The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (68 page)

Sauten jerked a handful of wires, then, punching a hole in the wall near him, he pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and dropped it in.

A bullet clipped the door over Turk’s head, and he wheeled, firing at a soldier in the side door. There was a dull thud and part of the wall blew out as the grenade sent a rush of hot flame toward the ceiling. The three men ran and, as they reached the door, Madden jerked the pin on another grenade, tossing it over the switchboard into the maze of wires. That would take care of the telephone exchange.

They made the street. Madden wheeled to run, and then something smashed across his forehead, and he felt himself falling. He hit the ground on his hands and knees, struggled to get up, and then another blow landed on his skull from behind, and he slid facedown on the sidewalk, his head roaring with a gigantic blackness shot through with the lightning of pain.

I
T COULD ONLY
have been minutes later when he opened his eyes. His face, which had been lying on the floor, was stiff with blood from his cut scalp. He tried to move, and the attempt made his head throb horribly. He lay still, gathering strength.

“Who is it?”

The voice was scarcely a whisper.

“Are you a Yank?”

Turk’s head jerked. “A Yank?” he gasped. “Yes. Who are you?”

“My name’s Morley, I—”

“Vic!” Madden heaved himself to a sitting position. “It’s Madden! We thought you were dead!”

“They kept me alive for interrogation,” Morley replied bitterly. “But if I ever get out of this—” He hesitated, his voice queer and strained. “Turk, we were sold out. It was…”

The door opened, and a brilliant light flashed on. Two Japanese officers stepped in. The stockier of the two looked at Madden. His eyes were malignant.

“You are a fool!” he snapped, his words clipped, but in excellent English. “You think you will surprise us? We have been ready for you for days!”

He stared at Madden, then stepped close.

“You tell me—how many planes come in the attacking force?”

Turk smiled. “Go to the devil,” he said quietly.

The officer kicked him in the head. Once, twice, three times. Turk let his head roll with the kicks, and held himself inside against the burst of pain.

“You will tell.” The man’s voice was distinct. He kicked Turk again, breaking ribs.

“Sure,” Turk gasped, “I’ll tell.”

The Jap’s eyes gleamed.

“How many come?”

“Ten thousand,” Turk said. “It won’t end until Dai Nippon is a heap of smoldering ruins.”

“Yes? I have seen your country. They are soft! They will tire of the war, then Japan will be left with all she needs!”

He looked down at Turk contemptuously.

“Bah! I know how many ships come! Their size, their bomb loads, their route!”

He turned on his heel and left the room. The guard loitered, his eyes ugly. He glanced over his shoulder at the door, then walked back to Madden. For a moment, he stood looking down, then slowly, he raised the rifle and pointed the bayonet at Turk’s chest.

Madden’s eyes were cold.

“Go ahead, yellow belly! Some Marine will feed you one of those soon enough!”

The soldier snarled, and the bayonet came down, and suddenly, with all his remaining strength, Turk Madden rolled over, thrusting himself hard into the soldier’s legs!

The Japanese had started to shift his weight, and Turk caught him off balance. The guard toppled, and fell, his head striking the corner of the table as he dropped. He rolled over and, groggy, started to get up. Morley, lying almost beside him, fastened his teeth on the man’s ear.

At that moment, the sky turned into a roar of sound, and they heard the shrill scream of bombs, punctuated by explosions.

Madden heaved himself closer to the struggling guard and, drawing his knees back to his chest, kicked out hard with the heels of both bound feet. The man’s head slammed back into the wall, and then Madden struggled nearer, and kicked again, kicked with all the strength in his powerful legs.

“Quick!” Madden snapped. “Get his rifle and work the bayonet under the ropes on my wrists!”

Outside, the world was an inferno of flame and the thunderous roar of bombs. There was a fight going on overhead, too, and amid the frightful explosions of anti-aircraft fire and the high, protesting yammer of machine guns, Turk could hear the scream of diving planes.

He could feel the blade of the bayonet working against the ropes. It was slow and hard, for Morley was working with bound hands. Suddenly, everything happened at once. A Japanese officer stepped into the doorway, and the ropes on Turk’s wrists came free.

There was an instant of paralyzed astonishment, and then the officer reached for his pistol. The holster flap was buttoned and Turk had time to whip the Arisaka rifle to his shoulder and fire.

His hand still fumbling helplessly at the flap, the officer tumbled back through the door. Turk hastily freed his ankles, then turned to Morley.

