A marine lieutenant, pistol in hand, superintended the embarkment. A squad of khakied men paraded the strip of seashore.
Ballet joined the cowed obedient retinue limping to the boats. Curiously, in the scramble to embark the water boy got lost.
"Oh, Oi ain't do nutton. Can't do me nutton."
The passage was swift and safe through swelling seas growing darker and deadlier as the tide mounted. Glumly the men sat, uttering few words, standing up as the boat neared the other side of the river and jumping prematurely ashore, getting their feet wet.
Men gathered on pump cars and on the Toro Point river edge sawing wood to help clear the jungle or sharpening their machetes.
Gangs were forming. Driven by marines, platoons of black men went to obscure parts of the Toro Point bush to cut paths along the swirling lagoon back to the Painted City. Fierce against the sun moaning men jogged with drills on their backs, pounding to dust tons of mortared stone paving lanes through the heathen unexplored jungle.
In the crowd of men, Ballet saw a face leering at him. It was a white face—the face of a scowling marine....
Rockingly, dizzily, it glowed up at him. He was freckled, the pistol in his belt carelessly at hand and he slovenly sported a bayonet rifle.
"Hey—you—I'm talking to you—"