire, and I soon had a line of patients standing in front of my hut to be treated. 

Now the iodine was in small vial, put into my jungle kit for the primary purpose of purifying water.  But no matter. 

Though most of the natives complained of ‘sores’ neither they nor I could see, I dabbed what I thought was the ailing part and sent the patient away ‘cured’.

Quite frequently, Luluai Lauo, the chief, was called in for questioning by the Jap officers in the garrison on Lolobau Island eight miles down the coast. 

I spent an anxious day whenever he went, wondering if he would inform on me and return with a Jap patrol.  But his loyalty was steadfast. 

He told me how the Japs questioned him at the point of a sword concerning the presence of ‘downed birdmen’ hiding in the village.  But he always convinced them that he “no got one fellow mastah – me no look’em this fella”.

On some of these trips the chief carried a basket of fruit or vegetables which he sometimes traded with the Japs for cigarettes, or quinine, or an occasional bag of rice.  But generally, he returned empty handed. 

It was hard for me to see the wisdom in treating the natives so.  The Japs tried to pay the natives in script money which was never redeemable and then created further hatred by robbing food from native gardens. 

As one of the natives told me the war was “fight belong white man.”  He asked for no favors but did expect at least fair and just treatment.

Frequently Jap patrols appeared along the beach, and it became necessary to take some precautionary measures.  It was decided to build a small hut, well concealed in a nearby swamp, where I could hide during the daylight hours. 

Pickaninnies were stationed along the beach front to warn me of Japs or hostile natives.  When I wasn’t walking barefoot, two small children followed close behind me, covering the tracks left by my boots.

The precautions were life savers. 

On the second day, while I hid in the swamp, a Jap float plane appeared over the mouth of the river and circled slowly several times at a very low altitude. 

In fact, the plane was so low that I could see the goggled face of the observer peering out from the back seat.

At night I came out of hiding and sat around the fire chatting with the natives.  These fire-side chats gave me a wonderful opportunity to learn Pidgin English and observe some of the native habits. 

One of the things I learned was about ‘kanaka’ beer.  Since alcoholic beverages had been denied the natives when they worked on plantations during peacetime, they had developed a substitute concoction which consisted of a wild betel nut placed in a ‘dacka’ leaf and then sprinkled with a white power called ‘kabong’, the latter a substance nothing other than powdered limeshell. 

When the natives chewed on this mixture, it produced a bright red juice which they expectorated all over the place.  Even the women delighted in shooting a stream of this red liquid through the cracks in their teeth. 

Others spit a fine spray which left a read blotch on everything it touched.  For those who were not proficient at shooting or spraying, it seemed satisfactory to let the stuff trickle over the edge of their mouths in big globs.

During full moon we made some attempts to signal the four-engined bombers passing overhead on their way to strike at Rabaul. 

Three natives would be stationed at ten yard intervals along the beach, each waving a torch made from dried coconut leaves. But no one in the planes ever seemed to notice them. 

Several minutes after the passage of the planes, we’d see the long fingers of Jap searchlights flickering across the sky over Rabaul forty miles to the east.  And then the thud of exploding bombs would rumble across the bay.

One day while I was back up the river working the ‘mau mau’ (garden), the chief’s wife came up to me, screaming that a party of Japs were approaching.  Gabu grabbed me and we ran deep into the jungle. 

I carried my boots over my shoulder so as not to leave any tracks.  When we were a safe distance from the garden, Gabu pointed to a vine choked eucalyptus and told me to climb it and hide. 

Reaching the top I found a moss-filled nest which had evidently been the home of some animal.  Except for swarms of mosquitoes, it was a perfect hideout. 

Gabu then shouted me instructions to answer only to the call of ‘Freddie’.  Under no circumstances was I to answer ‘Mastah Freddie’.  If the Japs came within shouting distance and yelled ‘Mastah’, I might think it was one of the natives.

