Mission to Siberut

Steve Cowan cut the throttle and went into a steep glide. He glanced at his instruments and swore softly. If he made it this time, he would need a rabbit’s foot in each pocket. Landing an amphibian on a patch of water he had seen but once several years before, and in complete darkness! But war was like that.

The dark hump beneath him would be Tanjung Sigep, if his calculations were correct. Close southward was Labuan Bajau Bay. The inner bay, visible only from the air, was the place he was heading for. It was almost a mile long, about a thousand yards wide, and deep enough. But picking it out of the black, jungle-clad island of Siberut on a moonless night was largely a matter of instruments, guesswork, and a fool’s luck.

Cowan saw the gleam of water. Guessing at four or five feet, he leveled off and drew back gently on the stick. The hull took the water smoothly, and the ship lost speed.

At one place, there was about an acre of water concealed behind a tongue of land overgrown with casuarina trees. Taxiing the amphibian around the tongue of land, Cowan anchored it safely in the open water behind the casuarinas. When he finished, the first streaks of dawn were in the sky.

Mist was rising from the jungle, and on the reef outside Labuan Bajau Bay he could hear the roar and pound of surf. There would be heavy mist along the reef, too, lifting above that pounding sea. Cowan opened a thermos bottle and drank the hot coffee, taking the chill of the night from his bones.…

Two days ago in Port Darwin, Major Garnett had sent for him. Curious, he responded at once. Garnett had come to the point immediately.

“You’re a civilian, Cowan. But you volunteered for duty, and you’ve flown over most of the East Indies. Know anything about Siberut?”

“Siberut?” Cowan was puzzled. “A little. I’ve been on all the Mentawi Islands. Flew over from Emma Haven on the coast of Sumatra.”

Garnett nodded.

“No Europeans, are there?” he asked.

         

Cowan hesitated.

“Not to speak of. The natives are timid and friendly enough, but they can be mighty bad in a pinch. Villages are mostly back inland. It’s heavily jungled, with only a few plantations. There are, I think, a few white men.”

“How about that trouble of yours some years back? Weren’t they white men?” Garnett asked keenly.

Steve Cowan chuckled.

“You check up on a guy, don’t you? But that was no trouble. It was a pleasure. That was Besi John Mataga. He’s a renegade.”

“I know.” Major Garnett nodded. “Furthermore, we understand he is negotiating with the enemy. That’s why I’ve sent for you.”

He leaned forward.

“It’s like this, Cowan. Intelligence has learned that fifty Messerschmitt 110s were flown from Tripoli to Dakar across the Sahara. They were loaded on a freighter heading for Yokohama. War broke out, and temporarily the freighter was cut off from Japan.

“Just what happened then, we only know from one of the crew, who was supposedly drowned. He got to us and reported that several of the crew, led by the chief mate, murdered the captain and took over the ship.

“The chief mate had some idea of striking a bargain with the Japanese. He’d claim the ship was injured and that he could tell them where it was—for a price.”

“And the mate is John Mataga, is that it?” Cowan asked.

“Exactly. Mataga had signed on under an assumed name, but was dealing with the Japanese as himself. Naturally, the freighter had to be hidden until a deal was struck. Our advices are that the deal is about to go through. In the right place at the right time, I needn’t tell you what those fifty Messerschmitts would mean to Japan.”

“No,” Cowan frowned. “Those Messerschmitts would be tough to handle.”

“That’s it,” Garnett agreed. “They must never reach Japanese hands. They must be found and destroyed—and we know exactly where they are?”

“Off Siberut?”

“Yes. Lying in Labuan Bajau Bay. You know it?”

“You bet.” Cowan sat up. “What do I do and when do I start?”

“You understand the situation,” Garnett said. “We can’t spare the pilots for an attack. Indeed, we haven’t planes enough. But one ship, flown by a man who knew the locality, might slip through.”

Cowan shrugged. “You want that freighter blown up?”

