C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

To Barrier River II 7mud dropped sheer from the hillside into the water, Lazarus would ferry usacross. One such ferry journey across a rapid I shall never forget.The two men took a paddle each and put all their strength into making for apoint immediately opposite us on the other bank, but even so we were whirleddownstream diagonally at a most terrifying pace. Gwen, an old sea-dog if everthere was one, fell into a mood of bliss at feeling herself rocked once again byrough water and kept on murmuring to herself "delicious, delicious," but I wasin a state of what is known as "blue funk" and kept my eyes on the tree tops acrossthe river.Meanwhile, Lazarus and Jimmy were uttering to each other the most alarmingcries that were like the sound of animals in pain, and we had no idea whether theywere swearing, adjuring each other to pull harder, celebrating their progressacross the river, or singing a death chant for the four of us. I had raised my eyesfrom the tree tops to a distant range of hills , so that I should not see the engulfingwaters, when I suddenly realised that we had nearly reached the other shore. Inanother moment we were landing at a point some 200 yards below the spot thatwe were heading for. Here, so far as we could judge, the Rat was about a hundredyards across. Crossing rapids was, I thought, not only a fearful but an expensiveform of progress, when we had to lose two yards down in order to gain oneacross.The luncheon -hour that day was blissful, for we had crossed to an open stretchof shingle where the wind blew freely, scattering the mosquitoes. Usually at mealswe employed a technique that we had acquired in desperation. We had found thatwhile we took a plateful of pork or bacon from the cooking pot and made readywith knife and fork, quite a dozen mosquitoes would have become sizzled in thefat. There was always also the further delay of raising our veils in order to eat, andwhile we were doing this a fresh collection of fried corpses would appear on eachplate. We just had to accept the corpses and deal with them, but we had to protectour faces, so we would take it in turns to stand ready with the bottle of oil ofcitronella. If I were on duty I would rub Gwen's face. taking care to avoid hereyes, and then my own face, ajob at which I was clumsy, nearly always applying theoil too near my eyes and stinging them. We both ate standing up in the smudge ofour bonfire smoke which gave us some protection.In that most blessed open space we had freedom from our tormentors for onewhole hour. We got out our sponge bags, repaired to the river and went through