The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (49 page)

“I didn’t mean for to kill him, Captain,” he said sheepishly. “But his neck was so little!”

“Who got me aboard here?” Jim said, ignoring the body.

Arnold swallowed. “Big London. He was coming behind in the small boat with two others as you had suggested when you said you’d unload as soon as possible. He dived in after you.”

“Demarest?”

“Was that who you were fighting with?” Arnold frowned. “I had been watching him. I had the dope on him, but before I could have him arrested, he slipped away.” He hesitated. “By the way, when we flew down to join the convoy, we brought somebody with us. She wants to see you.”

“She?”

“Yes.”

Jim looked toward the voice. Zara Hammedan was standing in the door.

“Are you surprised?”

“Surprised?” Ponga Jim looked up at Arnold with a grin. “William, can’t you see the lady wants to be alone with me?”

Arnold gave a snort and turned toward the door.

“And by the way, old chap,” Ponga Jim added, “don’t slam the door when you go out!”

“That guy!” Arnold said sarcastically. “Shoot him, drop him over the side, and he comes up with a blonde under one arm, and a brunette under the other! What can you do with a guy like that?”

Voyage to Tobalai

CHAPTER I

V
ivid lightning burst in a mass of piled-up cloud for an instant, revealing a black, boiling maelstrom of wind-lashed waves. The old freighter rolled heavily as she took a big one over the bows. Ponga Jim Mayo crouched behind the canvas dodger and swore under his breath.

Slug Brophy, his first mate, ran down the steep, momentary incline of the bridge.

“That lightning will give the show away,” he shouted above the storm. “If there’s a sub around she’ll spot us quick as an Irishman spots a drink!”

“I’m glad we cleared Linta before we hit this,” Ponga Jim yelled back at him. “Even if we’re seen, we’ll be safe until this blows itself out. There’s no sub in the Pacific that could hit us in this mess.”

He stared over the dodger into the storm, pelting rain and blown spray beating against his face like hail. The storm might keep the subs below, and that was good. Even if their batteries were low and they had to run on the surface, effectively firing a torpedo or deck gun in these wildly pitching seas would be next to impossible. Once the storm was over, however, they would be back to carefully scanning the sea in all directions.

Out of Capetown with a cargo of torpedo planes, she was running for Balikpapan, and there wasn’t a man aboard ship who didn’t know how desperately those planes were needed now, in February of 1942. They were American planes, taken aboard from a crippled freighter in the harbor at Capetown. The original ship had been damaged by a submarine attack.

The
Semiramis
wasn’t one of your slim, brassbound craft with mahogany panels, but a crusty old Barnacle Bill sort of tramp. She was rusty, wind-worried, wave-battered, and time-harried; in short, she had character.

Taking on the cargo for the East Indies, Ponga Jim pushed her blunt bows across the long, lonely reaches of the southern Indian Ocean, far from the steamer lanes where the submarines waited. Then, avoiding the well-traveled route through Sunda Strait, he held a course through the empty seas south of Mava and the Lesser Sunda Islands. Passing up Lombok, Alas, and Sapeh Straits one after the other, Mayo finally turned north through Linta Strait, a little-used route into the Java Sea.

Not merely content with using Linta Strait, he deliberately avoided the safe passage east of Komodo, and took the dangerously narrow opening between Padar and Rinja Islands.

When Brophy had come on deck and noticed Jim was taking the freighter through the narrow passage, he looked over, his expression grim.

“Cap,” he said, “you better get the boys over the side and have them grease up the hull, otherwise you’re going to scratch her paint job.”

But they got through, and back along the routes they could have taken, ships were sunk. Waiting subs scored three times in one day at Sunda, twice at Lombok. Even off Linta, a schooner had been shelled and sunk, but the
Semiramis,
hull down across the horizon by then, had slipped away into the oncoming storm. Now, headed north for Balikpapan, lightning might spoil it all.

A
NOTHER WAVE BROKE
across the bows and water ran two feet deep in the stern scuppers. Slug Brophy grinned, his hard, blue-jowled face dripping with rain.

“God have pity on the poor sailors on such a night as this!” he chanted, in a momentary lull. “That’s what the fishwives would be saying tonight along the chalk cliffs of England. How is it, Cap? Will we make it?”

Mayo grimaced. “We’ve got a chance.”

In a flash of lightning, Brophy could see rain beating against Jim’s lean, sun-browned face.

“I’m not taking her through Makassar Strait,” Ponga Jim said suddenly, “it smells like trouble to me. That’s ugly water for submarines.”

“How you going?” Brophy asked quizzically.

“I’m taking her north around the east end of Mangola Island, then through Bangka Strait an’ down the west coast of Celebes. From there to Balikpapan, we’ll have to be lucky.”

