by Lou Cameron
“I want to come too.”
“You just did. Stay here, damn it. Like your chief must say, I have spoken!”
He left her there and legged it into the village, or, rather, what was left of it. The clearing was mostly holes in the ground, but the frames of a few huts were still standing, their thatch blown away. He gagged as he saw half an Indian baby sprawled on the lip of a crater. A mangled squaw lay beyond. He responded to a low groan to find the old brujo sitting in the bottom of yet another shell crater, trying to hold his guts in with both hands. He wasn’t able to. As the old man looked up at him in mute agony, Captain Gringo knelt at his side, smiled, and pulled out his gun with a silent question in his eyes. The old man stared soberly at the .38 and nodded. So Captain Gringo put the muzzle against his temple and pulled the trigger to put him out of his misery.
The sound of the shot brought a shout he recognized as Gaston’s, thank God. As he climbed out of the shell crater, Gaston came over the broken ground to him, muttering, “Sacre, I told you they were Boche! Who but a child-molesting licker of pig shit would shell an innocent native village without even a declaration of annoyance, let alone war?”
“When you’re right, you’re right. What happened to our people?”
“Phoebe and Jerome did not make it. When the first shell hit, Pat was most fortunately on top, so I just picked her up and ran through the side of the hut with her. I just found her clothes, and she’ll join us when she puts them on in the bushes.”
“Great minds think alike. What about Bertie, Wilson, and Sylvia?”
“Out in the trees to the northwest, I told them to stay there while I came back to look for your body. By the way, why didn’t I find your body, Dick? You certainly were not here when that second salvo landed!”
“Long story. How did our Indian friends make out?”
“Not well, I fear. Like the rest of us, most made it out from under the first short salvo, Everyone tends to run like the hell at such times. But then, though I tried to warn them, the poor fools came back into the target area in response to the cries of the wounded. I shouted myself to a face of blue, but naturally none of them understood me. The chief is over that way, what is left of him. I think the triple-titted Boche killed over half the band. If they got that girl who speaks Spanish, we may be in trouble.”
“They didn’t. Decepciona made it out with me. She’s over by the cars. I think we’d better get everybody, red and white, over by the cars. We’ve got to get the hell out of here, poco tiempo!”
“Oui. I too was astounded to be shelled in such a tranquil Garden of Eden! How on earth could the murderous eaters of pig shit have ranged on us so tightly, Dick? That was no harassing fire. Every one of those shells was aimed. Most landed at the end of the village where we were staying! I do not believe it could have been luck, but how could they have pinpointed us after we drove through the jungle all night?”
“Easy. Tell you about it after we get everyone together by the cars.”
*
Captain Gringo went back to where he’d left Decepciona in the backseat of Bertie’s steam car while Gaston went to round up the survivors. The Indian girl said she was ready to make love again. But he told her to put her mental pantaloons back on and explained what he wanted her to tell the Indians as she gathered them together and brought them out there in the trees.
He had a few moments alone as he looked the cars over, trying to decide which was the best to keep. Overloaded, they’d need the most powerful engine and the best set of tires to make it out of this mess. Wheels, like kerosene tins, could easily be switched around. A lot of camping gear would have to be left behind and it would still be a tight fit.
Gaston hailed him. He looked over to see the little Frenchman leading Bertie, Wilson, and the two surviving girls toward the last three cars. The whites seemed subdued and shaken by recent happenings. Save for Pat, who’d been carried, they’d all made it the same way, simply by crashing through the nearest thatch wall and running like hell when the first big shell had slammed down. Wilson grumbled that he’d been beating Jerome at rummy at the time and that Jerome still owed him. Sylvia and Pat were too ashen-faced to say anything.
Bertie asked if the cars had been damaged. Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No, of course not. They were parked well clear of the target area, you son of a bitch!”
Bertie blinked in astonishment, then replied, “I say, there’s no need to be nasty, Captain! I feel terrible about what happened to poor Phoebe, too!”
Captain Gringo said, “I’ll bet you do. She was a good kid, you two-faced prick!”