Stopping only to grab up the officer’s pistol, they dashed from the room and then down the steps.

A shadow loomed nearby, and Turk whirled, the rifle poised.

“Hold it, Skipper.” Chiv Sauten stepped into view. “It’s me.”

There was no darkness now. Wakkanai was a roaring mass of flame, and the pound of exploding bombs roared on, unceasing.

“Sparrow got away, too,” he said. “We’d better get out of here.”

He led them at a fast walk. They carried their guns ready. Rounding a corner, they came face-to-face with a cluster of men fighting a fire. They ran toward the blaze, hoses at the ready, and showed no interest at all in Madden’s armed group. Sauten led the way down an alley, picking up the pace. The roar of wind-captured flames was so great as almost to drown the sound of the nightmare overhead. Somewhere a munitions plant let go, and glass cascaded into the street. An arrow of fire shot across in front of them from a burning building, and then a huge wall fell in, and a great blast of flame gulped at the sky.

Moving through the destruction, Turk felt himself turn sick with horror at what was happening to the town. This was fury such as no man had seen short of Hamburg or Berlin.

Soon they were at the edge of town, and they turned into a small field to see Sparrow’s B-25 waiting.

And then, Turk Madden saw the officer who had spoken to them.

The Japanese was standing across the field, with him were three soldiers, one behind a heavy-caliber machine gun. Even as Turk glimpsed them, he saw the officer lift a hand as a signal.

Turk’s Arisaka went to his hip, and he fired. The shot missed, but knocked the gunner to a kneeling position. Sauten dropped into a crouch and opened up with the tommy gun, but on the third round the gun went dead.

Madden was halfway across the short intervening space before the gun had stopped pounding. The officer was the only man on his feet, and he cried shrilly and sprang from behind the gun, drawing his samurai sword.

Leaping back before the slashing arc of the great sword, Turk hurled the rifle. Its bayonet point was within four feet of the officer’s chest, and Madden’s throw drove the long knife deep into the man’s body! Turning, Turk Madden ran stumbling toward the bomber….

B
EHIND HIM
, the bullet-riddled body of the Mitchell once again stood on the Air Corps field. As dawn began to light the sky Turk Madden walked quickly toward the Headquarters office. At his side was Sauten, behind him Sparrow Ryan and Morley limped, trying to keep up. Beyond them planes returning from the raid of Wakkanai were beginning to fill the sky and drop toward the landing strip.

Stepping up, Turk stopped in the doorway. For an instant, there was complete silence.

Colonel Sharpe’s eyes widened, then narrowed.

“You? Thank God you’re back!”

“Yes,” Turk said. “And I know who gave us away. I know who the traitor was who blew up the Morley job and who gave us away this time.”

The Colonel’s eyes were calculating.

“You do?”

Turk turned to face Martin, and his face was quiet. Then Morley stepped through the door, his face thin and pale, his eyes burning.

“Well, Martin, I see you got back again. I suppose you have another story cooked up as good as the one you told after you betrayed us?”

“He landed in a radio-equipped Japanese plane a few minutes ago,” Colonel Sharpe said. “When the rest of you were shot up, he got away in a stolen plane.”

“Did you come back, Martin,” Morley said slowly, “to betray us again? Or were you afraid of what the Japanese might do to you for failing?”

Turk turned to Sharpe. “The burning fighter planes gave away their airfield and the burning signal station ended up being a guide to the bombers.”

Sharpe turned to Morley. “Are you claiming he sold us out?”

“He didn’t sell anything, Colonel. He’s a Japanese!”

“He’s a what?”

Martin’s lips twisted with contempt.

“You’re right, Morley. My mother was, and I’m proud of it! You Americans forced us into this war but we’ll…”

His hand lurched to the holster at his hip and the gun swung up, but he never made it, for Turk sprang, driving his shoulder hard into Martin’s chest.

Martin staggered, tried to remain erect, but Turk stepped back and hooked a left, high and hard. Martin slammed into the wall, and then slid to the floor.

Madden turned.

“That was it,” he said, “he sold us out as he did Morley. He even might have succeeded again, except when they threw me in a cell it was with Morley and he’d figured some of it out.

“I should have guessed. Martin was the only one who lived in the building with me, and who might know where I kept the maps he stole from me. But Vic reminded me of something I had forgotten. Before the war there was an up-and-coming football player at USC. He went back to Japan but this kid was the nephew of Commander Ishimaru of the Japanese air force! It was Ken Martin!”

