“Cass,” Annette whispered.
“What?” she whispered in return.
“I have to use a bathroom,” she said uncomfortably and she was indeed squirming a little. She blushed at the indelicacy of the conversation.
Cass nearly laughed but it wasn’t a funny situation. With this many men around it was hard to have any privacy, in an open boat out at sea. “Let me ask if we can take a ‘break’ to swim and wash off the sweat. It will give a chance for the boys to catch up.” She nodded at the men in the rubber raft paddling industriously after them, two at a time in alternate sides so that two could rest trying to keep up to the native’s boat which was better equipped for this. “Sea water is going to wash into your wounds and sting a bit, we will have to clean it all again, are you prepared for that pain?” she asked her friend in concern still whispering.
“I’ve held off as long as I could, I really need to do something,” she said desperately.
Cass signaled Leona who had been pretending not to listen. She explained and the woman shared in her amusement. The men had no problem peeing over the edge and Cass had discretely looked away but she hadn’t had to go until Annette mentioned it. Now she could definitely feel the need. “Tell them we need to clean up before we meet our boat,” she nodded to the mast that she could now see and was a little clearer and going past them if they didn’t intersect it right. “It will only take a few minutes and let them catch up.” She indicated the men in the raft.
Leona barked out some commands and the men in the boat all stopped paddling and rested on the paddles as the boats glided to an uneasy stop. Food was handed out and Leona joined Cass and Annette. They removed their extra shirts, boots, and socks and jumped in the water with their shorts and t-shirts on. Discretely they swam a little ways away and pulled down their shorts to relieve themselves each looking away from the other and still keeping in sight so they could swim back to the boat together. It was an odd experience and they each swam away as soon as they were done and hovered waiting for the others.
“Everything okay?” the men from the rubber raft asked in concern seeing the women in the water.
“Just washing some of the sweat off,” Cass told them as she finished and tried to pull up her shorts. It wasn’t easy but she had incentive. She also noticed that Annette seemed tired already and she wanted to help her get back in the boat.
“Maybe you should go with us now?” the spokesman, Blake asked for them.
Cass shook her head at their determination and pushed the other two women towards the native’s boat. She turned back and said, “Can you see that mast?” and pointed to where she knew it was. She also knew that would give them something else to worry about. They still couldn’t tell yet which side of the war the boat was on.
Cass and Leona had to help Annette back into the boat; she was exhausted from her ‘swim.’ Cass reapplied the paste to the worst of her burns including the one on her arm and by then the boat was a lot clearer in sight to all of them.
“Is that an American boat?” one of the men in the rubber boat asked to everyone at large, there was a hopeful note in his voice.
Cass couldn’t really tell, what did she know about military boats? She was sure no one else here did either but perhaps the Australians…
“Yeah, I think I can make out a flag,” someone commented and everyone peered off into the distance to make sure it didn’t have a flag of the rising sun. The Japanese flag.
“It is, it IS, it’s an American ship!” someone shouted and before Cass or the others could say anything the Australians were trying to stand up in their rubber boat and shout to get noticed. Cass exchanged a look with first Annette and then Leona, one of concern and hope.
None of them had high hopes of being ‘spotted’ in the wide blue ocean so the paddlers continued to paddle towards the boat which was slowly moving across their field of vision. The Australians tried to quickly follow. Everyone felt like it was their only hope. As they got a little closer they could clearly see it had the stars and stripes painted on it and while they wanted to shout and wave it would have unbalanced the boat.
“I wish I had a flare gun!” Cass muttered and just then one of the Aussie’s fired off one of their guns into the air startling everyone. The paddlers stopped paddling to look about in consternation. Everyone turned to look at the Australian who was holding the gun up prepared to fire again. They weren’t close enough to be seen in the relatively calm waters but the view was so vast Cass and the others knew it might be impossible to attract its attention. The noise on the ship, the impossibility of thinking someone was out there unless they were specifically looking for people; it just was not to be. They all felt the despair as the ship sailed on without them.
“Now what?” Annette asked sadly. She was certain she was going to die out here, not from her burns which still pained her but were better from whatever that paste was that Cass had smothered over and into them.
“We keep on, just keeping on,” Cass said and tapping one of the paddlers on his broad shoulders she gestured to him giving her the paddle and let him take his place. At first he didn’t understand and as she made more motions, including taking a grip on the paddle he looked on with amusement and then with an amiable smile he moved off the small platform that raised him from the bottom of the boat and let her take his place. He showed her how to paddle in rhythm with his fellow villagers so as not to throw them off. He encouraged her, she had no idea what he was saying but she smiled and laughed with him at her efforts. The other men saw what was going on and commented and laughed. She laughed and smiled with them as she seemed to bring life to their otherwise mundane paddling. The paddler in the rear, the one who controlled the direction they were paddling in, he steered the boat slightly to the South East instead of due East as they had been traveling. Only the Aussies seemed to notice the change in direction.