Brophy nodded. “It’s twice as far, but there haven’t been any sinkings over that way. Funny, too, when you think about it.”

“Nothing much over there right now. A few native craft, an’ maybe a K.P.M. boat. But the Dutch ships are off schedule now.”

Jim pulled his sou’wester down a little tighter. He stared into the storm, shifting uneasily. He was remembering what Major Arnold had told him in the room at the Belgrave Hotel in Capetown.

“Jim,” the major had said, “I flew down here from Cairo just to see you. You’re going right into the middle of this war, but if there’s anyone in this world knows the East Indies, it’s you. After you deliver your cargo at Balikpapan, you’ll be going to Gorontalo.

“I’d like you to go on from there, go down through Greyhound Strait. If you see or hear of any ship or plane concentrations, let me know at Port Darwin.”

O
N THE RAIN-LASHED BRIDGE
Ponga Jim voiced his thoughts. “Slug, you could hide all the fleets of the world in these islands. Anything could happen down here, and most everything has.”

“I’d feel better if we didn’t have that woman aboard,” Brophy said suddenly. “A woman’s got no place on a freight ship. You’d think we were a bloody tourist craft!”

“Don’t tell me you’re superstitious, Slug,” Jim chuckled. “Anyway, this scow runs on fuel oil, and you don’t skim it off a lagoon, you’ve got to buy it with cash. As long as that’s the way it is, anybody who can pay can ride.”

“Yeah,” Brophy said cynically, “but that gal isn’t ridin’ for fun. Something’s going on!”

Jim laughed. “Take over, pal,” he said, slapping the mate’s shoulder, “keep her on the same course, an’ don’t run over any submarines! I’ll worry about the woman!”

“Huh!” Brophy grunted disgustedly. “If you’d worry I wouldn’t be gripin’!”

Ponga Jim swung down the ladder and started to open the door into the cabin. Instead, he flattened against the deckhouse and stared aft. There had been a vague, shadowy movement on the boat deck!

Swiftly and soundlessly, Ponga Jim slipped down the ladder and across the intervening space. Then he went up the ladder to the boat deck like a shadow, moving close against the lifeboats. Carefully, he worked his way aft toward the .50-caliber antiaircraft guns where he had seen the movement.

Lightning flared briefly, and he saw someone crouching over the machine gun. It was an uncertain, fleeting glimpse, but he lunged forward.

Some instinctive warning must have come to the crouching figure for even as Jim sprang, he saw the white blur of a face, then it melted into the darkness and was gone.

At the gun, nothing. In two steps, Jim was at the edge of the boat deck, his .45 poised and ready, but the afterdeck was empty. His eyes narrowed with thought, he retraced his steps to the cabin. Someone had been tampering with the guns, and that someone would not be satisfied with one attempt.

He stepped into the cabin, shedding his oilskins. He started to hang them up when a voice froze him immobile.

“I hope I’m not intruding…?”

R
AYNA
C
OURCEL SAT
at his desk smoking a cigarette. In slacks, he reflected, she was as seductive as in anything else. But then, her figure would give sex appeal to a shroud.

“Up early, aren’t you?” he suggested. “What’s on your mind? Don’t you know it’s four o’clock in the morning?”

“Of course. I wanted to ask a favor, and didn’t want anyone to know…I want to go ashore. I have to go ashore.”

“Ashore?” Ponga Jim’s face was bland. “Why?”

“Because,” Rayna said quietly, “this ship is going to be blown up.”

“That strikes me as reason enough,” Jim said, unbuttoning his coat. “When does the big event come off?”

“Tomorrow or the following day…when you’re somewhere in the Spermonde Archipelago.”

“Is there a crystal ball in your cabin? Maybe you should read my palms….” He gave her a moment to understand his question.

“Oh, I know what I’m talking about, Captain. You have a spy on your ship. I was up on the lifeboat deck having a cigarette and I heard someone sending Morse code. I read Morse, learned it in the girl scouts….”

Mayo arched an eyebrow. “I’ll bet you did.”

“Are you going to let me finish? Good. The message was being sent ahead to a submarine…that’s all I got.”

Ponga Jim leaned back in his chair. His dark blue woolen shirt was open at the neck, and just under the edge of his coat Rayna could see the butt of his .45.

“All right. You’re a smart girl, aren’t you?” Jim said. “If I put you ashore where will you go?”

“To Makassar. I have it all planned. I go to Makassar, and…”

“And we go ahead and be blown up,” Jim chuckled. “Lady, you please me. The only thing wrong with the setup, besides the fact that I don’t like being blown up, is that we’re not going to be anywhere close to Makassar tomorrow. I’m not even going near Celebes.”

