Night Over the Solomons (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Ryan got up, wiping sweat from his face. He walked toward the guard Madden had jumped. He glanced at the guard then up at Madden. “You’re thorough!” he said grimly.

  The prisoners crowded around. A tall blond man pushed forward. “I’m Young,” he said. “I was in the ship with Doone. They’ve got him up in the Domed House, questioning him about our cargo. Some strange white man came to the Domed House a while back, and ever since then they’ve been in a dither. his “We’ll get out of here fast. Those with the rifles fall behind for a rear guard. Ryan, you lead off.”

  Young, who had the pistol from the fallen horseman, walked beside Madden. “God, man!” he said. “You can’t guess what it meant to us when we heard you were here. Kalinov told us last night.” Young glanced at Turk. “That cargo of ours seems to excite a lot of people!”

  “Ryan’s here for that reason,” Turk said.

  “I’ve my instructions;-too. We’ve got to get that steel box for our government. was Young shrugged.

  “Doone’s the only one knows where it is. was “Give me the dope,” Madden suggested. “What can we expect?” “There’s at least three thousand men in this monastery. Probably around three hundred modern rifles including twenty or thirty Tokarev semi-automatic rifles.

  It’s as good a gun as our Garand. Also, they have some Degtyarov light machine guns, all stolen or smuggled out of Russia by agents of these people. The Domed House, which you can identify by shape, is the heart of the place. I’ve told you about the planes.

  The pilots are Ngoloks.

  “They have two flying fields and a couple of emergency fields with a fighter plane located at each. They’ve a leader with brains named Bo Hau.

  He’s been to China and India and has an education of a sort. Tall, big-shouldered fellow.”

  No part of the situation looked good. Only a few of the escaped men were armed, and there was little food available. They could expect determined pursuit within a few hours.

  Turk fell in beside Ryan. “You stick by the ship with the man with the pistol, I’ll take the four men with rifles.”

  “Why not take the plane and knock off one of those emergency fields? Then we’d have rifles and ammunition?”

  “And run into a fighter? With this ship of mine? A pursuit ship would fly circles around me! Unless we hit ‘em before they got off the ground. Strafe the field-but it would be taking an awful chance!” “The whole thing is a gamble,” Ryan said. “Don’t worry about Raemy! That gal has nerve!”

  Turk turned to a huge red-bearded Scotsman. “You know where the emergency fields are located?”

  “Helped build them! One’s about nine miles east in the mountains. Concealed, but impossible to use in bad weather.”

  “How long to get to it on foot?”

  “Three or four hours, if we’re lucky.

  It’s pretty rough going. was “All right,” Madden told them. “I’ll keep Young with me. You,” he told the Scotsman, “will lead this party. I’ll give you four hours. Your job is to keep that fighter on the ground. Don’t damage it if you can help it, and shoot anybody who tries to get it off the ground.”

  Young watched the rescued prisoners as they turned off into a canyon leading to the mountains. “They’ve got a mighty slim chance!” he said. Turk nodded. “So have we all. Four men with rifles can make life miserable around any landing field. Knowing the country they have a good chance of getting away with it. The Ngoloks won’t expect them to head that way.” He turned toward Young. “We have one prisoner, your former escort pilot!..

  Young’s face went cold. “He shot us down!

  Never gave us a chance!” dis. Why?..

  “We never figured that out,” Young admitted.

  “He’d been very friendly to Doone.”

  “Doone ever mention that Bekart had met his sister?” “Come to think of it, Bekart was with him on leave once.”

  “With Bob dead, she’d inherit everything. That ma have been it. He could go back, be the sympathetic friend, marry the gal, and then-was “Ugly mess!” Young stared at the peaks.

  “Lyte was shot right through the chest.

  Three-fifties!”

  There was no sign of Shan Bao as they drew near the ruined city. Nor any other sign of life and movement. Fear mounting like a tide in his throat, Turk started forward when Shan burst from a building.

