When I returned from my excursion I looked down on a wild foam-flecked sea, over which the storm was raging as it did during the previous cyclones. I realized that I should have to stay here for some time, and ate my last provisions somewhat pensively. I only hoped that the launch had found an anchorage, else she must inevitably have been wrecked, and I should be left at the mercy of the natives for an indefinite time. The hut in which I camped did not keep off the rain, and I was wet and uncomfortable; thus I spent the first of a series of miserable nights. I was anxious to know the fate of the launch, and this in itself was enough to worry me; then I was without reading or writing materials, and my days were spent near a smoky fire, watching the weather, trying to find a dry spot, sleeping and whistling. Sometimes a few natives came to keep me company; and once I got hold of a man who spoke a little biche la mar, and was willing to tell me about some old-time customs. However, like most natives, he soon wearied of thinking, so that our conversations did not last long.
The natives kept me supplied with food in the most hospitable manner: yam, taro, cabbage, delicately prepared, were at my disposal; but, unaccustomed as I was to this purely vegetable diet, I soon felt such a craving for meat that I began to dream about tinned-meat, surely not a normal state of things. To add to my annoyance, rumours got afloat to the effect that the launch was wrecked; and if this was true, my situation was bad indeed.
On the fifth day I decided to try and find the anchorage where I supposed the launch to be. The wind had dropped a little, but it was still pouring, and the walk through the slippery, devastated forest, up and down steep hills and gullies, across fallen trees, in a thick, oppressive fog, was strenuous enough. In the afternoon, hearing that the launch was somewhere near, we descended to the coast, where we came upon the captain and the crew. They had managed to anchor the launch at the outbreak of the storm, and had camped in an old hut on the beach; but the huge waves, breaking over the reef, had created such a current along the beach that the launch had dragged her anchors, and was now caught in the worst of the waves and would surely go down shortly. Unfortunately the captain had sent the dinghey ashore some time before coming to this bay, so that there was no means whatever of reaching the launch. The rising sea had threatened to wash away the hut, and the captain, leaving the boat to her fate, had gone camping inland.
I went down to the beach to see for myself how things stood, and was forced to admit that the man had not exaggerated. In the midst of the raging surf the launch rocked to and fro, and threatening waves rose on every side and often seemed to cover her. Still she was holding her own, and had evidently not struck a rock as yet; and if her cables held out, hope was not lost. I watched her fight for life for some time, and she defended herself more gallantly than I should ever have expected from so clumsy a craft; but I had little hope. We spent a miserable night in the village, in a heavy atmosphere, amid vermin and filth, on an uneven stone floor. The rain rattled on the roof, the storm roared in the forest like a passing express train, the sea thundered from afar, and a river echoed in a gorge near by; to complete the gloomy scene, a violent earthquake shook the hills.
In the morning the launch was still afloat on the same spot; the wind had abated, and the sky no longer looked quite so stormy. During the night things improved still more, and we ventured to camp on the shore. The boys went for the dinghey, and although they had hard work, half dragging, half carrying it along the shore over the cliffs, they succeeded in bringing it to our beach, and then made an attempt to row to the launch, but were almost carried out beyond the reef. Encouraged by a faintly rosy sunset and a few stars, we waited another day; then the current along the coast had nearly ceased, only outside the reef huge mountains of water rolled silently and incessantly past, and broke thundering against the cliffs. The second attempt to reach the launch was successful, and, wonderful to relate, she had suffered no damage, only she had shipped so much water that everything was soaked and rusty. The engineer began to repair her engines, and by evening she steamed back to her anchorage, where we welcomed her as if she had been a human being.
The wind had quite fallen when we steamed out next day. It was dull weather, and we were rocked by an enormous swell; yet the water was like a mirror, and the giant waves rose and disappeared without a sound. It all seemed unnatural and uncanny, and this may have produced the frightened feeling that held us all that morning. While we were crossing over to Port Patterson a sharp wind rose from the north, and the barometer fell, so that we feared another edition of the storm. If our engines had broken down, which happened often enough, we should have been lost, for we were in a region where the swell came from two directions, and the waves were even higher than in the morning. Fortunately the wind increased but slowly; presently we were protected by the coast, and at night we arrived at Port Patterson. The men had given us up, and welcomed us with something akin to tenderness. Here, too, the cyclone had been terrible, the worst of the three that had passed in four weeks.
Soon afterwards the steamer arrived, bringing news of many wrecks and accidents. A dozen ships had been smashed at their anchorages, four had disappeared, and three were known to have foundered; in addition, news came of the wreck of a steamer. Hardly ever had so many fallen victims to a cyclone.
Painfully and slowly our steamer ploughed her way south through the abnormally high swell. None of the anchorages on the west coast could be touched, and everywhere we saw brown woods, leafless as in winter, and damaged plantations; and all the way down to Vila we heard of new casualties.