The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (51 page)

“Ah?” the voice was gentle, polite. “Are you being entertained, Captain Mayo?”

Weasel-face stopped, his mouth half open to speak. Slowly he turned a sickly yellow. Captain Toya Tushima stepped into view. The trim little Nipponese held his features in an expression of calm benevolence but Weasel-face turned as though fascinated with horror.

“I cannot say that it is good to see you again, Captain Mayo, but, in a war of strangers, I do feel a certain pleasure in an old acquaintance.”

“It’s been a long time since Manchuria, hasn’t it?”

“Perhaps for you.” The Japanese looked at him carefully, as he might at a piece of awkward furniture. Then indicating the weasely crewman he spoke to Frazer who had come up.

“Do we need this man?” he asked.

Eric shrugged. “He is one of the recruits from the Transvaal…I don’t think so.”

“Good,” Tushima said pleasantly. “Stand aside.”

He unbuttoned his holster carefully and drew out a gun. The crewman drew away.

“No!” he begged hoarsely. “No! Please!”

The report of the gun was thunder within the steel walls. The seaman crumpled slowly, a round blue hole between his eyes.

Tushima looked at Blore.

“You really mustn’t talk so much,” he said. Without a backward glance, he walked away.

Blore, his hands shaking, picked up the dead man and carried him out. Brophy swallowed and looked at Li.

“I don’t think I’m eating,” he said. “I don’t think I got the stomach for it.”

“Better try,” Jim said, “this isn’t over yet.”

After they had eaten and Li was gone, the two men remained in the half darkness of the rope locker. Millan and the others, they heard, were confined in the seaman’s fo’c’s’le. Remembering the door into No. 5 hold he had used before, Jim began to work at his bonds. The door was behind the stack of line and, apparently, unnoticed. If they could get free…

For a long time, he worked in the darkness, twisting, tugging, and straining, but without success. And all the time, he carried a picture in his thoughts of the long gray ships of war coming up from the Banda Sea, taking the back door to the Philippines from their bases in Samoa and Port Darwin. Once their air cover had been lured away, the torpedo planes, the same ones that the
Semiramis
carried, would approach and, appearing to be the American planes returning from the battle, would get close enough to the carriers to launch a crippling attack. It was a potentially devastating plan.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Jim exclaimed suddenly. “If they get away with this, it will make Pearl Harbor look like a pink tea!”

He was thinking rapidly. If he could get his hands free, he could get down the ladder into the hold. Unless Lamprey had found it, or one of the others, there was a tommy gun in the Grumman. If he could get that gun and get on deck, he’d take his own chances.

Tugging at the ropes was a waste of time. Jim growled under his breath. Suddenly, an inspiration struck him.

“Slug?” he whispered. “Where did you put the gear from that smashed lifeboat? The one that was blasted in the Red Sea?”

“Over there, in the drawers,” Slug said. “Why?”

“There’s a couple of hatchets, an’ all the other gear. What I’m thinking of is the matches.”

Jim stretched out his legs and dug in his heels, dragging himself to the place where the smaller articles of gear were stowed. By getting his chin in the handhold on the drawer, he worked it open. Backing up to a pile of line, he worked himself up the pile until he was on his feet. He felt around carefully, and found the matches.

Their hands were tied behind them but Brophy struck a light and held the match so that Jim could slide back and hold his wrists over the flame. It burned his hand, burned his wrist, then went out. Brophy awkwardly struck another but dropped it trying to maneuver the match toward Jim’s wrists. The third time, however, Jim used the heat from the flame as a guide and positioned the rope carefully. It charred slowly, caught fire and burned, then went out. Brophy tried again, but the match broke in striking. Finally they got the rope burning and with a surge of strength, the strands parted. In a matter of minutes, they were both free.

CHAPTER V

Rubbing his wrists to restore circulation, Jim got to his feet. Then picking up a couple of steel battens for fastening hatches, he slid them under the door handle, driving a couple of wooden wedges in place to hold them securely. Slug watched him curiously.

“You figure out the wildest things,” he said. “What’s the idea?”

“Keep them guessing awhile. Suppose somebody came in before we got out of the hold? We’d be killed before we could get anywhere close to the deck. As it is, they’ll think we’re just trying to keep them out in case they get an idea to bump us off.”

