Evening star., 1943-11-28

like to eat. They still pretended that
they were WELL and cheerful, and con-
fdent and strong.
Land Is Sighted.
On the 18th day every one had be-
come weak and silent. ClaSsen was look
ing southwest more from habit than
hope, when he saw something which
brought his heart into his mouth sick
eningly. He saw light, caStellated clouds
on the edge of the seattle kind of
clouds that can accumulate only over
land where the trade winds blow. Clas-
sen said nothing until he was sure Then
he SAID. Look. I'm almost certain >.
land There's land over there"
They saw the land itself late in the
afternoon-high blue hills infinitely far
of, with rain clouds sweeping across
them and the sunset behind them. They
Tell to mad padding, forcing the slug
gish RATS through the water with hiss,
dancing and turning and bounding.
Night blacked out the visible prospect
OF life, but still they padded.
About midnight the clouds cleared
away and it was brilliant moonlight.
The nine men heard the sound of long
rollers on coral reef and saw the phos-
phoreScent flash of breaking water dead
ahead. They were afraid the coral
would puncture the RATS, so they pad
dled out to sea again and came in
obliquely, looking for the entrance to the
lagoon. They found it at last and eased,
breathlessly, through the gap in the
breakers, leaped overheard in waist high
water, and dragged the RATS through
the wash on to beach of white, sharp
coral sand. They could see the silhou-
cites of dark bush and above it tracery
of palm fronds
They were all very weak-weaker even
than they had believed. One man fell
helplessly face down in the water and
had to be dragged out. They opened the
last two cans of tomato juice, saved for
the last emergency, and drank it just
beyond the foam line. They cheered
hoarsely, laughed. capered, patted the
sand Historically.
Natives on Beach.
The castaways reached the beach at
o'clock In the morning Just before
dawn the natives heard the sound of
laughter and strange voices from the
beach. One went to rouse the chief and
the others crept down cautiously to in
vestigate.
The castaWays saw them fitting from
palm trunk to palm trunk, and called
out, 1--WE are friends. We are Ameri-
cans"
After a time the natives came out
shyly and shook hands punctiliously all
around. Then they brought bundle OF
drinking coconuts and peered at the
castaWays wounds and shook their
headS, making 'tisking" sounds.
The nine men knew that, by Gods
grace, they had fallen among friends.
There were five islands in the wide
disc OF the lagoon. All day and all night
the sea beat on a surcingle of protecting
reefs, moaning like a wounded giant.
and the trade-wind blew with a high.
thin song
The islanders were black skinned folk,
simple and poor. Four hundred of them
lived on the five islands Since the war
began no trading schooner had called
to lift their little crop of copra, and they
were covered by mere strips of worn
ragged calico. The tools they had
axes, knives and adzes-were worn to
mere slivers of metal.
On the island of the landing, the cast
aways were assigned hut of pandanus
thatch and were given food-coconut
meat, little fish and a mush of boiled
plantains. They ate greedily and slept
soundly.