The Brass Chills

by Hugh Pentecost

  I was confused. None of this was making sense. In about thirty seconds those leadermen would come around the bend in the path and that would be that.

  “You’ve got to run for it, Chris. Take to the woods. Hide out till morning. Then you can stay here and fight it out. For God sake, man, hurry!”

  I had never felt panic before in my life, but it hit me then. It was the sound of those voices; the wild look in Bill’s pale eyes; the utter confusion in my mind.

  I turned and ran, crashing into the thick undergrowth.

  PART FOUR

  I

  I HADN’T gone fifty yards into the woods before I knew I’d pulled the boner of all time, but I couldn’t turn back now. I plowed on, trying to fight my way barehanded through growth that needed a bob knife. My clothes, my hands, my face were torn to shreds in the first ten minutes.

  I made so much noise in that first break-away that I couldn’t tell whether the pack was at my heels or not. It wasn’t until I tripped over a sprawling surface root and landed smack on my face, breathless, that I listened for them. I couldn’t hear anything at first except a roaring in my ears and my heart, beating like a tom-tom. There were voices, scattered, calling to each other. I knew I’d left a trail a baby could follow. I had to keep moving.

  There was no chance to think. I had committed myself, and I had to play it that way now. My experience with woods was limited to a little desultory bird-shooting back home. I had never been in tropical woods before. There might be snakes, or tarantulas, or God knows what, I thought. I crawled on my stomach now, trying not to break down any of the growth. Sometimes the voices were close, and then they’d fade away. The men weren’t woodsmen either, or they’d have had me cold in the first twenty minutes.

  I don’t know how long it was before I hit a swampy piece of ground. Looking back, I noticed that an oozy slime quickly obliterated my footprints in the mud. I cut straight across the swamp, sinking sometimes to my knees, once almost to my armpits. I remembered a lousy B picture I’d worked on once in which a guy died in a quicksand bog. I wished I’d never heard of it.

  When I got to what I decided was the middle of the swamp, I dragged myself up onto a rotted bog and lay there. I was really pooped. The voices were still not too far distant, but I couldn’t go any farther. I couldn’t go any farther if they stuck my face down in the mud and held it there. I was so tired I didn’t care.

  I began to understand now why men don’t fight death as hard as they might when it sneaks up on them. A kind of anesthesia settles over your mind. You don’t think straight. You think dying will only take a few minutes. It is much easier to quit fighting.

  I lay on that log thinking that if somebody did come along I’d just give up. But ten minutes later, when I heard someone slogging toward me across the swamp, I slid off the log into the soup and lay perfectly still, just my face sticking up above the ooze. Whoever it was passed not five yards away from me.

  When I could no longer hear the sound of his sloshing, I pulled myself up on the log again. The bugs bit hell out of me. It was growing dark in here. The dying sun couldn’t penetrate the heavy growth. I thought if I lit a cigarette it would keep the bugs off. The cigarettes in my case weren’t too sodden, but when I pulled out my matches, I found they were done for.

  I was thirsty, but I wouldn’t drink this slime. I was hungry. I began to wonder whether, if I waited until tomorrow, I’d ever find my way back to base. As I sat on the log I wasn’t entirely sure in what direction I’d come. There were no voices now. If the men were still searching, they had gone away from this area; perhaps they thought it was hopeless to go on in the dark. Hiding would be easy unless someone actually stumbled over me.

  My wrist watch was still going in spite of the soaking it had taken. I found myself looking at it each time I thought a half-hour had passed, only to find it was just another five minutes. By exercising great self-control, I forced myself to keep from looking at it, till I was sure a half-hour had passed. It would be seven or eight minutes at the outside. Once I went diving back into the slime as I heard a great thrashing in the growth not far from me. It turned out to be some sort of huge, nocturnal bird flopping around in the tops of the trees. I came out and went through the business of drying out once more.

  Very slowly my mind began to function. The hysteria of being hunted began to leave me, and reason returned. The facts separated themselves from emotions.

