Desperate Bid for Escape
A bone boiled in the Rangoon’s plowing teeth. With steam already up, she had been able to slip her cable and swing seaward in a matter of minutes.
Less than a thousand yards behind the laboring Sultan, Schwenk was taking advantage of the short range. Nervous splatters of machine-gun bullets sent the paint chips soaring from the plates and superstructure of the fleeing steamer.
“We can’t make it!” wailed Tim.
“Hey, the boat’s crew!” shouted Briscoe to the natives. “Swing out that gig and turn over her engine in the davits.”
The natives jumped toward the small boat which was cradled on the upper deck.
Briscoe turned about and ran aft. He planted the machine gun on the fantail and crouched behind it in the protection of jumbled hawsers.
With quick, raking bursts he splintered every glass in the Rangoon’s pilothouse. The answering fire from the Rangoon’s chain lockers spattered brightly into steel, thumped angrily into the hemp.
Banjo squirmed aft on his stomach. His voice was strained and the words he said were punctuated by crackling slugs.
“There’s a Dutch gunboat two cable lengths away, two points off our bows. She’s blocking the channel. I saw her crew stripping a three-inch gun!”
Briscoe poured another burst into the Rangoon and then snaked backward, Banjo helping him to drag the machine gun.
They scrambled up a ladder to the bridge. Briscoe glared stormily at the sleek hull which waited like a starved shark for them.
“I knew it,” moaned Tim. “Schwenk behind us, a gunboat ahead of us. We can’t swim for it. They’ll board us and murder us to a man.”
“They sure will,” agreed Banjo.
Mike came up, mopping black grease from his hairy hands. He saw the gunboat and stopped dead.
“Jesus! What luck we do have. There hasn’t been a gunboat in these waters for almost a year and this one shows up right on the dot. You’d think it was sent for!”
“It was,” said Briscoe. “Come on, there’s no time to stand around yammering about it. Into that gig.”
“Gig?” gaped Tim. “You mean you’ll go to sea in a gig?”
“We’re going ashore,” stated Briscoe, slapping the machine gun down in the small boat’s bow. “Engine all right?”
The stroke oar of the black longboat crew nodded jerkily. His three mates were riveting their bulging eyes upon the gunboat’s sleek hull.
“Ashore?” gaped Tim. “You mean we’re going ashore? You mean you’ll put Schwenk on our trail direct?”
Briscoe motioned toward the beach. It was about a thousand yards away. The water which flanked the channel swirled ominously in spots, marking hidden fragments of reef. The surf was breaking directly on the sand. Behind that an impenetrable wall of heat-distorted jungle spread its thick tangle over the mountains like a blanket.
“Half speed,” said Briscoe. “Hard astarboard. Head straight in toward the beach. With this ship protecting us from the gunboat’s shells, we’ve got a chance to make it.”
“But the Rangoon’s guns!” cried Tim.
“Damn the Rangoon’s guns!” barked Briscoe. “Half speed! Hard astarboard! Lower away!”
The Sultan swung at right angles to her course and plowed through the reef-fanged water toward the sand.
The gunboat let drive. A three-inch shell moaned overhead and exploded before the bows.
The whites, the black men and the brown Kanakas swarmed into the gig. They lowered away. The racing water clutched their keel and tore them from the blocks. The boat’s engine raced, grabbed water and thrust ahead.
A second shell whined on its way. It struck the Sultan’s pilothouse. Glass, splinters, chips of lead and steel ripped the air. The superstructure collapsed. Tardily came the gun’s boom.
Still screened by the destruction-bent steamer from the gunboat, the gig, steering through jagged coral outcrops, sped for shore.
The Rangoon’s gunners suddenly understood. The water about the gig began to spatter as though beaten by rain. The gunwale caved in. The sea swiftly roared through the breach.
Briscoe grabbed the tiller. He had to get the boat ashore before it filled completely.
The Sultan hit a section of the reef, plowed into it, fell off on its side. A third shell made mincemeat out of the fantail.
Unable to follow through the shallow water, the Rangoon pulled up and put its gig over.
Briscoe shouted for his men to bail.
It appeared to be impossible to make the shore. Still fifty yards out, still in deep, turbulent water, the gig was foundering.
The gunboat had caught sight of the exposed gig, and its fourth shot geysered not ten feet away, almost sinking the ship’s boat.
A mighty, towering wave dipped under the gig’s stern and lifted it high.
With a roaring rush, with the foam breaking on their heads, the men were catapulted, boat and all, straight at the sand. They hit at about thirty miles an hour, knocking the gig to splinters, pitching them out on dry land.
They grabbed their rifles and the machine gun. Sand spurted under their feet as the Rangoon’s gig began to fire.
Briscoe reached the jungle and swept his men into cover behind him. He dug down the tripod legs of the machine gun, gripped the butts, squeezed hard on the trigger.
Water foamed all about the Rangoon’s gig. Hastily it about-faced and raced back.
The gunboat slid through the water toward the Rangoon. It looked as though the two ships put their heads together to think up a new way of seizing the mutineers.
Briscoe withdrew into the brush. Banjo had found a thickly overgrown trail, but not one man made a move to go down it.
“Where to?” said Mike.
“If Schwenk finds out exactly where we are and how many there are of us and what guns we’ve got,” said Tim, “he’ll be after us like a bloodhound.”
“He’ll know very shortly,” said Briscoe.
“How so?” demanded Mike.
“Because,” said Briscoe, inspecting the machine-gun belt, “the Kanakas are gone.”
“Why, the dirty—” began Mike.
“Let them go,” said Briscoe. “Gentlemen, we’re not licked yet.”