Chapter 29
You brush through space even too small for a shadow,
and the stultifying air is like a repressive suction cup
drawing the strength slowly out of your mind and body.
Your guts feel like they're clouding up for a storm
and the sweat dribbles from your pores in free-flowing streamlets.
This climate increases your concentration of blood plasma and urine,
and any undue exertion will send your body temperature soaring.
Don't let your perspiration roll off. It helps cool you
by means of evaporation, so smear it over your skin. . .
O Lord High Potentates of the Smithsonian Institution, and Division
of Wildlife Management of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
whoever told you the jungle wasn't hotter than Washington, DC?
What if you're lost or cut off from your unit
and have to spend the night here, or even days?
Will you be able to survive with no prepared food
and your water used up, and all your frail inadequacies
constantly pursuing you in thoughts that refuse to remain unthinkable?
Shoes will rot out, clothes will become ragged and filthy.
Legs will be covered with jungle sores, bodies will become
lean and hard, faces will grow thin, furtive and lupine.
All the locks and hasps and destination tags and stickers
of these few stray and unidentified items of human baggage
will come loose, and covers will corrode on their hinges
and fall off and spill the miserable contents all out.
Dammit, stop going around with your mind in a sling.
Jungle hardships are just a myth. Why, it's perfectly possible
to live here indefinitely if you don't lose your head.
Your individual medical jungle kit contains a rubber-lined food bag,
an ounce bottle of Fraser's solution, 200 water-purifying tablets,
a package of sulfadiazine pills and bottles of quinine sulphate,
adhesive tape, bandages, aspirin and a can of foot powder.
You also have insect repellent and a change of socks.
What else to you want — an egg in your beer?
Watch the monkeys, and if you see them eating anything,
you can eat it too. Besides, they are edible themselves.
In fact, almost all the animals and birds and reptiles
you will run into may be classed as high-priority rations.
Wild hog and wild duck and wild pigeon, flying fox,
fish, eels — all can be eaten, along with toasted termites,
grilled grasshoppers and baked beetle grubs. Fresh fruit in season
is also available, and you may find bananas, oranges, lemons,
breadfruit, wild raspberries, nakarika, papaya, mangoes,
mmmhogplum and star apple,
while among vegetables the jungle menu offers a choice of taro, yam, manioc, palm cabbage, hearts of pandamus and rattan.
The wine list, of course, is limited due to wartime shortages,
but you may enjoy natural fruit juices or coconut milk.
Water may be readily secured, although purification
mmmwill be necessary.
You can sterilize it by boiling for about five minutes,
but if you can't do so, treat with halazone tablets.
Rain is regular, and conforms to a fairly predicable timetable
and rocky pockets or crevices will frequently hold a pool.
Birds fly toward water, trails often will lead to water,
and for the most part you will find it downhill.
Many plants have water stored in their stems and leaves,
and you may quench your thirst by chewing on them.
Also, the fluid content in the stomachs of wild animals
is quite safe and nutritious in spite of its taste.
Sure, there's food here, exotic and palatable, and there's water
and no doubt you could make yourself a real banquet.
Still, you'd rather have it at an American Legion convention.