Half a day later they were all resting, it was dark and everyone was tired. Leona had spoken with the men of the village and she told Cass and Annette that they were considering making for an island they knew to be not that far away. The water and food they had brought with them would not hold out much longer. Cass knew it wasn’t her decisions but they had been so close! She in turn explained it to the Aussie’s who agreed they needed to find land, soon. Wearily they all continued on.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“It is with much regret…” the telegram began and Stephanie started to cry as she read it through. Lieutenant Cass Scheimer had perished on the Island of Wiquaqua in the South Seas. They were grateful for her courage and service but that didn’t replace the ache in Stephanie’s heart at reading that her best friend, her lover, the love of her life was gone, dead, and never to be seen again.
“What is it?” Cal called from where he was standing with his cane. He had seen the young boy Bobby Schmidt ride in on his bicycle and hand Stephanie the telegram. Telegrams were never good news. He watched her curiously in the garden from where he was trying to cut the front lawn with the help of Timmy. All of them had stopped work at the sight of Bobby peddling in. The boys envied him his bicycle, the adults feared his news.
Stephanie slumped down in the garden and started crying hard as she read it through a second time to be sure she had read it correctly, she hoped, she prayed it would change the second time but it didn’t. Cal dropped the handle and hobbled over to where she was and took the paper from her reading slowly and painfully, school was not his best work and he had left early to go to hunt and trap in the woods. As the reality of what he was reading penetrated his mind and he realized the sobs of the woman at his feet he felt a sense of despair. Cass had been so alive, so bigger than life; he had trusted her absolutely and loved her as only a sibling can do. She had been his best friend. He realized what a blow it was to him but the woman crying pitifully here in the garden, he could only imagine and he did something uncharacteristic to him as he crouched painfully down and took her in his arms.
Stephanie didn’t care tha
t it was Cal, she needed human contact, she needed comforting and she clutched at him desperately as she sobbed.
“Mommy, what’s the matter? Mommy?” two little boys and a little girl had come over in concern at their mother’s loud sobs.
Their voices took a while to penetrate her mind as it had gone blank in despair at the overwhelming sense of loss she was feeling. It was Cal who said quietly to the boys, Summer would not understand, she didn’t remember Cass and to her Cass was only a woman in photos that were on her mother’s bedside and in the living room. The boys understood though and seeing their mother cry they began to cry too. Summer didn’t understand and this was why she cried. Call gathered the children close to help with their mother, he didn’t know if it would help but he was at a loss here. He didn’t know how to comfort Stephanie and he hoped the children might provide some.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It took them most of the night to make any headway. Cass didn’t realize the men were using the stars to guide them. As primitive as the villagers were she defended them and their actions to the now complaining Australians who were beginning to complain and question everything. The loss of the American ship when it went ‘right by them’ was wearing on their minds and their attitude. They felt the ‘white’ women should be in their boat with them. They didn’t realize that too many more bodies in their inflatable would really bog them down and the more physically fit men of the village and their boat was actually a better location for the women. The waves they were all having to contend with were beginning to increase and Cass couldn’t help but wonder if a storm was on the way, they had been out on the water too long and she hoped the men knew where they were going and what they were doing.
It was over the noise of the waves crashing against their boat as the men paddled that they heard it. Louder waves crashing against rocks. Palm trees could be seen above white sands. The men called to each other and to direct them to the shore. It didn’t take long for the strong paddlers to pull them through the reef that surrounded the island and protected it from the deep ocean and it’s bigger, stronger, destructive waves. They easily glided over and past it as they headed for shore. For the Australians who were farther behind it wasn’t as easily and their inflatable raft took on damage. It was with alarm they realized that the razor sharp edges of the reef had punctured their inflatable. They paddled faster for the shore but were bogged down as the air escaped from the rubber and they began to sink. They ended up slogging the last few hundred feet to shore swearing at their misfortune and one of them towing the bottles and bags that contained the last of the water for them all.
Cass and Annette put on their socks and shoes as they waited for the Australians to ‘catch’ up and the villagers stood around and talked. They seemed to find the Australians amusing and watched impassively as they struggled with their deflated boat and the waves not offering to assist them in any way.
The men from the village seemed to know where they were though and Leona translated. “We go, village,” she pointed and Cass helped Annette. Her legs were rubbery from misuse and the healing burns. Cass’s weren’t much better from having sat in the boat for so long but they helped each other to follow the villagers.
“Where are they taking us now?” complained one of the men, Dirk as they followed along miserably. The loss of their boat was apparently wearing heavily on their minds.
The men found a path and started up it through the jungle and Cass was relieved that within perhaps a half an hour of enforced marching they found their way to a village. Calls were exchanged to the now sleeping village, dogs began to bark, and soon figures began to emerge in the darkness. Torches were lit from the glow of fires and more wood was thrown on them to flare up and light the area. Excited voices exchanged information and Cass and Annette knew that they and the straggling Australians coming up behind them were the source of conversation between ‘their’ villagers and the new ones. A boy was dispatched and took off for one of the huts. Cass saw him go and wondered if he was going to get the headman.
