Lost in Shangri-la by Mitchell Zuckoff

Author:Mitchell Zuckoff [Zuckoff, Mitchell]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

“SHOO, SHOO BABY”

THEIR STOMACHS EMPTY and growling, Walter and his team awoke early to a breakfast of hot water and hope. His top priority was receiving a drop of ten-in-one rations. He tried hailing the C-47 supply plane by walkie-talkie as it flew somewhere in the vicinity overhead, even as he worried that his campsite at the edge of the jungle might not be visible from the air. Trekking farther toward the survivors’ campsite would only put them deeper under the canopy. So they stayed put, talked, and waited.

“Finally they are over us and have us spotted,” he wrote in his journal on Friday, May 25, his first upbeat entry in two days. “Rations dropped. Best things I have seen in a long time. Men recovered the rations and I learned that we are two miles by air due west of the wreck.”

Ravenous, Walter stuffed himself. He paid the price when they broke camp: “The first hour was terrible. Too much food.” But eager to reach their destination, they pressed on, slower than usual and taking more frequent breaks. After several hours, they reached the crest of a ridge and began to hike on a downward slope. Walter hoped they were close.

AT THE SURVIVORS’ camp, the radioman in the 311 supply plane passed on the news that the paratroopers were close by: “Earl will get down there pretty soon, and you’ll hear him.”

In late afternoon, Margaret heard what she called “that yapping noise peculiar to the natives.” As the noise grew closer, it was replaced by an unmistakably American sound:

“Shoo, shoo my baby, Shoooo.

Goodbye baby, don’t you cry no more.

Your big tall papa’s off to the seven seas.”

Walter marched buoyantly toward the campsite, swinging his bolo knife to clear the trail and singing the Andrew Sisters’ recent hit, “Shoo, Shoo Baby.”

Writing about the paratroopers’ arrival in her diary, Margaret’s first impression of Walter bordered on starry-eyed: “He looked like a giant as he came down the trail at the head of his Filipino boys and the ubiquitous escort of natives. The captain’s arrival was like a strong, fresh breeze. He was not only a capable and efficient officer, but a one-man floor show. Two minutes after he arrived the camp started jumpin’.”

Doc and Rammy rushed from their tents to greet their comrades. Walter was happy to see the survivors, but he was overjoyed to see the two medics. “I knew they were all right,” he said, “but I wanted to see them and congratulate them again, first of all on the jump, and secondly on the good job they had done. And just to get back together with them. The rest of the men felt the same way. We were all quite concerned about them.”

Margaret watched as Walter and the medics exchanged embraces, handshakes, and hearty pats on the back. She wrote in her diary: “His men worshipped Walter, and the affection was patently mutual.”

Walter, meanwhile, couldn’t help but notice that Margaret, despite her jungle haircut, her weight loss, and her injuries, “was a pretty good-looking gal.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.