The twenty-minute flight from Shell Mera to Shandia was uneventful. The Elliot family was waiting beside the airstrip as Nate brought the plane in for a landing. After an exchange of hellos and good-byes, Nate was soon on his way again, with Jim as his passenger. Rachel, Betty, and Valerie stood near a grove of bamboo and watched the Piper Cruiser disappear from view over the jungle. As they turned and walked the short distance to the Elliots’ house, Betty seemed a little distracted, and Rachel left her to her thoughts.
Once at the house, the two women shared a pot of coffee as Betty filled Rachel in on what needed to be done. Betty told Rachel that they had just completed a new schoolhouse and asked if she would be able to help teach the growing number of students of all ages who showed up each morning to learn to read and write.
Everything went according to plan. Rachel had plenty to do, and the week seemed to whiz by. By Monday morning, when Rachel was scheduled to leave, she was looking forward to returning to her language-learning work with Dayuma. All she was waiting for was a radio message from Marj to say that Nate was on his way to Shandia to pick her up. But as the morning dragged on, the radio remained strangely silent. There was no message from Marj. Finally Rachel heard Betty call Marj on the radio in the next room. Rachel got up and walked over to the room. She hesitated for a moment in the doorway. She could hear the strain in her sister-in-law’s voice. “Johnny has found the plane on the beach. All of the fabric is stripped off. There is no sign of the men,” she heard Marj say.
The hairs on the back of Rachel’s neck stood straight up, and one word sprung to her mind—Aucas. Without hearing another word, Rachel knew that her brother had somehow come in contact with them.
Betty turned to see Rachel in the doorway. “I have to go, Marj. Rachel is here. Can Johnny come and get us? I think we should all be together right now. Over,” she said into the mouthpiece.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Marj replied. “I’ll radio you back when he’s in the air. Over and out.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to have to find out this way,” Betty said, turning to look Rachel in the eye, “but the men are in trouble. We’ve lost radio contact with them, and it doesn’t look good.”
A million questions raced through Rachel’s mind, and over the next hour some of them were answered. It turned out, according to Betty, that Jim had hoped to reach the Aucas with the gospel since his days at Bible college. Jim had convinced his two fellow Brethren missionaries, Ed McCully and Pete Fleming, to help him find a way to do so. But no one could think of a safe way to go about making contact with them until Nate started telling them about the spiral-line technique he had developed.
As Rachel heard about this, her heart dropped. She recalled how proud Nate had been as he described the technique to her. Now it looked as though the spiral-line technique had played a central part in a plan that had gone very wrong.
Betty packed an overnight bag for her and Valerie and then told Rachel how things had developed. In mid-September Nate and Ed had flown over a group of Aucas, whom they dubbed the “neighbors,” since the McCullys lived at Arajuno, right on the edge of Auca territory. Now that they had a location where a group of Aucas lived and a way to pass things down to them on the ground, they decided it would be a great opportunity to show the Aucas that the missionaries wanted to be their friends.
Over the next thirteen weeks, Nate and the other men made a once-a-week drop to the Auca village. Sometimes they put a machete in the bucket, and at other times they included clothes or small articles such as mirrors and sugar cubes. From all accounts, things were going well, and so Nate, the three Brethren missionaries, and Roger Youderian, who served with the Gospel Missionary Union at nearby Macuma, had decided to venture into Auca territory.
Rachel was stunned as she listened to what Betty was telling her. She felt betrayed, especially since Nate and Jim had been involved in the planning for over three months and that she had been misled into thinking that Jim was holding meetings at Arajuno. She hardly trusted herself to speak as Betty caught her up on the last phase of the plan.
“There was a stretch of beach on the Curaray River, just four and a half miles from the Auca village. We called it ‘Palm Beach,’ and Nate said it was long enough to land the Piper on. So last week he ferried the men in to the site. The idea was for three of them to camp there while Nate and Pete flew in and out from Arajuno each day. Jim and the others assembled a prefabricated tree house in a large tree at the end of the beach and waited for the Aucas to pay them a visit. And two Auca women and a man did come and visit them. The men gave them gifts, and Nate even took the Auca man up for a flight in the plane. Things were looking promising. But last night, while you were out at Bible study, Marj radioed to say that Nate hadn’t flown out from Palm Beach back to Arajuno before dark as usual. So at first light this morning, Johnny Keenan flew over Palm Beach to take a look. And you heard what he found. The Piper Cruiser has been stripped of its fabric skin, and there is no sign of the men.”
As Rachel heard more details of the plan, her emotions raged within her. Fear, frustration, disbelief, and anger coursed through her as she thought about what the men had done. But her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an airplane buzzing the house. For a brief moment her heart skipped a beat. Was it Nate telling them he was safe? Then she remembered that Nate’s little yellow airplane lay stripped on Palm Beach. Rachel ran to the doorway anyway, just in time to see Johnny Keenan in the Piper Pacer circle the house one more time and then head for the airstrip.
The two women walked silently along the path that led to the airstrip. Betty carried Valerie on her hip while Rachel carried the bags. Once they reached the airstrip, one look at Johnny’s face told Rachel that Johnny had no good news to report. The atmosphere inside the plane was tense and silent as Johnny flew them to Shell Mera. As soon as Rachel, Betty, and Valerie had climbed out of the Pacer, Johnny took to the air again to go and collect Marilou McCully, Olive Fleming, and Barbara Youderian.