Rayna Courcel’s face turned a shade white.

“What do you mean?” she exclaimed sharply. “Your route takes you that way!”

“Honey,” Ponga Jim stood up, running his fingers through his hair. “I’m tired. You may not need beauty sleep, but I do. And don’t worry about being blown up. Your spy may be trying to communicate but, in all likelihood, he has no idea where he is.”

She started to speak, then bit her lip. At the door, she turned to face him, her hands behind her on the doorknob.

“I can’t figure you out,” she said, “but I’m afraid you’re headed for a big surprise.”

“Maybe,” Ponga Jim said. “And maybe I won’t be the only one.”

CHAPTER II

Bright morning sunlight sparkled on the sea when Ponga Jim Mayo went on deck. Tam O’Neill and Ben Blue were leaning on the rail. Both were gunners taken on at Capetown.

“Better check those machine guns,” Mayo said briefly.

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” Tam said, “but my guns are always ready.”

“O’Neill,” Ponga Jim said shortly, “I’m not doubting you. But I never give an order without adequate reason. Last night they were tampered with.”

O’Neill’s face flushed. “Thank you, Captain,” he said. He wheeled and was up the ladder in two jumps.

It was barely eight o’clock, but his three passengers were already at the table when Jim sat down. Eric Frazer, his third mate, was also there. With Millan splitting his time as artillery officer, Jim had shipped an additional third mate.

Frazer had come aboard in Zanzibar. He was short, powerful, and without expression. He had been, he said, a mate on a Danish vessel running to Rio, Para, and up the Amazon until the war put him on the beach.

The two men who, with Rayna Courcel, made up the passenger list were Brace Lamprey, an engineer, and Ross Mallory. Both were South Africans with interests in New Guinea. Now Jim was beginning to wonder if everyone was what they first seemed to be.

“When should we sight the Spermonde Islands?” Lamprey asked casually, as Jim seated himself. “If I remember my East Indies, they are off the southwest corner of Celebes.”

Rayna’s hand tightened on her fork, but she did not look up.

“We’d be seeing them now,” Jim said, “if we were going that way.”

Mallory started violently, and stopped eating. He seemed about to speak when Lamprey interrupted.

“What do you mean, Captain?” he inquired. “Where are we going? Isn’t that the route to Borneo?”

“Too many submarines that way,” Jim said. “We’re going north around Celebes.”

Jim looked over at Frazer but the man was eating steadily, apparently ignoring the conversation.

Mallory straightened up. “See here, Captain!” he began angrily, “I don’t propose to be dragged all over the ocean during a war. They are bombing the north coast of Celebes. I demand to be set ashore at once!”

“At once?” Jim asked. “That would mean the closest possible point, wouldn’t it. I expect we can manage without much trouble. We’re not quite a mile from land now.”

They all looked up, surprised. Rayna’s eyes strayed to the porthole.

“Not quite a mile?” Mallory was startled. “Where!”

“Straight down,” Jim said.

Lamprey laughed, but Mallory’s face grew red and angry.

“That isn’t funny, Captain!” he growled. “I demand you put me ashore immediately!”

“What’s the matter,” Jim asked innocently, “afraid you’ll be blown up with the ship?”

In the sudden silence that followed, they could hear the sea against the hull. Only Frazer was undisturbed. He ate in silence. Ross Mallory’s eyes were suddenly wary.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“Mean?” Jim shrugged. “Well, it’s one of the things that happen when a Japanese sub fires a torpedo at you.”

H
E GOT UP
and walked out on deck. Mallory knew something, he decided. He began to feel better. Ever since the trip began, he had the feeling of trouble brewing. It was getting on his nerves. Now, at least, the trouble was beginning to show itself.

The girl had heard someone sending Morse code, she thought that they were going to be torpedoed…a spy who wanted to be torpedoed…that was a new one. Ponga Jim had no doubt that there were men out there who would give their lives for their country or cause but he doubted that destroying the small shipment of planes aboard the
Semiramis
was worth the ultimate sacrifice. Whatever was going on was something else…something else entirely.

He was staring off over the sea, and had been watching a fleck in the sky for almost a minute before he realized it was a plane.

It was coming fast and low. The blunt arrows of bombs racked under its wings.

He yelled, and saw O’Neill swing his gun. The Mitsubishi swooped in but even as they saw it, the plane was turning. The nose lifted into a climb, and was still climbing when O’Neill followed it with a long burst from the double fifties. The range was extreme and the bullets had no effect. As men ran to the other guns the plane circled, just out of range. Then, climbing at a terrific rate, the aircraft seemed to disappear into the cloudless blue sky.

Red Hanlon, the chief engineer, stood by No. 3 hatch rubbing his cauliflower ear.