by OMNICAdmin
Adventure, 1st October, 1918
ISS MADELINE GODARD, Though a Filipino was picked up in the hills comfortably quartered at Manila, and recognized by members of the girl’s M decided to visit her brother who was escort as her former guide.
Lieutenant Godard, Commanding Officer at
At first the Filipino refused to answer
Subong. Subong being a one-company post,
questions. But later, under pressure of
stuck down in a small clearing at the western
strenuous persuasion, he admitted that he had
end of Monaga Pass. Monaga Pass, in turn,
managed the abduction and jeeringly told the
being a gash across Mt. Iriga and a few miles
lieutenant that his sister was dead. She had
east of Pasacao, a small coast town in southern
gotten possession of a kris, he said, and that
Luzon.
had been the end. And since he stuck to this
Had Miss Godard gone to Pasacao by
story to the last, even in the face of the firing boat, the moderate distance from there inland,
squad, it was assumed that Miss Godard had
to the post, would have been easy and safe
liberated herself in the only way possible.
with her brother and his company for escort.
Under the circumstances such an act was
But, because she was studying the natives and
highly probable. So the search was abandoned
their language, she chose to make the long,
and the troops returned to their respective
hard trip overland with a small escort and a
posts.
guide who turned out to be treacherous. She
After that Godard virtually ignored his
was captured just one-day’s march from the
command and kept to his quarters, sullen with
end of her journey—spirited away in the night
grief. The men, left to themselves, ate heavily,
and not missed until morning.
took no exercise, smoked much, and sweated
For weeks the surrounding country out the days and nights on their cots. These, of was scoured and combed. Troops were sent
course, were precisely the things they should
from Lipas and Batangas and the search was
not have done. It was the dry season and they
minute, but Miss Godard was not found. were hemmed in by the jungle.
Adventure
2
In the morning the sun came up out of
the semi-darkness of the storeroom and they
the jungle and in the evening it went down
were intensely interested in what he was
into the jungle. At night, out of the jungle
doing, what he would do next and what he
came strange, weird cries and up from its
would finally do. But not in the results. Their
darkest recesses huge vampire-bats flapped minds did not reach that far. To them it was a into space, flitted their grotesque moon-play and they were the audience and they
shadows athwart the camp and left depression
waited breathlessly for the climax. It did not
in their wake.
occur to them to stop Kirk. What audience
In short, to the men at Subong, the
would stop the play and cheat itself of the
jungle was become a converging menace.
climactical thrills?
That is to all save Kirk. From the first
In a few minutes Kirk came out. At his
the jungle had affected him differently from
side hung a haversack filled with cartridges,
the others. At the same time it, began to creep
around his waist was a belt and every cell was
in on them, it began to lure him. And the spell
full. Still carrying the ax he stopped at the
grew and the mystery of Beyond beckoned
arms rack, smashed the lock, took a rifle and
until Kirk had an impelling desire to plunge
bayonet and walked through the door that led
into that vast wilderness and go on and on. He
out of quarters. Five minutes and he was
tried, with occupation, to crowd this longing
swallowed up by the jungle.
out. He would take the trumpeter’s bugle, go
“T’e bloomin’ idjot," said "Cockney"
to the edge of the little clearing and practice
Simpkins, to no one in particular. “An’ ’is
service calls for hours. And most of all did he
time hexpired hin six weeks.”
practice the "call to arms.”
Coming fresh from lighted quarters
He liked that: its long-drawn, high-
into the darkness of matted foliage, Kirk was
keyed first note, set to catch attention: and the able to see but poorly, so he ,tore his face and
quick rushing action the whole call suggested.
hands cruelly] on brambles and horny shrubs.
It was thrilling, it was the echo of some wild
Still he worried on for several hours,
strain in his own make-up. It carried a staggering, falling, bleeding and cursing. At suggestion of stirring adventure that might be
last he lay down between two clumps of
waiting out there, beyond the limit. So Kirk’s
bamboo with interlacing tops and slept, while
bugle practice only served to increase the all around the jungle creatures chattered and jungle’s lure and the lure grew to be an buzzed their disapproval of the intruder.
obsession.