Then, since Bertie was going for his gun, Captain Gringo beat him to the draw and blew his face off! He was so pissed that he emptied the rest of the chambers into Bertie’s twitching corpse as it sprawled in the muck at his feet.
Gaston whipped out his own gun and snapped, “The rest of you should stand ever so still, hein? I don’t know why he did that, either, but I’m still on his side!”
Wilson stared wide-eyed at Bertie’s dead body and gasped. “Have you gone mad, Walker?” he asked.
Captain Gringo shook his head as he calmly proceeded to reload his smoking .38. He said, “The prick was working for the other side. We have him to thank for that double salvo just now. He left Phoebe to the messy, too, unless he killed her instead of just knocking her out before he got an early lead on the rest of you. He knew when and where the shells would land, so naturally he was out in the trees long before the first one came in. He’d have had a time explaining that to Phoebe. She was on our side!”
Sylvia licked her lips and asked, “Dick, how could you possibly know all this?”
Captain Gringo holstered his gun and said, “Process of elimination. You can put your gun away now, Gaston. There’s nobody here but us dupes, now.”
Gaston lowered his revolver politely, but kept it in his hand as he growled, “Sacre God damn, I wish you’d explain, Dick.”
Wilson nodded and added, “Bloody right! I’ve known Bertie for years. He was British to the bone, or at least he was until just now!”
Captain Gringo sighed and said, “Jesus, do I have to do all the thinking around here? Yeah, I guess I do. Wallace didn’t pick any of you for your knowledge of power politics. Okay, as you all know, once upon a time the German high command wanted to deliver something to a secret base. It was probably something like a new wireless set. Since Marconi patented his wireless telegraph a couple of years ago, hardly a month goes by without someone coming up with another patented improvement, and the Germans lead in the new technology. They got a head start because radio waves were discovered by a German named Hertz back in ’87.”
He reached for a smoke and lit up before he continued, “Okay, Der Kaiser likes to keep his navy up to date, secret or not. It wouldn’t stay secret with the Royal Navy patrolling the Caribbean if they sent new radio tubes by parcel post or tried to smuggle them in by sea. So first they hired a cashiered British officer named Wallace. It takes money to belong to the best London clubs. Wallace and his confederates recruited the bunch of you with his mammy-jamming treasure-hunt story, knowing that anyone from Whitehall who got wind of the expedition would dismiss it as a pathetic waste of time and money by a bunch of well-to-do eccentrics. Then things started to go wrong. Marlowe, hired both as a guide and as more cover, caught on, somehow, before we’d even left Puerto Cabezas. He may have been a worthless remittance man, but, unlike Wallace, he was a patriot who read the papers and wasn’t happy about Kaiser Willy’s obvious future plans. After Gaston and I messed up the welcoming committee, Marlowe beat Wallace to the draw, and Wallace was an old soldier who should have been good. Bertie was even better. He drew on Marlowe and killed him with Marlowe already having the drop on him! It takes a real gun slick to do that, so Bertie was no mere West End playboy. ”
Gaston cut in, “Merde alors, this is all ancient history, Dick. One can see how you might have suspected there was more to Bertie than met the eye. But you just shot him
trés seriously, and if that was all you had to go by—”
“It wasn’t,” said Captain Gringo. “I didn’t know for sure until today. Those shells just now didn’t drop out of the sky by accident. They were lobbed at least twenty-five miles, with pinpoint accuracy!”
The redhead, Pat, asked. “Couldn’t those other sneaks have told the nasty Germans where we were, Dick?”
He shook his head and asked, “How? The whole point of moving under cover of darkness was that Baxter and Fenton knew where we were when they left with Matilda. I knew before the last shells landed that we were under pinpoint fire. Like I said, the rest was elimination. I knew you girls were unable to send wireless messages from your car. Gaston and I were in it with you every time you were. Wilson had been riding with his fellow Scot, Gordon, and Jerome was sitting in the back of the White we abandoned in the river until we had to reshuffle some. Bertie had been driving the same steamer from start to finish. Look at those headlights, Gaston. It’s time you won a gold star from the teacher.”
