The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (87 page)

A protruding corner of rock met his fingers. He gripped it, shifted his weight. The rock came loose.

For one awful, breathtaking instant, he grabbed wildly, then he felt himself falling.

He slid, grabbed out, felt a rock tear loose from his hand, and fell clear. He must have turned over at least three times before he struck with such force that it knocked the wind from him, then slid, and started to fall again. His hand, grasping wildly, caught a shrub. It pulled, then held.

Breathless, frightened, he hung over the void.

Around him was absolute silence. Slowly, majestically, the moon slid from behind the cloud. To his horror he saw the bush to which he clung had pulled out by the roots, and seemed suspended only by a few stronger roots that might give way at any moment.

Turning his head carefully, he glanced below. Nothing but blackness. The shrub gave a sickening sag, then held.

Moving cautiously, he felt with his toe. He found a toehold, not more than an inch of rock. Then another inch, and he let go with one hand. A heavy root thrust out from the face, and he took hold with a sigh of relief.

A
LMOST A HALF HOUR
later, he let himself down on the slope, then stepped into the brush. He had worked along silently through the jungle only a little way when he heard a clink of metal against metal. He froze. A sentry stood not twenty feet away, and beyond him bulked the dark body of a plane.

Mike Thorne flattened against the earth. The grass beneath him was damp. He crept softly nearer the sentry. The man turned, rifle on guard, staring out into the dark toward him. Mike lay still. Then the sentry shouldered his rifle and walked away.

Listening, Thorne could hear the man’s feet recede, then stop, then start back. Mike moved forward and lay still.

The sentry drew near, paused, and turned away. Swiftly, Mike lunged. His left arm slid around the sentry’s throat, crushing the bony part of the wristbone against the man’s Adam’s apple. His left hand grasped his own right wrist, and Mike gave a quick, hard jerk. The man’s body threshed, then relaxed slowly. Grimly, Mike Thorne lowered the body to the ground.

When he straightened again, he carried a heavy-bladed knife. It was a smatchet, evidently taken from some British commando, or picked from the ground after a battle. The rifle he put aside.

Moving forward, he sniffed air heavy with the fumes of gasoline. He hesitated, then felt around. Several tins of gas stood about the plane. It was a Zero pursuit.

Deliberately, he opened the cans and poured one of them over the plane itself. His time was short. He knew the chances of discovery were increased immeasurably by every instant, yet he worked on.

A movement froze him to stillness. A Japanese sentry had stopped not fifty feet away and was staring toward him. The man stepped forward and spoke softly, inquiringly. Mike Thorne crouched, his lips a thin line along his teeth.

This was it. He could see it coming. Suddenly the Japanese jerked up his rifle. There was no hesitation. The man fired as the rifle came up, and the bullet smashed into the pile of cases beside Thorne. Instantly, Thorne lunged. The rifle cracked again, and a bullet whiffed by his cheek. The soldier lunged with the bayonet, and Mike felt the point tear through his sleeve, then he struck viciously with the smatchet.

Blood gushed from the side of the Japanese’s neck, but the man scarcely staggered. He wheeled, dropping his rifle, and grabbed at Thorne’s throat. Mike tried to pull away, slashing viciously at the sentry with the heavy knife.

The camp was in an uproar. Running men were coming from every direction. With a tremendous burst of strength, Mike hurled the sentry from him, struck a match, and dropped it into the gasoline.

The tower of flame leaped high into the sky behind him, but he had plunged into the brush. He was running wildly, desperately. Running so fast that he never saw the wire until it was too late. He plunged into it, tried to leap, but his foot hung and he fell forward. Desperately, he hurled himself to one side, trying to avoid the barbs. He fell flat, and his head struck one of the anchor pins. He felt the blow, but nothing more.

H
IS EYES OPENED
on a different world. Weird flames lit the sky, although they were dying down now. They wouldn’t, he decided, be enough to attract help. It was too deep within the sheltering bulwarks of the crater.

He was bound to a tree, his right leg around the bole, the toe hooked under the left knee. The left leg was bent back under him. His arms were tied around the tree itself.

