“About two cups full,” moaned Foster.
“We can call the base,” said Mason. “One of the boys will be down in half an hour with enough to get us home.”
“Not with this radio.” Foster snapped the switch. There was no hum.
Mason groaned.
“We might just as well start matching now,” he said, “to see which one of us hikes back to let them know the fix we’re in.”
Foster stared up and down the beach.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right at that, Hank. We’ll have to be careful, though. Sun’ll be down in a while and one of us can start. Have to stick to the shadows as much as we can. Some Jap patrols are apt to be gum-shoeing around.”
Feet crunched on the sand and Mason leaped from the wing, gun half out of his holster.
It wasn’t a Jap, however. It was a native.
The man, apparently, had slipped from the jungle without them noticing him.
He stared at Mason for a moment, then stabbed a thumb at his own naked chest.
“Me N’Goni,” he announced. “Me mission boy.”
Mason grinned. “Me Hank,” he said. “Him Steve. Americans.”
N’Goni gestured at the Avenger. “Machine that fly, him haywire?”
“No gas,” Mason explained. “You know him, gas?”
“Know him,” declared the native. “Water make machine go put-put.”
“Know where we can get any?” demanded Foster, impatient at the pidgin conversation.
N’Goni considered. “Jap maybe have him.”
“Jap!” yelled Foster.
“Jap here,” N’Goni told him. “In the hills. Not far.”
“Sure, I know all that,” said Foster. “Patrols sneaking around.”
N’Goni shook his head. “Many Japs. Machine that fly. Gas.”
The two Yanks looked at one another. N’Goni scraped his feet in the sand.
“The Old Man was right,” said Foster. “Those dirty rats do have a field right on this island. Maybe more than one. Sending in supplies and reinforcements at night, trying to build them up.”
He whirled on the native. “Can you show us where?” he demanded.
N’Goni grinned viciously. “Make go bang boom?” he asked.
“You’re darn right we’ll make them go bang boom,” promised Foster.
“Me show,” said the native, apparently satisfied.
He started off up the beach, but they called him back.
“Not yet,” explained Mason. “Go big American village first time. Tell big chief. Many machine that fly come. Bigger bang boom.”
N’Goni’s grin widened. “Me show big American village,” he offered.
“Gee,” said Foster, “that guy knows everything.”
“Mission boy,” N’Goni explained patiently.
“All right,” said Mason. “You show short way. We know long way.”
“Short way,” agreed N’Goni.
Mason turned to Foster, waiting for his decision. Foster wrinkled his brow.
“By rights,” he said, “we both should go. Blow up the ship before we leave.”
“Blow up the ship!” yelled Mason. “Steve, you ain’t in your right mind. That ship’s all right.”
“We can’t allow the Japs to get hold of one,” snapped Foster. “You know that as well as I do. It’s too new a job. Once those monkeys got their claws on one, they’d be making them.”
“One of us could stay and guard it while the other went,” argued Mason. “The Japs would never know it was here. You just can’t blow up a perfectly good ship. Cripes, those bombs might make a bunch of Japs say uncle.”
In the end Mason won. They flipped to see who’d go and the coin turned heads for Foster.
Mason, sitting in the sand, leaned back against a palm and watched the ocean.
For a change, it wasn’t raining and a brilliant tropical moon made the beach almost as light as day.
The Avenger was hidden in a coconut grove, where Foster had taxied it before he left and everything was peaceful. Too peaceful, Mason thought, leaving against the palm, trying to keep his eyes open. Waves charged upon the beach and foamed in silver spray. The wind sang in the palms and back in the jungle a monkey scolded.
Mason dozed, jerked himself awake guiltily. It was his job to watch the plane. He couldn’t sleep.
The monkey was chattering again, down the beach somewhere. A muted chatter that Mason suddenly realized was no monkey chatter at all.
He sat bolt upright and listened intently. A breeze swept the sound away for a moment and then it came back again.
The gunner got to his feet, slid back into the shadows, still listening intently. He was sure he couldn’t be mistaken. There were men down on that beach.
Moving swiftly, but keeping in the shadows, he hurried toward the sounds.
Rounding a rocky point that thrust out into the water, he saw the beach alive with men, small men who scurried about and carried rifles on their back. Off shore stood a ship and beyond it a couple of more ships, riding without lights, like gray ghosts in the moonlight. Boats were coming in through the surf and the men were busy unloading small steel drums.
Lying flat among the rocks, Mason watched eagerly. There was gasoline in those drums, he knew. Gasoline for the few planes the Japs were operating out of their hidden base up in the hills.
And, Lord, what beautiful targets they were, working away in the moonlight. Just about the right range, too.
Common sense tried to reason with him. “You haven’t got a chance,” he said. “You’re just one man against them all.”
“But,” Hank told Common Sense, “think of the fun it’d be. Boy, could I scatter those babies!”
A truck rumbled out of the jungle, backed up to the pile of drums.
Stealthily, Mason crept from the rocks, slipped into the shadows and ran. Back at the plane, he dismounted the gun in the turret, looped his shoulders with belts of ammo and staggered at a bent-kneed gallop down the beach again.
