The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (32 page)

Long ago he had discovered it was well to know the caliber of one’s opponent. Dago Frank was a vindictive, treacherous, blood-hungry rascal who would stop at nothing. Blue Coley was a thick-headed, strong-armed thug without enough on the ball to carry through a job of this kind.

Suddenly Jim flattened out on the deck. Aft, near the ventilator he used for access to the deck, was a slight, square-shouldered figure. Even as he watched, the man came forward soundlessly, and as he moved across the ribbon of light from the starboard passage, he was clearly revealed for an instant. He was a lascar in dark green cotton trousers which flapped about his legs halfway between knee and ankle, and his head was done up in a red turban. There was a puckering scar on the man’s face, and he was muscular. In his belt was an ugly-looking kris.

Now what’s this? Jim felt himself getting irritated. Had the fellow seen him? And who was he? How did he figure in this deal? If one of the crew, he had no reason to be ducking or dodging around. Unless, that is, he was aft when he had no business to be.

Watching, Jim saw the native come forward stealthily and then suddenly dodge out of sight near the starboard rail. There was a walk forward along the rail outside the amidships house.

But scarcely had he disappeared when a shadow appeared in the lighted passage, and then a man walked out on deck. Jim’s eyes narrowed.

It was a heavy, brutal head set down on massive shoulders with scarcely any neck at all. The shoulders were enormously wide and thick, the chest was deep, and when he walked his knees jerked queerly, like those of some wrestlers. When he turned, Jim could see a flattened nose above a mouth like a gash set in a wide, dark face. It was a face marked with brutality and strength, and the whole man radiated a sense of evil power that Ponga Jim had never seen in any other human thing.

When he lifted his hands, Jim could see they were thick and powerful with stubby fingers and backed by huge-boned wrists. A black beard darkened the man’s jaw, and there was a mat of hair visible at his open shirt. Despite the brutality in the man’s face, there was a shrewd sort of animal cunning, too.

Ponga Jim Mayo felt the hair prickle along the back of his neck, and he wet his lips thoughtfully. Without doubt this was the skipper, and he was something far different from Dago Frank or Blue Coley. When the man went back into the passage, Jim slipped down the ladder and aft to his ventilator, but he was no sooner inside than he heard footsteps approaching.

He hesitated, gun in hand. His jaw set hard. If they found him now, there would be nothing to do but shoot it out.

Two men stopped near the ventilator. Lucieno was speaking.

“We’re making good time. The day after tomorrow we will drop the anchor in the mouth of the Fly. Gruber will be there to meet us.”

“What about Borg?” Dago’s voice was cautious.

“We let Borg alone,” Lucieno said severely, “if we know what is good for us.” He hesitated. “You know what he thinks? He thinks somebody’s aboard—a stowaway.”

Jim felt his heart pounding, and his mouth went dry.

“A stowaway?” Dago Frank broke in. “That is not possible, unless—”

“Jim Mayo, you think, eh? I think, too. Borg, he think he see somebody on the main deck. Two nights ago. The night we leave Gorontalo, he see an empty boat floating. Now somebody been in the chart room. He say that.”

“What now?” Dago Frank asked. “I like to get hold of him, of that Ponga Jim.”

The two walked off forward, and Jim slipped down into the ’tween decks and then down the ladder to his hideout. Once there, he checked the automatic and returning it to its holster, checked the automatic rifle. Then he pulled a case over the opening and stretched out.

It could only have been a few minutes when he was awakened suddenly. Every sense alert, he waited, listening. There was silence, then the scratching of a match. In the dim light thrown against the bulkhead he could see a shadow. It looked like a lascar turban, but he couldn’t be sure. The gun slid into his hand, and crouching, breathless, he awaited discovery. None came.

There were soft movements and then a metallic sound, a short hard blow, and then another. And silence. He waited a long time, but there was no further movement. Crawling out of his concealment, he felt his way over the cases. In the top tier, a case of canned goods had been pulled aside. He knew every case from crawling over them so much. A faint scent of oil came to his nostrils, and shielding it carefully, he struck a match.

The end of one of the boards in the case had been saturated with oil and then forced open bit by bit, and more oil added, effectively quieting any possible screech from a nail!

