HUNGRY DAYS
The territory beyond Banpáwa was more savage than any we had yet seen.
Everywhere the climbing and creeping plant life was so thick and
interwoven that our feet could not reach the ground. Often, when we
tried to plunge through a thicket, we were caught as if in a net. It was
impossible to get through, and we crawled out with torn garments and
bleeding hands and faces to fight our way around the spot. We were now
in the very heart of the mountains. Range after range appeared, covered
with unbroken jungle. From the top of every mountain there spread out
before us an endless forest of teak and bamboo matted together with the
wildest undergrowth. Mountains that were just blue wreaths in the
morning climbed higher and higher into the sky—and beyond them were more
mountains, all covered with a mass of waving tree-tops. Every valley was
choked with vegetation.
Often, while climbing, we lost our footing and went plunging headlong
through thorn-bristling thickets. There were no level spaces. No sooner
had we reached the bottom of a narrow valley than we found ourselves at
the base of another higher mountain, which we climbed hand over hand as
a sailor climbs a rope. In our ears sounded the continual hum of
insects; now and then a snake squirmed off through the bushes; more than
once we heard the roar of some beast. Monkeys swarmed in the thick
network of branches overhead, and fled screaming away, as we came near,
into the dark depths of the forest.
At every mud-hole we halted to drink; for within us burned a thirst such
as no man knows who has not suffered it in the jungle. Chocolate-colored
water we drank, water alive with squirming animal life, in pools out of
which wriggled brilliant green snakes. Often I rose to my feet to find a
blood-sucker clinging to my lower lip.
As the day grew, a raging hunger fell upon us. In a sharp valley we came
upon a tree on the trunk of which hung a dozen or more jack-fruits
within easy reach. We grasped one and tried to pull it down. The short,
tough stem was as stout as a manila rope, and knife we had none. We
wrapped our arms around the fruit and tugged with the strength of
despair; we might as well have tried to pull up a ship’s anchor by hand.
We chopped at the stem with sharp stones; we hunted up great rocks and
attempted to split the fruit open on the tree, screaming with rage and
bruising our fingers. Streams of perspiration raced down our
sun-scorched skins; our hunger and thirst grew maddening; and still
nothing came of it. When we finally gave up and plunged on, our violent
attack on the fruit had hardly scratched its stony rind.
Weary and half starved, matted with mud from crown to toe, and bleeding
from countless cuts and scratches, we were still struggling with the
entangling vegetation well on in the afternoon, when James, who was
ahead of me, uttered a shriek of victory.
“A path! A path!” he cried. “And a telegraph wire!”
Certain that hunger and the sun had turned his brain, I tore my way
through the thicket that separated us. He was not mad. A path there was,
narrow and steep: and overhead a sagging telegraph wire, running from
tree to tree.
After following it for about a half-hour we came to a little plain
crossed by a swift stream, in which swam a covey of snow-white ducks. On
the western bank stood a weather-beaten bungalow. Above it the telegraph
wire disappeared. We drank from the river until we were thirsty no more,
and then mounted the narrow steps and shouted to attract attention.
There was no answer. We pushed open the door and entered. The room was
about eight feet square and entirely unfurnished. In one corner hung an
unpainted telephone instrument. It was home-made and very crude. A
spider had spun his web across the mouth of the receiver, and there were
no signs that anyone had ever lived in the hut.
“There is nothing worth while here,” said James. “Let’s swim the creek.”
On the opposite bank was a bamboo rest house, the floor of which was
raised some feet above the damp ground. Back of it, among the trees,
stood a cluster of seven huts. We went to all of them, trying to buy
food, but returned to the rest house with nothing but the information
that the village was called Kathái Ywá. Nine freight-carriers had
arrived. Among them were several we had seen the evening before. They
had, perhaps, some secret hatred against white men; for they not only
refused to sell us rice, but scowled and snarled when we drew near them.
The day was not yet done. We should have pushed on had not James fallen
victim to a burning jungle fever.
While there was plenty of water at hand, our hunger became unbearable.
For a time we kept ourselves cheerful by thinking that perhaps the next
carrier who wandered into the place would be more friendly. But each new
arrival was more stupid and surly than the others. The sun touched the
western tree-tops. James lay on his back, red-eyed with fever. Eat we
must, if we were to have strength to go on in the morning. I made the
round of the huts a second time, hoping to bully the inhabitants into
selling me food. The people rose in a mass and swarmed upon me. The men
carried long, overgrown knives; the women, clubs. I returned hastily to
the rest house.
