During the February 1942 evacuation of Salamaua, Commander Frank Houghton pressures his old friend, American beachcomber Walter Eckland, into serving as a coast watcher for the Allies. Houghton escorts Eckland to the deserted Matalava Island to watch for Japanese airplanes. To motivate the often-inebriated Eckland, Houghton has his crew plant bottles of Scotch whisky around the camp, rewarding each confirmed aircraft sighting with directions to the next bottle. To ensure Eckland stays put, Houghton has his own ship “accidentally” knock a hole in Eckland’s cabin cruiser as it departs, leaving him with only a small utility dinghy to get around in.
As encircling Japanese forces threaten a nearby coast watcher, Houghton entices Eckland to use the small motorized dinghy to make the dangerous journey to rescue his replacement. In return, Eckland extorts the location of all the hidden whisky. Upon arrival, he encounters Frenchwoman Catherine Freneau and seven schoolgirls under her care left stranded there after escaping from Rabaul, but no coast watcher; he had been killed in an air raid and buried by Freneau. Eckland reluctantly takes the troop back to Matalava.
The next morning, Freneau clashes with Eckland, whom she decries to Houghton as
> a rude, foul-mouthed, drunken, filthy beast.
Eckland dubs Freneau Miss Goody Two Shoes. He settles into a grudging détente with the group, and one by one he befriends the girls (four British, two French, and an Australian), becoming pals with the outgoing tomboyish “Harry” and even getting the youngest, traumatized mute since being separated from her parents to speak again.
When the girls frantically report that Freneau has been bitten by a snake and Houghton confirms that all species on the island are deadly venomous, Eckland begins a vigil over her. He is advised to administer an analgesic sedative, which he does liberally. When she passes out, Eckland mistakenly believes she has succumbed (and taken with her solemn secrets he revealed in their reverie), only to learn she had merely been pricked by a thorny stick that just looked like a snake. The next day she remembers everything — to his horror.
Realizing they are in love, the couple arrange to be married by a military Chaplain via radio. Houghton then agrees to send an American submarine the following morning to evacuate them. The couple spend their honeymoon night on the beach with the girls waiting for a signal from the submarine. Before it arrives, a Japanese patrol boat returns and sends a pair of landing parties shoreward in rafts. Ordering Freneau and the girls into his dinghy, Eckland heads out to sea in his newly repaired cruiser in the opposite direction to draw the Japanese away. The submarine arrives, but is unable to torpedo the patrol boat because of an intervening reef. Finally the patrol boat passes over the reef, but before torpedoes can hit their mark the cruiser is blown up. Fortunately, Eckland had lashed its wheel and jumped overboard before it was hit. He pops up alongside the dinghy.
