Adrift for 23 Days

From Our Own Correspondent NOUMEA, March 23.

JOESOEP, a well-known character among New Caledonia’s Javanese, recently figured in an escape incident which set him adrift in a launch for 23 days.

But for the war, he would have been returned to his native Batavia because of his habit of deserting an employer for whom he has contracted to work. For his most recent lapse he was sent, a short time ago, to the coral isle of Mare, about 80 miles distant from the bottom tip of New Caledonia, where he was set cutting timber.

The work did not appeal to Joesoep and one night he wrapped up his few possessions in a handkerchief, and de camped in his master’s 18-foot launch.

His provisions, although unsubstantial, were enough, he thought, to get him across 80 miles of sea. back to New Caledonia.

The one thing he had not reckoned with was his petrol supply. For three hours he made good progress; then his motor failed, and his long ordeal of drift ing commenced.

After some days his provisions were gone, and he became sick and famished, and lost all hope. He did not suffer from thirst —the squalls of the rainy season saw to that.

While Noumea searched and then gave him up for lost, he drifted north-west wards along the whole 250 miles of the Caledonian coast and finally wind and current drove him through Balade Pas sage inside Cook’s great reef, and on the twenty-third day the launch rounded the northern tip of New Caledonia and grounded on uninhabited Pam Islet, where he was later found by local fisher men.

Had he missed this northern tip of the island, he would have drifted right across the Coral Sea to the Queensland coast.

As it is, he is now in the hands of the gendarme at Oubatcha and, when he has recovered, he will be taken to Noumea to be charged with the theft of his mas ter’s launch.

“So long as there are homes to which men turn At close of day, So long as there are homes where child ren are— Where women stay, If love and loyalty and faith be found Across these sills A stricken nation can recover from Its gravest ills.” — Crowell.