“Pretty good security you’ve got,” he said.
“Damned good,” McGillivray said. “There’s about four thousand Jap troops over the other side of this mountain. A good five thousand farther away. They can’t get to us except along two trails, and both of them are guarded by my people. We’re safe enough here.” He moved toward a small shelter. A figure came out of the shelter with two small stools, and Flanagan saw that the figure was a girl.
“We’ll have a little tea and then you can give me the stuff you brought me,” the Army man said. He sat down on one of the stools and Flanagan sat on the other, placing the haversack beside the stool.
“How long you people been at sea?”
“About sixteen days.”
“Going right back after this caper?”
“No,” Flanagan said. “We’ll go to a patrol area. We won’t be back for another two months, maybe a little less.”
“Figured it might be something like that,” the Army man said. “Jesus! All that time in a little submarine! My people talked about that and figured you might like to have a good meal, but let’s get the business over first.”
Flanagan reached around his back and undid the strap to the belt. He held the belt and explained about the thermite charge inside the pouch and how to get the orders out of the pouch.
“Thermite?” McGillivray said. “I can use that stuff.” He motioned at a small lean Filipino who came over to him.
“This is José,” he said. “Best damned explosives man in the Islands.” He spoke rapidly in slurred Tagalog to the man, who picked up the canvas belt and trotted away. He came back in a few minutes and handed McGillivray a thick packet of paper. McGillivray turned so he could use the firelight and read through the orders.
“So Old Doug is going to come back,” the Army man said. “That’s going to end our nice life here.” Flanagan started to reach for the haversack and then changed his mind.
“This isn’t any surprise, you know,” the Army Sergeant said. “Some of the older heads in my group, we call them the wise men, they said this was going to happen before the next new moon.” He looked narrowly at Flanagan.
“Don’t laugh at things like that, sailor. Those wise men can tell you things that would shake you right out of your submarine. They talk with the spirits and they’ve been doing things like that for a thousand years. When I give them the word tomorrow they won’t be surprised.
“Like I said before, my people don’t understand how you can live on a small submarine for so long, so they’ve sort of fixed up a little celebration for you. Man who lives on a submarine has to eat out of cans, so we’ve got some fresh roast pig. Not wild pig, good tame pigs we stole from the Japs.” He leaned back, his face granitelike in the firelight.
“Any good reason I have to get off my ass and take you back down that mountain to that boat tonight? If there isn’t you can stay here tonight and tomorrow and go back tomorrow night. We’ve got some good rum. Make it ourselves out of sugarcane. And about half of my people are girls. You’d see that if it was daylight. We live on a reverse schedule here. We stay up nights and sleep days. The Jap lives on a regular schedule. Gives us an advantage.”
“Roast pig, rum, and girls?” Flanagan said softly. “You live a pretty good war, Sergeant.”
“It’s been a tough war at times,” McGillivray said. “But I’m a Georgia boy, Chief. Sherman told us what war was like when he ripped through my home state. I decided to make the war as good as I could when I could.” He turned as a woman came up to the two men.
“Chow’s about ready,” McGillivray said. “You need anything out of that sack you lugged up here?”
“No,” Flanagan said. “All that’s in it is some sulfa powder for you and some emergency rations for me in case I got stranded out in that boat waiting to get picked up.”
“I can sure use sulfa,” McGillivray said. “We have to steal our medicines from the Jap, and he hasn’t got much that’s worth stealing. Let’s eat.” He led the way deep into the trees where there were a half-dozen deep pits, each full of glowing coals with two pigs roasting on spits above each fire pit. Flanagan found a seat on a log, and a small, slim girl brought him a mug made from a coconut shell. She smiled at him, and he raised the shell to his lips and sipped. The homemade rum was smooth but there was a bite in it. He took a deeper swallow. The girl patted his knee, smiled, and moved away. Flanagan noted that while she was small and slight she had the powerful calves of a person used to walking in mountainous areas. She came back to him with two tin plates, one full of fresh salad greens, the other piled high with steaming yams and chunks of fragrant roast pork. She squatted in front of him holding the plate of salad greens. He reached for it but she pulled it away.
“You eat. I hold the plate for you. No forks. No table. Okay? Use fingers, like we do.”
McGillivray, seated a few feet away, chuckled. “When in Rome, sailor. If you like her invite her to eat from your plate.”
“I am ugly,” the girl said, tossing her long black hair. “The sailor will not like me.”
“Help yourself to some food,” Flanagan said. He could feel the warmth of the rum in his stomach. The girl smiled at him and delicately scooped up two fingers of salad and put it in her mouth. Flanagan followed her example and was pleased by the crisp freshness of the food. He reached for the coconut shell and took a long swallow of the rum. It didn’t bite as much, he noticed.
“Not too much too quick!” the girl said. She moved the coconut shell out of reach. “Too much, too quick, you go to sleep damned quick!” She giggled and tore a chunk of roast pork into bite-size pieces and held a piece toward Flanagan. He reached for it and she pulled it away.
“Open mouth. I feed you.”
“You’re home free, sailor,” McGillivray said. “When they start feeding you all you got to do is sit there and let it all come to you.
Flanagan looked at the guerrilla leader. “One thing, Sergeant. This isn’t someone’s woman, is it?”
“No worry,” McGillivray said. He waited as the girl went back to the fire, and then he turned toward Flanagan.
“The Japs killed her husband about a year and a half ago. She came with us right after that. She’s a scout. Fastest woman with a knife you ever saw. She’s clean. We don’t have any venereal disease here. All you’ve got to worry about is if you’re enough man. Most of my people are scared to death of her.”
“Thanks a heap,” Flanagan said. He smiled at the girl as she returned with a fresh plate of roast pork chunks.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“The sisters in the convent called me Mary,” she said. “I like it better if you call me my right name. Maria.”
“Give me a little squirt of that rum, Miss Maria,” Flanagan said. She shook her head. “No. You go to sleep damned quick if you drink more.” She shook her long black hair.
“My Inglis, my Spanish, not so good now. No practice. The big man, he speaks our tongue, Tagalog. That is good. No mistakes when everyone speak the same language. Now eat some more meat. Make you strong!” She giggled at him and bowed her head.
The party, if you could call it that, Flanagan thought to himself, was very quiet. Hardly anyone spoke out loud. He saw figures coming and going near the cooking fires, heard soft chatter from shadowy groups of men and women. When two or three of the Filipinos toppled over, the victims of too much rum, they were carried away with much soft laughter. Later, when he had finished eating, Maria took him by the hand and led him through the thick brush to a small shelter some distance from the main camp.