Well of the Unholy Light

Rain had fallen for three days, and the jungle dripped with it. The fourth day had begun with heavy showers and faded into a dense fog. Yet despite the rain, the drums had not stopped.

The path was a slide of mud between two solid walls of jungle, green by day, an impenetrable blackness by night. Three miles by trail they had said. It would be like Frazer to live in such a place. He walked slowly. The drums bothered him.

He knew as much about the interior of Halmahera as anyone did, which wasn’t a great deal. Mostly, the natives lived along the coast, rarely going into the interior. But the drums were somewhere beyond Mount Sahu, apparently, and they might be as far away as Gam Konora.

The only way he could tell when he reached the clearing was by the sudden feeling of space around him. Then he glimpsed a light from the bungalow. He wondered again why Frazer had sent for him. The man had never been one to ask for help. He had been notoriously a lone wolf.

Suddenly he dropped to a crouch and then squatted down, listening. Someone was coming around the house! He dropped one hand to the gravel path to balance himself and waited. The footsteps stopped abruptly, and he realized the person had stepped off the path. He heard then the soft swish of receding steps through the grass. He started to call out, but then thought better of it and waited.

After a moment, he stepped up on the verandah and rapped softly. There was no reply. He pushed the door open and stepped in.

Then he stopped. The headless body of a man lay on the floor beside the desk! Staring, he stepped closer, noticing an old tattoo on the hand, between the forefinger and thumb. A faded blue anchor. Stepping carefully around the pool of blood, he glanced at the papers on the desk. He was just reaching to pick them up when a cold voice interrupted:

“So, we have a murderer!” The man’s voice was flat. “Put your hands up.”

Looking up he saw three men standing in the doorway. The speaker was a tall man with a cold white face, blue eyes, and blond hair. The others were obviously policemen.

“I’m afraid you’ve made a wrong guess,” he said, smiling. “I came to pay Bent Frazer a visit and found things like this.”

“Yes?” The man was icily skeptical. “Nevertheless, you will consider yourself under arrest. It so happens that Benton Frazer had no visitors. He was a recluse.”

“You think I murdered this man?”

“What else am I to think when I find you standing over the body with bloody hands?”

Involuntarily, he glanced down. His right hand was bloody!

But mingled with the blood sticking to his hand were tiny bits of sand and gravel. The path, that was it! When he crouched he had put his hand down. Whoever had carried the head away had obviously gone that way or else was wounded himself. Then, he thought swiftly, the man he had heard had not been the murderer, unless he had returned on a second trip!

“Don’t be dumb,” he said sharply. “If I killed him, where’s the head?”

The man scowled. “You could have disposed of that. Hans,” he snapped, “keep an eye on the prisoner. Thomsen, you will search the house!” He turned to the prisoner. “I am Karl Albran, the resident official from Susupu. Now what is your name, and where are you from?”

“My name?” the prisoner echoed. “My name is Mayo—Ponga Jim Mayo. I’m skipper of the freighter Semiramis, of Gorontalo.”

“Ponga Jim Mayo!” Albran’s face blanched. Then slowly the expression faded, to be replaced with something like triumph. “So,” he said softly, “Ponga Jim Mayo! I have heard of you, my friend.” Albran turned slightly. “Hans, this fellow has made something of a record for escaping from tight corners. So shoot if he makes even one false move.”

Hans smiled wolfishly. “This is one corner he won’t get out of!” he said. “I hope he tries.”

After Albran turned on his heel and left the room, Jim let his eyes rove around. There was still the problem of the murdered man. To the right of him, and near the window, was a pool of water. Remembering his own movements, he recalled that he had come around the other side of the blood, and none of the three recent arrivals had stood over there. Then, naturally, it had been someone else, who had arrived on the scene and surveyed it carefully and without interruption. Probably the man who had stepped from the path. But who?

A white man, Jim was sure. Bare feet don’t make such a sound on a gravel path. And white men in Halmahera were few and all too easily traced. Albran? He considered that. Yet it was hardly probable. And why had the head been removed?

Albran and Thomsen returned to the room with two other men. One of them Jim recognized instantly as Doc Fife. The roving surgeon was known in all the islands. He glanced at Jim out of shrewd eyes.