  “He’s gone! I go to hunt for wood, and he got away!”

  Turk grabbed Shan’s arm. “Raemy?”

  “She gone, too! Also, her gun!”

  Turk rushed to the plane. So far as he could see, nothing was disturbed. “Go over it, Shan!

  Quick!”

  He looked at Sparrow. “We’d better have a look. Maybe we can catch them before they’ve gone far.”

  “No use!” Shan Bao protested. “They gone maybe two hours!” Turk Madden’s face was cold and ugly. Despite Shan’s protest, he turned and, helped by Young and Ryan, made a careful survey of all the ruined buildings. There was no sign of life, nor could any tracks be found on the pavement or hard ground.

  He had failed thus far to free Bob Doone.

  The steel box was still in the hands of the Ngoloks, or hidden somewhere. And now Raemy had been taken from him.

  When they returned from their trek, Shan was awaiting them. “Ever’t’ing okay,” he said.

  “Ever’t’ing good.”

  Madden checked his watch. An hour to go before they took off. Ryan dug into the food and got out some crackers and cheese while Shan made coffee. In silence, the four men ate.

  Turk got up finally and walked outside. He looked big and grim in his worn leather jacket, his head bared to the chill wind, his eyes hard as they studied the gray, barren sky.

  He turned and came back in, checking his .45 grimly.

  “Warm her up, Shan, we’ll start now!” He looked around again, then glanced at Young. “Better have a look outside. Watch until I call you.

  If one of those fighters shows up, we’re sunk!”

  Minutes later he called Young, then followed Ryan into the ship, they taxied out on the lake, and he revved her up and then started her down the dark water. The motors roared beautifully, and he gave her plenty of time for the air was cold and light.

  As he eased back on the stick she lifted gently, slapped a wave, and lifted toward the rocky crest of one of the hills skirting the lake.

  Turk shot straight away from the lake, climbing steadily. At five thousand he swung in a wide curve and headed back. Then he lifted higher, and higher. Far below and off to his left he could see a tip of the green valley. Young waved him further to the right and he banked the ship and headed for a tall, ice-capped spire of black rock almost due west. Suddenly, he saw the field. It was on a small plateau, and at one end there was a stone hangar and a smaller building nearby. As he pushed forward on the stick and shot down toward the field he saw men burst from the smaller building and one of them rushed toward the hangar, others lifted rifles and although they must have been firing, he heard no sound of the shooting.

  The man running toward the hangar suddenly stumbled and fell headlong and lay there, a dark spot on the pavement near his head. Then Turk opened up and the harsh yammer of his own guns blotted out sound and he saw men fold and go down as if blown by a powerful wind.

  He dove toward the smaller building and the men with rifles and saw men scatter in every direction, and then he was over the building and zooming up to swing back over the field. Men had scattered into the brush, but he came down fast and let go with another burst at the smaller building. When he came around for another pass he saw men running out on the plateau waving their arms at him. He skimmed by overhead, then swung around and came in for a landing.

  As he got out, he saw men pouring into the smaller building and coming out with rifles. Scotty met him, a broad grin on his face. “We got nine of them, all told. One man got away, but several of ours are after him.” “How about weapons?”

  Turk demanded quickly. Y
oung had started on a trot for the hangar. “There’s twelve more rifles,”

  Scotty said, “as nearly as we could figure.

  We’ll know in a minute.”

  Turk walked toward the hangar after Young: In a few minutes they had the news. Of the thirty men they had in all, aside from his own crew, sixteen of them now had rifles and eight more had pistols. The others had found old iron swords and one a pike.

  Turk walked into the hangar, and Young was standing there looking at the ship. Young nodded at it. “Ever see anything like that?” he demanded. “Yeah,” Turk walked around it thoughtfully. “Looks like an improved version of a Russian ship they had in Spain during the Civil War. Some of the Russians who fought with the Loyalists flew them.”

  “The other ship’s the” one we should have,” Young said.

  “I think it’s a P-40. One stolen from the Chinese, probably.”

