Adventure, 2nd November, 1918

  T WAS a human cry, charged with terror.

  he knew, by the strange words, that they were

  It came, faint, from a long way off and

  natives who spoke,, He changed his direction

  I seemed to have been stifled—choked toward the voices and moved with even off—before it was completed.

  greater caution than before.

  “Smoke” crouched low and crept

  Then when the sounds became plainer

  forward. He could have gone back to the he lay flat on his stomach and wormed his company of white troops, to which he was

  way forward, painfully, inch by inch, moving

  temporarily attached, and their captain would

  with his hands each twig or dead branch that

  have sent a squad of men to investigate. But

  lay in his path. At last he came to the bank of Smoke was only a few generations removed

  a ravine and the voices told him that the

  from the African jungle-man and from him he

  natives were there—at the bottom. Lying flat

  had the instinct for lone-handed battles. at the top of the bank he thrust his face, Perhaps this instinct is born of vainglory, cautiously between the branches of a small perhaps of the primeval urge to achieve, to

  bush and looked down.

  excel. At any rate, in the final analysis, it

  What he saw was a large ant-hill, more

  amounts to personal courage.

  than the length of a man in breadth. Across the Smoke crept on. Through the coconut

  ant-hill was a white man, naked, face up,

  grove, across bamboo-set swamps and on over

  spread-eagled, and gagged; around him a

  great, tangled masses of vines, he moved with

  circle of natives. They were watching the ants

  the stealth of a jungle cat. And though he was

  raise red welts on tender, white flesh and

  a heavy man, never a twig did he break and

  jesting in fiendish glee at the sight.

  never a sound did he make.

  The tortured man’s muscles writhed

  For half an hour Smoke scouted, like separate bodies and strained against the peering through clumps of bamboo, over skin as if their owner’s brain were trying to boulders and even into the fronded palms and

  cry out through them. Smoke watched this

  always did he listen, intently, for a repetition display of agony, his brain paralyzed, for the

  of that dreadful cry. But the cry was not moment unable to perform.

  repeated, though after a while, he heard a low

  At this juncture, the white man, rolling

  babble of voices well to the right of him. And

  his head from side to side, sighted the face on

  Adventure

  2

  the bank above him. There was a great scar

  to his feet, and went home to his black mother, across the profile of the face on the bank, a

  who tended his wound.

  scar that once seen would never be forgotten.

  Came the day when Sambo’s face was

  The white man had seen that scar before and

  well and he walked again in the streets of

  he remembered it, even now, in his present

  Macon and hoped that he would meet Milton

  agony. His eyes flashed the recognition Carter. For there was another wound deep in thought that was in his brain. Smoke saw this

  him and it cried out for reparation. Sambo did

  flash and understood it; and it caused him to

  not know what he would do when he did meet

  scan the face below him, more closely. Then

  Carter, he had no plan, but he knew in a dim

  he, in turn, recognized the other.

  way that somehow he would redeem himself

  The scar across Smoke’s face became

  in the eyes of himself. Many times he walked

  a white welt on the black skin, his mouth set

  the streets, hoping to meet Carter, at the same and his hands clenched. He, too, remembered,.

  time trembling and fearful at the prospect.

  and it was not a pleasant memory.

  Then one day the inevitable occurred.

  Recollection sent his mind back, in one bound,

  Sambo was slouching along near the edge of a

  to a day on a certain street in Macon, Georgia, sidewalk and Milton Carter was coming

  more than five years ago.

  toward him. Carter was again flushed, he had

  just come out of a saloon in the middle of the

  FOR a few moments Smoke stood apart from

  block. Now they were within two steps of

  himself, as it were, and viewed that five-year

  each other.

  block out of his life as one views a motion

  “Sambo,” said Carter, “what did I

  picture. He saw himself, walking, with a slash your face for not a month ago?”

  slouching, slap-footed gait along the edge of a Sambo stopped, stood sullen, but did

  sidewalk.

