The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (53 page)

He turned to Big London. “Step up here, old fellow. This guard doesn’t savvy American. I’ve been watching him. You and me are going out of this joint, and I mean now.”

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…”

B
IG
L
ONDON’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.

I
T 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

P
onga 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 Ricardo 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.”

Ponga Jim’s fists balled in his coat pocket. “I’ll take my chances, Valdes,” he said coldly. “I don’t like the odor of your friends.”

S
EÑORITA
M
ONTOYA
was dancing. For once Mayo would have liked to cut in. But it was a practice he had never cared for, and everywhere, but in the United States, was considered grossly impolite.

He had taken but a few steps when she was beside him. “Have you forgotten our dance, Captain?”

Ponga Jim looked at her and caught his breath. She was radiantly beautiful. Too beautiful, he thought, to believe. He remembered that again, a moment later.

“I hope you made the deal, Captain,” she said, “it would be wise.”

“Why?” Over his shoulder he saw Von Hardt talking to Don Pedro. The big Spanish-German was a powerful man physically with a domineering manner thinly veiled by a recent layer of polish.

“Because I like you, Captain,” she said simply, “and these are dangerous times.”

His eyes narrowed. Another threat? Or a warning? “Think nothing of it,” he said, smiling again. “All times are dangerous in my business. I play my cards as they fall, the way I want to play them. I’ll make my own rules and abide by the consequences.”

He knew Busch, at least, was a full-fledged Nazi. Von Hardt probably was. Scanning the room, Mayo noticed at least a dozen others with a pronounced military bearing.

Don Ricardo, he knew, was hand in glove with the Falange. Just before the war, on a visit to Spain, the man had spent much time with Suner, the pro-Nazi foreign minister. If ever a room was filled with Nazi sympathizers, this was it.

He was startled from his meditations by a sudden stiffening of Carisa’s body under his hand. Her eyes were over his shoulder, and turning, he glanced toward the French doors.

A slender, broad-shouldered man stood there alone. He was undeniably handsome, but was only a trifle over five feet tall. One hand touched the neatly waxed mustache, and the other was in his coat pocket. He surveyed the room with all the sangfroid of a ringmaster watching a group of trained horses perform.

A subtle change had come over the guests. Men had stopped talking. Faces had stiffened. Mayo glanced at Norden and saw the multimillionaire’s face slowly change from rage to a cold, ugly triumph. All evening he had felt the charged atmosphere of danger at Castillo Norden. Now for the first time, it had centered on one object. However, the small man in the door was undisturbed.

Then Mayo saw something else. A dark form flitted past the French doors behind the man and faded into the shadows beside the window. Then another. Two more men, hard-looking customers in evening clothes, were walking toward the window, talking quietly. Another man left his partner and lit a cigarette.

They were coming, closing in. Slowly, casually, as in a well-rehearsed play. And the little man kept watching the room with an air of blasé indifference.

Carisa’s face was deathly pale. “Please!” she whispered. “Let’s go to the conservatory. I feel faint.”

He was fed up with wondering who was on what side and pretending that he had an open, cosmopolitan attitude about such things. He had been invited here so that he could be conned into selling his aircraft by a bunch of Nazis and he was expected to politely not notice.

“Sorry,” he said. “You go. I want to talk to that man.” He was startled by the fear in her eyes.

“No!” she whispered. “You mustn’t. There’s going to be trouble.”

He laughed at her. “Of course,” he said, “that’s why I’m going.”

Casually, he walked over to the man standing by the windows. The musicians were playing another piece now, a louder one.

“Hi, buddy,” Mayo said softly. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re right behind the eight ball. There are four or five men on the terrace and more here in the room.”

The smile revealed amazingly white teeth. “Of course.” The little man bowed slightly. “They do not like me here. I am Juan Peligro. Your name?”

“Mayo. Jim Mayo.”

Peligro’s eyebrows lifted. “So?” He looked at Ponga Jim thoughtfully. “I have heard of you, Captain. Have they made an offer for your amphibian yet?”

Ponga Jim glanced at Peligro quickly. “How did you know?”

“One learns much. They need planes, these men.”

A burly man with a square, brutal face suddenly stood beside Mayo. “Captain Mayo? Don Ricardo wishes to speak with you.”

“Why not let him come here?” Ponga Jim said. “I like it in this room.”

The man’s face darkened. “You’d better go,” he insisted. “This man does not belong here. He is going to be dealt with.”

