West from Singapore (Ss) (1987) (11 page)

As swiftly as they had come, they were gone, and the rail was littered with bodies.

Jim ran to the taffrail and snapped a couple of quick shots at the boats. He was rewarded by seeing one native jerk to his feet and topple over the side.

Slug Brophy came running aft with Red Hanlon and two of the crew. All carried rifles.

"Take 'em, boys!" Slug roared. "Let 'em have it!"

The rifles crashed, and volley after volley smashed into the fleeing boats. One of them swung broadside, drifting helplessly with the tide, its cargo only death.

"That'll hold them," Jim said drily. "I wonder what started that?"

Slug grinned. "You can't chase all over the ocean mixing into trouble wherever you find it without getting guys after your scalp!" he said grimly. "These babies didn't tackle this boat because they wanted, but because they were told to!"

"Yeah," Jim agreed. "You got something there."

Suddenly he thought of Carol and started forward on a run. He swung into the starboard passage and stopped dead still. At the end of the passage her door swung idly with the slight roll of the ship, and the room beyond was lighted and empty. In the passage, a native woman lay on the floor, dead.

Jim swore viciously and leaped over the sprawled body. One glance told him that Carol was gone. Wheeling, he saw another native huddled in a corner, run through with his own spear. A groan startled him.

Whirling, gun in hand, he saw Longboy struggling to sit up, blood running from a gash on his scalp. Quickly, he knelt beside him.

"What was it, Boy?" he asked. "What happened?"

"Six, eight mans, they come overside while you fight. I see them. I hit one, knock him over. I throw marlinespike, get another one. Then pretty soon I in here, mans grab Missee, I sock 'em. Stick him with spear. Somebody shoot-bang, I no know what happen."

Jim got to his feet. "Red, get this man to the steward, you hear? Slug, we're going ashore. Those babies can't travel much faster than we can. I brought that dame down here, and I'll see she gets to her old man in one piece. Gunner stays here in charge.

I'll take you, Selim, Tupa, Abdul, the Strangler, and Hassan. We've got to move fast!"

When the boat touched the sand the moon was just lifting over the horizon. Jim Mayo shifted his rifle to his left hand. "Red, you and Fly Johnny take the boat back," he ordered.

"I'll keep Singo and Macabi with the rest of us. We might stumble into a tough scrap.

Tell the Gunner to get the hook up if I'm not back by daylight and take her around to the Sepik. If we don't get them we'll pick you up about two miles up off Sago Bar."

Turning quickly, he struck off at a rapid walk. The natives would be traveling fast, as they would not expect pursuit before daylight and there was little chance of an ambush near the bay. Giant ficus trees spread their aerial roots beside the path, and there was heavy undergrowth, mostly ferns and sugarcane. The jungle shut in suddenly, dark and ominous.

Ponga Jim slowed his pace. Just how many men were in the band ahead he could not guess. Probably forty or fifty, for there had been nearly a hundred in the attacking party, and fearful execution had taken place along the rail and in some of the boats.

Slug hurried up alongside Jim. His short, powerful body moved as easily and rapidly as any one of the long, lithe seamen behind. "Gosh, Skipper, I hate to think of them Guineas having Miss Sutherland. That girl was a bit of all right."

"Yeah," Jim nodded gravely. "You bet she was. But I'm not worried about them. That attack was planned by a white man for a purpose. You know what I think, Slug? Somebody knew that girl was aboard!"

"You mean they jumped us just to get her?"

"That's just what I mean. At first, I thought it was some of the same bunch we've had trouble with, and they recognized the boat. I thought maybe they were afraid we were going to butt in again. But now I think they had some spy who saw the girl come aboard in Port Moresby or saw her at Salamoa. The attack was a blind so that, under cover, they could get her."

"But what's the idea? What good would she be to them?" "None, unless-" Jim hesitated, frowning.

"Unless what?"

"Unless they've got her father, and probably Arnold. They could use her to put pressure on Sutherland and Arnold, to make them give up a lot of information that both of them have. Those two are the big boys of the counterespionage movement down here.