  The page from Alec’s medical book had been found in the lining of my uniform jacket. That was a fact. It was a stinking, lousy fact because it practically pinned murder on me — which was not a fact! There had been plenty of opportunity to plant the paper in my uniform? The whole island had been disorganized all day. There had been no regular tours of duty. Men had gone back and forth with no special check on them. There had been hours during which anyone could have gone in the shack without the slightest attention being paid to him.

  But why me? Why try to frame me? I had no damaging evidence. My presence on the Island was not essential. Of all the people there, I was the one whose absence would least affect the work to be done. The only value in the maneuver was to distract attention from the real murderer. But why not frame somebody important? Distract attention and get rid of a key man at the same time. That’s the way the murderer’s mind should have worked.

  Then a pattern began to form for me. Suppose it was Bill after all? He’d realized that his chances of being sent home tonight were excellent. He was trying to save his own hide. It was he who had persuaded me to run! That was the clincher! The page alone would not have been conclusive. But my running away made it seem open and shut. Bill had panicked me into it! Actually, if I’d faced it out, the men might have believed Bill had framed me. They already suspected him, and they lad no reason to suspect me. If Bill was responsible, his getting me to run had probably saved his hide. God, what a sucker I’d been!

  Maybe he was smarter than Bradley had figured him to be. Maybe he had planted those cigarettes outside Quartermayne’s door. Maybe he’d been shrewd enough to realize that, while the men might suspect him, Bradley would figure it as conclusive of his innocence, just as he had. A really smart criminal would take the detective’s mentality into consideration. He’d try to reason as the detective would reason. Maybe he had suckered Bradley, too. Maybe he had used Jess as an alibi. He’d only needed the unaccounted ten minutes to murder Quartermayne. He had figured Jess correctly. He had known she would step forward and alibi him, while he pretended to be unwilling and noble.

  The monstrous cold-bloodedness of the whole scheme jolted me in the pit of the stomach. All it needed for success was for us to underestimate him by one step all along the line. Every little gesture on his part had been designed to keep us that one step behind. His standing with his hands down, asking me to take a poke at him! He had been my pal back there on the path, pointing out the only way to safety.

  I remember pulling myself up to start back for the base and disclose the whole business. But I couldn’t make it in the dark. I’d only get myself hopelessly lost. But tomorrow … tomorrow I’d show Bradley how the pieces fitted. Tomorrow the diabolical cleverness of the whole thing would be obvious to everyone.

  I stretched out on the log, tried to forget how thirsty and hungry I was, and finally slept.

  II

  I woke abruptly with the sense of panic revived one hundred per cent. I lay perfectly still on the log, scarcely breathing. It was daylight. There was a smell in the air that did not belong here in a jungle swamp. For a moment in the fog of sudden awakening I couldn’t place it. Then I realized it was tobacco smoke. I turned my head and saw a pair of legs in mud-caked khaki. I lifted my eyes and looked at Bradley. He was leaning against a sloping palm tree. His face was gray and tired, but as his eyes met mine his mouth curved downward in a faint smile.

  “The Ship’s gone,” he said quietly. “We can go back to the base now, Chris.”

  I was suddenly acutely aware of my physical misery. My
mouth was dry, my stomach empty. Before I could say anything he came over and sat down on the log beside me. He handed me his water canteen. God, it tasted good. There was a mild lacing of whisky in it that sent warmth through my tired, aching muscles. While I drank, slowly at first, he opened his kit, took out a tin of corn beef and several hard biscuits.

  We sat there and shared the food without saying a word. I had a cockeyed desire to reach out and touch him. He represented safety, security, sanity. I wanted to thank him for his calm understanding.

  When I’d finished eating, he produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Tobacco never tasted better. I felt as if I’d just finished a magnificent Thanksgiving dinner. It was funny, but I suddenly remembered the pheasant under glass and the fresh asparagus which Rozzi and I had eaten the day after Pearl Harbor. I looked at Bradley.

