The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (43 page)

Brophy nodded. “There’s a coral ledge topped with sand with about a fathom of water over it. Outside of that it slopes off gradually until at a hundred yards it’s about three fathoms. Why?”

“You’ll be in command here. I’ll take Selim, Longboy, and Sakim with me. We’ll bring the wounded aboard. Now scatter out and don’t move either forward or back, get me?”

“What are you going to do?” Warren protested.

“Wait and see,” Jim said. “If this works I’m one up on the Nazis for trying new angles. We’re going to take that position in less than thirty minutes! Now listen. Keep up an intermittent fire. Pretty soon Millan will lay five shells in that fort, get me? Then you’ll hear shooting over there. And when you hear shooting beyond the wall, come running. I’ll need help.”

Millan met them at the ladder. “What’s up?” he demanded.

Jim indicated the cove.

“As the fort lays, the situation is impregnable from the island with our weapons. I want you to lay five shells behind that abutment. And they’ve got to be right on the spot. If you overshoot, you’ll kill the prisoners. If you undershoot, you’ll get our boys for sure.”

T
HE
G
UNNER STUDIED
the situation. Then he rolled his chewing in his jaw and spat.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll lay ’em right in their laps.”

“Well, whatever you do,” Ponga Jim added, “don’t drop any shells in the cove, because if you do they’ll be in my lap!”

“The cove?” Millan was incredulous. “You couldn’t get in there with a boat! They’d riddle you!”

Ponga Jim grinned. “Break out those Momsen lungs, will you? I’ll show those Jerries some tricks!”

An hour dragged by. The warm afternoon sun baked down on the little island. Ring Wallace took a swallow from his canteen and swore. Warren wiped the sweat from his face and kept his hands away from the hot rifle barrel. “I wonder what became of Mayo?” he asked.

“Darned if I know,” Ring said. “But he’s got something up his sleeve. Whatever it is, it better be good. That raider has me worried.”

A gun crashed from the
Semiramis,
and a shell screeched overhead, bursting beyond the abutment with a terrific concussion. A fountain of sand lifted into the air. Another shell screeched, and there was another explosion.

“That Millan!” Brophy said admiringly. “That guy can put a shell in your pocket. Just name the pocket!”

Two more shells dropped beyond the abutment, then a fifth.

The water of the cove stirred and rippled. Up from the pondlike surface five weird heads appeared, five faces masked in Momsen lungs. Lowering themselves into the water beyond the point, they had walked around in ten feet of water. Now they stripped the waterproof jackets from their guns and walked on. They were within a hundred feet of the shore, in just four feet of water, before they were seen.

One machine-gun emplacement had been smashed to bits with the first shell. Two others had exploded on the abutment itself, and a third had landed in a gasoline supply that was burning furiously. The final shell had been shrapnel, and the devastation had been terrific. Seven men had fallen from that one shell alone.

Crawling from behind a pile of boxes, one of the defenders glanced at the cove. His jaw dropped. For a fatal second he stared, uncomprehending; then he jerked up his rifle. Too late. Ponga Jim shot him in the stomach. As the startled defenders turned, Jim ran up the last few feet, and his automatic opened with a roar like a machine gun.

In a scattered line the other men rushed up the beach. The Germans, caught off balance, were rattled. They fell back. And in that instant the frontal attack broke over them. Brophy, Wallace, Warren, and the others cleared the barrier. The two sides met in a deadly rush.

A German dove at Jim. He spun out of the way, clouting the man over the head with the barrel of his gun. Then he snapped a quick shot at a man leveling a rifle at Wallace and fired a burst into a group trying to swing the machine gun on the prisoners.

A terrific blow struck him over the ear, and he went down, grabbing at the man’s legs. He upset his assailant and scrambled astride, swinging both hands for the fellow’s jaw. Then he was on his feet again and grabbing up a rifle. He jerked the barrel up into a charging German’s stomach and pulled the trigger. The man’s mouth fell open, and with his back half blown away, he sagged limply to the ground.

