ON THE WAY down, struggling against the wind in a futile effort to get back on course, Camilo "Rammy" Ramirez gained a more complete understanding of what he'd volunteered himself into. "We were about a hundred feet above the jump zone," he recalled. "I could see the stumps and the rocks. I said to myself, 'There's all this-it's dangerous.' So I tried to face away from the wind. I tried to pilot the parachute toward the woods, where I could see no rocks in there. I missed the stumps, but I did not miss the rock." down, struggling against the wind in a futile effort to get back on course, Camilo "Rammy" Ramirez gained a more complete understanding of what he'd volunteered himself into. "We were about a hundred feet above the jump zone," he recalled. "I could see the stumps and the rocks. I said to myself, 'There's all this-it's dangerous.' So I tried to face away from the wind. I tried to pilot the parachute toward the woods, where I could see no rocks in there. I missed the stumps, but I did not miss the rock."

He stumbled as he landed, painfully wrenching his left ankle. After discarding his parachute, Ramirez examined his ankle and was relieved to find that the bone wasn't broken and he wasn't bleeding. Doc Bulatao landed safely nearby. That was the good news.

Immediately upon the medics' landing, they were surrounded by natives. Ramirez reached for his rifle, a semiautomatic M-1 carbine with an eighteen-inch barrel and a fifteen-round clip. "The natives have spears, and bow and arrows," Ramirez said. "And I had my carbine c.o.c.ked, in case somebody acted to throw the spear, or bow and arrow."

Out stepped a native man Ramirez called "the chief of that village"-Wimayuk Wandik, whom the medics would soon know as Pete. They didn't understand each other's language, but using hand signs and body English, Ramirez explained himself. "I expressed my mission. That an airplane crashed. Catch on fire. I'm here to help."

Wimayuk nodded. He called over a group of boys and instructed them to lead the two medics to Mundima, the place by the river Mundi where the survivors were camped. "We followed them, just like rabbits, through the jungle," Ramirez said. Hobbled by his twisted ankle, Ramirez couldn't keep up with the nimble barefoot boys, who hopped from stump to stump, scampered across fallen logs wet with moss, and saw trails where anyone else would have seen none. Bulatao hung back with his friend. After several hours of losing and regaining sight of the boys, trekking through, over, and around the ferns and vines and trees, they arrived at the clearing.

Margaret, McCollom, and Decker rose to shake hands with the medics. "When I got close to them," Ramirez said, "Margaret was crying. She hugged me, and I kept smiling." Margaret recorded the scene in her diary: When I spotted them down the native trail, I couldn't keep the tears back any longer. They spilled out of their own volition and poured down my one blistered cheek and my one good cheek. Leading the way and limping slightly was Corporal Rammy Ramirez, medical technician. Rammy had a heart of gold, we came to know, and a smile of the same hue. Even as he came limping up the trail, his face was split in a wide, warm smile, and his two gold front teeth shone resplendently. Rammy was better for morale than a thousand-dollar bill. I felt better just looking at him through my tears. Sergeant Ben Bulatao, medical technician, brought up the rear. When the sergeant walked into camp, there arrived to take care of us one of the most kind and gentle men G.o.d ever put on earth... . I want to say right now that when better men are born, they will undoubtedly be Filipinos. If ever they or their islands need aid or a champion, they only have to send a wire to enlist me in the cause.

Rammy rummaged through the jungle, gathering the supplies Walter had tossed from the plane. Favoring his bad ankle, he "hopped around on one foot like a cheerful sparrow," Margaret wrote. He built a fire, pulled up a dozen or so sweet potatoes to roast, and boiled water. He shaved pieces of chocolate into a canteen cup and made hot chocolate-the survivors' first warm drink in nearly a week.

"It was heavenly," Margaret wrote. "We gulped down the first cup like ravenous animals, and then held them out for more." By the next morning, Rammy and Doc would be waking them with the rich aromas of hot coffee and fried bacon.

They wolfed the hot potatoes, too, amusing Rammy with their excitement about a vegetable that had been under their feet the whole time: "I find out that they came from the city. And in the city, all you can see is lots of fruits, but no trees. So they don't know how they grow."