Chiv Sauten looked down at Martin.

“Yeah?” he said slowly. “What was that he was spoutin’ about our starting the war? Didn’t he ever hear of Pearl Harbor?”

Vic Morley collapsed into a chair. “I heard it a couple of times while I was locked up. You won’t find too many in Japan who know the truth. They’ve all been told that Japan declared war on the U.S. before the attack and that we forced them into it by cutting off their supplies of steel and fuel oil.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Sharpe barked. “Our boycott was in protest to their invasion of China!”

“It makes it seem they’re in the right, Colonel. That’s important for motivating troops, especially with a people for whom honor is so important.” Turk nudged the unconscious Martin with a toe. “It even works with men who have been around enough to know better.”

“Come on, Morley,” Sparrow Ryan said, “I think we’d better get to the infirmary.”

Turk paused in the doorway of the building with Chiv Sauten at his side. “When I go out again, buddy, I want you along. You’ll do to ride the river with!”

“Me?” Sauten grinned. “You should see my brother Pete. He was fifteen years old before he learned you were supposed to take the cans off the beans before you ate ’em!”

The Goose Flies South

S
teadily the motors were droning away, in the thin upper air. “If I was a betting man,” Panola said grimly, “I’d give ten to one we never get out of this alive!”

“You asked for it.” Captain Runnels replied dryly. “This is strictly volunteer stuff.”

“Sure,” Panola shrugged. “But who wants to duck a job like this? I asked for it, but I’m not dumb!”

Turk Madden eased forward on the stick and felt the Goose let her nose down. In the heavy, cottony mass of cloud you could see less than nothing. Letting her down was taking a real chance, but they were almost at their destination, and they would soon be ready to land.

There were a lot of jagged peaks here, many of them running upwards of two thousand feet. He was already below that level and saw no sign of an opening to the world below.

The Goose dipped out of the clouds suddenly, and with a rush. A huge, craggy, and black mountainside towered above them. Turk whipped the Grumman over in a steep bank and swung hard away from the cliff. He glanced at Winkler as the ship flattened out. The Major’s face was a sickly yellow.

“Close, that!” he said grimly.

“It was,” Turk grinned. “You don’t see ’em much closer.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Runnels and Panola looked scared, but Shan Bao, his mechanic and right-hand man, a tall Manchu, seemed undisturbed.

“How much further?” Runnels asked, leaning forward.

“Not far. We just sighted Mount Stokes, so it’ll be just a few minutes.”

“Let’s hope the place is empty,” Panola said. “We’d be in a spot if some ship was lying there.”

“It’s pretty safe.” Turk said. “Nothing down here to speak of, and even less back inland. All this section of the Argentine and Chile is wild and lonely. South, it gets even worse.”

It was a cold, bleak, and barren country, sullen and dreary under the heavy gray overcast. Great craggy peaks lifted into the low clouds, and below there were occasional inlets, most of them edged with angry foam. Some of the mountains were covered with trees, and in places the forest came down to the water’s edge. In other places there were only bleak plains, windblown and rain whipped.

Then suddenly he saw the mountain, a huge, black, domelike peak that shouldered into the clouds.

“That’s the Dome of St. Paul,” he said, looking over at Winkler. “San Esteban Gulf is right close by.”

H
E SWUNG THE PLANE INLAND
, skirting the long sandy beach on which a furious surf was breaking, sighted San Quentin Bay with its thickly wooded shores, and then swung across toward the mouth of the San Tadeo River.

The land about the river mouth was low and marshy and covered with stumps of dead trees, some of them truly gigantic in size. Inside the mouth of the river it widened to considerable breadth, and something like seven miles up it divided into two rivers. Turk swung the ship up the course of the Black River, flying low. The stream was choked with the trunks of dead trees, and huge roots that thrust themselves out of the water like the legs of gigantic spiders.

A few miles further, and then he swung inland above a barely discernible brook, and then eased forward on the stick and let the amphibian come down on the smooth surface of the small lake. He taxied across toward a cove lined with heavy timber, and then let the ship swing around as he dropped the anchor in compartive shelter.

“Wow!” Panola shook his head and grinned at Turk as the latter peeled off his flying helmet. “How you ever remembered this place is beyond me! How long since you were here?”

“Twelve years,” Madden replied. “I was a kid then, just going to sea. Incidentally, from here on we’d better go armed. I’m just giving you a tip, although of course, that’s up to Major Winkler.”

