West from Singapore (Ss) (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

139 I

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  THE RED SEA

  The Red Sea is about 1,200 miles long and at its widest point, 190 miles. Although there are dangerous coral reefs along the shores, the waters in the main channel are deep. During the latter days of Egyptian control and in Roman times, ships sailed from Red Sea ports to India at the rate of one per day, or about 120 ships per year during the sailing season. These ports, Myos, Hormos, Berenice, and Ptolemais Theron, are now silted up and no longer in use. There are a few foundations remaining and some evidence of what once existed there.

  Long before the Suez Canal was more than a dream, there had been a canal dug by order of the pharaohs to connect the Nile with the Red Sea. Most of it has since been filled with sand as a result of the constant winds.

  At the north the sea is divided into the Gulf of Suez, leading to the canal, and the Gulf of Aqaba. The Sinai Peninsula lies between them, on which is the Mount Sinai of the Bible, also known as Jebel Musa. It is 7,450 feet high.

  *

  SOUTH OF SUEZ

  Chapter I Strange Battlewagon.

  The heavy concussion of the first shell brought Ponga Jim Mayo out of his bunk, wide-awake in an instant. He was pulling on his shoes when he heard the whistle in the speaking tube.

  "Skipper?" It was Gunner Millan. "We're running into a battle! Can't see a thing but red flashes yet, about three points on the starboard bow. Sounds like a battlewagon."

  "Put her over to port about four degrees," Ponga Jim said quietly. "Have the watch call Brophy and get the gun crews topside."

  He got up, slid into his dungarees, and slipped on the shoulder holster with the forty-five Colt. There would be no need for it at sea, but he had worn the gun so long he felt undressed without it.

  When Ponga Jim reached the bridge the sky was lit with an angry glow of flame. Two freighters of the convoy off to the starboard were afire, and something was lifted toward the sky that looked like the stern of a sinking ship. They could hear the steady fire of six-inch guns and then the heavy boom of something much bigger.

  Second mate Millan came toward him along the bridge, swearing under his breath.

  "Skipper," he said. "I must be nuts, but I'd swear that gun wasn't smaller than an eighteen-inch, and there's nothing afloat carries a gun that big!"

  "Sounds like it," Jim said briefly. "Might be a sixteen. The Tirpitz, maybe. But you wouldn't think they'd gamble a battleship in waters as narrow as the Red Sea."

  The blazing wreck of one freighter was directly opposite them, and suddenly a low, ominous blackness moved between them and the blazing ship. For a few minutes it was clearly outlined against the red glow of flame.

  Squat, black, and ugly, the monster glistened in the reddish light. It was built low and completely covered by what appeared to be a steel shell. Even as they looked they saw the muzzle of a heavy gun belch flame. A big freighter, almost a mile away, was attempting to escape. Even as they watched, the shell struck it amidships.

  Suddenly, but with every move so perfectly detailed as to seem like a slow-motion picture, the distant freighter burst. The amidships vanished and the bow and stern seemed to lift away from it and then fell back into the flame-tinged water. Then there was a slow rain of black debris.

  "Gun crews standing by, sir," first mate Slug Brophy said, as he came up. He saluted snappily, but he was scowling as he looked off across the water. "What the devil kind of a craft is that?" he demanded. "Looks like she was a seagoing tank."

  Ponga Jim nodded. "It's what I've been wondering why someone didn't do," he said crisply. "That's a new battleship. No elaborate superstructure, no basket masts or turrets. She's completely covered by a steel shell and probably bomb-proof. She's built along the lines of a streamlined Merrimac."

  "Lucky that fire's in her eyes and we're back here," Slug said. "One shell from her and we'd be blown so high we'd starve to death falling back."

  "Yeah." Jim studied the warship through his glass and then glanced ahead. "Gunner, lay all five guns on that baby. I'm going to give her a broadside and then run for it."

  "You're nuts!" Brophy exploded. "Why, Chief-" "You heard me," Ponga Jim said sharply.

  "Get going." He stepped into the wheelhouse.

  "Selim," he said to the pockmarked, knife-scarred man at the wheel, "aren't we abreast of the old smuggler's passage through the reef? It gives us about five fathoms, doesn't it?"