Starting with Decker, the medics poured peroxide and an antibacterial powder called sulfanilamide into his wounds and onto the gangrenous burns on his b.u.t.tocks. The gash on Decker's head was spread too wide to st.i.tch. Doc Bulatao-who took the lead on medical matters, with Rammy a.s.sisting-gently ma.s.saged the skin around the wound, pushing the two sides closer so they could eventually be knit together. Rammy worked on Decker's broken elbow. He fashioned a splint from tree bark and held it against Decker's arm as he wrapped it in bandages, immobilizing it. The medics decided not to set the break, fearing that without X rays they might do more harm than good.

They turned their attention to Margaret and spent the next two hours working on her legs. The bandages McCollom had applied were stuck fast to her burns. Doc Bulatao knew that removing them would be torture.

Sergeant Ken Decker in a makeshift latrine in the jungle. (Photo courtesy of C. Earl Walter Jr.) "He would try to work the bandages off without hurting me too much," Margaret wrote. "But he winced as much in the process as I did. 'You ought to see the way I rip them off!' McCollom encouraged him. 'But I'm afraid I'll hurt her,' Doc would reply."

Margaret was more worried about losing her legs. "If I were back at Fee-Ask," she told Bulatao, "the G.I. medic would yank the bandages off and then scrub my legs with a brush. Go ahead, yank." So he did. "Not until long afterward did he tell me how shocked he was at the sight of me," Margaret wrote. "I was skin and bones. I doubt if I weighed ninety pounds at that time."

Bulatao knew there was little he could do that first night to treat the gangrene on Margaret or Decker. It would be a slow, painful fight. He and Rammy would cut away the rotten skin, wash what remained with peroxide, daub it with ointment, dress the wound, then repeat the process day after day. If it wasn't too late, eventually the gangrene would retreat and healing could begin. Otherwise, they'd have to consider more drastic steps, including amputation.

"Doc must have read the fear in my heart," Margaret wrote. "In the middle of bandaging up my sorry-looking gams, he smiled at me and said, 'You'll be jitter-bugging in three months.' But I knew he wasn't sure, and neither was I."

Chapter 17

CUSTER AND COMPANY

AS MARGARET HASTINGS was enduring the removal of her bandages in the mountainous jungle, Earl Walter finally got a chance to experience danger serving his country. It wasn't a combat a.s.signment or a spy patrol in the Philippines, but it was the next best thing: a rescue mission in Shangri-La. was enduring the removal of her bandages in the mountainous jungle, Earl Walter finally got a chance to experience danger serving his country. It wasn't a combat a.s.signment or a spy patrol in the Philippines, but it was the next best thing: a rescue mission in Shangri-La.

Colonel Elsmore and the planners at Fee-Ask still weren't sure how they'd attempt to get everyone out out of Shangri-La, but in the meantime they were certain they needed more soldiers of Shangri-La, but in the meantime they were certain they needed more soldiers in in Shangri-La. They wanted Walter and five members of his paratrooper team to set up a base camp in the main valley, hike through the jungle to the survivors' clearing, collect them and the two medics, and return with everyone to the base camp to await pickup or further instructions. While Walter and his group were en route to the survivors' campsite, the other three paratroopers would stay in the main valley to maintain the base camp and to level and create a makeshift runway by clearing brush, trees, mud, quicksand, and other obstacles. Shangri-La. They wanted Walter and five members of his paratrooper team to set up a base camp in the main valley, hike through the jungle to the survivors' clearing, collect them and the two medics, and return with everyone to the base camp to await pickup or further instructions. While Walter and his group were en route to the survivors' campsite, the other three paratroopers would stay in the main valley to maintain the base camp and to level and create a makeshift runway by clearing brush, trees, mud, quicksand, and other obstacles.

The runway idea emerged as planners continued to narrow their options for rescue. A helicopter had already been ruled out because of the inability to fly a whirlybird over the mountains. Elsmore's team also nixed a suggestion that they use an amphibious plane; unaware that Richard Archbold had landed on a lake near the valley with the Guba Guba seven years earlier, they mistakenly believed such a plane was unsuitable for the mission. Marching the hundred and fifty miles to Hollandia was among the last resorts, along with the idea of piloting a U.S. Navy PT boat up a river from New Guinea's south coast to within fifty or so miles of the valley. Among a half dozen remaining options, some more outlandish than others, were landing a C-47 in the valley-a dubious prospect because of the conditions-and the equally implausible idea of dropping motorless gliders into the valley, loading them with pa.s.sengers, and using low-flying planes to s.n.a.t.c.h them back into the sky. seven years earlier, they mistakenly believed such a plane was unsuitable for the mission. Marching the hundred and fifty miles to Hollandia was among the last resorts, along with the idea of piloting a U.S. Navy PT boat up a river from New Guinea's south coast to within fifty or so miles of the valley. Among a half dozen remaining options, some more outlandish than others, were landing a C-47 in the valley-a dubious prospect because of the conditions-and the equally implausible idea of dropping motorless gliders into the valley, loading them with pa.s.sengers, and using low-flying planes to s.n.a.t.c.h them back into the sky.

