He wanted to break and run. He tried but he couldn’t move. He looked pleadingly at the boar as if to say what on earth use would you have for me. He heard the wind loudly in the treetops now, heard the pop of the wood in someone’s fire, felt marble size bumps on his skin, felt the ring loose to his thinned finger, saw his Uncle Pres lean forward from the motion picture screen, saw the Travis sword in its glass case on its altar, remembered the look on a Professor’s face as he slid a pony from his pocket to the inside of his examination book, then saw the eyes of the boar. The boar was laughing, actually laughing, and then he wanted to laugh with it and say something nice; maybe he could make friends with the boar, he thought for a moment.
He would have to run. Maybe there was a tree behind him. He would have to make a run and get behind the tree. If he could only get the boar to look somewhere else for an instant. He would think hard in his mind that he had heard something to his right, maybe the thought would get through to the boar and he could make a run for it. He thought he saw the boar shift his vision. He whirled and bumped squarely into a tree, fell back down hard, frozen in panic. He was alone, half a world away from his beginning, and this was the way it ended. He did not want to die alone. He waited, waited for the sound of the rushing beast, its quick lightning like steps, head down, tusks zeroed in. Nothing happened. There was no sound. No wind. No wood popping in the fire. No motion picture screen. Only empty silence as slowly he turned his head around.
It wasn’t there. It was gone. The boar had gone away as if by some miracle. He sat there still too afraid to move.
Finally, in the dim light he saw a mound on the earth. Maybe it was still there. Slowly, his eyes never leaving the mound, he got up, creeping, step by step. He reached it and kicked it hard. It was a full field pack resting on a stone with two protruding tent pegs. He pulled out a khaki handkerchief and wiped the cold, wet perspiration from his forehead.
He visualized soldiers lying in the woods all around him laughing at his panic. Well, maybe it wasn’t panic. Maybe there had been a boar and a full field pack there also. He walked rapidly to the headquarters. Con was sitting up in his sleeping bag smoking. Danny slept, his monocle neatly in place.
The Doc got into his sleeping bag without saying a word.
“You’ve never been to a Manau have you, Doc?” Con asked.
“No.”
“You’ll have fun. They’re real fun. And this is supposed to be the biggest one since the Kachins defeated the Shans. Did you walk all the way to the latrine, Doc?”
“I did,” the Doc grinned to himself, “but that’s the last time.” Then he wondered if he should tell Con about the boar. He decided not to. “Goodnight, Con.”
“Goodnight, Doc.”
But the Doc did not sleep for a long time.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The next afternoon the shooting contest of the Great Manau began. It lasted two days. When it was over Nautaung and Subadar Major Winston-Smythe Churchill requested an audience with all the white Dus. Nautaung was the spokesman. He requested that all the white leaders remain in the training area with an escort while the main body proceeded to Sinlumkaba to prepare the Manau. The request was granted. The day the Manau was scheduled to begin Nautaung came personally and extended them an invitation according to the custom and protocol of the Rifles.
The town was overcrowded when they arrived. The white headquarters cottage was all decorated with garlands of flowers over the door and along the porch rail. There were seven or eight hundred civilians present and more arriving every hour. Everyone shouted gay greetings as Nautaung escorted the Dus to the cottage where the dining table was set with bamboo cups of laku. Nautaung bade them sit and drink until he called for them and not to look outside. Finally, one hour before the sunset, the old man returned and requested they step outside and line up on the porch rail; Danny and Con in the Center, Ringa and Niven to each side of them, and then Danforth and Goodwin and so on in order of authority.
As they filed out to the porch there was a loud cheering. Almost all the four thousand troops were assembled in a huge semi-circle with the women guests and elders inside the semi-circle, then in front of them were three tall totems, and a huge bamboo table bedecked with flowers and food beyond the totems. It was an overpowering sight with the gold-red sun setting in the distance and the great Irrawaddy valley in the distance and the loud, happy cheering that did not let up.
