The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (36 page)

Ponga Jim had taken the cargo with the full knowledge that it meant trouble, confident of his ability to cope with it. Remembering the icy flecks in Romberg’s eyes his scalp tightened. He glanced at the passenger list lying on the desk. Romberg, Kessler, and Braunig. Kessler was the thin, hard-faced man, Braunig the burly, silent fellow.

The Gunner came in. “How’s it look, Jim?” he asked softly. “We got some tough babies aboard?”

“Yeah,” Ponga Jim said. “Keep your eyes on them, and tell your watch to do the same thing. Keep a rod handy.”

The Gunner slapped his waistband. “I got one.” His brow wrinkled. “I’m more scared of that damned orangutan than I am of any of them.”

“That
what
?” Jim wheeled. “Did you say orangutan?”

“Sure, didn’t you know?” Millan was astonished. “Braunig says it’s a pet. Biggest one I ever saw. He feeds it himself, won’t let anybody else get close.”

“Pet, is it?” Ponga Jim’s left eyebrow squinted and his eyes narrowed. “In a strong cage?”

Millan nodded. “Yeah, It would be a hell of a thing to tackle in the dark. Or in the daytime, for that matter.”

Mayo shrugged. “It won’t get out. Put an extra lock on it. And if Braunig kicks, send him to me.”

He watched the blunt-bowed
Semiramis
plow through the seas. Old she might be, but she was dependable. Ponga Jim knew that peace in the East Indies might erupt into war at any moment. The war that had thrown all Europe into arms and that threatened at any moment to turn cities into a smoking shambles, was already eating at the shores of these lonely islands. Twice, Ponga Jim Mayo had been involved in attempts to create strife here, at this furthest limit of the British Empire.

An American adventurer and master of tramp freighters, Mayo preferred to mind his own business, settle his private fights, and stay out of international affairs. But following the sea in the Indies had never been a picnic, and he had come up from the brawling fury of a hundred waterfronts to a command that he meant to keep.

Jim’s eyes narrowed angrily, and his jaw set. Once, he had deliberately butted in to avert more trouble. Now they were out to get rid of Jim Mayo as fast as possible.

Carefully, his fingers touched the swollen lump under his eye and felt his jaw. He felt stiff and sore from the brutal kicking and beating he’d taken.

Somewhere in the islands, perhaps still back in Makassar, Major William Arnold was waging an almost single-handed fight to keep peace in these East Indian waters. But it was a lonely, dangerous job. All over the world secret agents of the Gestapo were striking at the lifeline of the British Empire. All through the islands there was sabotage, propaganda, and undercover warfare.

Slug Brophy came up to the bridge. “Romberg was asking about you,” he said, winking. “When I told him you were on the bridge, he seemed surprised. Those guys got enough guns to arm the U.S. Navy.”

“Yeah?” Jim stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Let the Gunner handle this a bit longer. You come with me.”

He wheeled and ran down the ladder. Sakim and Longboy were painting amidships.

“Drop those brushes,” Jim snapped. “Slug, get them a couple of guns.”

When they were armed he went amidships. The three Germans were sitting in the petty officers’ mess, talking and drinking beer. Jim stopped in the doorway.

“I understand,” he said crisply, “that you men have guns aboard. I want them. Nobody packs a rod on this boat but my officers and myself.”

Romberg shrugged. “But in times like this maybe we need our guns,” he said softly.

“You get them when you leave the boat,” Mayo snapped. “All right, on your feet for a search.”

Romberg’s face whitened.

Kessler got to his feet, face flushing with anger.

“There will be no searching here!” he snapped. “This is insolence!”

“Yeah?” Ponga Jim chuckled without mirth. “You guys got a lot to learn. An’ when you talk about insolence, sourpuss, remember you’re not in the German army now. You’re on my ship, and I’m in command here!”

Kessler started forward and then stopped. “So? You know, do you? Well, what of it?”

Mayo’s gun slid into his hand. “You guys asked for transportation for yourselves and your cargo. You’re getting it. Get tough, and you’ll get a lot more. I said I’d get you there, but I didn’t say I’d get you there alive.” He shrugged. “Take their guns, Slug. The first one that peeps will have to digest some lead.”

The three men stood very still, hands raised, while Brophy frisked them expertly. Once Romberg’s eyes flickered to the port and he stared.