They know all the ropes."

Slug hitched his gun a little and swore under his breath. He knew only too well what fiendish tortures those savages could think of, but it wasn't the Papuans who would be worst, for the civilized men who led them would be most dangerous.

In the damp light of dawn they stopped for a hurried lunch. All the men were silent, grim. Jim scouted out along the trail with Tupa. Tupa knelt in the mud, pointing.

"See? They come this way," he said.

Jim studied the marks of high heels thoughtfully. Several times during the night his flashlight had picked them out along the trail among the tracks of other men.

Now, in the growing light of day, they were plainer.

Ponga Jim swore suddenly.

"Slug!" he called. Brophy came running. "Look at those tracks! Carol Sutherland never made those! She'll weigh about a hundred and fifteen, and by now she'd be tired.

Yet those steps are light. They've got a child or a Negrito wearing those shoes!"

Brophy scowled. "But where the hell-"

"The river!" Jim said suddenly. "They made for the river. Get that stuff out of the way and let's go!"

In a matter of minutes the packs were made, and Ponga Jim led off into the jungle at a rapid walk. As he walked, his mind worked rapidly. It could be either Heittn or Petrel, but somehow he believed this last attack was by someone new to him.

William, not so long since, had mentioned something about two German agents, Blucher and Kull, who had come into the Indies. Despite the loneliness of some sections of the New Guinea coast, it would be a poor place from which to operate. His common sense told him that the seat of the trouble would be in the dark and little-known interior. Legends placed the House of Qasavara somewhere in the unknown country at the headwaters of the Sepik.

They were following a well-beaten trail, and Jim paused from time to time to listen, but heard no sound. He was sure the trail would bring him out somewhere near Sago Bar, where he could intercept the Semiramis.

Despite time and trouble, regardless of danger, it was up to him to follow the natives who had captured Carol Sutherland. Also, there was a chance Arnold was somewhere up the river and in terrible danger. Dawn was just breaking when they came out on the bank the river. About a mile wide, it rolled rapidly seaward, bearing here and there a giant tree or snag floated from the jungle upriver. The flood season was past, but the water was still high. The Sepik would carry a boat that didn't draw more than thirteen feet for at least three hundred miles. With a good deal of extra water, there was a chance he could go much farther than that.

Tupa glided to his side, moving soundlessly.

"Papua boy, he come!" he whispered, pointing up the bank. Moving toward him in the early light of dawn he saw a dozen powerful savages.

"Wussi River boy," Tupa said softly. "They bad. Plenty mean."

The Wussi River was some distance west, and these boys were far off their usual beat.

Ponga Jim shifted his rifle to the hollow of his arm and waited. His dealings with the natives there had been friendly, but for the most part they were a surly bunch.

Many of them understood a few words of German and called small coins "marks." Obviously, a remnant of the touch of civilization acquired when the Germans had owned that section, prior to the world war.

Jim stepped forward. "You see Papua boy? White girl?"

The Wussi River men stared at him sullenly, muttering among themselves, but did not reply. Then one of them, a big man, stepped from the crowd and began a fierce harangue.

His voice rose and fell angrily, and he made fierce gestures. Ponga Jim watched him warily.

"What's he say, Tupa?" he asked guardedly.

"He say you go away. You bad white man. Qasavara very angry. Pretty soon he call all white men, all who know or talk to white men. Mebbe so all people who no fight white men."

"Tell him that's a lot of hooey," Jim said coolly. "Tell him I'm a friend, that all Englishmen are his friends, too. Tell him Qasavara is dead, he was killed by Qat, the good spirit."

Tupa told him quickly, but the native shook his head stubbornly. Tupa's eyes widened.

"He say Qasavara has many men. Pretty soon he kill all English. He say Qasavara has dragons, two of them, with wings. Pretty soon take plenty heads."

"Yeah?" Jim said. He hooked his thumbs in his belt. "So they got some ships? You tell that monkey face I personally will take care of Qasavara. Tell him he swiped my woman."

Jim grinned and shifted the gun in his hands, watching the natives warily.

