West from Singapore (Ss) (1987) (17 page)

"You asking for a showdown, Ring?"

"Sure, I want to know what we're doing hundreds of miles off our course. I want to know who your passengers are. I want to know what your intentions are.

"Maybe for the first time in my life I'm doing something without thinking of money.

I'm going to the Near East to fight because I don't like dictatorships."

Wallace broke off to give Mayo a hard, direct glance and then plunged on in a flat-toned voice.

"Sure, I know a lot of this stuff is the old blarney. It's propaganda. England's leadership has been coming apart at the seams for years. Her people are all right, but at the top they've been a lot of wealthy and titled highbinders. They don't want a democratic England. It's the same way in the States. When you look for pro-Nazis look in the higher brackets of income, not the lower.

"But their time is past. The real England's coming to the top in this war. I figure democracy with all its faults has an edge over anything else.

England and America, battling side by side, will prove that to Germany and Japan.

Well, I've fought for money, and I've fought for the heck of it. This time it's for an idea.

"So maybe I ain't so smart. You could always outfigure me, Jim Mayo, but this cargo gets through or you go over the side-feet first. I'm not kidding, either."

"Put up the heater, Ring. This time it looks like we're pitching for the same club.

Look!" He took him to the chart. "Somewhere in this ocean we're scheduled to be sunk.

There's the route for low-powered steamers. Here's the route we could have taken.

It's dollars to guilders both routes are covered. So what do I do? I stop the radio and then drop out of sight. To all intents and purposes we're lost!

"Look here," Jim handed a message to Wallace. "Sparks picked this up last night."

S. S. RHYOLITE SUNK WITH ALL HANDS TWO DAYS OUT OF SINGAPORE. S. S. SEMIRAMIS

REPORTED MISSING. NO WORD SINCE LEAVING SUNDA.

"See? The Admiralty's worried. Intelligence is worried. But we're safe, and a third of the distance gone. Tonight, however, we change course. After that, anything can happen."

"So I'm a sucker," Ring said, grinning. "Chalk it up as a well-meant mistake. Be seeing you."

Hours passed slowly on the bridge. The night was dark and still. The air was heavy with heat. Along the horizon a bank of black clouds was building up, shot through from time to time with lightning. The barometer was falling, and Ponga Jim mopped his brow.

A sudden flash of lightning lit up a cloud like an incandescent globe. Mayo dropped his hands to the railing and stared. By the brief glimpse he had seen something else.

There, not even a mile away was the black outline of a ship! Instantly, Jim stepped into the wheelhouse.

"Put her over easy," he said quietly. "Put her over three points and then hold it."

Instinctively, he knew the long, black ship was the raider. But with any luck he was going to slip away. Obviously, the raider's lookout hadn't seen him.

The Semiramis swung until her stern was almost toward the raider. Ponga Jim glanced aft as they started to pull away. Then almost before his eyes, and on his main deck, a light flashed. From over the way came the jangle of a bell.

Swiftly, he stepped to the speaking tube. "Red," he snapped. "This is it. Give her all you've got."

He sounded the signal for battle stations, and still in complete darkness, felt his ship coming to life. Millan emerged from his cabin and dashed aft. Other men appeared from out of nowhere.

Catching a gleam from aft, Jim knew the two 5.9s were swinging to cover the raider.

A gun from the German belched fire. The shell hit the sea off to port. Then a huge searchlight flashed on, and they were caught and pinned to the spot of light.

A signal flashed from the raider, and Sparks yelled, "He says stop or he'll sink us!"

"Tell him to try to sink us!" Jim roared. Grabbing the megaphone, he stepped into the wing of the bridge. "Let 'em have it, Gunner! Knock that light out of there!"

He took a quick glance around to locate the cloud. It was nearer now, a great, rolling, ominous mass shot through with vivid streaks. A shell crashed off to starboard, and then the 5.9s boomed, one-two.

A geyser of water leaped fifty feet to port of the advancing ship, and then the second shell exploded close off the starboard quarter.

"That rocked her!" Jim yelled. "Keep her weaving," he told the quartermaster.

"Taiyib," Sakim said quietly.

Despite the fact that the freighter was giving all she had, the raider was coming up fast. The guns were crashing steadily, but so far neither had scored a hit.

The black cloud was nearer now. Jim wheeled to the door of the pilothouse when there was a terrible concussion and he was knocked sprawling into the bulkhead.

Almost at once, he was on his feet, staggering, with blood running into his eyes from where his head had smashed into the doorjamb. The port wing of the bridge had been shot away.

Millan's guns crashed suddenly, shaking the deck, and both shots hit the raider.

The first pierced the bow just abaft the hawsepipe and exploded in the forepeak.

The second smashed the gun on the foredeck into a heap of twisted metal.

"Hard aport!" Jim yelled. "Swing her!"

Then the storm burst around them with a roar, a sudden black squall that sent a blinding dash of rain over the ship.

A sea struck them and cascaded down over the deck, but the Semiramis straightened. Behind them a gun boomed. But struggling with a howling squall they had left all visibility behind them.

Slug Brophy came up the ladder. He was sweating and streaming with rain at the same time.

"Take her over," Jim directed briefly. "And drive her. Stay with this squall if you can."

Lyssy appeared on the deck below, his powerful brown body streaming with water.

"Go below and tell Colonel Warren I want all his men in the salon-now!" Jim bawled.

For a few minutes he stayed on the bridge, watching the storm. Then he went down to the salon. The flyers, their faces heavy with sleep, were gathered around the table. Only Warren and Aldridge appeared wide-awake. Aldridge was running a deck of cards through his long fingers, his dark, curious eyes on Mayo.

