The Old Navy by Daniel P Mannix

Author:Daniel P Mannix
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: voyage, fighter, Chinese, lover, father, mines, English, battleships, Marines, WWI, Germans
ISBN: 9781618869746
Publisher: eNet Press Inc.
Published: 2014-06-30T04:00:00+00:00

We left the natives and continued along the trail until we arrived at the place where Captain Swain said the Negrito village was reported to be, but never a sign of it did we see. We were wandering on aimlessly without the slightest suspicion that there was anyone within a mile of us when, suddenly at my very elbow, I heard a voice say, “Amigo.” I must have jumped a foot. Starting back, I saw for the first time a hole about four feet deep that had been dug on one side of the trail and skillfully covered with underbrush. In this hole was a black dwarf, a good foot shorter than the other natives, a bow in his hand and a quiver of what turned out to be poisoned arrows hanging from one shoulder. He had been waiting there for some game animal to pass along the trail and could have easily killed every member of our party without one of us knowing from whence were coming the arrows.

We hurriedly answered, “Amigo!” and, crawling out of his hole, he conducted us to the village which, though but a dozen feet from the trail, we had passed without knowing of its presence.

It consisted of a few low shacks of nipa about the size of the ordinary dog tent. Our host crawled into one of these and shortly emerged clad in a filthy white blouse which he evidently kept for state occasions. We presented him with one of our cans of salmon but after endeavoring to take a bite out of the tin he promptly returned it to us. We then opened it for him but he took one taste of the contents and then threw it into the bushes to the intense indignation of the caterer of the Wardroom Mess who was a member of the party. As the Negritos are said to eat anything, including fat grubs they find under stones, we never let our caterer hear the last of this episode.

We then presented him with the canned fruit, which was accorded a better reception than the salmon, and took the trail back to the ship as we wished to be well clear of the brush before dark. We found our boat waiting for us and were back on board in time for dinner. We were all rather quiet for the next few days, thinking over our experience. For the first time we realized the terrific task our unthinking government had inflicted on our unfortunate troops, expecting them to hunt down and subdue people living in these impenetrable jungles armed with primitive yet deadly efficient weapons. The three people we had met proved to be friendly, otherwise not one of us would have returned alive, in spite of our modern revolvers and years of costly education. Being back on shipboard seemed like heaven. I could not imagine how the soldiers endured the long months in rain, mud, dense underbrush, and disease, never knowing when a bullet or an arrow of a poisoned blow dart would leap out of the jungle and take their lives.

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