Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
up to the strip along with Steve and Linda and Mike. We were greeted by four Japanese
airmen in uniform. They bowed politely to us and removed an empty stretcher from the
back. Steve acted as spokesman and only one officer spoke back to him. I assumed that the
others could not speak English. We made our way down to the beach along one of the coral
paths. It was overcast again today but fortunately a lot cooler than the day before. Jesus and
his wife were waiting beside the shack. She was a dark haired lady in her late forties. She
looked terrible; her graying black hair was limp and straggly, her face lined with distress
and sleeplessness. One could tell that she was a kindly and sweet woman, worrying herself
to death over her badly injured daughter. We greeted them both sympathetically and fol-
lowed them into the little wooden hut.
On a hastily made bed of palm fronds and blankets from the boat lay the ashen faced daugh-
ter. Pain had etched itself into her whole body and face. She lay perfectly still under a sheet.
She wore a frown of pain, though she tried to smile in greeting. The one Japanese officer
who might have been a doctor took charge of the placement of the stretcher alongside the
stricken teenager. He motioned to one of his fellow officers to stand at the girl's feet, while
the other one was directed to her head and shoulders. They gently raised the one side of
her and quickly slipped a long, sturdy board under her back and neck to support her spine.
She cried out once in pain as the kindly men then lifted her onto the stretcher. Her mother
held her hand and never once took her soulful dark eyes off her beloved daughter. She was
then strapped onto the stretcher, so there would be no movement when she was carried. We
were then beckoned by the doctor to a corner each of the stretcher and, at a signal, lifted
her carefully up and out of the hut.
As gently as we could, Gavin, Mike, Steve, and I carried the girl to the waiting pilot and
helicopter. We eased the stretcher up into the back, where it was attached to the floor. The
other officers climbed in and soon it was whirring off the island and out of sight. The dis-
tressed parents were extremely grateful and thanked us profusely for our help. We later
heard that the young girl had recovered completely from a compression fracture to the third
neck vertebrae. Interestingly, Jesus was a professional sail maker, and in years to come,
Gavin would commission him to make a suite of sails for the wooden boat he would buy in
Honolulu, where Jesus and his family would eventually dock.
I was still worrying about the engine. I was like a terrier worrying at a rat. I just couldn't
let it be. I realized how ridiculous it was to imagine I was going to find a spring, let alone
the right sized spring on this deserted coral island on the equator. Yet I continued to worry
and fret about it. The day after the helicopter incident, I decided to go in search of such a
spring.
I rowed my dinghy ashore early the following day. The dogs had swum ashore earlier,
when the sun arose. Gavin was still asleep. I took with me some tools in a backpack, along
