Duck Hunting in Quicksand

Arthur Campbell, one of several colored guides at a hunting club in north Mississippi in the 1930s, a prescient, expert outdoorsman though barely literate, enters the employ of a prominent Memphis family until the late 1950s, profoundly impacting them even across the Pacific, becoming a second father to the narrator (in the absence of his father) through the War years and after...

Duck Hunting in Quicksand is a marvelous tale of heroism and humility, from the melting pot of Delta blues on Beale Street to the Pacific theater of WWII. Ensign Charles Deane Smith was listed MIA after his ship, the USS HOUSTON, was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese in the early hours of March 1, 1942, a surprise attack on the flotilla of Allied warships. His survival would not be known by his family for many months, but that morning and the next day Deane rescued many men, leading them to the isle of Java until they were captured by the Japanese after 3 days. Ensign Smith's three-and-a-half-year ordeal as a Japanese POW was foretold by humble hunting guide Arthur Campbell well before the War began.

Soon after America declared War in December 1941, the hunting and fishing retreat where he was employed closed, and Arthur Campbell sought employment in the household of one of the club members, Charlie Walterlane of Memphis. News of the demise of the HOUSTON had been the catalyst for all adult male Walterlane and Smith family members not already engaged to enlist or regain their commissions in the armed forces. Without their father or uncles, the five Walerlane children, especially the teenage boys Billy and Carlo, found a role model in Arthur Campbell. Carlo tells the story from his teen years until he became a young man: Arthur unintentionally became the family leader, and through their many adventures during and after the War, teaching his outdoors and life skills, was beloved by all Walterlanes until he died in 1957.