  “I didn’t take that page out of Alec’s book,” I said. “I’ve never laid eyes on it in my life.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “You believe me?”

  “All the way, Chris,” he said.

  “Thank Gad for that,” I said.

  “I don’t know how much of an asset it is,” he said dryly. “The Navy and the work crews are beginning to wonder if I’m the kind of dumb flatfoot they’ve read about and seen in the movies all their lives.”

  I sat up straight. “You say the Ship’s gone! Did they — did anyone … ”

  “Nobody left on it but the crew,” Bradley said.

  “Then Bill … ?”

  “Hard at work in the foundry by now, I should think.”

  “But he’s the murderer!” I said.

  “Is he?” Bradley said. He flipped away his half-smoked cigarette and went back to filling his pipe.

  It bubbled out of me then, the whole picture as I’d figured it out before I’d fallen asleep. He listened, frowning down at the slime that oozed up over his shoe tops.

  “It’s good, sharp reasoning, Chris,” he said when I’d finished. “It just happens I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “But the facts,” I said. “They fit perfectly!”

  He sighed. “When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you develop a sort of sixth sense for the truth. There’s a case against Bill, I may even have to use it to save your life.”

  “My life!”

  “You’re going back to face a court-martial, Chris.”

  “But, for God’s sake!”

  “Cleave’s orders were to bring you dead or alive. If you happen to be alive, you’ll be under arrest and stand trial immediately. That’s why I came after you. I was afraid one of O’Rourk’s men might have itchy fingers.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it sharply. I felt as if I’d been slugged.

  “How did you find me?” I asked presently.

  “Finding people is my business. I waited until the Ship had gone, because you’d have been sent home, probably to a Navy prison, until somebody from out here could take time to go home and testify against you. Not a pleasant way to spend the war years!”

  “What chance have I got in a court-martial?” I asked. “Bill suckered me into practically admitting my guilt. Cleave’ll throw me to the wolves. He’s got to do something to pacify them.”

  “We’ll have to try to prevent that,” Bradley said. I had the nasty feeling that he didn’t sound brimming with confidence. “I’m going to give you one piece of advice that may be tough for you to take.”

  “Nothing is going to be tough from here in,” I said. “I’m numb!”

  “Don’t spring this case of yours against Regan at your hearing. It will sound unpleasantly like trying to pass the buck. Leave it to me to bring it up if things go badly.”

  “Then how do I explain my running away?”

  “With the truth,” said Bradley. “You were innocent, but with the men in the temper they were, you’d have had no chance. You’d have been sent home on the Ship. You came out here to do a job, and you wanted a chance to do it and a chance to prove your innocence.”

  “It was a cockeyed thing to do,” I said.

  “I disagree,” said Bradley, surprisingly. “If I’d been on deck I’d have given you the same advice Regan did. For selfish reasons, too. I’m going to need you out here, Chris.” He gave me that warm, friendly smile of his. “Shall we start back?”

  ***

  In spite of the fact that I’d been on the run for nearly two hours the night before, it turned out that my refuge had been about twenty minutes’ walk from the base. I’d evidently fallen into the greenhorn’s trick of running in circles.

  As we approached the base Bradley took my arm. “Got to make it look like an arrest,” he said.

  We went straight to the administration shack where Cleave had his office. We didn’t pass over three or four men. Until I saw myself in the mirror I didn’t understand why I caused no excitement. Scratched and mud-caked, I didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to Christopher Wells.

  Cleave glanced up from a mass of blueprints and specifications on his desk as we came in. His face went granite hard as he saw me.

  “So you found him, Bradley?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did he make any trouble?”

  “None at all, sir.”

  “Are you going to make this easy for us, Mr. Wells?” Cleave asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” I said.

  “By pleading guilty,” he said grimly.

  “I’m afraid not, sir. I haven’t killed anyone. I’ve never had any poison in my possession. I’ve never laid eyes on the page from Alec’s medical book.”

