The Japanese attacked China in the summer of 1937, and war was on. Many factions of Chinese armies who had been fighting each other quickly united against their common enemy. Soon Japanese planes began to bomb Wuchow. There were no adequate air raid shelters in Wuchow, so great throngs of people rushed to Stout Memorial Baptist Hospital for shelter. The hospital was a five-story brick, steel, and concrete building, the safest in Wuchow. …

Japan threw a blockade around the entire seacoast of the country, thus cutting off all supplies of medicine and other essentials. Knowing that our hospital could not carry on without supplies, I decided to run the Japanese blockade—a very dangerous operation.

About a hundred miles downriver from Wuchow, I left the riverboat and went ashore near Shiuhing to catch a bus overland to the South. As we waited for a bus, Jap planes attacked us with bombs and machine guns. Waiting passengers and soldiers scattered in every direction for hiding places. I jumped into a nearby drain ditch and stretched out lengthwise, trying to hide under a big bunch of grass overhanging the bank. Never had I liked the idea of someone finding Rex Ray with a lot of bullet holes in his back, so I lay there, face up. The planes looked like big, red-eyed devils roaring toward me, saying “Oh, we’ll get you this time!” Then they would zoom right over me, back up into the air, circle and power-dive from the other direction right at me, still spraying their lethal pellets. They kept on and on until I thought they would never stop. I kept making promises to the Lord if he would save me from this threatening death. l could hear an officer under some bamboo bushes nearby telling his Chinese soldiers, “Don’t move, don’t move.” Just then a plane turned and came right up my ditch, sputtering death. I thought, “This is where I get it—bullet holes from feet to head!” But it didn’t get me! Then the planes left. …

In Macao I boarded a ship to Hong Kong and then a ferry out to Cheung Chow where my family awaited my coming. Happy reunion!

In Hong Kong word got around that I was preparing to run the Jap blockade back into China. I was beseiged by requests from people wanting to go with me. I told them all that I could not guarantee the safety of anyone, not even of myself or my cargo. The party that I collected was composed of twelve Chinese ladies—teachers and students—a Chinese pastor and his family, two German doctors who had escaped Hitler, one British Red Cross nurse and a big fat American who had come to China especially to get experience to write a book. He got it!

We loaded all our cargo and baggage on two Chinese junks in Macao. Then, in a gentle breeze, we sailed out through the harbor toward the setting sun.

Between Macao and the mainland of China we had to cross the open sea. There were two great dangers confronting us—being run-down by the Japanese Navy if we tried to cross in the daytime and Chinese pirates if we tried to make the run at night. We chose to risk the pirates.

About dark a long, narrow boat, filled with silent men using paddles, headed straight toward us. They were collecting “protection fees,” they informed us. We paid, no questions asked! …

On we sailed. Then we spied more silent men in another long boat, with paddles dipping gently into the sea, and two more shooting irons. Knowing they could spit bullets and fire right into your face with a slight touch on their triggers makes your high blood pressure show no sign of dropping, even though your knees may feel like doing so! We paid and sailed on over the moonlit sea for another two hours.

More silent men paddling in a long boat, with their chief in the bow, trying to look down the barrels of two very big guns at the same time. They were different! They only wanted five hundred dollars Hong Kong currency quick! or quicker! I tried to reason with the spokesman, stating that we had already paid. He told me; “Do you see those lights yonder on those islands? If you don’t pay up at once I’ll take you, your boats, and your whole party over there. Four hundred of our family are waiting over there!” “Oh, sure, Mister, we’ll pay you right away. Wait until I take up a collection for you,” I said. I turned to our party. “Folks, as you see, we need five hundred dollars right quick!” It was the fastest collection I ever took—Chinese, Germans, Americans, and British all dug for cold cash. Again we paid and sailed on. …

About sunrise we reached an island occupied by Chinese troops. What a sigh of relief from all of us! But we still had to cross one big river patrolled by Japanese Navy boats. I had lost all of my money but not my valuable cargo of drugs …

We decided to hire long canal boats from Chinese farmers. We covered the drugs and baggage with rice straw and sent the boats across the river to the mainland of China, with a prayer for the boatman and the cargo.

Then we waited until after midnight to push our boats out into the moonlit river. Success or

failure would be decided within an hour. We sailed up and across the mile-wide river and entered the mouth of the canal on the mainland, when lo, out of the shadows soldiers cried out, “Halt! Who are you?” (They were traitor-soldiers, working for the Japanese.) They said, “Drop anchor until sunrise.” The girls feared that these traitors might turn them over to the Japs. They knew it would be better to have their throats cut and be thrown into the river than to fall into the hands of roving Jap soldiers.

When day came, I persuaded the Cantonese leader to let us go on our way, since we had neither money nor goods. (He did not know we had sent boatloads on ahead.) Seeing there was no chance for profit, their leader finally told us to go on. Through the canal we traveled. About 11:00 A.M. we came to a village, and there, along the banks, our cargo boats were waiting! We loaded our baggage and medical supplies back into our junks and traveled inland. When we heard Japanese planes coming, we hid our boats along the banks, and everybody ducked for cover. …

Aboard a big riverboat for Wuchow, we felt our anxieties fading away. At Shiuhing, the young ladies went ashore, being near their homes. Another day, and we landed safely at Wuchow without a loss of cargo or people. It was a happy hour for me when I saw those medical supplies passing through the gates and into the hospital.

Excerpted from Cowboy Missionary in Kwangsi by Rex Ray. ©1964 Broadman Press All rights reserved. Reprinted and used by permission.