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By Root 1481 0

toward shore. Black, about a half mile south of Dalton and his men, seemed to be in trouble. He began waving and shouting, but the wind and waves erased his words. Carlyle was farther away but apparently having better luck. Somehow he had gotten on board a banca boat, which he began rowing in Dalton’s direction. But when another boat, a native fishing craft, was spotted heading in their direction, the men in Dalton’s raft took their attention away from their two distant shipmates. Pursuing their own survival, they piled from the raft into the small craft, nearly swamping it, giddily showering their rescuers with the cash they had in the pockets of their khakis. When they finally settled in, they realized they had lost sight of Black and Carlyle. “They had both disappeared,” wrote Bill Weissinger. “It is a mystery we could never find an answer for.”

Keith Gosden had better outcomes in mind for himself. Moving again toward Sangiang, he treaded water for a while to catch his breath, and as he did the current brought a body his way. The body was on its back, arms outstretched. As it drew nearer, the Australian recognized it as a Perth telegraphist, Peter Nelson. As Nelson drifted nearer still, Gosden was startled to realize that he was alive—asleep in fact, and snoring robustly. When Gosden yelled and splashed water on him, the telegraphist awoke and, sleepily incensed, asked, “What’s biting you?” But the risks were apparent: they were drifting so fast that they stood to miss the island altogether. Gosden waved at Nelson and Bradshaw, indicating he was going to swim for Sangiang’s beach. Again the currents seized him, but this time he was pulled toward the island’s sheltered lee side, where the waters relaxed and purposeful swimming became possible. The Adelaide native chose a wave with the shape and strength to take him in. Hitting the shallows in an avalanche of foam, he felt the redemptive stinging scrape of live coral against his belly.

Twenty-two Australians gathered at Sangiang, eventually congregating under the leadership of Lt. Cdr. P. O. L. “Polo” Owen, the Perth’s paymaster. Owen took charge and split them into groups and they went right to work. Ducking the odd Japanese aircraft, they gathered corn, green papaws, tomatoes, native tobacco, and coconuts. They found some tins of kerosene and used it to dissolve the corrosive coat of bunker oil that clung to them. They scoured the beach for useful treasures, prominent among them a wooden lifeboat well stocked with provisions, oars, sails, and flares. They found three sheep shut up in a hut, slaughtered them, and made a fine pink stew. And they slept. Hard.

They rose the next day to find four of their number missing, along with the lifeboat. Someone said, “If that’s the sort they are, we’re better without them.” What was there to do but accept the frail criminality of human nature? All agreed it would be a death sentence to stay where they were.

Seeing Japanese air activity in the east, Commander Owen guessed that Batavia was an enemy hive. There was no point trying to reach it. But he felt if the men could get from Sangiang to the Java mainland, they might find transportation there to Tjilatjap and rejoin Allied forces. On Wednesday, March 4, having gorged on as much stew as they could manage with bare hands, shells, or palm leaves as spoons, they overloaded a twenty-five-man boat with food and forty-one souls and shoved off for the last battlefield in the Dutch East Indies.

Once on Java, Owen wanted to go to Labuhan by land. Keith Gosden and some others preferred to travel by sea. The seafarers, who found a leader in Lt. John A. Thode, felt they could get all the way to Australia on their own. Owen and Thode agreed to disagree as to means, but they settled on an interim rendezvous at Labuhan. Owen and one group would walk there. Thode and his group would go by sea, hugging the coast.

Owen’s journey turned quickly into a deadly misadventure. Four of his fellow travelers, unable to keep his aggressive pace after a few miles, decided to head for Batavia instead of