“Albran tells me you killed Frazer,” said Fife, smiling a little. “I told him he was crazy.”

Jim shrugged, said nothing.

Albran’s eyes were cold. “I found him here, starting to go through the papers on the desk. The body was still warm, and Jim had blood on his hand. Has it now. And I say he killed Frazer!”

Ponga Jim stared at Albran very thoughtfully. “Want a case pretty bad, don’t you?” he said.

Albran smiled coldly. “This is a time of war. I shall not delay the progress of justice, but order you shot—immediately.”

“What?” Fife demanded angrily. “You can’t do that! Nothing has been proved—”

“Proved?” Albran demanded. “Am I to deny the sight of my eyes?”

“Wait a minute!” Jim snapped. “I’m getting sick of this nonsense! If the sight of your eyes was worth anything you’d know the dead man is not Bent Frazer!”

Albran whirled, consternation in his eyes. Fife looked startled.

“What do you mean?” Albran demanded.

“That faded blue anchor tattooed on the man’s hand?” Jim said drily. “Frazer wouldn’t let himself be tattooed. He was at least two inches taller than this man and not so heavily built. This is Kimberly Rinehart. He was a friend of Frazer’s. I knew him well and recognized the body as soon as I came in.”

“Then—then where’s Frazer?” Albran exclaimed, “He must have murdered this man!”

“Nuts,” Jim said drily. “Frazer wouldn’t kill Rinehart. He is one of the few friends Frazer ever had. In fact, I think whoever killed this man thought he was killing Frazer. I think somebody wanted Bent Frazer dead. They sent a man to kill him, and he killed the wrong man.”

“Perhaps you know more about that than we do!” Albran snapped. “We’ll take you back to the village!”

“Okay.” Jim shrugged.

Hans stepped toward him, and Ponga Jim started to follow Albran. But suddenly his foot slipped in the blood and he plunged forward, his head smashing into Albran’s back and knocking him through the door into a sprawled heap on the path outside. Tumbling across him, Jim rolled over, scrambled to his feet and dove into the night and the jungle.

Thomsen snapped a quick shot into the night, and Ponga Jim grinned as it went yards from its object. After his first plunging run had carried him through the thick wall of jungle, Jim had stopped dead still. To move meant to make noise. He realized suddenly that he was clutching a bit of paper from the desk, picked up at the moment Albran discovered him. He thrust it in his pocket.

Back at the bungalow, Albran was shouting orders at Thomsen and Hans. Nearby, Doc Fife was talking in low tones with the man who had come up with him, a man whose face Ponga Jim could not distinguish.

Gradually Jim worked around a thick clump of ferns. Slowly, carefully, he worked his way back from the clearing. For a half hour he tried nothing but the most careful movement. Then he struck out, moving more boldly, and found the bank of a small stream. He stepped in carefully, found it shallow, and began to wade downstream toward the shore.

Walking in the water made travel faster, and Jim had time to think. He didn’t know why Bent Frazer had written him after all this time. He had no idea what Kim Rinehart would be doing there or why he should be killed or, if his theory was right, and Kim had been killed by mistake, just why anyone should want to kill Frazer.

And where did Albran fit in? The Dutch resident was a recent appointee, although he had been in the islands for some time, despite frequent trips back to the Netherlands. Yet, somehow, Jim couldn’t believe that he didn’t know more than he had any right to know. How had he happened on the scene so soon? And where had Doc Fife come from? Who was the man with him? And who was the man who had passed Jim in the darkness?

He was glad when he got back to the shore and could use his flashlight to signal the nightwatch on the Semiramis. Yet when he turned in he was no closer to a solution.…

         

Ponga Jim awakened to a banging on his door. Then he heard Slug Brophy, his chief mate, roar:

“Skipper! Wake up, will you? A couple of Dutch coppers out here want to put the pinch on you. Shall I drop the anchor on ’em?”

Jim sat up on his bunk. “Let them come aboard,” he said finally. “I’ll see them in the saloon. And tell Li I want some breakfast.”

