Where I could live on a quid a week, in such luxuree....”
He was further away now. I snatched myself loose and plunged on after him, leaving a sleeve of my jacket in the thicket.
“Hello, James! Hello!” I bellowed. He was singing with a volume that filled his ears. I opened my mouth to shout again, and fell through a bush into a clearly-marked path. Above it sagged the telephone wire and just in sight through the overhanging branches plodded the Australian.
“Gee, but you’re slow,” he laughed, when I had overtaken him.
“When d’you find the path?” I demanded.
“Haven’t lost it,” he answered. “Why? Did you?”
“Haven’t seen it for five hours,” I replied.
“Holy dingoes!” he gasped, “Thought you were close behind, or I’d have felt mighty little like singing.”
We had no difficulty in keeping to the route for the rest of the day, and passed several carriers westward bound. With never a hut to raid, we fasted. Yet had we but known it there was food all about us. What a helpless being is civilized man without the accessories of civilization! It fell to uncouth jungle dwellers to bring home to us our own ignorance.
Weak from hunger, we had halted at the edge of a mountain stream well on in the afternoon, when we were overtaken by the soldiers. They had packed away their uniforms and wore only loin-cloths and caps.