Renegade 28

by Lou Cameron

  Captain Gringo set up his Maxim, armed it, and as others crowded in behind the same clump, yelled, “Spread out, hit the dirt, and use your own guns, damn it! Make them work at nailing us all with the same mortar round!”

  Most of them could see the sense of that. As he growled, “Beatriz, we’ve soldiered together before, so you’re my loader. Atanua, keep your head up and your ass down, here, on my other side.”

  The Kanaka girl said, “Me got rifle dropped by sissy. Who you wantem me shoot? Whattafuck’s going on?”

  “Cover my right flank and shoot anything trying to come down the beach at us.” He sighed as, to his left, Beatriz gasped, “Eleven o’clock, Deek!”

  He swung the muzzle to cover the rifle squad charging them bold as brass, outlined by the camp lights, but held his fire as Beatriz insisted, “Shoot! For why are you waiting, Deek?”

  He let them get within point-blank range before he mowed them flat in a moaning windrow and said quietly, “That’s why. Where are Hilda and Alfrieda?”

  Beatriz said she hadn’t seen them leave the lugger. So when, a few seconds later, the mortar landed a round directly on the stranded craft and, having the range now, proceeded to pound La Paloma to kindling, he shook his head wearily and said, “Shit, they were both great kissers, too!”

  Then Atanua said, “Somebody creeping at us. But they vahines alleesame me, my word. Hey, they German sistahs!”

  Captain Gringo turned and called out, “Hilda, over here on the double! We thought you kids were dead!”

  The bedraggled blonde said, “Ach, we thought so, too!” as she and the redhead joined them in the now most meager cover. Alfrieda said something in German. Hilda translated and said, “She ist right. She a stockholder in Halle und Feldmacher ist. So they would not shoot her!”

  He pointed with his chin at one of the still forms on the chalky ground out front and growled, “I wouldn’t bet on that. They just blew away old Padilla without asking him what he might or might not own stock in.”

  “But, Dick, if a woman approached them waving a white cloth …”

  “Okay, so then what?”

  “We could maybe a deal machen?”

  “What deal could we offer them? They’ve got us pinned down with our backs to the sea. They know better now than to charge us. But we sure as shit ain’t about to charge them, and once the moon rises, they’ll be able to pick us off with that mortar. They’d be lobbing at us right now if they didn’t care about wasting ammo. Hey, that’s a bright note. They may not have an unlimited amount of ammo. On the other hand, neither have we!”

  Alfrieda said something that sounded pretty firm and reached out to snatch Atanua’s light-colored tapa cloth from around her hips. The vahine gasped, “Hey, whassamatter you? This no time to play feely-feely, dumb Haole cunt!”

  But the redhead had risen and stepped into the light, waving the tapa wildly, before anyone could stop her. Captain Gringo yelled, “Come back here, dammit!” as the redhead strode toward the unseen enemy, shouting in German. A distant male voice called out to her. Hilda said, “Ach, so! I thought they would agree to parley!” And then she was up and away as Captain Gringo muttered, “Oh shit!”

  Beatriz asked, “Do you think those Germans will rape them before they execute them?” in a surprisingly complacent tone. He looked around, spotted a clump not much smaller than the one they were behind, and said, “Both of you move straight back to the berm of the beach. Then crawl for that clump to our south while I cover you.”

  “But why, Dick? Do you think they have this cover spotted?”

  “Move! Damn it!”

  So they moved. He waited until nobody on either side was in sight, then moved himself, just in time. He’d no sooner set up behind the other cover before the clump they’d been behind when the German girls proceeded to get mowed flat with mortar fire, at least ten rounds.

  A few minutes later, a skirmish line of roughly dressed scouts came charging out against the light, yelling like boisterous teenagers, in Spanish. Captain Gringo let them make it to the flattened target area so his muzzle flash wouldn’t show from the watchtower as he mowed them down in turn.

  Beatriz said, “Hey, they did not sound like Germans, Dick!” and he replied, “They weren’t. Why send a friend when you can send a cheap stooge? We knew they’d hired Costa Rican toughs. That’s why they’re so casual about expending them. The mothers I want are out of range, and they’ll probably stay there. It’s been nice knowing you, girls. But once the moon comes up, we’ve had it!”

