Macabao came to the house that evening to try and advise us where to go. Barbara seemed happy to be home again, and cheerfully joined making plans. The mainland was out of the question but the possibility of remaining on this island in an uninhabited spot seemed good. Macabao said he knew of such a place, and might be able to build us a little Nipa hut there. While we were talking I heard the garden gate open and footsteps coming towards the house. Macabao hurried down the stairs towards them. Then we heard him say "Buenos Noches Padre", and I knew it must be the Parish Priest.
They came onto the verandah together and the Priest told us he had just returned from the mainland. There he had been told, a band of soldiers were coming to San Miquel as the Japanese knew three white adults and two children were hiding there.
He urged us to leave immediately. He knew how cruelly the Japanese treated prisoners and also he was afraid they would punish the islanders if they discovered us. Fortunately not many people lived near the hacienda, and he was certain no one had seen him anchor his banca and come up the track leading to the house. Ren thanked him for coming and assured him we would be gone by the morning. Blessing us, he wished us Godspeed, and then hurried back to his boat.
Macabao knew somewhere on the other side of the island to hide us. No paths or trails led to it, and no one could find their way to it unaided. Hurriedly, we collected pots and pans and a few eating and drinking utensils from the kitchen. Blankets, mosquitoes nets and sleeping mats were quickly rolled into bundles and bottles prepared for Stiffy. Ren found a bottle of whiskey and added it to the collection. Macabao gave us some rice and corn from his store. There was the precious canned milk to be carried too.
The sleeping children were lifted from the beds and again we set out. Macabao led us out of the back garden and soon we came to a narrow trail off the main track leading to the coconut plantations. It was a starry, clear night and we followed each other quickly. The girls, Barbara and Macabao carried bundles and Ren and I each had a sleeping child in our arms. We came to a densely wooded part of the island. The still night air was full of exotic perfume, the iland-iland blossoms, sampiquita and Dame de Noche all mingled together. Bejuca and rattan vines stretched from tree to tree above us. Monkeys and snakes slept undisturbed as we quickly followed the leader; intermittently, a night bird called and the trees pressed in upon us, their branches pulling at our hair and scratching legs and faces and by dawn we were at the other side of the island out of the woods at last. Here it was rolling country with long grass studded with enormous coconut palms. The Indian cattle roamed this part of the island and in the early morning half light, their huge humped backs made them look like prehistoric creatures. A reef runs all down this side of the island and the sea banged and boomed ceaselessly onto it. Macabao led us through more woods by a track, that if we had been alone we would never have found, as it was so overgrown with vines and blocked by fallen branches. The journey seemed endless, and Stephen was becoming heavier and heavier in my arms, but at last the trees thinned out and the noise of the reef became clearer and we reached our refuge. It was a golden palm studded beach, about a mile long, at the end of the island. It was uninhabited, but in a little clearing off the sand was the skeleton frame work of a Nipa hut. Over, and down three sides of it Ren and Macabao tied a tarpaulin, which Macabao had carried, and there with the opening facing the sea, was our new home.
Dumping our belongings inside, preparations were made for a meal. There was plenty of fire wood in the forest behind us and along the beach, and we discovered a quarter of a mile inland, a small fresh-water-hole where we could get our drinking water, bathe and wash our clothes. Macabao left us after breakfast promising to return with food and news in a few days time. He told us there was a fisherman and his family living around the headland. but that he knew them well and would go and tell them about us on his way to the hacienda.