Gabu left and I waited in the tree for three hours.  At times I thought I could hear voices in the distance, but I was afraid to move around much for fear it might be the Jap patrol. 

By now the sun had gone down and a blanket of darkness had descended on the jungle.  I began to fear that I might have to spend the whole night in the tree.  I didn’t dare start down until I got the agreed upon signal.

Finally, the voices I’d been hearing got louder and I was sure I heard someone yell “Freddie”.  I took a chance and shouted out at the top of my voice. 

There was a scurry of running feet under the tree and I broke into a cold sweat.  Then I recognized Gabu’s voice.  He was as breathless as I was. 

When I had reached the ground, he explained that he had lost the particular tree I was in.  That was the reason he was so late in returning.  The Jap patrol had passed on long before.

My whiskers had grown pretty thick by this time and the natives were determined that I should shave them off.  I dodged the issue until one day the chief accosted me.

“Mastah, me cut’em grass belong you fellow”.

I tried to argue politely that long beards were a custom (actually it had been three months since I shaved), that “belong me fella time before,” but the old chief wouldn’t take no for an answer.  There was nothing to do but give in.

The whole village turned out en masse and the community razor was produced – a straight edge blade all nicked up, and with a broken handle.  Somebody brought a bowl of warm water.  God forbid, I mumbled.  No soap, no styptic pencil! 

One of the pickaninnies held a mirror cracked in a thousand places and I sat down on the edge of a log to begin the ordeal.  Each stroke pulled across my face like a piece of jagged glass. 

Eventually I reached the place where only a small tuft of hair remained under my chin.  I put the razor down and made preparations to get away.  So far, I’d kept from cutting myself and it would be sheer folly to try to get under the chin.

“Mastah, him, he no enough,” said the chief, pointing straight at the tuft under my chin.  “Me like try him.”

I gulped, whitened, but there was only one thing to do.  I stood up, held my chin high, closed my eyes, and tried to think about other things.  The chief made several short, swift strokes, half cutting, half pulling.

“Him, he enough. He enough,” I whimpered.  The chief stepped back, put the razor down, and surveyed his work proudly.  I breathed a sigh of relief and then grinned back at the broad smiles of the natives.

One day after much persuasion, the chief finally consented to take me down the coast to Ae Ae, the main village. 

He argued that pro-Jap natives frequently visited there and might find me.  Though I knew the risk, I had been looking forward to attending one of the church services which they held each Sunday. 

At one o’clock that night we climbed into canoes and set out for the village four miles away, having decided to travel by darkness to avoid any patrols or unfriendly natives. 

A light breeze filled the sails and pushed us silently through the water, leaving a glowing trail of phosphorescent bubbles. 

Once we heard a Jap barge chugging along further out to sea and I wondered if it would spot our luminous wake.

Upon nearing the village, one canoe in our convoy was dispatched to reconnoitre the beach while the rest of us pulled into a nearby cove. 

When the “all clear” signal came, we slipped quietly up a back trail leading to one of the huts on the outskirts of the village. 

There I met Apelis, a native missionary boy, who had visited me at the other village, bringing me a ‘Buk Lotu’ (Bible).  He warned me that three pro-Jap natives had stopped for the night but were expected to leave in the morning.  In the meantime, I was to stay in this hut and get some sleep.

The next morning about nine o’clock I was wakened by a weird sounding whistle.  Scrambling out of bed, I found Apelis blowing on the ‘tamboo’, a horn made from a seashell. 

He was calling the people to worship, and I could see a line of natives, dressed in grass skirts and strange mixtures of European clothes, forming in front of a large hut which they call the ‘House Lotu’ or church. 

Most of the men wore white shirts and lap lap, or calico skirts.  Several of the women wore brightly colored jackets which they had made at the mission station in peacetime.

I was a bit embarrassed to think of the ‘white master attending church in tattered khakis which hadn’t seen a soap wash for three months. 

But Apelis came to my rescue with a white silk shirt and a brown tie from an old chest which had once belonged to a missionary.  I set out for church feeling like a deacon.

