Sarina replaced the bolt in her rifle, aimed at the sky, and squeezed the trigger. She leaned the piece against the tree, and looked long and searchingly down the valley. "Tony has been gone a long time," she said. "If he does not come soon, I shall go and look for him."
"Where did he go?" asked Jerry.
"Hunting."
"The orders are no hunting," said Jerry. "Rosetti knows that. We can't take the chance of attracting the attention of the Japs with rifle fire."
"Tony took his bow and arrows for hunting," Sarina explained. "He will not fire his rifle except in self defense."
"He couldn't hit anything smaller than an elephant with that archery set of his," said Bubonovitch.
"How long has he been gone?" asked Jerry.
"Too long," said Sarina; "three or four hours at least."
"I'll go look for him," said Bubonovitch. He picked up his rifle and stood up.
Just then the sentry on the cliff called down: "A man coming. Looks like Sergeant Rosetti. Yes, it is Sergeant Rosetti."
"Is he carrying an elephant?" Bubonovitch shouted.
The sentry laughed. "He is carrying something, but I do not think it is an elephant."
They all looked down the valley, and presently they could see a man approaching. He was still a long way off. Only the sentry with binoculars could have recognized him. After a while Rosetti walked into camp. He was carrying a hare.
"Here's your supper," he said, tossing the hare to the ground. "I missed three deer, and then I gets this little squirt."
"Was he asleep at the time, or did somebody hold him for you?" asked Bubonovitch.
"He was runnin' like a bat outta hell," said Rosetti, grinning. "He runs into a tree an' knocks hisself cold."
"Nice work, Hiawatha," said Bubonovitch.
"Anyway, I tried," said Rosetti. "I didn't sit around on my big, fat fanny waitin' for some udder guy to bring home de bacon."
"That is right, Sergeant Bum," said Sarina.
"Always the perfect little gentleman, I will Hot contradict a lady," said Bubonovitch. "Now the question is, who is going to prepare the feast? There are only fifty of us to eat it. What is left, we can send to the starving Armenians."
"De starvin' Armenians don't get none of dis rabbit. Neither do you. It's all for Sarina and Corrie."
"Two people coming up the valley!" called down the sentry. "Can't make them out yet. Something peculiar about them." Every eye was strained down the valley, every ear waiting to hear the next report from the sentry. After a few moments it came: "Each of them is carrying some sort of load. One of them is naked."
"Must be Tarzan," said Jerry.
It was Tarzan. With him was Sing Tai. When they reached camp, each of them dropped the carcass of a deer to the ground. Corrie was delighted to see Sing Tai and to learn that he had completely recovered from his wound. And Jerry was relieved and delighted to see Tarzan.
"I'm sure glad you're back," he said. "We're all ready to shove off, and have only been waiting for you."
"I think we have another job to do before we can start," said Tarzan. "I located Hooft's gang far down the valley, not far from the village where we got Corrie away from the Japs. The Japs are still there, and while I was scouting the place I saw two prisoners behind barbed wire. I couldn't make out what they were, but on the way back here from Tiang Umar's kampong Sing Tai told me that some Japs had passed through the kampong a few days ago with two American prisoners. The Japs told the natives that they were fliers whose plane had been shot down some time ago."
"Douglas and Davis!" exclaimed Bubonovitch.
"Must be," agreed Jerry. "They are the only two unaccounted for."
Bubonovitch buckled on his ammunition belt and picked up his rifle. "Let's go, Captain," he said.
Tarzan glanced at the sun. "If we travel fast," he said, "we can make it while it is still dark; but we should take only men who can travel fast."
"How many?" asked van Prins.
"Twenty should be enough. If everything goes all right, I can do it alone. If everything doesn't go all right, twenty men plus the element of surprise should make everything all right."
"I'll come along with enough of my men to make the twenty," said van Prins.
All the members of The Foreign Legion were preparing to go, but Tarzan said no to Corrie and Sarina. They started to argue the matter, but Tarzan was adamant. "You'd be an added responsibility for us," he said. "We'd have to be thinking of your safety when our minds should be on nothing but our mission."
