A fist slammed against his jaw, and he twisted, trying to catch the man’s knife-wrist. As in everything else, there is a knack to fighting in the dark, an instinctive gauging of position that comes with experience. But it was experience his opponent had as well.
He jammed a fist against a corded stomach, but took a jolting punch himself. He felt the man draw back his arm and shift balance to drive the knife home, but he fell away from the blade and hooking his toe behind his opponent’s ankle, jerked the leg from under him.
They got up together, and he took a smashing blow to the mouth then hooked a hard one to the chin, feeling the man go down under the blow.
Instantly, he dropped, falling knees first at the spot where the man’s stomach should have been, but the fellow rolled away quickly. Then there was a scuffle of feet. Sensing the spy was trying to get away, Ponga Jim grabbed for the flashlight, which had fallen from his pocket during the fray. He felt around, finding the light after a few moments. He snapped it on, his gun ready. The hold was empty. He shook his head to clear it. Was it one or two different people he had struggled with there in the dark?
Mayo swore under his breath and ran for the topside ladder. On deck, he came to a stop, groping for the rail as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the blinding sunlight. Squinting forward and aft he searched for the mysterious man from the hold. No one was nearby.
Ponga Jim stopped amidships. Brace Lamprey had come on deck and not far from him was Ross Mallory. Lamprey looked at Jim curiously.
“What happened to you, man?” he asked. “You look like you’ve been slugging it out with them!”
“I was,” Jim said coolly. Lamprey’s face was smooth, unmarked. Nor did Mallory show any signs of conflict. The two of them seemed all too cool to have participated in the fight below.
Ponga Jim went up the ladder to the bridge. Blore, one of the South Africans, came out of the wheelhouse.
“Are we changing course to go in to Buton?”
“No,” Jim said shortly, “we’re swinging wide. We’re going east, through Kelang Strait.”
Blore turned a little, his eyes intent. “That’s a long way around, isn’t it? What’s in the wind, Skipper? Do you have some mission other than delivering these planes?”
Ponga Jim shoved his cap back on his head. “My only mission is minding my own business. These planes go where they were sent, and anything that gets in the way gets smashed, understand?”
Blore’s eyes dropped a little, but his face was expressionless.
“Yes, sir,” he said sullenly. “I understand you, Captain.”
Ponga Jim Mayo walked back to the chart room. He was getting jumpy, he shouldn’t have spoken so hard to the kid.
He glanced down at the chart. Due north from Kelang Strait would take him just west of the Ombi Islands. Something stopped him cold, and he stared down at the chart, caught by a sudden thought. As he stared down at the map, he felt himself chill through and through at the realization of what was about to happen.
IT WAS NO LONGER a vague premonition, no longer a few scattered acts and words fitting to the hint dropped by Arnold. He could see it all, and the realization struck him speechless for the moment.
In his mind, Jim was seeing an island, a high tableland near Obi Major. Thick, dank green jungle ran down to the sea. But Jim was not thinking of the jungle, he was thinking of that tableland.
He was remembering the day he had climbed the steplike mountain and stood looking out over the top, a flat, dead-level field, waving with long grass. Eight hundred feet above the sea, it was. “Tobalai,” he muttered, “Tobalai Island!”
From outside there was the shriek of an incoming shell followed by the deep concussion of a heavy cannon. Then ship’s alarms blasted the signal for general quarters.
The waiting, it seemed, was over.
CHAPTER IV
Ponga Jim dived for the bridge. He saw, ahead of them, the low, dark profile of a submarine. In front of its conning tower a crew rushed to reload the deck gun.
“Starboard fifteen degrees,” he called out and reached for the forward fire-control phone. But something was wrong. The sub had fired a warning shot, it had not tried to sink them, and Eric Frazer was standing in the door of the chart room, one side of his face a dark and purple bruise.
Even though he was ready for it, the punch almost nailed him. Frazer threw his right hand fast and hard. But Jim’s left hook was harder.