Upon entering the church, I found the congregation seated on small grass mats.  As I looked at their sober, humble faces, a wave of piety engulfed me.  On each side of it were two glass jars filled with little yellow flowers.

The prayers and hymns had been taken from a regular Methodist service and translated into the native ‘Rabaul Talk’.  It was called A Buk na Kakailai which means a book of songs.  The natives loved to sing, especially those who had gone to mission schools. 

In a minute or two I heard the strains of Onward Christian Soldiers and my eyes began to get misty; I was back in the junior choir of the Episcopal Church in Rochester, Minnesota. 

There was very little of the words of the rest of the service I could understand but it made no difference.  I was closer to God than I had ever been before.

A few days later, after the return to our own village, a Jap coastal ship dropped anchor a half mile offshore and turned the village into a panic. 

Everyone scurried about, packing his possessions and chasing pet pigs and dogs to the safety of the jungle. 

The chief and Gabu paddled out to the ship in a canoe to meet the captain.  They returned a couple of hours later with instructions for all men and women to collect freshly cut trees and vines for use in camouflaging the Jap ship.

“All Yapan, he got big fella fright.  Sapos Baloos belong America throw’em away bomb, I think ship belong Yapan, he bagarup finish.”

According to the chief, the Japs were afraid of Allied air patrols, so they moved their ships and barges under cover of darkness, hiding them along the shore during the day.

All the women grabbed their pickaninnies and stampeded into the bush, for once the Japs had attacked several women and carried them off to Rabaul. 

As for myself, just to be on the safe side, I tagged behind the women and hid in the jungle until the ship steamed away that night.

A few weeks later after the experience with the Jap ship, I was seized by a shivering attack of cold chills after lunch.  At first, I blamed it on indigestion.  Then my teeth started to chatter, and my skin raised a thousand goose pimples. 

An hour later fever hit me, and I prayed that the chills would come back and cool me off.  Breathing was painful and great beads of sweat dripped from my body. 

Hours later the fever broke, and I was utterly exhausted.  I was even too tired to eat and fell asleep that night with an empty stomach.

The next morning, I wakened fresh and full of spirits.  Gabu fixed me a breakfast of fish and boiled rice which I devoured like a starved puppy.  Then at noon, the same icy chills swept over me.  Gabu told me, ”Mastah, he got cold sick”.

I had no idea what he was getting at but each day I went through the same thing; a period of chills followed by high fever and heavy sweating.  At the end of ten days, I was so weak and short-winded that I couldn’t move from my bed. 

I wasn’t eating anything.  The only nourishment came from reading short passages in the Bible and listening to Apelis and his religious brethren chanting their songs and prayers around my bed.

As more days passed and my strength faded, I realized that I’d never live out the month if I didn’t get some food into me that I would digest.  My last meal had been over ten days before. 

When I asked the chief if he knew where I could get some milk, he spoke of a plantation near Rabaul that had goats.  A native was sent to steal one.  But he returned empty handed, saying that the job was too risky with the Japs around.

Apelis, who had been so sympathetic with me, was heart-broken when he heard the news of the native boy’s failure. “Mastah,” he asked, “Enough he can kai kai (eat) soo soo?”  I wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘soo soo’ but managed a feeble nod.

The missionary boy smiled and raced off toward the village.  A couple of hours later he returned bringing his wife and their month-old child.  She trailed modestly behind him, gazing open mouthed at me. 

Apelis handed her a teacup and she stepped behind the grass wall of my hut.  A few minutes later she passed the cup back to her husband.  Then I realized that soo soo was the word for mother’s breast milk.  I was too embarrassed to refuse. 

My benefactors regarded me apprehensively as I put the cup to my lips.  One sip, and I smiled at Apelis and his wife, Deena.

Deena came to my hut every day for the next ten days to supply me with a small cup of her life-giving food.  The strength began to flow back into my body. 

