It took the command group nearly three hours to reach Afua. As soon as they arrived, 2d Squadron began to move forward to conduct its lonely mission. First Squadron prepared its defenses with Troop A on the right, Troop B to the left, and Troop C behind the Squadron Command Post located at Afua. Regimental Headquarters and the Weapons Troop moved about 1,400 meters north, nearer task force headquarters.

Patrols from Troop A were dispatched to reconnoiter in front of the position, and in late afternoon, a squad patrolling toward Niumen Creek surprised several Japanese absorbed in setting an ambush. The ambushers became the ambushed as the cavalrymen shot and killed two Japanese and claimed to have wounded several others who ran into the jungle. The American squad then searched the Japanese corpses and withdrew quickly, fortunate to have suffered no losses. Elsewhere along the 1st Squadron's front, two- and three-man teams established listening posts across the Driniumor before dusk.

Meanwhile, the 2d Squadron underwent its own ordeal. After fording the Driniumor, the men had to hack and cut their way with machetes through the thick jungle vegetation. They were moving in the deep jungle, where no sunlight broke through the canopy and where the stench of rotting vegetation and human sweat filled their nostrils. Even more lonely was a Troop G platoon that had to move parallel and about one kilometer South of the main column in order to provide flank security. To the physical strain was added the mental stress of not knowing what danger might suddenly appear from the tangled bush that they were laboring to cut through. It took their single file column several hours to "march" about one and onehalf kilometers east through the virgin jungle. It was a grueling and draining effort.

When they finally found a defensible, high-ground position anchored on the Torricelli Mountains, they settled in for the long, black night. Their communications failed as usual at night, so the 2d Squadron spent the night of 10-11 July alone and isolated in the jungle.

The men used tactics they had learned in combat on New Britain, two men per foxhole, one always awake. No one left his hole at night, or he risked being shot by his own comrades. This particular night the squadron formed a "doughnut defense," with the command position in the middle and the three troops encircling it. [27]

Besides the exhausting march, cold food, exertion from digging a foxhole, and no communications, every man on that perimeter had to face the isolation and darkness seemingly alone.

The black jungle night made it impossible to see anything, even the man sharing the foxhole. Yet, their senses magnified every jungle noise. Palm leaves brushing together became objects of menace. The effect was cumulative and infinite, yet the energy and stamina of the men were only finite. They had expended enormous energy just to get to their night laager, and now they had to call on even more to stay alert. Then shortly before midnight, they got a shot of adrenaline as artillery and heavy machine gun fire broke out to their north. Everyone was tense, but alert, fearful the Japanese might overrun them at any moment.