They were all astonished when an elderly white man wearing a big wooden cross on a necklace around his neck appeared with the boy. He was equally astonished to seem two white women and four white men with his villagers and some strangers. “I say, this is a surprise,” he said with a decidedly English accent. “What in the world are you doing here?” he asked.
Cass began to speak but one of the men from the Australian contingent interrupted and told his version of how they had come to be here. She was amused by his version of what had happened since they ‘found’ Cass and Annette being ‘held’ by the villagers. She could see that Annette was startled at this version of the truth. Leona exchanged an amused look with Cass whom she liked because she had always treated her nicely even if she was white.
It was explained that they were trying to get back to Allied forces, in contact with someone in the Army or Navy.
“I don’t know if I can…” he told them doubtfully.
Cass, annoyed at the version the Aussie Dirk had told him interrupted, “Sir, I don’t know if you can help us or not, we just need to get in contact with someone, we need to eventually get back home and back to our units and families.”
It had been a long time since he had seen a woman, a white woman, and he blinked at her request. The authority in her voice though penetrated his sleepy fog. “I will see what I can do, in the morning. We must see about getting you all fed and sleeping accommodations.”
In no time at all the helpful villagers had a meal for the travelers, rice and vegetables that they couldn’t identify but were delicious to their palate. Anything was better than the paste they had tried to swallow.
“How are you doing?” Cass asked Annette. They all looked bedraggled, dirty, and worn out.
Annette smiled placidly, “I’m okay. Just a little tired.”
She looked it, thought Cass as she looked at her friend in the firelight as they ate and drank. She didn’t know what she was eating exactly and could only recognize the rice but it was delicious, it was filling, and if she didn’t think about the fact that some islanders ate bugs she was okay.
Later an empty hut was made available for the women and one for the men, the villagers dispersed among the village they were staying in and Cass didn’t see where they went but Leona stayed with them which was a comfort, especially if they needed an interpreter. Cass didn’t realize that these villagers spoke a completely different dialect than the ones who had rescued Cass and her friends.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I’ve sent one of the villagers to a larger island. I cannot tell you where since it is supposed to be a secret. They will contact the The Royal Australian Forces and get back to me about what we can do to get you all back to the war.” He made it sound like they personally were responsible for the war. He had explained that he was among these ‘savages’ to bring the word of God to them. He had learned Javanese but with over seven hundred languages spoken throughout the islands their particular dialect was hard for him to learn and he was still learning. He explained there were coast watchers all throughout the islands that radioed information about Japanese movements who could contact the Allies for them.
It was only later that they learned that ‘Father Aames’ was afraid to give his position away, that he worried about his own presence among the natives and that they would jeopardize it. It took two days just to find out that the villager he had sent to relay the written message he gave the man had returned okay and unharmed with another written message.
“Rescue unlikely at this time, hang tight,” was all the message said and they all sat back in consternation wondering what this meant for them all.
“Villagers go home now, I go,” Leona informed Cass who gave her a big friendly hug and thanked her so much for what she had done.
“I will never forget you, never,” she assured the woman who smiled broadly.
To each of the paddlers Cass gave a handshake and a big smile which they seemed t
o appreciate. There really was nothing more she could give them other than her thanks and they knew they had that. They admired this white woman, she was game, she had paddled herself, and she treated them differently than many. They waved as they paddled off.
“Now we’re stuck for it,” Dirk said angrily as they watched the boat paddle away.
Cass was annoyed with them, not only were they ungrateful to the natives who had rescued them all, brought them at least to an island that could possibly get them all back home, but they were fed and housed by natives who expected nothing in return. She ignored them for the most part despite their attempts to get to know her and Annette better.
“Are you up for a walk?” she asked Annette that evening. There wasn’t a lot to do on the island other than walk on the beach, an occasional swim, the village had a marvelous fresh water stream that pooled not too far from the huts but they didn’t dare bathe naked for fear that the ‘boys’ would catch them. They would have loved to take advantage of the two nurses.
“I’d love to,” Annette answered as Cass helped her up. Keeping up an exercise routine, stretching her muscles and skin was painful but helping her to heal. They were now out of the paste that had been slathered on the burns but Annette was well on her way, just a little stiffness and pain now and then.
It really was beautiful with the white sands, the blue waters, the palm trees, even the natives were friendly, polite, and while they spoke no English they smiled broadly and when the two women stopped to watch them work on something such as weaving baskets or working on a boat they showed them willingly. Cass had tried to work with the tools to help make a boat and they had let her. Annette tried her hand at basket weaving and Cass thought it might be something she might want to know as well for the apples and pears they harvested on the farm. Their own baskets that she had taught Stephanie to weave were made of totally different grasses. The two women were even more welcome than the Aussie men as two of the four of them sat around all day ogling the village women and complaining, two of them at least pitched in to collect wood, tried their hand at fishing, and in the case of Blake attempted to learn some of their words.
The Journey Home Page 32