First, One of Mark’s Kidnapping Quizzes
·
So you’ve been kidnapped and imprisoned.
·
Edmond Dante style you’ve been kept in a
castle keep [or Alcatraz] and the main obstacle to your escape will be a long
swim that kills most all who make the attempt.
·
You’ll need the best conditions to chance
this swim as most don’t make it.
·
Using the primary clue in this photograph
of one my moonlight river-swims, would it be best to make this survival swim
tonight or wait a few days?
·
We will assume similar weather conditions
as we see here so add no additional factors beyond what we see from the clues
depicted.
·
Answer with your current knowledge, there
is no Googling in Alcatraz or Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask.
·
I’ve provided the answer at the end of
this post, but first, a few observational Hosses on always being aware.
· BTW-To see Part 1 of Mark’s Warrior Awareness/Kidnapping Tests.
An Apache Warrior
In response to a Cavalry Lieutenant who incessantly consulted
a guidebook.
“Your mind lives in that book. I read the Book of
Nature, perhaps it tells me more things.”-A Chiricahua Scout
The Sacred Pentagram
The following observation on “The Sacred Pentagram” is
extracted from Philsopher H.F. Heard’s 1941 novel, A Taste for Honey.
Here the author laments sight is the only sense we attend to, but, I assure our
quiz depends on your vaunted seeing and noticing ability and no other.
“Primitive peoples often retain keenness in certain
senses which we are too busy and hasty to have preserved. Taste and sound both
are primitive. We have chosen sight, and so all our world is now hardly
anything but a visual world, as far as we can make it…We treat smell as
something disgusting [or inconsequential], and it goes from us…We are scentless
and are becoming very restricted in our hearing…And the narrowing and starving
of our apprehension [sensory abilities] goes on apace… We pick our way, creep
about. We must at all costs be refined, even to the extraction of every flavor
and vitamin out of life’s raw juices.
“Your keen nose catches nothing. Mine
isn’t blunted. I have tried to keep my fivefold
endowment sharp on every point of life’s sacred pentagram.’
Jim Bridger
This true account of observational prowess comes from Biographical
Sketch of James Bridger: Mountaineer, Trapper, and Guide (1905)
by General Grenville M. Dodge.
General Dodge being a military man was little given to
exaggeration.
Sit back and bask in observational prowess.
Captain H. E. Palmer, Eleventh Kansas
Cavalry, Acting Asst. Adjt. Genl. to General P. E. Conner, gives this description
of the Indian Camp on Tongue River, August 26, 1865. "Left Piney Fork at
6.45 a. m. Traveled north over a beautiful country until about 8 a.m., when our
advance reached the top of the ridge dividing the waters of the Powder from
that of the Tongue River. I was riding in the extreme advance in company with
Major Bridger. We were 2,000 yards at least ahead of the General and his staff;
our Pawnee scouts were on each flank and a little in advance; at that time
there was no advance guard immediately in front. As the Major and myself
reached the top of the hill we voluntarily halted our steeds. I raised my field
glass to my eyes and took in the grandest view that I had ever seen. I could
see the north end of the Big Horn range, and away beyond the faint outline of the
mountains beyond the Yellowstone. Away to the northeast the Wolf Mountain range
was distinctly visible. Immediately before us lay the valley of Peneau creek,
now called Prairie Dog creek, and beyond the Little Goose, Big Goose and Tongue
River valleys, and many other tributary streams. The morning was clear and bright,
with not a breath of air stirring. The old Major, sitting upon his horse with
his eyes shaded with his hands, had been telling me for an hour or more about
his Indian life—his forty years experience on the plains, telling me how to
trail Indians and distinguish the tracks of different tribes; how every spear
of grass, every tree and shrub and stone was a compass to the experienced
trapper and hunter—a subject that I had discussed with him nearly every day.
During the winter of 1863 I had contributed to help Mrs. Bridger and the rest
of the family, all of which fact's the Major had been acquainted with, which
induced him to treat me as an old-time friend.
As I lowered my glass the Major said: 'Do
you see those ere columns of smoke over yonder?' I replied: 'Where, Major?' to
which he answered: 'Over there by that ere saddle,' meaning a depression in the
hills not unlike the shape of a saddle, pointing at the same time to a point
nearly fifty miles away. I again raised my glasses to my eyes and took a long,
earnest look, and for the life of me could not see any column of smoke, even
with a strong field glass. The Major was looking without any artificial help.
The atmosphere seemed to be slightly hazy in the long distance like smoke, but
there was no distinct columns of smoke in sight. As soon as the General and his
staff arrived I called his attention to Major Bridger's discovery. The General
raised his field glass and scanned the horizon closely. After a long look, he
remarked that there were no columns of smoke to be seen. The Major quietly
mounted his horse and rode on. I asked the General to look again as the Major
was very confident that he could see columns of smoke, which of course
indicated an Indian village. The General made another examination and again
asserted that there was no column of smoke. However, to satisfy curiosity and
to give our guides no chance to claim that they had shown us an Indian village
and we would not attack it, he suggested to Captain Frank North, who was riding
with his staff, that he go with seven of his Indians in the direction indicated
to reconnoitre and report to us at Peneau Creek or Tongue River, down which we
were to march. I galloped on and overtook the Major, and as I came up to him
overheard him remark about 'these damn paper collar soldiers telling him there
was no columns of smoke. The old man was very indignant at our doubting his ability
to outsee us, with the aid of field glasses even. Just after sunset on August
27 two of the Pawnees who went out with Captain North towards Bridger's column
of smoke two days previous came into camp with the information that Captain had
been correct.
The Answer to Our Quiz
Mark’s Tips for How to Escape Swim from a Castle Keep
or Alcatraz
• Many answer thoughtfully to this little quiz with answers
regarding illumination—the concern being with full moonlight offering too much
exposure—not a bad way to think. But…
• The crux, to the Waterman’s mind, is the tidal
flow—we’re told it’s a killing swim so we need to stack the odds in our favor.
• We all know there are such things as High Tides and
Low Tides—2 of each every day except in the anomalous Gulf of Mexico which
experiences 1 of each per day.
• Full Moons and New Moons provide us with Spring
Tides, that is, our tides will be the highest highs and the lowest lows—these
extremes provide lots of horizontal churn in the water rendering our killin’
swim all the more dangerous.
• To make that swim as survivable as we can, we will
look to bust out during Neap Tides [lowest of extremes between High and Low
Tides—less horizontal churn in the current.]
• If we pick an escape day approximately 7 days after
a Full Moon or 7 days after a New Moon it gives us our best swimming odds
[barring storm fronts or wind churn putting us back into killin’ zones.]
• These two 7-days after choices also give us less
light than Full Moons [a good thing] but if we go with the almost no light of
New Moons or Gibbous Moons we’re right back into the dangerous killin’ waters
problem.
The World is Our Book. She is there to
read and take notes.
To keep our fivefold endowment sharp on
every point of life’s sacred pentagram, we must make a conscious choice to see,
smell, hear, taste, touch everything we can with full sensory consciousness.
If not, we are as fractionally blind as the guidebook-laden
greenhorn Lieutenant or the spyglass wielding Cavalryman.
For a more in-depth test of your observational/scout
prowess see here: https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/.../warrior...
[For more Rough
& Tumble history see this blog, and for pragmatic applications of old
school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW/Black
Box Subscription Service.]
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