Arthur O. Friel

“ I had thought the bayonet must be a slow weapon, but I learned otherwise. Those grim-faced Americans seemed hardly to be really fighting, but only to be jabbing and dancing about; yet the savages swarming at them dropped, dropped, dropped, and the soldiers kept coming on.
But they came more and more slowly, and soon they were stopped. Heaving, hacking, stabbing, spearing, white and brown men were locked in a solid mass. And then, with the barbaros jamming together, the shooting started again. ”

“ If the harsh blast of that turé had not struck my ear so suddenly I might have realized that it was blown only in merry-making, for the days when hordes of bloody barbaros attacked settlers here on the Amazon are long past. Past, I mean, on the Amazon itself. Up the great wild rivers which flow in from the south there are still plenty of savage killers, and we Brazilians who rove the unknown jungle know well what the turé means. It is the voice of death. ”

“ I promised. “But I would not blow that trumpet again, senhor, until we reach some place where we know we are more safe. We are few, and it would not be well to let any savage Indians know we are here. Did you blow a bugle in the war?”
“Nope. Not so anybody could hear it. I knew all those army calls before any war came along. Then I wanted to fight, and the only way you can be sure of fighting these days is to make the personnel sharks think you don’t know anything.” ”

“ Then, twitching from his belt a long knife which we had taken for a sort of machete, he snapped it on to the gun under the muzzle.
“That’s the real killer,” he said. “A guy can get all shot up and still live, but when you slide this little old toothpick into a man he’s through. Hot lead is all right, but the cold steel is the stuff that mops ’em up.”
Dropping the blade into a line with my stomach, he made a playful jab upward. I fell over my own feet and knocked Pedro down in dodging away from it. Then Horner chuckled, the chief grinned, and I laughed rather foolishly. ”

“ So, after some argument, we decided simply to take things as they came and do our best to meet whatever plan our foes had.
“One thing is pretty sure,” said Horner, “and that is that they won’t come just the way they did the first time. They attack by trumpet-signal, and that shows they’ve got some idea of teamwork. Fighting men with any brains don’t pull the same stuff twice running, and you’ve got to watch out for a trick this time. Tell the chief not to let all his men go piling into the first bunch that shows up, but to hold some in reserve until he sees where he can use them best.” ”

“ Then he could do nothing but crawl back to his tent, lie there, and blow his bugle in the hope that some of his comrades might seek him.
He knew well that his chance of rescue was slight, for he had left the settlement without telling any one where or why he was going, and the other men probably would think he had gone along the river. And yesterday, he said, his courage had almost failed.
⁠“IT’S the loneliness that gets you,” he added. “Being hungry and busted up is no joke, but knowing that you’ve got less than one chance in a million of coming through is a lot worse. ”

“ The townsmen cut them off and slew them before they could reach the shelter of the jungle.
“Lourenço! To the rear!” called Pedro’s voice.
I started, looked around, could not see him, and got around the hut quickly. I had forgotten all about the fighters on the other side of the houses. There too I found white men battling hard, and these had not overcome their foes. There seemed to be fewer soldiers and more savages on this side, and the two forces were not locked together but broken up into scattered groups, every white man fighting his own battle against a number of copper-skins. ”

“ Some of the Indians were picking up their dead and wounded, while others stood watching the jungle where their enemies had disappeared. We passed along among these, glancing at the bodies and noticing that there were more dead townsmen than savages. The wounded, of course, were defenders, for the injured at tackers all had gotten away into the bush or been killed when their mates retreated. Without trying to count the dead, we could see that without our bullets to aid them our friends would have been quickly overwhelmed and butchered. ”

“ Before they could settle the question their paddlers brought them to a small Indian settlement where the people gave them welcome. And since all were tired of so much boat travel, they agreed to stay at that place for a few days while they rested and determined what should be done next.
Two days of this were enough for Horner. In spite of much argument, his mates could not yet agree, and he grew too restless to stay idle any longer. So, quietly taking a small canoe, a tent, a little food, his guns and his bugle, he slipped away by himself on an exploring trip to the eastward. ”

“ If I ever meet up with that bunch of gorillas again won’t I rub it into ’em! Say, when do we eat?”
We did not eat at once, but after a time food came to us. Armed men watched ceaselessly, and nobody went close to the bush, but otherwise life went on much as usual in and around the houses. We breakfasted heartily, talked more with Horner, and tried to pick places for that cross-fire he wanted. But this we could not do with any certainty because we could not guess how the next attack would be made.
All around the clearing rose the jungle, and the barbaros might burst out from any part of it. ”

“ The townsmen were being beaten down. Near us no man lived, but we knew our turn would come again all too soon, and that then our rifles and machetes would not save us long. The women and children were screaming again, and the yells of the savages spoke brutal exultation. Already some of them had stopped fighting and were butchering the wounded.
Behind us the army rifle cracked twice. Horner still lived. Dimly I remembered hearing him shoot several times while we fought. Now we ran back to the front of the hut, and there we found another fierce fight going on all along the line. ”

“ As he plunged in at the doorway I swung my machete hard to his throat. He flopped down, his head cut almost off. The woman and child cowering behind me screamed again, but I gave no attention to them. I popped out into the open.
No more volleys came. Instead, the firing now was a steady crackle. Naked men were dropping dead. Other savages were running—some toward the bush, some toward houses, some straight at the place where the shooting sounded. ”

“ Shots cracked around us as the last wild man fell at our feet. New yells rang out. Barbaros ran for the bush. The soldiers and village Indians from the other side of the town had swept in here to finish the battle. With their coming the wild men had bolted, and they found nothing to do but stand and shoot rapidly. When the crackle ceased no living enemy was left in sight.
⁠“PHOOEY!. ’Tis a hot day for workin’!” panted the soldier whom I had helped, mopping his broad face with a sleeve and grinning at me. “Thanks for carvin’ up them guys the way ye done. ”