  Beatriz sighed and asked, “Could we make love one time before I must die, Deek?”

  “I thought you were in mourning.”

  “I am. For me. I have been free for to make love to you for almost an hour, and it looks as if I shall never see the dawn with any man again!”

  “We’re not licked yet,” he lied, looking around until he spotted one of their own guys flattened out behind another smaller clump. He called out, “Hey, Pedro, if you slid back and rolled over the berm, you might make it into the shallows.”

  The crewman replied, “That is true, Captain Gringo, but then what? I do not think I can swim a hundred nautical miles against the wind, do you?”

  “No, but if you could make it around to the far side where the South Sea Islanders are being held, with a message—”

  “Forget it,” Pedro replied flatly, adding: “In the first place, I do not speak their tongue. In the second, suicide is against my religion, and those limelights reach well out to sea in all directions. Further out than I wish for to swim at night in shark-infested waters!”

  The naked Atanua said, “Goddam, whassamatter you, Dick? Me can swim like fishy fishy and talk Kanaka like native, too!”

  He shook his head and said, “Too risky, Honey. He’s right about sharks. That light should have ’em cruising just outside the breakers, curious as hell.”

  “Pooh, I told you my people friends with Kai, and if me no go now, goddam Hina, you call her ‘Moon,’ come up and we all be dead anyway! What you want island boys do, Dick?”

  “Jesus, anything! There’s no way we’re about to be rescued by the U.S: Cavalry out here. Not even Gaston could have the Orotiki here in less than ten or twenty hours, even if he knew we needed help. But if the prisoners could cause some kind of diversion, or at least douse those damned lights—”

  “Okeedokee,” she cut in, springing up to dash bare-ass toward the sea. It was a bad move. Someone opened up on her from the guard tower, but though bullets splashed all about her bare ass as she waded out, she was gone before they could range on her. In what must have been sheer frustration, the blackbirders lobbed a mortar round at her last known position as well.

  Captain Gringo growled, “Thank you very much, Squarehead. Now that we know your tower’s in telephone communication with the masked mortar battery, we can—shit, no we can’t.”

  Beatriz said, “She is most brave. I forgive her for having had you first. Do you think she will make it, Deek?”

  He shrugged and said, “She might. For all the difference it can make, unless they at least knock those lights out. Have you been keeping your pretty head against bulkheads lately, querida?”

  She fluttered her lashes and asked, “What else was there to do when one was the mujer of a man who did not really make full use of her? Oh, how I wish I had been able to join that party, Deek. Do you think there is any chance at all of there ever being another?”

  Before he could reassure her with a white lie, one of the other pinned-down Costa Ricans sobbed, “Jesus, Maria y José! Look what’s coming now!”

  Captain Gringo turned his gaze seaward, staring steadily, too resigned to even swear as, just offshore, the German gunboat Seeshlange ran up the white battle flag of Der Kaiser and a loudspeaker started roaring out across the water.

  He sighed and said, “Dumb bastards must not be able to speak Spanish.”

  Then the same loudspeaker bellowed, in German-accented Spanish, “All of you, lay d
own your arms in the name of Der Kaiser! The game is up, and it will go hard with you all if you do not surrender at once!”

  Captain Gringo stayed right where he was. But the nearby Pedro sprang to his feet, hands up, only to be shot in the back and flop right down again.

  Beatriz sighed and said, “They mean to show no mercy?” and all he could come up with was, “Why should they?”

  The turrets of the big gray gunboat began to swing ominously as the loudspeaker bellowed, “So?” which meant about the same in German or Spanish. Then all hell broke loose as the Seeshlange started throwing salvo after salvo of no-kidding 155 H.E!