Mike’s eyes were narrow with apprehension. He knew what this meant. In such a position, in a short time his legs would be paralyzed and helpless. If he were to escape, it must be now, at once. From the tail of his eye he could see enough to know that two planes had been burned, and a fair quantity of supplies.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed between the fire and himself. He tilted his head, and a stunning blow knocked it down again.

“So?” The voice was a hiss. “You?”

He looked up, brow wrinkled with anguish. Commander Ishimaru stared down at him. He remembered the man from an event on the coast of China. He forced a grin. “Sure, it’s me, Mike Thorne. How’s tricks?”

Ishimaru studied him.

“No change, I see,” he said softly. “I am glad. You will break harder, my friend.” He bowed, and his eyes glittered like obsidian in the firelight.

The Japanese officer studied him. “Where did you come from?” he went on. “How many are there? Why did you come here?”

“Side issue,” Mike replied. “Doolittle and his boys are taking another sock at Tokyo. They sent me down here to keep you boys busy while the big show comes off.”

Ishimaru struck him viciously across the face. Once, twice. Then again.

“You tell me how many, and where they are.” Ishimaru’s voice was level. “Otherwise, you burn.”

“Go to the devil,” Mike replied.

“You have ten minutes to decide.” Ishimaru’s voice was sharp. He spun on his heel and walked away.

Mike Thorne’s lips tightened. His legs were already feeling their cramped position. The position alone would soon be torture enough, but the Japanese would not let it rest there. He had seen men after Japanese torture, and it had turned him sick. And Mike Thorne wasn’t a man to be bothered easily.

If he was to escape, it must be now, at once. From the activity around the landing field he could see that the hour of attack was approaching. The wreckage of the two burned pursuit ships had been hurriedly cleared away. The other planes were being fueled and readied for the takeoff. From his position his view was limited, but there were at least fifty Zeros on the landing field.

More, the Japanese were wheeling attack bombers from concealed positions. In the confusion he was almost forgotten.

D
ESPERATELY
,
HE TRIED
to pull himself erect. It was impossible. The cramped position of his legs was slowly turning them numb. He strained against the ropes that bound him, but without success.

His arms were not only bound around the tree, but were higher than his head, and tied there. By pressing the inside of his arms against the tree trunk he succeeded in lifting himself a bare inch. It did no good and only caused the muscles in his legs to cramp.

Trying to get the ropes that bound his wrists against the tree bark did him no good. He sawed but only succeeded in chafing his wrists.

A movement in the shadow of some packing cases startled him. Suddenly, to his astonishment, Jerry Brandon emerged from behind the cases. She walked across to him, unhurriedly, then bent over his wrists.

“Get out of here!” he snapped, and was astonished by the fierceness of his voice. “They’ll get you! These devils—!”

“Be still!” Jerry sawed at the ropes, and suddenly his wrists were free, then his feet. Slowly, carefully, she helped him up.

“Beat it,” he said tersely. “You’ve done enough. If they catch you, death will be too easy for you. I can’t run now. I doubt if I can even walk.”

Her arm about him, he tottered a few steps and almost fell. The pain in his legs was excruciating. Suddenly he saw the smatchet he’d had lying on a case beside some rifles. He staggered to the case and picked it up. They each took a rifle.

A Japanese dropped a sack to the ground at the nearest plane and started to turn. He saw them, hesitated, then started forward.

“This is it,” Mike said. “Get out of here. I’ll get away now. Anyway, no use both of us being caught.”

The soldier halted, stared, then turned to shout. Mike Thorne lifted the rifle and fired. His first bullet struck the man in the head and he pitched over. The second smashed into the plane.

Jerry Brandon was beside him, and she fired also. Slowly, they began to back away, taking advantage of every bit of cover, firing as they retreated. A bullet smashed into a tree trunk beside Mike, and he stepped back, loading the rifle again.

They were almost to the brush, and turning, he started for it in a tottering run. Jerry fired another shot, then ran up alongside him. Together they fled into the brush.

Behind them the field was in a turmoil. The escape had come without warning, the sudden firing within the camp had added to the confusion, and it had been a matter of minutes before anyone was aware of just what had happened.

But now a line of soldiers fanned out and started into the jungle.

