Tarzan and The Foreign Legion t-21

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Tarzan picked them up and threw them out into the underbrush. "It was a tough assignment, Sergeant; but you were the best man for it."

  "I could have carried Corrie."

  "An' you wit a wife an' kid!" chided Shrimp.

  "I think the colonel pulled rank on you," said Jerry.

  "Oh, no," said Tarzan; "it was just that I couldn't think of throwing Corrie to the wolves."

  "I guess dat will hold you," observed Shrimp.

  Corrie was laughing, her eyes shining. She liked these Americans with their strange humor, their disregard for conventions. And the Englishman, though a little more restrained, was much like them. Jerry had told her that he was a viscount, but his personality impressed her more than his title.

  Suddenly Tarzan raised his head and tested the air with his nostrils. "Take to the trees," he said.

  "Is something coming?" asked Corrie.

  "Yes. One of the sergeant's relatives—with both ends. It is a lone bull, and sometimes they are mean."

  He swung Corrie to an overhanging branch, as the others scrambled up the nearest trees. Tarzan smiled. They were becoming proficient. He remained standing in the trail.

  "You're not going to stay there?" demanded Jerry.

  "For a while. I like elephants. They are my friends. Most of them like me. I shall know in plenty of tune if he is going to charge."

  "But this is not an African elephant," insisted Jerry.

  "Maybe he never heard of Tarzan," suggested Shrimp.

  "The Indian elephant is not so savage as the African, and I want to try an experiment. I have a theory. If it proves incorrect, I shall take to the trees. He will warn me, for if he is going to charge, he will raise his ears, curl up his trunk, and trumpet. Now, please don't talk or make any noise. He is getting close."

  The four in the trees waited expectantly. Corrie was frightened—frightened for Tarzan. Jerry thought it foolish for the man to take such chances. Shrimp wished that he had a tommy gun—just in case. Every eye was glued on the turn in the trail, at the point where the elephant would first appear.

  Suddenly the great bulk of the beast came into view. It dwarfed Tarzan. When the little eyes saw Tarzan, the animal stopped. Instantly the ears were spread and the trunk curled up. It is going to charge was the thought of those in the trees.

  Corrie's lips moved. Silently they formed the plea, "Quick, Tarzan! Quick!"

  And then Tarzan spoke. He spoke to the elephant in the language that he believed was common to most beasts—the mother tongue of the great apes. Few could speak it, but he knew that many understood it. "Yo, Tantor, yo!" he said.

  The elephant was weaving from side to side. It did not trumpet. Slowly the ears dropped and the trunk uncurled. "Yud!" said Tarzan.

  The great beast hesitated a moment, and then came slowly toward the man. It stopped in front of him and the trunk reached out and moved over his body. Corrie clutched the tree branch to keep from falling. She could understand how, involuntarily, some women scream or faint in moments of high excitement.

  Tarzan stroked the trunk for a moment, whispering quietly to the huge mass towering above him. "Abu tand-nala!" he said presently. Slowly, the elephant knelt. Tarzan wrapped the trunk about his body and said, "Nala b'yat!" and Tantor lifted him and placed him upon his head.

  "Unk!" commanded Tarzan. The elephant moved off down the trail, passing beneath the trees where the astonished four sat, scarcely breathing.

  Shrimp was the first to break the long silence. "I've saw everyt'ing now. Geeze! wot a guy!"

  "Are you forgetting Goige de Toid?" demanded Bubono-vitch.

  Shrimp muttered something under his breath that was not fit for Corrie's ears.

  Presently Tarzan returned on foot and alone. "We'd better be moving along," he said, and the others dropped down from the trees.

  Jerry was not a little irritated by what he thought had been an egotistical display of courage and prowess, and his voice revealed his irritation when he asked, "What was the use of taking such a risk, Colonel?"

  "In the haunts of wild beasts one must know many things if one is to survive," Tarzan explained. "This is strange country to me. In my country the elephants are my friends. On more than one occasion they have saved my life. I wanted to know the temper of the elephants here and if I could impose my will on them as I do at home. It is possible that some day you may be glad that I did so. The chances are that I shall never see that bull again; but if we should meet, he will know me and I shall know him. Tantor and I have long memories both for friends and enemies."

