After a while a man entered the kampong from the west. In the bright moonlight, Tarzan could see him plainly. He was a Jap officer, the commanding officer of the anti-aircraft battery a short distance away. When the natives saw him they arose and bowed. He approached them with an arrogant swagger, speaking a few words to a young woman. She arose meekly and followed him into the house that he had commandeered for his own use.
When his back was turned the natives made faces at him, and obscene gestures. Tarzan was content. What he had seen assured him that the natives would be friendly to any enemy of the Japs. After a while the natives went into their houses and silence descended upon the kampong.
Tarzan dropped to the ground and moved into the shadow of a building. He stole silently to a point as near to the sarongs as he could get without coming out into the moonlight. He stood there for a moment listening; then he stepped quickly across the moon drenched space and seized a sarong.
Returning, he had almost reached the shadow when a woman stepped from behind the corner of a building. They met face to face in the moonlight. The woman, startled, opened her mouth to scream. Tarzan seized her and clapped a hand over her parted lips. Then he dragged her into the shadow.
'Quiet!' he commanded in Dutch, 'and I will not harm you.' He hoped that she understood Dutch. She did.
'Who are you?' she asked.
'A friend,' he replied.
'Friends do not steal from us,' she said.
'I am only borrowing this sarong. It will be returned. You will not tell the Jap about this? He is my enemy, too.'
'I will not tell him. We tell them nothing.'
'Good,' said Tarzan. 'The sarong will be returned tomorrow.'
He wheeled and was lost in the shadows. The woman shook her head, and climbed the ladder that gave entrance to her house. She told her family of the adventure that had befallen her.
'You will never see the sarong again,' said one.
'For the sarong, I do not care,' she replied. 'It did not belong to me. But I should like to see the wild man again. He was very beautiful.'
The following morning, Sarina entered the village. The first woman she met recognized her, and soon she was surrounded by old friends. She warned them away for fear that there might be Japs in the village who would recognize from their greetings that she must be a newcomer and therefore some one to be investigated. Sarina did not wish to be investigated by any Japs. The villagers understood, and returned to their normal activities. Then Sarina sought out Alauddin Shah, the village chief. He seemed glad to see her, and asked her many questions, most of which she avoided answering until she could determine what his relations were with the Japs.
She soon learned that he hated them. Alauddin Shah was a proud old man, a hereditary chief. The Japs had slapped and kicked him and forced Mm to bow low even to their enlisted men. Satisfied, Sarina told her story, explained what she and her companions needed, and solicited his aid.
'It will be a hazardous journey,' he said. 'There are many enemy ships in these waters, and it is a long way to Australia . But if you and your friends wish to risk it, I will help you. There is a large proa hidden in the river a few kilometers down the coast from the village. We will provision it for you, but it will take time. We are not regularly watched; because we have given the Japs no trouble, but they are in and out of the kampong almost every day. One officer sleeps here every night. Everything that we do must be done with the utmost caution.'
'If you will leave provisions every day in a house near the edge of the kampong, we will come at night and take them to the proa,' Sarina told him. 'Thus you can escape blame if we are discovered. You can be very much surprised when you discover that some one has come into the village at night and stolen food.'
Alauddin Shah smiled. 'You are a true daughter of Big Jon,' he said.
A month passed, a month of narrow escapes from detection, a month of harrowed nerves; but at last the proa was provisioned. And now they waited for a moonless night and a favorable wind. Barbed wire and obstructions at the mouth of the stream had been left in place until the proa was ready. Now they had to be removed—a dangerous job in waters infested with crocodiles. But at last even that was accomplished.
At last it came—N-Night they called it. The tide was right. There was no moon. There was a brisk off-shore wind. Slowly they poled the proa down to the sea. The great lateen sail was hoisted. Close in the lee of the shore it caught little wind, but farther out it bellied to a strong breeze, and the proa gained speed.
While moonless, the night was clear. They set a course due south, the Southern Cross their lodestar. They had fashioned a crude log and log line, and while the knots were running they tried to estimate their speed. Sarina guessed twelve knots. She was not far off.
'If this wind holds,' she said, 'we'll be well off the southern tip of Nassau Island before 2:00 o'clock tomorrow morning. Then we'll take a southwesterly course. I want to get out of the coastal waters of Sumatra and Java before we swing to the southeast toward Australia . This way we'll give Engano a wide berth. Then there'll be only the Cocos Islands to worry about, as far as land is concerned. I don't know if the Japs have anything on Cocos.'
'Are they the same as the Keeling Islands ?' asked Jerry.
'Yes, but my father always called them the Cocos Islands because he said Keeling was 'a damned Englishman.'' She laughed, and so did Tarzan.
'Nobody loves an Englishman,' he said. 'But I'm not so sure that Keeling was an Englishman.'
'There's a light at 2:00 o'clock,' said Davis .
'Probably on Nassau ,' said Sarina. 'Let's hope so, for if it isn't, it's a ship's light; and we don't want any business with ships.'
'I don't think their ships would be showing any lights,' said Jerry. 'There are too many Allied subs in these waters.'
Morning found them in an empty ocean—just a vast, round cauldron of tumbling gray water. The wind had freshened, and great seas were running. S/Sgt. Rosetti was sick. Between spasms he remarked, 'I got a half-wit cousin. He joined the Navy.' After a while he said, 'It won't be long now. This crate won't stand much more, and it can't come too soon to suit me. This is the first time in my life I ever wanted to die.' Then he leaned over the rail and heaved again.
'Cheer up, Shrimp,' said Bubonovitch. 'It won't be long now before we go ashore on Australia —maybe only a month or so.'
'Geeze!' groaned Rosetti.
'You will get over being sick pretty soon, Tony,' said Sarina.
'Some admirals always get sick when they first go to sea after shore duty,' said Tarzan.
'I don't want to be an admiral. I joins up for air, 'and what do I get? For couple or three months I been a doughboy; now I'm a gob. Geeze!' He leaned over the rail again.
'Poor Tony,' said Sarina.
The long days passed. The wind veered into the southeast. The southeast trade wind that would blow for ten months had started. Sarina took long tacks, first to starboard and then to port. It was slow going, but their luck had held. They were well past the Keeling Islands now, and no sign of enemy shipping.
Douglas, who had been standing his trick as lookout, had come aft. 'It's an awful lot of water,' he said. 'Flying it, it seems terrible big—the Pacific, I mean; but down here on the surface it seems like there isn't anything in the world but water; and this is only the Indian Ocean, which ain't a drop in the bucket alongside the Pacific. It makes you feel pretty small and insignificant.'
'There's sure a lot of water in the world,' agreed van der Bos.
'Three quarters of the whole surface of the Earth is water,' said Corrie.
'And the Pacific has a greater area than all the land surfaces of the Earth combined,' said Jerry.
'If I owned it,' said Rosetti, 'I'd trade the whole damn works for any old street corner in Chi.'
'What I don't like about it,' said Douglas , 'is the total absence of scenery. Now, in California —'
'He's off again,' said Bubonovitch.
'But he's got something just the same,' said Davis . 'Gawd! how I'd like to see a cow—just one measly little cow deep in the heart of Texas .'
'I'll settle for land, any old land, right now,' said Rosetti. 'Even Brooklyn would look good. I might even settle down there. I'm fed up on travellin'.'