The sight of the telephone wire awakened within me the senseless notion
that I might call for help from some neighboring village. I left my
shoes and trousers in charge of the Australian, and dashed through the
stream and into the government bungalow. At the first call I “got”
someone. Who or where he was I could not guess. I bawled into the
receiver English, French, German, and all the Hindustanee I could think
of. When I paused for breath the unknown subscriber had “rung off.” I
jangled the bell and shook and pounded the instrument for five minutes.
A glassy-eyed lizard ran out along the wire and stared down upon me. His
mate in the grassy roof above screeched mockingly. Then another voice
sounded faintly in my ear.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Who’s this? We want to eat. D’you speak English? Do
sahib hai, Kathái Ywá. Send us some—”
A flood of meaningless jabber interrupted me. I had rung up a Burman;
but he was no babu.
“English!” I shrieked. “Anyone there that speaks English? We’re sahibs!
Hello! Hello, I say! Hello—”
No answer. Central had cut me off again. I rang the bell until my arm
was lame, and listened breathlessly. All was still. I dropped the
receiver and tumbled out of the hut, determined to throttle one of the
freight-carriers. In the middle of the stream I slipped on a stone and
fell on my knees, the water up to my arm-pits. The startled ducks ran
away before me. I snatched up a club, and ran after them through the
village and back to the creek again. The inhabitants ran screaming
behind me. I threw the weapon at the nearest fowl. It was only a joint
of bamboo, and fell short. The ducks took to the water. I plunged in
after them, and once more fell sprawling.
Before I could scramble to my feet, a shout sounded near at hand. I
looked up to see the squad of soldiers breaking out of the jungle. They
halted before the government bungalow, and watched me with deep-set
grins as I came toward them. The sergeant, understanding the motions I
made, offered us places around the common rice heap. I returned to the
rest house for my garments. The villagers were driving their panting
ducks homeward. The Australian struggled to his feet and waded the
stream once more, joining the soldiers on the veranda of the government
bungalow. Their porters brought huge wet leaves to protect the floor,
and built a fire within. Half an hour later the troopers rose to their
feet, shouting, “Kin-kow! Kin-kow!” (“Eat!”) We followed them into the
smoke-choked building. In a civilized land I would not have tasted such
fare as was spread out on that banana leaf in the center of the floor,
to win a wager. At that moment it seemed food fit for a king.
We slept with the soldiers in the telephone bungalow. James’s fever
burned itself out, and he awoke with the dawn, ready to push on. For the
first few miles we followed a path below the telephone wire. In
stumbling over the uneven ground my shoe-laces broke again and again.
Well on in the morning I halted to replace them with stout vines. The
Australian went on ahead. Before I had overtaken him the path divided
into two paths, and the wire disappeared in the forest between the two
trails. I hallooed to my companion; but the rain was coming down in
torrents, and the voice does not carry far in the jungle. I struck into
one of the paths; but in less than an hour it faded and was lost. I
found myself alone in a trackless wilderness.
[Illustration: The sort of jungle through which we cut our way for three
weeks. Gerald James, my Australian companion, in the foreground.]
Here was a misfortune indeed. The Australian had carried off the
compass; our money was in my bundle. What chance was there of finding
each other again in hundreds of miles of untraveled wilds?
I set a course by the sun, and for three hours fought my way up the
wall-like face of a mountain. To crash and roll down the opposite slope
took me less than a third of that time. In the valley, tucked away under
soaring teak trees, was a lonely little hut. A black-toothed woman in a
short skirt squatted in the shade under the cabin, pounding rice in a
hollowed log. The jungle was humming its sleepy tune. I climbed to the
veranda and lay down, certain that I had seen the last of James, the
Australian. Under the hut sounded the _thump_, _thump_, _thump_ of the
pestle.
But it was not by loafing in the shade that I should beat my way through
to civilization. I soon rose to my feet and arranged the things in my
bundle again. If I could only hire a guide. Hark! The sound of a human
voice came faintly to my ear. No doubt the owner of the hut was
returning from a morning hunting trip. I listened attentively. Then off
to the right in the jungle rang out a familiar song:
“Oh, I long to see my dear old home again,
And the cottage in the little winding lane.
You can hear the birds a-singing,
And pluck the roses blooming;
Oh, I long to see my dear old home again!”
It was the Australian’s favorite ballad. I shouted at the top of my
lungs, and, springing to the ground, with one leap crashed into the
jungle. A thicket caught me in its tough grasp. I tore savagely at the
entangling branches. The voice of the Australian rang out once more:
“Oh, why did I leave my little back room, out in Bloomsburee?