In the meantime, at ten o'clock on the morning of Sunday, May 20, Walter and eight of his men, weighed down and clanking with parachute packs, guns, ammunition, bolo knives, and sundry supplies, climbed aboard a C-47 at the Sentani Airstrip destined for Shangri-La.

Walter told the pilot, Colonel Edward T. Imparato, to take the plane in low-a few hundred feet above the valley floor. Walter, about to make his forty-ninth jump, didn't want the swirling winds to turn their parachutes into kites and spread him and his men miles apart. He also hoped that a low jump might escape the natives' notice, as opposed to a long, slow descent that would be seen by every tribesman for miles.

For a drop zone, Walter and Imparato chose an area with no huts or sweet potato gardens in the immediate vicinity, a relatively flat stretch of land in the shadow of a soaring rock wall, with only a few trees and shrubs and small knolls between hundreds of otherwise uninterrupted acres of kunai gra.s.s. Shortly before noon, with Imparato flying only 350 feet above the valley floor, the paratroopers tumbled from the plane like dominoes off a table. Their parachutes deployed as designed, and all nine men reached the ground without incident.

They gathered in a defensive formation they'd planned beforehand-in close proximity to one another but not bunched together. Walter had heard radio reports from the survivors and the two medics that the natives near the crash site were welcoming, but his landing site was fifteen to twenty air miles away from that happy scene. The natives in the main valley of Shangri-La could be different altogether, and far less hospitable.

"When we first landed," Walter said, "everybody was spread around different places. Not far apart, but I wanted them to be spread out a little bit so we didn't all get speared or whatever to start with."

His wish for a stealth landing proved a pipe dream. Even before the parachutes reached the ground, scores of men with spears and bows and arrows came running from all directions into the landing field. Walter estimated that more than two hundred Stone Age warriors surrounded him and his men. Master Sergeant Santiago "Sandy" Abrenica put the number at three hundred.

Walter tensed. He grabbed his carbine. Abrenica was at his side, equally ready for combat.

"Captain," Abrenica said, "you know what this reminds me of?"

"No, not really, Sandy. What?"

"Custer's last stand."

Stifling laughter, Walter held the carbine under one arm, his hand near the trigger. In his other hand he held a .45-caliber pistol-a gift from his father. He sensed that the natives were hostile but hesitant to attack. Walter shouted to his men to stay ready but to hold their fire until he gave the command.

"For G.o.d's sake," Walter called, "don't get itchy fingers and pull the trigger just to scare someone. I don't want anything like that to happen. If we hurt any of them or kill any of them, then we'd really have a problem."

Abrenica didn't like the natives' trilling alarm cry, a "frightening, weird sound like the call of the Australian kookaburra." Abrenica mistakenly thought the sound came from natives rubbing their spears together, but, in fact, it arose from their throats.

Although they were outnumbered more than twenty to one, Walter believed the superiority of their firepower put them squarely in control. "Of course we had a lot of weapons," he said. "No mortars or anything like that, but we had machine guns and submachine guns and our own carbines."

Said Abrenica: "We had jumped fully equipped for a combat mission, so we hastily erected a barricade and set up our machine guns behind it. We thought we'd have to shoot our way out."

In the middle of Shangri-La, the modern and prehistoric warriors stood their ground, locked in a standoff.

WALTER AND HIS men had landed in the northwest part of the valley, in an area known to the natives as Wosi. Specifically, they were in the part of Wosi called Ab.u.mpuk, not far from a village called Koloima. No huts were nearby because the paratroopers' drop zone was smack in the middle of a no-man's-land-a designated battlefield-that separated the neighborhoods of two warring groups of Dani tribesmen, the Logo-Mabel clans on one side and the Kurelu on the other. men had landed in the northwest part of the valley, in an area known to the natives as Wosi. Specifically, they were in the part of Wosi called Ab.u.mpuk, not far from a village called Koloima. No huts were nearby because the paratroopers' drop zone was smack in the middle of a no-man's-land-a designated battlefield-that separated the neighborhoods of two warring groups of Dani tribesmen, the Logo-Mabel clans on one side and the Kurelu on the other.