As Rachel walked toward Shell Merita, she saw her niece Kathy and remembered that today was Kathy’s seventh birthday. But Kathy barely smiled when Rachel wished her a happy birthday.
Rachel walked inside the house, and Marj got up from the radio console and hugged her. “I am so sorry you didn’t know,” she said. “This must be a terrible shock to you.”
“Yes, it is,” Rachel replied, not really wanting to talk about her feelings.
Just as in the airplane on the way from Shandia to Shell Mera, a tense silence pervaded Shell Merita.
As Rachel, lost in a confusion of thought, sat staring blankly at Mount Sangay in the distance, there was a knock at the door. Marj opened the door, and there stood Larry Montgomery, a pilot for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Larry greeted Marj and quickly explained that he had been passing through Quito when he had the strangest feeling he should get on a bus and make the thirteen-hour trip to Shell Mera. He apologized for not letting Marj know ahead of time that he was coming.
“Come in and sit down, Larry,” Marj said calmly. “I have something to tell you.”
Soon Marj was telling Larry the details of Operation Auca, as the men had named it. Larry listened carefully to everything Marj told him, and when she was finished, he sprang into action, taking charge of the situation. Larry, as it turned out, was a friend of General Harrison, the man in command of the U.S. military for the whole Caribbean region. General Harrison was a Christian, and Larry was sure that if he could get ahold of the general by shortwave radio, the general would help. Rachel watched as Marj led Larry to the radio room, where he sent out a message. Within half an hour General Harrison was on the radio. Larry described the situation to the general and asked if the military could help. General Harrison promised he would do all he could.
An hour later another radio transmission confirmed that help was on the way. General Harrison had called Air Force Major Nurnberg in Panama and ordered him to head up a military rescue team, which by now was winging its way from Panama toward Shell Mera.
As Rachel listened to the news that a rescue team was on the way, she felt herself becoming calmer. No matter how they had arrived at this point, now was the time to be clearheaded and do whatever she could to ensure the men’s survival.
After the sun set that night, Rachel found herself alone with Marj. It was a painful moment.
“Why didn’t they tell me?” Rachel asked softly. “I could have helped them with the language and added my prayers to theirs.”
Marj nodded and disappeared into the bedroom. She emerged a minute later holding an envelope, which she gave to Rachel. The writing on the front said, “To be held until further notice.” Rachel opened the envelope and began to read.
Dear Sis,
As you know, the reaching of the Aucas has been on our hearts for a long time. It has been heartening to know that the Lord has laid a specific burden on your heart also and that you are currently engaged in work on their language.
Rachel stopped reading for a moment to wipe her eyes. Then she read on.
For this reason it has been hard to decide not to share with you the efforts that we are about to initiate toward the contacting of these people. Our efforts will be directed toward inspiring confidence in Ed McCully, who is, as you know, living within easy reach of the Aucas in two days overland.
I am writing this note now so that you will better understand and so that I will be spared an embarrassed effort to explain it to you after the need for secrecy blows over.
Rachel turned the page and continued,
As we see it, you might feel obligated to divulge this information to save me the risks involved. In view of that fact, and since we know that you are already praying for the contacting of these people, we trust God to carry us forward in this effort and you in your effort to the end that Christ might be known among them.
Affectionately, Nate
Over the next two days as news of the disappearance of the five missionaries filtered out to the world, airplanes began swooping down on the Shell Mera airstrip, bringing in all manner of people. Rachel’s oldest brother, Sam, arrived to add his support, as did two representatives from Christian Missions in Many Lands, the Plymouth Brethren mission agency under which Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, and Ed McCully served. MAF president Grady Parrott also made his way to Shell Mera from Los Angeles. And Abe Van Der Puy, a missionary in Quito with HCJB radio, came to coordinate the sending out of news bulletins and press releases. Jerry Hannifin, foreign correspondent for Time magazine, also made his way from Quito to the Oriente, and in Washington, D.C., famous Life magazine photographer Cornell Capa convinced his superiors to let him cover the story, and he too made his way to Shell Mera.
Equipment arrived also. By Tuesday night two Air Force C-47 cargo planes had arrived from Panama. One carried a rescue team, and the other an H-13 helicopter. The following morning the helicopter was unloaded and quickly assembled for use in the search. Ecuadorian Air Force planes that had ferried in twenty soldiers were there also to help with the search.
Rachel tried to help in any way she could, but she also tried to stay out of the way of all the busy people around her. No bodies had been sighted, and people clung to the hope that somewhere out in the jungle the men might still be alive. But deep in her heart Rachel feared the worst. Knowing what she now knew about the Waorani, she was aware that if the Waorani discovered the five men in their territory, they would surely kill them.
In case the men were still alive and trying to escape from Auca territory through the jungle, a search party was hastily organized. Frank Drown, who worked with Roger and Barbara Youderian at Macuma, asked to lead it. He had worked in the Oriente for twelve years and knew better than anyone what the crew would be up against trying to make it overland to Palm Beach. Dr. Art Johnston from the medical clinic volunteered to join the search party, as did several other missionaries in the area. They gathered at Arajuno and set out at first light on Wednesday morning, January 11, accompanied by thirteen Ecuadorian soldiers.