A
S SUDDENLY AS
it had started, it was over. Brophy released the prisoners, and Wallace herded the half-dozen Nazis still alive into a corner of the fort where Lyssy and Big London took them over.

Aldridge came up on the run.

“Nice going!” he said, clapping Mayo on the shoulder. “That attack from underwater completely demoralized them.”

“Yeah,” Wallace agreed. “Now if we only had the spy—”

“We have,” Ponga Jim said shortly.

A silence fell over the crowd. Brophy’s gun slipped into his hand, and he backed off a little, covering the group. Colonel Warren looked from one to the other, puzzled.

“What’s the matter with your shoulder, Aldridge?” Jim said, unexpectedly. “Hurt it?”

“Oh, that?” Aldridge shrugged. “Years ago. Can’t lift my arm overhead. But what about this spy?”

“So when you hit a man,” Mayo continued, “you couldn’t hit him over the head? It would have to be a swinging, sidearm motion? Then you were the guy who jumped me in the passage.”

Aldridge smiled, but his eyes were cold, wary.

“Nonsense! You think I’m a spy? Me? I went to school with Warren, there, and—”

“Remember the first day I saw you?” Mayo said. “You mentioned the Qasavara affair. That business is lost in the files of the British Intelligence service. My own connection with it is known to only two Englishmen—Colonel Sutherland and Major Arnold, who were with me. If you knew of it, you had to learn from a Nazi source.”

Mayo smiled. “I was suspicious of you for knowing that. Later, I checked on the location of the flyers during my attack. You could have been in your hammock. On the other hand, you could have slipped out. From the locations, no one else could have.

“So today I had you followed by Fly Johnny, one of my crew. In fact, for the past week he has never been more than a few feet from you.

“Today, when we first came ashore, Millan went through your quarters. He found the package of flashlight powder you used in making signals. He also found other evidence, so I think the case is clear.”

Aldridge nodded, his face hard.

“Sounds conclusive,” he agreed, “so I guess—”

He wheeled like a cat and jerked Warren’s gun from his hand. Eyes blazing with hatred, the gun swept up. But he was too slow. Ponga Jim stepped forward in one quick stride, half turning on the ball of his foot. His right fist smashed upward in an uppercut that slammed Aldridge into the sand, the gun flying from his fingers.

Ponga Jim looked at him once. “Bring him along,” he said, “we’ll be going now.”

“You know,” Warren said seriously, “the more I think about it the more I believe Drake had something!”

Ponga Jim grinned. “Yeah, and he would have liked you!”

In the radio shack, Ponga Jim Mayo picked up the stub of a pencil, grinned, and scratched out a message.

MAJOR WILLIAM ARNOLD

RAFFLES HOTEL

SINGAPORE
,
S
.
I
.

PROCEEDED WITH CAUTION AND A LOT OF GOOD IT DID
.
ARMED MERCHANTMAN OF TEN THOUSAND TONS NOW HAS HOLE IN HIS BOW AND DISABLED GUN. WE HAVE ENEMY AGENT ABOARD—IN IRONS. WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND YOU CAN HAVE THEM. WILL BE IN RED SEA FRIDAY. NUTS TO YOU.

MAYO
.

South of Suez

CHAPTER I

T
he heavy concussion of the first shell brought Ponga Jim Mayo out of his bunk, wide-awake in an instant. He was pulling on his shoes when he heard the whistle in the speaking tube.

“Skipper?” It was Gunner Millan. “We’re running into a battle! Can’t see a thing but red flashes yet, about three points on the starboard bow. Sounds like a battlewagon.”

“Put her over to port about four degrees,” Ponga Jim said quietly. “Have the watch call Brophy and get the gun crews topside.”

He got up, slid into his dungarees, and slipped on the shoulder holster with the forty-five Colt. There would be no need for it at sea, but he had worn the gun so long he felt undressed without it.

When Ponga Jim reached the bridge the sky was lit with an angry glow of flame. Two freighters of the convoy off to the starboard were afire, and something was lifted toward the sky that looked like the stern of a sinking ship. They could hear the steady fire of six-inch guns and then the heavy boom of something much bigger.