  Selim nodded, lifting his eyes from the compass. "I take her through?" he asked.

  Ponga Jim studied the mystery ship ahead thoughtfully and then the nearing bulk of a large rocky island.

  "Yeah," he said. "We'll fire that barge a broadside and then slip around that island and through the reef passage. They can't follow us, and blacked out the way they have us these days, we'll be invisible against that rocky shore. We got a chance."

  He stepped back to the bridge and lifted his megaphone. "You may fire when ready, Gridley!" he said and grinned. The crash of the five 5.9s left his ears momentarily dead and empty. The freighter heeled sharply over. With his glasses on the warship, Ponga Jim waited for the Semiramis to recover. "All right, Gunner," he called. "Once more!"

  He had his glasses on the warship when the salvo struck. He scowled and then spun on his heel.

  "Hard over!" he snapped crisply. "Show them our stern, if anything." He stepped on the speaking tube. "Chief," he called, "give me all she's got! I don't want to use the telegraph. Jangles too much. We're in a spot, so keep her rolling."

  Slug Brophy and Gunner Millan had returned to the bridge. The squat first mate wiped his face with a blue handkerchief. "You sure pick 'em big when you want trouble!" he observed. "See those five-point-nines slide off that shell? Like rice off a turtle's back! What kind of a ship is that, anyway?" "That ship," Ponga Jim said quietly, "can destroy British and American naval supremacy! The United States has the biggest, best, and most efficient navy afloat, but we haven't anything as invulnerable to attack as that ship!"

  Behind them a gun boomed, and off to the left a huge geyser of water lifted toward the sky. Ponga Jim glanced aft and then looked at the black bulk of the rocky island.

  Selim was cutting it close, but no one knew the Red Sea better than he did.

  The Semiramis steamed straight ahead and then at a low word from Selim, slowed to half speed as he turned the ship at right angles to her course. Ponga Jim stared into the darkness ahead, hearing the roll of the surf on the coral reef. He put his hand up to his forehead, to find he was sweating.

  Brophy stood close beside him, staring down at the black, froth-fringed reef dead ahead.

  "You sure this guy knows what he's doing?" Slug muttered. "If he doesn't-"

  "He does," Mayo said quietly. "Selim was a smuggler in this sea for several years.

  He knows every cove and passage in the eleven hundred miles of it."

  As if to prove his statement, the reef suddenly seemed to open before them, and an opening, invisible until they were close up, appeared in the reef.

  In a matter of seconds they were through and in the clear water of the inside passage...

  Two days later the Semiramis steamed slowly into the harbor at Port Tewfik and moved up to the place at the dock that had been made ready for them.

  "Mr. Brophy"-Ponga Jim turned to the chief mate-"get the hatches off and the cargo out of her as quick as you can. Take nothing from anybody, use any gear you need, but it must get out. Also, I want a man at the gangway every hour of the day and night. Nobody comes aboard or leaves without my permission. Also, I want one man forward and one aft. All to be armed. Understand?"

  "You must be expecting trouble," a cool voice suggested. Ponga Jim turned to find himself facing a square-shouldered young man with a blond mustache and humorous blue eyes. He was a slender man with a narrow face, dark, immaculate, and with a military bearing, and had just boarded the Semiramis with a companion.

  "William!" he exclaimed. "What in time are you doing in Egypt? Thought you were in Singap
ore?"

  Major William Arnold shrugged his shoulders.

  "Trouble here, too," he said. "Heard you were coming in, so thought I'd drop down and see you." His gaze sharpened. "Have any trouble coming up from Aden?"

  "We didn't," Ponga Jim said drily, "but we saw a convoy get smashed to hell."

  "You saw it?"

  Ponga Jim was nodding as Major Arnold quickly added: "Jim, let me present Nathan Demarest, our former attache at Bucharest. He's working with me on this job."

  "Glad to know you," Ponga Jim said, and then he looked back at Arnold. "Yes, we saw it," he said briefly, and went on, as his glance went back to Demarest. "Arnold will tell you that I don't run to convoys, so we were traveling alone. About six bells in the middle watch I got a call and got on deck to find a big warship blasting the daylights out of the convoy. Only one destroyer remained in action when we came up to them. And that not for long."

  "A ship?" Arnold demanded. "Not submarines?"

