Chapter 5

This chapter explains how Joe was able to survive the beating.
When Jean learns that there is a chance that Joe Harman could be alive she travels to Kuantan and speaks to a nurse that tended to Joe. The nurse reassures Jean that Joe did in fact survive. So she goes to Australia to look for him.
The story then goes back to Mr. Strachan. He is in his office in England when Joe Harman himself shows up! And he's looking for Jean! Mr. Strachan tells Joe that Jean is out of the country and that she had inherited money from a relative. He tells Joe to write Jean a letter and come back the next day with the letter and that he, Mr. Strachan, would send out to Jean himself since he can't give away Jean's information. When Joe doesn't show up, Mr. Strachan sends his assistant after him. He finds that Joe had gotten drunk and got arrested the same night they had spoken. He bails Joe out of jail and lets him stay at his house. Mr. Strachan gets Joe to tell him why he didn’t write the letter to Jean. Joe believes that he isn’t good enough for her, especially now that she is rich. He says he wouldn’t be able to give her the things she wants. Where he lives in the backcountry, he says, there isn’t anywhere for a woman to entertain herself, no shops or cinemas or anything (Quite silly if you ask me).
By the end of the chapter, Joe starts to head home to Australia when Mr. Strachan says something that foreshadows Joe’s and Jean’s meeting to come.