"What does this mean?" Warren asked. "Isn't it bad enough with a raider and a storm without getting us all up here?" Ponga Jim ignored him. He looked around the table, his eyes glancing from one to the other.

"Before we left Sunda Strait," he began suddenly, "I had word there was an enemy agent aboard."

Warren stiffened. His eyes narrowed. Wallace let the legs of his chair down hard and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Aldridge held the cards in his left hand and flicked the ash from his cigarette. His eyes shifted just a little, toward Wallace.

"Tonight," Jim went on, "I had concrete proof. We were slipping away in the darkness, unnoticed, when someone on the main deck flashed a light!"

"What?" Warren sat up straighter. "You've captured him?" "No," Jim said. "I don't know for sure who he is. But he's in this room!"

Warren was on his feet, his face suffused with anger.

"I resent that!" he said sharply. "What about your own crew? These men are all mine.

Why must one of them be the traitor? That's impudence! It's unfair!"

"It sounds like it," Mayo agreed, "but my crew have been with me a long time. Each of them has been in battle against Nazis. They have no love for them."

"Natives and renegades!" Warren protested angrily.

"But good men," Ponga Jim said quietly, his eyes dark and brilliant. "I've fought beside them. They aren't interested in ideologies. The traitor is."

He hesitated, looking around. "I wanted to warn you. One of you undoubtedly knows who the guilty man is. Just think. When you decide, no matter who it is, come to me.

"There are, as you know, raiders in this ocean looking for us. Our chances of reaching Aden without encountering one of them are small. Every hour that spy is aboard makes our risk greater. But whatever he does, he will have to be alone to do it. So stay together.

And under no circumstances must any man be found on deck alone!"

"And the passengers?" Aldridge asked softly. "What of them? Those very mysterious passengers who never appear on deck. Mightn't one of them be the spy?"

"No," Jim said quietly. "There is no possibility of that."

He turned and left the salon, hurrying down the passage toward the two mysterious cabins. He tapped lightly on the door. There was a murmured word, and the door opened.

Jim stepped inside, closing the cabin door softly.

Two people faced him, a man of perhaps fifty and a girl of twenty-five. The man was tall and finely built, with a dark, interested face and a military bearing. He got quickly to his feet, even as Jim's eyes met the girl's. General Andre Caillaux and his niece had been famous in the Paris that preceded the Nazi attack.

And for years in North Africa, General Caillaux had been one of the most loved and feared officers in the French army. Known for daring and fair dealing as well, he had great influence among the men. So enormous was this influence that the wavering Petain government sent him to a position in New Caledonia. Now, hoping that his prestige might swing the Foreign Legion and other powerful detachments to their side, the British were returning him to North Africa.

"How is it?" Caillaux asked quickly. "Is there trouble?"

"A brush with a raider." Jim's feet braced against the roll of the deck, and his knees bent slightly when it tipped. "We got away in a squall. Hit once, but no serious damage. We holed his bow enough to make trouble in this blow, and wrecked one of his guns."

"The Nazi agent?" Caillaux's voice was anxious.

Jim shrugged. "It's got me. Wallace has always been the sort to do anything for money.

But this time I doubt it." "Warren?"

"I don't know. He may be just officious, overly conscious of his new rank. And it might be a clever disguise."

"Who else could it be?" Jeanne asked. Her voice was husky. "It might be anyone of the twenty-three. It might be Aldridge. He's a deep one. Never says much. But don't open the door for anyone but me."

He stepped out into the dark passageway and started to pull the door shut. He saw the flicker of the shadows a second too late, and then something smashed him alongside the head. He felt himself falling. But with a mighty effort, struggling against a black wave of unconsciousness, he held himself erect and swung blindly with his free hand. He missed. Something struck him again. But his hand clung to the door, and now he fell forward, pulling it shut.

As the lock clicked there was a snarl of impotent fury from his attacker. The man leaped at him, striking viciously at his head and face with a heavy blackjack. The attack was entirely soundless, for neither man had made a noise aside from that brief but angry snarl. Ponga Jim, groggy from the first blow, never had a chance. The pounding continued. He struggled to throw off the blows, to protect himself, but was unable to get his hands up.

The passage was lost in abysmal darkness. Only half conscious of what he was doing, Jim tried to retreat. But his enemy pursued him, hitting him with jarring blows that left him numb and unfeeling. Finally, he slipped to the deck, even his great strength unable to endure more battering.

A long time later, he fought his way back to consciousness. He was sprawled on the cold steel of the deck, some distance from where he had fallen.

He caught a steampipe housing and pulled himself to a sitting position. His head throbbed with great waves of agony. When he moved, white-hot streaks of pain shot through his brain and something hammered against his skull with great force. He tried to turn his head, and his brain seemed to move like heavy paint in a bucket. A dim light was growing in the east. On the deck he could see the dark smear of his blood where he had been dragged. His attacker had planned to drop him overboard, but had been frightened away, evidently.

Ponga Jim staggered to his feet and reeled against the bulkhead, clutching his throbbing head with both hands. It was caked with blood. Stumbling, he reached the ladder and climbed slowly to the lower bridge. Somehow he got the door open and lunged into his cabin, the roll of the ship sending him sprawling to his knees.

He was still there when the door opened and Brophy came in.

"Skipper, what's happened?" His wide, flat face was incredulous. "What fell on you?"

"I'll get him now," Jim muttered, hardly aware of the other man. "I know how to find him."

For three days Jim stayed in his bunk except when on watch. His face was swollen, and there were cuts and abrasions on the sides of his head. He was remembering that.

He had not been struck over the head. All the blows had struck up.

The attacker had struck with peculiar, sidearm blows. It was unusual, and for the average man, unnatural.

His jaw ached, and the back of his head was bruised. However, when he came to the bridge on the fourth day, he was just in time to see the raft.