  "Sorry I spoke as I did," said Jerry; "but we were all frightened to see you take such a risk."

  "I took no risk," said Tarzan; "but don't you do it."

  "What would he have done to one of us?" asked Bubono-vitch.

  "Gored you probably, knelt on you, and then tossed the pulp that had been you high into the forest."

  Corrie shuddered. Shrimp shook his head. "An' I uset to feed 'em peanuts at de coicus."

  "The wild beasts I've seen here in the open look larger and more menacing than those I used to see in menageries and zoos," said Bubonovitch.

  "Or in a museum, stuffed," said Jerry.

  "Mounted," corrected Bubonovitch.

  "Purist," said Jerry.

  Presently they entered a forest of enormous straight trunked trees, enveloped by giant creepers, vines, and huge air plants that formed a thick canopy overhead. The dim light, the cathedral vistas, the sounds of unseen things depressed the spirits of all but Tarzan. They plodded on in silence, longing for the light of the sun. And then, at a turning in the trail, they came suddenly into its full glare as the forest ended abruptly at the edge of a gorge.

  Below them lay a narrow valley cut through the ages into the tuff and limestone formation of the terrain by the little river that raced riotously along its bottom. It was a pleasant valley, green and tree dotted.

  Tarzan scrutinized its face carefully. There was no sign of human life; but some deer fed there, and his keen eyes recognized a black blob, almost indistinguishable in the dense shade of a tree. He pointed it out to the others. "Beware of him," he cautioned. "He is infinitely more dangerous than Tantor, and sometimes even than Stripes."

  "What is it, a water buffalo?" asked Jerry.

  "No. It is Buto the rhinoceros. His sight is very poor, but his hearing and scent are extremely acute. He has an ugly and unpredictable disposition. Ordinarily, he will run away from you. But you can never tell. Without any provocation he may come thundering down on you as fast as a good horse; and if he gets you, he'll gore and toss you."

  "Not ours," said Corrie. "They have lower tusks, and they use those instead of their horns."

  "I remember now," said Tarzan, "hearing that. I was thinking of the African rhino."

  The trail turned abruptly to the right at the edge of the escarpment and hurled itself over the rim, angling steeply downward, narrow and precarious. They were all glad when they reached the bottom.

  "Stay here," said Tarzan, "and don't make any noise. I am going to try to get one of those deer. Buto won't get your scent from here; and if you don't make any noise, he won't hear you. I'll circle around to the left. Those bushes there will hide me until I get within range of the deer. If I get one, I'll go right on down to the river where the trail crosses it. You can come on then and meet me there. The trail passes Buto at about a hundred yards. If he gets your scent, or hears you, and stands up, don't move unless he starts toward you; then find a tree."

  Tarzan crouched and moved silently among the tall grasses. The wind, blowing from the direction of the deer toward the rhinoceros, carried no scent of the intruders to either. It would to the latter when Tarzan reached the deer and when the others crossed the wind to reach the river.

  Tarzan disappeared from the sight of those who waited at the foot of the cliff. They wondered how he could find cover where there seemed to be none. Everything seemed to be moving according to plan when there was a sudden interru
ption. They saw a deer suddenly raise its head and look back; then it and the little herd of which it was a part were oft like a flash, coming almost directly toward them.

  They saw Tarzan rise from the grasses and leap upon a young buck. 'His knife flashed in the sun, and both fell, disappearing in the grass. The four watchers were engrossed by this primitive drama—the primordial hunter stalking and killing his quarry. Thus it must have been ages and ages ago.

  Finally Jerry said, "Well, let's get going."

  "Geeze!" Shrimp exclaimed, pointing. "Lookut!"

  They looked. Buto had arisen and was peering this way and that with his dull little eyes. But he was listening and scenting the wind, too.

  "Don't move," whispered Jerry.

  "An' they ain't no trees," breathed Shrimp. He was right. In their immediate vicinity there were no trees.

  "Don't move," cautioned Jerry again. "If he's going to charge, he'll charge anything that moves."