Karl Albran, his lean face dark and ugly, was waiting in the saloon when Ponga Jim came out. With him was Doc Fife and another man whom Jim recognized instantly without giving any indication of it. A fourth man came in a moment later, and Jim’s eyes narrowed slightly before he smiled. Essen, he thought.

He sat down. “Don’t mind if I eat, do you? Nothing like a few ham and eggs to set a man up.”

“I suppose you know,” Albran said icily, “what you can get for resisting an officer?”

Jim chuckled. “Sure, but I also know what I could get walking down a trail ahead of a man who wanted me dead, too. And I don’t want any.”

“Are you insinuating that I—”

Jim nodded. “You’re darned right I am.” He took a mouthful of ham and eggs. “I’m not playing poker this time, Albran,” he said. “That walk down the mountain last night in the wet didn’t suit me a little bit. I don’t know what this racket is all about, but your part of it smells.”

“Why, you—” Albran’s face turned crimson with anger. “I’ll—”

“No, you won’t,” Jim said quietly. “And if you wanted to use the law, you can’t use it on my ship. I’ve got a crew here, mister, a tough crew. So don’t get any fancy ideas.”

“I think,” Fife said, interrupting, “that Mr. Bonner and I”—(so Colonel Sutherland of the British Intelligence was now Mr. Bonner, Jim thought)—“have convinced Mr. Albran that it is highly improbable that you would kill a man who had been your friend, and without reason. However, there must be an investigation, and Mr. Bonner here, who has had some business connections with Benton Frazer, is anxious the case be cleared up. We thought you might help us.”

Jim shrugged and then told them of receiving a message from Frazer and of what followed. He told it casually, carelessly, eating all the while.

“How about the message?” Bonner asked. “Did that give you any information?”

Jim reached into his coat pocket and tossed it on the table. It read:

COME AT ONCE. SOMETHING RIGHT DOWNYOUR ALLEY. TELL NO ONE. IMPORTANT YOU ARRIVE BEFORE THE FIFTH.

FRAZER.

“You have no idea what he wanted?” Fife asked. “Had he said anything previously that would be a clue?”

“Listen,” Jim said. “I hadn’t seen Frazer or heard from him in ten years. We worked some together but we were never what you’d call friends.”

“I’m sorry about last night,” Albran said suddenly. “If I’d thought, I’d have realized the truth. A few days ago Frazer discharged a Papuan, a former headhunter. Obviously, he killed him for revenge and then fled to New Guinea with the head.”

Ponga Jim chuckled. “No soap, pal.”

“What do you mean?” Essen said. “Is it not obvious if the head is gone that a headhunter must take it? Who else had use for heads?”

Jim chuckled. “Whoever killed Kim didn’t know I was going to come along so conveniently and be accused. He wanted Frazer out of the way, because Frazer knew something. But he didn’t want any investigation or questions asked. So he took the head, thinking it would be passed off as a headhunter’s job.”

“Why couldn’t it be?” Bonner asked.

“Simply because,” Jim said drily, “headhunters do everything according to habit and custom. The removal of a victim’s head follows a set pattern. Papuans always do it in the same manner, and rather neatly. Our friend who knocked off Kim just hacked off the head, not knowing his Papuan customs. As I said,” Jim looked up, grinning at Essen, “the guy who figured that one out was a dumb cluck with a head like a cabbage.”

“Then you believe Frazer, or rather, Rinehart, was killed by a white man?” Fife asked thoughtfully.

Ponga Jim nodded. “I sure do. Furthermore,” he added, “Frazer is still around somewhere, still ready to tell what he knows. Find him and you’ll blow the lid off more than Kim Rinehart’s murder. And when you begin to get suspects, ask them one question.”

“What?” Albran demanded.

“Ask them: ‘What do you know about the Well of the Unholy Light’!”

Silence gripped the saloon, and Jim saw Fife watching Essen. The man’s face was set and stiff. He was staring at Ponga Jim, his glance fairly ablaze with hatred.

“What do you mean?” Bonner asked. “What is the Well of the Unholy Light?”

“Back up on the slope of Gam Konora is a well that shows a peculiar, misty glow at night,” Jim explained. “It is phosphorescent or something. You can’t trace the origin of the light, either. There’s a batu paduran there. In other words, a stone city. It isn’t so very far from here. A day’s travel if you know the trails.”