Ponga Jim grinned suddenly. He felt amazingly good. “I like him,” he said. “I like this guy. You deal with him, you deal with me.”

The man hesitated. Obviously, they wanted no outward disturbance. “We don’t want any trouble,” the man said, “you—”

His right hand dropped to his pocket too slowly. Ponga Jim’s left hand closed on his wrist, and his right moved also, in the form of a fist. That punch struck the man in the solar plexus and knocked every bit of wind out of him.

As he started to fall, Ponga Jim caught him by the shoulders and spun him around. Using the man as a shield, he started for the door. “Let’s go,” he said over his shoulder.

Don Pedro Norden and Dr. Von Hardt were standing at the door. Von Hardt’s expression was stiff. Norden was purple with rage. “You fool,” he snarled angrily. “I’ll have you bullwhipped.”

“Try it,” Ponga Jim said, smiling.

At the outer door, the man Mayo was holding made a sudden lunge. Instantly, Mayo pushed him hard between the shoulders. As the man fell down the steps, the two made a dash into the shrubbery beyond the drive.

Running swiftly across the grass, Peligro spoke to Ponga Jim. “Gracias, amigo. But you make trouble for yourself.”

“What would I do? That gang was tough.”

Behind them Mayo heard running feet. Somewhere a motor roared into life, then all was still. But he was under no illusions. The pursuit would be swift, efficient, and relentless. Worst of all, it was more than ten miles to Fortaleza.

They had started across another curve of the drive when a car rounded a bend and they were caught dead in the headlights. Before they could get off the drive, the car swept alongside.

“Quickly!” It was Carisa Montoya at the wheel, and Ponga Jim did not hesitate. Peligro was in beside them and the car rolling almost as soon as she had spoken.

Miraculously, the gate was unguarded. The broad highway to the port lay open before them. Yet before they had been driving more than two minutes, Carisa slowed and sent the big car into a side road that led off down a steep grade through clumps of trees.

She slowed down. The car purred along almost silently. Huge boulders loomed up and were passed. Trees cast weird shadows over the road. Then they turned again and swung in a narrow semicircle back toward the hacienda.

“The highway is a trap,” Carisa explained swiftly. “Don Pedro has five guards between the Castillo Norden and Fortaleza. No one can approach his place without permission.”

“You’d better drop us and get back,” Mayo warned. “This is all right for us, but for you it might be bad.”

“Yes, please,” Peligro said suddenly. “Let us out. The stable road will take you back without their knowledge. Then instantly to bed. We can go on from here.”

The car slid soundlessly away. Ponga Jim Mayo looked after her. “That woman’s got nerve,” he said. “But not the best of friends.”

Peligro was already moving, and before they had gone a hundred yards, Mayo knew that he was not walking blind. The little man knew where he was going.

“They will scour the country,” Peligro said. “Don Pedro will be angry that I came here tonight.”

“Will the señorita be able to get back all right?” Mayo asked.

Peligro shrugged. “She? But of course. The stable road, it is most safe. The peóns are there, but then, they see what they wish to see.”

“Would Norden kill a woman?”

Peligro chuckled without humor. “He would kill anyone. He lives for power, that man.”

“Is he a Nazi? Busch looked it.”

“
Sí,
Busch was a storm trooper. Von Hardt is also a Nazi. But Don Pedro Norden? He is a Nordenista, amigo, and that is all. He uses the Nazis as they use him.”

“What about you?”

“I?” Peligro chuckled. “Let us say I love what Don Pedro hates. Perhaps that is sufficient. But then, I am a Colombian.”

“The fifth column is strong in Colombia.” Mayo studied the figure ahead of him.

“
Naturalmente.
Everywhere. But my country could never be a Nazi domain. There are more bookshops in Bogotá than cafés. Think of that, amigo. Men who read are not Nazis.”

Peligro stopped suddenly, then deliberately pushed through a thick wall of brush beside the path. After a few minutes, they stood in a small clearing. Under the arching branches was an autogyro, the outline of its rotating wing lost in the shadows.

Ponga Jim looked at the Colombian with respect. “Well, I’m stumped,” he said. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

Juan Peligro winked. “One does or one dies, my friend.”

CHAPTER II

It was still dark when Ponga Jim Mayo came alongside the ship. Only a dim anchor light forward, and the faint glow over the accommodation ladder. He paid the boatman and watched him start for the Custom House Pier. For some reason, he felt uneasy.

He glanced forward at the bulking stern of the freighter that lay a ship’s length beyond the
Semiramis.
She was a Norwegian ship, the
Nissengate.