Well, maybe the officer did believe there were wildmen in the woods. That didn't mean there were.
The jaygee got out and looked under the hood uncertainly. It was obvious that in the first place he was no mechanic and in the second place he couldn't conceive of anybody voluntarily risking the woods rather than the naval base. "Uh-huh," he said. "Dismount that gun while I get a fire started."
"Yes, sir," Charles said sardonically, saluting. The jaygee absently returned the salute and began to collect twigs.
Orsino asked: "How do these aborigines of yours operate?"
"Sneak up in the dark. They have spears and a few stolen guns. Usually they don't have cartridges for them but you can't count on that. But they have ... witches."
Orsino snorted. He was getting very hungry indeed. "Do you know any of the local plants we might eat?"
The jaygee said confidently: "I guess we can get by on roots until morning."
Orsino dubiously pulled up a shrub, dabbed clods off its root and tasted it. It tasted exactly like a root. He sighed and changed the subject. "What do we do with the fifties when I get them both off the mount?"
"The jeep mount breaks down some damn way or other into two low-mount tripods. See if you can figure it out while I get the fire going."
The jaygee had a small, smoky fire barely going in twenty minutes. Orsino was still struggling with the jeep gun mount. It came apart, but it couldn't go together again. The jaygee strolled over at last contemptuously to lend a hand. He couldn't make it work either.