Climbing over the rope, he grabbed the handle of the door to the hold, and twisted sharply. Nothing happened. The dismay on Brophy’s face mirrored his own.

“Locked!” Jim said. “They locked it!”

The mate hesitated, then doubling a big fist he grinned at Jim.

“We can always jump them when they come in to feed us,” he said.

“Won’t do. They’d cut us down before we’d taken three steps.”

“Then I guess you better start kicking a hole in the deck,” Slug said dryly. “That’s the only way out I can see.”

“Wait a minute.” Jim crawled over the lines to the one porthole. The paint was stuck, but cutting around the edge with the hatchet, he managed to get it open. “We’ll have to wait until dark,” he whispered, “but we’re going out that port.”

“Into the ocean?” Brophy asked. “Not me!”

Jim chuckled. “What’s the matter? Getting chilly around the arches? You know blamed well you’ll do it if there was a chance of getting a crack at those mugs.”

Slug grinned. “Maybe, but I haven’t got the build you have. I’m thicker in the middle and might not go through so easy.”

Twice attempts were made to open the door, but they sat silent, listening. The Japanese weren’t worried. Both exits were closed tight, and if the prisoners wanted to do without food, they had only themselves to blame, and were much less trouble.

As they waited, Ponga Jim was recalling what Weasel-face had said. Two battleships behind Obi Major. That would mean they would be inside the reef somewhere between Tanjongs Woko and Parigi, probably. More ships might be lying in the Roads at Laiwoei.

On the other side of Greyhound Strait, several ships could lie out of sight in Banggai Bay, and even more in the deeper, spacious waters of Bangkalang Bay. Scouting planes could only see them when almost over the bays themselves, but it would already be too late.

He was no nearer a plan. If he had a plane, he could fly over and warn the fleet before they were in danger. Once warned they could handle the situation. He had no doubt about that.

Before he realized, it was dark. Slug Brophy had been lying on the piled-up lines looking out through the porthole.

“We’re not far offshore now,” he said. “I thought I glimpsed moonlight on the tin roof of the storage shed at Laiwoei and I thought I recognized Mala Mala a while back.”

“Then it’s time for us to go into action.” Jim got up quickly, thrusting a hatchet in his belt.

Picking up a heaving line he crawled to the port. He tossed the tail end of the line to Slug.

“Take a turn around some of that inch line,” he said. “This all depends on whether anybody is near enough or not. If they see or hear, we’re out of luck.”

Putting one arm and shoulder out the port, he worked his broad shoulders through. Then, sitting in the port with Slug holding his legs, he leaned back and threw the monkey’s fist.

The edge of the deck was just about eight feet above his head, and the ball of knotted rope went over the edge and under the lowest part of the rail. It hit the deck, rolled down with the roll of the ship, then back. He had missed.

Gauging the distance again, he tried another toss. But that time, too, he failed to make it roll down on the opposite side of the stanchion. On the seventh attempt, he was successful. It rolled back hard enough to come over the edge. Then by paying out line the weight of the monkey’s fist brought it back down to him. Passing it on to Slug, he began hauling down on the line until the inch line was around the stanchion.

Sliding back into the port, he cut off the inch line while Slug unbent the heaving line.

“I’m going to take the piece we use with us, or drop it over the side,” Jim said. “Let them think we’re locked up. They’ll find out too soon, anyway.”

Pulling himself back to a sitting position in the port, he grasped the two lines in his hands and went up, hand over hand. As soon as he was over the ship’s side, he dropped the rope close in front of the port so Brophy would see it.

He glanced around and was just in time to see the descending marlinspike, and jerked his head aside. The power of the blow jerked the man off balance and he almost fell over the rail.

Before he could cry out, Jim struck him. A driving right to the chin, and then another short one in the wind. Gasping for breath, the man struck wildly, and Jim almost lost balance and fell into the sea.

Clinging precariously to the rail, the two fought desperately and in silence. Then Ponga Jim’s superior strength gave him an advantage. The man was slipping, and he let go of Jim and grabbed desperately at the rail, but Jim knocked his hands loose and as the man fell forward, Jim grabbed the back of his neck and tipped him over the side.

Brophy jerked back out of the way just as the man fell past, but there was no scream, only a splash, and no further sound. Brophy came up the rope and Jim helped him to the deck. Then he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

“What do we do?” Slug said. “Turn the boys loose an’ take over the ship?”