But who? Ponga Jim returned to his hideout distinctly uneasy. He had a feeling that matters were getting out of hand: the unknown skipper, obviously a more dangerous and cunning man than either Frank or Lucieno, and now this mysterious searcher. Added to that was the problem of the lascar. Still puzzling over the problem, he fell asleep.

H
E AWAKENED WITH A START
, instantly conscious of two things. He had overslept, and something was definitely wrong. Crawling to his knees he slipped on his shoulder holster and then his coat. Putting on his cap, he waited, listening.

There was no sound. But suddenly he was conscious of a peculiar odor. He frowned, trying to place it. Then it struck him like a blow!

Formaldehyde! Evidently, while he slept too soundly, they had crept through the hold or at least looked in.

Not seeing him and fearing to stumble across an armed man, they were trying to smoke him out.

Lunging to his feet he hurriedly shifted the case over the entrance to his hideout. By that time the fumes were growing thick. Stumbling over the cargo, he found the door into number four.

His heart sank. The door was locked tight. Wheeling about, gasping and choking, he stumbled across to the rope-locker door. It, too, was locked. For an instant he hesitated, his mind desperately searching for a way out. Then he remembered the plate into the shaft alley. Stumbling back over the cargo, he tumbled into his hole and pulled the case back over the entrance; then he turned and felt for the plate. Finding it, he found the wrench he had thoughtfully stolen from the locker and started on one of the nuts.

It was stiff, rusty. Desperately, he tugged. The wrench came loose, and he skinned his knuckles on the nut below. Choking, eyes red and breath coming in gasps, he got one of the nuts loose and then another. He thought the final nut would never come off. Twice the wrench slipped loose. Then suddenly it was off, and he slid through the hole into the darkness of the shaft alley.

Coughing and spluttering, he struck a match. The great whirling metallic shaft loomed above him. He dropped the match, and taking the plate by a bolt through its center, he slipped it back on the bolts. Turning, he walked forward to the swing door, moving carefully. Beyond it, the shaft alley was lighted. Running now, he slipped the Colt from its holster. Amazingly enough, the shaft-alley door was open, and even as he plunged through and closed it after him, he was conscious of the bad seamanship. Now if he were still in command—

The engineer on watch didn’t even look up, and the fireman was arguing with the oiler in the fire room. Crossing the floor plates in two jumps, Ponga Jim ran up the ladder to the orlop deck, then forward to the ladder to the main deck. Just as he reached it, a lascar came down the ladder, and his eyes went wide when he saw Mayo. Jerking up the spanner he carried, the lascar tried to strike, but Jim stiff-armed him with a left and knocked the native sprawling.

It was quiet on deck, and the sun was shining when Mayo stepped out of the passage. He realized then that he had overslept by many hours, for it was already late in the afternoon. Off on the port side was the long blue line of the New Guinea coast, and he stood there, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the sun. Aft, he could hear voices.

Then he started forward and ran up the ladder to the bridge.

As he stepped into the wheelhouse the lascar at the wheel gave a sharp cry. Dago Frank, evidently on watch while the skipper tried to smoke out the stowaway, wheeled. His face turned gray, and he grabbed at a gun. Then Ponga Jim slugged him.

Frank toppled forward, his jaw slack, and Jim slugged him again. Then he turned on the man at the wheel.

“Put her over to port about ten degrees,” he snapped. “Quick now, or I’ll spill your guts on this deck!”

His face white with fear, the lascar put the wheel over. A sudden sound from the chart room startled him, and he whirled to see Pete Lucieno standing in the door, pistol in hand.

“Drop it!” Mayo snapped.

Lucieno smiled—and dropped the gun. Then he bowed slightly.

“Of course, my friend. With the greatest of pleasure. I see you now where I have long wished to see you.”

“Wha—?”

Then something crashed down on the back of his head, and a sharp arrow of pain stabbed through his consciousness as he felt himself falling.

W
HEN
P
ONGA
J
IM
M
AYO OPENED HIS EYES
, his head was throbbing with pain. He tried to move, and surprisingly, he was not bound. He sat up, groaning.

“Comin’ out of it?”

He looked up, blinking back the pain. Borg, his powerful legs braced to the roll of the ship, stood looking down at him. The man had a pair of field glasses in his right hand. He shifted them to his left.