By the end of the first week, I was able to eat a little fruit and could manage to sit up in bed a few minutes each day. 

As the days rolled by, the malaria chills vanished, and though I was able to walk only a few steps at each try, I knew that my “cold sickness” had been licked.

I had begun to eat more or less normally when I was beset with a severe case of diarrhea.  After a few attempts to cure myself with native remedies, one of the natives, Quali, suggested that he take a note to “Padre” and get some medicine. 

According to his story, a German Catholic missionary and four lay brothers had left their mission station on the coast at the start of hostilities and retreated back into the hills. 

The Japs had evidently decided to ignore them, and their religious party lived in their cloister unmolested. 

Though I was most anxious to meet them, once I heard Quali’s story, the chief advised against it, saying that the four lay brothers, whose loyalty was questionable, might inform the Japs about me. 

Furthermore, he said, a letter could be delivered to the Padre without the others knowing about it.  Neither was the chief sure that the Padre could read English since he was “Padre belong Germany.” 

But I wrote a note in simple English, explaining my ills, and then added a few German phrases I remembered from school, telling of my Grossvater who had been a druggist in Dieseldorf, hoping that such a postscript might soothe any troubled waters.

Three days later Quali rushed into my hut wearing a childish grin and carrying a small parcel wrapped with banana leaves and tied with vines.  Inside were two bottles, further bound with banana leaves. 

I peeled off the wrapper on one and found a tiny vial of dark liquid with a green paper label giving directions in Chinese or Japanese characters.  Whether the medicine was for constipation or diarrhea I couldn’t tell – and that was a vital fact to know. 

My dilemma was cleared, however, when I took the paper from the second bottle and found a glass cylinder of Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills.  They were exactly like the ones I had sold over the counter of my dad’s drugstore; good for the liver and a cure-all. 

I knew then that the liquid medicine was for diarrhoea and I immediately swallowed the whole bottle.  My unprofessional guess must have been right, for at the end of the day my diarrhoea was gone. 

A few days later I took several doses of the Indian Root Pills just for good measure.  They must have had curative powers because the next day I was able to move from my bed and, with the help of a cane, walked to the nearest stream for a bath.

Many planes circled the village at low altitudes and often they were friendly.  But always I had to hide in the bush until I had a good glimpse of them and by that time they were usually on their way. 

Once, while standing on the beach watching the sunrise, the chief pointed out to me a speck in the direction of Rabaul.  It came nearer and nearer.  At first, I assumed it to be some Nip on a morning patrol but a few seconds later I recognized the silhouette of the Douglas A-20. 

I grabbed a shirt from one of the natives and waved it hopefully.  But just as the plane reached the village, it turned in a steep bank to circle the little island offshore where Jap barges had been hiding.  This manoeuvre exposed the belly of the plane and cut me off from the pilot’s view.

One morning the grapevine brought me the alarming news that hostile natives were leading a Jap patrol my way to investigate the rumour that an American aviator was hiding in one of the villages. 

It soon became apparent that the American aviator was me.  One of the unfriendly natives from a nearby village had evidently spied me taking a swim and hurried to a Jap officer at Ulamona with the information. 

The situation was precarious.  If the Nips threated to torture any of the local tribesmen, my freedom would be short-lived. 

I got into a huddle with my henchmen, the chief and Gabu, who decided that someone should take me far up the river to hide until the patrol had left. 

In the meantime, when the Japs arrived at Ae Ae, the chief would give them some double talk and send them on their way.

Just as I was able to leave, the chief called his people together and gave them a talk about security and loyalty to the Allies.

“Sapos ol’ Yapan, he like find Mastah Freddie, you no can talk.  You must fasten him this fella something long belly belong you fella.”  (In other words, if some Japs came, no one had seen me – my whereabouts were to be kept a secret inside their stomachs.)

“This fella something,” he continued, “He work belong Guvmint.  Behind, all boy can catch him big fella pay.  You must look out good long Mastah Freddie.” (The job of hiding me was the same as working for the government and later they would all be rewarded for doing a good job.)