Where I could live on a quid a week in such luxuree—”
He was farther away now. I snatched myself loose and plunged on after
him, leaving a sleeve of my jacket in the thicket.
“Hello, James! Hello!” I bellowed.
He was singing so loudly that the sound of his own voice filled his
ears. I opened my mouth to shout again, and fell through a bush into a
clearly marked path. Above it sagged the telephone wire, and just in
sight through the overhanging branches plodded the Australian.
“Goodness, but you’re slow,” he laughed, when I had overtaken him.
“When’d you find the path?” I demanded.
“Haven’t lost it,” he answered. “Why? Did you?”
“Haven’t seen it for five hours,” I replied.
“Great dingoes!” he gasped. “Thought you were close behind, or I’d have
felt mighty little like singing.”
We had no difficulty in keeping to the path for the rest of the day, and
passed several freight-carriers traveling westward. With never a hut on
the way, we went hungry. Yet, had we but known it, there was food all
about us. What a helpless being is civilized man without the tools of
civilization.
Faint from hunger, we had halted at the edge of a mountain stream well
on in the afternoon, when we were overtaken by the little brown
soldiers. They had packed away their uniforms and wore only loin-cloths
and caps.
“Kin-kow? Kin-kow?” (“Are you hungry?”) asked the sergeant, placing his
hand on his stomach.
We nodded sadly. He chuckled to himself, and waved his arms about him as
if to say there was food all about us. We shrugged our shoulders
unbelievingly. He laughed gleefully, and turned to say something to his
men. Two of the soldiers picked up clubs, and, returning along the path
to a half-rotten log, began to move back and forth on both sides of it,
striking it sharp blows here and there. They came back with a half-dozen
lizards—those great, green reptiles that sing their _she-kak!_ all night
long in the grassy roofs of the Indian bungalows.
Meanwhile two others of the company were kneeling at the edge of a
mud-hole. From time to time they plunged their bare arms into it,
drawing out frogs and dropping them, still alive, into a hollow bamboo
stick. The sergeant took his long, heavy knife, or _dah_, and cut down a
small tree at the edge of the jungle. One servant dug some reddish-brown
roots on the bank of the stream, while the other started a fire by
rubbing two sticks together.
In a few minutes all were gathered beside us. The lizards were skinned,
cut up with lumps of red curry in an iron pot, and set to boiling. A
servant drew out the frogs, one by one, struck them on the head with a
stick, and tossed them to his companion. The latter rolled them up
inside mud balls and threw them into the fire. The sergeant split open
his tree, pulled out a soft spongy stuff from the center of it, cut it
into slices, toasted them on the point of his _dah_, and tossed them on
to a large leaf spread out at our feet. The reddish roots were beaten to
a pulp on a rock and sprinkled over the toasted slices. Rice was boiled.
The soldiers, grinning at one another, began saying, “Kin-kow? Kin-kow?”
and the meal began. Before it was finished we thought better of both the
jungle and its people. Taken from their shell of mud, the frogs were
found to be baked in round balls and tasted like fried fish. The toasted
pith from the tree tasted like pickled beets. Best of all was the lizard
curry. James and I ate more than our share, and we told each other that
we wished the pair sent to pound the old tree-trunk had remained longer
at their task.
We went on with the soldiers, halting after dark at the bank of the
largest stream we had yet faced. There was no village here, but the
government had built a rest house for soldiers on the bank. In this we
spent the night with the troopers, after eating a frog-and-lizard
supper.
Beyond there were not so many mountains and the path was well marked;
but the river beside which we had left the soldiers was deep and swift,
and wound back and forth, crossing our route again and again. In the
first few morning hours we swam it no less than fourteen times. It was
the ninth crossing that gave us the most trouble. Reaching the narrow,
sandy bank a bit before my companion, I pulled off my clothes, tied the
bundle to my head, and plunged in. James began to disrobe as I reached
the other shore. Without removing his ragged shirt or his helmet, he
fastened on his bundle as I had done, and struck out.
Being an excellent swimmer, he glided along easily, with long, swift
strokes. Unfortunately, he did not take care to keep his head pointed
up-stream. The powerful current caught him suddenly and dragged him
under. He righted himself quickly, but in that short struggle lost both
his bundle and his helmet. He tried to save them, but caught only his
helmet. His bundle raced down-stream. I sprang to my feet and dashed
along the sandy shore after it. But the stream was far swifter than I.
The tangled undergrowth brought me to a sudden halt, and the
Australian’s possessions were swallowed up in the jungle.