“Yes.” Garnett nodded vigorously. “You’ve had no bombing experience, so we can’t trust to that. You must land, and …”

But that had been two days ago.

The first night, Steve Cowan had flown the amphibian to a tiny inlet on the south coast of Java, where he remained all day, hidden from hostile scouting planes. Then when darkness fell, he took off again. Time and again he had narrowly missed running into the enemy. Once, south of Bali, he had come out of a cloud facing a lone Japanese plane.

He recognized it instantly. It was a Kawasaki 93, a bomber-reconnaissance plane. In the same instant, he banked steeply and sharply and fired a burst at its tail as it shot by him.

Cowan had the faster ship and could have escaped. But he was conscious of nothing but the realization that if the pilot broke free, it would be only a matter of minutes before speedy pursuit ships would be hunting him down.

His turn had brought him around on the enemy’s tail, and he gunned his ship. The Kawasaki tried an Immelmann and let go a burst of fire as it whipped back over in the tight turn. But Cowan was too close behind for the pilot’s fire to reach him.

He pulled his ship up so steeply he was afraid it would stall, but then he flattened out. For an instant the Kawasaki was dead in his sights.

Cowan’s burst of fire smashed the Japanese tail assembly into a stream of fragments. But their crew was game. They tried to hit Cowan with a burst from the observer’s gun.

Cowan saw the stream of tracer go by. Then he banked steeply and swung down in a long dive after the falling ship, pumping a stream of bullets into his target. Suddenly the Kawasaki burst into flame. An instant later, a red, roaring mass, it struck the sea.

The entire fight had lasted less than a minute. Cowan pulled back on his stick and shot upward, climbing until he saw the altimeter at sixteen thousand feet. Then he had leveled off and headed straight for Siberut.

         

Cowan drank the coffee slowly, then ate a bar of chocolate. It would be daylight in a matter of minutes, he knew. Beyond the clump of casuarinas on the shore would be the renegade freighter. Beyond the trees, and probably a mile away.

Carefully Cowan stowed his gear, then checked his guns. He was carrying two of them, a .45 Colt automatic for a belt-gun and a .380. The smaller gun was strapped to his leg inside his trousers. There was a chance he might need an ace in the hole.

The explosive he’d brought along for the job was ready. It had been carefully prepared two days before by one of the best demolition experts in Australia.

Cowan made his way ashore through the mangroves that grew down close to his anchorage. Then he swung down from the trees and walked along the sand under the casuarinas.

Besi John Mataga would not leave the freighter unguarded. There would be some of the crew aboard. And if Steve Cowan knew Besi John, the crew members would be the scum of the African waterfronts where they had been recruited.

How he was to handle that part of it, Cowan didn’t know. You could rarely plan a thing like that; so much depended on chance. You knew your objective, and you went there ready to take advantage of any chance you got.

The Japanese would be hunting the ship. They wouldn’t pay off to Besi John without having a try for it. But on the other hand, they couldn’t afford to delay for long. The planes were needed too badly, with streams of new Curtiss, Bell, and Lockheed pursuit jobs pouring into Australia.

Cowan halted under the heavy branches of a casuarina. The outer harbor was open before him. There, less than a half mile away, was the Parawan, a battered freighter of Portuguese registry.

It was at least possible, even if improbable, that Besi John did not know of the inner harbor. In any case, no large ship could possibly negotiate the channel without great risk. The entrance, about two hundred yards wide, was shoal water for the most part and out of sight behind the point of casuarinas.

The Parawan lay in about sixteen fathoms, Cowan judged, remembering the soundings of the outer harbor. On the shore close by was a hut, where traders used to barter for rattan and other wood products.

Moving along the point toward the mainland, Steve Cowan studied the freighter from all angles. He would have to get aboard by night; there was no other way. In any event, it wasn’t going to be easy.

Keeping under cover of the jungle, Cowan worked his way along the shore. Several times he paused to study the sandy beach. Once he walked back under the roots of a giant ficus tree, searching about in the darkness.

