The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four

by Louis L'Amour

  Big London grinned, showing his white teeth and flexing his muscles.

  “What do we do, Cap?”

  Ponga Jim walked up to the door and took hold of the bars. The guard was standing in the door explaining something to Rayna in Japanese.

  London took hold of the bars and looked at Jim. Mayo took a breath.

  “Let’s go!” he said, and heaved with all his strength.

  The iron bars of the door broke away from the frame on the first heave, splintering the crudely hewn wood. The guard whirled, jerking up his gun, but as he started to take a step, Rayna tripped him.

  The marine spilled over on his face, and as Big London gave another terrific heave, wrenching the door away from its flimsy, shanty framing, Jim lunged through. A blow with the rifle butt as the guard started to get up, and he was knocked completely cold.

  “Come on!” Jim snapped.

  CHAPTER VII

  Ponga Jim picked up the rifle and started at a rapid walk for the barracks. They had made it almost halfway before someone noticed them. Then two Japanese soldiers stopped and stared at them.

  Without a second’s hesitation, Ponga Jim walked right up to the nearest one, smiling. Rayna said something he didn’t follow in Japanese, and the man frowned, looking uncertainly from Jim’s gun to the Negro. Jim was almost within arm’s length of the man when the soldier made up his mind that something was wrong. He opened his mouth to yell, and Jim drove the barrel of the rifle into the soldier’s solar plexus with terrific force.

  Big London, who had been carrying a length of wood, sprang up and knocked the rifle from the second man’s hand, then brought the club down over his head. Grabbing up the rifles they ran for the barracks.

  Behind them was a startled yell, then a shot. Jim turned and fired three times, taking his own sweet time and dropping each man he shot at. Then they rushed into the empty barracks and slammed the door. London jerked a table in front of it, and they rushed on upstairs after Rayna.

  A Japanese sat at the desk when they came in, and he reached for a gun. Big London whirled, smashing him across the back of the neck with the rifle butt.

  “Get at the window,” Jim said quietly. “Rayna, if you can shoot, take one of those rifles, but don’t waste any shots.”

  The switch was open and he sat down and slipping on the headphones began to call:

  “Calling U.S. Pacific Fleet, any ship…calling Pacific Fleet…you are running into danger…you are running into danger!”

  Almost instantly and so quickly it surprised him, a voice snapped in his ear, the tones sharp, incisive: “Come in, please…identify yourself?”

  “Captain James Mayo, master of the freighter Semiramis… calling from Tobalai…the enemy has planes waiting to take off…battleships and submarines in vicinity of Greyhound Strait…some planes bear American markings…”

  BIG LONDON’S RIFLE was firing steadily now, and outside shouts of anger could be heard. Above on the tableland a plane’s motor broke into a roar. A hail of lead swept the room, but most of it was too high. Rayna was firing now.

  Jim stayed at the instrument. “Check with Major Arnold, British Military Intelligence…two battleships…”

  “Hold it!”

  Jim turned his head, gun in hand, to see Ross Mallory in the hall.

  “They’ve been holding me here,” Mallory said. “Let me in on this!”

  “Is this a double cross?” Jim demanded harshly. “Mallory, you start anything now and I’ll kill you!”

  “Nothing like that. They had me in a tight spot. I was supposed to do the broadcast that made them think the American planes were returning early.” Mallory was sweating. “I can’t do it, no matter what it costs me. Here…” He handed Mayo a notebook.

  Jim glanced down at the notebook, open at the page. “Those are the forces here,” Mallory said. “Tell them.”

  Ponga Jim snapped into the mouthpiece: “Are you there?”

  “Waiting,” the voice was cool.

  “Two battleships, Nagato class…three cruisers of the Myokos class, one Furutaka… at least ten submarines.”

  The firing was a steady roar now, and leaving the switch open, Jim jumped from the radio and grabbed up a rifle. Down below the men were trying to mount the stairs with Mallory holding it with bursts from a light machine gun.

  They tried a rush, but the machine gun and Jim’s rifle stopped it. Then a single shot rang out and Mallory backed up, coughing. The long gun started to slip from his hands and Jim caught it, charging halfway down the stairs, the gun chattering.

