WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Wind and a Cluster of Stars
Chapter 30
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Meerkat, Report
54. Meerkat
We came down the slope and moved closer to the area packed with burrows.
Judging by the size of the holes, it did not seem like a very large animal.
At most, it looked like something about the size of a puppy or a cat.
The air was thick with the raw smell of damp earth that had just been dug up.
"What kind of burrow is this?"
I carefully stepped closer and crouched beside one hole.
-Grrk
A small sound came from inside.
"Listen closely, it is not just one."
From inside, five or six of them were making low grrking sounds.
"Should we dig it up?"
Colton suggested.
"Colton, we did not even bring a shovel. And I do not want to find out that badly."
In the end, we looked around the area, then decided to wait a little farther back.
...
"Look at that..."
After we waited about 30 meters away for around ten minutes, a small head suddenly popped out of one of the holes.
The animal checked the entrance carefully, then slowly came outside.
"That has to be it."
Everyone became sure this was the animal we had been looking for.
If I had to compare it, it looked like a cat. Then right behind the first one,
six or seven more dashed out at once.
And they seemed to have one of our clues too, long black claws.
"W-what...?"
But the moment I took one step toward them, the meerkats let out little squeaks,
then vanished into the holes in an instant, like they were sucked underground.
They were wild animals, so they were naturally wary.
When we first arrived and saw nothing, they had probably spotted us first and hidden.
So we waited again, endlessly, for the little animals to come back out.
Soon enough, the meerkats emerged again, relaxed, and wandered around the holes.
Then something surprising happened. They stood upright on two legs and watched every direction.
Even a well-trained dog can stand on two legs, but not for long.
Meerkats stood like people, backs straight,
able to remain fully upright.
"We have to see them up close!"
But if we got any closer, they would hide, so all we could do was watch from where we stood.
"Should we shoot? Let us catch one."
Again, Colton suggested a rough method.
"No!"
A musket ball as thick as a thumbnail would probably erase an animal that small without leaving a trace.
"Then let us use the cat as bait."
"No!"
This time the sergeant tried to be clever, but Amy fiercely objected.
"They would probably shred it with those claws. Seriously..."
Zenon said his piece too, but Amy widened her eyes at him, and even Zenon stopped mid-sentence.
"At this rate we will not investigate anything."
I walked forward slowly.
The meerkats glanced around nervously, then slipped back into their holes.
"I told you, we should dig, Captain?!"
"I am trying to show them we are not dangerous."
"You are too patient. Wild animals are not going to..."
We went right up beside the holes and waited another ten minutes.
Before long, one meerkat poked its head out again.
"Hi."
I stayed crouched, moved as little as possible, and watched it.
The meerkat lifted its head and stared straight at me with black, shining eyes.
With dark markings around its eyes, it looked alert and intelligent.
When we stayed still, the meerkats soon relaxed and started coming out one by one.
Once one came out, the others followed, and now more than twenty surrounded us.
These slim, cat-like animals realized we were not a threat, and they became bold enough to come right up to us.
["Meerkats are curious animals, and wild animals like these sometimes have never seen people before. That is probably why they came close so easily, but you still have to be careful with wild animals."]
As the meerkats circled around, sniffed with twitching noses, and even put their front paws on our knees as if feeling us,
Amy did not know what to do.
"What do I do? They are so cute!"
Only the cat was restless and very anxious.
From the cat's point of view, being surrounded by so many unfamiliar animals could not feel good.
Soon the meerkats got even bolder.
One climbed onto crouching Colton's head and stood perfectly upright on two legs.
I even tried petting the meerkat in front of me, and it stayed still.
Its fur was gray-brown mixed with dark brown patches. At a glance it looked rough and fluffy, but it was surprisingly soft.
Its bright black eyes with dark rings around them, and its tiny black ears, made it look very cute.
And the way it could stand at full attention, something most animals could not do, was deeply impressive.
Honestly, they would make excellent pets.
...
We spent a pleasant time with the meerkats.
"What is your name?"
I offered a handshake to one that stood straight while looking at me.
It watched me for a moment, then went back to the pups.
There were four pups too, and their fluffy fur made them just as adorable.
They were still not used to standing upright, so they kept toppling over, which made them look even cuter.
After observing us for a while, this unusual group lost interest and went back to what they naturally did.
They dug and sniffed around, searching for something.
With tails raised, they moved in groups and searched around the holes for food.
One meerkat dug sand skillfully with its sturdy claws, and in less than a minute
it found a fat grub.
"So they eat bugs."
The meerkat chewed the bug with little smacking sounds as if it were eating sticky fudge, and one pup copied it and started digging nearby.
But the pup was still clumsy, so it could not dig like an adult,
and even the apple-sized hole it managed to make got filled back in by dirt flung from the side.
Still, shiny black beetles came up mixed in the dirt,
and the pup made rapid little noises while eating them.
After that, I sketched them with a pencil and wrote down everything I saw.
They mainly ate bugs, and they also ate venomous insects like scorpions.
Maybe they were immune to venom, or maybe they could neutralize it.
All I could see, once again, were scorpions already torn in half.
Meerkats ate everything as if it all tasted good.
-Kkook kkook
One meerkat standing guard made a sharp call.
At once the whole group scattered and rushed back into the holes.
In the distance, I could see a bird of prey circling, likely one of their natural enemies.
The meerkats stayed inside and did not come out for a while.
"We should go now."
I gave a final farewell to a meerkat barely visible under the lip of a hole.
"They are fun little guys."
The sergeant liked this animal he had never seen before, and so did Colton.
For wild animals, they felt unusually friendly.
As we left the meerkat village and looked back one last time,
I could see meerkats peeking out from holes all over, watching us.
"Take care."
55. Report
May 23, 11:00 a.m.