"The Colonel is right," said Jerry.
"I suppose he is," admitted Corrie.
"That's the good soldier," said Tak.
"There is another who should not go," said Doctor Reyd. Everybody looked at Jerry. "Captain Lucas has been a very ill man. If he goes on a long forced march now, he'll be in no condition to undertake the trying marches to the south which you are contemplating."
Jerry glanced questioningly at Tarzan. "I wish you wouldn't insist, Jerry," said the Englishman.
Jerry unbuckled his ammunition belt and laid it at the foot of the tree. He grinned ruefully. "If Corrie and Sarina can be good soldiers, I guess I can, too; but I sure hate to miss out on this."
Ten minutes later twenty men started down the valley at a brisk pace that was almost a dogtrot. Tarzan, at the head of the column with van Prins, explained his plan to the Dutchman.
Captain Tokujo Matsuo and Lieutenant Hideo Sokabe had been drinking all night—drinking and quarreling. There had been much drinking among their men, too. The native men of the kampong had taken their women into the forest to escape the brutal advances of the drunken soldiers. But now, Shortly before dawn, the camp had quieted, except for the quarreling of the two officers; for the others lay for the most part in a drunken stupor.
The single guard before the prison pen had just come on duty. He had slept off some of the effects of the schnapps he had drunk, but he was still far from sober. He resented having been awakened; so he vented some of his anger on the two prisoners, awakening them to revile and threaten them. Having been born and educated in Honolulu , he spoke English. He was an adept in invective in two languages. He loosed a flow of profanity and obscenity upon the two men within the barbed wire enclosure.
Staff Sergeant Carter Douglas of Van Nuys , California , stirred on his filthy sleeping mat, and raised himself on one elbow. "Aroha, sweetheart!" he called to the guard. This plunged the Jap into inarticulate rage.
"What's eatin' the guy?" demanded Staff Sergeant Bill Davis of Waco , Texas .
"I think he doesn't like us," said Douglas . "Before you woke up he said he would kill us right now except that his honorable captain wanted to lop our beans off himself in the morning."
"Maybe he's just handin' us a line to scare us," suggested Davis .
"Could be," said Douglas . "The guy's spiflicated. That stuff they drink must be potent as hell. It sounded like everybody in camp was drunk."
"Remember that butterfly brandy they tried to sell us in Noumea at eighty-five smackers a bottle? Three drinks, and a private would spit in a captain's face. Maybe that's what they're drinking."
"If this guy had got a little drunker," said Douglas , "we could have made our get away tonight."
"If we could get out of here, we could rush him."
"But we can't get out of here."
"Hell's bells! I don't want to have my head lopped off. What a hell of a birthday present."
"What do you mean, birthday present?"
"If I haven't lost track, tomorrow should be my birthday," said Davis . "I'll be twenty-five tomorrow."
"You didn't expect to live forever, did you? I don't know what you old guys expect."
"How old are you, Doug?"
"Twenty."
"Gawd! They dragged you right out of the cradle. Oh, hell!" he said after a moment's pause. "We're just tryin' to kid ourselves that we ain't scared. I'm good and goddam scared."
"I'm scairt as hell," admitted
Davis .
"What you talk about in there?" demanded the guard. "Shut up!"
"Shut up yourself, Tojo," said Douglas ; "you're drunk."
"Now, for that, I kill you," yelled the Jap. "I tell the captain you try to escape." He raised his rifle and aimed into the darkness of the shelter that housed the two prisoners.
Silently, in the shadows of the native houses, a figure moved toward him. It approached from behind him.
Matsuo and Sokabe were screaming insults at one another in their quarters at the far end of the kampong. Suddenly, the former drew his pistol and fired at Sokabe. He missed, and the lieutenant returned the fire. They were too drunk to hit one another except by accident, but they kept blazing away.
Almost simultaneously with Matsuo's first shot, the guard fired into the shelter that housed the two Americans. Before he could fire a second shot, an arm encircled his head and drew it back, and a knife almost severed it from his body.