S
ECOND MATE
M
ILLAN
came toward him along the bridge, swearing under his breath.

“Skipper,” he said. “I must be nuts, but I’d swear that gun wasn’t smaller than an eighteen-inch, and there’s nothing afloat carries a gun that big!”

“Sounds like it,” Jim said briefly. “Might be a sixteen. The
Tirpitz,
maybe. But you wouldn’t think they’d gamble a battleship in waters as narrow as the Red Sea.”

The blazing wreck of one freighter was directly opposite them, and suddenly a low, ominous blackness moved between them and the blazing ship. For a few minutes it was clearly outlined against the red glow of flame.

Squat, black, and ugly, the monster glistened in the reddish light. It was built low and completely covered by what appeared to be a steel shell. Even as they looked they saw the muzzle of a heavy gun belch flame. A big freighter, almost a mile away, was attempting to escape. Even as they watched, the shell struck it amidships.

Suddenly, but with every move so perfectly detailed as to seem like a slow-motion picture, the distant freighter burst. The amidships vanished and the bow and stern seemed to lift away from it and then fell back into the flame-tinged water. Then there was a slow rain of black débris.

“Gun crews standing by, sir,” First Mate Slug Brophy said, as he came up. He saluted snappily, but he was scowling as he looked off across the water. “What the devil kind of a craft
is that
?” he demanded. “Looks like she was a seagoing tank.”

Ponga Jim nodded. “It’s what I’ve been wondering why someone didn’t do,” he said crisply. “That’s a new battleship. No elaborate superstructure, no basket masts or turrets. She’s completely covered by a steel shell and probably bomb-proof. She’s built along the lines of a streamlined Merrimac.”

“Lucky that fire’s in her eyes and we’re back here,” Slug said. “One shell from her and we’d be blown so high we’d starve to death falling back.”

“Yeah.” Jim studied the warship through his glass and then glanced ahead. “Gunner, lay all five guns on that baby. I’m going to give her a broadside and then run for it.”

“You’re nuts!” Brophy exploded. “Why, Chief—”

“You heard me,” Ponga Jim said sharply. “Get going.”

He stepped into the wheelhouse.

“Selim,” he said to the pockmarked, knife-scarred man at the wheel, “aren’t we abreast of the old smuggler’s passage through the reef? It gives us about five fathoms, doesn’t it?”

Selim nodded, lifting his eyes from the compass.

“I take her through?” he asked.

Ponga Jim studied the mystery ship ahead thoughtfully and then the nearing bulk of a large rocky island.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll fire that barge a broadside and then slip around that island and through the reef passage. They can’t follow us, and blacked out the way they have us these days, we’ll be invisible against that rocky shore. We got a chance.”

He stepped back to the bridge and lifted his megaphone.

“You may fire when ready, Gridley!” he said and grinned.

The crash of the five 5.9s left his ears momentarily dead and empty. The freighter heeled sharply over. With his glasses on the warship, Ponga Jim waited for the
Semiramis
to recover.

“All right, Gunner,” he called. “Once more!”

He had his glasses on the warship when the salvo struck. He scowled and then spun on his heel.

“Hard over!” he snapped crisply. “Show them our stern, if anything.” He stepped on the speaking tube. “Chief,” he called, “give me all she’s got! We’re in a spot, so keep her rolling.”

Slug Brophy and Gunner Millan had returned to the bridge. The squat first mate wiped his face with a blue handkerchief.

“You sure pick ’em big when you want trouble!” he observed. “See those five-point-nines slide off that shell? Like rice off a turtle’s back! What kind of a ship is that, anyway?”

“That ship,” Ponga Jim said quietly, “can destroy British and American naval supremacy! The United States has the biggest, best, and most efficient navy afloat, but we haven’t anything as invulnerable to attack as that ship!”

Behind them a gun boomed, and off to the left a huge geyser of water lifted toward the sky. Ponga Jim glanced aft and then looked at the black bulk of the rocky island. Selim was cutting it close, but no one knew the Red Sea better than he did.