“It’s too late,” Jim said. “Look!”

The
Semiramis
was just coming into the Roads at Laiwoei. Ahead of them lay a long gray destroyer, beyond that a cruiser and another destroyer.

They drew back into the darkness between a cargo winch and the mainm’st. “Go below in the hold somewhere and watch your chance to turn the others loose. Then if you can slip out of the Roads somehow, do it.”

“What about you?” Brophy demanded.

“I’m going ashore. Somehow I’m going to get word to the fleet, and somehow I’m going to get on Tobalai and see if I can throw a monkey wrench into this deal. Do what you can.”

Silently, the two men gripped hands, then Ponga Jim dropped to his knees behind the hatch-coaming and worked his way forward. A dash to the walk along the lee rail got him to shelter. He climbed up on the rail, did a hand-over-hand up the stanchion, and crawled over the edge to the boat deck.

There he lay, catching a breath, and looking under the lifeboat to estimate the situation. If he ran for it and made a dive over the side, he would be seen and heard. Probably on the destroyer as well as his own ship. His only chance was to wait.

He lay still, studying the situation. The deck was stirring with movement. He heard them let go the anchor forward, and saw a fast motor launch coming alongside from the nearest warship. That would be for Tushima, as they must have signaled.

Crawling aft to the machine gun, a glance told him there was no ammunition. That was as he had expected. They had removed any chance of its use by any of the crew that might escape. Swiftly, he dodged down the ladder and into the lighted passage. Footsteps approached, and he opened the nearest door and stepped in.

T
HERE WAS A STARTLED GASP
, and he wheeled to find himself facing Rayna Courcel. The girl’s eyes were wide.

“You!” she exclaimed. “Where did you come from?”

“Me? Seemed like a nice night for a stroll, so I started out. Got a gun?”

She picked up her handbag, drew the gun, and pointed it at him.

“I’m glad you reminded me,” she said. “You came in so quickly I forgot.”

“Are you giving it to me?” he said. “Or am I taking it?”

“You won’t try that, Captain Mayo,” she said quietly. “If you do, I’ll shoot, and I should very much dislike to do that.”

“It will not be necessary, Miss Courcel,” a voice interrupted.

Before Jim could turn he was seized from behind by a pair of powerful arms that were thrown about his body. Instantly, Jim dropped to one knee, at the same time grabbing his attacker’s wrist and elbow and giving a hard jerk.

With surprising ease the man flopped over Mayo’s shoulder and hit the deck hard. It was Eric Frazer. Before he could move, Jim hooked a short one to his chin, and slipped the man’s .45 from his holster.

Wheeling, he jumped into the passage, kicked a surprised guard in the stomach, and ran for the rail. The motor launch was alongside, and Jim made the ladder running, and was halfway down before the two surprised Japanese seamen in the boat could act. One of them grabbed for a gun, and Ponga Jim fired. The man dropped the gun and spilled over on his face.

There was a sudden movement behind him, and Jim fired again. Then he wheeled. Big London and Lyssy had been under guard but now they were right behind him, and even as they dropped into the boat, Big London cast off.

Jim leaped to the controls and the idling motor roared into life. On deck there was confusion, shouting, jostling men rushed toward the rail, and Big London, balancing himself easily, lifted the automatic rifle the sailor had been about to use, and sprayed the rail.

Ponga Jim spun the launch in a turn that almost capsized the boat and with the motor roaring wide open, raced for the destroyer. Missing the bow by inches, and the starb’rd anchor hawser by less, he spun the wheel again and raced the boat down close under the lee of the warship. It was too close for accurate firing from the deck and the rocky islet of Kadera was just a bit over a hundred yards astern.

“Down!” Jim yelled. “Get down!”

Lyssy and Big London both dropped, but both opened fire on the destroyer. A gun roared from the stern, and a shell hit the waves twenty yards ahead of them. Jim swung the boat hastily toward the spot where the shell had landed, and with the motor wide open, water lifting in a roaring fan on either side of the bow, raced for the shelter of Kadera. A machine gun rattled, and a bullet glanced from the engine cowling and whined past his ear. He skidded the boat around a rock, and for an instant was sheltered by the islet.