The Kachin women were dressed in their finery; all in bright red skirts with black off-the-shoulder blouses, their raven black hair pulled tight and sleek. They wore ivory combs in their hair and bracelets of coins, copper and silver ornaments in their ears and around their waist, and necklaces of silver, goldstone, cat’s eyes, and jade. There were older women too, mothers and grandmothers of the troops, and many of them chewed beetle nut and many were wrinkled and toothless.
The old men had on brightly colored longis; red and orange, green, purple, and white, some of the longis made from the material of the parachutes the troops had left scattered in the hills. Most of the men had on shirts, the tails of the skirts knotted around their waists in one of two knots that signified whether they were married or promised, or available. And some of them puffed on long stemmed bamboo pipes.
Piled in front of the Dus on the bamboo table, directly in front of the three great totems, were roasted pigs and chickens and water buffalo, baskets of tangerines and papaya and pineapple, platters of peacock and doves, the whole roasted carcass of a deer, and huge vats of laku and baskets of flowers; wild sweet smelling flowers from the valleys and the sides of the hills, and multi-colored orchids from the darkest wettest parts of the jungle. And protruding from the ends of banana leaves were the tails of freshly baked catfish and speckled trout. Tied to a stake nearby was a small, alive, baby spotted leopard, and several mongrel dogs barking at the leopard.
Nautaung came forward. He saluted. “At the hour when the sun departs the horizon the Great Manau begins. Do you grant us permission to light the three fires near the great poles at that hour?”
“It is granted,” Con said as previously instructed.
“It is granted,” Danny said as previously instructed.
The people and the troops cheered loudly and long. Niven was overwhelmed at the sight. Doc Travis was stirred with a nostalgic patriotic tingling; the same tingle he got listening to the band play the national anthem on the radio the opening day of the World Series. Danforth had a strong urge to duck inside for one more drink. Ringa was fascinated by the table, the delicacies and flowers, and the beauty of several of the Kachin women.
“Will the Dus Niven, Ringa, and Danforth please step forward,” Nautaung said. There was a loud cheer. The Subadar Major came forward with three dahs. The scabbards of the dahs were of woven silver thread, excellent workmanship, and each scabbard was jeweled with rubies and saphires and Babkok stones. And each adorned with red tassels and a woven silk rope for slinging over the shoulder.
The Subadar Major handed them each a dah then stepped back. “A tribute from the people,” he shouted and they all cheered again.
Then Doc Travis was called forward and presented with a dah by one of the civilian elders. Then Danny’s own Subadar Major, old, seven times wounded, with a game arm, came forward and presented Danny with a dah, embracing him as he finished his short speech.
And finally Nautaung asked Con to step forward. He spoke quietly so that only the young American could hear: “A gift is not a gift unless it is of value to the giver also. This is the dah of my father of the mountain.” Then Nautaung shouted: “A tribute from the people.” There was more cheering.
Nautaung turned and instructed that the fires be lit, then turned once again to the Dus. “The elders will now make the presentation of their gifts.”
The elders passed by the basha in a long line. They presented honey cakes, and live chickens in baskets, and live pigs, and domesticated water buffalo, and baskets of sweets and eggs. Con knew that for a Kachin to give s
uch gifts as a pig or chickens or water buffalo was to give as much of their material wealth away as would an American giving away his automobile. The elder women tried to kiss the feet of the Dus, and many wept as they approached them, and many asked for the blessings of the Hill Gods upon them, and all thanked them for the care they had taken of their young warrior sons.
In a way it reminded Con of the time, when he was a small boy, that he had ridden a jackass for a day and a night from Sparta to the hill town in Greece where his father had been born. Many of the people in the town were related to him, and several of the old women had tried to wash his feet, and smothered him with embraces, and they had held a great celebration where the resin flavored wine flowed and the town’s people danced beside fires until late in the night. Maybe, he said to himself, there is something of the Hills born in you, something you did not even know.