“Never lead a right hand,” he said, and knocked the third mate down. Frazer was up like a cat, but Jim fished out his pistol and covered him. Suddenly, the ship’s heading started to swing, and Jim turned instinctively to the wheel. He was just in time to see the blow start, but too late to block it. Blore slugged him across the head with a blackjack.
Jim started to fall, and Frazer slugged him from behind. Then the blackjack fell again and Ponga Jim went to his knees, blinded with a sickening pain. He went down. Even then, his consciousness a feeble spark lost in a sea of blackness, he struggled. Someone must have hit him once more because he felt his knees slide from under him and he faded out in a pounding surf of agony.
WHEN HE OPENED his eyes, he was alive to nothing but the throbbing pain in his head. It felt heavy and unwieldy when he made an effort to move. His hands were tied, and his ankles also. He struggled to sit up and the pain wrenched a groan from his swollen lips.
“Skipper?” It was Brophy’s voice.
“What happened?” Ponga Jim asked. “What in blazes happened?”
“They took over the ship,” Brophy said. “They took us like Dewey took Manila. I woke up with a gun in my face, an’ they got the Gunner when he came on watch.”
“They?” Mayo puckered his brow, trying to figure it out.
“Yeah. Frazer, Lamprey, and Mallory. They had six of the South African crew with them. I heard some of them talking. I guess they are actually Boers who sympathize with the Nazis…anyway, they’re working with the Japs.”
“Makes sense,” Jim said, remembering. “I think we’re headed for Tobalai.”
“Why Tobalai?” Brophy asked.
“I’m guessing they’ve turned the top of the island into a landing field. From there they can cover any point in the East Indies, but particularly anywhere from where we are now to Mindanao.”
“That’s slick thinking…you’re probably right!”
“I don’t feel so smart,” Jim said bitterly. “A lot of good we can do, all wrapped up like premium hams.”
The door opened, and Li came in with a tray of food. The Chinese put it down carefully for two armed men stood in the door, guns ready. One was a Japanese, the other the seaman, Blore.
“Wait until I get out of here,” Ponga Jim said. “I’ll see you guys swing for this.”
“You will, eh?” Blore sneered. “You won’t be getting out and tomorrow morning what is left of the United States fleet will come steaming up through Greyhound Strait from the Banda Sea.”
Ponga Jim turned cold inside, but he kept up the sarcastic, skeptical manner.
“Yeah? So what?” he said.
A weasel-faced seaman leaned into the hatch. “Then a couple of cruisers will draw their fighters into a trap and these planes of yours attack the carriers…the crews will think it’s their own men coming back. There’s two battleships lying behind Obi Major, an’ a dozen submarines are waiting to clean up the job.”
“Ah?” the voice was gentle, polite. “Are you being entertained, Captain Mayo?”
Weasel-face stopped, his mouth half open to speak. Slowly he turned a sickly yellow. Captain Toya Tushima stepped into view. The trim little Nipponese held his features in an expression of calm benevolence but Weasel-face turned as though fascinated with horror.
“I cannot say that it is good to see you again, Captain Mayo, but, in a war of strangers, I do feel a certain pleasure in an old acquaintance.”
“It’s been a long time since Manchuria, hasn’t it?”
“Perhaps for you.” The Jap
anese looked at him carefully, as he might at a piece of awkward furniture. Then indicating the weasely crewman he spoke to Frazer who had come up.
“Do we need this man?” he asked.
Eric shrugged. “He is one of the recruits from the Transvaal…I don’t think so.”
“Good,” Tushima said pleasantly. “Stand aside.”
He unbuttoned his holster carefully and drew out a gun. The crewman drew away.
“No!” he begged hoarsely. “No! Please!”
The report of the gun was thunder within the steel walls. The seaman crumpled slowly, a round blue hole between his eyes.
Tushima looked at Blore.
“You really mustn’t talk so much,” he said. Without a backward glance, he walked away.
Blore, his hands shaking, picked up the dead man and carried him out. Brophy swallowed and looked at Li.
“I don’t think I’m eating,” he said. “I don’t think I got the stomach for it.”
“Better try,” Jim said, “this isn’t over yet.”