The Dani people in this part of Shangri-La were separated by distance, heritage, and politics from the Yali people of Uwambo and the clans that lived near the survivors' clearing in the jungle. They hadn't seen or heard anything about the Gremlin Special Gremlin Special crash. With enemies all around them, an event that took place twenty miles away might as well have happened in China. That is, if they knew China existed. crash. With enemies all around them, an event that took place twenty miles away might as well have happened in China. That is, if they knew China existed.

Like the Yali people near the crash site, the Dani people around Wosi had grown accustomed to seeing planes, which they called anekuku. anekuku. But they hadn't made a connection between the noisemakers that flew over their valley and the nine strange-looking creatures in their battlefield. Instead, like the people of Uwambo, at least some of them thought the strangers were embodiments of an ancient legend. But they hadn't made a connection between the noisemakers that flew over their valley and the nine strange-looking creatures in their battlefield. Instead, like the people of Uwambo, at least some of them thought the strangers were embodiments of an ancient legend.

"When we saw them, we thought they were coming down on a vine from the sky," said Lisaniak Mabel, who witnessed the paratroopers' arrival as a boy.

Although some natives thought the visitors were spirits, others believed that they were warriors like themselves who'd escaped a ma.s.sacre of their people. The coverings on the strangers' bodies reinforced that impression. When Dani people mourn, they cover their shoulders or their entire bodies in light-colored mud. Surely, they believed, the strangers' khaki-colored coverings must be made of mud.

The men and boys surrounding the paratroopers were from the Logo-Mabel clans, and their leader was a powerful warrior with many kills in battle and a large collection of "dead birds" captured from fallen enemies. He was a Dani, but his name was Yali, and he was from the Logo clan.

As Yali Logo and his clansmen studied Walter and his men, they felt certain of one thing: the strangers weren't their Kurelu enemies, so they had no immediate need to kill them.

WALTER HAD NO idea what thoughts pa.s.sed through the minds of the spear-carrying, p.e.n.i.s-gourd-clad men surrounding him and his troops. But he sensed that the eyes upon him were filled more with curiosity than with hostility. None of the local people moved to throw a spear or notch an arrow. In turn, none of the soldiers used a firearm. This museum-like diorama of first contact continued for three hours. idea what thoughts pa.s.sed through the minds of the spear-carrying, p.e.n.i.s-gourd-clad men surrounding him and his troops. But he sensed that the eyes upon him were filled more with curiosity than with hostility. None of the local people moved to throw a spear or notch an arrow. In turn, none of the soldiers used a firearm. This museum-like diorama of first contact continued for three hours.

Before the jump, Walter and his men had been told by the rescue planners that a universal sign of friendship among New Guinea natives was to wave leaves over one's head. As the face-off lingered on, Walter tried it.

"I waved those d.a.m.ned leaves for hours," Walter said, "and then when I got no response I began to realize how foolish I must look, and I quit."

Finally, after what Walter described as energetic "motioning and beckoning," both sides relaxed and lowered their weapons. The paratroopers made a fire to gather around, and the natives followed suit nearby.

"When we first started to get acquainted with them, I think they realized almost as soon as we did that they had nothing to fear from us," Walter said. "And we realized we had nothing to fear from them because they were definitely not cannibalistic, at least not to us. As far as we could figure out, they only ate people from other tribes that they were fighting. That's where the cannibalism came in."

Writing that night in the journal he updated daily throughout the mission, Walter recorded his first impression of the locals: "Natives wear nothing but hollow gourds over the p.e.n.i.s and tie their t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es up with string, suspending the whole works from a string which goes around their midsection. Seem very healthy, teeth are in excellent shape, feet are badly misshapen from constant barefoot walking. Some have long, matted hair and look like French poodles, some short and are all kinky. So far no malformity of the body. Believe each family has different markings and hairdos. Some, doglike features; others, slightly anthropoid in appearance, and still others are as finely featured as the average white race. We are the first in this valley from the outside world." Walter noted that the natives, redolent of pig grease and sweat, seemed to be people who "never bathed."

