Collection 1986 - Night Over The Solomons (v5.0) (5 page)

“The Japanese beat me to it, so I picked up a boat and sailed her here to Siberut. I saw this freighter and decided to stow away and get out.”

D
ONNER STUDIED HIM.

“It’s a good story,” he said slowly. “Almost too good. But where is the girl?”

“Girl?” Cowan felt an empty sensation in his stomach. “What girl?”

“The one,” Donner said coldly, “that left this hair on your shoulder!”

Deflty he picked a long golden hair from Cowan’s shirt. Evidently it had been left there when he was making his way through the trees beside Ruanne.

“Blond?” Besi John’s eyes were hard. “Why, there ain’t a blonde within miles but that Forbes girl!”

“I think,” Donner said coolly, “we had better tie this man up until we investigate a little further. I found him trying to crawl into the hatch. A minute later and he would have been out of sight.”

He turned.

“Mataga, send a couple of men ashore at once. I don’t like the looks of things.” He hesitated. “I’ll go with you.”

S
TEVE COWAN, TIED to the rail on the starboard side, watched the sky grow gray. At first there had been some sounds ashore, but then the island had settled into silence.

Nothing had happened. Down in the hold amidships the time bomb ticked on. Or had it stopped? Was all his work to be futile, after all? Cowan sat against the rail, gazing blindly ahead of him, weary as he had never been. On the deck, a few yards away, Joe Gotto, the exgangster was sitting beside. Chiv Laran.

Past them, Cowan could see the open manhole in the deck. He stared, then slowly his weariness fell away. He looked at Joe and Chiv thoughtfully.

“Who opened that manhole?” he demanded suddenly.

Joe glanced up lazily, shifting his rifle.

“That?” He shrugged. “Mataga. He said it would have to be cleaned. He’s as bad as Forbes was. Always cleaning something.”

Cowan eyed the two again.

“You don’t look to me like a sucker, Joe,” he said. “But your side of this deal doesn’t smell so good.”

“Shut up,” Chiv said harshly. “We ain’t turnin’ you loose.”

“You’d be smart if you did,” Steve Cowan declared. “What’s your cut on this deal? You ever think of how much you’ll get—
if
they split the dough they get for these planes? By the time each of you gets a cut, your end wouldn’t buy you a ticket to a safe port. I know that Mataga. He’d doublecross his own mother.”

Joe looked at the Yank thoughtfully.

“So what? If he don’t collect, we can’t.”

“No?” Cowan glanced at Chiv, who was listening sullenly. “Why is Mataga keeping Forbes alive? Forbes has a cache of jewels aboard this ship, that’s why. Did Mataga tell you that? Or Donner?”

Cowan glanced shoreward, but there was no sign of life.

“Or did they tell you there was a war on? That the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor?”

“Is that straight?” Gotto scowled. “Why, I’d like to—”

“What’s it to you?” Chiv demanded. “The cops run you out, didn’t they?”

“Sure,” Joe argued. “But what the devil! If the Japanese and Nazis take the States, my racket is sunk. I can’t compete with them guys. When I knock over a bank, I want to know there’s some dough in it.”

“I know where the jewels are,” Steve Cowan said quietly, looking directly at Chiv. “We could get them and get out. Let Mataga have his crummy planes.”

“Get out?” Chiv sneered. “You mean swim?”

“No, I mean in my plane. I told Mataga it crashed, but it didn’t. It isn’t ten miles from here. We could grab those jewels, just the three of us, and take it on the lam.”

J
OE STUDIED HIM thoughtfully. Then he glanced sideward at Chiv, whose yellow eyes were narrowed.

“You sound like a right guy,” he said. “I like the sound of it. Anyway, if the Japanese are going to use the planes against our gang, why—”

“What the deuce do you care?” Chiv snarled. “Nuts! I don’t care who gets the planes. I want some dough! I’m no Yank.”

“Those stones are close by,” Steve Cowan hinted. “We haven’t much time.”

“Yeah?” Chiv sneered. “Suppose I let you loose? Then you’d get them! Don’t be a sap! Mataga will be back in a little while.”

“Sure.” Cowan shrugged. “And then you get the dirty end of the deal. You think I’m a sap? Those stones are down in that manhole, Chiv, in a box back in the corner of the tank. That’s why Mataga opened it. That’s why I wanted to know.