After they had eaten and Li was gone, the two men remained in the half darkness of the rope locker. Millan and the others, they heard, were confined in the seaman’s fo’c’s’le. Remembering the door into No. 5 hold he had used before, Jim began to work at his bonds. The door was behind the stack of line and, apparently, unnoticed. If they could get free…
For a long time, he worked in the darkness, twisting, tugging, and straining, but without success. And all the time, he carried a picture in his thoughts of the long gray ships of war coming up from the Banda Sea, taking the back door to the Philippines from their bases in Samoa and Port Darwin. Once their air cover had been lured away, the torpedo planes, the same ones that the Semiramis carried, would approach and, appearing to be the American planes returning from the battle, would get close enough to the carriers to launch a crippling attack. It was a potentially devastating plan.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Jim exclaimed suddenly. “If they get away with this, it will make Pearl Harbor look like a pink tea!”
He was thinking rapidly. If he could get his hands free, he could get down the ladder into the hold. Unless Lamprey had found it, or one of the others, there was a tommy gun in the Grumman. If he could get that gun and get on deck, he’d take his own chances.
Tugging at the ropes was a waste of time. Jim growled under his breath. Suddenly, an inspiration struck him.
“Slug?” he whispered. “Where did you put the gear from that smashed lifeboat? The one that was blasted in the Red Sea?”
“Over there, in the drawers,” Slug said. “Why?”
“There’s a couple of hatchets, an’ all the other gear. What I’m thinking of is the matches.”
Jim stretched out his legs and dug in his heels, dragging himself to the place where the smaller articles of gear were stowed. By getting his chin in the handhold on the drawer, he worked it open. Backing up to a pile of line, he worked himself up the pile until he was on his feet. He felt around carefully, and found the matches.
Their hands were tied behind them but Brophy struck a light and held the match so that Jim could slide back and hold his wrists over the flame. It burned his hand, burned his wrist, then went out. Brophy awkwardly struck another but dropped it trying to maneuver the match toward Jim’s wrists. The third time, however, Jim used the heat from the flame as a guide and positioned the rope carefully. It charred slowly, caught fire and burned, then went out. Brophy tried again, but the match broke in striking. Finally they got the rope burning and with a surge of strength, the strands parted. In a matter of minutes, they were both free.
CHAPTER V
Rubbing his wrists to restore circulation, Jim got to his feet. Then picking up a couple of steel battens for fastening hatches, he slid them under the door handle, driving a couple of wooden wedges in place to hold them securely. Slug watched him curiously.
“You figure out the wildest things,” he said. “What’s the idea?”
“Keep them guessing awhile. Suppose somebody came in before we got out of the hold? We’d be killed before we could get anywhere close to the deck. As it is, they’ll think we’re just trying to keep them out in case they get an idea to bump us off.”
Climbing over the rope, he grabbed the handle of the door to the hold, and twisted sharply. Nothing happened. The dismay on Brophy’s face mirrored his own.
“Locked!” Jim said. “They locked it!”
The mate hesitated, then doubling a big fist he grinned at Jim.
“We can always jump them when they come in to feed us,” he said.
“Won’t do. They’d cut us down before we’d taken three steps.”
“Then I guess you better start kicking a hole in the deck,” Slug said dryly. “That’s the only way out I can see.”
“Wait a minute.” Jim crawled over the lines to the one porthole. The paint was stuck, but cutting around the edge with the hatchet, he managed to get it open. “We’ll have to wait until dark,” he whispered, “but we’re going out that port.”
“Into the ocean?” Brophy asked. “Not me!”
Jim chuckled. “What’s the matter? Getting chilly around the arches? You know blamed well you’ll do it if there was a chance of getting a crack at those mugs.”
Slug grinned. “Maybe, but I haven’t got the build you have. I’m thicker in the middle and might not go through so easy.”
Twice attempts were made to open the door, but they sat silent, listening. The Japanese weren’t worried. Both exits were closed tight, and if the prisoners wanted to do without food, they had only themselves to blame, and were much less trouble.
