“Yes,” cried Spar. “I’m an escaped convict, but down there on the beach you will find two score escaped convicts. Get them, phone the barracks, or you’ll lose your precious badge!”
The man blinked at Spar, recognized the sincerity of tone, and reached for the instrument. He barked his information, and ten minutes later, a battalion of French colonials were racing down from the hills to the beach.
Twenty minutes later, the wondering inhabitants of the fishing village were startled by the sound of rifle fire.
An hour later, a major and many soldiers marched up the road to the Perry plantation, escorting what prisoners they had left.
The Saint, flanked by the mustard uniforms of the colonials, was very disheveled. His debonair manner had given place to a definitely terrified mien. His eyes were very large when he saw Spar and Frederick Perry on such excellent terms.
Then some of the bravado came back and he shook loose confining hands. “So the convict thinks himself smarter than the Saint, eh? Turns state’s evidence and gets the reprieve. Someday, Captain Spar, you and I may be able to settle this matter by ourselves.”
“Why not now?” said Spar, getting up slowly.
“No, no,” cried the chief. “You are my prisoner. Do not damage yourself!”
But the colonial major was of a more warlike mind. “Let them go ahead. Perhaps we shall learn something.”
But he might have saved his words. Unmindful of the men all about them, Folston and Spar hurled themselves from the two sides of the room and met in the center of the polished floor like two charging cavalry brigades.
The Saint was lighter than Spar, but the Saint had the advantage of tricks which Spar would never have used. They rained blows on one another in a matter of seconds. Too surprised to interfere, the soldiers and police stood still.
Spar was striking for one spot, the heart. His blows were steady. The wolf, taking his one hold. The shark rapped every place at once, using fair means and foul.
Suddenly, Spar sank his fist to the knuckles in the Saint’s coat. Folston, unnerved by the blow, slipped back to the floor. Spar threw himself on top of the man, hands seeking out the throat. And the shark screamed for mercy.
Men darted forward to pry them apart, but Spar was shouting, “Stay back! Stay back and listen! Now, Saint Folston, tell them you framed me. Tell them I didn’t know about that cargo in Paramaribo!”
In choked words, feeling his death near at hand, the Saint talked. He talked for fifteen minutes and each time he tried to stop, Spar’s thumbs went deeper into his throat. And then when the police and the soldiers had the story, and not until then did Spar stand up.
Peg Mannering was instantly at his side. Spar, in terse phrases, told his own side of the events, ending up with, “I know you are neither judges nor juries, but what you have heard tonight is true, and after hearing it I am confident that men of your intelligence and understanding will certainly see to it that France does not unjustly condemn me, that France will free me of my sentence.”
The major shouted, “France will not desert you!” in a fervor of patriotism which he so seldom found a chance to indulge.
“Nor will the police!” cried the chief. “I take the responsibility of setting you free this minute. You and this so young Tom Perry.”
“Thank you,” said Spar, with a smile.
But Peg Mannering was not smiling. Peg Mannering knew that everything rested as it had before for her. This had changed nothing.
“But where is Tom?” said Frederick Perry.
“Probably in the office,” said the chief of police. “I saw him there but a moment ago.”
Frederick Perry disappeared and returned carrying an empty cash box, eyes wide with questioning.
The guard at the door came in and said, “Was it all right to let those people through?”
“What people?” demanded the police chief.
“The young man and the dark-haired girl. They said they had to make a boat and I saw that they were not being held.”
“A boat!” cried Frederick Perry. “The liner which sails at dawn. That Bereau woman has . . . has . . . kidnaped him.”
“Ah,” said the chief of police, “I shall bring them back.”
But Frederick Perry shook his head. “No. No, do not bring them back. Let them go. He has taken all the money he will ever get from me. He has caused me all the trouble he ever will. Let him go.”
Peg Mannering, face radiant, stood very close to Spar. The major and his prisoners departed with military precision. The police, taking Chacktar’s corpse with them, roared away.
“And now where?” said Spar, not really caring.
Frederick Perry stopped in the center of the floor and looked fixedly at Spar. “Where? Why, young man, nowhere. I want you to stay here. You have done me a greater service than you know.
“For years I have looked forward to the time when I could leave this island and this work. For years I thought Tom would finally come to his senses and look elsewhere than into his cups, but I realize now that I was nursing a dream. I’ve been hard, perhaps I am being unjust in letting him go away with that woman. But perhaps he loves her. Perhaps she will do things for him I never could do.
“But that does not solve my problems. I must get away from this place. And, after the things you have done, after saving me—what you did, I can but ask you another favor.”
Spar, startled, looked up from Peg’s face and said, “Another favor?”
“Yes, live here in this house, manage my interests, consider yourself as my son. Will you?”
“After certain legal ties are tied, yes.”