  The crowd of Japanese melted, and Jim raced back up the steps. He grabbed up more ammunition, stuffing it in his pockets. Then, he lifted the machine gun and fired a burst at the nearest gasoline storage tank.

  The tracers hit the tank and there was a terrific blast of fire; a wave of heat struck them like a blow. The barracks sagged with the power of it, and then yells and screams lifted and were lost in the roaring inferno of the burning gasoline.

  Catching Rayna by the hand, Jim yelled at Big London. Mallory was dead. Evidently, something crooked he had done in the past had given the spies a hold over him, but he had died a brave death in the end. The three raced down the stairs, forgotten in the roaring flames outside. Running, they started up a back trail to the plateau above.

  Suddenly, from behind them there was a gigantic explosion that almost knocked them to their knees. “The other tank,” Jim said.

  They ran on, gasping for breath. The jungle had been showered with gasoline and flame, and burning and blackened shreds of foliage were falling around them. They reached the plateau in a dense cloud of smoke. Several Japanese saw them and ran forward. Ponga Jim opened up, firing a burst, then dashed for a plane.

  Suddenly, from nowhere, Lyssy was beside them.

  “The ship!” he yelled. Flames danced on his brown face and his staring eyes. “The ship, she come!”

  Turning, Ponga Jim looked down. True enough, the old Semiramis was below, lying a half mile off shore. Even as they watched, her guns belched fire. She was firing on a Japanese submarine.

  Jim wheeled, passing the machine gun to Big London.

  “Go to the ship!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

  “What about you?” Rayna cried, catching his sleeve.

  “I’m going up there,” he said.

  Then he was gone, running for an idling plane. It was a captured fighter, probably taken from another supply ship taking American planes to the East Indies.

  A Japanese was just getting into the seat, and Jim grabbed him, jerking him back. The flyer fell awkwardly, and a mechanic started to run around the plane, but Jim was already in, and in a matter of seconds the plane went roaring down the plateau. Just in time, he eased back on the stick and the fighter shot aloft.

  Only a few planes remained on the field, for most of them had taken off just before the explosion of the first tank. Jim leveled off and opened the throttle wide, heading for Greyhound Strait.

  What was happening up ahead he could only guess. There was a silence that worried him. Still, he had far to go. He swung wide, turning to go south of Taliabu.

  Like a bullet from a gun, his ship roared through the sky at three hundred miles an hour.

  Easing back on the stick, he climbed, reaching for more and more altitude. Then, through a break in the clouds, he saw it, the splendid majesty of the fleet, moving up the sea in formation, but no longer headed for a deadly surprise, now for a battle. Almost automatically, he had slipped into his ’chute.

  Then, lower down and ahead of him, already swinging toward the fleet, he saw the flight of false American planes. The decks of the carriers were partially empty, indicating that they had launched aircraft in pursuit of the Japanese warships that had been intended as bait. Jim prayed that they would stay away from the coming battle and not add to the confusion and slaughter.

  Ponga Jim looked down at the formation of planes, then at the fleet below them and ahead. With a grin and a wave to the
gods who watch over fools and flyers, he pushed the stick forward. The nose went down and he opened the throttle wide. He was behind them, and with the sun behind him. A perfect start.

  The heavy plane went into the roaring crescendo of a power dive, and he saw the air-speed needle climbing up 300…350…400…450, and then he was opening up with all six machine guns and the cannon. A fighter below him swerved and suddenly burst into flame. It crashed into another plane, and the two whirled earthward in a tangled mass of twisting metal. His guns were spewing flame again and in an instant he was in the middle of a dogfight, alone against a dozen enemy planes.

  He saw a torpedo plane pull up and go whirling out of sight, then a fighter was in his sights, then he was past and the aircraft was a plummeting mass of wreckage. Ack-ack from the ships opened up and anti-aircraft machine-gun fire laced the sky.

