West from Singapore (Ss) (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  Ponga Jim's eyes went hard. "That was a dirty stunt!" he said.

  "Of course." Heittn shrugged. "Why not? We want you to use for bait. He would have been excess baggage."

  It was an hour before they finished questioning him. Heittn had begun it when they got him safely below and in a stone room. Four bulky Germans, an Italian, and three Japanese had entered with him. The door was closed. His hands had been bound. Then Heittn had walked up and struck him in the mouth. Then he stepped back and kicked Jim across the shins.

  Ponga Jim moved like lightning, kicking out himself. The kick caught Heittn in the pit of the stomach and rolled him across the room. Instantly, the five men hit Jim at once. He was knocked to his knees, jerked to his feet, and driven into the wall and battered. Then Heittn pushed his way through the crowd, his face a mask of fury.

  "So?" he snarled. "You will, will you?"

  He had a short length of rubber hose, and he slammed Jim wickedly across the shoulders with it. Then came a powerful blow over the head that drove Jim to his knees. Heittn hit him twice more before he could get up.

  Ponga Jim was desperate. He knew what such a beating could do to a man. He had seen the Gestapo work before. But he lunged to his feet, determined to go down without a whimper, without whining. Heittn battered him, then the others. The Italian named Calzo took his turn at the hose.

  "What's the matter?" Jim said drily. "Can't you hit a man unless he's tied?"

  Calzo's face flamed with anger, and he dealt Mayo a terrific blow over the head that knocked him into oblivion.

  When Jim opened his eyes he was conscious of pain. His body was afire with agony.

  He lay very still, staring up into darkness. Then he tried to move, but was bound hand and foot. His stirrings brought a voice from the abysmal darkness. "Jim?" It was Frazer. "Are you all right?"

  Jim groaned. "All right, nothing! I'm beaten half blind. Those rats used a hose on me."

  "You're not the only one. What happened to London?" "Heittn shot him. You alone here?"

  "No!" It was a new voice. "They got me, too. Right after you stumbled onto Rinehart's body."

  Jim was startled. "William?" he gasped. "Can't you keep out of trouble? What's the gag, anyway?"

  Frazer said, "Remember the Copenhagen?

  The German freighter that went Danish in a hurry when the war broke out? She's down here with a cargo of eighteen-foot baby submarines. They are built to submerge to five hundred feet, and each one carries a torpedo. They plan on sewing a string of them clear across the Indies, with the Copenhagen as mother ship. She can carry about fifty of them without much trouble. Todahe Bay is the main base."

  "It's a good spot," Major Arnold said. "An almost closed harbor, unseen until you're almost inside."

  "Todahe Bay?" Jim said thoughtfully. "That's close by." He lay quiet a minute. "What are they doing here?"

  "It's a torpedo plant," Frazer said. "They have natural heat here when they need it, they have power from that stream down below, and because of the well, no native will come near. The well is a big pool in the rock, opening to an underground lake, and the water is made phosphorescent by some growth in it. Like seawater."

  "But how do they get the torpedoes down to the subs?" Jim asked.

  Frazer shrugged. "I don't know. Rinehart tipped me off to all this. He was a German, you know. They rang him in on the deal, and he was smart enough to play along and keep his mouth shut. Then he came to me with the story. Somebody killed Rinehart by mistake. I picked that up from one of the guards this morning."

  Jim lay very quiet. He knew now that something had to be done. Fifty pocket submarines could create havoc in the East Indies. With luck they might cut shipping in half in a matter of weeks.

  There was a sound of feet. Then the door rattled and swung back on its hinges. Jim noticed then that the room was carved from solid rock. He was jerked to his feet and found himself facing Karl Albran, Essen, and the guard.

  "So!" Albran sneered. "You are so smart, eh? You walk right into a trap. I knew it would happen!"

  "Untie his feet," Essen told the guard. "Heittn would see you now. We are using you for bait. Bait to end the existence of the Semiramis!"

  As the guard untied his feet, it was now or never, Jim thought. He felt the rope fall loose about his ankles and waited until the guard had drawn it clear. Then he kicked, short and hard.

