March, 1944
• Forced down on foreign soil, the wounded flier longed for sunrise • Excited voices greeted him, and the young leader grasped his hand in the handshake of fellowship. Coconut milk a n d b a k e d land crab were pressed Upon him from a score of eager hands—food that was consid ered best for illness or exhaustion. Before he had time to wonder more at the 'place to which he had been brought, he was carried inside one of the small huts and laid carefully on a cot that was spread with a dean blue blanket. A cot and a blanket in the jungles, he mused, and looked in quiringly at the one who spoke some English. some English was something he could be grateful- for. Silently, he thanked the man he would never know, who had been hfere before. Strength returned after a few days of rest and good food. Attention was showered upon him; His burns were healing, and he felt real pleasure whenever Sam’s smiling f a c e ap peared in his doorway. He called him Sam, the nearest sound to his native name he could manage, and the big native s e e m e d delighted with the name. In the darkness, the urgent ringing of the native gong brought him up sharply, and he listened for the drone of enemy bombers for a full minute before he realized that the sound of voices outside was happy and not fearful. He remembered Sam’s an nouncement of a service at dawn. “They sure get excited aboht these services,” Chris thought sleepily. “It can’t be anywhere near dawn yet.” , But he got up and dressed. It would be unpardonably rude not to attend their service.
“Tomorrow, at rise •of 'sun,” Sam said carefully, feeling out the Unfa miliar words as he went along, “we have service here on beach. White man come, too?” Chris nodded his agreement and Sam left, as quietly as he had come. It was far into the night before Chris rose from the cool sands, where he had been resting, stretched his cramped muscles and started back to his cot. For the first time since -his, escape from the sea, he felt a sense of frustration. How long f must he stay here on this small island, sitting out the war? Had any of the fellows at the base tried to find him? What had happened to George? Had the dreaded word, “Missing in action,” been sent to his mother, and had Marion h e a r d ? Questions tumbled through his mind, and the future looked bleak. He was tired of idle ness. For a while it had been good just to be alive, and he had concen trated on getting back his strength again. So many days had passed that he had lost track of them. Now he felt fit aftd here he Was, useless. Pondering all this, he dropped o ff to sleep.
It was not until he was seated on the beach, looking at Sam on the crude platform that had been erected for the occasion, and hearing the surprisingly familiar melody rising from these dark singers, that he was brought to the-sudden realization that this was E a s t e r Sunday morning. This crowd was singing words he did not know, but the tnelody was the one he had «ung back home every Easter—“ Christ Arose.” “Low in the grave He lay—Jesus, my Saviour! Waiting the coming day—Jesus, my •Lord! “Up from the grave He arose With a mighty triumph o’er His foes; He arose a Victor from the dark domain, And He lives for ever with His saints to reign: He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!” A wave of longing swept over him. What would not he give to be there in that small white church, standing [Continued on Page 115]
“White t e a c h e r live here,” the young man explained. “He die, ten moons back. We keep things. Some time other teacher come.” Chris needed no other word to tell him who the teacher had been. His glance had already taken in the worn books on a crude packing box table— a Bible and a few devotional studies. Some lonely missionary had lived and worked and died in this place, and in his going, had left onlysa few books as mute evidence of a life’s work. To what purpose was such waste? “But is it all waste?” an inner voice prodded uncomfortably. “If that missionary had not lived and died here, where would you be, young man?” Chris looked at the faces pressing in from the background and tried to imagine what his feelings would be if the expressions had been hostile rather than friendly. T h e y might even have been head hunters, he thought, or friends of the enemy. Even the fact that one of them spoke
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