The frogmen

by White, Robb, 1909-1990

  "He stood up too straight," Max said quietly. "One of those ribs must have stabbed him in the lung."

  Amos went back to John. "Tanaka's dead," he whispered.

  John covered the microphone and looked up. "He did good, though."

  "Yeah," Amos said. "Do you think that operator got out a warning?"

  "I know he did."

  "Then we'll have company. Max and I'll try to keep them away until you get through."

  John nodded. "I can't even get started," he said, and then reached out to one of the switches, hesitated a second, and snapped it down.

  He slumped in the chair and grinned up at Amos. "At least the mike's off."

  Max came over and stood with Amos, watching.

  "This doo-dad means on and this one means off," John said, pointing at curiously shaped characters engraved in the metal. "All I've got to do is find one that says key."

  Max said, "If they come up the road they'll have to stop at the car. Let's meet them there, Amos."

  "After we go out, John, lock the door. If you get it working, give us a sign."

  "I'll blink the lights."

  "Don't let anybody in, John."

  Halfway across the room, Amos suddenly stopped and looked at the operator. "He didn't know anything," he said to Max. "He never saw us."

  "Who?"

  "The radio operator. All he saw was Tanaka. And

  then his buddies disappeared. That's all he could tell anybody."

  "He was really screaming something/'

  "Yeah/' Amos said, looking around the room. Going to the kitchen alcove, he found a half-filled bottle of what smelled like wine. He brought it back to the table and spilled some wine around. Then he laid the empty bottle down on the table.

  Pulling the operator by the feet, he got him out into the center of the room and arranged him so the wound didn't show.

  "That operator was just stoned out of his mind," Amos said. "He was only kidding when he said there was a Japanese spy in here." He went over to the bunk and lifted Tanaka up in his arms.

  At the door Amos paused and said, "Okay, John, lock it."

  It had stopped raining, and the bugs had started making noises again as Amos carried Tanaka around behind the generator shack and into the jungle. He laid him down under a wide-leafed fern and covered him with leaves and vines.

  Coming back alongside the building, he stopped at a gun slit and looked in. "I can see you, John," he said.

  John moved out of sight.

  "That's better."

  "I think I've got it," John said. "Wait just a second."

  Amos waited, watching the road.

  "It's going out," John said, his voice excited. "All I need now is an acknowledge, and we're in business."

  "If anybody comes, we'll try to stop them before they get here. But don't let anything bother you, John."

  He didn't answer, and Amos went on to the front of the building. "It's working," he told Max.

  "And they're coming," Max said.

  They stood in silence, listening to the sound of a motor down on the coastal road.

  "We should've gotten another gun," Amos said.

  "I couldn't hit anything. . . . That sounds big. Maybe it's just another truckload of ammunition."

  Amos started walking slowly down the road.

  "If one of them sees you, it's going to wreck things, Amos."

  "Yeah," Amos said, looking back at the fort. "I wish John would bear a hand."

  "It's turning up," Max said.

  Suddenly the last cloud moved away from the moon and light flooded down, making the swinging beam of the headlights look dim.

  "Trouble," Max said.

  In the brief moment the truck had been visible through the trees they had seen the soldiers sitting in the back of it. They looked almost like dummy soldiers, the bodies swaying in unison to the movement of the truck, all the rifle barrels swaying like wheat in a field.

  "Can we handle that many?" Amos asked.

  "No," Max said.

  "Let's just try to get John out."

  They ran up the road, the sound of the truck growing louder behind them. Stooping below the light bands coming through the slits, they went to the last one.

  "John," Amos called softly. When there was no answer, he called again.

  At last John snapped, "Don't bother me!"

  "There's a truck full of them out here. How long, John?"

  Amos could hear the sound of code being snapped out.

  The headlights swung around a bend in the road and fell on the stalled car.

  "We can't stop them. We can't even slow them down," Amos said through the slit.

  "Okay," John said. "I'm waiting for an acknowledge now."

  "Have you sent the message?"

  "Just the key, and they haven't acknowledged."

  "You'd better come out, John."

  "Listen," John said angrily, "I'm going to send this thing, and that's going to take time. So you guys do whatever you want to do."

  "We'll wait," Amos said. "When you're through, give me a sign. I'll shoot once. When I do, you turn out the light and get out of there. Come around to the back. And leave the door open."

  "Sssh!" John hissed.

  The sound of the key began again, a soft, diy, rattling noise.

  The truck ground to a stop behind the car, the headlights dimmer with the car blocking them.

  Armed men came pouring out of the back of the truck, and suddenly the headlights went out.

  Amos' throat was so dry he couldn't swallow.

  With only the moonlight filtering down through the canopy of tree limbs, Max and Amos could not see clearly what the men were doing. There was movement around the car, but there were no orders being given, no voices; only the occasional clink of metal, or the sound of underbrush being moved.

  Amos looked through the slit again.

  There was no sound of the key, and he could see nothing of John.

  "They're coming/' Amos whispered through the slit.

  There was no answer.