Mike Thorne stopped, wetting his bruised lips. This was going to be tough. The Japanese would cut them off from his trail up the mountain. They knew where they had lost him before and this time would take care to prevent that. Furthermore, they were closer to the path up the mountain than he.

Worse, the ascent of the precipice down which he had come might be impossible for him in his present condition. And it was a cinch Jerry would never be able to make it.

His own problem was serious, but there was another, greater than that. Death for himself, even for Jerry Brandon, was a small thing compared to the fearful destruction of a sudden, successful attack on grounded planes and ships at anchor. The loss of life would be terrific. But what to do? What could two people do in such a case, far from means of communication….

But were they? The idea came suddenly.

Instantly, he knew it would work. It was the only way, the only possible way. He smiled wryly into the darkness. Was it possible? It meant climbing the cliff in the darkness, climbing along the sheer face, feeling for handholds, risking death at every second. It meant doing what only a moment before he had thought was impossible.

They slid swiftly through the jungle, but now, taking the girl’s hand, he chose a new path. He was going to the cliff.

Suddenly, the girl’s grip tightened.

“Mike, you’re not going to…?”

“Yes, I am,” he said quietly. “Something big’s coming off. I’m not going to sit by and see the enemy close in on those boys on Guadalcanal.”

“But what can you do?” Jerry protested. “Getting up that cliff won’t help. And I can’t climb it, even in daytime.”

“You aren’t going to,” he told her. “I know a cave in the rocks down below. You can stay there. I’m going up, somehow, some way. If I should fall, you’ll have to try. Up on that peak there is heaped-up forest, forest dead and parched by sun and wind, rotting in places, but mostly just dry. We’ve got to set fire to it.”

“Could they see it from there, Mike? It’s so far!”

He shrugged. “You can see a candle twelve miles from a plane on a dark night. I’m hoping some scout will sight this flame. It should be visible for miles and miles.”

“But won’t the Japanese put it out?” Jerry protested.

“They’ll try.” He laughed softly.

W
HEN HE REACHED THE FOOT OF THE CLIFF
he stopped dead still. Suddenly, despite the oppressive heat, he felt cold. Above him, looming in the darkness, the gigantic precipice towered toward the stars. Somehow, along the face of that awful cliff, he had climbed down, feeling his way. Now he must go back.

A slip meant an awful death on the jagged rocks below. Yet not to climb meant that many men would die, brave men who would perish in a world of rending steel and blasting, searing flame.

H
IS HANDS FOUND
a crevice, and he started. Inch by inch, he felt his way along, the awful void growing below him as he mounted upward. Rocks crumbled under his fingers, roots gave way, he clung, flattened against the rock as though glued to it, living for the moment only. His flesh damp with cold sweat, his skin alive, the nerves sensing every roughness in the rock.

Time and again he slipped, only to catch hold, then mount higher. A long time later, his clothing soaked, his fingers torn and bleeding, he crawled over the ridge and lay facedown on the rock. His pounding heart seemed to batter the solid surface beneath him, his lungs gasped for air, his muscles felt limp.

“So…I was correct.”

The voice was sibilant, cold. Mike Thorne’s eyes opened wide, suddenly alert. Ishimaru’s voice broke into the feeling of failure, of utter depression that swept over him. “I knew you would try it, American. So foolish to try to outwit Ishimaru.”

Mike knew he was covered, knew a move meant death. Yet he moved suddenly and with violence. He had drawn his hands back to his sides unconsciously, and with a sudden push up he hurled himself forward against the soldier’s legs.

A gun roared in his ears, and he felt the man go down before him. He lunged to his feet, and Ishimaru, wild with fury, fired from the ground. A searing flame scorched the side of Thorne’s face, and then he dove headfirst onto him.

Like a cat, the Japanese officer rolled away. He came up quickly and, as Mike lunged in, grabbed at his wrist. But Mike was too wise in the ways of judo, swung away, and whipped a driving right to the chin. The officer went down, hard.

Feet rushed, and Mike saw a man swinging at him with a rifle butt. He dropped in a ball at the man’s feet, and the fellow tripped and fell headlong, rolling over the edge of the cliff. The Japanese made one wild, futile grab with his fingers, then vanished, his scream ringing into the heavens.