A tall, wide-shouldered man came striding toward the hotel along the cobblestone street. He wore Air Force-style, dark glasses, and had a small moustache. There was a knapsack strapped to his back, a .45 automatic in the holster at his side. “You Glaze?” he asked as he drew nearer.
The big blond man frowned. “What’s it to you, my lad?”
“My name’s Devlin,” said the Phantom. “Pop Benfield sent me.”
“Sent you for what?”
After looking carefully around, the Phantom answered, “To help you out.”
“I don’t know what you’re jawing about, laddie.”
“I’m talking about the little safari,” he said, his voice low. “You need another man, and I'm it. Otter’s expecting trouble with the Jungle Patrol and he sent word to Pop he couldn’t spare anybody. So Pop told me about the job that had to be done. I took it.”
This wasn’t completely true. Listening outside Otter’s shack last night, the masked man had heard all about Peg McWorth and the plan she and Eric had of searching the Great Swamp. He heard, too, that Pop Benfield intended to plant two Swamp Rats in their expedition. Once Peg and Eric were away from civilization, the Swamp Rats would kill them.
The Phantom had decided Sgt. Barnum and Corp. Mchanga would be able to hold their own for another day. It was more important to get back to Nyokaville and prevent the Swamp Rats from killing the girl and her guide. He waited until Otter roused one of his men, a large, curly-haired, young fellow, and sent him off toward the town. The Phantom waylaid the young man, tied and gagged him and turned him over to Diamond Jack. After instructing the old man not to hurt the Swamp Rat in any way, the Phantom swiftly traveled back through the Great Swamp.
“I don’t know,” said Glaze now, studying the Phantom. “I don’t like the idea of letting outsiders in.” “You’ve got a job you need help on,” the Phantom reminded him.
“Hell, I can probably handle it myself.”
“With me on hand, you’ve got better odds,” said the Phantom. ‘I hear this Haggard is pretty tough.” “College kid,” sneered Glaze. “Thinks he’s tough, but I have my doubts.” He watched the Phantom’s face for a moment. “Okay. I’ll use you, Devlin. But you got to do exactly what I tell you, my lad. We’ll take us a little stroll around the block and I’ll explain the setup to you.”
“I’m anxious to hear it.”
The slim, blond girl held out her hand. “I’m Peg McWorth,” she said.
“Devlin’s the name,” said the Phantom as he shook her hand.
“Mr. Cox tells me you’re quite familiar with the Great Swamp.”
Glaze, who was calling himself Cox at the moment, was helping Eric load supplies into their truck.
“Yes, I know my way around in the swamp,” replied the Phantom.
“Have you heard of the Swamp Rats?”
“Can’t help hearing about them.”
“I’m interested,” said the girl, “in locating them.” She paused, looking up at him. “This trip of ours is likely to be quite dangerous. I don’t know if Mr. Cox told you all about it or not.”
“He told me all about it.”
“Good,” said Peg. She was wearing tan slacks, boots and a blue blouse. She rubbed one palm along the leg of her slacks. “I wanted to he sure you knew what to expect.”
“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of that,” the Phantom told her.
“Hey, Devlin,” called Glaze, “if you’ve finished introducing yourself, my lad, lend a hand with the lifting.”
Ten minutes later, with Eric at the wheel, they drove out of Nyokaville.
Peg reached across the front seat to touch Eric’s arm. “We’re on our way,” she said. “And I have a feeling everything’s going to go well for us.”
Eric did not reply,
CHAPTER 19
Earlier that morning, in the minutes before dawn, Sgt. Barnum had quietly exclaimed, “Got it!” He brought his freed hands around in front of him, quickly untying the vine ropes which held his ankles.
His walk was unsteady at first, his legs not completely under control. He made it over the raw, wood floor to his partner.
“Looks like you beat me,” said Mchanga. His face was dotted with perspiration.
“Here, I’ll get you loose.” Barnum got the ropes off the Corporal’s legs, then untied what was left of the vines around his wrists. “You almost had it.”