“We’ll go armed,” Winkler said. “And all of you know, we can’t take any chances on being found. We’ve got to get this plane under cover and stay there ourselves as much as possible. If we were caught here, there’s not a chance we’d get out of this alive.”

Turk watched Shan Bao getting out the rubber boat and then turned his gaze toward the mainland. The amphibian lay in a small cove, excellently sheltered on all sides. The entrance to the cove from the small lake was an S-shaped waterway, ending in a pool. The pool was surrounded on all sides by a heavy growth of timber. It was a mixture of fir, pine, and occasional beech trees. The beach was sandy and littered with washed up roots and trunks of old trees.

There was no sign of life of any kind. And that was as it should be. Not over two dozen men on earth knew that here, off the coast of Patagonia, was to be another experiment with an atomic bomb. An experiment kept secret from the world, and of which no American from the North, no Englishman, and no Russian was to know. It was an experiment being made by a few desperate and skillful German scientists and military men, working with power-mad militarists of the Argentine.

Turk Madden, soldier of fortune, adventurer, and late officer in the Military Intelligence, was flying his own plane, a special-built Grumman Goose with a number of improvements and a greater armament and flying range than the ordinary Goose. Major Winkler was in command, and with them were Captain Runnels and Lieutenant Panola, a recently discharged officer.

Runnels and Winkler were both skilled atomic specialists. Panola was the record man whose task it would be to compile and keep the records of the trip and of the secret experiments, if they were able to observe them. Shan Bao, the Manchu, was Madden’s own Man Friday, a hard-bitten North China fighter whom Turk had met in Siberia.

Turk, Winkler, and Runnels went ashore first.

“We’ve got to set up a shelter,” Winkler suggested. “And the sooner the better, as it may rain. What would you suggest, Madden? You’ve had more of this sort of experience than I.”

“Back in the woods,” he said instantly. “Find four living trees for the corner posts. Clear out under them and build walls of some of these dead logs we see around. If we cut trees, the white blaze of the cut will be visible from the air. You can spot ’em for miles in the right light. But there’s enough brush here, and we shouldn’t have to cut anything except under the four trees.”

The place he selected was four huge trees with wide-spreading branches near a huge, rocky outcropping. There was nothing but brush between the trees, and it was a matter of minutes for the five men to clear it away. Then they began hauling up logs from the beach. Several of them were large enough to split into four timbers. By nightfall they had the walls erected and a peaked roof of interwoven bows with fir limbs covering it. All was safely under the spreading branches of the trees.

T
URK PACED THE BEACH
restlessly, and his eyes studied the low hanging clouds. The whole thing had been easy, but he was worried. The ship that had brought them south had heaved to on a leaden sea, and the amphibian had been put into the water. Then, with their equipment and supplies aboard, they had taken off. The whole process, planned and carefully rehearsed, had taken them no more than minutes.

On the flight to the mainland they had seen no one, no ship, no boat, nothing remotely human.

It was miles to the nearest port. The country inland was wild and broken, no country for a man to live in. Yet here and there were Patagonian savages, he knew. And there might be others. Knowing the cold-blooded, ruthless tactics of his enemy, and their thoroughness, he could not but doubt.

When the logs had been moved from the beach, he carefully picked up any chips and covered the places where they had laid with as much skill as possible.

A spring flowed from the rock outcropping near the house they had built. They could reach it without going into the open. They had food enough, although he knew there had once been a few deer in the vicinity. Otherwise, there would be nothing except occasional sea birds, and perhaps a hair seal or two.

Runnels, a heavyset, brown-faced man who had been working with atomic scientists for ten years, walked toward him.

“Beastly place, isn’t it? Reminds me of the Arctic. I hunted in Dawson once.”

Madden nodded. “Seems too good to be true,” he said thoughtfully, “I smell trouble!”

“You’re pessimistic,” Runnels said. His face grew serious. “Well, if it comes we can’t do a thing but take it. We’re on our own. They told us if we got caught, we couldn’t expect any help from home.”

“What’s the dope on this experiment?” Turk asked.

“They’ve got two old German warships. They are in bad shape, but good enough for the experiment. They are going to try sinking them with an atomic bomb about two hundred miles offshore. Then, they are going to try an experiment inland, back in the waste of the plains.

“Our job is not to interfere, only to get information on the results so we can try a comparison with our own.”