As they waited, Ponga Jim was recalling what Weasel-face had said. Two battleships behind Obi Major. That would mean they would be inside the reef somewhere between Tanjongs Woko and Parigi, probably. More ships might be lying in the Roads at Laiwoei.
On the other side of Greyhound Strait, several ships could lie out of sight in Banggai Bay, and even more in the deeper, spacious waters of Bangkalang Bay. Scouting planes could only see them when almost over the bays themselves, but it would already be too late.
He was no nearer a plan. If he had a plane, he could fly over and warn the fleet before they were in danger. Once warned they could handle the situation. He had no doubt about that.
Before he realized, it was dark. Slug Brophy had been lying on the piled-up lines looking out through the porthole.
“We’re not far offshore now,” he said. “I thought I glimpsed moonlight on the tin roof of the storage shed at Laiwoei and I thought I recognized Mala Mala a while back.”
“Then it’s time for us to go into action.” Jim got up quickly, thrusting a hatchet in his belt.
Picking up a heaving line he crawled to the port. He tossed the tail end of the line to Slug.
“Take a turn around some of that inch line,” he said. “This all depends on whether anybody is near enough or not. If they see or hear, we’re out of luck.”
Putting one arm and shoulder out the port, he worked his broad shoulders through. Then, sitting in the port with Slug holding his legs, he leaned back and threw the monkey’s fist.
The edge of the deck was just about eight feet above his head, and the ball of knotted rope went over the edge and under the lowest part of the rail. It hit the deck, rolled down with the roll of the ship, then back. He had missed.
Gauging the distance again, he tried another toss. But that time, too, he failed to make it roll down on the opposite side of the stanchion. On the seventh attempt, he was successful. It rolled back hard enough to come over the edge. Then by paying out line the weight of the monkey’s fist brought it back down to him. Passing it on to Slug, he began hauling down on the line until the inch line was around the stanchion.
Sliding back into the port, he cut off the inch line while Slug unbent the heaving line.
“I’m going to take the piece we use with us, or drop it over the side,” Jim said. “Let them think we’re locked u
p. They’ll find out too soon, anyway.”
Pulling himself back to a sitting position in the port, he grasped the two lines in his hands and went up, hand over hand. As soon as he was over the ship’s side, he dropped the rope close in front of the port so Brophy would see it.
He glanced around and was just in time to see the descending marlinspike, and jerked his head aside. The power of the blow jerked the man off balance and he almost fell over the rail.
Before he could cry out, Jim struck him. A driving right to the chin, and then another short one in the wind. Gasping for breath, the man struck wildly, and Jim almost lost balance and fell into the sea.
Clinging precariously to the rail, the two fought desperately and in silence. Then Ponga Jim’s superior strength gave him an advantage. The man was slipping, and he let go of Jim and grabbed desperately at the rail, but Jim knocked his hands loose and as the man fell forward, Jim grabbed the back of his neck and tipped him over the side.
Brophy jerked back out of the way just as the man fell past, but there was no scream, only a splash, and no further sound. Brophy came up the rope and Jim helped him to the deck. Then he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
“What do we do?” Slug said. “Turn the boys loose an’ take over the ship?”
“It’s too late,” Jim said. “Look!”
The Semiramis was just coming into the Roads at Laiwoei. Ahead of them lay a long gray destroyer, beyond that a cruiser and another destroyer.
They drew back into the darkness between a cargo winch and the mainm’st. “Go below in the hold somewhere and watch your chance to turn the others loose. Then if you can slip out of the Roads somehow, do it.”
“What about you?” Brophy demanded.
“I’m going ashore. Somehow I’m going to get word to the fleet, and somehow I’m going to get on Tobalai and see if I can throw a monkey wrench into this deal. Do what you can.”
Silently, the two men gripped hands, then Ponga Jim dropped to his knees behind the hatch-coaming and worked his way forward. A dash to the walk along the lee rail got him to shelter. He climbed up on the rail, did a hand-over-hand up the stanchion, and crawled over the edge to the boat deck.
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four Page 50