  "Here he comes," said Bubonovitch. The rhino was walking toward them. He seemed more puzzled than angry. His dim vision had, perhaps, discovered something foreign to the scene. Something he could neither hear nor smell. And curiosity prompted him to investigate.

  The three men, by one accord, moved cautiously between Corrie and the slowly oncoming beast. It was a tense moment. If Buto charged, someone would be hurt, probably killed. They watched the creature with straining eyes. They saw the little tail go up and the head down as the rhino broke into a trot. He had seen them and was coming straight for them. Suddenly he was galloping. "This is it," said Jerry.

  At the same instant, Shrimp leaped away from them and ran diagonally across the path of the charging brute. And the rhino swerved and went for him. Shrimp ran as he had never run before; but he couldn't run as fast as a horse, and the rhino could.

  Horror-stricken, the others watched. Horror-stricken and helpless. Then they saw Tarzan. He was running to meet the man and the beast, who were headed directly toward him. But what could he do? the watchers asked themselves. What could two relatively puny men do against those tons of savage flesh and bone?

  The beast was close behind Shrimp now and Tarzan was only a few yards away. Then Shrimp stumbled and fell. Come covered her eyes with her hands. Jerry and Bubono-vitch, released as though from a momentary paralysis, started running toward the scene of certain tragedy.

  Corrie, impelled against her will, removed her hands from her eyes. She saw the rhino's head go down as though to gore the prostrate man now practically beneath its front feet.

  Then Tarzan leaped, turning in air, and alighted astride the beast's shoulders. The diversion was enough to distract the animal's attention from Shrimp. It galloped over him, bucking to dislodge the man-thing on its back.

  Tarzan held his seat long enough to plunge his knife through the thick hide directly behind the head and sever the brute's spinal cord. Paralyzed, it stumbled to the ground. A moment later it was dead.

  Soon the entire party was gathered around the kill. A relieved and, perhaps, a slightly trembling party. Tarzan turned to Shrimp. "That was one of the bravest things I ever saw done, sergeant," he said.

  "Shrimp didn't rate medals for nothing, Colonel," said Bubonovitch.

  Chapter 10

  THEY were now well supplied with meat—too well. A deer and a rhinoceros for five people seemed more than ample. Tarzan had taken some choice cuts from the young buck and cut the hump from the rhino. Now, beside the river, he had built a fire in a hole that he had dug. Over another fire, the others were grilling bits of venison.

  "You ain't goin' to eat that are you?" asked Shrimp, pointing at the big hunk of rhino meat with the skin still attached. "In a couple of hours you'll eat it," said Tarzan. "You'll like it."

  When he had a bed of hot coals in the bottom of the hole he had dug, he laid the hump in with the skin side down, covered it with leaves and then with the dirt he had excavated.

  Taking a piece of venison, he withdrew a little from the others, squatted down on his haunches and tore off pieces of the raw flesh with his strong teeth. The others had long since ceased to pay attention to this seeming idiosyncrasy. They had, on occasion, eaten their meat raw; but they still preferred it cooked—usually charred on the outside, raw on the inside, and covered with dirt. They were no longer fastidious.

  "What was on your mind, Shrimp, while you were legging it in front of Rhinoceros Dicerorhinus sumatrensis?" asked Bubonovitch. "You sure hit nothing but the high spots. I'll bet you did the hundred yards in under eight seconds."

  "I'll tell you wot I was thinkin'. I'd started on Ave Maria w'en I seen it was nothin' less 'n Whirlaway on my tail. I was thinkin' if I could just finish that one Ave Maria before it caught up with me, I might have a chance. Then I stumbled. But the Blessed Mary heard me and saved me."

  "I thought it was Tarzan," said Bubonovitch.

  "Of course it was Tarzan; but whoinell do you suppose got him there in time, you dope?"

  "There are no atheists at the business end of a rhinoceros," said Jerry.

  "I prayed, too," said Corrie. "I prayed that God would not let anything happen to you who were risking you life to save ours. You are a very brave man, sergeant, for you must have known that you didn't have one chance in a million."