  The toe of his shoe caught the kneeling guard in the solar plexus. Then Jim lunged, smashing Essen full in the chest with his head, knocking him into the wall. Instantly Karl Albran sprang into the dark cell, his gun up. But, momentarily blinded by the darkness, he stood stock-still staring. In that second, Arnold jerked his bound body to a sitting position and butted the Dutchman behind the knees. The man staggered, and before he could regain his balance, Arnold rolled against his ankles. The man hit the floor hard, and Frazer fell across him.

  Ponga Jim jerked the guard to his feet with the one hand he had managed to jerk free.

  Jim pushed him away and then hit him with the free hand. And as he fell, he grabbed the man's knife and cut himself loose just as Essen made a dive for the door. He leaped after him, but Albran had struggled free of the bound men and was on his feet.

  He swung a wild blow that hit Jim on the ear, and then charged in, punching wildly. At the same instant, Essen wheeled and tackled him from behind. Then, suddenly, Big London dropped from somewhere above the door. Stepping into the room he grabbed Essen and smashed the Nazi into unconsciousness.

  Jim butted Albran and then hit him in the stomach. The Dutchman went down, and Jim wheeled to cut Arnold free as the black man freed Frazer.

  "I thought you were dead," Jim managed to gasp.

  "He shot as I fell, missed me, so I kept on falling," the black man explained. Then Big London sprang for the door, turned, and caught a ledge over the cell door, pulling himself up. Lost in the shadows above the cell door was a black tunnel. He pulled himself in, extended a hand to Frazer, and then to Arnold.

  Jim glanced back into the cell; then he pulled himself up and followed Big London at a rapid trot down the floor of the tunnel. In a few minutes they came to another tunnel and crawling out, were in the clear.

  Silently, Big London dug into a bunch of ferns and passed out guns.

  "I stole them," he boasted. "Right from under their eyes." "What now?" Frazer demanded.

  "Where do we go from here?"

  "Back," Jim said grimly. "We're going back down there and blast thunder out of things."

  "But there's two hundred of them!" Frazer protested. "Sure," Ponga Jim agreed. "One of you is going to the Semiramis for men. Or rather, you're going back across the bridge and signal from the shoulder of the mountain. They'll be watching. I told them to."

  Grabbing a rifle, Ponga Jim ran to a cluster of boulders overlooking the stone plaza below. Japanese soldiers were spilling from all the buildings, rifles in hand. Instantly, he threw his gun to his shoulder and fired. One of the soldiers stopped in midstride and plunged over on his face. Beside the Yank, Frazer, Arnold, and Big London were pouring a devastating fire into the square. But suddenly a machine gun broke loose from the tower, and they were forced back.

  "You're it, London!" Jim said. "Beat it for the shoulder of the mountain. When you can see the Semiramis, flash the mirror you'll find there by the lightning-struck tree. Get it?"

  The black man wheeled and was gone like a flash.

  "Come on," Jim said grimly. "We're going back down the tunnel!"

  "What?" Frazer demanded. "Are you crazy?"

  "In a minute," Jim said, "this mountain here will be flooded with Japanese and Nazis.

  The bridge will be covered, and we won't have a chance. So we're going back down there where they would never expect us to be!"

  It was a silent group of men that crept back along the tunnel. When they looked down into the passage outside their cell, it was empty. One by one they dropped down.

  Then, gun in hand, Jim led the way down t
he passage.

  This passage must come out in one of the stone buildings, he thought, and must be close to the well. And that well was something he must see. Somehow the Copenhagen and her cargo of submarines must be stopped. Somehow this plant must be wrecked.

  The problem, he knew, was to find how they got torpedoes to the ships on Todahe Bay.

  It was almost two thousand feet from the the plateau where they now were to surface of the bay. And several miles over rough, mountainous trail. No sort of country to be transporting torpedoes in. There had to be another way, and Ponga Jim had a hunch.

  They emerged from the passage in a square stone building near the tower. Outside the door the square seemed empty, yet they knew there were men in the tower above and probably others around close. Eyes narrowed, Jim studied the square thoughtfully.

  The tracks of some sort of a cart or truck led from the tower toward a cluster of rocks under the overhang of the cliff. The tracks had cut through the layer of soil to the solid rock of the plateau. Whatever they had carried had been heavy.

  "What next, Jim?" asked Arnold softly.