When both sides were at ease, the natives studied the soldiers' appearance, too. In a journal entry, Walter described a particularly flamboyant inspection by the men and boys of the Logo-Mabel clans that bloomed into a cla.s.sic cultural misunderstanding.

As the two groups came close for a good look at one another, the natives gently stroked the soldiers' arms and legs, backs and chests. They also engaged in what Walter described as "a lot of hugging. It drove my men wild, because they couldn't figure out what the h.e.l.l." The natives murmured as they ma.s.saged Walter and his men up and down.

Earl Walter speaking by walkie-talkie with a supply plane after parachuting into the valley. (Photo courtesy of C. Earl Walter Jr.) Uncomfortable with the apparent shows of affection, Walter and his men concluded that the natives had somehow arrived at the mistaken conclusion that the paratroopers were women. What other explanation could there be for nearly naked men to rub their hands over the bodies of other men?

This touching scene went on awhile, until Walter and his paratroopers had had enough. The six-foot-four captain, towering over the natives as well as his own men, tried to forcefully communicate that they were male. No luck. The rubbing resumed. It reached a point that Walter described as "making love."

When the tribesmen showed no sign of ending their laying on of hands, Walter devised a strategy of decidedly unconventional warfare, unknown to any military handbook. First, he unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants to show that he had the necessary equipment to wear a gourd of his own, if he so chose. After revealing himself several times, Walter realized it wasn't working. He ordered his entire detachment of the 1st Recon to join him in World War II's most unusual show of force.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, let's take our pants down," Walter told his men, "and show them that we're men, not women. I'm tired of this."

Walter stripped off his shirt, pants, and underwear. His men followed suit. They walked around nude for the next several hours while the natives wandered among them, more modestly attired in p.e.n.i.s gourds.

"First time I ever had to do that to prove I was a man," Walter said.

Bringing out the heavy artillery, Walter pulled from his wallet a photo of his wife, "and they went wild with interest."

As far as Walter was concerned, this two-p.r.o.nged display of his manhood and his mate did the trick. No longer did the natives "make love" to the paratroopers.

IN FACT, THE Dani people of the valley weren't at all confused about the soldiers' gender. If they were confused about anything, it was about the paratroopers' sudden nakedness. Dani people of the valley weren't at all confused about the soldiers' gender. If they were confused about anything, it was about the paratroopers' sudden nakedness.

When the men of the Logo-Mabel clans came in close after the standoff, they learned to their surprise that the strangers weren't covered in mud for mourning, after all. Narekesok Logo, who witnessed the scene as a boy, explained that he and the other men and boys were intrigued by the coverings on the men's bodies. Having never before seen clothes-he said the Archbold expedition didn't pa.s.s through their neighborhood-they were fascinated by this soft, apparently removable second skin.

Another witness, Ai Baga, said: "We came close and felt the clothes and said, 'That's not mud!'"

Equally perplexing to the Dani people was the soldiers' response. From the time a male Dani is about four years old, he never fully exposes himself in public. Even if the gourd doesn't fit, he wears it. What seemed like near-nudity to outsiders like Walter and his men was quite the opposite to the Dani men who surrounded them. p.e.n.i.s gourds, or horim horim, are worn at work, at play, at war, and even while sleeping. They only come off in private: for urination or s.e.x, or when a man inside his hut exchanges one horim horim for another. A man wearing a for another. A man wearing a horim horim is modestly attired in Dani culture. A man without a is modestly attired in Dani culture. A man without a horim horim is caught in an embarra.s.sing state of undress. is caught in an embarra.s.sing state of undress.

To the native men and boys in the battlefield that day, Walter and his men were making spectacles of themselves.

Word spread quickly about the soldiers' "show," said Lisaniak Mabel. More people flowed into the area from distant villages the next day. But after that first display Walter and his men kept their clothes on, and the latecomers returned home disappointed. Those natives who did see the naked soldiers told the story, laughing, for the rest of their lives.

AFTER DRESSING, THE paratroopers set up camp, scouted the area, and collected the equipment and supplies dropped from Colonel Imparato's plane, which he called paratroopers set up camp, scouted the area, and collected the equipment and supplies dropped from Colonel Imparato's plane, which he called The Queen. The Queen. They also searched for a source of fresh water. By gulping from their canteens and pouring out a few drops, the soldiers expressed their need to the locals, who led them to a freshwater spring nearby. Walter and Sergeant Don Ruiz hiked near one of the villages, but the Dani people shooed them away, making it clear that the strangers weren't welcome inside the fence that ringed the huts and courtyard. They also searched for a source of fresh water. By gulping from their canteens and pouring out a few drops, the soldiers expressed their need to the locals, who led them to a freshwater spring nearby. Walter and Sergeant Don Ruiz hiked near one of the villages, but the Dani people shooed them away, making it clear that the strangers weren't welcome inside the fence that ringed the huts and courtyard.