  Captain Gringo had flattened Beatriz in the sand and rolled atop her to screen her from shrapnel at least. So it took him a few seconds of sheer terror to realize that, though the earth was quivering under them like jelly, the gunboat’s rounds were landing too far off for a guy to be pissing his pants like this. He raised his head gingerly and gasped, “I’ll be damned, they’re not ranging on us! They’re firing on the blackbirders and, oh beautiful! There goes the guard tower and, yep, there go the lights!”

  But you couldn’t fool the Kriegsmarine with a little blackout. A star shell exploded high above the small island to light up every target as it swung from its paper parachute. The gunboat lobbed more 155s and another flare. Then someone had the brains to run up a white flag, plainer than the one the gunboat was flying, and the loudspeaker roared in both German and Spanish, “Very well, we are sending marine infantry ashore to disarm one and all. It will go hard on anyone they find with even an umbrella in his hands!”

  They sounded as though they meant it. So Captain Gringo got up from behind the machine gun as the last flare went out. He helped Beatriz to her feet and said, “Let’s move right to the water’s edge. I don’t want them mixing us with those other guys, do you?”

  She said, “Deek, I wet myself just now. I was so frightened.”

  He laughed and said, “Welcome to the club, soldada.” Then he called out to his other few survivors and led the girl into waist-deep water to at least kill the smell of their duds below their now less nervous bladders.

  A whaleboat ground ashore nearby, and a couple of guys who looked as if they couldn’t make up their minds about being soldiers or sailors leaped out at them, pointing rifles and apparently calling them awful names in German. Captain Gringo and the girl raised their hands, hoping that would do it. Then a voice snapped an order in the same language and the marine infantry moved on inland as Von Linderhoff, now in a white tropic officer’s kit, climbed out to say, “So, Captain Gringo, we meet again.”

  The tall American said, “Yeah, and I never thought I’d be so glad to see you! Would you mind telling us what the fuck’s going on here?”

  Von Linderhoff turned to yell some more orders at another boat landing farther down the beach. Then he moved closer, saying, “I thought it so obvious, Walker. Didn’t I tell you chattel slavery was against the law in all civilized countries?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know yours was quite that civilized. Why the hell were you trying to scare us off if you were after the blackbirders, too?”

  The sardonic one-eyed German stared past them at the smoking chaos in the center of the island and said, “That, also, would have been obvious to anyone but a wild man like yourself! Look at the stupid mess you just got yourself into, biting off more than you could chew, as usual!”

  He nodded politely at Beatriz and added curtly, “Also I see, as usual, you have dragged innocent bystanders into the quicksand with you! Why could not you have taken friendly advice just once?”

  “You call all those attempts to knock me and my friends off friendly advice, you cold-blooded Kraut?”

  “What are you raving about now? I told you to get out of my case because it was my case and I had orders to handle it delicately, not like this, goddamn it! Halle und Feldmacher is, as you know, a German firm, with stockholders in high places. But they were as crazy as you, so once two of my field agents were murdered by their hired killers, I was able to convince headquarters it was time to take the gloves off, nicht wahr?”

  Captain Gringo swallowed a green taste as he decided not to explain just who he might or might not have killed, himself, until he knew who they were talking about. He asked, “Are you saying you had no agents out to do anything but scare off Princess Manukai and me?”

  Von Linderhoff turned to wave another boatload of marine infantry in to the mop-up before he looked disgusted and told Captain Gringo, “I had none of my agents after you at all, once we found out what you thought you were up to and we’d had our little talk. Halle und Feldmacher seem to have had a whole army of hired guns out trying to hang on here until the end of this year’s pearling season, at least. I had two of my best men watching a couple of them at the same hotel the princess checked into. Somehow, the company agents got the advantage and murdered them both as they were apparently following someone who’d contacted the girls.”

  “Right, two sisters from Bremerhaven named Hilda and Alfrieda.”

  “They were not sisters. They were secret agents for Halle und Feldmacher. But how did you know this, Walker?”

  “I sort of guessed it, even before someone shelled the last position they’d seen me in. They sailed out with us, hoping to lead us astray among the desert isles to the north. Your shore party should be bringing them in any time now. I can’t wait to hear old Hilda try and wiggle out of this one.”

