We landed on a lovely beach and soon moved off up a valley – each man now with his own pack – stores to follow later – and in the ever-growing light by padi and hill tracks – covered 2-3 miles to our stopping place, Wong Mi Chi – a small village set among heavy trees in perfect cover. By now it was broad daylight and we could look around and see just who was who and where we were. Here were our guerrilla allies with their inevitable Mausers and in addition to our M.T.B. friends had been added (Cdr.) Montague and the men of C410, and the official party of Admiral Chan, his A.D.C. Henry Hsu, Goring, Guest, Macmillan, Robinson, Oxford, McDougall and Ross. We were becoming a formidable party.
Breakfast was now ready and with it we had our first introduction to tangerines fresh from the tree – a delicacy I always associated with Christmas and tinfoil. The rest of the day was spent in sleep – until dusk – when, for the first time, we heard Mike’s famous – “Ready to march”.
Retracing our steps to Namo we took the coast track for a few miles during which it became clear to Tai and myself as rearguard that the guerrilla pace was certainly not Navy pace and that loads would have to be drastically cut down. It was, to say the least, disconcerting to find packets of ammunition lying at the path side and to see people already unable to keep up the pace.
From the coast we struck inland by the usual paths till after some 3-4 hours walking we reached a large village where we had our first sight of guerrilla organisation – the temple taken over and the floor laid with straw – hot tea ready and in fact, apart from the inevitable staring crowd, we could well believe that the arrival of 60 odd British sailors was an every day occurrence.