“What does it have to do with this murder?” Fife asked.

Ponga Jim Mayo got up slowly, reaching for his cap.

“That’s your problem,” he said seriously. “But whoever killed Rinehart will answer to me. He wasn’t my friend, but we fought a couple of wars together, and men who do that don’t fail each other. So,” Jim looked first at Essen and then at Albran, “I’m declaring myself in for the duration!”

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.

         

Ponga Jim 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.

         

The 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!”

         

It 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.

This passage must come out in one of the stone buildings, he thought, and must be close to the well. And that well was something he must see. Somehow the Carlsberg and her cargo of submarines must be stopped. Somehow this plant must be wrecked. The problem, he knew, was to find how they got torpedoes to the ships on Todahe Bay.

They emerged from the passage in a square stone building near the tower. Outside the door the square seemed empty, yet they knew there were men in the tower above and probably others around close. Eyes narrowed, Jim studied the square thoughtfully. The tracks of some sort of a cart or truck led from the tower toward a cluster of rocks under the overhang of the cliff. The tracks had cut through the layer of soil to the solid rock of the plateau. Whatever they had carried had been heavy.

“What next, Jim?” asked Arnold softly.

“Look!” Jim indicated the marks of the wheels. “They’ve wheeled their torpedoes in that direction. Well, that’s the way we’re going! From now on it’s going to be a running fight until we reach the shelter of those rocks. Beyond that, I don’t know what we’ll find. But I’ve got fifty that says it’s the Well of the Unholy Light!”

“Let’s go!” Frazer said.

         

Gun in hand, Jim sprang through the door. A Japanese sentry was standing across the plaza. And before he could get his gun up, Jim shot him in the stomach. Then they started on a dead run for the rocks, just a hundred yards away. Abruptly then, a myriad of tiny spurts of dust jumped all around them. Jim heard a curse and knew someone was hit. He wheeled, fired, and then ran on. He was almost to the rocks when suddenly Essen sprang from behind them, holding a submachine gun. His eyes glinting with triumph, he jerked the gun to his shoulder.

Ponga Jim stopped dead still and lifted his own gun. The automatic bucked in his hand, then again. Essen backed up, astonished. Then slowly he pitched over on his face and lay still. But already Ponga Jim was beyond him, with Major Arnold at his side. It was only then that they saw Frazer. Bent was down on his knees, facing the opposite direction, his whole side stained with blood. He was firing slowly, methodically. Even as they saw him, Frazer’s Luger spoke, and a Japanese on the tower toppled forward, dead. Then a burst of machine-gun bullets from the tower hit Bent Frazer, fairly lifting him from the ground.

Ponga Jim Mayo turned, his face hard, staring around him. They stood on a narrow ledge of rock around the well. The water did glow with a peculiar light, visible in the shadows of the pool under the overhanging cliff. But there was nothing, only the well, a pool probably fifty feet across.

“Well,” Arnold said. “Here we are. Now what?”

“Keep your shirt on, William,” said Ponga Jim grimly. “Maybe I’ve guessed wrong, but I don’t think so.”

“This is a fine time to be in doubt!” Arnold snapped. “I think—”

Suddenly the waters of the pool began to stir as with the heavings of some subterranean monster. Then a conning tower broke the surface, and after it—the deck of a submarine!

“William,” said Jim, “watch outside. I’m taking this ship!” He turned quickly. “Don’t let them see your face until they are out of there,” he whispered hoarsely, “and for the love of Mike, don’t shoot!”

Breathless, they heard the conning tower hatch open and the sound of feet on the rounded surface of the sub. Then they heard a second pair of feet. A guttural voice spoke harshly in German, and Ponga Jim turned.

The two men, one a Nazi, the other the Italian, Calzo, were standing on the sub, just about to step ashore. Arnold pulled the trigger of his gun, but it clicked on an empty chamber. Coolly, Ponga Jim shot the Nazi over the belt buckle twice. As the man fell forward, Jim pivoted and snapped a quick shot at Calzo, who was hurriedly aiming his gun. The bullet struck the Italian’s gun, knocking it from his hand.