I returned to find him sitting unhappily on the bank.
[Illustration: Myself after four days in the jungle, and the Siamese
soldiers who invited us to eat a frog and lizard supper.]
With the bundle had gone his shoes, trousers, jacket, the odds and ends
he had picked up on his travels, his military and citizenship papers,
and the pocket compass; in short, everything he owned except a helmet
and a tattered shirt.
But James was not a man to be long discouraged by little things. He tied
the shirt about his loins and we went on. As he had nothing to carry, he
marched more easily and crossed the streams with far less difficulty
than I. But in less than an hour his shoulders, back, and legs were
painted a fiery red by the unmerciful sun; and the stones and jagged
brambles tore and bruised his feet until he left a blood-stain at every
step.
We were again overtaken by the soldiers about noonday, and halted for
another jungle meal. Off once more, we pushed ahead, but found it wise
to wait for the troopers to lead the way; for the route was beset by
unexpected pitfalls—as once when, in fighting our way along the bank of
the river, we crashed headlong through the bushes into a dry, stony bed
of a branch river fifteen feet below. This accident left little of my
clothing, and made the Australian look worse than before.
So we waited for the soldiers, and followed them along a wider path. The
higher mountain ranges fell away; but the foot-hills were very steep,
and the slopes were often bare and covered with deep mud. At the top of
such a hill we overtook a troop of horsemen returning from some village
off to the southwest. Burdened with huge packsaddles, the horses began
the dangerous downward climb unwillingly. Suddenly three of them lost
their footing, sat down on their haunches, and rolled over and over,
their packs flying in every direction. James laughed loudly and slapped
me on the back. The blow made me lose my balance. My feet shot from
under me, and slipping, sliding, rolling, clutching in vain for
something to hold to, I pitched down the five-hundred-yard slope and
splashed head-first into a muddy stream at the bottom several seconds
before the horses got there.
Another mile left me bare-footed and nearly as naked as my companion.
Now and again we overtook a band of freight-carriers; one a young
Buddhist priest in tattered yellow, attended by two servants. We had
seen him somewhere a day or two before, and remembered him not only by
his dress, but on account of the bold and impudent expression of his
face. He joined our party without being invited, and tramped along with
us, puffing at a long _saybully_, and chattering loudly and
continuously. The soldiers roared with laughter at everything he said,
and winked at us as if they thought we could understand his remarks. We
were more sorry than ever that we did not understand the Siamese tongue.
James was complaining that he could not go on another yard, when we came
most unexpectedly to the edge of the jungle. Before us stretched a vast
rice-field, deeply flooded. The soldiers led the way along the tops of
the ridges toward a thick wood two miles away. At least a hundred curs
began howling as we drew near, and as many chattering brown people
swarmed about us when we stopped to rest in a large, deeply shaded
village at the edge of a river fully a mile wide. It could be no other
than the Menam—the “great river” of Siam. Along the low eastern bank
stretched a real city with white two-story buildings, before which were
anchored large native boats. It was Rehang. The soldiers told us so with
shouts of joy, and ran away to put on their uniforms.
We threw off what was left of our garments, and plunged into the stream
to wash off the blood and grime of the jungle. When we had finished, the
soldiers were gone. We asked the villagers to set us across the river.
They refused. We pushed out one of a dozen dugout logs drawn up along
the shore, and the village swarmed down upon us in a great landslide of
men, women, children, and yellow curs. Catching up two paddles, we beat
them off. In two minutes we were alone.
We pushed the dugout into the stream, and were climbing in when two
ugly, wrinkled brown women ran down the bank and offered to ferry us
across. They pointed the craft up-stream and fell to paddling. They were
expert water dogs, and crossed the swift stream without accident,
landing us at a crazy wooden wharf in the center of the town.
On nearer sight Rehang was disappointing. The white two-story buildings
were poor, rickety things. The roads between were not much better paved
than the jungle paths, and deeper in mud. There was no health
department, it seemed, for here and there a dead dog or cat had been
tossed out to be trampled underfoot. There were great crowds of people,
but the passing throng was merely a larger gathering of those same
strange “wild men” of the jungle villages. The fear of being arrested
for having no clothes soon left us. James in national costume attracted
much less attention than I in the remnants of jacket and trousers.
We were glad, however, to be in even this tumble-down city on the bank
of the Menam; at least, it was a market town. James dashed into the
first store with a whoop of delight, and startled the keeper out of his
wits by demanding a whole three cents’ worth of cigarettes. He splashed
on through the muddy streets, blowing great clouds of smoke through his
nostrils, and forgetting for a time even the smarting of his torn and
sun-scorched skin.