“ Pedro answered him. “But we have ranged the bush far more than you, senhor, and my comrade here speaks sense. It takes more than a few days to know Indians well; and the ways of Indians toward twenty strong white men and toward one broken white man may not be the same. And these people came to meet us with weapons and their leader just asked us how strong our guns are. ”

“ Other warriors stumbled over these bodies, falling themselves and tripping more men behind them. By the time our guns were empty the force of the rush was broken.
But we got little time to reload. I managed to get two more cartridges into the magazine before the first barbaros reached me, and I fired these straight into their faces. Then I swung my gun, braining one man with the barrel, and dropped the empty weapon. Seizing the warrior I had just killed and holding him up before me as a shield, I pulled my machete and set my back to the wall. ”

“ After turning it over and examining its wooden barrel and crude mouthpiece he unfixed the bayonet from his rifle and passed the gun to Pedro.
“It’s a fair swap,” he said. “You guys will likely need a gun before you get home, and yours are no good with your ammunition all gone. The gang will give you plenty of shells. I won’t need the gun any more.”
Knowing we were indeed likely to need a gun before reaching the Javary, we took the weapon thankfully. Then came a yell from the river, and Slim came in, took Horner’s arm around his shoulders, and started with him to the stream. ”

“ You can’t do any footwork when you’ve got a dead leg. Ho-hum. I sort of hate to leave this town, it’s so quiet and peaceful.”
Slim grinned, and we laughed. After looking at the dead men a minute Pedro strode out, crossed the clearing, and disappeared into the bush. Soon he returned with a long tube.
“Perhaps you would like a remembrance of the peace and quiet of our Brazilian forests, senhor,” he suggested. “Here is the turé of the barbaros.” ”

“ Certainly, senhor, I will tell you the story if you care to hear it. Wait a moment until I make another cigaret. The one which I was smoking must have dropped overboard when I sprang up.
⁠NOW this thing of which I speak came about while the waters of the great yearly flood were sweeping over the lowlands of the Javary region, where I was a rubber-worker for Coronel Nunes. As you know, there are really two floods each year here on the upper Amazon, but only one of these is the great rise. ”

“ Later I learned that this was because the muzzles were almost against the skins of the barbaros, and also that each of those bullets tore through two or three men. The firing did not last long, but it seemed to blow the wild men off their feet. So many fell dead at once that they blocked and bore down the others, and what had been a tangle of raging warriors became a heap of flesh. ”

“ They said also that, armed only with a club, he had killed three of the barbaros; and they showed us the bodies, each with its head crushed.
When we entered the chief’s hut we found that he had not fared any too well. His left shoulder was badly torn by a spear-thrust, and a long arrow stuck out from one leg. A little old man whom we had not seen before was working to pull out the shaft, but its head was buried so deeply in the muscles that he was only hurting the chief, who sat silent but with lips drawn tight. ”

“ I explained why he had left them and why we now came with him, and asked where the other white men were. He said they had gone two days after Horner disappeared; that they believed he had gone up the river, and so they had decided to go that way also. He added that he was sorry to know the blower of the horn had hurt himself, but that a broken bone would soon mend, and all of us were welcome to his village.
“When you guys get through making a noise with your mouths maybe you’ll give me the low-down,” said the Trumpeter. “It don’t make sense to me.” ”

“ How do you guys live on that farinha stuff, anyhow? It takes pork and beans or ham and eggs to put hair on a fellow’s chest. Now say, while I’m feeling husky I wish you’d straighten out my leg. It feels twisted.”
It was twisted. Working carefully, we reset the broken bone as well as we could and bound new splints on it. As before, he made no sound. When the work was done he calmly asked for another smoke. And then, with the cigaret glowing, he told how he had come there. ”

“ But Taps isn’t just a dead man’s time. It means ‘good night—sleep tight—all’s well.’ I’m just saying good night to that bunch of gorillas that beat it up-stream while I was away. They can’t hear it, but they’re getting ready to snooze now somewhere up there, and maybe they’re thinking about me. ”

“ If you can do anything they try to make you do it in the army. If you’re a mechanic they keep you tinkering on bum motors. If you’re a newspaper man they make you a censor. If you know a shirt from a sock they shove you into quartermaster work. ”

“ I had some doubt about this, for I thought the soldiers would find fighting in thick jungle to be far different from what they had been accustomed to in Europe. But I told him the white men would surely kill every one of the savages if they met them. ”

“ This was not true, for we had used up many of our cartridges in a fight with some beastly barbaros back on the Jurua, and now we had not a great number left. But it is not wise to let Indians think you to be weak, even though they are friendly; so we were prompt in our answer. He said it was well.
After we put up our hammocks I told the Trumpeter he had better come on to the Javary with us. Before this he had been one of a score of fighting men, I pointed out, but after we went he would be alone among these Indians, and perhaps he would not be so well-treated as before. ”

“ They themselves had not heard of the wild men until yesterday, he said, and the white men then had been gone for days. He added that he hoped the whites would meet the marauders somewhere up the river, because then there would be a fight, and of course the men with guns would kill all those brutes. ”

“ They raise crops and kids and take it easy, and they’re regular fellows. Walk around and look ’em over. Me, I like ’em fine.”
⁠STILL rather doubtful, we did walk around and look over the place and the people. And we found that it was as he said: the Indians here seemed to be quiet and honest, happy in the peace of their town and content to toil on the plantations beyond it, where the trees had been thinned to let the crops grow. Still, we noticed that here and there were men with weapons, watching the women work and occasionally scanning the thick bush beyond. ”