  “Nothing they say will do them any good, now that they have been involved in the murder of two German field agents. You are lucky to be alive yourself. They are both very wicked girls.”

  “I noticed. Let’s get back to all the bombings and ambushes. I’ll take your word it wasn’t the work of your guys. This is the second time you’ve had me at your mercy and I’m still alive. But if we assume the guys trying to stop the rescue party from Konakona, rough, were Halle und Feldmacher, who was acting spooky, you?”

  “Do I look like a prankster, damn it?”

  “Not really. I guess we can write that off as island politics. Some rivals at the court on Konakona wanted to scare the princess off—to keep her from looking good, not because they gave a fig about peasant pearl divers—and, yeah, killing her all the way might strike them as tapu. So it works, sort of, and now that the captives have been freed, I hope—”

  Von Linderhoff cut in, “What do you mean, you hope? Don’t you think we had range charts aboard that ship out there? Naturally we avoided shelling the side of this island the natives are being held. I told you we were having enough trouble with Samoan chiefs who have been lied to about us by the British and French!”

  As he spied a familiar figure coming their way, escorted by two burly Kanakas and a bemused German marine infantryman, he called Atanua over; and when the stark-naked vahine was formally introduced to Von Linderhoff, she turned back to Captain Gringo and said, “My word, whatta swim and whatta nice kuluau we makem them blackbirder pricks! When me tellum prisoners you say time to rushem guards, they rushem good, my word!”

  Von Linderhoff questioned the marine infantry noncom and apparently found the German version more understandable. He smiled thinly at Captain Gringo and said, “Very well, you are forgiven after all. I told you I had orders to handle this matter delicately. The enslaved natives seem to have, ah, liquidated the survivors of our drum-fire.”

  “You call that a delicate ending?”

  “Of course. If nobody has to stand trial, the case is closed. The company directors back in Bremerhaven will of course disavow any knowledge of blackbirding, and from now on be more discreet, nicht wahr?”

  Captain Gringo turned back to Atanua and asked if she’d seen any sign of Hilda or Alfrieda in the overrun enemy camp. The vahine sighed and said, “Sure, signs of both, all over the place. My word, shell musta landed on ’em going sixty-nine!”

  He swallowed again and told Von Linderhoff, “I guess that’s that, then. What happens now?”

  The German said
, “Naturally, you shall all be landed safely back on Costa Rican soil. I assume the princess will have room for the natives Der Kaiser just rescued from a life of slavery?”

  “Sure. That’s what she brought the schooner from Konakona to do in the first place. So, in a weird way, it looks my side won this time!”

  *

  The return trip to Puntarenas aboard the Seeshlange was much faster but still sort of tedious. The spoilsport squareheads insisted on the antiseptic separation of sexes and kept telling the natives singing songs of joy in the hold to shut up. Worse yet, they had one of the new Marconi wireless sets on the bridge to play with. So though Marconi was probably full of it when he said that someday people would be able to chat across a whole ocean, the dots and dashes made it to the mainland ahead of them, and as they steamed into the harbor the next day, the whole damned town seemed to be waiting on the quay for them. There hadn’t been as much excitement since the last earthquake, and the German consulate had even sent a brass band to oomp-pa-pa at everyone.

  Atanua was still in the hold with the other “naked primitives” as the German crew dropped the gangplank to the landing. But Captain Gringo saw Beatriz on deck and grabbed her, saying, “Let’s get out of here poco tiempo. Von Linderhoff s okay, but some of the people he works for can be officious as hell and I’m not sure our passports are in order!”

  Nobody tried to stop them as they were first ashore. Von Linderhoff had told them not to. So Captain Gringo and the girl made it to the less-crowded quay running the length of the waterfront—before the pier the gunboat was tied up to could get really crowded.

  Gaston intercepted them halfway to the Orotiki, saying, “Eh bien, we heard. The princess is threatening to give a luau on deck, whatever that means, and any press photographers not snapping pictures of the trés heroic German liberators at the moment will be aboard the schooner taking pictures of tits. It is apparently permissible to print pictures of tits if the people displaying them are dark and quaint enough, hein?”