  Now that the formation had broken, the Japanese pilots couldn’t locate him as quickly in the confusion of the battle. Every plane in the sky had American markings. Yet he knew that anything flying was his enemy. Fighting like a demon, and using the ship as though it were part of him, he circled, spun, dove, and climbed, fighting the ships with everything it had. In the middle of it, he glanced upward and saw something that made his heart jolt with fear. High above he saw a fighter ship peel off of a new formation and come shooting down toward them, and after it a long string of others. The American planes! The returning planes from the carriers!

  Down below he could see the belching guns, and hear the mighty thunder of crashing cannon as the Japanese ships opened fire. But then he was shooting upward, climbing out and praying that he wouldn’t be shot down by his own countrymen.

  They fell upon the Japanese-piloted aircraft and suddenly Jim could see the method to their madness. Every American pilot had his cockpit canopy slid back. They were taking a horrible buffeting but, at close range at least, they could identify each other. Jim ripped the Perspex windscreen back and wheeled back into the fray.

  A ship showed in his sights and he opened up, ripping a long line of holes down the side, and the plane suddenly turned into flame, and fell from sight.

  How long he fought he didn’t know, or how many ships he downed, but then suddenly, he saw a torpedo bomber headed toward a battleship, and he did an Immelmann and whipped around on the bomber’s tail. The rear gunner opened fire on him, but he roared on into the blazing guns, his own, one steady stream of fire.

  He was coming in from slightly below and suddenly, a shell from his cannon hit the torpedo on the enemy plane. There was a terrific blast of fire, and a crash like thunder, and then his own plane, hit by a barrage of flying fragments, dove crazily.

  For an instant he righted it, but one wing was vibrating wildly and he knew he was finished. He struggled with the crash belts, a plane dove toward him, its guns roaring, and something struck him a terrific blow on the head.

  In a blaze of pain lighted by the burning bomber, and accompanied by the rising crescendo of exploding shells, he turned back to the controls. He dropped toward the water, using his flaps to kill his speed and skipped across the ocean, like a stone. He saw sky and water, his body was pounded by forces he couldn’t identify, whirled and slapped and was finally drenched with salty water laced with gasoline. He slipped out of the belts, gave thanks that the canopy was already open, and then lost consciousness.

  IT WAS A LONG TIME later when he opened his eyes, and for an instant he could not remember what had happened. Around him were the familiar sights of his own cabin on the Semiramis. He tried to sit up, and pain struck him like a physical blow. For an instant everything was black, then he opened his eyes.

  Major Arnold was standing over him, a look of concern on his face. Ponga Jim grinned, painfully.

  “Always show up in time for the payoff, don’t you?” he said.

  Arnold smiled. “I showed up in time to fish you out of the water, and if I hadn’t you would have been feeding the fish by now.”

  “What happened?” Jim asked.

  Arnold shrugged. “What would happen? Once our boys knew what the score was they moved in and mopped up. Seven destroyers sunk, one battleship, and two cruisers. The fighting is over except for a few cleanup jobs.

  “I was with your fleet, and they got planes off the carriers right away and hit the Jap ships from above before they were expecting it. They caught two of the cruisers inside the reef near Parigi and they never got out.”

  “How about this boat?” Ponga Jim asked.

  Slug Brophy stepped up, grinning. He had a welt on his cheekbone and a long gash on his head.

  “I got to the Gunner. Longboy had already got loose. They only left a few men aboard once they had the planes off. So we took over.”

  “Sounds like it was a swell scrap,” Jim mumbled. He looked at Arnold. “I got a real crew, William. I got some good boys!”

  “Right you are,” Arnold agreed. “They handled it nicely.”

  “Did any of them get away?” Jim asked seriously.

  “Only one,” Brophy said. “But we got two submarines before they could dive, and laid a couple of shells aboard a battlewagon. The Gunner always wanted to shoot at a battlewagon,” Brophy added.

  “Here’s somebody who wants to talk to you,” Arnold said as Rayna appeared. “I don’t get it, Mayo. Here I am, handsome, with a smooth-looking white and gold uniform, romantic eyes, and the figure of a Greek god, and yet you get all the women!”

  “It’s the poissonality, William!” Jim sighed, grinning. “It’s the poissonality!”