But Calzo was game. With a snarl of fury, he leaped ashore. Out of the corner of his eye Jim saw Arnold feverishly reloading his automatic and heard a wild yell from the plaza. Then Calzo sprang at him, swinging a powerful right. Jim ducked under the blow and hooked low and hard for Calzo’s ribs. The punch smashed home with driving force. Then Jim stepped in with a sweeping right uppercut that knocked the Italian off the edge and into the well. He sank like a stone. Now Arnold was firing desperately.

“Quick, Jim!” he yelled. “Here they come! At least fifty of them!”

“We’ve got a sub. Come on!” Jim snapped.

         

Arnold snapped one quick shot out of the conning tower and then slammed the hatch shut. In a minute he had swung into the engineer’s compartment, and with Jim at the periscope they submerged slowly.

“You got any idea what this is all about?” Arnold snapped. “This isn’t just a toy, you know.”

“We’re submerging,” Jim said cheerfully. “We’re going down around five hundred feet. Then we’ll find a passage and get out of it into Todahe Bay. There we’ll find the Carlsberg loaded with submarines, and we’ll shoot her one in the pants—I hope.”

“You hope!” Arnold said sarcastically. “You mean, I hope! And if something happens and you’re wrong?”

“We wash out,” Jim said simply and shrugged.

“Yeah?” William said. “That’s okay for you, but I’ve got a date with a girl in Makassar.”

Slowly the sub sank deeper and deeper. Ponga Jim wiped the sweat from his brow. After all, maybe it wouldn’t work. Still, the sub had just come up. It had to come from somewhere.

“You mean Kitty, that dancer from Manila?” Jim asked, grinning.

Arnold was astonished. “How did you know?”

Jim chuckled. “She tells me about all the strange people she meets,” he said. “Interesting girl, Kitty.”

The sub was still sinking, and for a moment they were still.

“My friend,” Arnold said suddenly, “are you sure these things will take five hundred? That’s awful deep!”

Jim stared at the depth gauge as the needle flickered past 200. 250—300—350—

“Maybe we’ve missed the outlet,” Arnold said.

“You would think of that,” Jim growled.

The pressure was building up at a terrific rate. He tried to see something, but the water around was black and still.

Four hundred!

“If it’s anywhere, it’ll be pretty quick now, William,” Jim said. “If it isn’t, we’re dead pigeons.”

Four hundred and fifty!

“Do you suppose your crew got to that bunch upstairs?” Major Arnold asked.

“I’d bet my life on that. That bunch of fighting fools never misses.”

Five hundred!

Nothing but blackness and the close, heavy heat of the sub. Then he saw it suddenly—the outline of an opening illuminated by the powerful light of the sub. Slowly, carefully, he eased the sub into the blackness.

“Like floating down a sewer,” Jim said aloud.

“I wouldn’t know,” Arnold said. “I never floated down any sewers.”

Suddenly they were out, and then they were rising.

“Thar she blows!” Ponga Jim said suddenly. “About two points on the bow. Stand by while I run this crate in a little bit, I’m going to give her both barrels. I thought these babies only carried one torpedo, but they have two!”

And with that he released both torpedoes.

All was quiet, then—

         

The shuddering impact of the explosion made them gasp for breath. Then, a split second later, the second!

“Two strikes, William!” shouted Ponga Jim. “Come on, we’re heading for the Ibu River and the Semiramis at top speed. We hit the Carlsberg one forward and one aft. She won’t float ten minutes!”

Ponga Jim ran shaky fingers through his hair. Suddenly he realized that he was sitting in trousers soggy with blood.

“William,” he said, “those Nazis clipped me. I’m shot.”

“Where?” Arnold yelled.

Jim looked down. “Nuts! I was just sitting in a paint bucket!”

There was silence for a moment, and then Arnold spoke up:

“Honest, Jim. Have you been out with Kitty? What’s she like?”

“Wonderful!” Ponga Jim said, grinning. “Why, Kitty is—” Red fluid cascaded over him. “Hey!” he roared, blinking. “What did you throw at me?”

“The rest of the paint bucket,” Arnold said grimly.