“He’s letting it air out a little, that’s all. You get that box and we’ll get out of here.”

Joe said nothing. He glanced at Cowan curiously, shifted his rifle a little.

Chiv got up and looked shoreward. Then he approached the manhole, flashing his light down the rungs of the ladder. It wouldn’t reach to the corner.

“You got that plane, sure thing?” he demanded. “Because, if you haven’t—”

“You got a rod, Chiv, haven’t you?” Joe cut in suddenly. “He’s tied up, ain’t he? If it ain’t there, what do we lose? If it is, we take this guy, still tied, and head for the plane.”

“ ‘How does he know we won’t bump him?” Chiv asked. “We could have it all.”

His yellow eyes shifted back to Cowan, and the Yank felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

“Don’t forget I’m the flyer,” Cowan said. “Don’t forget I know where the plane is.”

“All right.” Chiv glanced shoreward again quickly, then he looked at Joe. “Don’t let him try anything funny, see? I’ll be right back up.”

His light thrust in his belt, he started down the ladder.

Joe Gotto sat up a little, watching his prisoner, his eyes very bright. Cowan stared at the manhole. They both heard Chiv slip, heard the hollow thump when he hit the bottom.

Cowan tore his eyes from the manhole.

“Now it’s just us, Joe. You’re a Yank and so am I. Do the Japs get this load of planes to get our boys with? You’re a tough cookie, pal. So’m I. But we aren’t either of us rats!”

Joe grinned suddenly.

“What was it?” he asked. “What happened to Chiv?”

He bent over Cowan and hurriedly unbound him. The Yank straightened up, stretching his cramped muscles.

“No oxygen. Those tanks are dangerous. I had an idea that in this heavy air, darned little of that gas would escape.”

Cowan grabbed up the shotgun dropped by Chiv Laran and ran with Joe to the gangway. A lifeboat bobbed alongside.

“What happened to Mataga?” Joe demanded.

He was nervous, but his hands were steady. In running forward he had picked up a tommy gun from the petty officer’s mess, where it had been left on the table.

“He’s hunting Forbes and the girl!”

Steve Cowan sprang ashore when the boat grated on the beach. Then as Joe jumped down beside him, he shoved the lifeboat back into the water.

Turning, he led the way into the jungle, heading for the point. They had gone only a dozen steps when Cowan stopped suddenly, holding up a hand.

“Listen!” he said.

Someone was floundering through the brush, panting heavily. Joe lifted his tommy gun, his eyes narrowed.

“Hold it!” Cowan whispered.

It was Captain Forbes. The old seadog broke through the brush, his face red, his lungs heaving. His clothing was torn by brambles, and his face and hands were scratched.

“They’re comin’!” he said. “Right behind!”

“Where’s Ruanne?” Steve Cowan demanded.

“At the plane!” Forbes looked bad, the veins in his throat standing out, his lungs heaving. “We found it! I tried to lead them away. But they got too close!”

S
OMEONE YELLED BACK down the shore. Cowan turned, leading the way toward the mangroves.

“Make it fast!” he whispered. “We’ve got a chance!”

They were almost to the amphibian before Cowan noticed that Joe had not followed. He wheeled and started back. Ruanne stopped helping her uncle in the cabin door.

“Where are you going?” she cried. “Come on!”

“Can you fly?” Cowan hesitated, the shotgun dangling. “If you can, warm that ship up. We’ll be back!”

He turned and plunged back into the jungle. Even as he broke through the first wall of green, he heard the angry chatter of a tommy gun and Joe’s raucous yell, then the sound of more guns. Joe cried out suddenly in pain.

Cowan burst into a small clearing just as Donner and Besi John Mataga, followed by a dozen men, came through on the opposite side. A bullet smashed by his head, and Cowan jerked up the shotgun. It roared. Donner grabbed the pit of his stomach and plunged over on his face.

Joe Gotto, down on one knee, was raking the killers with his tommy gun. Steve Cowan fired again, and the line broke and ran.

Lunging across the clearing, Cowan swept Joe Gotto to one shoulder and ran for the mangroves. Beyond, the amphibian’s twin motors were roaring music in his ears.

Almost at the same instant, a plane roared by overhead. Cowan glanced up, swearing. It was a Kawasaki. It was circling for a return when Cowan boosted Joe into the cabin and then grabbed the controls.