A bodyguard was assigned me and we set out up the river for a safe place to hide.  We followed a trail along the banks crossing at several points and then wading to throw off any attempts to follow us. 

Finally, we reached a small island where the river split into two branches.  A thick growth of tall reeds lined the shore.  The swift current made it difficult for anyone to approach quickly.  It looked like a perfect hideout. 

We half waded; half swam across the narrow stretch of water.  Then we stepped ashore and were swallowed up by the heavy grass.

The night passed without incident.  By noon of the next day my patience had given out.  Surely the chief had talked the Japs out of looking for me by this time. 

I relaxed a bit and soon fell asleep.  I was wakened suddenly when my guide nudged me and whispered, “I think ol Yapan, he come up now.”

My heart took a flip when I heard strange voices on the opposite bank.  The sounds were too far away for me to catch any meaning, but I thought they were arguing and debating whether to cross the river.  I was getting prepared to make a dash for the other bank when I heard Gabu’s voice.

“This fella water he strong too much.  Boy no can broke him.  Suppose he try.  I think he can bagarup true.”

There was a splash followed by more arguing.  Then the voices died away.  I took my first breath in several minutes.

Arriving back at the village next day, I learned that the Japs had threatened Gabu with his life if he didn’t lead them to where I was hiding. 

Gabu had crossed them by following the trail directly to the edge of the river and then discouraging the Jap patrol from going further by saying that the water was too dangerous to cross.

Several days later while I was sitting at dinner, a native bounded into my hut, talking so excitedly that I could not understand him.  I thought another Jap patrol was in the neighborhood. 

Then Gabu came into the hut with two other natives, one of them a complete stranger.  Gabu introduced him as “Sukova, boy belong Mastah Stokie.”

Sukova appeared to be from a different tribe than these local people.  He was healthier and had a more wiry frame.  The two yellow bands held the muscles in his biceps taut. 

A long scar stretched across one arm where he evidently had been knifed. 

He reached into a little wicker basket which hung from his hand and handed me a letter.  It was address to the ‘Airman at Ae Ae’ and said that I should return with the bearer of the message and would find friends.  It was signed ‘Ian Skinner, A.I.F’.

I thought our forces must have landed on the other side of the island and that this was an advance patrol.  I trembled, all excited, and shouted to the natives, “Soldier belong me fella, he come up now. Good fella too much.”

But Sukova was very secretive.  He was unwilling to tell where the soldiers were or why they came.  He was afraid that gossip and loose talk might get to the Japs. 

I finally shooed the natives out of the hut and visited alone with Sukova. 

He told me that “Mastah Stokie” and two other Australians were back in the hill with a ‘wireless’.  They had been landed on the island by boat under cover of darkness. 

Then Sukova showed me a .45 pistol he carried as protection against unfriendly natives.  He told of a trip to Port Moresby where he had seen “plenty too much airplanes and man-o-wars.”

After a bit I called the chief into the hut and told him that I wanted to go back with Sukova.  But he told me that in my present condition the trip would be too difficult and suggested that I send a letter to ‘Master Stokie’. 

I scratched a note explaining that I was too sick to come now but would attempt the trip later if I could get some quinine.  Sukova’s legs were ‘tight too much’ so another runner was sent in his place.

No answer came back for three days and I was so impatient that I persuaded the chief to have someone take me as far as the river so I could meet the returning messenger there. 

We set out by canoe at night, arriving just after sunrise at the mouth of the river where we stopped long enough to load some fresh fruit and vegetables.  Then we resumed paddling. 

About noon I spotted a cardboard container floating down the river current.  The natives broke into a hurried conversation. 

Then a canoe rounded a bend in the river about two hundred yards away. 

It was too far away to see any faces, but one of the party was wearing an Australian campaign hat. 

I let out a yell and nearly upset the canoe as I stood up to wave.

To be continued….