Shouldering a bundle and picking up Stiffy, with Paddy trotting beside me, I followed an equally laden Barbara and Ren up the steep path from the landing place to a wood. No one spoke much. To me our adventures seemed only starting now. Our freedom and our lives probably depended on the first islander we should meet. I had become used to living precariously, and wasn't very worried about where we should sleep that night and was certain we would find somewhere to live. It was still raining but the trees kept us dry. Bright yellow birds flew past us and green lizards darted up the trees to hide from us. Pili nuts hung in clusters in the tall trees and in the Camagons, the crimson fruit hung like velvet balls on a Christmas tree. This forest was just like the one we'd travelled through at night at San Miquel but now we could see the flowers which gave out such heady perfumes and the narrow trail wasn't so hard to follow in the day time.
After an hours walk the wood thinned into an Abaca Plantation and here we sat down to rest. Paddy and Stiffy drank milk while we had a little of our precious water supply. All of us were tired and hungry, and felt like sitting under the Abacas forever, but Ren cheered us up and said we'd better move on and find a house to sleep in. Along the trail he led us, and as he wondered aloud if there were any houses or people on the island, we heard voices ahead of us and then two Filipinos came towards us. The leader looked like a fisherman as he wore ragged shorts, a big straw hat and carried a round fishing basket, but the man behind him was quite differently dressed. He was small and dapper, dressed in a freshly laundered very natty beige palm beach suit, and he wore a white panama hat which he doffed with a flourish upon seeing us. He had a bright intelligent monkey face, and his brown eyes sparkled with curiosity as he questioned us "Who are you?", "Where are you from?", "Where are you bound for?" As he questioned us, his eyes darted from Ren to the children, from Barbara to me and back to Ren. He spoke in English. Ren answered all the questions and then asked him if there was a house anywhere near that we could stay in for a while. The little man said his name was Jose Baramas and the fisherman was his brother Anacleto, that they were on their way to Tobaco but in no hurry, and if we would sit down beside the track he would soon find someone to help us. They both turned back up the trail and I wondered uneasily about the little man. He talked too much and spoke English too well to belong to this little island, and was just the sort of person one could expect to be a pro-Japanese but whatever he was, good or bad, we were dependant on him. We couldn't disappear and hide anywhere. It was pouring again and pro-Japanese though he might be, I suddenly wanted more than anything, somewhere to stay for the night even if he bought the Japs to us in the night. Of course he might come back now with other men and force us all into his brothers' boat and take us to Tabaco for the reward the Japs were offering for our capture.
It wasn't very long before he came back with his brother and another man who looked kind and honest. He also spoke English and said his name was Augustin Alvarado, and that he had seen us many times in Tabaco from his sister's house next to that of our friend Pedro. As he spoke another man joined us. Augustin introduced him, his name was Pedro Babante and he knew a safe place for us to stay. Picking up our bundles the three men led us through another Abaca plantation into a dense grove of coconuts and off the trail into a little clearing in which a small Nipa hut stood. Here, a woman named Rosario lived with her husband and three young and very dirty children.
The house only contained one room with a lean-to for a kitchen at one end. The floor was made of split bamboo and the walls of Nipa palm. It was built on stilts and the family pig and a few scraggy looking fowl lived underneath. All the dust and dirt from the floor was swept down on them. The little house and its occupants were incredibly dirty but Rose made us welcome and Pedro assured us so earnestly that it was a safe place that I felt it was a perfect haven to which he had brought us. Daramas and his friends left; Pedro saying he would return in the evening. Rosa busied herself preparing a meal of rice, dried fish and camote tops and while I was feeding Paddy and Stiffy, Jose her husband, returned from work in the plantation. Rosa told him the situation in rapid Bicolano, and then in halting English, said he too bid us welcome, and hoped we would stay in the house as long as we desired. Then all of us sat on the floor and enjoyed the food while the rain beat down on the palm leaf roof.
Rosa told us that Barbantes father was a very wealthy landowner; that this house was on his land and Jose worked for him in the plantations. Soon it became dark and Jose lighted the coconut oil lamps, made of big sea shells. They were filled with oil and had bits of rag for wicks. The tiny lights made enormous shadows on the palm leaf walls, and gave just sufficient light for us to see each other. There was no furniture in the room except a chest, and a few shelves in the kitchen. Sleeping mats and pillows were rolled up in a corner.
It was too dark to go outside to the water-hole, so Barbara and I washed as well as we could in a little water from a big earthenware jar in the kitchen, while Ren spread our mats and fixed the nets, and put Paddy and Stiffy to bed. Rosa and her family spread one big net and went to bed in their day clothes. Barbara, Ren and I undressed and crawled under our nets and once all of us were stretched out, there wasn't an inch of space left on the floor. Out of courtesy to us the window was left open. Thank heaven it was. Soon everyone was asleep except Ren and I, but we were afraid to talk in case the others were disturbed. The floor was awfully hard and how I longed for my room in San Rogue and for privacy; I wondered if Ren and I would ever have a room to ourselves again. Stiffy stopped my reverie abruptly. He had been restless, and had tossed and murmured in his sleep, but now he began to cry and wakening up he clung to me tightly. Crawling out of the net with him, I sat outside on the step and tried to quieten him. The rain had stopped and a few stars shone. Poor Stephen was utterly worn out with our long trip and the strange house and people, had not helped to soothe him on our arrival. I expect his gums ached too. Whatever it was he could not sleep and most of the night I sat on the step with him dozing uneasily on my knee. If I attempted to crawl under the net again with him he wakened up instantly. Barbara tossed and turned under her net. I think only Rosa and her family slept. The mosquitoes had a field day.