Night Over the Solomons (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  “Lutvin, he was a good man, but I wonder how he guessed?” “As I did, I think,” Turk told him. He sensed a difference in the coast line, a change. The chart showed no reef there, yet the breakwater was made to look like a reef. As it was, it would give the Japanese a secure anchorage, and a place to land tanks, trucks, and heavy artillery, land them securely.” “That Chevski,” Arseniev said. “I knew there was something wrong, but I did not suspect him until he ran for a plane when you took off. But Granatman found the photographs in his belongings, and a code book.

  He was too sure of himself, that one. His mother, we found, was a Japanese.” Turk nodded. “Lutvin suspected him, I think.” Arseniev shrugged.

  “No doubt. But how could Chevski communicate with the Jap who flew the guarding pursuit ship? How could he communicate with Japan?” Shan Bao cleared his throat. “That, I think I can say,” he said softly. “There was a man, named Batou!.

  A man who wore unty, the native moccasins, and one with thong wrappings about the foot. He came and went frequently from the airport.” “Was?”

  Arseniev looked sharply at the Manchu. “He got away?” “But no, comrade,” Shan Bao protested gently. “He had a queer gun, this man. An old-fashioned gun, a Berdianka with a soshkin. I, who am a collector of guns, wished this one above all. So you will forgive me, comrades? The man came prowling about this ship in the night. He”-Shan Bao coughed apologetically—

  “He suffered an accident, comrades. But I shall care well for his gun, an old Berdianka, with a soshkin. Nowhere else but in Siberia, comrades, would you find such a gun!”