The Pirate of the Pacific ds-5

by Kenneth Robeson

  They spread out in a line, in the order of their running ability. Doc was far in the lead. Next was Johnny, gaunt and bony, but a first-class foot racer. Monk and Renny, the two giants, trod Johnny's heels. Ham and Long Tom were last, pretty evenly matched, with Ham the hindermost because he was trying to keep thorns from tearing his clothes. Ham was always jealous of his appearance.

  "He's heading for the sampan!" Doc called.

  An instant later they heard the outboard motor on the sampan start.

  Doc reached the pondlike bay just in time to glimpse the stern of the sampan vanishing beyond the curtain of vines which screened the tiny harbor from the sea.

  His men came up. They drove a few rasping volleys of lead at the drapery of creepers. Then they ran around the bay. This consumed much precious time.

  The sampan was nearly three hundred yards distant, traveling like a scared duck:

  If they had hoped to glimpse Tom Too's features, they were disappointed. The pirate leader was not in sight.

  "Lying in the bottom of the boat to be out of the way of bullets!" Renny said grimly, and took a careful bead on the distant sampan.

  His gun moaned deafeningly. The others joined him. Their bullets tore splinters off the sampan stern and scraped the sea all about the craft. But the range was long, even for a rifle, and they did not stop the fleeing boat.

  "Where is the raft you fellows came over on?" Doc demanded.

  "Up the beach!" rapped Ham, and led the way.

  The furry Monk lumbered alongside Ham. They came to a spot where mud was underfoot, slimy and malodorous. In the middle of this Ham suddenly fell headlong. He floundered, then bounced up, smeared with the smelly goo from head to foot. He waved his sword cane wrathfully.

  "You tripped me, you hairy missing link!" he howled at Monk. "Bugs to you!" leered Monk. "Can I help it if you fall over your own feet?"

  However, Monk was careful to keep out of Ham's reach for the next few minutes.

  Nobody had seen Monk do the tripping, but there was no doubt about his guilt. He had done worse things to Ham. And it was also certain that Ham would return the favor with interest. The going seldom got so hot that these two forgot to carry on their good-natured feud.

  They reached the raft.

  * * *

  "IT'S a wonder the sharks didn't get you birds, riding that thing," said Doc, surveying the raft.

  Monk snorted. He was in high good humor, now that he was one up on Ham.

  "This shyster lawyer here wanted to feed me to 'em, claimin' they'd die of indigestion from eatin' me," he chuckled with a sidelong look at Ham. "Fallin' in the mud serves him right for makin' cracks like that."

  Ham only scowled through the mud on his face.

  The raft consisted of a pair of long logs, crumbling with rot, secured in catamaran form with crosspieces and flexible v]ines.

  Doc eyed the sticks which had served as oars. They were highly inefficient.

  "Put it in the water!" he directed. Then he vanished into the jungle.

  The raft was hardly in the sea before Doc came back. He was carrying an armload of planks ripped from the house. These were much more suitable as paddles.

  "What about the prisoners we left in the shack?" Renny demanded.

  "They were still there." Doc exhibited one of the finger-tip thimbles containing the drug-laden needles — thimbles which produced long-lasting unconsciousness. "They'll be there quite a while, too."

  They shoved off, taking positions on the shaky raft like a trained rowing crew. In a moment the paddles were dipping with machinelike regularity, shoving the crude craft forward at a fair clip.

  Their eyes now sought the sampan bearing Torn Too. Doc had expected Tom Too to head for the pirate encampment on the south end of the island. But the sampan was skipping for the northern extremity, where the plane ]lay.

  "We're in luck!" Doc said softly. "Tom Too doesn't know the temper of his cutthroats. He could dominate them easily and send the whole horde out to finish us. But he's afraid to go near them."

  "Yeah, but he's headin' for our plane!" Monk grunted. "And there's bombs aboard it."

  "Oh, no, there's not!" Ham clipped. "I stayed behind a little while last night after we heard the birds falling off their roosts and knew there was a gas cloud coming, long enough to chuck the bombs overboard."

  The sampan swerved around the north end of Shark Head Island, entered the little bay, and was lost to sight.