  "Look!" Jim indicated the marks of the wheels. "They've wheeled their torpedoes in that direction. Well, that's the way we're going! From now on it's going to be a running fight until we reach the shelter of those rocks.

  Beyond that, I don't know what we'll find. But I've got fifty that says it's the Well of the Unholy Light!"

  "Let's go!" Frazer said. "These monkeys asked for it. Let 'em take it!"

  Gun in hand, Jim sprang through the door. A Japanese sentry was standing across the plaza. And before he could get his gun up, Jim shot him in the stomach. Then they started on a dead run for the rocks, just a hundred yards away. Abruptly then, a myriad of tiny spurts of dust jumped all around them. Jim heard a curse and knew someone was hit. He wheeled, fired, and then ran on. He was almost to the rocks when suddenly Essen sprang from behind them, holding a submachine gun. His eyes glinting with triumph, he jerked the gun to his shoulder.

  Ponga Jim stopped dead still and lifted his own gun. The automatic bucked in his hand, then again. Essen backed up, astonished. Then slowly he pitched over on his face and lay still. But already Ponga Jim was beyond him, with Major Arnold at his side. It was only then that they saw Frazer. Bent was down on his knees, facing the opposite direction, his whole side stained with blood. He was firing slowly, methodically.

  Even as they saw him, Frazer's Luger spoke, and a Japanese on the tower toppled forward, dead. Then a burst of machine gun bullets from the tower hit Bent Frazer, fairly lifting him from the ground.

  Ponga Jim Mayo turned, his face hard, staring around him. They stood on a narrow ledge of rock around the well. The water did glow with a peculiar light, visible in the shadows of the pool under the overhanging cliff. But there was nothing, only the well, a pool probably fifty feet across.

  "Well," Arnold said. "Here we are. Now what?"

  "Keep your shirt on, William," said Ponga Jim grimly. "Maybe I've guessed wrong, but I don't think so."

  "This is a fine time to be in doubt!" Arnold snapped. "I think-"

  Suddenly the waters of the pool began to stir, as with the heavings of some subterranean monster. Then a conning tower broke the surface, and after it-the deck of a submarine!

  "William," said Jim, "watch outside. I'm taking this ship!" He turned quickly. "Don't let them see your face until they are out of there," he whispered hoarsely, "and for the love of Mike, don't shoot!"

  Breathless, they heard the conning tower hatch open and the sound of feet on the rounded surface of the sub. Then they heard a second pair of feet. A guttural voice spoke harshly in German, and Ponga Jim turned.

  The two men, one a Nazi, the other the Italian, Calzo, were standing on the sub, just about to step ashore. Arnold pulled the trigger of his gun, but it clicked on an empty chamber. Coolly, Ponga Jim shot the Nazi over the belt buckle twice. As the man fell forward, Jim pivoted and snapped a quick shot at Calzo, who was hurriedly aiming his gun. The bullet struck the Italian's gun, knocking it from his hand.

  But Calzo was game. With a snarl of fury, he leaped ashore. Out of the corner of his eye Jim saw Arnold feverishly reloading his automatic and heard a wild yell from the plaza. Then Calzo sprang at him, swinging a powerful right. Jim ducked under the blow and hooked low and hard for Calzo's ribs. The punch smashed home with driving force. Then Jim stepped in with a sweeping right uppercut that knocked the Italian off the edge and into the well. He sank like a stone. Now Arnold was firing desperately.

  "Quick, Jim!" he yelled. "Here they come! At least fifty of them!"

  "We've got a sub. Come on!" Jim snapped.

  Arnold snapped one quick shot out of the conning tower and then slammed the hatch shut. In a minute he had swung into the engineer's compartment, and with Jim at the periscope they submerged slowly.

  "You got any idea what this is all about?" Arnold snapped. "This isn't just a toy, you know."

  "We're submerging," Jim said cheerfully. "We're going down around five hundred feet.

  Then we'll find a passage and get out of it into Todahe Bay. There we'll find the Copenhagen loaded with submarines, and we'll shoot her one in the pants-I hope."

  "You hope!" Arnold said sarcastically. "You mean, I hope! And if something happens and you're wrong?"

  "We wash out," Jim said simply and shrugged.

  "Yeah?" William said. "That's okay for you, but I've got a date with a girl in Makassar."