With the sergeant’s help, Mchanga got to his feet. “This damned headache,” he said.
“You’re still not over that fall.”
“No, it’s nothing serious. Hey, someone’s coming!” Without saying another word, the two of them returned to their places, putting their hands behind their backs again.
“Time to rise and shine, cops,” announced the lank, young man who appeared on the threshold. “You got another busy day ahead of you.” He carried a dented pan in one hand. “Got your breakfast chow here.
You’re going to love it. Cold oatmeal mush. We had some ourselves a couple of days ago. This is what’s left. I think some kind of mealy bugs have made their home in it, but you can pretend they’re raisins.” Laughing, he crossed over to the Sergeant. There was a wooden spoon thrust in the pot. The young man filled it with mush. “Open wide, Sarge,” he said.
Barnum brought both feet up fast. They caught the bending boy in the chin. His mouth clacked shut, he gave a strangled cry. The Sergeant was up and on him before he could make a further sound.
Sgt. Barnum rendered him unconscious with two chops to the neck. Quietly lowering the boy to the floor, Barnum then tied him up with the remnants of his vine ropes. He stuffed the young man’s own handkerchief into his mouth for a gag.
Mchanga frisked the fallen guard. “All he’s carrying is this.” He held up a switchblade knife.
Barnum was watching the doorway. “Better than nothing,” he said. “Looks like nobody else heard our little squabble.”
“It’s going to be light damned soon,” Mchanga said as he dropped the knife into his pocket.
“Right, we better slip away now if we’re ever going to.” Barnum crossed to the unfinished wall. “I checked this out yesterday. We can climb over and run for the swamp without being seen at all.”
“Let’s do that.”
When they were outside Barnum said, “You sure you’re okay?”
“Suppose I’m not?” asked the Corporal. “You going to suggest I go back and rest a while. There’s nothing else to do but get moving.”
By the time the first light of day appeared they were a mile from the Swamp Rat camp.
Glaze halted, hunching his shoulders so the weight of his backpack shifted. Great leaves that looked like lettuce rose out of the marshy ground in the midst of twisting weeds, thick with burrs, and drooping plants with fat purplish flowers. “Lovely countryside here,” he said, kicking at a thick cluster of white mushrooms. “I can see why you all wanted to vacation here.”
Peg paused near him. “We’ve seen no sign of the Swamp Rats yet,” she said. “We’ve been in the swamp a good two hours.”
“Closer to three,” said Glaze. “All I can say, Miss, is that you’re trying to do something that’s a bit harder than finding the needle in the proverbial haystack.” “What do you think, Eric?” she asked.
He was a few yards to the rear. “I haven’t come across one thing to indicate people have ever passed through here before, not a sign.”
“The swamp hides everything real fast,” said Glaze. “You want to keep on, Miss?”
“Of course.”
Glaze nodded and resumed walking.
After a few moments, the Phantom, who had been traveling in the single file between the girl and Eric, worked his way up to Glaze. When he was next to him he asked, in a low voice, “I thought something was going to happen, wasn’t it?”
Glaze chuckled. “I know you did, Devlin,” he said. “But as it turns out, you don’t know the real plan. “You told me back in Nyokaville.”
“I gave you a hard time,” said the Swamp Rat, because no matter how much Pop Benfield recommends you, I still don’t trust nobody who isn’t one of us.” “How am I going to help out, if I don’t know what s going on?”
“You help by keeping out of my way, keeping your mouth shut and doing what you’re told,” said Glaze. “Now get back in line before they catch on to anything.”
The Phantom returned to his earlier position. In town that morning, Glaze had told him an ambush awaited Peg and Eric a mile into the Great Swamp. Glaze was to see they got to a certain point, where they’d be jumped. Nothing like that had happened.
“Damn,” said Glaze all at once. He stopped, then hopped on one foot.
“What is it?” asked Peg.
“Just a rock in my boot, but it hurts like the devil,” replied Glaze. “You go on and I’ll catch up in a minute or two.”
He hopped to the side and let the other three go by.