It is more than probable that no
And then the crisis came. It came, too,
attempt was made to follow Kirk that night;
with all the startling swiftness of real surely it would have been foolish, futile.
melodrama. Shortly after dark, one evening,
Godard may have ordered out a searching
Kirk rose from his cot and without word or
party the next day but if he did Kirk never saw
warning, walked to the back end of quarters,
or heard them.
jerked down a fire-ax and crossed to a corner
Kirk rose early the next morning to the
where was the locked door to the chatter of monkeys and the piping of birds.
quartermaster stores. One blow, with the pick
Some mangoes and a large pomelo constituted
at the back of the ax, gouged out the lock. He
his breakfast; after which he set out to put
threw the door open and walked in. The other
distance between himself and, Subong. The
men lay on their cots, heads propped on matter of distance was much in his mind for elbows and watched, silent, fascinated.
the next few days with the result that he bored
They could see Kirk moving about in
many miles into the jungle.
The Call of the Jungle
3
When, at last, he felt himself safe his
He never would have found it other than by
next care was to find a soft stone and whet the
accident, for the entrance, overhung by a large
blade of his bayonet to a cutting edge. In
boulder and grown about with vines and
Kirk’s day bayonets were made of the best
shrubbery, was invis
ible twenty steps away.
steel but they were not made with sharp edges
The place was dark inside and Kirk
and a cutting implement is essential in the
had no matches so he resorted to primitive
jungle.
methods to get fire. He took dead, dry grass
He was now in a virgin wilderness,
and ground it between his hands till he had a
vast and incomparable. Here, nature reigned
small heap of fine chaff. Then, over the chaff,
supreme, had reigned for centuries not he held a hard stone and struck it a sharp blow numbered. Often Kirk spent says in working
with the back of his baydne’t. A spark fell, a
his way around some seemingly endless few dry twigs he added, and the cave was stretch of swamp lilies. At other times he
soon brightly lighted, to the consternation of
loafed for days on the banks of some still lake
numerous bats and other dark-loving
whose ebony waters were peopled with creatures.
snakes, moss-grown logs and monstrous water
This cave was about half-way up to
lizards. And yet again he came upon huge
Iriga’s summit and here Kirk rested for two
natural arbors wherein the dew never dried
days. And while plundering among the clefts
and fungi hung from decayed branches in in the walls he found a small, silver bugle of marvelous variegation.
the type regulation in the Spanish army. It was
And always he had a feeling of probably left there by some small detachment intimacy with these things, a dim sense of
of Spanish soldiers who, at some time, hid in
having known the like before. Even living on
the cave to elude pursuing natives. At any rate
wild fruit, berries and roots—as he was the bugle was a pleasant find for Kirk.
obliged to do—seemed a remotely familiar
He stuffed its bell with leaves, so that
habit. And what the average man would have
the sound would not carry to any great
counted the hardships of such a life were
distance—one never knows when the Filipino
pleasures to Kirk. He was spellbound, beauty-
is near—and thrilled again to his favorite call,
drunk; this was his kingdom, the place he had
the "call to arms." And when he left the cave searched the earth to find. For him, far and
and started, once more, on his journey the
alone in that vast jungle, the world had turned
little silver bugle hung at his belt.
young again. The obligations and burdens of
As Kirk drew near the mountain-top
civilization, gathered with the centuries, thing edible grew scarce and water became a slipped from his shoulders and he knew problem. It was not pleasant up here like it primeval freedom.
was down in the lowland; he felt peevish and
weak. Decidedly something was wrong. Yet
SO FAR his general direction had been south
he had no thought of going back; some streak
and parallel to the mountain range. But of tenacity in him would not let him quit till suddenly, for some inexplicable whim, he he had reached the summit of Mt. Iriga. He sat turned east and began to climb the more down to rest; and upon looking up the slope niggardly steeps of Mt. Iriga. Here wild fruit
saw a species of mountain goat making its
was less plentiful and the soft roots that he
way downward.
found so nourishing in the lowland were not to
It was the first game he had seen on
be had. Still he kept resolutely on and upward.
the trip and all at once he realized what was
And one day he stumbled square into a cave.
wrong; he had, eaten no meat for three weeks.