"Were you hit, Bill?" ask Douglas .
"No. He missed us a mile. What's going on out there? Somebody jumped him."
Aroused by the firing in their officers' quarters, dopey, drunken soldiers were staggering toward the far end of the village, thinking the camp had been attacked. Some of them ran so close past Tarzan that he could almost have reached out and touched them. He crouched beside the dead guard, waiting. He was as ignorant of the cause of the fusillade as the Japs. Van Prins and his party were at the opposite end of the kampong; so he knew that it could not be they firing.
When he thought the last Jap had passed him, he called to the prisoners in a low tone. "Are you Douglas and Davis?"
"We sure are."
"Where's the gate?"
"Right in front of you, but it's padlocked." Van Prins, hearing the firing, thought that it was directed at Tarzan; so he brought his men into the village at a run. They spread out, dodging from house to house.
Tarzan stepped to the gate. Its posts were the trunks of small saplings. Douglas and Davis had come from the shelter and were standing close inside the gate.
Tarzan took hold of the posts, one with each hand. "Each of you fellows push on a post," he said, "and I'll pull." As he spoke, he surged back with all his weight and strength; and the posts snapped off before the prisoners could lend a hand. The wire was pulled down to the ground with the posts, and Douglas and Davis walked out to freedom over it.
Tarzan had heard the men coming in from van Prin's position, and guessed it was they. He called to van Prins, and the latter answered. "The prisoners are with me," said Tarzan. "You'd better assemble your men so that we can get out of here." Then he took the rifle and ammunition from the dead Jap and handed them to Davis .
As the party moved out of the village, they could hear the Japs jabbering and shouting at the far end. They did not know the cause of the diversion that had aided them so materially in the rescue of the two men without having suffered any casualties, and many of them regretted leaving without having fired a shot.
Bubonovitch and Rosetti fairly swarmed over their two buddies, asking and answering innumerable questions. One of Davis 's first questions was about Tarzan. "Who was that naked guy that got us out?" he asked.
"Don't you remember the English dook that come aboard just before we shoved off?" asked Rosetti. "Well, that's him; and he's one swell guy. An' who do you t'ink he is?"
"You just told us—the RAF colonel."
"He's Tarzan of the Apes."
"Who you think you're kiddin'?"
"On the level," said Bubonovitch. "He's Tarzan all right."
"The old man ain't here," said Douglas . "He wasn't—?"
"No. He's O.K. He got wounded, and they wouldn't let him come along; but he's all right."
The four talked almost constantly all the way back to the guerrilla camp. They had fought together on many missions. They were linked by ties more binding than blood. There existed between them something that cannot be expressed in words, nor would they have thought of trying to. Perhaps Rosetti came nearest it when he slapped Davis on the back and said, "You old sonofabitch!"
Chapter 27
Two days later, The Foreign Legion, now numbering ten, said goodby to the guerrillas and started on their long march toward a hazy destination. Douglas and Davis took their places in the little company with the easy adaptability of the American soldier. Douglas called it the League of Nations .
At first the two newcomers had been skeptical of the ability of the two women to endure the hardships and the dangers of the almost trackless mountain wilderness that the necessity of avoiding contact with the enemy forced them to traverse. But they soon discovered that they were doing pretty well themselves if they kept up with Corrie and Sarina. There were other surprises, too.
"What's happened to Shrimp?" Davis asked Bubonovitch. "I thought he didn't have tune for any fern, but he's always hangin' around that brown gal. Not that I blame him any. She could park her shoes in my locker any time."
"I fear," said Bubonovitch, "that Staff Sergeant Rosetti has fallen with a dull and sickening thud. At first he was coy about it, but now he is absolutely without shame. He drools."
"And the old man," said Davis . "He used to be what you called a misnogomist."
"That isn't exactly what I called it," said Bubonovitch, "but you have the general idea. Maybe he used to be, but he isn't any more."
"Sort of silly," remarked Carter Douglas. "What do old men know about love?"