“Strap him in!” he yelled. “Get set! I’ve got to fight that Jap!”

He opened the plane wide and let her roar down the open water, throttle wide. Just short of the trees he pulled back on the stick, and the amphibian went up in a steep climb.

Roaring on over the casuarinas, Cowan gave a startled gasp. A long, slim gray destroyer was alongside the
Parawan
, and a stream of Japanese sailors and marines were running up the gangway!

Then he pulled back on the stick again just as the Kawasaki came screaming back toward him. Opening the ship wide, he fled; for the enemy was on his tail and his only safety at this low altitude lay in speed.

A roaring chatter broke out in Steve Cowan’s ears. Turning his head, he saw Joe Gotto, strapped in a seat, firing his tommy gun out the port.

The burst of bullets missed, but the Japanese wavered. In that instant, Cowan skidded around in a flat turn, raking the Kawasaki with a quick burst of fire. But the soldier was no fool. Screaming around in a tight circle, he tried to reach Cowan with his twin guns in the nose, while his observed opened fire from the rear cockpit.

A bullet hole showed in the wing. Then Cowan pulled the amphibian on around and climbed steeply. Rolling over before the enemy could follow, he poured a stream of fire into the Kawasaki’s ugly blunt nose.

The engine coughed, sputtered. Then Cowan banked steeply and came back with the son of Nippon dead in his sights. His guns roared. The Kawasaki burst into a roaring flame and went out of sight.

Then for the first time Cowan heard a pounding in his ears. Off to his left a puff of smoke flowered. Glancing down, he realized with a shock that the destroyer’s anti-aircraft guns were opening up on him.

He pulled the stick back and shot up into the sky, reaching for all the altitude he could get. He was still climbing in tight spirals when he rolled over a little to obtain a better view.

It was like that, with Steve Cowan watching the scene below, when it happened. He had forgotten the time bomb. He had forgotten everything in the rush of action. How it had been set, he never knew. But suddenly, after these long hours, it turned loose with a tremendous detonation.

A
PYRAMID OF flame shot skyward until Cowan thought his own wings, hundreds of feet above, must be singed. The puff of the explosion struck his ship and sent it staggering down the sky. He got it righted, banked steeply and circled slowly over the roaring fire below.

The
Parawan
was gone. Where it had been was a mass of flaming wreckage. Beside it settled the Japanese destroyer, ablaze from stem to stern, with the bay around it for many yards a furnace of burning oil.

Steve Cowan leveled off and then pointed his ship south.

“Better have a look at Joe,” he said to Ruanne. “He may be hit bad.”

“Aw, it’s nothin’,” Joe protested, blushing. “Take me somewhere where I can join the Army. Boy, what I just seen! And me, I thought Brooklyn’s ‘Murder, Incorporated’ was tough!”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PIRATES WITH WINGS

There have always been men who went down to the sea, not those born to it, as men from the seaports, fishermen, and the like, but drifters whose restlessness led them down to the deep waters. Life at sea has never been an easy life, although conditions have improved drastically in the last fifty years. It is hard, demanding, and never without danger. It has been my good fortune to survive several very bad storms at sea, my misfortune to have encountered them at all.

Wandering men take what transportation offers itself at the moment, and wherever they arrive they drift into companionship with others of their kind. Often they become what used to be called soldiers of fortune and our now more commonly called mercenaries.

The term “mercenary” was first applied to those soldiers who fought for pay, but the money did not go to them but to their chieftain, lord, or ruler. The Hessians who fought with the British against the American colonists, for example, had their services sold to the British by their ruler.

Mercenaries are usually hired when the sons of a country are no longer willing to fight for it, so professionals are sought. And there have been professionals in every war, men who sell their skills with weapons to the highest bidder or to the cause that appeals most.

During the Middle Ages there were companies of soldiers who fought for whatever leader paid most for their services.

One of the best accounts of such a company in fiction is that by Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company. However, the White Company itself was not fictitious. It existed and for some time was commanded by a veteran mercenary, Sir John Hawkwood.

The armies of the Middle Ages and of the Eastern Roman Empire were for many hundreds of years largely mercenary. In more recent years mercenaries have fought in the Latin American revolutions, for the warlords in China, and wherever someone has been willing to pay for their expert services. Often they were men who were called to serve their countries at an early age and became accustomed to warfare and the military life. Many of the old noble families of Europe were descended from mercenary soldiers.