  Johnny spat a couple of words that would have shocked the natural science class he used to teach, and chopped at a cruising shark with his paddle. After that every one was careful that his feet did not drag in the water.

  "Wilt they jump out of the water and grab a man?" Monk asked doubtfully.

  "Probably not," said Johnny.

  They kept their eyes on the little bay at the north end of Shark Head Island. The rattle of the outboard motor, made wispy by distance, had stopped.

  Suddenly a shower of what looked like sparks shot into the air around the bay. The sparks were gaudily colored tropical birds. A moment later the froggy moan of plane motors wafted over the sea. It was their starting which had flushed up the birds.

  "Why didn't you think to take something off the motors so they wouldn't run, wiseheimer?" Monk asked Ham.

  Ham glared through his mud, said nothing. He did not dare dip up water to wash his face, due to the sharks.

  Soon the plane skidded up into the sunlight. It wobbled, pitched, in the bumpy air. It flew like a duck carrying a load of buckshot.

  "He's a rotten flyer!" Johnny declared.

  "A kiwi!" Monk agreed.

  The plane headed directly for the laboring raft.

  Monk reached up and clawed his hair down over his eyes to keep the sun out. "I don't like this! That bird is going to crawl up. He may be the world's worst flyer, but I don't like it!"

  * * *

  RENNY followed Monk's example in getting his hair down on his forehead to shade his eyes from the sun. It was the next best thing to colored goggles. They'd have to look up to fight the plane. And gazing into the tropical sky was like looking into a white-hot bowl.

  "We left machine guns on the plane!" he muttered. "It's gonna be tough on us?"

  Johnny poked another shark in its blunt, tooth-pegged snout.

  Doc Savage seemed unworried. He sat well forward, driving his paddle with a force that made the stout wood grunt and bend. So that his mighty strokes would not throw the raft off course, he distributed them on either side with scarcely an interruption in their machinelike precision.

  Renny shucked out his pistollike machine gun and rapped a fresh cartridge clip in place.

  "You won't need it," Doc told him.

  "No?" Renny was surprised.

  "Watch the plane!"

  The amphibian came howling toward them. Tom Too was Dot trying for altitude; he wanted to be low enough to use his machine gun with effect — for no doubt he had found the rapid firers in the plane. His altitude was no more than five hundred feet.

  "It's about time it happened!" Doc said grimly.

  Doc's prediction was accurate.

  Both motors of the amphibian suddenly stopped.

  Tom Too acted swiftly. He kicked the plane around and headed it back for Shark Head Island. His banking about was sloppy; the ship side-slipped as though the air were greased.

  "He can just fly, and that's all!" Monk grinned. "What stopped the motors, Doc?"

  "I plugged the fuel lines close to the tanks," Doc replied. "The carburetor and fuel pipes held enough gas to take the craft upstairs, but no more."

  The big bronze man neglected to add that it would have been simpler to cut off the fuel at the carburetors, but that this would not have left enough gas available to get the plane off should circumstances have sent them to the craft in such a hurry that they would not have had time to unplug the fuel lines.

  Tom Too was gliding the dead-motored plane at a very flat angle, getting the maximum distance out of h
is altitude. Probably this was by accident rather than flying ability.

  "Holy cow!" groaned Renny. "Is he gonna get back to Shark Head?"

  "He will come down about a hundred yards offshore," said Doc after a glance of expert appraisal.

  The estimate was close. With a sudsy splash, the amphibian plunked into the sea. It pushed ahead for a time under its own weight. It stopped a bit less than three hundred feet offshore.

  Then the ship began to move backward — blown by the offshore breeze.

  "He'll be blown right into our hands!" Ham ejaculated.

  "Or he'll find the plugged fuel lines!" Monk pointed out.

  * * *

  TOM Too wasted no time hunting for what had silenced the motors, however. Probably he was no mechanic. He appeared atop the amphibian cabin.

  He was too distant for much to be told about his appearance. Even Doc's sharp vision could not distinguish the fellow's features.

  One thing they did note — Tom Too carried a large brief case.

  The pirate leader reached up and struck savagely at the plane wing. There was a knife in his fist.

