De Witt grumbled, and at last looked up. “Afraid I’m with the overnighting here,” he said.
Sadler shrugged. “Makes not a lot of difference to me. But I’d as soon not kill any of these people, and that’s what it would come to. I’ll vote to stay.”
Murdock looked at Juan. “Tell the chief we accept this honor and we will stay. Can we ask for volunteers for this?”
“Afraid not, Commander. Each of you has been assigned a small fire to sit beside. The ladies will circulate, find the ones they like, and vanish into the jungle. In the morning, the chief will give us a guide to show us the quickest and easiest way to get to the far ridge overlooking the sea.”
“Done,” Murdock said.
The SEALs and the three Filipinos sat beside the fires, gently stoking them with wood to keep them burning. Murdock saw the girls, still naked, making the rounds of the fires. None of the girls came as far as he was, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Juan said on the Motorola that the exercise was concluded, the choices had been made, and the rest of the men were free to take their gear and find a sleeping area. They did not bunk down together, and no one was sure which men had been chosen.
In the morning all the SEALs were up at daylight and took time out to eat MREs. All men were present, and nobody was sure who had been selected the night before.
“I still say that Jaybird has an unusually big grin,” Ching said.
Jaybird just grinned wider.
Juan went to see the chief, and a few minutes later the chief came and bowed and presented Murdock with a carved walking stick five feet long. Murdock hesitated, then took the KA-BAR from his leg sheath and presented it handle-first to the chief. The old man stared at it and hesitated. Murdock took the knife and picked up a vine from the ground, and sliced it in half with a gentle stroke.
The chief’s eyes went wide. Murdock cut a branch off a shrub and whittled it down to a toothpick.
“Sharp,” Juan said in the chief’s language.
This time when Murdock offered the chief the handle of the knife, he took it and bowed deeply.
Two warriors stood by, waiting. Juan said the chief told him neither of them spoke any Filipino but they knew the best route to the sea. Juan and the chief both bowed again.
“Let’s roll,” Juan said. He motioned to the two warriors, who ran ahead, then settled down to a walk, and they moved out of the village. At the far side of the village and only a dozen feet from the trail, the three former virgins from the previous night stood, topless, wearing the short palm-leaf skirts. They laughed and smiled and waved at the platoon as the men walked past. Murdock watched each of the SEALs, but he couldn’t figure out which three had the largest smiles.
17
The two Tasaday guides had no secret trail up the face of the cliffs, and took the party around to the point where the recon had shown that going up was possible. There was even a semblance of a trail that had been used before up the sharp incline, through the trees and vines and occasional small pond where rainwater gathered.
The hiking was tough going up the hill, and almost as bad coming down on the other side. The pilot was hurting, and Murdock hiked directly behind him and could see that he was slowing them down. He was trying, and that was all Murdock could ask. This wasn’t his job, he had been crashed into it.
Just as they started up the other side of the next ridge, Lam came on the net.
“Quiet, everyone. I hear a chopper.” They all stopped moving and hardly breathed, but Lam soon reported that the sound had faded.
“We’re well off the compass line to the target,” Lam said. “The chopper pilot probably is working that line first; then he’ll start moving to each side, and eventually should find the burned-out forty-six there in plain sight on the rock slab. Which doesn’t help us one hell of a lot.”
“If they see no survivors, they might shut down the S & R,” Canzoneri said. “Kind of figures.”
They hiked again. Murdock called a halt after they had been on the trail for two hours. Juan and one of the guides vanished into the jungle, and five minutes later came back with a stalk of over one hundred bananas and an armload of mangoes.
“These funny round suckers good to eat?” Jaybird chirped.
“You’ve led a sheltered life, Jaybird,” Lam said. “Dig in, take a bite, you’ll love them.”
“This and some pork chops for dinner and you could damn well live off the land out here,” Khai said. “The only trouble is, how do you peel a banana with one hand?”
“With your teeth,” Bradford said. “Pretend you’re a chipmunk.”
Ten minutes later the stalk of bananas had been seriously depleted. The men then took two or three each and pushed them into their combat vests wherever there was a spot open.
Murdock had talked to Lam. “Slow these boys down a little, Lam. The captain is having a hard time. We don’t want to have to carry him the rest of the way.”
They slowed.
Before a half hour was up they had scaled the next ridge, and Lam hit the radio. “My boys up here indicate this is the last one before we come to the ridge that looks out on the sea. We’re making progress.”
He paused. “Oh, yeah, chopper incoming. We should be able to see this one.”
They did. Through the trees and lush growth, they caught sight of it as it turned and headed the other way.
“He’s making S turns on a search,” Lam said. “What we need is something that we can use to make a quick fire. Everything is so damn green and wet. What will burn in here?”
Juan came on. “Kalibo and I will find burnable material and bundle it and bring it with us. Then a match or a lighter and we have a fire. We add green pine branches to make smoke. It will lift through the trees and should get the pilot’s attention.”
There was a small rocky place near the top of the ridge where Lam kept them for ten minutes. The helicopter didn’t return.
Murdock called Lam and suggested they move down the slope. Halfway down Lam heard the chopper coming again. Juan lit a match to the bundle and put on small pine boughs, and seconds later he had smoke drifting upward through the canopy of tree leaves. They added more pine boughs until the smoke was intense, but the chopper sound faded.
“Next time,” Lam said, and Juan and Kalibo put out the fire by stomping on it. There was little chance of a jungle fire in this rain forest.
Murdock and the pilot, Captain Samar, went to the head of the line, just in back of the scouts, and set the pace. It went slower now, but the pilot was holding up better. The bananas had helped.
Just after noon, they worked up the last ridge. Murdock looked over the top, saw the calm waters of the Moro Gulf, and called a halt. The SEALs flaked out in the softness of the vines and relaxed.
Juan came up and made signs to the guides.
“Shouldn’t we give them something?” Murdock asked.
Juan shook his head. “Can’t, because then they would have to give you something of equal or more value. They have nothing to give. A bow will be enough.”
Murdock bowed to the two guides; they bowed back, then bowed to Juan. They turned and headed back toward their camp at once.
Murdock lay on the rim of the ridge looking down. The water was five or six miles away across some hills and a narrow plain along the coast. He saw one small stream going down from this side of the mountain, but didn’t think that could be the one that was partly navigable. Lam used his binoculars and looked to the south. He grunted and passed the glasses to Murdock, who scanned the way the lead scout pointed.
“Oh, yes,” Murdock said. “The river. Good-sized. Might get some big canoes up that thing or the flat-bottomed boats that look like big canoes.