Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [108]
Uncomfortable in his unnecessary sleeping, he tossed and twisted until his clothes began to bind. Sweat ran down the seams in small rivers. Now, as the sun upon the coral grew hotter, his discomfort rose and a kind of half-waking nightmare overtook him, as it attacks all fitful sleepers in the tropics. There were no proportions to his fantasy; like a vision of marihuana his dream consisted merely of geographic shapes propelling themselves into weirder shapes, until his entire mind was filled with whirring and wheeling objects.
At noon some fellow officers endeavored to waken him, but he rolled over soddenly. With a wet forearm, he shooed them away, and continued his sleeping. The same officers, upon returning from chow, decided to have some fun with Cable. One hurried to a near-by shack and returned with an object that caused great merriment among the conspirators. With the aid of string they rigged a suspension over the sleeping man's bed. Then they retired to a corner. When they were hidden, they made a loud noise. What happened next they did not fully anticipate.
Instead of drowsily opening his eyes at the noise Cable, for some unknown reason, sat bolt upright. As he did so, his steaming face hit the object which he was supposed to have seen upon waking. It was the grisly head from Vanicoro! It was hanging by the hair. The force with which his face hit the grim object caused it to swing in a long arc. Before he was fully aware of what was happening, the head swung back and bounced several times against his wet face, spreading the tropic sweat. The moisture felt like blood.
With a scream, the Marine sprang from his hot bed and leaped for the door. Outside, he looked back once at the head, still swinging. The hidden men he never saw.
Cable went to the shower and washed off his face and hands. He was frightened, even when he knew what the object was. He was frightened because he had slept so restlessly, because he had awakened so bizarrely, because he had been reprimanded that morning.
"I must get hold of myself," he repeated, over and over again. "What the devil is happening to me?" He straightened his clothes, wiped the sweat from his arms, washed his face again, and returned for his cap. The head was gone.
"I'll go see Bloody Mary right now," he said with determination. He left his hut, climbed slowly into his jeep and drove down the road toward the banyan tree.
"Hey, sir!" a Marine called. "You got her in second!" He deliberately kept the jeep in that gear so as not to admit that he had been drowsing at the wheel. When the engine heated up, he shifted into high. By then he was near the road leading to the banyan. Again he shifted into second so that any enlisted men near by would hear him coming and have time to hide among the brush. When he reached the banyan, old Mary sat there alone. She grinned as he approached.
"Hello, Mary," he said without enthusiasm.
"You like Liat?" the forthright old Tonk asked.
"Colonel say, You go!' This time, you go. And don't come back!" He spoke in English, adding hand movements to enforce his words.
"Me go," Mary said with no disposition to argue. "Goddam colonel." To give effect to her words, she spat into the dust. Cable noticed that she was chewing betel again. She folded her wares as she had often done before, placed them in a small box, and grinned at the lieutenant. "Me go! See!"
Cable, satisfied that she understood and would obey, started to leave, but the old woman grabbed at his arm. Now she spoke in French, her own barbarous version of that lovely language. "You like Liat?" she asked.
Cable blushed deeply. "Yes," he replied. Then he tried to pull his arm loose and climb into his jeep. Mary hauled him back. She sat by her box. Cable was forced to sit upon one of the snakelike roots of the banyan.
"Liat fine girl," Mary observed. "Liat very good girl."
"Yes," the Marine assented, "she is a lovely girl."
"You marry her?" Mary asked directly.
This was the question that Cable had been fearing for a long time. He tried