  "Hey!" squawled Monk. "He's lettin' the gas out of the tanks!"

  It was worse than that. Tom Too backed up, struck a match, and flung the flame into the petrol drooling from the punctured tanks.

  Flame gushed. It wrapped the amphibian until the craft was like a toy done in red tissue paper. Yellow smoke tossed away downwind, convulsing and boiling in the breeze.

  Tom Too sprang into the sea. He swam madly for the shore of Shark Head Island.

  Johnny gazed at the sharks cruising about the makeshift raft, then at the distant splashes that marked Tom Too's progress.

  "That guy has got nerve!" grunted Johnny.

  "Fooey!" said Monk. "A rat will fight a lion if he's cornered."

  Doc Savage was standing up, still paddling, the better to watch Tom Too's progress.

  Renny also watched. His eyes were second in sharpness to Doc's.

  "There goes a shark for him!" Renny bawled suddenly.

  They all saw the triangle of lead-hued shark fin cutting toward Tom Too.

  "There ain't nothin' I like less than sharks!" Monk chuckled. "But I'm gonna find it hard to begrudge that one his meal!"

  Tom Too had;seen his danger. He swam desperately. But he did not lose his head. He kept his eyes on the approaching fin. It disappeared.

  Tom Too promptly stopped. Doc caught the faint glitter of a knife in the pirate king's hand.

  "He's going to handle the shark native fashion!" Renny grunted.

  Distance hampered their view of what happened next. But they knew enough shark lore to guess. Sharks do not have to turn over to bite an object in the depths, but commonly do so to seize a man swimming on the surface. The pale bellies offer a warning flash,

  Tom Too disappeared from sight momentarily. There was a splashing turmoil in the water. Tom Too's knife struck repeatedly.

  The pirate leader appeared. He swam for shore with renewed energy.

  "He got the shark — dag-gone it!" Monk wailed.

  * * *

  TOM Too reached the beach without further incident. He sprinted for the jungle.

  Doc's sharp eyes noted something the others missed — Tom Too no longer carried his brief case. Evidently he had dropped it in his short fight with the shark.

  The plane was burning briskly. Flame ate into the fuselage. A Fourth of July uproar came as heat exploded machine-gun bullets in the craft.

  The ship sank suddenly.

  Tom Too vanished into the jungle.

  Doc and his men continued to bend their paddles.

  They reached the spot where the plane had gone down. A score of yards beyond, the shark Tom Too had slain floated near the surface. The water lashed in turmoil about the carcass — half a dozen other sharks were devouring it.

  "Whoa!" said Doc.

  Monk wore in his belt a knife he had picked up somewhere. It was a serpentine-bladed kris.

  Doc grasped the knife, clipped the blade between his strong teeth, and dropped off the shaky raft. He disappeared in the depths.

  "Jiminy!" Monk gulped. "With all these sharks around, Daniel in the lions' den was a piker!"

  They waited anxiously. Bubbles gurgled up from the sunken plane. A minute passed. Sixty feet away, cannibal sharks fought with horrible splashings. Another minute groped into eternity.

  Doc did not appear.

  On the shore, coarse-voiced tropical birds cried like hideous harpies.

  Three clapping shots interrupted the birds. Monk ducked as a bullet made cold air kiss his furry neck, nearly lost his balance on the ramshackle raft, but recovered himself.

  Tom Too had fired at them — water does not wet the powder in modern pistol cartridges.

  Doc's five men sprayed lead at the jungle. There was nothing to show they hit Tom Too. But they kept him from shooting again.

  Renny glanced at a waterproof wrist watch. He nearly screamed.

  Doc had been beneath the surface a full four minutes!

  Ten seconds later Doc's bronze head split the water beside the raft. Doc's bronze hair and metallic skin had a strange quality; it seemed to shed water like the back of a duck; he could immerse himself, and his skin and hair would not seem wet when he reappeared.

  Doc's shirt front bulged more than his chest should have made it.

  Doc's five men wiped cold sweat off their foreheads. The fact that Doc had remained under water so long was not in itself alarming. They had seen the giant bronze man stay below for incredible intervals. But the sharks made these waters reek death.