  Scotty came in with the escaped prisoner. He was a rugged, hardy-looking gent. “What happens now?” Scotty demanded.

  “We get out of here,” Turk said, “and quick.

  We’ve got a lot to do. At least, Ryan and I have. And we’re taking this ship!” Young’s brow furrowed. “I fly a little, but I never tackled anything that looked that hot!”

  Madden shrugged. “I’ll fly it. Shan Bao knows my ship. You can go back to the lake with him.

  He could take four or five of you.”

  “Well march it,” Scotty said, “all of us!”

  He grinned at Turk. “We might run into a bunch of those “Loks, and the boys are spoilin” for a fight!” Turk checked the ship himself. There was plenty of gas, and he found a buried tank near the hangar that was almost full. He yelled at Shan, and the Manchu refueled the Grumman.

  When they had gone, he walked outside. The ship had been wheeled out before they left, and he had taken a few minutes to look around. He hadn’t wanted to tell them, but he knew what he was going to do. He was going hunting for that other pursuit ship. From what he knew of the fighter he had, he knew she was a plenty hot ship. Also, he was going to teach them a lesson or two. They had it coming.

  He walked outside and got into the fighter. He warmed her up. She was a two-motored job, bearing a resemblance to the Russian pursuits he had seen in Spain. What did they call them? He scowled, trying to remember.

  Masca-Mosca, something like that.

  The motors purred evenly and smoothly.

  Carefully, he opened her up a little, and the ship trembled with the burst of added power. Turk passed his tongue over his lips. “Here goes everything!” he said softly, and, his eyes widened a little, he started the ship down the plateau.

  It gathered speed and he opened the throttle wider.

  The black cliffs faded in a roar of thundering speed.

  He felt the lift of the ship as it reached for the air and he came back on the stick and felt the earth fall away beneath him. He eased back further, and the little fighter began to climb.

  His eyes were bright. “Whoever built this baby,” he said, “knew what he was doing.”

  Roaring with power the ship shot skyward like an angry hawk, and deftly he put her through her paces. She had it speed, power, maneuverability. He swung her around, and headed between two gigantic peaks and darted through to see the green valley far, far below him, and even as he glimpsed it, he saw the Grumman far away to the east and north, and sweeping down toward it was the other pursuit ship!

  Turk banked his fighter steeply and whipped around to dart after the other ship like a sparrow hawk after a hen! His twin motors roaring, his heart singing with the lust for battle, he cleared his guns with a burst and then swept down on the other fighter.

  It was no P-40 or anything like it, but almost a duplicate of his own ship, and some sixth sense must have warned the pilot, for he suddenly pulled up sharply and swung around, wondering at the actions of his companion fighter. Turk cured him of his wonder in a quick burst as the fighter swung past his guns. It was ineffective, to all appearances, except to warn the enemy fighter that he was in for trouble. The other ship made a flat turn and started for him, but flying fighters was an old story to Turk Madden. He had flown almost every kind of ship in the air. Yet the enemy pilot had been trained well, and he handled his ship like it was ,art of him.

  Okay, Bud,” Turk said, “you want to play!” He gave the ship everything she had and started for the other fighter, head on. For what seemed minutes they rushed down at each other, yet Turk knew it was only a fleeting instant, then, suddenly, the other pilot broke and hauled back on the stick. The nose of the plane went up, and he went up and over in a wild, desperate effort to escape what seemed fiery and certain death in a head-on collision. And in the fleeting instant when his underside was exposed, Madden poured a darting stream of fire into the other ship!

  He banked steeply and swung away, then circled and started back, but the enemy fighter, smoke pouring from it, was headed for the mountains, far below.

  Even as he watched, the smoke turned to a sudden, crimson burst of flame-and then where the ship had been there was only a puff of smoke and a few disintegrating fragments.

