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Chapter Sixteen. Into the Blue |
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crowded camp and slaughtered pigs |
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Space in camp is always limited, but today we are particularly cramped, and with the increasing darkness it becomes more and more difficult to move between the tents, the huts, and the open fires. It is still worse when the porters begin to slaughter pigs, and after reeks of the pungent smell of burnt pigs' bristles, and the whole of the ground is strewn with intestines that in the darkness get entangled in your feet as you pad through the camp. |
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Scouts have settled down round a fire. Somehow or other they have contrived to procure a whole pig as their ration, and now with refreshing thoroughness, they begin to devour it. Even the man with the pierced foot refuses to allow his small misfortune to spoil his meal. While we eat our own dinner, we cannot agree among ourselves whether they will or will not be able completely ' to consume that tasty animal. But when at ten o'clock I notice that the good fellows, after a short sleep, have begun to eat again, my doubts vanish. I am certain of the eventual disappearance of - that pig and I am certain, too, that on this night at least our (134) scouts will not suffer from "night starvation." In the morning, as they swallow the pieces of meat they have saved for their breakfast rice, the whole pig is finished, and only the picked bones bear witness to the feast. |