The
Semiramis
steamed straight ahead and then, at a low word from Selim, slowed to half speed as he turned the ship at right angles to her course. Ponga Jim stared into the darkness ahead, hearing the roll of the surf on the coral reef. He put his hand up to his forehead, to find he was sweating.

Brophy stood close beside him, staring down at the black, froth-fringed reef dead ahead.

“You sure this guy knows what he’s doing?” Slug muttered. “If he doesn’t—”

“He does,” Mayo said quietly. “Selim was a smuggler in this sea for several years. He knows every cove and passage in the eleven hundred miles of it.”

As if to prove his statement, the reef suddenly seemed to open before them, and an opening, invisible until they were close up, appeared in the reef.

In a matter of seconds they were through and in the clear water of the inside passage….

T
WO DAYS LATER
the
Semiramis
steamed slowly into the harbor at Port Tewfik and moved up to the place at the dock that had been made ready for them.

“Mr. Brophy”—Ponga Jim turned to the chief mate—“get the hatches off and the cargo out of her as quick as you can. Take nothing from anybody, use any gear you need, but it must get out. Also, I want a man at the gangway every hour of the day and night. Nobody comes aboard or leaves without my permission. Also I want one man forward and one aft. All to be armed. Understand?”

“You must be expecting trouble,” a cool voice suggested.

Ponga Jim turned to find himself facing a square-shouldered young man with a blond mustache and humorous blue eyes. He was a slender man with a narrow face, dark, immaculate, and with a military bearing, and had just boarded the
Semiramis
with a companion.

“William!” he exclaimed. “What in time are you doing in Egypt? Thought you were in Singapore?”

Major William Arnold shrugged his shoulders.

“Trouble here, too,” he said. “Heard you were coming in, so thought I’d drop down and see you.” His gaze sharpened. “Have any trouble coming up from Aden?”

“We didn’t,” Ponga Jim said drily, “but we saw a convoy get smashed to hell.”

“You
saw
it?”

Ponga Jim was nodding as Major Arnold quickly added:

“Jim, let me present Nathan Demarest, our former attaché at Bucharest. He’s working with me on this job.”

“Glad to know you,” Ponga Jim said, and then he looked back at Arnold. “Yes, we saw it,” he said briefly, and went on, as his glance went back to Demarest. “Arnold will tell you that I don’t run to convoys, so we were traveling alone. About six bells in the middle watch I got a call and got on deck to find a big warship blasting the daylights out of the convoy. Only one destroyer remained in action when we came up to them. And that not for long.”

“A ship?” Arnold demanded. “Not submarines?”

“A ship,” Mayo repeated. “A ship that couldn’t have been less than forty thousand tons. She was streamlined and completely shelled over like a floating fort, and she mounted eighteen-inch guns.”

“Your friend Captain Mayo is a humorist,” Demarest suggested to Arnold, smiling. “There is no such ship.”

“I’m not joking,” Ponga Jim said stiffly. “There was such a ship, and we saw it.”

Arnold looked at his friend thoughtfully.

“What happened, Jim?” he finally asked.

“We were coming up in the darkness and were unseen. I gave them two salvos from my guns, and then we slipped around an island and got away.”

“You hit her?”

“Yes—direct hits—and they didn’t even shake her. Just like shooting at a tank with a target rifle.”

Demarest’s face had hardened. “If this is true we must get in touch with the Admiralty,” he said. “Such a ship must be run down at once.”

“If you’ll take my word for it,” Mayo said slowly, “I’d advise being careful. This ship is something new. I don’t believe bombs would have any effect on her at all. She looks like someone’s secret weapon.”

Ponga Jim Mayo glanced at the winches.

The booms were being rigged, and in a few minutes the cargo would be coming out of the freighter.

“Is this what brought you here, William?” he asked. “Or something else?”

“Something else,” the major said. “Have you heard of Carter’s death? Ambrose Carter, the munitions man? He was found shot to death in his apartment near Shepheard’s in Cairo three weeks ago. Then General McKnight was poisoned, and Colonel Norfolk of the CID, who was investigating, was stabbed.”