  Amos looked along the side of the building at the dark shapes of the two vehicles. Now he could see no movement around them, nor on the road between the car and the fort. "What are they doing?" he whispered to Max.

  "I'm going to find out."

  At the slit Amos said, "Come on, John."

  John didn't answer, and Amos turned to stare at the dark, dripping jungle. Somewhere there was a sound as though someone had fallen in the thick underbrush, and then a low, painful grunt.

  "John?" he said through the slit.

  "Leave me alone, Amos," John said quietly. "I've

  sent the message and I'm waiting for an acknowledge. If I don't get it, I'll send the message again."

  Then Max appeared beside him. "They've fanned out. Looks like they're trying to get all around us. I'm going to take a look around back."

  As Max slid into the darkness, Amos looked through the slit again. "They're moving in on us, John."

  Suddenly John leaped across the room, his dress swirling.

  Amos waited until his hand was on the light switch and then put the gun through the slit, aimed it down at the wooden floor, and fired.

  The noise was enormous, booming around inside the room.

  The lights went out.

  Amos saw moonlight come into the room as John opened the door, then the moonlight faded a little as John slipped around the door, leaving it standing half open.

  Amos had never seen a machine gun from the other end and, strangely, it didn't seem as dangerous as when you held it yourself and felt that sense of power when it began to fire.

  From the muzzle end, it looked like a harmless flicker of soft yellow lights moving in a short arc.

  The bullets cracked into the concrete front of the building, clanged across the metal door, and cracked against the concrete again.

  Amos waited, but John didn't appear. The gun stopped firing, silence dropping like a weight.

  Not
hing moved, nothing made a sound; even the bugs and birds were still.

  And then a shadow appeared at the corner of the building and moved toward him. Max was running with John cradled in his arms. "He's hit!"

  Amos followed Max toward the rear of the building but then stopped him with his hand. "They're all around us, Max."

  For a moment they stood there, watching and listening. "Into the trees," Amos said.

  The trunk nearest them was laced with vines that were still wet with the rain and felt cool and slimy.

  Max shifted John to his shoulder and started up, Amos following and balancing John as he hung down across Max's back.

  It took forever to inch their way up, Max holding John with one hand and then balancing before moving his free hand to the next grip. Amos followed him closely, touching John lightly to hold Max balanced against the trunk of the tree.

  John did not make a sound during all the time it took them to reach the top of the tree. The branches and leaves completely obscured the buildings below, but when someone turned the light on in the fort, they could see the glow of it through the leaves.

  Hugging the trunk, Max on the higher branch, Amos on one below, they looked down.

  They could hear voices both inside and outside the fort but could see no one through the leaves.

  Suddenly a new light came on—a searchlight on

  the truck cab. They shrank closer against the tree as the long sword of light swept slowly back and forth below them.

  The light in the fort went out, and they heard the metal door clang shut. In a moment there were other sounds from behind the fort, and suddenly the sound of the generator, which had been so constant that they were not aware of it, stopped.

  Another door closed, and men appeared on the road, hurrying down toward the searchlight.

  It was hard to see clearly, but when the searchlight went out and the truck engine started, Max whispered, "I don't think they all got back in/'

  "No," Amos said, watching the truck turning around in the narrow, wet road. "Where's he hit?"

  "I don't know. It knocked him down."

  Amos put his hand on John's neck. "Dead?"

  "I don't know."

  "No," John said in a choked whisper.

  "Good," Amos said, patting him lightly. "Can we go through the trees and get beyond them?"

  "We'll have to."

  It was a nightmare. Having only one free hand, Max had to walk out on the tree limbs, the bark of them wet with rain and slippery with rotting leaves and mosses. Just walk, his own body now wet and slimy with John's blood, until the limb he was on bent under their combined weight and forced him to find his way along a lower limb on another tree.

  After each transfer, Max had to climb up again

  to regain the height he had lost and do it all over again.

  Amos could not help him; to follow him too closely would only add more weight and risk breaking the limb off, or at least making it crack, a noise they could not afford.

  When they neared the main road along the coast, they were forced to stop. The canopy of limbs above the road was too thin to support even Amos' weight alone, and so they came down out of the trees and crept toward the road.

  At the edge of the road they stopped behind a huge, wide-leafed fern and waited.

  It seemed to take hours, but at last a cloud covered the cold, silver-gray disk of the moon, and they went across the road, Max now carrying John in his arms.

  At the beginning of the bare lava, they had to wait again for a cloud, and when it finally came, they moved out across the bleak surface and found the hole.

  Amos dropped down into the cave. Max lowered John by his arms, and Amos caught him and swam him to the beach.

  "Home," John said.

  "Home. As soon as we plug the hole, we'll fix you up.

  Max picked up the tanks and waded out as Amos felt around for a wet suit and some rope.

  Once the hole in the ceiling was plugged with the

  wet suit, Amos and Max came back to the beach and got the flashlights.

  Amos lifted the skirt up and shone the flashlight down on John.

  "Oh, my God!" Max said in a low whisper.

  "How bad is it?" John asked, trying to lift his head.