For outside was Sakim, with a rifle barrel resting on the edge. Longboy stood outside the other, his brown face eager.

Romberg’s eyes swung back to Mayo, and there was a hint of admiration in them. “You’d have made a good German officer, Captain Mayo.”

Jim snorted contemptuously.

Brophy passed out of the room with the guns tucked in his waistband. Then Ponga Jim slid his back into its holster.

“Sorry to have bothered you, Gents. Adios.”

Day slid into night. Mayo was worried. Something had to break. There was a possibility that disarming them had also wrecked their plans, but he had no faith in the idea. There was something else, something more to be expected. At twelve he would go on watch, and by that time if everything went well they would be entering the Banda Sea with a straight shot for Bangkulu before turning east for Banggai Bay.

Night had fallen and the stars were bright when he turned aft for a last look around before his night watch. The passage amidships was empty, but he heard voices in Romberg’s cabin.

For an instant, Ponga Jim hesitated outside the door. Kessler was talking. If Braunig was there he was not speaking. But that was usually the case. Jim walked aft to the sternpost and stood watching the wake, his back to the after deckhouse. Then he turned and started forward.

Sharp, fierce snarling and then a shrill, angry yapping shattered the still air. Puzzled, he hesitated. Something was bothering the orangutan. He went down the ladder to the storeroom beneath the after wheelhouse.

In the small space was the cage of the orangutan, a huge beast, almost as big as a gorilla. Foaming at the mouth, the big ape was screaming with fury and trying to get through the bars at Braunig, who was crouching before the cage. His wide, ugly face was contorted with sadistic frenzy as he stabbed at the ape with a pointed stick.

As Ponga Jim reached the foot of the ladder, the ape grabbed the stick and with a terrific jerk, ripped it from Braunig’s hands. The stick broke and the ape hurled the pieces at Braunig. The burly German roared with laughter, until one of the sticks hit him on the shoulder. Then, with a snarl of rage, Braunig jerked up a boathook and stabbed at the ape with the sharp end.

“I’ll show you!” Braunig snarled. “You slobbering beast!”

Jim crossed the intervening space in a leap, ripping the boathook from Braunig’s hands. “I’ll be damned if you will!” he snapped. “Get back to your cabin before I lose my temper.”

“You! Why, you—!” Braunig’s face purpled with fury.

Smack!

Jim’s right smashed into the big German’s mouth and knocked him skidding along the deck. The German sprang to his feet, crouched, and then lunged. Jim sidestepped.

“Better get on deck before I get peeved,” he said again. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Braunig was powerful. He wheeled and rushed at Ponga Jim. But Mayo stepped back quickly. The German plowed ahead. Jim crossed a right, hooked both hands to the body, and jerked up a hard right uppercut. Braunig staggered, and Jim knocked him down with a hard left hook. He got up, and Jim floored him again. The big man lay there, groggy, but still conscious.

“All right,” Jim said coolly, “now go on deck.”

Slowly, heavily, the man climbed to his feet and staggered drunkenly up the ladder. Jim crossed to the cage where the big ape clung to the bars, staring.

“What’s the matter, old fellow?” he asked softly. “Been treated pretty mean, haven’t you?”

The orangutan stared back at him, its eyes bloodshot, ugly. Staring at the ape, Jim could see that the beast’s mind had been warped into a seething caldron of hatred where nothing lived now but the lust to kill. Through the red hair on its body he could see countless scars. Why, Jim wondered? Just cruelty? But why cart the ape around and suffer the expense of keeping it for only cruelty? He shrugged and went up the ladder to the deck.

Brophy was standing in the wing of the bridge when Jim came on watch. “This kind of gets a guy,” Brophy said softly. “Something’s in the wind, and you don’t know what or where it’ll come from.”

Mayo nodded. “Better get below and turn in,” he said. “They won’t wait much longer. They’ve got to strike between here and Banggai, because there’s a destroyer there now.”

He watched Brophy down to the main deck and then turned back. The visibility was good, for the night was clear and the stars were bright. Tupa, the Alfura seaman taken aboard in Bonthain, was at the wheel, Selim on watch in the bow.

His thoughts reverted to Romberg. There was more in the wind than a plan to eliminate him. That, he was certain, was only incidental to greater plans, and they must be plans with some bearing on the cargo below. Drilling machinery it might be, and some of it obviously was; but there were other supplies, also.