But it was Doc Travis who was most moved. He saw for the first time the humble, simple, warmth of the people; and he saw what he had never believed, love that was uncomplicated. Genuine love without restriction, love with respect and adoration; an all-giving wanting-for-your-happiness love. He clutched the dah close to his breast. He felt, genuinely, that he had not earned it, and made many promises to himself, promises of the care he would give their sons.
The gift-giving procession lasted two hours and when it was over only Danny and Con, Ringa and Doc Travis, remained of the nine Dus in the original receiving line, and most all of the troops had departed. Danny and Con made many jokes with the old people that milled around. The elders joked back.
It grew dark. The fires blazed high beneath the totems. They sat down with the Subadars and certain high elders at the long bamboo table. The troops formed a huge semi-circle sitting on blankets and mats intermingling with the civilians. The feast began with many toasts. The drums began. The soldiers formed a line and began to dance. The women joined the line. They danced a snakelike dance, hands on the hips of the one in front, weaving in and out between the totems and the bonfires. Con and Danny joined the dance. The Kachins joked at their footwork. Ringa followed immediately, then Niven got up and did a Charleston to the beat of the drums. He was a fine dancer and so thin and loose that his body seemed to be going in several different directions at once and many of the Kachins laughed so hard at the dance that they began to cry. Stopping their own dance and hollering for more; he went into the Lindy Hop and then the Big Apple but it was the Charleston they preferred. Finally several of them began to imitate him, the drums picked up the beat, and one of them got it down perfectely before Niven retired half-exhausted. They all cheered him long and lustily. Then the drum beats slowed way down and the dancers retired to feast.
About ten that night four young soldiers dressed only in loin cloths, their bodies oiled, came into the circle by the center totem. They carried sharp, glistening dahs. The drums beats increased. An elder came forward with a chicken. One of the soldiers moved forward and with a five inch swipe of the dah severed the chicken’s head. The drums grew louder and the four began to dance. They began to imitate mortal combat in their dance circling their dahs at each other, missing the target by only the slightest margin and the agility of their fellow dancers, increasing their fury to the steady pulsating beat of the drums, feigning attack and counter attack. The dance lasted over half-hour with assorted oh’s and ah’s from the watchers. And the hard, young, muscled bodies of the dancers glistened with sweat and oil in the firelight that danced too, and Danny remarked they were as beautifully graceful as any ballet dancer ever.
The dance ended with two of the dancers chasing two others into the darkness outside the sphere of firelight. Then six young women came into the circle picking up the beat where the men left off. They too were barechested; and oiled wearing only red silk skirts. They danced a strange primitive love dance, contorting their rounded bellys and gesturing their hands over their firm, uptilted, oiled breasts. Undulating between the fires and the poles, their steps perfectly synchronized as faster and faster the tempo of the drums increased. Faster and faster and then they began to holler wild passionate, muffled, little screams, faster, faster, faster, until one of them swooned and fainted in the circle, the dust rising round her body. And the drums stopped. There was a momentary second of all silence and then a great rush of soldiers out toward the women, and the six fastest seized the women and sped into the darkness as the crowd cheered.
Nautaung, sitting next to Con, yelled at one very old, toothless woman who sat nearby on the ground clapping and cheering louder than most. He poked Con. “Her grandson was the first one out to get a woman. Watch,” he said in Kachin.
“Old woman it was born in him. Is that all your family is built for; love making?”
“Ay, old soldier. And there was no better in the woods than I. It is from me he derives his ability,” she smiled a toothless grin. “It makes me young again to see the son of my son with such fire. That is what my age is for; to live with the happiness of my youth. You can only remember war.”
“I would wager a chicken that in your aloneness you still dance.”
She grinned. “And better than those young women who are half-women.”
“Ahyee,” Nautaung said. “You have not changed in all these years.”
