CAPTAIN THE LADY JANE SEABORN AND ROYAL MARINE PAMALA Plum-Martin were having the time of their lives being secret agents on San Pedro. The girls had affected what they thought was a simply fabulous Texas accent by trying to see which one of them could say y’all the most times in a single sentence.
Since not one single person in the entire Portuguese protectorate of Rio Bonita had ever actually set foot in the Lone Star State, they had everyone completely fooled. On the whole, it was actually not bad trade-craft; however, the people they were attempting to deceive were very gullible. Their technique would not have worked so well in a more cosmopolitan location, say, downtown Berlin.
The night of the planned attack by Major John Randal et alia on the three Axis ships in San Pedro Harbor, the two sidekicks were in the ladies’ room of the San Pedro Rod & Gun Club preparing for their part in Operation Lounge Lizard. Each was dressed in a short, fringed cowgirl skirt, a wide, hand-carved leather belt with an engraved sterling silver concho belt buckle, and peewee cowgirl boots with big white “Lone Stars” inlaid on the tops. The boots featured high, skinny riding heels.
The dos amigas wore banana-yellow silk blouses with Western yokes and pearl snap buttons that they had gone to a lot of trouble not to button all the way up. The girls did not look the least bit wholesome: nothing at all, for example, like the “Queen of the Golden West,” cowgirl movie star Dale Evans.
The two cowgirls sauntered boldly out to the party room, across the empty dance floor, then outside to the expansive terrace where the well-lubricated power elite of San Pedro were gathered in eager anticipation of the start of Captain “Geronimo Joe” McKoy’s knife-throwing, pistol-shooting, and fireworks extravaganza.
The location for the show had been carefully selected. The stage put the guests outside on the back terrace behind the Rod & Gun Club, a mile and a half away from the harbor, down a winding mountain road in a spot where they would not be able to see Major John Randal and his team of Raiding Forces’ Commandos when they came calling.
The spectacular Rio Bonita River flowed past the back of the club in the valley below, two hundred yards away. The thought that head-hunting pygmies might be watching from the teeming dark jungle on the far bank added a shiver of excitement to the eagerly awaited event. Life traveled dead slow in San Pedro, so any organized event was keenly anticipated.
Except for the unlucky few who had the duty of standing watch on their interned ships, the officers of the Ems, Giove, and Egadi were all taking full advantage of the open bar. They knew their men were tying one on in the red-light district at the International Seaman’s Appreciation Street Party, so their consciences were clear—not that the German or Italian officers really needed an excuse. To a man, the Axis officers felt abandoned, out of touch with world events, sick of Africa, and put upon by the vicissitudes of war.
“You ladies sure do look like genuine, urban cow-sluts.” Captain McKoy shook his silver mane in approval when the secret agents sashayed up. The two beautiful British spies could not tell if he was paying them a compliment or not.
The captain was resplendent in a tangerine-colored silk shirt with enough white fringe dangling down to flock a Christmas tree. A long white silk scarf flowed from his neck. He wore pale whipcord pants tucked into the tops of his favorite pointy-toed yellow alligator boots outfitted with tall riding heels and big Mexican silver-rowled spurs that jingled when he walked.
Buckled around his waist in a hand-carved, double-holster El Paso rig rode his ivory-stocked, fully engraved single-action Colt .45 Peacemakers. Long, thick snow-white hair hung down, gunfighter style, out the back of his flat-brimmed pearl-gray Stetson hat. He was in rare form tonight.
Royal Marine Plum-Martin had lost the coin toss. While the crowd watched in drunken anticipation, Captain McKoy strapped her to the large, solid roulette wheel table that had been specially constructed to his specifications for the show.
“Would you care for a blindfold?” the ex-Arizona Ranger offered gallantly.
“No thanks, Captain,” she replied bravely.
“I’ll have one then,” announced Captain McKoy, “seeing as how y’all got yourself shortchanged in the dress department. It’d probably be a dang good idea not to get myself distracted a-throwin’ these Bowie knives.”