“Oh, it would all be legal. I will see to it that—”
“No, no,” said Peg Mannering, laughing. “He means . . . or I think he means . . . hope he means . . .”
Frederick Perry’s face relaxed into a benign smile.
Story Preview
NOW that you’ve just ventured through one of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age collection by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of Hell’s Legionnaire. Join Dusty Colton, an American who flees the French Foreign Legion to escape a harsh prison sentence only to rush headlong into a Berber tribal lair. Despite his long odds of solo escape, he can’t leave a captive American woman behind and must find a way for both of them to outrun the Berber tribe and the Foreign Legion.
Hell’s Legionnaire
BEHIND them, the ambush was sprung with the speed of a steel bear trap. One moment the Moroccan sunlight was warm and peaceful upon this high pass of the Atlas Mountains. The next lashed the world with the sound of flaming Sniders and Mannlichers and flintlocks.
Gray and brown djellabas swirled behind protecting rocks. Bloodshot eyes stared down sights. Scorching lead reached in with hammers and battered out lives with the gruesome regularity of a ticking clock.
Ann Halliday’s shrill scream of terror was lost in an ocean of erupting sound. Her terrified Moorish barb plunged under her, striving to dash through the jamming corridor of the peaks.
Horses fell, maimed and screaming. Men died before they could reach their holsters, much less their guns. The two auto-rifles in the vanguard had been jerked from their packs but now they were covered with dust and blood and their gunners stared with glazed, dead eyes at the enemy, the Berbers.
John Halliday, Ann’s father, tried to ride back to her. Within five feet of her pony, he stiffened in his saddle, shot through the back. The next instant his face was torn away by a ricocheting slug. He pitched off at her feet.
Muskets and rifles rolled like kettledrums. Black powder smoke drifted heavily above the pass, a shroud to temporarily mark the passing of twenty men.
A voice was bellowing orders in Shilha and, dying a shot at a time, the volleying finally ceased. Then there was only dust and smoke and the blood-drenched floor of the pass.
Two Berbers, blue eyes hard and metallic in the hoods of their djellabas, jerked Ann Halliday from her barb.
She struggled, but their sinews were trained by lifetimes spent on the Atlas and she might as well have tried to break steel chains.
Her boots made swirls of dust as she attempted to impede their progress. Once she looked back and saw a Berber delivering the death stroke to a wounded expedition aide. She did not look back again.
The Berbers half lifted, half threw her to the saddle of a waiting horse. Other mountain men were coming up, their arms filled with plunder. As though in a nightmare, Ann saw them mount their ponies.
They filed down the pass, up a slope, and trotted toward a mountain peak which loomed brown and sullen before them. The rapidity of the events was too much for her. They dazed her and made her slightly ill. But she had not yet realized that her party had been slain, that she was in the hands of revolting tribesmen. Mercifully, a sort of anesthetic had her in its grip.
Almost before she realized they were on their way, they stopped. Teeth flashed in laughter. Men were patting rifles and ammunition and bulky sacks of loot. Some of them pointed to her and laughed more loudly. She did not understand, not yet.
She did not struggle when they led her to the square block of a house. She thought that within she might have time to rest and collect herself, that she might be able to devise some means of escape. But when the cool interior surrounded her, she stared across the room and knew that her experience had not yet begun.
A Berber was sitting there, knees drawn up, djellaba hood thrown back. His eyes were gray and ugly. His cheeks were thin and his strong arms were bundles of muscle as he extended them before him. He was white, true, and his hair and beard were brown. But from him there exuded a web of evil, almost tangible in its strength.
“Get thee from me!” snapped the crouching one to her two guards. They went without a backward glance, doubtless glad to be free and able to take their part in the loot division.
The bearded one on the mat looked appraisingly at Ann. He saw her delicate face, her full lips, her dark blue eyes. His study swept down. She was clothed in a cool, thin dress which clung tightly to her beautifully molded body.
Her breasts were firm and tight against the cloth. The material clung to her thighs, outlining smooth, mysteriously stirring indentations and curves.
The Berber licked thin lips, scarcely visible through the thickness of his beard. His eyes came back with a jerk to her face.
“I,” he said slowly, “am Abd el Malek, the man who shall soon sweep the Franzawi from the plains and mountains of Morocco.” His French was flawless. “I wonder that they did not kill you, but now . . .” He let his metallic eyes linger on her thighs. “Now I am overjoyed that they did not.”
She threw back her head, her eyes alight with anger: “Abd el Malek, dubbed ‘The Killer.’ It might please you to know that I am not a Franzawi. I am an American and if anything should happen to me . . . I suppose you think you can wipe out an expedition and fail to have la Légion after you.”
“La Légion!” He spat as though the name tasted bad. “What do I care about la Légion? There is no company within five days’ march. Resign yourself, my little one, to the time you pass with me.”
Her eyes lost a little of their rage. Something of terror began to creep into them. “But . . . but there might be . . . ransom.”