  A hand fumbled for his brow and he wiped away the sweat. Then he headed down and south for the lake. He would be able to land beside Doone’s wrecked transport. The plateau was long enough, and from what he knew of it from his visit to the wrecked ship, it was good enough for a landing. Getting off again might be quite a problem. If he ever tried. The Goose was down on the lake when he circled over and dipped his wings, then he darted away, headed into the wind, and eased the fighter to a landing on the plateau, taxiing to a place close beside the transport.

  Scotty and Young were there to greet him as he started down the hills. “Get him?” Young demanded eagerly.

  “Yeah.” Turk mopped his brow and grinned at them. “I hope there’s no more of them!”

  He glanced from one to the other. “Either of you ever been in that Domed House?”

  “I have,” Young said. “Don’t know much about it, though.”

  “I’m going in there,” Madden said. “I’ve a hunch that’s where Bekart went and where he took Raemy. We’ve got to get her back, get Doone, and get that steel box. And it’s got to be done fast, commando stuff.”

  “You can count me in,” Scotty said.

  Madden shook his head. “No. I’ll-take Shan Bao because he talks this stuff a little. I’ll take Ryan because he’s small, tough, and it’s his job, anyway. And Young here because he knows something about it, about the Domed House, I mean.”

  When the last straggler had come in and the rescued prisoners were gathered around, eating and drinking coffee, Turk Madden began going through them, one by one. Each man talked, through interpreters when necessary, telling what he knew of the Domed House, the guard system, the valley itself, the discipline and the probable location of Raemy and Bekart, if prisoners.

  The guard was relieved every hour at the temple, and a sharp watch was kept for any movement to attack them. It was dusk when Turk gathered his little group around him.

  “Understand this much,” he said briefly, “these men are our enemies. They have held American flyers as slaves, they have killed some, tortured others. We must rescue Bob Doone and his sister. We needn’t worry about Bekart. He should be punished, but we have enough to do without that. Let’s go!”

  Dark and cold lay the valley under a high riding moon when the four men reached the icy rim and looked down. The descent to which Young had led them was at the upper end of the long, deep canyon. Far below them, chill and mysterious in the moonlight, lay the towers and rooftops of the monastery and village. Among them all, at the highest level, was the huge dome of the Domed House.

  The air was crisp and still. The rattle of a stone sounded loud in the clear, sharp air. Turk rubbed his fingers against the chill and scanned the town below with a practiced, soldier’s eye. Young moved up beside him. “So far as I know, nobody’s ever tried it from here. It’s desperately steep,
but working down there on a wall, once, I noticed what seemed to be a path up here. That’s our only chance.”

  “We’ve got ropes if the wall runs close enough, or if the path doesn’t lead all the way around.”

  “The guards are nearly giants,” Young warned.

  “Big men, and powerfully muscled.”

  From below came eerie sounds, the strange music drifted to them, then a chanting voice lifted momentarily, high and shrill, yet barely audible where they stood. Uneasily, Shan Bao shifted his feet. Turk’s feet felt for the path.

  It was actually merely a ledge, only inches wide, where a lower stratum of rock had thrust out and weathering had still to chafe it away. Turk edged along the rocky lip his mouth dry. were they visible from below?

  He thought not, yet he seemed naked, exposed, helpless. Afoot edged out, felt carefully, then his weight shifted, for an instant his hands gripped until his foot was sure, then he moved along.

  Hours seemed to pass. Sweat popped out on his face and dried away. The ledge zigged to a lower ledge, which zagged away into darkness under an overhang. They felt their way through the ominous darkness, and found, finally, a place where a spring trickled water into a deep crevice. It seemed a good route, and they followed it.

  Darkness closed around them. Turk felt his way, then suddenly, warned by falling water, he stopped.

  It was well he. did, for when he put his foot out it encountered empty space. With a pencil flash, he studied the drop. It fell away far below the reach of the finger of light. He drew back, studying the rocky walls. Finally, he found a way that seemed possible. Then they were on a level again.

  Turk had not begun to consider escape. He knew that a wise man never enters any hole or any place of danger without first considering a way out.