  "A ship," Mayo repeated. "A ship that couldn't have been less than forty thousand tons. She was streamlined and completely shelled over like a floating fort, and she mounted eighteen-inch guns."

  "Your friend Captain Mayo is a humorist," Demarest suggested to Arnold, smiling.

  "There is no such ship."

  "I'm not joking," Ponga Jim said stiffly. "There was such a ship, and we saw it."

  Arnold looked at his friend thoughtfully. "What happened, Jim?" he finally asked.

  "We were coming up in the darkness and were unseen. I gave them two salvos from my guns, and then we slipped around an island and got away."

  "You hit her?"

  "Yes-direct hits-and they didn't even shake her. Just like shooting at a tank with a target rifle."

  Demarest's face had hardened. "If this is true we must get in touch with the Admiralty," he said. "Such a ship must be run down at once."

  "If you'll take my word for it," Mayo said slowly, "I'd advise being careful. This ship is something new. I don't believe bombs would have any effect on her at all.

  She looks like another secret weapon."

  Ponga Jim Mayo glanced at the winches.

  The booms were being rigged, and in a few minutes the cargo would be coming out of the freighter.

  "Is this what brought you here, William?" he asked. "Or something else?"

  "Something else," the major said. "Have you heard of Carter's death? Ambrose Carter, the munitions man? He was found shot to death in his apartment near Shepheard's in Cairo three weeks ago. Then General McKnight was poisoned, and Colonel Norfolk of the CID, who was investigating, was stabbed."

  "McKnight poisoned?" Ponga Jim exclaimed. "I heard he died of heart failure."

  "That's our story," Arnold agreed. "We mustn't allow anyone to know, Jim. But those are only three of the deaths. There have been nine others, all of key men. Some poisoned, some shot, one stabbed, two found dead without any evidence of cause of death, others drowned, strangled, or snake bit."

  "Snake bit?"

  "By an Indian cobra. The thing had been coiled in one man's bed. When it bit him he died before help could get to him. Jim, they called me here because these deaths can't be explained. Carter, for instance, was an acknowledged pro-Nazi, a former friend of Hitler's. If it weren't for that, it would seem logical the Nazis were starting a reign of terror, killing off the leadership for a major attack in the Near East."

  "If not the Nazis," Jim protested, "then who could it be?" "I wish I knew." Arnold's eyes narrowed. "But you'd better come along and tell this to Skelton. He's in charge here in Port Tewfik. The man who will have to know and to act."

  Chapter II.

  Death Strikes the Semiramis Seated in the office of Anthony Skelton, two hours later, Ponga Jim Mayo repeated his story, quietly and in detail. Two other men were there besides Demarest and Arnold.

  One he was introduced to as Captain Woodbern, of the Navy. The other was General Jerome Kernan.

  Before Ponga Jim's story was completed, Skelton was tapping his desk impatiently.

  Captain Woodbern was frankly smiling. "Major Arnold," Skelton said abruptly, "I've heard a great deal of your ability. I've also heard of the work Captain Mayo has been doing in the Far East. Which makes me the more surprised at your taking our time, Major, with such an obvious cock-and-bull story. This Captain Mayo evidently has a peculiar sense of humor or is susceptible to hallucinations. Such a story as his is preposterous on the face of it!"

  Arnold stiffened. "I know Captain Mayo too well, Mr. Skelton," he replied stiffly, "to doubt his word. If he says this story is true, then I believe it is true!"

  "Then you're more credulous than any intelligence officer should be!" Skelton snapped.

  "Captain Mayo evidently saw something," Captain Woodbern said, smiling, "but I'm afraid the darkness, the battle, the flames, and the general excitement caused his imagination to work a little overtime."

  General Kernan turned slightly in his chair. He was a big man with a hard jaw, a cold eye, and a close-clipped mustache. "Mayo isn't the type to be seeing things, Skelton," he said.

  "Major Arnold has known him for some time, and his work has been valuable. I want to hear more of his story."

  Skelton glanced down at some papers on his desk. "We'll see that proper investigation is made," he said shortly. "In fact, we have already ordered two destroyers to the scene."