  not speak. His knees shook, his body was

  This was in Macon. Coming toward

  afraid, his legs wanted to run away, his hand

  him, his face flushed, his hat on the back of

  wanted to reach up, take off his hat and save

  his head, and his eyes a little glazed, was a

  his body physical suffering. But he did none

  white man. This was Milton Carter.

  of these things. There was something in him

  “Hey there, Sambo,” said Carter, “get

  that was greater than his body, that held him

  off the sidewalk and take off your hat when

  there, waiting blindly, uncomprehending, for

  you see me coming.”

  the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of

  Sambo did not move. He did not know

  himself.

  then, and even now, evolutionized to a smart,

  Milton Carter drew back his fist and as

  disciplined soldier, Smoke who had been he did so, Sambo, without realizing what he Sambo, did not know why he, Sambo, had

  did, without knowing one second before that

  defied Milton Carter, the white man. He knew

  he was going to act, swung his ponderous fist

  only that he resented this unmerited hectoring, in a sledgehammer blow—it landed. The

  and to stand still, not to obey, was his protest; white man would as soon have expected the

  the only protest he dared to make.

  earth to open and swallow him. He was

  Milton Carter drew a large jackknife,

  unprepared. He fell like an ox.

  stepped quickly up to Sambo and slashed the

  For Sambo, panic, frenzy, terror. He

  side of his face from cheek-bone to chin. Then

  heard already, the low, throaty growl of the

  with a terrific kick, he sent Sambo to the

  mob and already he felt the rope tighten about

  gutter, spat in his face, laughed and went on.

  his neck. He had committed the unpardonable

  Sambo regained his breath, scrambled

  sin. He had struck a white man, and his brain

  Two Calls in the Jungle

  3

  told his legs to take him away.

  the spirit of camaraderie bred of years in the

  There were nights in swamps; fever-

  service. Now, Sambo, in all probability had

  ridden nights, and mosquito-tortured. Then never heard the word camaraderie, but he had days of hunger in the box cars, and “hand-heard often its equivalent. A phrase in the

  outs” grudgingly given at back doors, and

  service which runs—

  finally a job at St. Louis. And later—the Army

  “It’s all under the flag.”

  and Cuba, the charge, the steel-clad bullet in

  That was it. It was all under the flag.

  his shoulder and afterward, a medal.

  He was under the flag and Carter was under

  Then came the Philippines and the the flag. They were both sworn servants of affair at Illigau and the second wound; and his Old Glory and those brown devils down there

  regiment, the colored regiment, had gone on

  were enemies.

  while he was yet unable to leave the hospital

  The muscles in Smoke’s thick neck

  Then, well at last, he had been attached to a

  swelled and the button at his shirt collar-

  white regiment till such time as he could reach popped off. His heavy, shoulders, those

  his own. The white regiment had camped for a

  shoulders that were the pride of his company,

  day’s rest and wash-up near the coconut grove

  hunched forward and he went down the bank.

  where Smoke had been drinking luscious, No, he did not go down; he did not climb green coconut milk when he heard the cry.

  down. He landed amidst the circle and it was

  Thus the past merged into the present.

  as if an avalanche had landed. His bayonet and

  The white man stretched and staked on

  butt worked alternately with the speed and

  the ant-hill below was Milton Carter. And it

  power of a trip-hammer. The Filipinos were

  was given Smoke to watch the ants saw bewildered, awed, terrorized. They thoroughly Milton Carter’s body to infinitesimal bits and

  believed that a god had dropped from the sky

  haul it away to their storerooms. What greater

  to wreak vengeance on them, and those who

  revenge could he ask? None. For a few were able speedily took to their heels.

  minutes his nerves tingled and his mind

  Smoke loosened the stakes and ropes

  hugged its gratification.

  that held the now unconscious Carter, threw

  Then there stirred in him another him across his shoulder and went up the bank emotion. This emotion was not native, with the ease of a gorilla.

  primeval, like the first; it was one engendered,

 

 

  OMNICAdmin, Two Calls in the Jungle by Clyde B

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