  "Have any trouble?" Monk asked.

  Doc shrugged. "Not much."

  At this point a second shark carcass appeared beside the first. The hideous creature had been slain with a single expert knife rip. Monk and the others recognized Doc's handiwork. He had battled the monster under water and dismissed it as "not much."

  "Huh!" ejaculated Monk. "What were you doin' way over there? The sunken plane is under us."

  "Tom Too had a brief case with him, but dropped it when the shark tackled him," Doc replied. "I dived for it from here, not wanting him to know I was after it."

  "You get it?"

  The bulge in Doc's shirt front gave answer.

  * * *

  THEY now paddled the raft to shore. Tom Too did not fire at them again — a wise move on his part.

  "Make for the sampan!" Doc directed.

  They sped northward along the beach.

  Monk glanced over his shoulder. "Hey — lookit!"

  Wheeling, the rest saw Tom Too. The master pirate had come out on the beach half a mile to the south. He was running for dear life, headed for the encampment of his yellow cutthroat horde.

  "I'm in favor of going after him!" Renny boomed. Apparently it did not occur to him that they might not be able to whip several hundred slant-eyed pirates who had been fighters all their lives.

  "The sampan!" Doc said impatiently. "We'd better get it and clear out of here."

  They resumed their sprint for the sampan, smashing their way through the jungle growth in a short cut across a little headland and reached the beach in short order.

  "Good!" rapped Ham, catching sight of the sampan where Tom Too had beached it. "I was afraid he might have jabbed a hole in the bottom, or something."

  Renny pointed at the outboard motor.

  "Look!" he roared. "The gasoline has been let out!"

  The valve of the fuel tank was located in such a position as to spill the emptying fuel upon the sand, where it was hopelessly lost.

  "This puts us in a swell mess!" Monk groaned.

  Four hardwood paddles reposed on the sampan floorboards. Doc indicated them. "Grab 'em!"

  "We can't escape by paddling," Monk pointed out. "The pirates have speed boats Tom Too will send them after us."

  With a mighty shove, Doc sent the sampan into the water.

  "We'll get back to the other island!" he declared.


  There was no more argument. The sampan surged away from the beach, propelled by lusty paddle strokes.

  Ham, between sweeps of his paddle, nodded at the bulging front of Doc's shirt, which held the contents of Tom Too's brief case.

  "Do you suppose there's anything worth while in there?" he asked.

  "We'll let that slip for a while and examine it later," Doc said, then leveled an arm. "Tom Too didn't lose much time!"

  They all followed Doc's gesture. Around the other end of the island, a pair of junks appeared, together with several speed boats. More craft followed — junks, sampans, launches, and other boats.

  The hardwood paddles bent and creaked as Doc's men increased their pace. Water split away from the sampan bows with a steady, sobbing noise. They were making good speed for the palm-crowned smaller island.

  "We'll beat them to the island!" Ham decided aloud.

  "Yes — and then what?" snorted Monk.

  Doc's five men exchanged bleak looks. They were perfectly aware they had never faced greater odds. They were experienced fighting men, and they knew a fight against these hundreds of pirates could be nothing but hopeless.

  A corsair machine gun dropped a shower of slugs some hundreds of yards short. The spent bullets continued to drop in the water, coming closer and closer. But the little island was now but a few fathoms distant away from the men.

  The rasp of the sampan keel on the beach was a welcome sound.

  Chapter 21

  SEA CHASE

  DOC and his men piled out. A few rifle slugs made chopping noises in the tangled jungle growth. Doc eyed the belts and bulging pockets of his men.

  "Got plenty of ammunition?" he questioned.

  Monk grinned wryly. "Not as much as I'd like to have. We've got a couple or three hundred rounds apiece. That was about all we could swim with when we left the plane last night."

  "Latch the guns into single-shot fire," Doc directed.

  Each man flipped a small lever on his compact little machine gun. The weapons now discharged only a single bullet for each pull of the trigger.

  Using a sampan paddle as a spade, Doc set to work digging a shallow rifle pit. He located it slightly within the jungle, so he could quit it without being observed.