“McKnight poisoned?” Ponga Jim exclaimed. “I heard he died of heart failure.”

“That’s our story,” Arnold agreed. “We mustn’t allow anyone to know, Jim. But those are only three of the deaths. There have been nine others, all of key men. Some poisoned, some shot, one stabbed, two found dead without any evidence of cause of death, others drowned, strangled, or snake bit.”

“Snake bit?”

“By an Indian cobra. The thing had been coiled in one man’s bed. When it bit him he died before help could get to him. Jim, they called me here because these deaths can’t be explained. Carter, for instance, was an acknowledged pro-Nazi, a former friend of Hitler’s. If it weren’t for that, it would seem logical the Nazis were starting a reign of terror, killing off the leadership for a major attack in the Near East.”

“If not the Nazis,” Jim protested, “then who could it be?”

“I wish I knew.” Arnold’s eyes narrowed. “But you’d better come along and tell this to Skelton. He’s in charge here in Port Tewfik. The man who will have to know and to act.”

CHAPTER II

Seated in the office of Anthony Skelton, two hours later, Ponga Jim Mayo repeated his story, quietly and in detail. Two other men were there besides Demarest and Arnold. One he was introduced to as Captain Woodbern, of the Navy. The other was General Jerome Kernan.

Before Ponga Jim’s story was completed, Skelton was tapping his desk impatiently. Captain Woodbern was frankly smiling.

“Major Arnold,” Skelton said abruptly, “I’ve heard a great deal of your ability. I’ve also heard of the work Captain Mayo has been doing in the Far East. Which makes me the more surprised at your taking our time, Major, with such an obvious cock-and-bull story. This Captain Mayo evidently has a peculiar sense of humor or is susceptible to hallucinations. Such a story as his is preposterous on the face of it!”

Arnold stiffened. “I know Captain Mayo too well, Mr. Skelton,” he replied stiffly, “to doubt his word. If he says this story is true, then I believe it is true!”

“Then you’re more credulous than any intelligence officer should be!” Skelton snapped.

“Captain Mayo evidently saw something,” Captain Woodbern said, smiling, “but I’m afraid the darkness, the battle, the flames, and the general excitement caused his imagination to work a little overtime.”

General Kernan turned slightly in his chair. He was a big man with a hard jaw, a cold eye, and a close-clipped mustache.

“Mayo isn’t the type to be seeing things, Skelton,” he said. “Major Arnold has known him for some time, and his work has been valuable. I want to hear more of his story.”

Skelton glanced down at some papers on his desk. “We’ll see that proper investigation is made,” he said shortly. “In fact, we have already ordered two destroyers to the scene.”

Ponga Jim leaned forward. “Then, Mr. Skelton,” he said quietly, “you’ve sent two destroyers to destruction. Either they will return having found nothing, or they’ll never come back.” He got up abruptly. “Thanks for believing my story, General. As for you, Skelton, I’m not in the habit of having my word questioned. All I can say or do about that here and now, is to assure you that you are following the same trail of incompetence and smugness of others who didn’t believe Hitler would attack Britain, did not believe in parachute troops, or that the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor and the Philippines while suing for peace. Well, do what you choose. I shall investigate further myself!”

Skelton’s eyes blazed.

“No,” he said sharply, “you won’t! In the Far East your blunderings may have been occasionally convenient, but we want no civilian interference here. You make one move to investigate or to interfere and I’ll have the
Semiramis
interned for the duration!”

Ponga Jim smiled suddenly. He leaned his big brown fists on the edge of the desk and looked into Skelton’s eyes.

“Listen, pal,” he said coldly, “you may have a lot of red tape around the throats of other men. But I’m not subject to your orders, and I’ll sail when and where I please. If you want to intern my ship, I’ve got five-point-nines and plenty of ammunition. You’ll think you’ve tackled something. When I get ready to sail, I’m sailing. Stop me if you feel lucky.”