The inebriated crowd roared. Every man present, and one or two of the women, was already distracted. The handsome old Ranger manfully whipped off his 10-gallon hat as Captain Lady Seaborn pranced over and tied his scarf over his eyes. Then she pranced back and stood by the spread-eagled Vargas Girl look-alike Royal Marine strapped on the wheel.
“Are y’all ready, Captain?” called Captain Lady Seaborn.
“I was born ready!”
She spun the wheel. Royal Marine Plum-Martin tried but could not restrain herself—she shrieked as she went round and round.
Knives started flying immediately. “Whack, Whack, Whack.” They appeared between her tanned, extraordinarily fit legs and between her equally tanned and equally fit arms. A balloon pinned above her snow-blonde head burst.
When each knife found purchase, the lovely assistant tried very hard not to wiggle or scream. The crowd was thoroughly enjoying the action, agreeing that it was great fun and a terrific show.
To be honest, Captain Wolf Steiner, commander of the Ems, was a trifle disappointed by the entertainment. He had been waiting to see what would happen to the short, fringed, cowgirl skirt when the blonde whirled upside down. Captain McKoy did not leave him in suspense for long. His first knife pinned the tiny skirt firmly in place between her thighs. The throw drew a gasp from the audience, but that skirt was not going anywhere, no matter how long she hung upside down.
Too bad! Captain Steiner was a red-blooded sea dog. His only real vice was women, of whom he considered himself a connoisseur. Unfortunately, he had been trapped in San Pedro Harbor without any quality female companionship for quite some time now.
Ever since the day the two stunning Texas cowgirls had playfully tried to come aboard the Ems to visit, he had been making every effort—fruit-lessly until now—to find some way to arrange an opportunity to make amends for his rude behavior in not allowing them aboard his ship, which in retrospect he had decided was a mistake.
Before the war, Captain Steiner had always been a lucky sailor. He held a command in the German High Seas Fleet stationed at the precise place, with the exact weapon, at the right time to make German naval history! Few fighting men have ever been so fortunate, and he knew it. He was destined to be Hitler’s pirate.
The Nazi skipper had romanticized about sinking epic tons of enemy shipping. But when the word came down containing his wartime sailing orders, Captain Steiner had been staggered. Simultaneously with news of the outbreak of hostilities, the Ems received a priority message ordering her to throw the cannon concealed in her hold overboard, make a high-speed run to San Pedro, and NOT—repeat NOT—depart neutral Rio Bonita within the seventy-two-hour time limit mandated by international maritime law. Which meant the Portuguese would intern the Ems and her entire crew for the duration, however long that turned out to be.
Captain Wolf Steiner’s war was over before it ever got started.
The Ems’s orders condemned him to a never-ending slow-motion living hell. He was limited to passing on intelligence reports while his contemporaries enjoyed what the German Navy was calling the “Happy Time” sinking English ships, winning buckets full of medals in the process.
Tonight all he had on his mind was drinking as much as required to numb his pain and then to cut out one of the Texas beauties, board her, and plant his flag. Captain Steiner was fairly certain of success. Both women had been flirting outrageously with him ever since he had arrived at the club. Clearly the cowgirls were competing with each other to see which would be the one to get lucky. In that he was not entirely wrong. The girls did, in fact, have designs on the Ems’s commander.
The shooting portion of the show concluded with Captain McKoy twirling his pistols, exploding tossed glass balls that shattered spectacularly, splitting a bullet on the edge of a knife (which caused two balloons to burst simultaneously), and shooting a cigarette out of the wobbly mouth of San Pedro’s greasy-looking, bantam-sized mayor.
From the shark-toothed expressions on the faces of some of the party-goers who were unable to restrain themselves, there may have been one or two constituents present who secretly hoped the Wild West cowboy would have a momentary lapse, miss, and drill the diminutive mayor through his corrupt little brain. Rio Bonita may have been a laid-back, sleepy sort of place, but people played hardball politics there.