Turk Madden nodded. He had his own orders. He had been told to obey orders from Winkler up to a point, beyond that his own judgment counted most as he was the most experienced at this sort of thing. Also, if it were possible, he was to try to destroy whatever equipment and results they had. But that was his own job and was to be done with utmost skill, and entirely without giving away his presence or that of his party.

A difficult mission, but one that could be done. After all, he had blown bridges right under the noses of the Japanese. This could scarcely be more difficult.

He walked toward the ridge and, keeping under the trees, climbed slowly toward the top. Now was the time to get acquainted with the country. There was one infallible rule for warfare or struggle of any kind—know your terrain—and he intended to know this.

There were no paths, but he found a way toward the top along a broken ledge, a route that he noticed was not visible from below, if the traveler would but move with reasonable care to avoid being seen. There were broken slabs of rock, and much undergrowth.

He was halfway up before the path became difficult, and then he used his hands to pull himself from handhold to handhold. Yet, before he had reached the top, he slipped suddenly and began to slide downward with rapidly increasing momentum.

Below him was a cliff which he had skirted. Wildly, his hand shot out to stay his fall. It closed upon a bush, and—held.

Slowly, carefully, fearful at each instant that the bush would come loose at the roots, he pulled himself up until he had a foothold. Then a spot of blackness arrested his eye. It was a hole.

Moving carefully, to get a better view, he found it was a small hole in the rock, a spot scarcely large enough to admit a man’s body. Taking out his flashlight, he thrust his arm inside, and gasped with surprise.

Instead of a small hole, it was a large cavern, a room of rock bigger than the shelter below, and with a black hole leading off into dimness beyond the reach of his light.

Thoughtfully, he withdrew his arm. Turning his head, he looked below. He could see the pool where the plane was, and he could see the lake. But he was not visible from the shelter. Nor, if he remained still, could he be seen from below.

He pulled himself higher and began once more to climb. Why, he did not know, but suddenly he decided he would say nothing of the cave. Later, perhaps. But not now.

W
HEN
M
ADDEN REACHED
the crest of the hill he did not stand up. He had pulled himself over the rim and was lying face down. Carefully, he inched along the ground until he was behind a large bush. He rose to his knees and carefully brushed off his clothes. Then he looked.

He was gazing over a wide, inland valley. About two miles away was another chain of hills still higher. The valley itself led away inland, a wide sweep with a small stream flowing through it. A stream that was obviously a tributary leading to the Rio Negro.

North along the coast were great, massive headlands, brutal shoulders of rock of a gloomy grandeur but rarely seen elsewhere. The hills where there was soil were covered with evergreens and with antarctic beeches in thick growth.

Under those trees moss grew heavy, so thick and heavy that one could sink knee deep into it, and there was thick undergrowth also. Yet, a knowing man could move swiftly even in that incredible tangle.

Turk started down the ridge upon which he had lain, sure now that nobody was in sight. Indeed, there was scarcely a chance that a man had been in this area in months, if not in years. He walked swiftly, headed for a promontory not far away where he might have a better view up the coast.

He had dropped from a rocky ledge and turned around a huge boulder when he saw something that brought him up short. For an instant, his eyes swept the area before him, a small, flat plain leading to the foot of the bluff toward which he had been going. There was nothing. Nothing now. Yet there upon the turf of the plain were the clear, unmistakable tracks of wheels!

Turk walked swiftly to the tracks, yet careful to step on stones, of which there were plenty, and thus leave no track himself. Then he stopped, staring at the tracks.

A plane. A fighter craft by the distance between the tires, and the weight as indicated by the impression left on the turf. If not a fighter, then a small plane, heavily loaded. More likely, a fighter. The landing here would not be bad.

Yet why here?

Carefully, and with infinite skill, he began to skirt the plain, examining every nook, every corner. Finally, he found a dead fire. He touched his hand to the ashes. There was, he thought, a bare suggestion of warmth.

He looked around at the campsite. Someone had stopped here, picked up wood, and built the fire. They had warmed a lunch, eaten, and then flown away.

Four small logs had been placed side by side, and the fire built upon them, thus the fire was kept off the damp ground. One of the men, and there had been two, had known something. He was a woodsman. At least, he was not unfamiliar with the wilds. That meant even more care must be exercised.

He shifted his carbine to his left hand and studied the scene thoughtfully. Was the visit here an accident? Had there been a mere forced landing? Or was it by intention?