The Japs still were there. The last of the drums were being rolled up on the truck and the little brown men, chattering like apes, were clustered around the machine. The boats had left the shore, were going back to the ship.
Softly, gingerly, Mason swung the gun off his shoulder, rested it on top of a flat rock. Carefully he laid out the ammo belts.
Waiting for a second to catch his breath, he slid behind the gun, trained it carefully. Slowly his finger squeezed the trip and suddenly the gun was jabbering.
Tracers ripped across the sand and tore into the soldiers standing at the tail of the truck. The group seemed to explode into dozens of screaming men. Others did not run, but lay still where the gun had chopped them down.
Coldly, precisely, Mason picked off the running groups. A rifle cracked and a bullet clicked against a rock nearby and went whining into space. Another rifle spat out of the shadows and Mason heard the bullet drone overhead.
The men had disappeared. More rifles were beginning to talk, bullets spatted close. The ammo belt ran clear. Mason jerked up another, slammed it home, pointed the gun at the loaded truck and let drive. He heard the 50 calibres spanging into the drums and suddenly the truck exploded in a gush of blue and yellow flame that paled out the moonlight and lighted beach and jungle with a garish glow.
More men were running now and Mason picked them off. Several had leaped from under the truck when the first bullets drove into the drums, but the sheet of flame had reached out, caught them before they could get away.
The burning gasoline snaked steadily into the sky now, lighting every boulder and tree upon the beach. But the Japs had disappeared.
With the last of his belt, Mason sprayed the beach, then leaped from the rocks and turned to run. But as he wheeled about he almost collided with three charging Japs. Wit
h a shout, he heaved the empty gun at the first one. It caught the little yellow man full in the stomach and bowled him over.
The second Jap was bearing down, however, bayonet gleaming.
Snatching free his .45, Mason shot from the hip and brought him down. The third man halted momentarily, lifting his rifle. The pistol barked angrily and the Jap collapsed, clutching his stomach, making choking noises.
Mason ran, ran with all the power that drove his legs, diving for the shadows. And as he reached them, a figure rose from behind a boulder, smashed a rifle butt down upon his head.
“This way,” said N’Goni. “Leave ocean now. Take to hills.”
Foster nodded wearily. “How much farther?” he asked.
“Not so much,” the native said, and Foster suspected he was lying.
“Let’s rest a minute,” the pilot suggested.
N’Goni squatted on the sand and Foster sat down.
“Guns,” N’Goni said calmly.
“What do you mean? Guns?”
“Guns,” insisted the native, sweeping a hand the way they had come.
Foster tried to still the roaring in his head, strained his ears.
But it was several seconds before he heard the far-off chatter of a machine gun and the less frequent popping of rifles.
Walking softly, still straining his ears, he stared back down the beach. The faint chatter of the guns was muffled by a thudding roar and the distant sky was lighted with a sudden puff of brilliance.
“They found Hank!” Foster yelled at N’Goni. “They found him and he blew up the ship.”
He was running and marveled that he had it in him.
“N’Goni,” he yelled, but there was no answer. Stopping, he looked back. The native had disappeared.
The guns were still going, but he lost the sound of them as he resumed his run. The run dwindled to a trot, the trot to a determined slog. When next he stopped to listen, there were no guns, although a flickering brilliance still glowed ahead.
“They got him,” he told himself. “They got Hank!”
And the thought became a drum that beat through his brain, a marching song that kept his feet moving down the sand.
He cursed himself that he had left Hank behind. He should have insisted on the gunner coming with him. They should have destroyed the ship in the first place. That really was what they were supposed to do.
It was near dawn as he drew near the point where they had left the Avenger and from there on he moved cautiously. The moon had sunk several hours before, but the beach still was lighted by the wash of stars that spangled the tropic sky.
The Avenger, he saw with a start, still was there, half hidden in the clump of palms. The explosion, then, hadn’t been the ship, but something else.
Hope welled within him as he lay stretched flat in a jungle thicket and watched. Hank might still be there, out there watching the plane. The explosion might have been something else, maybe miles away. It would have been hard to estimate distances out there on the beach last night.
A figure moved near the plane and Foster caught his breath, half raised himself, a shout welling in his throat. But the shout died and he hugged the earth again. The figure wore a battle helmet and carried a rifle on its shoulder.
In the half light of the waning stars, he saw the first figure meet a second one, saw the two wheel about and continue their patrol. There was no question now. The Japanese had found the ship and were guarding it.
That meant that Hank was dead.
Tired, baffled rage shook Foster as he lay there, watching. Finally he moved, crawling and running at a crouch, stalking. One fact drummed in his brain. The Japs must never keep that ship!
He reached the palm thicket, slid belly-flat through the scanty undergrowth, stopping and lying like one dead when the Jap sentry was in sight, moving swiftly, but cautiously when the opportunity presented itself.
Crouching in a thicket, he waited. One of the Japs was coming. Foster listened to the steady tramp, the methodical drill-field tread. The Jap was opposite him now, was moving on.