Half the merchants of the town were Chinamen. We stopped at a shop kept
by three wearers of the pig-tail, and, seating ourselves before a bench,
called for food. One of the keepers, moving as if he disliked having us
there, set canned meat before us, and after a long time brought us as a
can-opener, a hatchet with a blade considerably wider than the largest
can.
When we rose to go, the Chinese demanded ten tecals. The market price of
the stuff we had eaten was certainly not worth one. I gave them two.
Three screams split the air, and half a dozen Chinamen bounded into the
shop and danced wildly about us. One caught up the hatchet and swung it
high above his head. James snatched it from him, kicked him across the
room, and threw the weapon among the heaped-up wares. We fought our way
to the street. The keeper nearest us gave one loud bellow that was
answered from every side. Chinamen stumbled out through every open
doorway, out of every hole in the surrounding shop walls; they sprang up
from under the buildings, dropped from the low roofs, swarmed out of the
alleyways, for all the world like rats, screaming, yelping, snarling,
clawing the air as they ran, their pig-tails streaming behind them. In
the twinkling of an eye the mob at our heels had increased to a hundred
or more. We refused to disgrace ourselves by running. The crazed yellow
men scratched us savagely with their overgrown finger-nails, caught at
our legs, spattered us with mud. Not one of them used his fists. When we
turned upon them they bounded away as if from a squad of cavalry, and we
could get even only by catching a flying pig-tail in either hand, to
send a pair of yellow-skinned rascals sprawling in the mud. They came
back at us after every stand before we had taken a dozen steps. Our
backs were a network of finger-nail scratches. We cast our eyes about us
for some weapon, and found two muddy sticks. Before we could use them
the Chinamen turned and fled, still screaming at the top of their lungs.
Not far beyond, we turned in at the largest building in the town—the
Rehang barracks for soldiers. Among the half hundred little brown
soldiers lounging about the porch were our comrades of the few days
past. It was plain that they had told our story. The recruits gathered
about us, laughing and asking questions in the deaf-and-dumb language.
How had we liked lizard curry? What had turned our dainty skins so
blood-red? What ignorant and helpless creatures were white men, were
they not?
Suddenly, while they were chattering, I thought I heard someone say that
there was a white man on the floor above. We sprang toward the stairway
at the end of the porch. The soldiers shrieked in alarm and snatched at
my rags. We must not go up; it was strictly against barrack rules. A
guardsman on duty at the foot of the stairs held his musket out before
him and feebly shouted a command. James caught him by the shoulder and
sent him spinning along the veranda. We dashed up the steps. Two doors
stood partly open. James sprang to one, while I pushed open the other.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Where’s the white—”
A roar of delight from my companion sent me hurrying after him. He was
dancing gleefully just inside the second door, and shaking a white man
fiercely by the hand—an astonished white man in khaki uniform with
officer’s stripes. I reminded the Australian of his costume, and he
became quiet. The European invited us inside, and sent a servant for
tea, biscuits, and cigars. Our host was commander of the soldiers—a Dane
who spoke English well. That we had been wandering through the jungle he
could see all too plainly without our telling him; but that we had come
overland from Burma was a tale he could not believe until the sergeant
had been called in to prove that what we said was true. Forgetting his
military duties, the commander asked us wondering questions until dusk
fell, and then ordered three of his soldiers to find us a place to spend
the night.
On the veranda the soldiers spread a pair of army blankets. We were for
turning in at once. They would not hear of it. For a half-hour they
trotted back and forth between our bungalow and that of the commander,
carrying steaming dishes. The table they had set up was groaning under
its load before the sergeant signed to us to begin. There were broiled
fish, a mutton roast, a great steak, a spitted fowl, and fruits and
vegetables of many kinds.
We spent the night on the veranda. We did not sleep there. Our
sun-scorched skins would not permit it. Even had they burned less
fiercely, we could not have slept. One would have fancied the place a
gigantic hen-yard during the hours of darkness. After every shower the
unveiled moon was greeted with a din of crowing that was awful. In the
moments of quiet between, we tossed about wide awake on our hard couch,
listening to the musical tinkling of pagoda bells.
When dawn came the Dane sent for us. We hurried to his bungalow and
joined him at breakfast. He had gathered together two pairs of shoes and
four khaki uniforms. They were from his own tailor in Bangkok, still
very useful, though fitting us a bit too tightly and chafing our
blistered skins. Rolling up our extra garments and swinging them over
our shoulders, we bade our host farewell.