A few minutes later, the charcoal fire was lit again. Sanji took out the leftover ingredients he had put away earlier and began preparing food for the survivors of the passenger ship.
"Is this Colonel Wu Biao you mentioned a Marine?" Nami asked curiously.
"That's right. Colonel Wu Biao is a colonel from Marine Headquarters!" Everyone nodded. The captain wore a grateful expression. "We really have to thank Marine Headquarters. If Headquarters hadn't sent word asking us to look after Colonel Wu Biao, we probably wouldn't have survived without him."
Nami and the others grew even more curious. Luffy grinned broadly. "He sounds like a great guy! Where is he now? We have lots of food here—tell him to come eat with us!"
"Hey!" Nami smacked him over the head. "Didn't you hear them? He's a colonel from Marine Headquarters!"
"What's wrong with Marines?" Luffy looked utterly confused. After a while, he slapped his palm, suddenly enlightened. "Oh, right! We're pirates!"
"..." The Straw Hat Pirates covered their faces. Having such an airheaded captain really was... something they didn't want to admit.
"Ah, right, I forgot! There's a Marine here too!" Luffy suddenly recovered his wits, turning to go fight Aokiji, but Usopp and Sanji stopped him.
"You idiot, he's an admiral! Don't go provoking him first!"
After a long moment of speechlessness, Nami repeated the question Luffy had asked. "Isn't Colonel Wu Biao here?"
"Mm."
The captain nodded, then looked up at the sky before continuing, "Colonel Wu Biao took people to a nearby inhabited island. Every day these past few days, he's swum while towing a wooden board, taking groups of people to nearby islands. If you'd arrived one day later, we should have already left."
"Huh? He towed a wooden board, swam to a nearby island, and