PHP and java

I have written PHP code to upload and download files to my server through my browser. On the local side I have generated a java applet to do a few things that I just can't do with a browser. There are some things that I need the java on the local machine to have access to on the server. I started to generate a java servlet to do this when I found out that my service provider doesn't support servlets. For example, I need for the java to be able to make a request of the server for a directory listing, then fetch an image from the directory to display in the applet. I am a little new to java applets. Any ideas on how to do this? JDM