Poker Jim, Gentleman, and Other Tales and Sketches

by G. Frank Lydston

The sun was well up in the heavens and beating mercilessly down upon captor and captive before Johnny was able to move. He finally managed to get upon his feet again and decided to take a fresh start toward the camp. It seemed safer to take the chance of meeting hostile natives in the jungle in broad daylight, than to remain until nightfall and then run the risk of being found by a searching party of the enemy. The Filipino, however, was unable to rise. He was wounded no more severely than his captor, and surely should have been no worse affected by the fatigue of his journey, but he was a prisoner, and lacked the spirit of a victor, and, like most children of the tropics, he had not the physical nor moral fibre of which strenuous heroes are made. He was certainly “all in,” much to our soldier’s dismay. Urging and threats alike were without avail, and when dragged to his feet the renegade fell to the ground again as limp as a rag. Knowing that camp was but a few hours distant, Johnny’s disgust at the situation was most violent, and he swore in salvos.

“You d—d cut-throat, you’re more trouble than your miserable neck is worth! You might have been game enough to stick to the finish. But you wasn’t, so there you are, an’ I reckon it’s up to me to get you to camp the best way I can. Come, Aggie, old boy, an’ rest on this bosom;” saying which, the soldier helped the Filipino to his feet once more, and half carrying, half dragging the almost helpless man, struck out through the brake.

The will is a wonderful thing;—it conquers worlds,—but no man’s will is so strong that extreme physical weakness will not defeat it. Johnny’s nerve was impregnable, but wounded and fatigued as he was, his physical strength could not withstand the additional strain put upon it by the endeavor to assist the Filipino through the jungle. Then too, his wounds had become inflamed and very painful. He felt alternately hot and cold, and finally had a chill that fairly made his teeth rattle. This was followed by a tremendous fever. The poor fellow felt as though he were on fire. Things began to look queer. From time to time he fancied he saw fantastic shapes amid the brake. Sometimes huge, fiercely snarling animals seemed to brush by him. Again, a Filipino, twice as large as life, leered at him from behind every bush and tree. Once he fancied he saw the huge serpent that had flailed his chest the night he spent in traversing the jungle. Its horrid mouth yawned widely, and he heard it calling in a hoarse roaring voice the multitudinous folk of the jungle. And the soldier knew that the delirium of wound fever was upon him, and feared lest he should lose his senses altogether.

Bad as was his captor’s condition, the Filipino’s was much worse. When nature could stand no more, and Johnny was finally compelled to drop the renegade, it was evident that the latter’s end was in sight. A few drops of whiskey poured down his throat revived him for a brief period, but it was hate’s labor lost, for within the hour Agramonte gave a faint expiring sigh and joined the shades of his brown skinned ancestors.

Johnny had fallen exhausted beside the body of his captive and supporting himself on his elbow had watched, in his lucid intervals, the passing of his chances of delivering the living Agramonte to Captain Benning. The Filipino dead, there was but one thing to be done. The gathering of evidence was as simple as it was gruesome; he drew his knife and decapitated the body, making in his weakened condition, it must be confessed, rather a “hacky,” tearing job of it. The head removed and tied by its long hair to his belt, Johnny rose to his feet and totteringly resumed his journey toward camp.

As our soldier uncertainly blundered on through the brake, his fever rose higher and higher and his delirium increased. There were no longer any lucid intervals, and the direction of his steps was largely a matter of chance. Good luck, rather than volition guided him, but while his course was the proper one, luck was not always with him. Several times his feet became entangled in the undergrowth and he fell heavily. Again, as he struggled to his feet and stumbled blindly on, he crashed against a tree so violently that only the fictitious strength of delirium prevented his being incapacitated from further effort. But every step was bring him nearer his comrades, and nearer the fulfillment of the promise which no longer meant anything to him, poor boy.

* * * * *

The evening relief of sentries had just been made by Company K. The sun had dropped his huge glowing ball of molten copper behind the hills to the west of Masillo. The waning light was playing hide and seek with the flickering, erratic shadows of wood and brake. At the edge of the little clearing just outside the town stood a khaki clad sentry. He was leaning upon his rifle and gazing abstractedly into the jungle, thinking, perhaps, of that rancher’s daughter in far-away Montana. As he stood there musing, his attention was suddenly attracted by a rustling sound amid the undergrowth some distance away. He instantly brought his gun to a ready, and peered excitedly into the jungle. The sound grew plainer.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

A shape as of a man creeping stealthily along through the brake upon his hands and knees became dimly discernible. Again the sentry’s voice rang out.