  “The evidence points in another direction,” he said.

  “What evidence, sir?”

  “The page was found in the lining of your whites.”

  “I can’t help that, sir. I’ve never seen the page. I don’t know how it got there.”

  He ran his hand back over his gray hair. He looked harassed. “You ran away,” he said.

  “If I hadn’t, I’d have been shipped home last night, sir, without a chance to defend myself.”

  He didn’t seem convinced. “I’m sorry you’re taking this attitude, Mr. Wells. You’ll consider yourself under arrest and confine yourself to your quarters. Court-martial proceedings will commence this evening after the men have come off duty. That’s all.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Bradley went out with me. “Get cleaned up and try to get some rest,” he said. “And don’t think too much.” He grinned. “Try leaving that to me.”

  “I’d be pretty sunk if I didn’t know you were pulling for me,” I said.

  “Forget it,” he said. “I’m going to send Alec to see you. Some of those insect bites may be poisonous. He’ll give you something for your cuts and scratches, too.”

  He turned me over to one of O’Rourk’s men, who marched me back to our shack and took- up a post outside.

  III

  I had just come out of the shower and gotten into a pair of pajamas when Alec Walker turned up with his medical kit. He was very shy and, as a result, businesslike at first. He didn’t think I was going to die of mosquito bites. He gave me some salve for the scratches. I saw he was going to avoid any discussion of my situation — which didn’t make sense.

  “I know what’s on your mind, Alec,” I said. “You may not believe me, but I’m not guilty of anything except running away. I didn’t poison your tomato juice.”

  He was locking up his little black bag. “Chris,” he said, “evidence is a funny thing. We run up against it in scientific investigation all the time. Fact after fact seems to point to some definite conclusion. You think you’ve solved your problem except for a couple of loose ends. But you can’t tie up those loose ends, no matter how hard you try. You want to complete your experiment, so you keep on fiddling with the loose ends without admitting that probably some of your facts are cockeyed.” He took off his spectacles and wiped them carefully. “I’ve listened to the case against yo
u, Chris, and it’s pretty damned convincing. Wasdell is going to handle it, and he’s a man with just one thought in mind. He wants to clear everything up and get his ship in fighting trim.”

  “I hope to God we can find a loose end somewhere,” I said.

  He looked surprised. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it?”

  “I know I’m innocent,” I said, “but that doesn’t help much.”

  “Are you going to handle your own defense?” he asked.

  “Nobody’s told me. Bradley believes me, but I don’t know whether he’ll represent me at the hearing or not.”

  “Well, there’s a loose end that I can’t tuck in,” Alec said. He replaced his spectacles. “How did you poison those five men who were taken ill before we sailed?”

  “The same way I’m supposed to have poisoned you and Quartermayne, I guess.”

  “Don’t be a fathead,” Alec said. “You weren’t on the Ship!”

  I guess my eyes must have popped out of my head because he started to laugh.

  ***

  I slept after that. I slept hard because I felt much better. I thought it was funny Bradley hadn’t hit on the point Alec had made, but it didn’t matter. When I woke up I discovered that Bill had been in the shack sometime during the day, because his work clothes had been put to soak in a round metal washtub in the bathroom. There was a tray on the table in his room with sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, evidently for me. I ate and drank. I felt good. This court-martial wasn’t going to amount to much once I pointed out that I simply didn’t fit all the necessary parts of the pattern.

  About six o’clock Bradley came in. I couldn’t wait to tell him. He listened, puffing at his stubby black pipe. When I’d finished he said:

  “Sit down, Chris. I want to talk to you.” He sounded grave. In spite of myself I felt a faint sinking in the midsection. I sat. “I told you I believed you were innocent, Chris. It wasn’t just your open-work face that convinced me. I’ve recognized from the start that the poisoner, unless we’re dealing with a gang, which I don’t believe, had to be on the Ship, a good twelve hours before you were. But I don’t want you to bring it up at the hearing.”