The sea was calm, just a light wind blowing. He took his glasses and scanned the sea thoughtfully. A sub? There hadn’t been a sub sighted since the affair off the New Guinea coast. True, there were German agents in the East Indies; there had been efforts at sabotage, but most of it ineffectual.

Aside from the attempts to create revolt among native tribes in Papua and to destroy shipping, things had gone along smoothly. It was so obvious a tactic to attack the far-flung British Empire at many points, and as Holland was supported by the British navy in the Indies, that included the Netherlands Indies.

Ponga Jim let one hand slip up to the gun butt in the shoulder holster. War couldn’t come to the Indies without becoming a personal problem.

R
OMBERG WAS A
wily customer. Had the plot to kill him in the Parakeet Nest succeeded, he would have been safely out of the way, and still the cargo would have gone on to Banggai Bay, and whatever else remained of the plot would have proceeded without further delay.

Sparks walked out on the bridge. “Message for you, Cap,” he yawned sleepily. “Just came in.”

“Suppose you turn in, Sparks? You may get another long shift tonight. I’ll listen in occasionally.”

McVey turned and left the bridge. The message was brief and to the point. It said:

NO CARGO EXPECTED BANGGAI
.
ROMBERG
,
KESSLER
,
BRAUNIG UN -KNOWN
.
HAVE YOU GOT YOUR NECK OUT
!

WILLIAM
.

Ponga Jim frowned thoughtfully. He had suspected that it was some point near Banggai, but that they intended to transship there. He paced the bridge, his mind weighing the possibilities. When Gunner Millan came up to relieve him at four o’clock, he was still far from a solution.

T
HE HOURS SLIPPED BY
. The sun came up and the day warmed. The crew was under a strain. The men were jumpy. Several times Jim saw his three passengers gathered in serious conversations, but he ignored them until late in the afternoon. Braunig, his face battered and swollen, had just returned from feeding the orangutan, and the three were standing amidships. Jim came out of the passageway and strolled up to them.

“Suppose you guys let your hair down,” he said slowly, “and tell me just where you think you’re going? I know it isn’t Banggai.”

Romberg’s lips tightened, and he glanced at Kessler. “Unfortunately, Captain Mayo, our plans have gone somewhat awry. However, it is true we don’t have any great desire to land at Banggai. We intended to see the cargo was taken to Tembau.”

“My deal says Banggai,” Ponga Jim said sharply. “And to Banggai we go.”

Romberg cleared his throat. “Captain Mayo, I know something of shipping conditions in these waters now and how difficult it is to keep busy. Suppose I offered you a bonus to carry us to Tembau.”

Jim shrugged. “You know my terms: cash first. It’ll cost you five thousand. If I don’t get it, you go to Banggai and you can deal with the native rajah there.” He grinned. “However, he has no love for Germans and is very pro-British.”

Romberg hesitated, but Ponga Jim had seen triumph leap into his eyes.

“All right, Captain Mayo,” Romberg said. “I’ll see you in the salon at dinner. It will take all my available funds and those of my friends. But we’ll manage.”

On the impulse of the moment, Jim stepped into the radio room when he went forward. Picking up a pencil, he wrote rapidly.

“Tear that up after you send it, Sparks,” he ordered. “And stand by.”

It read:

WILLIAM GIRARD
,

HOTEL KONINGSPLEIN
,

MAKASSAR
,
CELEBES
,
N
.
E
.
I
.

DESTINATION TEMBAU
.
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE
.

MAYO
.

The
Semiramis
pushed her bows into the seas, rolling easily on a changed course. Tembau lay on the edge of the Greyhound Strait. There was one anchorage, Ponga Jim Mayo was remembering. It was one he had never seen, but it had become almost a legend in the islands. Tukoh Bay wasn’t a nice place, for it had become a resort for all the renegades in the islands. But if it was Tukoh Bay they wanted, to Tukoh Bay they would go.

Tupa was in the crow’s nest when the
Semiramis
slipped through the outlying reefs to Tembau. The island lifted itself high out of the water, and from the sea there was no evidence of the village at Tukoh Bay. Slug Brophy came up to the bridge. He had two guns strapped on. Gunner Millan was standing by on the poop deck with several of the crew.