“Ha! Ransom! What do I care for ransom? In my stronghold over the Atlas I have the price to buy every man, woman and child in Morocco. No, sweet morsel, I am not interested in ransom. Ordinarily I would not be interested in you, Christian dog that you are. I would not touch you.”
He stood up, towering over her. She backed up against the mud wall.
“No,” he said, “I would not be interested. But this campaign has been long, rather boring. My women are far away, and . . .” He smiled, fastening his hot eyes on her body.
Reaching out he tried to hold her wrist. She jerked it away and aimed a slap at his leathery cheek. He laughed, displaying discolored, uneven teeth. “So,” he said, “you will have it another way.”
To find out more about Hell ’s Legionnaire and how you can obtain your copy, go to www.goldenagestories.com.
Glossary
STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.
Atlas Mountains: a mountain range in northwest Africa extending about fifteen hundred miles through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia including The Rock of Gibraltar. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert.→ to text
Barbary Coast: the term used by Europeans, from the sixteenth until the nineteenth century, to refer to the coastal regions in North Africa that are now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. The name is derived from the Berber people of North Africa. In the West, the name commonly refers to the pirates and slave traders based there.→ to text
Berbers: members of a people living in North Africa, primarily Muslim, living in settled or nomadic tribes between the Sahara and Mediterranean Sea and between Egypt and the Atlantic Ocean.→ to text
binnacle: a built-in housing for a ship’s compass.→ to text
blighter: a fellow, especially one held in low esteem.→ to text
bosun: a ship’s officer in charge of supervision and maintenance of the ship and its equipment.→ to text
Brobdingnagian: of or relating to a gigantic person or thing; comes from the book Gulliver’s Travels of 1726 by Jonathan Swift, wherein Gulliver meets the huge inhabitants of Brobdingnag. It is now used in reference to anything huge.→ to text
Colt .45: a .45-caliber automatic pistol manufactured by the Colt Firearms Company of Hartford, Connecticut. Colt was founded in 1847 by Samuel Colt (1814–1862), who revolutionized the firearms industry.→ to text
Devil’s Island: an island in the Caribbean Sea off French Guiana and location of a notorious French penal colony, opened in 1854 and closed in 1946. Used by France, its inmates were everything from political prisoners to the most hardened of thieves and murderers. Conditions were harsh and many prisoners sent there were never seen again. Few convicts ever managed to escape.→ to text
djellaba: a long loose hooded garment with full sleeves, worn especially in Muslim countries.→ to text
dodger: a canvas or wood screen to provide protection from ocean spray on a ship.→ to text
fathom: a unit of length equal to six feet (1.83 meters), used in measuring the depth of water.→ to text
Fort-de-France: the capital and largest city of Martinique, on the western coast of the island.→ to text
Franzawi: (Arabic) Frenchman.→ to text
French Guiana: a French colony of northeast South America on the Atlantic Ocean, established in the nineteenth century and known for its penal colonies (now closed). Cayenne is the capital and the largest city.→ to text
gangway: a narrow, movable platform or ramp forming a bridge by which to board or leave a ship.→ to text
gendarme: a police officer in any of several European countries, especially a French police officer.→ to text
gingham dog and the calico cat: reference to a poem called “The Duel” by Eugene Field (1850–1895) about a gingham dog and a calico cat (both stuffed toys) who fought until they had eaten each other up and there was nothing left.→ to text
G-men: government men; agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.→ to text
hard-boiled: tough; unsentimental.→ to text
hawse: hawse pipe; iron or steel pipe in the stem or bow of a vessel, through which an anchor cable passes.→ to text
hein?: (French) eh?→ to text
hooker: an older vessel, usually a cargo boat.→ to text
knot: a unit of speed, equal to one nautical mile, or about 1.15 miles, per hour.�
� to text
la Légion: (French) the Legion; the French Foreign Legion.→ to text
lay to: to put a ship in a dock or other place of safety.→ to text
Legionnaire: a member of the French Foreign Legion, a unique elite unit within the French Army established in 1831. It was created as a unit for foreign volunteers and was primarily used to protect and expand the French colonial empire during the nineteenth century, but has also taken part in all of France’s wars with other European powers. It is known to be an elite military unit whose training focuses not only on traditional military skills, but also on the building of a strong esprit de corps amongst members. As its men come from different countries with different cultures, this is a widely accepted solution to strengthen them enough to work as a team. Training is often not only physically hard with brutal training methods, but also extremely stressful with high rates of desertion.→ to text
Mannlicher: a type of rifle equipped with a manually operated sliding bolt for loading cartridges for firing, as opposed to the more common rotating bolt of other rifles. Mannlicher rifles were considered reasonably strong and accurate.→ to text
Martinique: an island in the eastern Caribbean; administered as an overseas region of France.→ to text
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