cross in that position means pulling hand over hand with your legs wrapped around the rope. It’s so difficult that the strong incentive is to keep your balance and stay on top.
To make the exercise seem realistic, the instructors told us that the current was forceful enough to carry us away and there were crocodiles in the water.
When my turn came I just followed the instructions. By then I had watched about a dozen others make the crossing, and I could see the advantages and pitfalls.
Don’t get the rope swaying sideways.
Push with the hooked-over leg more, and pull with your arms less.
I started slowly and finished slowly, but I stayed focused and didn’t fall off.
This wasn’t the case for André Le Gallo, who was two behind me. In the middle of his crossing the rope started swaying sideways, and André fell under.
“You can’t get back up,” one instructor shouted, as André hung in the middle letting the swaying stop.
“Just come on ahead, hand over hand,” another instructor yelled.
Born in France just before World War II, André had been raised in Paris, where his family, originally from Brittany, spent the war years. They had immigrated to the United States in the late 1940s and settled in northern New Jersey, where André’s father, an excellent chef, ran a restaurant. André, a varsity wrestler, had very strong arms and upper body. Either he hadn’t heard the instructors or he elected to ignore their counsel. With our shouts of encouragement from both banks, André calmly hoisted himself back up, a feat requiring both strength and balance, and finished his crossing.
Bravo, André!
He had impressed the instructors, but he would achieve true notoriety in another way. One night early in our second week we made camp in a clearing near the river. As usual it had been a physically demanding day, with the heat and humidity taking a lot out of us. We had been hauling packs and web belts containing personal items—underwear, socks, Dopp kits—and some field gear including a shelter half, which is essentially half a pup tent, plus a poncho, a shovel-like entrenching tool, and a machete for clearing the way through the jungle.
We paired up, using two shelter halves to set up rows of tents, with our ponchos doubling as mats to sleep on. We carried no sleeping bags. We weren’t comfortable, but no one complained. We were too tired. Besides we were in the middle of the jungle, so we expected hardship.
As dusk descended we ate C-rations—small cans and boxes of prepared but cold food. We carried a couple of flashlights among us, but once it was dark there wasn’t much to do except try to get some sleep. The camp quieted quickly as fatigue took its toll.
Suddenly there was a loud cry.
“What the hell is that?” Bob Manning shouted.
Bob and André were sharing a pup tent. Both stood over 6 feet tall and didn’t quite fit into it. André, seeking some fresh air, had been lying with his head just outside of the tent.
“I don’t know. Is that blood?” André asked.
Somebody produced one of the flashlights. It was blood. We were all awake now.
“There are two small holes on the top of your forehead,” Bob told André.
“A bat?”
“A vampire bat!” Bob exclaimed, grabbing everyone’s attention.
The bleeding stopped quickly. André’s forehead contained two small punctures where the thing had bitten him. He had been attacked by a real vampire, Desmodus rotundus, whose range extends from Argentina all the way to Arizona and New Mexico and has been known to avail itself of the blood of humans sleeping outdoors.
The question foremost in our minds was, would it come back? The return to our tents caused a lot of shuffling around, as everyone tried to keep his head inside and his booted feet outside.
No one slept well that night.
Someone mentioned the possibility of an infection, but I don’t think André even put a Band-Aid on the wounds. Before we departed for Panama we had received all of the required shots, so that might have helped André ward off any problem.
The story spread quickly, and André became famous among trainees and instructors alike.
The next day’s theme was “Living off the Land.” It was particularly tough, and many of us dragged through it for lack of sleep—though they did feed us a field-kitchen hot breakfast at dawn.
They divided us into a dozen groups to conduct compass-reading exercises, meaning lots of walking through the jungle. The point man would lead each group by wielding a machete to clear a path. Two men would follow with compasses to keep him on course.
Maps in hand we started out at about 7:30 a.m. We found one checkpoint after another and moved quickly along our assigned route. Our practice at the Farm came in handy. The exercise wasn’t difficult, but it was physically tiring. We rotated point men regularly, because that was the toughest role.
By noon we had finished the course and arrived at a large clearing, where the field kitchen had set up for lunch. Hungry and tired we looked forward to a good meal, but our anticipation quickly turned to disappointment, as we noticed that lunch would be C-rations again. Usually it was a type of meat dish, some fruit, cookies or crackers, and maybe some chocolate.
“What’s your fruit?” Mike Deuel asked me. “I got peaches.”
“Fruit cocktail,” I responded. “Want to trade?”
“Nope,” he said. “I’m looking for pears.”
“I got apple sauce,” Bob Manning chimed in. “And beef stew. Anyone want this beef stuff?”
“Got to be better than ham,” Ralph McLean said, handing Manning his meat dish. “I hate this ham.”
“I don’t like it much either,” Bob said, “but I’m sure tired of beef stew.”
It was always the same, no matter the group, location or conditions on the ground. No one liked what he got. Still it was fuel for the engine, so we always ate it all.
After lunch we gathered for a briefing on the afternoon’s effort. Each group would have to build a bohio (bo-HEE-oh), Panamanian Spanish for a small hut constructed from trees and thatch. The instructor explained that a bohio is nothing more than a platform several feet off the ground—and away from snakes, bigger animals and vermin—enclosed by walls and a roof overhead. The walls and roof would be palm branches—no corrugated tin available—spread over a wood frame.
“One more thing,” he added loudly. “Pass by the trucks on your way into the jungle and pick up dinner. See you here in the morning for breakfast at 6:30. Now go ye forth and build tonight’s dwelling.”
We moved to the trucks and formed lines. Looking ahead we could see what they were handing out for dinner.
“They’re giving ’em chickens, live chickens!” Bill half-shouted in disbelief.
“And