  Wings Over Brazil

  CHAPTER I

  Ponga Jim Mayo walked out on the terrace and stood looking down the winding road that led across the miles to Fortaleza and the Brazilian coast. Behind him the orchestra was rolling out a conga. Under the music he could hear the clink of glasses and the laughter of women.

  His broad, powerful shoulders filled the immaculate white dinner coat, and as he walked to the edge of the terrace, he thrust his big, salt-hardened hands into his coat pockets, bunching them into fists.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered, “something smells.”

  “What is it, Captain Mayo? What’s troubling you?” He knew, even as he turned, that only one woman could have such a voice. Señorita Carisa Montoya had been introduced to him earlier, but he knew well enough who she was. She was visiting from São Paulo, and he had met her ships in a score of ports, knew of her mines and ranches. He had been surprised only that she was so young and beautiful.

  He shrugged. “Troubling me? I’m curious why the skipper of a tramp freighter is invited here, with this crowd.”

  He glanced out over the spacious, parklike grounds. All about him was evidence of wealth and power. A little too much power, he was thinking. And the people dancing and talking, they were smooth, efficient, powerful people. They represented the wealth and ambition of all Latin America.

  She smiled as he lit her cigarette. “You seem perfectly at home, Captain,” she said, “and certainly, there isn’t a more attractive man here.”

  “At home?” He studied her thoughtfully. “Maybe, but being invited here doesn’t make sense. I had never met Don Pedro Norden before.”

  “Possibly he has a shipping contract for you,” Carisa suggested. “With his holdings, shipping is a problem during a war.”

  “Might be.” Ponga Jim was skeptical. “But with your ships and those of Valdes, he wouldn’t need mine.”

  “You’re too suspicious,” she told him, smiling. She took him by the arm. “Why don’t you ask me to dance?”

  They started toward the floor. “Suspicious? Of course I am, this is wartime.”

  She glanced at him quickly. “But aren’t you a freelancer? A sailor of fortune? I hear you take cargo wherever you choose to go, regardless of the war.”

  “That’s right. But I’m still an American,” he said simply. “Even sailors of fortune have their loyalties.”

  Three men stepped out of a door. One was Don Ri
cardo Valdes, a shipping magnate from the Argentine. The other two were strangers. One tall, slightly stooped, middle-aged. His gray face was vulpine, his eyes intent and cruel.

  The other man was slightly over six feet, but so broad as to seem short. His blond hair was trimmed close in a stiff pompadour, and he had a wide, flat face with a broken nose. He looked like a wrestler, and had actually been a top-notch heavyweight boxer.

  “Captain Mayo?” Valdes held out a hand. “I’d like to present Dr. Felix Von Hardt and Hugo Busch.”

  Von Hardt’s hand was what Mayo expected, careful, dry, and without warmth. Busch had a grip to match his shoulders, and when Ponga Jim met the challenge, strength for strength, the German’s face flushed angrily.

  “If the señorita will excuse us?” Von Hardt’s voice was smooth.

  “Of course.” Carisa looked at Ponga Jim. “But I’ll be expecting you later, Captain. We must have our dance.”

  When she was gone, Valdes lit a cigarette. “Captain, we’ve heard you have an aircraft—an eight-passenger ship? We’ll give you fifty thousand dollars for it.”

  The plane was stowed away on the Semiramis at Fortaleza. No one had been aboard but the crew and government officials, so how did these men know of the plane?

  “Sorry.” Mayo’s voice was regretful. “It’s not for sale.”

  Did they know where he got the plane, he wondered? He had taken it, as one of the fortunes of war, from Count Franz Kull, a German espionage agent and saboteur, in New Guinea. It was specially built, an amphibian with a few hidden surprises that the agent had paid dearly for.

  “I’ll double the price,” Valdes said. “One hundred thousand.”

  “Sorry, gentlemen,” Mayo repeated. “That plane is one of my most prized possessions.”

  “You’d better take what you can get,” Busch said harshly, “when you can get it.”

  Ponga Jim measured the German. “I don’t like threats, friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  Valdes halted him. “Think it over, Captain,” he suggested. “We can turn a lot of business your way. Especially,” he added meaningfully, “after the war.”