"Hey, Skipper!" Brophy said suddenly. "Here comes some more from the other direction!

About twenty of them!"

Ponga Jim wheeled, but as he turned, he caught a flicker of movement from the jungle trail along which they had come. More headhunters.

"All right, boys," he said casually. "We're in for a fight. But we always win our fights, so take it easy and back up to those snags on the bar. Brophy, you and the Strangler get over there behind those logs now. Just walk over, taking it easy. As soon as you get sheltered, cover our retreat. Get me?"

"Right down the groove, Skipper!" Brophy said cheerfully. "Selim! Abdul! Hassan!"

Jim snapped quickly. "Take that downriver bunch. Tupa, watch the jungle. You too, Singo. Macabi, you follow Brophy back to those snags."

He had noticed the snags before they were scarcely on the bank of the river. A half dozen giant jungle trees of the ficus type had floated here and beached themselves on Sago Bar. Tumbled together, they formed a rude semicircle facing the jungle, open toward the river. They presented a natural fortress from four to six feet high.

"All right, Tupa," he said finally, "you tell that big walrus we're going out on the bar to cook some breakfast."

The big man spoke suddenly, fiercely, walking rapidly toward them. Tupa looked worried.

"He say you move, he kill!" he said.

"Yeah?" Jim grinned. He handed his rifle to Tupa. "All right, when I sock this lug, you guys leg it back on that bar. Get sheltered as quick as you can, see?" The big native, a powerful man with huge muscles and an ugly face, came closer. "Watch it, Brophy!" Jim said loudly. "Here comes the fireworks!"

The big native stepped close and grabbed at Jim's arm. Then Jim hit him a short, wicked right chop that laid the man's cheek open for four inches. A short left hook came up into the man's belly, and the savage pitched forward on his face. A howl of anger went up, and suddenly, they rushed.

Ponga Jim whipped out his automatic and fired rapidly as he backed up. Two natives. spilled over on their faces, and then the rifles behind him began to crash. He turned and legged it for shelter. Something caught at his sleeve, but it wasn't until he was safe behind the log that he looked down. Slug's face was pale.

An arrow had gone through his sleeve near the wrist. One of those ugly, barbed arrows typical of the Papuans. Jim drew it out carefully.

"Would you look at that?" he said. "A yard long and six sharp bits of bone stuck in the shaft. If that got in a man they'd have to cut a six-inch hole to get it out.

And those things are steeped in decayed meat. Starts septic poisoning." He tossed the arrow over the log. "Let that be a lesson to you guys. Don't any of you get hit."

Five of the natives were stretched out on the river bank, and the rest had drawn back to the edge of the woods. There were at least a hundred savages inside the edge of that jungle by now, not over seventy yards away. Jim sat down and reloaded the clip in his automatic.

"You guys watch your step now," he said cheerfully. "There's nine rifles here and if we can't keep those guys from crossing that beach, we're a bunch of saps. Those boys can fight, but they haven't any belly for this stuff. If they start to come out, wait until nine of them are in sight. Then let them have it."

Slug touched Jim on the shoulder. "What did you hit that guy with?" he asked. "He hasn't wiggled a toe yet!"

"Hell, no!" Jim looked disgusted. "I hit that guy with my Sunday punch, and if he ever moves again, he's lucky. But I hit his cheek, not his chin, so he'll probably be able to crawl away in a few minutes."

"Here they come!" Slug said suddenly, and Ponga Jim whirled to see a wave of savages break from the edge of the jungle. Coolly, carefully, his men began to fire, and the brown line wilted like wheat before a mowing machine.

The attack broke, and the remaining natives fled, with at least thirty men scattered on the beach.

"Now what do they think of Qasavara?" Ponga Jim muttered drily. "Get set, you guys!

Here comes the Semiramis!"

The freighter was steaming up the river, and slowly the bow swung over in the channel, and a boat was lowered. On top of the chart house, Red Hanlon suddenly appeared and jerked the canvas jacket off the machine gun. He sat down behind it, and suddenly the gun began to rattle, drawing a thin line of steel along the jungle.