The knock on the kitchen door was almost inaudible above the sound of the heavy rain on our roof. It was about five o'clock on a wet miserable Wednesday afternoon and my wife and I had just settled in to enjoy our first end-of-day drinks; our sundowners.
It wasn't the fact that someone was knocking that was unusual, nor was it the fact that they were knocking on our back door – it was the door we most frequently used – but it was the timing of the knocking that was out of the ordinary.
My name is Matt Yates and, at that time, I managed a cocoa and copra plantation on a large island in what was then the Territory of Papua and New Guinea and to have someone knocking on your door at that time of the day could only mean trouble. Hearing agitated voices, I excused myself and went to see what the fuss was about.
Our native house servant was attempting to prevent another young local man from entering the kitchen, which was the cause of the raised voices. The young lad was soaking wet and our servant didn't want him coming in and dripping water all over his freshly cleaned floor. His being wet was not a surprise – it had been raining for much of the afternoon, which it did on most days on this island at this time of year. What
was
surprising, however, was his insistence that he must speak to me. He had to pass on a message, he said, and he'd been told to deliver it to me, personally.
Once I had intervened in the dispute about access, he handed me a note. Without waiting for me to read it, he turned and bolted back down the stairs.
"Wait!" I shouted in the local language. "Where are you going?"
"I have to deliver this other note to Mister James," he shouted back as he pushed his way out through the house yard gate and disappeared into the watery gloom as he ran off towards our neighbour's plantation.
It was only after he had vanished into the mist that I opened the note he had given me. It was from James' wife, Juanita. It told me that she was trapped on the other side of the creek that ran through my property and that she needed help.
I told my wife that I would have to go down to the creek to rescue Juanita and suggested that if I wasn't back before she was ready to serve dinner for herself and our two daughters, she should keep my dinner warm. I also suggested that she set another place for Juanita and that she make up the bed in the guest bedroom.
"Even if I can get her through our creek," I explained, "she won't be able to get through the others between our place and theirs.
"There must have been a hell of a lot of rain up in the mountains for them to have come up so quickly," I said as I pulled on an old pair of tennis shoes. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, which was not unusual in this part of the world during the 'wet' season. Even though it might be raining, it was rarely ever cold. Besides, if I was going to have to swim a flooded creek to rescue a damsel in distress, I didn't want to be weighed down by heavy clothing.
"Don't worry about us if we don't get back before morning," I said. "If the creek has come up too far, I'll sit it out with her until it drops enough to get her through. How long that might take will depend on how much rain has fallen up in the mountains. You know me, though. I'm not going to do anything heroic or stupid."
The last of the tropical twilight was hovering in the cloud-filled sky when I stopped my Toyota on the western side of the creek. I could see James and Juanita's truck sitting forlornly on the opposite bank. The creek level was high but not so high that an experienced off-road driver couldn't have tackled it safely. Not wanting both of us to end up trapped, however, I left my vehicle on my side of the creek and waded across what had become a fast-flowing torrent. My estimation of its depth had been a bit off the mark, I realised. Although the level didn't seem as high as I had seen it in the past, I found that the bottom had been washed away; a phenomenon I'd encountered quite a few times while driving trucks and riding motorcycles during the time I'd spent in that country.
The water came up to the middle of my chest as I pushed across the creek. It was still driveable, although the speed of the current could cause trouble for an inexperienced operator. Juanita leaned across and opened the passenger-side door of her Toyota as I emerged from the water and climbed the far bank. The rain seemed to be getting heavier. If it was raining like this up in the mountains, I knew that there was still a large volume of water to come down through the river system and that this creek would continue to rise for at least the next three or four hours. If we didn't get back across it very quickly, my prediction to my wife could turn out to be correct. We might be stuck here for the night.
I explained my concerns to Juanita and suggested that we should try to get her vehicle across to the other side before the creek rose any higher. I told her about the bottom of the crossing having been washed out and emphasised that timing was critical.
"Another few inches," I said, "and we will be leaving it here until tomorrow."
"Thank you, Matthew,' she said, "but I've sent a note on to James to bring a tractor down to pull us through. He should be here shortly."