After dinner and a few Lucky Strike cigarettes around the campfire, Walter fended off swarms of dive-bombing mosquitoes. He organized his men into guard shifts that rotated every two hours. "No evidence of any hostility, but still do not want to take any chances," he wrote in his journal. Feeling better than he had in months, Walter could have stood the nightlong watch himself. "Too excited," he wrote. "Having a h.e.l.l of a time getting to sleep."

THAT SAME DAY at the survivors' camp, Doc Bulatao followed breakfast by getting back to work on Decker's wounds. Margaret described the scene in her diary: "For six hours, he peeled the encrusted gangrene from the sergeant's infected burns. It was a very tedious and painful process. All of Doc's gentleness could not lessen Decker's ordeal. The sergeant lay rigid on his pallet. Decker was a very sick man, but never by a flinch or a whimper did he reveal the torment he was enduring... . There wasn't any anesthetic nor even a stiff drink of whisky available to ease Decker's pain." Margaret noted with surprise, and perhaps a little disappointment, that they found no evidence the natives had learned how to distill their crops into alcoholic drinks. at the survivors' camp, Doc Bulatao followed breakfast by getting back to work on Decker's wounds. Margaret described the scene in her diary: "For six hours, he peeled the encrusted gangrene from the sergeant's infected burns. It was a very tedious and painful process. All of Doc's gentleness could not lessen Decker's ordeal. The sergeant lay rigid on his pallet. Decker was a very sick man, but never by a flinch or a whimper did he reveal the torment he was enduring... . There wasn't any anesthetic nor even a stiff drink of whisky available to ease Decker's pain." Margaret noted with surprise, and perhaps a little disappointment, that they found no evidence the natives had learned how to distill their crops into alcoholic drinks.

Decker's agony was difficult for McCollom to bear. Only half-joking, he suggested they "hit him in the head and put him out of his misery for a few hours." Margaret noticed that the lieutenant was as drenched in sweat as Decker and Doc, just from witnessing the excruciating procedure.

Also interested was Wimayuk Wandik, Pete to the survivors, who watched in rapt attention from nearby along with "his mob of natives," as Margaret described them.

The people of Uwambo were growing ever more relaxed about the survivors and the medics in their midst. With each pa.s.sing day, they also became less afraid of the low-alt.i.tude supply drops that initially sent them running into the jungle for cover. They scoured the jungle for crates and parachutes, then hauled the supplies back to the survivors' camp.

One young man became entirely too comfortable with what he'd seen.

"A native came running into our camp," Margaret told her diary. "He was terribly excited and upset. He motioned for the men to follow him with such urgency that we knew some crisis had arisen. Our men hurried after him to the edge of the jungle. The native, in great distress, pointed up to the top of a fifty-foot tree. There was another native, with an open parachute preparing to make a free jump!"

The fall might have killed him, and the survivors and the medics feared that the people of Uwambo would blame them. Only after a great deal of yelling and pantomime negotiation would the young man relent. He gave up his dreams of flight and climbed down from the tree.

WHEN THE SUPPLY plane pa.s.sed over that day, the radio operator informed the survivors and medics that Walter and eight enlisted paratroopers had landed in the main valley. The pilot underestimated their distance, saying they were about ten miles away. McCollom later estimated that the base camp was more like thirty air miles away, while Walter put it at twenty miles. The pilot told them that Walter and five of the paratroopers would soon start their hike to the jungle camp. plane pa.s.sed over that day, the radio operator informed the survivors and medics that Walter and eight enlisted paratroopers had landed in the main valley. The pilot underestimated their distance, saying they were about ten miles away. McCollom later estimated that the base camp was more like thirty air miles away, while Walter put it at twenty miles. The pilot told them that Walter and five of the paratroopers would soon start their hike to the jungle camp.

"They will be with you by nightfall," the radioman said.

Margaret, McCollom, and Decker dismissed the promise as c.o.c.keyed military optimism.