The Phantom clenched his fist, his eyes flicking from side to side. He sensed that something, the ambush perhaps, was about to happen.
Peg gasped.
The Phantom reached out a hand toward her.
She was not there. She had fallen straight down into the ground.
Realizing that there were only dry leaves and sticks masking the deep hole dug in the ground, the Phantom tried to pull back, but he was no longer on solid ground. He fell, too.
“Join the party,” said Glaze as he gave the startled Eric a shove.
Now all three of them were down at the muddy bottom of the eight foot deep pit.
Standing, laughing, at the edge of the pit was Glaze. He held his rifle in his hands. “Just like ducks in a barrel,” he said, laughing harder.
CHAPTER 20
The Phantom leaped. His powerful muscles allowed him to spring like a jungle leopard.
Before Glaze’s finger closed on the trigger of the rifle, the Phantom was beside him. “We’ll soon have you back down there, my lad,” Glaze said.
The Phantom wrenched the weapon from the blond man’s grip.
The leverage sent Glaze reeling back across the mossy ground. He slammed into a tree trunk, shaking down dry leaves.
Moving quickly forward, the Phantom got hold of the Swamp Rat by the shoulders. He planted his feet wide apart and propelled him toward the rim of the pit.
“Look out below,” called the Phantom.
Glaze teetered on the brink before toppling.
He landed with a thud.
A brief scuffle followed. Then Eric announced, “He’s taken care of, Devlin.”
Nodding, the Phantom glanced around. He selected a sturdy vine and cut it down. At the edge of the pit, he said, “Catch hold of this, Miss McWorth, and climb up.”
When the blond girl was standing on solid ground, she said, “After all we’ve been through, Devlin, you can call me Peg. Do you have a first name, by the way?”
He smiled at her as he lowered the vine down to Eric. “As a matter of fact, I never got around to making one up.”
A minute later, Eric was above the ground with them. “What’s that you were saying, Devlin?”
The Phantom pointed at the unconscious Glaze. “There’s been quite a lot of traveling incognito this trip,” he said. “The man you know as Cox is really a Swamp Rat named Glaze.”
Peg took a step back away from him. “Who are you then, one of them, too?”
“No, I’m not.”
Eric asked, “Who are you?”
“Let’s just say I’m someone who’s interested in rounding up the Swamp Rats.”
“Someone like the police or the Jungle Patrol?” said Eric.
“I’ve worked with both the police and the JP.” “Pop Benfield didn’t really send you,” said the girl. “I’m pretty certain Pop is acting as a fence for the bandits,” he said. “When you went to him and told him what you planned to do, he decided to stop you.”
“So both the men he sent to us were supposed to be Swamp Rats,” said Eric.
“Right. They were to come into the Great Swamp with you and, at the first clear opportunity, kill you.” “How’d you find out about it?”
“I overheard two of them plotting,” the Phantom told him. “I ambushed the second man and took his place, telling Glaze that Pop had sent me as a last minute replacement.”
Peg frowned down into the deep hole. “Do you know where the Swamp Rats have their base?”
“Yes, I do. When I learned what they had in mind for you, though, I came back to Nyokaville.”
“Good thing for us that you did,” said Eric.
“Will you take us along with you,” Peg asked him, “on to their camp?”
Facing her, the Phantom said, “They’re holding two members of the Jungle Patrol prisoner. I’m going to rescue those men. If you want to come along, that’s fine. But you have to remember that rescuing those JP men comes first.”
Peg said, “You were near their camp. Did you happen to hear anything about my uncle?”
“He’s with them.”
She exhaled, smiled. “Then he is still alive?” “Yes.”
“Okay then,” she said, “we’ll go along with you.” “What about this guy Glaze?” asked Eric.
“He should be safe in this pit until we come back,” said the Phantom.
Down in the hole, the blond Swamp Rat was still unconscious.
A late afternoon heat hung over everything.
The Phantom held out a hand to halt his two companions. “We’re near the camp,” he said. “Wait here.” “What are you figuring to do?” Eric asked him. “I’ll reconnoiter,” said the Phantom. “See what we have to worry about.”