'If that isn't women's logic,'
I thought to myself.
'"I sent a Royal Command, so it will happen".'
I tried explaining to her that James had three watercourses like this one to cross before he could even get out of their plantation and onto the main track down to this creek.
"Even if he gets out," I said, "there's a good chance that the water in this creek will have risen beyond the point where he could pull the Toyota through.
"If it started to float," I explained, "you'd lose it and possibly the tractor. In this torrent, it would float down into the main river and would possibly end up being pushed out to sea."
I told her about a D10 Cat dozer that the mining company had lost in a mudslide a couple of years earlier, which had been found a year or so later out on the reef. The only reason they'd found it was that the fuel tanks had ruptured leaving an oil slick out in the middle of the ocean. They never did find the driver.
"We'll give it half an hour or so," she said. "If he hasn't arrived by then, we'll consider our options."
The queen had spoken so I stopped my nagging and changed the subject. To fill in time, I asked why she was so late getting home from tennis. It was apparent from the way she was dressed that that's where she had been. I wasn't complaining, though. The skimpy tennis dress suited her. It was also evident that she had been out in the rain to check the water levels before I had arrived. Her dress was soaking wet and was clinging to her like a second skin. It wasn't leaving a great deal to the imagination. Her wet and cold clothing had caused her nipples to try to break through her bra and they were making a concerted effort to do the same with the bodice of her dress.
Juanita was of Ecuadorian Indian and Spanish descent and displayed the best of both sides of her lineage. She stood about five-feet, four-inches tall and was not only an attractive woman but she also had an inner beauty that was the key feature of her personality. She didn't appear to see herself as beautiful, though, and seemed surprised when her stunning good looks was mentioned by someone else. She was in her late twenties and had born James a son who was now five years old.
At fifty, James was twenty-two years older than Juanita.
They had met when he had visited her father's cocoa plantation in Ecuador, about eight years earlier. After writing to her for months, he had written to her father and asked his permission to marry his daughter. He had returned to Ecuador in 1964 and married, returning to New Guinea with his new wife after a short honeymoon.
It always surprised me that they had limited themselves to a single child as Juanita adored children and would spend hours playing with our two girls whenever she came to visit my wife, Liz, once or twice every couple of weeks. Our girls were aged four and two.
Liz was a couple of years younger than Juanita and was also beautiful. At five-foot-two-inches, she wasn't quite as tall as our neighbour. Like Juanita, however, she also had Spanish blood in her veins; although hers was combined with an Irish heritage. That made her a fireball, which was something I might have enjoyed in bed but which I didn't enjoy when her temper exploded. At such times, she would throw things and would spit out words, some of which were intended to be hurtful. Others, I didn't even know she knew. We loved each other, none-the-less.
Her sudden mood swings were a little disconcerting for a bloke who was generally an easy-going, take-it-as-it-comes sort of person. I have already introduced myself as Matt but I was christened Matthew. Up until the day I left home to rescue Juanita, only two people used my full name: my mother and my wife; although she – my wife – only used it when she wanted something. I stand about six-foot tall and I'm reasonably well built. My work kept me fit and, in spite of my sprinter's physique, I'm a bit of a stayer in the bedroom.
I'm eighteen-months younger than my wife but I'd always been more mature than my years. This seemed to somehow keep us in balance, although it always drove her crazy when I'd remain calm while being the target of her scalding tirades. I guessed that she'd picked up her understanding of the baser side of the English language from her four brothers. Her use of such language never ceased to amaze me, however, as she was so prudish in all other respects; particularly when it came to sex.
It wasn't until I was sitting in the cabin of Juanita's truck that it occurred to me that she was the only other person to use my full name. I hadn't ever noticed because it had seemed so natural.
While waiting for James, we talked about many things. It had started out discussing her love of tennis and her homestead garden, but it quickly evolved – or should that be, 'devolved'? – into matters of a more personal nature. It turned out that James had potency problems. That was disappointing to them both, which explained the single child situation. Juanita also let it slip that James wasn't an especially accomplished lover and that, while his libido was waning, hers was increasing.