Gaston stared morosely at the brass headlights of the late Bertie’s steamer and said, “Eh bien, they are mundane electric lights. So what?”
“So what? Most steamers come with carbide lamps. There’s no point in having an electric battery in a goddamn steamer! I just looked under the chassis. There’s a magneto geared to the steam engine that turns the wheels. As it rolls it charges a lead-cell battery. A big one. Bigger than anyone would need to light those tiny Edison bulbs.”
“Sacre bleu! But you saying Bertie betrayed our position with a secret radio transmitter?”
“He didn’t send smoke signals. The setup’s pretty slick. The steel chassis itself is the antenna. The only indication of the transmitting tubes hidden by the dash is one little wire spliced to the ones from the battery to said headlights. It’s part of the same circuit. So all he had to do to send dots and dashes with others sitting right next to him would be to fiddle with his headlight switch. Who pays attention?”
“But, Dick, my beloved electrician, would not we have noticed if he’d been blinking his headlights so madly?”
“Sure we would have, if they’d been blinking. How did you think I found the transmitter? I just tried to turn the headlights on as I was inspecting all three cars. His bulbs had been unscrewed and both sockets were empty when I looked closer through the thick dusty glass. I wondered why anyone would go to so much trouble to have electric headlights and then not have them. The rest is history.”
Gaston nodded and said, “Eh bien, it does seem to add up. When the ones working with him deserted to make the delivery, he stayed behind to make certain none of us would ever wander out of the jungle all bedraggled to gossip about mysterious armed men we’d encountered in an area where poor Honduras doesn’t even try to collect taxes, non?”
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. Decepciona was leading in a mess of leftover Indians. Most of them were women and children, thank God. The men had been the suckers who’d run back to help their injured and been hit by the second salvo. Those men left, about a dozen, seemed mad as hell about it. Some of them had smeared themselves with black grease and all of them were waving their longbows around in angry gestures.
Decepciona said, “I told my people what you said about having to move again. They do not wish to move. They want to stand and fight. Those evil Wancos killed our brujo, our chief, and many others. They say that if you will lead them, you can be our new chief. They know little about fighting men with such big guns!”
Captain Gringo smiled gently at her and said, “That seems obvious. Tell them I’m sure they are brave men and good archers, but that bows and arrows aren’t much use against heavy weapons.”
“Pooh, you also have a heavy weapon, Dick person! Your big gun that goes tom-tom-tom! Our bowmen know this country. They say they can scout and pick off the outposts of the bad blancos. You and your tom-tom-tom can deal with larger numbers, no?”
“Tell them we’ll talk about it after we make camp somewhere else. This place is bad medicine. More shells could land any minute.”
*
Captain Gringo and the other whites had plenty of time to think as they followed the Indians in Sylvia’s and Bertie’s steamers after abandoning the other, minus its tires. Sylvia’s Stanley was a more powerful vehicle, but that half-assed attempt on his life had scorched her tires, and as long as they were low on kerosene anyway, it paid to make sure of good rubber. They had a lot of rolling to do. He’d been tempted to pile them all into Bertie’s car alone, since he wanted to hang on to that wireless set. But the Indians said the hollow they knew of wasn’t far, so why ride cramped before they had to? He and Gaston switched to the sneaky Bertie’s vehicle to let Wilson and Jerome ride with the two girls for a change. The heavy gear they really might need rode in the empty seat behind him and Gaston. He naturally resisted any temptation to fiddle with switches as they drove.
It took their Indian comrades longer to set up camp again. They were sort of short-handed. Captain Gringo never would have chosen the site, had not those heavy shells made hash out of the last one. But Decepciona and her tribes folk caught on fast, for primitives. The new camp was set in a depression between two heavily wooded rises that were islands in the rainy season. The results were soggy dirt floors for the new huts erected with skilled machete carpentry. He saw why they slept in those hammocks and knew that the bugs would be a bitch after dark. But a mosquito bite didn’t hurt half as much as an eight-inch shell coming through the thatch.