  Ponga Jim leaned forward. "Then, Mr. Skelton," he said quietly, "you've sent two destroyers to destruction. Either they will return having found nothing, or they'll never come back." He got up abruptly. "Thanks for believing my story, General. As for you, Skelton, I'm not in the habit of having my word questioned. All I can say or do about that here and now is to assure you that you are following the same trail of incompetence and smugness of others who didn't believe Hitler would attack Britain, did not believe in parachute troops, or that the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor and the Philippines while suing for peace. Well, do what you choose. I shall investigate further myself!"

  Skelton's eyes blazed.

  "No," he said sharply, "you won't! In the Far East your blunderings may have been occasionally convenient, but we want no civilian interference here. You make one move to investigate or to interfere and I'll have the Semiramis interned for the duration!"

  Ponga Jim smiled suddenly. He leaned his big brown fists on the edge of the desk and looked into Skelton's eyes.

  "Listen, pal," he said coldly, "you may have a lot of red tape around the throats of other better men than you. But I'm not subject to your orders, and I'll sail when and where I please. If you want to intern my ship, I've got five-point-nines and plenty of ammunition. You'll think you've tackled something. When I get ready to sail, I'm sailing. Stop me if you feel lucky."

  He glanced at Arnold, whose face was white.

  "Sorry, William, but you can't help that. Be seeing you." He strode from the room.

  Skelton's face was deathly white. "I want that man put under arrest and his ship interned!" he snapped.

  General Kernan got to his feet.

  "You're starting something with the wrong man, Skelton," he said smoothly. "If necessary, Captain Mayo would shoot his way out of harbor or sink trying."

  "Nonsense!" Skelton snapped.

  "No." Kernan was looking after Mayo thoughtfully. "The man's a Yank, but I was doubting if they had any left like him. Now that I know they have, I feel a lot better. Mayo's another of the school of Perry, Farragut, Decatur, and Hull."

  Nathan Demarest left the room quietly, glanced down the hall along which Mayo had gone, and then stepped into an empty office and picked up the telephone.

  Ponga Jim walked swiftly down the street and then stopped in a place for a drink.

  When he turned to leave, he saw a slim, wiry man sitting at a table near the door.

  The man did not look up, but something in the man's attitude made Mayo suspicious.

  He would almost have sworn it was the same man he had seen loitering outside Skelton's of
fice as he left. He scowled. Who would want him followed in Suez?

  The quay was a litter of piled barrels and cases, of gear and bales. Ponga Jim was just passing a huge crane whose bulk forced him to the edge of the dock, when a black body catapulted from the darkness and smashed him with a shoulder, just hip high.

  He felt himself falling and grabbed desperately, catching his attacker by the arm.

  They fell, plunging into the black water with terrific force, but even as they sank Ponga Jim felt his attacker's arm slip from his grasp, and the next instant the man had drawn a knife and lunged toward him.

  Ponga Jim dived and felt the hot blade of the knife along his shoulder. His lungs all but bursting, he slammed a punch into the man's belly. He saw his attacker's mouth open, but the man was a veritable fiend, and he lunged again with the knife, teeth bared. Ponga Jim pushed away, kicking the man in the belly. Then they broke water.

  Instantly, the fellow took a breath and dived, but Ponga Jim went down with him.

  At one time Ponga Jim had been a skin diver for pearls. The swift thought flashed now that this fellow was good, and he had a knife, butThe man swung in the water, his body as slippery as an eel's, and then he lunged at Ponga Jim with the knife.

  But Mayo was too fast. He dived again, catching the man's wrist. Turning the arm, he jerked it down across his shoulder with terrific force.

  Then he pulled free, smashing a fist into the fellow's belly for luck. As he swam he could see the man sinking, his teeth bared, his mouth leaving a trail of bubbles.

  The arm was broken.

  Ponga Jim swam to a small boat dock and scrambled from the water. For a moment he stood there, dripping and staring back, but there was nothing to be seen. He put his hand up, and it came away from his shoulder bloody.

  "Somebody," he muttered softly, "doesn't like me!"

  The dark shape of the Semiramis loomed not fifty feet away. He climbed the ladder to the dock and then moved warily toward the freighter. As he came up the gangway, a dark shape materialized from beside the hatch. He recognized the halfshaven head of the big Toradjas, one of his trusted crew.