The hot sun sent waves of heat through the grass, drying it and carrying a sweet scent.
In a forest near the beach, we took time to cool our sun-heated bodies.
We reached the stream where we had rested on the way up, shook out our hair to release the heat,
and busied ourselves brushing sand out of our shoes.
-Bang!
Gunshots rang out now and then. Not far away, the navy men seemed to be working hard to find food for dinner.
We also walked around near the stream looking for fresh things to eat, but we knew so little
that even if we saw something, we would not know what it was.
"What is this?"
I found something that looked like spinach.
It looked so much like spinach that I wondered if it was wild spinach.
It would make the soup taste much better.
Still, I could not bring myself to taste it. I snapped some off and smelled it, and it really smelled strange.
It had a rank odor, enough to tell me instantly this was not edible.
It would have helped if one of us actually knew plants or animals well.
"Damn, this is the perfect place to starve to death. Captain, we will go first. We will check somewhere else, sir."
"Fine."
They vanished into the far side of the forest looking for that four-legged animal.
"We should bring back something too."
So we started properly searching the forest and stream.
Even then, the forest was not large, and the trees were sparse, so it felt like there was not much to find anyway.
Still, we soon found four or five partridges searching for food by the stream.
The quail-like partridges were frantically digging up roots and dirt.
"Colton, give me the gun."
Amy, who had a pistol, took Colton's gun and aimed.
"Which one are you taking?"
Zenon raised his musket too.
"The one on the far right."
"Then I will take the far left. One, two, three-"
-Bang bang!
"Eek!"
Amy fell backward onto her butt from the recoil.
And she missed the bird too.
Still, Zenon hit his shot and took down one partridge.
"Nice!"
Zenon ran like a hound, snatched the partridge before it fell into the stream, and hung it by the neck with a vine.
With nothing else to do, I picked up that large, smooth black seed again.
Those seeds were scattered here and there in little clusters.
Curious, I put it in my pocket.
I planned to plant it.
...
After that, we forgot lunch and kept hunting, and finished with a total of six small partridges.
Even in all the chaos, Colton shot very well and took three by himself.
"These are excellent when roasted. Perfect with beer."
Colton looked pleased.
The navy side had already finished hunting and was cleaning their game.
Sergeant Whitehead did not catch a four-legged beast, but he at least caught the largest waterfowl, so he barely avoided embarrassment.
They were pouring boiling water to pluck feathers and remove entrails.
We also got hot water there and cleaned our partridges.
"Ugh, what is this?"
The partridges had looked plump, but once we removed the feathers, there was almost nothing left.
They were so lean, was there even anything to eat?
"Haha, wild animals are usually like this. Farmed turkeys and chickens are the ones that get fat."
Zenon added while helping Colton, who was pulling out feathers by the fistful.
"Still, birds like these can be eaten down to the bones."
Before long, all six small partridges were plucked bare and laid on the beach.
After a quick rinse in seawater and hanging them with vines, the cleaning was done.
Meanwhile, the cook from our ship made a simple meal, and the officers ate lunch together.
"We are planning to head a bit farther north and resupply at a village south of Benguela."
Because he was close with Zenon, Sergeant Whitehead acted as liaison and brought us news from the navy side.
"Were they not supposed to go straight to Luanda?"
"That was the original plan. But the first plan was to stop by Cape Town and then go north.
They do not think they can make the date at that pace, so they chose to head north from here. We have time. And..."
"And what?"
"And the commander has refined taste."
"He really does, huh. I thought he was that kind of man. He wants fresh meat, that is what this is. Steak with pepper and basil."
Sergeant Whitehead shrugged at Zenon's words.
"Then let us follow them too. I think I know roughly where that village is. I saw it on the chart.
Let us finish our remaining stock as well."
So we planned one final stop at the village and to finish our exchanges with the natives.
...
As soon as we got back to the ship, Amy hung the cleaned partridges over the stove.
Hanging them there let them dry in smoke and heat, so they spoiled less easily.
"Four are for Captain."
Amy looked at Zenon and Colton, then continued.
"You two get one each."
"Tch."
Colton grumbled, but there was no helping it.
Soon the ship set off smoothly and sailed north following Sloop-of-War Agincourt.
It would probably be safe until Luanda.
Some people said they had traveled this route dozens of times without seeing pirates once, so maybe we were just unlucky.
I spent the afternoon reading and organizing the materials I had gathered.
I wedged a flowerpot made from dry coconut shell packed with dirt between wooden boxes by the rear window where sunlight was decent.
Then I took out the round, cookie-like seed from my pocket and pushed it into the soil.
After that, I poured on the cold tea left over from today.
What kind of seed was it?
["It is a really big seed. I really want to plant it."]
...
I sat at my desk and bound the meerkat drawings together.
On each drawing I wrote an explanation, plus location, date, time, and weather.
If someone needed to investigate later, this would be useful. And if the investigation was not accurate,
our credibility and reputation would be damaged afterward.
The meerkats standing straight in front of their burrows, the pups, and the digging scenes all stacked together
and became one report.
...
6:20 p.m.
"Dinner!"
Amy brought in freshly grilled partridge on a wooden tray, sizzling in hot oil.
Now the cook would handle the rest, so Amy could eat dinner with a much lighter mind.
As with British food, most dishes were roasted or steamed, but partridge seemed perfect grilled.
The partridge had been flattened wide on the grate and roasted with salt until golden.
The smell was rich and mouthwatering.
"Looks delicious!"
When I tore off a leg from the roast, about the size of a young chick, steam curled up.
There was not much meat, but the flesh marked by the grill was chewy with good savory depth,
and with a little wine on the side it became a fine dish, something even the King of England might only taste on a hunt.
I wanted to do something for Amy, but if I did that every time, I would end up bankrupt, so I decided not to.
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