“Were there many like me? Were there?” she laughed. “Poof. I should give lessons,” she waved one arm mockingly and turned away laughing to herself.
There was much drunkenness and many of the elders began to smoke their opium pipes. Several young girls came coquettishly to the table pouring drinks and laughing and one by one the Dus began to disappear. Danny and Con drank a great quantity of laku but did not get drunk as they were eating all the time. Con had given himself the duty for the first night of the Manau and at midnight he and Nautaung went and checked the detail that was leaving to protect the west outpost. The detail, except for the leader, was a very drunk detail and were sent on their way after four women who had been talked into accompanying them were sent back to the Manau.
“How long will this last?” Con asked Nautaung as they returned to the table.
“When there is no more food or laku it is over. Two days maybe.”
Danny and Con and a group of the Sudabars adjourned to the cottage about two in the morning. They made the big switch to scotch and at three Con passed out and Danny an hour later. Doc Travis awoke the next morning in the forest a mile from camp, a nude Kachin girl by his side on the blanket. Ringa and Niven awakened in a basha with two young girls greeting them with a bracer of laku. Bill Goodwin woke up with his feet lying in the stream at the drinking water point. He was alone. Nautaung awoke at the edge of a village near a steep cliff. He stretched and stood up, looked at the valley, then up at the town that was already beginning to celebrate again. So far, he thought, it has been a fine Manau. The very best. But, Ahyeee, that opium gave him a head. What a thirst and what a head!
The afternoon of the second day the manau began to taper off. By sunset the laku was almost gone and it was agreed that no more wood be added to the three fires. When the fires ceased to flame the manau would be officially over. Doc Travis did a rushing business at the aid station issuing several thousand aspirin tablets and two and a half gallons of bismuth. Con and Ringa did a little map work and when they finished decided to go to the stream for a bath. Danny was writing an airdrop request and asked them to drop off a note with Danforth, the American Indian’s Headquarters being only yards off the bath trail.
“I feel horrible,” Ringa said as they walked along.
“I feel much better,” Con said. “I puked.”
“If I don’t feel better I’m going to make myself puke,” Ringa said. “They really know how to throw a party don’t they? And the women. They really know how to treat a man. They give you a bracer then cook your breakfast. The one I had was fifteen. I ought to take her back to Detroit with me. She could sure teach them whores back there a few things,” he half-grinned. “She sure could. American women jes don’t kn
ow how to treat men. You know?”
“They know how,” Con said. “They’re just afraid most of the time. They’ve got a standard their mother gave them and they’re afraid to lose it. We make too much out of love in America. We try too hard at it. You know you can’t accomplish anything when you try too hard. And Americans all try to make their love exactly like love in the movies. They try to live up to that.”
“That’s exactly the way women are,” Ringa said. “I went with this girl once and she pulled all that kind of stuff on me. Hell, I didn’t know what she was doing. One afternoon I go to this movie and what do you think? My girl has been imitating this girl in the picture exactly. The same accent, the same lines, the same way with her hair. Everything. It seems like all the American women want to be like some other woman they don’t know nothing about. Jesus, I want to be something but I want to be me, too,” he said scratching his head. He slowed the pace as they approached Danforth’s.
They cut off the trail and then abruptly they saw it. They stopped. They stood silently in the brush several yards from Danforth. The American half-Indian was sitting on the ground with his Kachin woman. He was fondling her. Behind the girl and off to the side a few feet was her half-wit brother. He was watching Danforth and rubbing himself around the lower belly and thigh and foaming at the mouth. He was twenty-four but his mind was not over four or five.
“You don’t know what I’m doing do you?” Danforth was saying to the boy in a thick drunken voice. “But you’d like to do it. You’d like to get your hands on your sister wouldn’t you. You don’t know why but you would,” he said in English. The girl did not understand English and the boy did not understand anything but ten or fifteen words in Kachin.
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