Some of the Indian women started building smudge fires, with the bugs in mind. He told Decepciona to tell them not to send up any smoke before dark, and once again they surprised him by catching on quickly. His remaining white allies had been chosen for being slow learners. The Mosquito Indians were the product of selective evolution in an environment where the dull-of-wit didn’t grow up to have children. As he sat on the running board of Bertie’s steamer with Gaston, watching their smooth but quick movements, he said, “Dammit Gaston, I like these people!”
Gaston said, “I am not displeased with them, and I know what you are thinking, Dick. Forget it. Once the chase cools off, our only chance is a run for Patuca and a boat out. The Germans will be in enough trouble if our white friends make it out alive. Having found out about their thrice-accursed secret navy base, we owe it to Kaiser Willy to see that Whitehall hears all about it, non?”
“Yeah. I like that part. But it’ll take weeks for the Royal Navy to make up its mind to do anything about it. Those square heads will want to tidy up before they leave. They know, now, that these Indians know too much, and the poor little bastards only have bows and arrows!”
“Poison arrows, Dick. Besides, those Boche can’t catch many Indians in their own jungle, hein?”
“If they catch one, it’ll be too many. Besides, these little guys are really pissed off. If we leave them on their own, some young braves are sure to try something to avenge all the relatives they just lost. The Germans will be expecting them to, too, dammit!”
Gaston said, “C’est la fucking vie, Dick. I agree they could use some strategic planning if they wish to make war on the German Reich. But I happen to be a military genius, so I know how hopeless attacking that base would be, even with our help.”
“They probably have diesel fuel over there, you know.”
“That is trés ridicule, even coming from you! We have enough kerosene left for one car to steam as far as Patuca, or at least within walking distance of the port. The girls can sit on the laps of Wilson and Jerome in the back, with enough room left over for such few supplies as we need. If you insist on taking along the Maxim, I volunteer to hold her in my lap! It’s over, Dick. We have managed to survive. When one considers how Wallace planned it all, I would say that all in all we have done better than expected. Now it is time to think of our remaining asses, hein?”
Decepciona was coming over to them, smiling wearily and looking shiny as hell. She had smeared herself from head to toe with
some sort of bug oil. It looked sort of sexy. Captain Gringo wondered what it would feel like to make love to such a slippery little brown body.
On the other hand, Sylvia might want to try covering her own naked hourglass with that stuff. If he could talk either girl into a slippery game of three in a hammock … Never mind, it would probably kill him.
Decepciona told them their hammocks were ready when they were. She ran a small brown hand over her shiny naked tummy and added, “This place will be very bad after dark, Deek. The missionaries explained how you blancos feel about letting people see your bodies, but unless you can get your friends to follow sensible customs, the little flying fiends who dwell here will eat you all alive after dark.”
Captain Gringo nodded. Then he frowned and said, “Wait a minute. How much of that goo have you people got on hand and what in hell is it?”
Decepciona said, “It is just oil with juice the mosquitoes do not like mixed in with it, Dick person. We make it from the oil of nuts and the juice of a grass your people call citronella. The Spanish introduced the foreign grass long ago. It is one of the few favors they ever did us. We have many jars prepared. More than enough for everyone.”
He grinned and said, “I thought I recognized the smell. We didn’t smear it on quite as thick in the summer back in Connecticut. That’s probably why it didn’t work so hot. Could you spare us enough to fill at least two kerosene tins, Decepciona?”
“Of course. Anything we have is yours, Dick person. But I must say your people must want to spread it very thickly on themselves if you need that much!’
Gaston caught on. He nodded and said, “Eh bien, it ought to burn as well as kerosene, and the exhaust will do wonders for the insects, as we drive both cars, after all!”
Captain Gringo sent the Indian girl for the oil before he told Gaston, “Two cars makes the difference. We’ll keep this one, with the radio gear. Sylvia can drive on to Patuca with Pat and the two useless men.”
“Merde alors, Pat is not useless, Dick! She gives a trés fantastique blow job!”
