We killed eleven of them, nine by gunshot and two in hand-to-hand fighting without serious injury to ourselves. The Yaminana accounted for three more, with a loss of seven of their own number, all of them adult men. The women neither hunted nor fought, which was probably why they outnumbered the men.
After the battle we were horrified to watch our little friends gleefully butcher their fallen foes, and then cook them up for dinner!
The chief told me they had to eat their enemies, because the big people who had attacked in the first place wanted to capture some of the Yaminana in order to eat them.
When a Yaminana was eaten by an outsider, his soul was lost to the tribe. Eating their enemies was the only way to return the souls of their lost tribesmen to their families. And anyway, he told us, they were delicious!
Fortunately, he was not greatly offended when we refused to participate in the feast. It was enough that we had provided the main course.
After I had seen my little wife daintily nibbling off the last shreds of flesh clinging to a human femur, it was weeks before I could kiss her again.
I was also shocked when I saw Jane happily eating her share of the cannibal feast! She said that to her people, human flesh was just another kind of meat. On questioning her later, I found out why she had not eaten our own dead on the Maude; since those men had died of a sickness, the meat was tainted. As to Antoni, she had simply assumed we preferred fish, as she did.
The next day, with great ceremony, the Yaminana ate the bodies of their own tribesmen who had fallen in battle.
All of this cannibalism troubled me. I had not been able to make any progress at converting the Yaminana to Christianity and had even given up trying, until I could bring a priest back to do the job properly. Seeing these tiny people eating human flesh told me just how remiss I had been in doing my Christian duty toward them. I renewed my efforts to bring them to Christ, but again it was to no avail. I gave up and worked instead on my equipment. The stock of my rifle had rotted so badly that I was obliged to carve myself a new one, out of a native wood that Jane recommended.
The most important event during our stay with the Yaminana, from the army's viewpoint, happened during our first month with them.
Several of their very tiny children were playing a game with a ball, when it rolled into a stream. I waded in to get it for them and was surprised to find the ball shedded water like wax, but it was soft, like flesh. I gave the ball back to the children and went to talk about it with some of the adults.
I was told that the toy was made from the sap of a certain tree, which they were very happy to take me to. At last I had found the almost mythical rubber tree! In fact, there were quite a few of them out there.
I got Tomaz and Gregor and showed them my find. After that, we worked out an efficient way to bleed the trees without killing them, and collected as much of the sap as we could. Over the months, we turned some of it into balls, in the native fashion, and stored the rest in empty glass food jars. We also collected samples of the tree's bark and its leaves, to aid others in finding them.
After more than six months of only occasional rain, the great downpours returned in earnest, and the river began to fill. Our canoe had not rotted as our riverboat had, and we soon had all in order for our departure.
We tried to persuade our wives to stay behind, for we weren't at all sure what we would do with them back in Poland, or whether they would like it there. But our tiny ladies were adamant about going with us. We had told too many stories about what it was like in Europe, I suppose. Also, the elders insisted that we take them with us, and their continued goodwill would be important when we returned to establish a trading post here, to bring in the rubber.
We shoved off in much better physical shape than we had arrived in, and with our company now increased to seven. The trip back was long and arduous, but relatively uneventful. At least nobody died.
When we at last put in at the fourth trading post we had established, we found it deserted, as was the native village it had been built next to. A day's searching through the ruins of both gained us no enlightenment. There was no evidence of violence. The post and the village had not been burned, but simply abandoned. Near what must have been the church, we found more than two dozen graves, with wooden crosses over them, but no indications as to who was buried there. Profoundly disturbed, we went on east, to the next post.
The story was the same at the third post and at the second. My men were gone, the villagers were gone, and there was nothing to show why this had happened. It was not as though some other tribes had supplanted the ones we had befriended. The countryside seemed to be devoid of all human life.
At the first post, I found Sir Caspar, the lance leader I had left there a year before. The village behind him looked to have about a third of its former inhabitants left.
He was nearly as naked as we were, sporting little but some pants with the legs cut off, and a pair of native sandals, yet he saluted me in proper army fashion, and it seemed only proper to salute back, even though I stood before him naked and barefoot. In military fashion, I asked him to report.
"It was sickness, more than anything else, sir," he said. "I lost one man to a dragon, and three more to fevers. The people in the village were sick, too, but of some other disease, like the worst cold you ever saw. Nothing we tried did any good, and the native doctors couldn't do any better, on their people or on mine. I got word from the other posts that they were in trouble, but we didn't have any help to send to them. I was bedridden and my men were either dead or shaking with fevers. I haven't heard from the other posts in six months."
I asked him about any other riverboats, and he said they hadn't seen one since I left him there, a year ago.
We went into his native-style hut, and Gregor brought some whiskey up from the canoe. While the women went out in search of supper, I filled Sir Caspar and his men in on all that had happened to us since I had last seen him.
"My God. Then we six are all that are left of a platoon of forty-three men? What a disaster!" he said. "And why haven't the other three platoons come looking for us? Could they be in worse shape than we are?"
I said that I didn't know, but I intended to leave in the morning for the rendezvous point, at the island with the flag. I asked him if he wanted to join us.
"No, sir, I don't see how I can. Father David has been making progress here in converting those villagers who survived the plague. He wouldn't even consider leaving without orders from his superiors in Poland. Ronald and I couldn't possibly abandon him."
I saw his point, and promised to return, no matter what I found out. Before leaving, I asked if they had any clothes to spare. Sir Caspar offered me the shorts he was wearing. That was all he had. Even their bedding was gone. I, of course, declined his offer.
Later that night we took advantage of Father David's presence to go to confession.
In the morning, after we recited our Army Oath, we sang a proper mass, with Communion, for the first time in entirely too long. Then we left, heading east.
Chapter Thirty-One
From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
WRITTEN MARCH 12, 1251, CONCERNING FEBRUARY 10, 1251
As we came in sight of the island, I could barely believe my eyes! The entire island had been logged over, and a dozen new buildings, all made of concrete — army fashion — were either completed or under construction! At least a full company of men were busily working. Above it all was a huge, multi-element yagi radio antenna.