  Slowly the sub sank deeper and deeper. Ponga Jim wiped the sweat from his brow. After all, maybe it wouldn't work. Still, the sub had just come up. It had to come from somewhere.

  "You mean Kitty, that dancer from Manila?" Jim asked, grinning.

  Arnold was astonished. "How did you know?"

  Jim chuckled. "She tells me about all the strange people she meets," he said. "Interesting girl, Kitty."

  The sub was still sinking, and for a moment they were still. "Pal," Arnold said suddenly, "are you sure these things will take five hundred? That's awful deep! About two hundred deeper than a regular sub should take."

  Jim stared at the depth gauge as the needle flickered past 200. 250-300-350"Maybe we've missed the outlet," Arnold said. "You would think of that," Jim growled.

  The pressure was building up at a terrific rate. He tried to see something, but the water around was black and still.

  Four hundred!

  "If it's anywhere, it'll be pretty quick now, William," Jim said. "If it isn't, we're dead pigeons."

  Four hundred and fifty!

  "Do you suppose your crew got to that bunch upstairs?" Major Arnold asked.

  "I'd bet my life on that. That bunch of fighting fools never misses."

  Five hundred!

  Nothing but blackness and the close, heavy heat of the sub. Then he saw it suddenly-the outline of an opening illuminated by the powerful light of the sub. Slowly, carefully, he eased the sub into the blackness.

  "Like floating down a sewer," Jim said aloud.

  "I wouldn't know," Arnold said. "I never floated down any sewers.'

  Suddenly they were out, and then they were rising.

  "This bay isn't deep," Arnold said, "so we haven't far to come up. When we went down we were up in the mountains. So stand by that torpedo."

  "Thar she blows!" Ponga Jim said suddenly. "About two points on the bow. Stand by while I run this crate in a little bit. I'm going to give her both barrels. I thought these babies only carried one torpedo, but they have two!"

  And with that he released both torpedoes. All was quiet, then The shuddering impact of the explosion made them gasp for breath. Then, a split second later, the second!

  "Two strikes, William!" shouted Ponga Jim. "Come on, we're heading for the Ibu River and the Semiramis at top speed. We hit the Copenhagen one forward and one aft. She won't float ten minutes!"

  Ponga Jim ran shaky fingers through his hair. Suddenly he realized that he was sitting in trousers soggy with blood. "William,
" he said, "those Nazis clipped me. I'm shot."

  "Where?" Arnold yelled.

  Jim looked down. "Nuts! I was just sitting in a paint bucket!" There was silence for a moment, and then Arnold spoke up:

  "Honest, Jim. Have you been out with Kitty? What's she like?"

  "She's wonderful!" Ponga Jim said, grinning. "Why, Kitty is Red fluid cascaded over him. "Hey!" he roared, blinking. "What did you throw at me?"

  "The rest of the paint bucket," Arnold said grimly.

  *

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  WEST FROM SINGAPORE

  Most of the stories in this collection were written before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Netherlands East Indies, as they were then called, were a valuable prize. Japan's move into that area had not begun when the first stories were written, but it began soon after, and only a few small warships were available to protect the islands. Aside from a wide variety of other useful products, the Indonesian islands offered an easy supply of oil, as well as tin, most of which came from Malaysia, just to the north. My first trip into the region was as a seaman on a freighter carrying pipe and drilling equipment to Balikpapan, in Borneo.

  These were the islands Columbus was trying to reach when he sailed west from Spain.

  Contrary to popular tradition, he did not have to convince anybody that the world was round. All those to whom he talked already knew that. The reason he was refused help was that his estimates of the distance he had to sail were based on the mistaken figures of Ptolemy, which made the world much smaller. In Portugal, for example, the people he approached were perfectly aware he could not reach the Indies in the time projected.

  A crisp voice at Ponga Jim's elbow said: "Captain Mayo?" Ponga Jim turned. His white-topped cap with its captain's insignia was pushed back on his dark, curly hair, and his broad, powerful shoulders stretched the faded khaki coat.

  Colonel Roland Warren could see the bulge of the .45 automatic in its shoulder holster, and there was disapproval in his eyes. From the woven-leather sandals to the carelessly worn cap, Ponga Jim Mayo was anything but what he believed a ship's captain should be.