The American pilot was a silent wraith that rose out of the bushes almost at the Jap’s side, the hands that moved to the Jap’s throat were death itself.
The guard opened his mouth to cry out, but the sound died in his throat and he was lifted from his feet and iron-like fingers bit into his neck. He dropped his rifle and it thudded on the damp ground, but that was the only sound. He kicked his feet and thrashed his arms, but the fingers did not relax. When Foster laid him down, the Jap was dead.
Back in his bushes, Foster waited.
The second guard ended his beat, stopped uncertainly when he did not meet the first one. Half turning to resume his march, he hesitated, moved softly, almost like a cat, down the side of the ship where his missing companion should have been.
Rigid, Foster kept his eyes on him, saw him stop when he sighted the limp figure on the ground.
For a long time the Jap stood there, staring, rifle at the ready, occasionally glancing about, sharp, quick glances as if he might surprise someone.
He came closer, thought better of it. Plainly he was afraid of a trap, afraid that what had struck down his companion might strike him down as well.
Foster could have shot him as he stood there, but that would have meant the sound of a shot; would have aroused any enemy within earshot.
Quickly, as if he made a swift decision, the Jap turned about and started to run. Foster rose silently, gripping his revolver by its barrel. He threw it with all his might and it glittered in the fading starlight as it tumbled toward the Jap, twirling end over end. It caught the little man in the small of the back, knocked him sprawling.
With a rush, Foster was on him, pinning him to earth, crushing his face to the ground to prevent an outcry. But the man twisted under him like a greased eel and thick-fingered hands clawed at the American.
Foster chopped at the man’s chin with an awkward right, for there was no room to swing. The Jap’s fingers found the pilot’s throat, failed to get a grip, clawed viciously at his face, leaving painful gashes on the cheek.
A knee came up viciously, slugged into Foster’s stomach, knocking the wind half from him.
In a blind haze of rage, the American reached the Jap’s throat with one hand, dragged him forward. His other clutching hand closed on a leg. Slowly, fighting with all this strength, Foster rose to his knees, struggled to his feet, lifted the squirming Jap above his head. Lifted him and threw him, with all his strength, against the Avenger’s metal side.
The Jap screamed shortly before he crashed against the plane, before he flopped into a grotesque rag-doll bundle, head twisted at an angle that said his neck was broken.
Foster leaned weakly against the ship, stared dully out to sea, where the first pale streamers of the sun were lighting a new day.
Minutes later, he walked over to pick up his revolver. Then he dragged the two dead Japs into the brush and staggered down the beach.
There, behind a spur of rock, he found the machine gun from the Avenger and on the rock a belt of ammo and many empty cases.
On the beach beyond was the burned skeleton of a truck and bursted steel drums. There also were dark spots in the sand … spots where men had died.
Legs braced wide, his body drooping with the punishment it had taken, Foster stared at the tracks of the truck leading out of the jungle, shifted his gaze to the climbing jungle, black and green with the coming dawn.
Up there somewhere was the Jap air base. Up there was a job to do.
And there was the Avenger to be destroyed and bombs that could be used.
Another thing, too. Hank was dead. That called for some sort of fitting gesture, some sort of rough tribute.
Steve Foster stood, stiff-legged, and stared at the hills.
But Hank Mason wasn’t dead.
He sat on the edge of a bed fashioned of poles and held his head in his hands. His head ached. No wonder, he thought, after the clout he’d got with that rifle butt.
The jungle bowl in which lay the Jap base swam with sullen heat.
A Japanese guard lounged against the hut’s door and looking past him Mason could see the air field, small but good enough for small planes and pilots that didn’t care whether they lived or died. Taking off and landing would be tricky in such a place, but it had the advantage of being well hidden, hard to find. The only way it could be spotted, Mason knew, was by a plane flying directly over it.
Great drums of fuel were stacked along the field and a line of planes rested under a flimsy camouflage. A group of natives were toiling on the field, wrestling stones and stumps, while Jap guards kept close watch, shrilling sharp words at any who might lag.
Mason took his left hand down from his head and looked at his wrist watch. It was almost 10 o’clock. By this time Foster and his native guide would have reached the American base. Soon a plane or two would be roaring out to rescue the stranded Avenger. If there was only some way to let them know. N’Goni, of course, would have told them of the Jap base, but there was the problem of finding it. Unless a plane flew directly overhead, it would be hard to spot.
If there were only some way—
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the fuel drums. There might be a way, after all. If only he just knew when those planes would be around.
He shifted his gaze to the guard. The fellow watched him closely with shiny black eyes. Something was sticking out of the man’s pocket…a long handle and a bulge in the pocket. Mason gulped. Unless he was mistaken, it was a hand grenade, one of those potato-masher affairs.
“American feel so bad,” suggested the guard, hopefully.
“Shut up,” snarled Mason.
The Jap’s face darkened and his eyes grew brighter, if that were possible.
“You no talk to me like that,” he said. “Me good as you are. Better maybe.”
“Like heck, you say,” said Mason.
The guard jerked his gun down toward Mason.
Dusty Zebra: And Other Stories Page 9