  Rosetti was very unhappy. He wished that they would talk about something else. "You got me all wrong," he said. "I just ain't got no sense. If I had, I'd a run the other way; but I didn't think of it in time. The guy who had the guts was the colonel. Think of killin' a deer an' dat rhino wit nothin' but a knife." This gave him an idea for changing the subject. "An' think of all dat meat lyin' out there an' the poor suckers back home got to have ration coupons an' then they can't get enough."

  "Think of the starving Armenians," said Bubonovitch.

  "All the Armenians I ever seen could starve as far as I'm concerned," said Shrimp. He took another piece of venison and lapsed into silence.

  Jerry had been watching Corrie when he could snatch a quick look without actually staring at her. He saw her tearing at the meat with her fine, white teeth. He recalled what she had said about hating the Japs: "I want to hate them. I often reproach myself because I think I am not hating bitterly enough." He thought, what kind of a woman will she be after the war—after all that she has gone through?

  He looked at Tarzan tearing at raw meat. He looked at the others, their hands and faces smeared with the juices of the venison, dirty with the char of the burned portions.

  "I wonder what sort of a world this will be after peace comes," he said. "What kind of people will we be? Most of us are so young that we will be able to remember little else than war—killing, hate, blood. I wonder if we can ever settle down to the humdrum existence of civilian life."

  "Say! If I ever get my feet under a desk again," said Bubonovitch, "I hope God strikes me dead if I ever take them out again."

  "That's what you think now, Bum. And I hope you're right. For myself, I don't know. Sometimes I hate flying, but it's in my blood by now. Maybe it isn't just the flying—it's the thrill and excitement, possibly. And if that is true, then it's the fighting and the killing that I like. I don't know. I hope not. It will be a hell of a world if a great many young fellows feel that way.

  "And take Corrie. She has learned to hate. She was never made for that. That is what war and the Japs have done to her. I wonder if hate twists a person's soul out of shape, so that he's never the same as he was before—if, like an incipient cancer, it eats at the roots of character without one's being aware that one has a cancer."

  "I think you need not worry," said Tarzan. "Man readily adapts himself to changed conditions. The young, especially, react quickly to changes of environment and circumstance. You will take your proper places in life when peace comes. Only the weak and the warped will be changed for the worse."

  "Wit all de different ways of killin' and maimin' wot we've learnt, like sneakin' up behind a guy an' cuttin' his throat or garrotin' him an' a lot of worse t'ings than da
t even, they's goin' to be a lot of bozos startin' Murder Incorporateds all over de U. S., take it from me," said Shrimp. "I knows dem guys. I didn't live all my life in Chi fer nuttin'."

  "I think it will change us very much," said Corrie. "We will not be the same people we would have been had we not gone through this. It has matured us rapidly, and that means that we have lost a great deal of our youth. Jerry told me the other day that he is only twenty-three. I thought that he was well along in his thirties. He has lost ten years of his youth. Can he be the same man he would have been had he lived those ten years in peace and security? No. I believe he will be a better man.

  "I believe that I shall be a better woman for the very emotion which he and Tarzan deplore—hate. I do not mean petty hatreds. I mean a just hate—a grand hate that exalts. And for the compensations it entails, such as loyalty to one's country and one's comrades, the strong friendships and affections which are engendered by a common, holy hatred for a common enemy."

  For a while no one spoke. They seemed to be considering this unique eulogy of hate. It was Jerry who broke the silence. "That is a new angle," he said. "I never thought of hate in that way before. As a matter of fact, fighting men don't do a lot of hating. That seems to be the prerogative of non-combatants."

  "Bosh," said Corrie. "That is just a heroic pose on the part of fighting men. When a Jap atrocity hits close to home, I'll bet they hate—when a buddy is tortured, when they learn that Allied prisoners of war have been beheaded. That has happened here, and I'll warrant that our Dutch fighting men learned then to hate, if they had not hated before. And furthermore," said Corrie acidly, "I do not consider myself a noncombatant."

  Jerry smiled. "Forgive me. I didn't mean that remark derogatorily. And anyway it wasn't aimed at you. You are one of us, and we are all combatants."

  Corrie, mollified, smiled back at him. She may have been a good two-fisted hater, but that was not hate that shone from her eyes at the moment.