“Get up.”

Ponga Jim crawled unsteadily to his feet, facing Borg. The man stared at him.

“Ponga Jim Mayo, eh? Tough guy, are you?” He swung. His fist smashed against the angle of Jim’s jaw, and Mayo went down. He got up, staggering, and Borg hit him again.

Then Borg laughed. “You may be tough around this bunch, but you ain’t tough t’ me.”

He walked over to Jim and kicked him viciously in the ribs. Jim started to get up, and sneering, Borg swung a vicious kick at his head. Mayo rolled over and swung his ankle up behind Borg’s leg, spilling the big man to the deck.

With a snarling oath, Borg scrambled to his feet, his face livid. He swung a terrific right, but Jim ducked and hooked a left to the body. Even as he threw it, he knew he didn’t have the stuff. The punch landed, and then Jim hooked his right to Borg’s head, but the man grabbed him and hurled him across the room.

Following him, Borg slammed a wicked right to the head that made Ponga Jim roll and grab at the shelf along the wall. Then Borg hooked him in the kidney and dug a wicked right into his body. As Jim started to fall, he felt a terrific blow crash against his jaw.

I
T SEEMED HOURS LATER
when he came to. He kept his eyes shut and lay very still, conscious that he was bound hand and foot now, and conscious that there were two men in the chart room, one at the wheel.

Opening his eyes to a slit, Jim saw the man at the wheel was a lascar, but not the one who had been there when he was fighting Borg. The two men came out of the chart room, and he saw one was Dago Frank, the other Lucieno.

“In about an hour he say,” Lucieno said. “The submarine he come in about an hour.”

“This one,” Frank said, motioning toward Mayo, “I like to kill.”

The two went out on the bridge, and Jim lay very still, resting, his desperate thoughts striving through the stabbing pain to find a way out. He stretched a little, but the ropes were tight. Borg was a seaman, and Borg had tied those ropes to stay.

Jim lay still, staring through his half-opened eyes at the helmsman’s feet. Suddenly, his eyes lifted—green flapping trousers, a wide leather belt, an ugly kris, and then broad, muscular brown shoulders and a dark red turban. It was the lascar who had been prowling that night on deck! And the one, he felt sure, who had opened a box of rifles in number five hold.

There was something phony about this somewhere. He lay still, feigning unconsciousness. Another lascar came in, relieving the man at the wheel. Ponga Jim heard the course as they repeated it, and he started.

In the excitement, the lascars had continued to steer his course, ten degrees north and east of the proper one! He stirred a little, to get a better view of the room. Then in a far corner, among some signal flags, he glimpsed his gun! Evidently flying from his hand when he was struck from behind, it had fallen among those flags, unnoticed.

In an hour, Lucieno had said. At least fifteen minutes had passed, possibly more. He lifted his eyes. They stopped, riveted on a bit of red outside the starboard door of the wheelhouse. The lascar was standing on the ladder, concealed unless the man at the wheel noticed him, or unless Dago Frank walked along the bridge. The red turban came into sight and then the scar-puckered face.

The man at the wheel was daydreaming, staring off at the coastline to port. The lascar at the door lifted a knife into view, laid it carefully on the deck, and shot it slithering straight at Jim. Instinctively, he arched his body. The man at the wheel jerked around, staring.

The knife was safely under Jim’s body, and the lascar in the doorway was gone. Outside the door an awning string rattled against the stanchion. The lascar peered, started to call to Frank, and then shrugged and was silent. Working carefully, Jim got the knife turned edgewise. It was razor sharp. Holding himself carefully, so as not to slice off a finger, he managed to use his hands enough to cut through a rope and then another. Swiftly, he freed himself and stood up.

The lascar turned, and found himself with a knife pressed against his stomach. His face gray, he stood very still, his mouth looking sick.

“One sound and I’ll cut your heart out!” Jim snapped. “Get back to that wheel, and don’t let a yelp out of you!”

Turning, he caught up the automatic and stepped to the door. Dago Frank was standing in the wing of the bridge, staring at the shoreline. It was suddenly very near, too near. He wheeled and started for the wheelhouse, and brought up suddenly.

“All right, Dago,” Jim said coolly, “this is it. You wanted to kill me, now go for your gun!”