“I could come along and help,” offered the young man.
“No, I’ll go alone and find out how many men there are, how many guards, how many weapons. When I return we can work out our plan for taking over the camp.”
Without waiting for any more conversation, he moved away. He traveled rapidly and silently among the trees. Very soon he was looking down at the cluster of huts from behind a thick gnarled tree.
There was hardly any sound coming from the Swamp Rat village.
The Phantom could see only two men in the entire camp. A lanky, young man was sitting on the porch of one of the shacks, a rifle resting across his sharp knees. The other man was fat. He was pacing slowly between the huts, now and then slapping an insect off his fat arms. There was no sign of anyone else. The Jungle Patrol men weren’t visible.
The Phantom left the cover of the trees, ran straight toward the nearest hut. Reaching that, he edged around it.
Ten feet in front of him was the back of the fat man.
The Swamp Rat never heard the Phantom approach. He felt a sharp pain across the back of his neck and reached one plump hand up toward it. He was out on his feet before his fingers reached his neck. He fell down into the weeds, knees first and then flat out.
The Phantom took the man’s revolver from him. He sprinted to the back window of another hut.
Out on the bare wood porch, the lanky young man was wishing some kind of small animal would show itself off in the brush. Shooting things helped pass the time. This had been a hell of a dull day.
The barrel of an automatic touched the skin at the back of his neck. “Throw away the rifle,” ordered the Phantom.
The young Swamp Rat did that. This wasn’t the kind of excitement he’d been hoping for.
Night fell. Darkness rushed into the swamp, filling up all the spaces between the trees and vines.
Otter rubbed a palm over his short hair. “I’ve lost my patience with those guys,” he said. “I’ve lost all my patience.”
Six men stood circling him. They were deep into the swamp, roughly five miles from their camp.
“We been hunting them most of the day,” complained Kitambaa. He loomed above the rest of them, straight and tall. “Let’s let the damn swamp fix them.” “Not on your life,” said Otter. “I’m not going to leave anything to chance. We’r
e going to find those two jungle cops, and we’re going to fix them good.” McWorth said, “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean, Grandpappy?” Otter scowled at him. “I treated them real good. I really treated them good and they took advantage of me. Now we’re going to make an example of them.” “You intend to kill them?”
“Damned right,” laughed Otter. “Not only that, Grandpappy. I’m not only going to kill the pair of them, but I’m going to haul their bodies into Nyokaville. I’m going to dump them down right in the middle of the main drag, maybe with a little message from the Swamp Rats pinned to them.”
“That all sounds too risky,” said Kitambaa.
“Life’s no fun without risks,” answered Otter. “Besides, we been taking all kinds of risks and we never been so much as touched by the law.”
“Stealing and hijacking is one thing,” said McWorth. “But murder..
“Murder’s no different,” said Otter. “Anything you have to do, you do it. Stealing, killing, it don’t make no difference. We’re all lifers anyhow.” He pointed a thumb suddenly at the tall, black man. “Kitambaa, you take those three guys and head south. Grand-pappy, you and the kid come along with me.” He indicated Ted.
“I still don’t think...” began the old man.
“You don’t have to think,” cut in Otter. “You don’t have to do any thinking at all with me around. Now let’s get moving, again. I want to find those guys before they fall into quicksand or something.”
Colonel Weeks stayed a moment longer in the doorway of the radio room. He took out his pipe, filled it from his tobacco pouch and lit it. He turned, went down the wooden steps and across the Jungle Patrol grounds.
Sgt. Geiss was straightening up his desk, getting ready to quit for the day. “Anything new, sir?” Weeks shook his head. “No word,” he replied, teeth clenched on the pipe.
“Well,” said Geiss as he stuffed a handful of memos back into a manila envelope, “all we can do is wait. Wait and trust the Commander.”
“Yes, wait,” said Weeks. He had a good deal of faith in their mysterious Commander, yet it was becoming more and more difficult for him to sit here. “There has been one report which may tie in with this.”
Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 11] Page 6