"You'd be surprised, little one," said Bubonovitch.
The going was cruel. With parangs, they hacked their way through virgin jungle. Deep gorges and mountain torrents blocked their advance with discouraging frequency. Often, the walls of the former dropped sheer for hundreds of feet, offering no hand nor toe hold, necessitating long detours. Scarcely a day passed without rain, blinding, torrential downpours. They marched and slept in wet, soggy clothing. Their shoes and sandals rotted.
Tarzan hunted for them, and those who had not already done so learned to eat their meat raw. He scouted ahead, picking the best routes, alert for enemy outposts or patrols. By night, they slept very close together, a guard constantly posted against the sudden, stealthy attack of tigers. Sometimes muscles nagged, but morale never.
Little Keta did all the scolding and complaining. When Tarzan had gone to the rescue of Davis and Douglas, Keta had been left behind tied to a tree. He had been very indignant about this and had bitten three Dutchmen who had tried to make friends with him. Since then he had usually been left severely alone, consorting only with Tarzan. The only exception was Rosetti. He voluntarily made friends with the little sergeant, often curling up in his arms when the company was not on the march.
"He probably recognizes Shrimp as a kindred spirit," said Bubonovitch, "if not a near relative."
"He t'inks you're one of dem big apes we seen dat he's a-scairt of."
"You refer, I presume, to Pongo pygmaeus," said Bubonovitch.
Shrimp registered disgust. "I wisht I was a poet. I'd write a pome."
"About me, darling?"
"You said a mouthful. I got a word wot you rhyme with."
They had stopped for the night earlier than usual because Tarzan had found a large dry cave that would accommodate them all. It had probably been occupied many tunes before, as there were charred pieces of wood near the entrance and a supply of dry wood stored within it. They had a fire, and they were sitting close to it, absorbing its welcome warmth and drying as much of their clothing as the presence of mixed company permitted them to remove. Which was considerable, as the silly interdictions of false modesty had largely been scrapped long since. They were a company of "fighting men."
Jerry, Bubonovitch, and Rosetti were looking at the rough map that van Prins had drawn for them. "Here's where we crossed over to the east side of the range," said Jerry, pointing, "—just below Alahanpandjang."
"Geeze, wot a moniker fer a burg! Or is it a burg?"
"It's just a dot on a map to me," admitted Jerry.
>
"Lookit," continued Rosetti. "Here it says dat to where we cross back again to de udder side it is 170 kilometers . Wot's dat in United States ?"
"Oh-h, about one hundred and five or six miles. That's in an air line."
"What do you think we're averaging, Jerry?" asked Bubonovitch.
"I doubt if we're making five miles a day in an air line."
"Today," said Bubonovitch, "I doubt that we made five miles on any kind of a line—unless it was up and down."
"Geeze!" said Rosetti. "De Lovely Lady would have got us dere in maybe twenty-twenty-five minutes. Sloggin' along like dog-faces it probably take us a mont '."
"Maybe more," said Jerry.
"Wot fell!" said Rosetti. "We're lucky to be alive."
"And the scenery is magnificent," said Bubonovitch. "When we can see it through this soup, it looks mighty nice and peaceful down there."
"It sure does," agreed Rosetti. "It doesn't seem like dere could be a war in pretty country like dat. I don't suppose dey ever had no wars here before."
"That's about all they ever did have until within the last hundred years," said Tak van der Bos. "During all historic times, and probably during all pre-historic times back to the days of Pithecanthropus erectus and Homo Modjokertensis, all the islands of the East Indies have been almost constantly overrun by warring men—the tribal chiefs, the petty princes, the little kings, the sultans. The Hindus came from India , the Chinese came, the Portuguese, the Spaniards from the Philippines , the English, the Dutch, and now the Japs. They all brought fleets and soldiers and war. In the thirteenth century, Kubla Khan sent a fleet of a thousand ships bearing 200,000 soldiers to punish a king of Java who had arrested the ambassadors of the Great Khan and sent them back to China with mutilated faces.
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