Adventure
4
He rose, rested his rifle on a boulder and took
About thirty paces from where he lay
careful aim. The goat rolled over and over
hid was a lone shack, apparently unoccupied.
down-hill and lodged in a lava-rift not ten feet
There was no sound or movement about it, so
from where Kirk stood. He found a thin, flat
Kirk gave it but little thought and started to
stone, placed it in the center of a sizable pile
move on to a better view of the barrio which
of brush and started a fire. By the time he had
stretched away farther down the slope. Then
the goat skinned the stone was hot enough to
his eye wandered back to the shack and at a
fry meat.
small window with bamboo bars across it, he
It was late in the afternoon when Kirk
saw the face of a white woman. He crawled
finished his feast, so he camped for the night.
nearer and raised his head above the
The next morning he ate a hearty breakfast of
shrubbery. The woman saw him and pressed
goat meat and with renewed strength and her finger to her lips in the sign for silence, vigor again started up the rugged slope. But as
then turned away from the window. Kirk
the fierce sun climbed up in the east Kirk
guessed, even then, who she was. In a few
became thirsty, terribly thirsty, and he looked
minutes she came back
in every nook and cranny for water. But
“No one is near,” she said, “but we
everywhere he was marked for disappointment
must talk very low. I am Madeline God—“
and his thirst grew and his tongue became
“I know it,” he interrupted. “I am
thick and fuzzy. He sat down in despair and
Private Kirk from your brother’s company at
began to chew green twigs and from that Subong. Can you get out of that shack?”
sprung an idea. The thing that he had thought
“No. The door is fastened on the
of, is of course, not new. But to Kirk it was
outside and the bars across the window, as you
original, positively a discovery. He jumped
can see, are woven into the thatching.”
up, drew his bayonet, frantically, and “boxed”
“Where is the door?”
a tree. To his great joy the cup, thus formed,
“On the opposite side and facing the
slowly filled with clear sap. Kirk drank it with
barrio.”
a leaf and the problem of water was solved.
“You’ll have to get out by the
That night he slept on the very apex of the
window,” Kirk decided. “Do they keep a
summit.
guard over you at night?”
The next morning Kirk was surprised
“After about ten o’clock. There is a
at the difference between Iriga’s eastern and
small porch at the door and one of them brings
western sides. On the west, from whence he
his mat and sleeps there.”
came, only a few scattering trees clung, here
“Then we’ll have to get started as soon
and there, in the dry lava. But to the east, the
as it is dark. What time do they give you
early morning sun played its brilliant rays on a
supper?”
verdant slope, well studded with trees and
“About dark and whoever brings it
slashed with sparkling streamlets.
always hurries away to his own supper.”
Less than a mile to the south, cluster
ed
“That’s good,” said Kirk, “it will give
down among the trees, was a small barrio.
us three hours’ start. They are not likely to
Kirk decided to investigate the place at close
miss you till the fellow comes on guard. I’ll
range, so he turned to the western slope and,
come this evening shortly before dark, and
keeping below the ridge on that side, made his
wait till the gugu brings your supper and
way south till he was opposite the barrio.
leaves. Then we’ll get busy.”
Then slowly, carefully, with his rifle ready, he
“But how will you manage it?”
crawled up and peeped over the ridge.
“I haven’t figured it yet,” he told her,
The Call of the Jungle
5
“but I’ll have a way doped out by night. In the
have taken exercise every day and am in good
meantime, sleep if you can. There’s hiking to
condition.”
be done tonight. And now we had better stop
They both knew the value of
talking before we are heard.”
conserving their energy, so they refrained
Kirk settled down and studied the even from the questions that each was curious situation for some time; then he crept to his
to ask and spoke only when absolutely
own side of the ridge and found a safe place to
necessary. Thus, in comparative silence, they
pass the day. First he spent an hour putting a
pursued their way down the slope, Miss
fresh edge on his bayonet and after that Godard walking at Kirk’s side with a swinging stretched out and slept.
step as springy as his own. Behind them was
the menace of savage pursuit, before them a
A LITTLE before dark the man was back at
vast, untracked wilderness and yet they were
his station near the girl’s prison, after a short cheerful, undaunted.
wait he saw a native bring her supper and then