Margaret felt more energized by another message relayed by the radioman, this one about Walter "Wally" Fleming, the sergeant with whom she'd planned a swimming date the day of her trip to Shangri-La. She told her diary: "My beau, Wally ... had been too frantic to talk coherently about the accident, even after he learned that I had survived by a miracle. Up to that moment, I had worried constantly for fear Wally would be terribly upset by first, the accident, and then my present predicament." The radioman's message changed her tune. "As soon as I knew he was worried half to death, I was pleased as punch!"

MENSTRUAL CYCLES WERE notoriously out of whack among WACs in Hollandia, a byproduct of tropical climate, weight loss, stress, and any number of other factors. Sometimes WACs would have their periods twice or more in a single month, and other times they'd skip several months. When WAC officers at the base learned that one of the survivors was a woman, they ordered the supply plane to have McCollom ask Margaret the dates of her last period. When she reported that it had been a couple of months, McCollom told the supply plane to drop a box of sanitary napkins, just in case. An act worthy of Abbott and Costello ensued. notoriously out of whack among WACs in Hollandia, a byproduct of tropical climate, weight loss, stress, and any number of other factors. Sometimes WACs would have their periods twice or more in a single month, and other times they'd skip several months. When WAC officers at the base learned that one of the survivors was a woman, they ordered the supply plane to have McCollom ask Margaret the dates of her last period. When she reported that it had been a couple of months, McCollom told the supply plane to drop a box of sanitary napkins, just in case. An act worthy of Abbott and Costello ensued.

When he returned to the base, radio operator Jack Gutzeit went to the WAC commander's office like a husband sent to the drugstore on an awkward mission.

"Maggie wants a couple boxes of Kotex," he told the top WAC.

She brushed him off, telling Gutzeit that medical supplies for the rescue were the responsibility of the hospital commander. He trudged to the base hospital, where the hospital commander said, "Go see the WAC commander. They're supposed to take care of all the women's stuff."

After more back-and-forth, Gutzeit got fed up with the pa.s.s-the-napkin game. He returned to the Sentani Airstrip and asked a telephone operator to place calls to the WAC commander and the hospital commander. With all the moxie of his native Brooklyn, the sergeant told them both: "This plane is leaving in one hour, and if I don't have Kotex from you folks, I'm calling General Clement at Far East Air Service Command Headquarters!"

That day, the cargo drop included a half dozen boxes of sanitary napkins. In the days that followed, the supplies doubled, then tripled.

"I bet we had twenty boxes of Kotex down there every day!" McCollom said.

CARE FOR THE survivors' spiritual needs also came with that morning's supply drop. Major Cornelius Waldo, the Catholic chaplain from Indianapolis who'd been on the B-17 search plane that spotted the survivors, a.s.sembled a package with a Bible, prayer books, and Margaret's rosary beads. The religious supplies came in handy when Doc and Rammy went to work on Margaret. survivors' spiritual needs also came with that morning's supply drop. Major Cornelius Waldo, the Catholic chaplain from Indianapolis who'd been on the B-17 search plane that spotted the survivors, a.s.sembled a package with a Bible, prayer books, and Margaret's rosary beads. The religious supplies came in handy when Doc and Rammy went to work on Margaret.

"It was the same peeling process, and after five minutes I clutched my rosary and gritted my teeth," she wrote. "My pride was involved! I was determined to be as good a soldier as Decker. For four endless hours, Doc peeled my legs, my feet, and worked on my hand. I didn't cry or make a sound. But I was yelling b.l.o.o.d.y murder inside all the time."

A page from Margaret Hastings's diary, written in shorthand. It reads in part: "Doc is the most gentle person I have ever seen, especially for a doctor. The day he arrived he didn't get around to dressing my legs until late in the evening, after he had done Decker. He then started to remove the bandages from my legs, and what a mess they were. They had bled considerably and the bandages had stuck so that you couldn't tell what was burned skin and what was bandage. He was pulling very gently and kept saying, 'I am so afraid I will hurt you.' "

Rammy remembered her reaction differently. "We had to slice, little by little, slice, slice, until it bleeds... . She always cried. Cry, cry, cry. It was painful when I cut, but I think she tried to hide it. It was painful. To me it was very painful."

The treatments left the medics exhausted and Decker and Margaret bedridden. Margaret was in such pain she had to lie on her back with her knees bent, to keep her clothes from chafing against her leg wounds. Despite her agony, she began to believe that Doc would save her legs.