  Max gently pushed his head back down on the pebbles. "It looks worse than it is."

  "It's beginning to hurt now," John said. "Funny, it didn't hurt at first."

  Amos stared at where the machine gun slugs had torn into the flesh and bone, fanning across John's legs with a strange precision.

  "Where did they hit me?" John asked, lifting his hands and touching himself. "I don't feel accurate."

  "Just the legs, Johnny," Amos said.

  "You're not kidding me?"

  "No."

  "I'm going to be all right in other departments?"

  "You're going to be fine," Amos said.

  "I'm going to strap you up so you'll quit all this bleeding," Max said. "It'll hurt some."

  "Old Doctor Max," John said.

  "Hold the light," Max said.

  Amos steadied the light as Max got a sack and began tearing it in strips.

  "Amos," John said. "I sent the message. Real slow, real clear."

  "Good. You did fine," Amos said.

  "I sent it twice."

  Amos didn't want to ask him, but he said, "Do you think anybody heard you, John?"

  "Not so tight, Max!"

  "It's got to be tight. Just hang on, ol' buddy."

  "What'd you say, Amos?"

  "Did anybody hear?"

  "They were waiting for me," John said.

  "The gun? They were all around us."

  "Not the gun. You know something, Amos? I've spent hours and hours with real top-priority messages trying to make that dumb machine in Pearl Harbor listen to me, and it wouldn't listen. But tonight when I sent the key code that machine really snapped to attention. Aye, aye, sir! Right now, sir! Somebody had told that machine to pay attention—Max! Take it easy!"

  "Can't have you bloodying up the place," Max

  said. "You want to bite on something? That's what they do in the movies, bite on a bullet."

  "Don't mention bullets to me," John said. "I sure would like a drink of water."

  Amos got him the water and held the tube as he drank.

  "It's pretty bad, isn't it?"

  "It tore you up some," Max said.

  "But it didn't kill me," John said, trying to smile. "I told you. They can't kill me. Amos, I think the Task Force got the message, too. I got an acknowledge that sounded like it was sent by hand, and it was louder and closer than the machine. They'll come now, won't they?"

  "All they wanted was to know, and now they know."

  John put his hands over his face and said quietly, "So we'll just have to wait around until they get here."

  "No," Amos said, "we can't stay here. Before they come through the channel they'll have to beat up both sides of it with everything they've got. They can't go through dead slow with somebody shooting at them. We've got to get out of here."

  Max looked up at Amos but didn't say anything.

  "You know what?" John said in a dry, low voice. "I can't move my legs. I just tried."

  "The medics can fix that," Max said.

  "I'm not worried about that," John said. "It's just that I'm not going anyplace."

  "You're going with us," Amos said. "Max, could you get one of those boats from the village?"

  "The Japanese don't let them have anything but little canoes," Max said.

  "It's no good anywhere on shore. Could you get one?"

  "I could try."

  Amos got up. "We'll put all this junk in the tunnel," he said, swinging his tanks on.

  "I'd rather stay here," John said. "I'm really kind of tired now."

  "You'll be a lot tireder if a cruiser drops a high-explosive shell down through that hole," Amos said, gathering up some of the gear and wading out into the pool with it.

  "
I don't see how I can go," John said.

  "We won't take anything, Max," Amos said, putting his mouthpiece in.

  "Get with it," John said. "I can't go anywhere."

  "You got to," Max said. "Because if they can't kill you, then I want you where I am."

  Leaving nothing where it could be seen, they suited up, putting only the top of John's suit on.

  Max carried him down to the water, pulled his mask down, and fitted the mouthpiece for him. "The worst part'll be in the tunnel, John. Then we'll just slide you along."

  After the darkness of the cave pool and the tunnel, it seemed almost bright in the open sea.

  They swam slowly, staying about ten feet down, Max holding John's hands around his neck. Amos

  followed, watching John's exhaust bubbles, ready to move in fast in case they stopped.

  It took them half an hour to get around the point of the lava flow, but once they were over a clear, sandy bottom, Amos motioned for Max to go up to the beach alone. He took John's hands and settled with him to the bottom, where he stood holding John suspended in his arms.

  The filtered moonlight grew gradually dimmer, turning faintly rust-colored as the blood from John's wounds spread through the water.

  It was not good, and Amos kept slowly turning, hoping that no great dark shadow would come moving over the sand.

  But the shadow came, moving steadily closer, and Amos could do nothing but stand there holding John, his exhaust bubbles flowing up in short bursts past his head. He had no weapon, not even the packet of shark repellent.

  And then the shadow split into two shadows that moved together, parallel to each other.

  Max was in the water, pushing the slim-hulled little boat with his fins.

  They could not help hurting John as they got him into the hollowed-out log of the main hull, took his gear off, and stretched him out. There wasn't room enough for him to lie flat, so they bent him up, his back and head resting against Max's back in the bow, his feet between Amos' legs in the stern.

  After lashing the three scubas to the outrigger

  booms, Max and Amos began paddling with the short-handled, round-bladed, wooden paddles.