The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (40 page)

After they had gone, Jim stood staring out the porthole thoughtfully. The rain had begun again, a cold, slanting rain. He looked toward the green shores of Halmahera, looming gray now. He had a sense of impending danger that left him restless and ill at ease. Unconsciously, his hand strayed to the butt of his heavy Colt.

Frazer had stumbled on something big, he knew. But what? The only clue he had that wasn’t available to them all from the beginning was the slip of paper from the desk in Frazer’s cabin. It had been torn, and just enough remained to tell him the words had been “Well of the Unholy Light.” And Jim knew about the well, somewhere up on the slopes of Gam Konora, over five thousand feet of active volcano and a taboo region, rarely visited by anyone, native or white.

That Colonel Sutherland, masquerading as Bonner, was around, offered ample evidence that this was something international in scope. It also meant that somewhere in the vicinity Major William Arnold would be working on the problem.

P
ONGA
J
IM GRINNED
. He and William were to brush elbows again. But where, he wondered then, did Kim Rinehart fit into the picture? How did he happen to be on the spot when the killer arrived for Frazer?

Yet whatever was in the wind was too big for Essen. The man was dangerous, but not the type to lead any action as big as this must be. Albran was Dutch but, like a scattering of his countrymen, was obviously pro-Nazi. Fife and Sutherland, he had learned, had been hunting near Mount Sabu and so had an alibi for being on hand. But what was the answer?

There seemed only one chance of finding out—to go to the Well of the Unholy Light.

T
HE RAIN HAD CEASED
and the clouds were breaking up when Ponga Jim Mayo rounded the shoulder of Gam Konora and looked down on the steep canyon that separated him from the plateau where the well was supposed to be. He hesitated, staring down.

The canyon was a fearful gash in the earth and washed by a charging, plunging mountain stream. Across from him the wall of the mountain broke, and he could look past it to the plateau beyond. A huge stone column reared from the jungle, at least a hundred feet high, and beyond it was a square tower, half fallen to ruins.

It was then he saw the bridge, not more than a hundred feet away, but blending its color so easily with the rock as to be almost invisible, a swaying bridge of hemp rope, native-made, suspended across the three hundred feet of the canyon. Below it was the stream. Jim looked down and then started for the swaying bridge.

It trembled giddily at his first step, and he had taken no more than three steps before he had a feeling that he was being watched. Carefully, yet with seeming carelessness, his eyes searched the jumble of rocks he was approaching. There was nothing, no movement or indication of life.

He walked on quietly, but managing to weave just a little on the swaying bridge, enough to make the chances of hitting him with the first shot a little more difficult. But he had reached the end of the bridge and had his feet on the rock before anything happened. Then a cool, deep voice spoke suddenly from the rocks:

“You stand still now and answer me some questions.”

Ponga Jim stopped. “Okay, pal. Let’s have them.”

“What’s your handle, mister? What name you go by?”

“The name is Mayo,” Jim said pleasantly. “They call me Ponga Jim.”

“Where you get that ‘Ponga’ part?”

“From the village of Ponga-Ponga in French Equatorial Africa. Anything else?”

“If you was looking for a man you knew in Manchuria, and he was in Fez, where would you look? And if he was in Algiers?”

Jim’s eyes narrowed, “In Fez, I’d look in the long room behind a leatherworker’s stall in the street near the Green Mosque. In Algiers, I would go to the place of Mahr-el-din in the Kasbah.”

A powerfully built black man came from behind a cluster of boulders and stepped down with his big hand outthrust. He wore a dark red shirt and a pair of blue dungarees. Two big guns were strapped to his hips, and a high-powered rifle was in the hollow of his arm. Two bandoleers of cartridges crossed his chest.

“How you, Captain Mayo?” he said cheerfully. “I’m Big London. A friend to Bent Frazer. He told me if anything happened to him I was to get down here and watch out for you, that you’d be along, and that you’d answer those questions. That way, I’d know you. But I’d have known you, anyway.”

Jim shook hands, sizing up the mighty black man with appreciation.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Where’s Frazer?”

“They got him down there by the well. They got a couple of hundred men down there.”

“How many?” Jim was incredulous. “Did you say two hundred?”

Big London nodded. “That’s right. They’ve been bringing them in planes. Dropped twenty here last night from parachutes. But Frazer, he said to start nothing until you got here.” Then he added, “Those men are Japanese, all but two or three.”

Led swiftly by the big black man, Ponga Jim slipped through the rocks until they could get a good view of the city. It was scarcely that, just a temple. Now it was all in ruins, and a small circle of stone houses was surrounded by a fallen wall. The stone plaza had been cleared of debris, but was not large enough for a plane to land. But even as they watched they saw several men carrying rifles from one of the buildings. A cool voice behind them spoke:

“How do you do, Captain?”

Jim wheeled. Five men in a neat rank stood behind them. Four were Japanese soldiers, their rifles ready. The fifth was Heittn, a Nazi agent.

“See how easily a man is captured when he grows confident?” Heittn said, speaking over his shoulder to the soldiers. Then, to Jim, “We knew Frazer had communicated with you, so we were ready this time.” Heittn’s narrow, heavy-lidded eyes shifted to the black man. “We won’t need you,” he said and lifted his automatic. Without a second’s hesitation, he fired.

Big London had started to leap, but his body turned slowly and plunged down the steep slope of shale. For sixty feet his body slid and then brought up against a boulder.

Ponga Jim’s eyes went hard.

“That was a dirty stunt!” he said.

“Of course.” Heittn shrugged. “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.

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! 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
Carlsberg
? 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
Carlsberg
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 him. 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. 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!”

I
T 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 the passage.