A ripple in the still water nearby sent a shiver along his spine. He watched the ominous snout and drew back further from the water’s edge.

“Crocs,” he said. “Crocs in the streams and sharks in the bay.”

Coming to the bank of a small stream, he hesitated, then walked upstream. Finally he found what he sought. In a clump of thick brush under the giant roots of a mangrove, he found a dugout.

Cowan had known it would be there. The natives would want a boat on this bay, and all the boats would not be upstream at the villages. He was going to need that dugout. The bay, like all the waters around Sumatra, was teeming with sharks.

Walking along the shore under cover of the trees, Cowan stopped abruptly. He had been about to step out into a clearing. There in the open space was the hut where the traders used to meet. Two men stood in front of it.

         

Besi John Mataga had his back to him, but Steve Cowan recognized the man at once. No one else had that thick neck and those heavy shoulders. The other man was younger, with a lean, hard face and a Heidelberg scar. Cowan’s eyes narrowed.

“They won’t find this place!” Mataga said harshly. “It ain’t so easy spotted. If they do, they’ll never get away. We got our own spies around here.”

“You’d better have.” The stranger’s voice was crisp. “And don’t underestimate the Aussies and the Yanks. They might locate this place. It must be known to other people.”

“Sure.” Besi John shrugged. “Sure it is, Donner. But it ain’t the sort of place they’d figure on. White men, they never come here. One did once, but he won’t again.”

“Who was that?” Donner demanded.

“A guy named Cowan. I had a run-in with him once out there on the beach. I whipped the tar out of him.”

“You lie!” Steve Cowan muttered to himself.

He studied Donner. Instinct warned him that here was an even more dangerous opponent than Besi John. Mataga was a thug—this man had brains.

“I’m giving the Japanese just forty-eight hours!” Donner snapped. “They either talk turkey or I’ll deal with somebody else. I might start out for myself.”

“They’ll talk,” Mataga chuckled. “Birdie Wenzel knows how to swing a deal. They’ll pay off like he wants them to, and plenty. Then we’ll tell them where the ship is, and pull out—but fast.”

“What about them?” Donner said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You still think the old man is good for some cash?”

Mataga shrugged.

“I’m goin’ to work on him. He knows where the dough is. It’s hid aboard that ship, and he knows where. He’ll talk before I get through with him!”

The two men turned and walked out to a dinghy where several surly-looking seamen waited. They got in and shoved off.

Cowan studied the hut. Now whom had Donner meant by “them”?

While Cowan mulled it over, a husky seaman came around the corner of the hut, a rifle in the hollow of his arm. He said something through the door of the hut, and then laughed at the reply. He sat down against the wall, rifle across his lap.

Cowan stood half behind the bole of a huge tree and studied the situation anew. As long as that man remained where he was, there was no chance that a dugout could reach the freighter unobserved. The seaman was not only guarding whoever was in the hut but watching the ship as well. Even on the darkest night, it would be difficult to get away from shore without being seen.

Cowan circled around the hut. When he was behind it, he straightened up deliberately and walked toward it. Just as he stopped against the wall, he heard a light step. Wheeling, Cowan found himself facing a slender, hatchet-faced man with a rifle.

The fellow grinned, showing blackened stumps of teeth. Cowan did not hesitate. Dropping his left hand, he grabbed the rifle barrel and wrenched so hard that he jerked it free before the man’s finger could squeeze the trigger.

Pulled off balance, the man fell forward into a smashing right uppercut to the wind. As he went down, Cowan struck him with the butt of his own rifle. He fell like a log and lay still.

Cowan wheeled, his breath coming hard. He was just in time. The big fellow he had seen on guard in front came around the side of the hut. Steve Cowan gave no warning, but struck viciously.

         

He was too anxious, and the punch missed. He caught a glancing blow from the other’s rifle and went to his knees. Blinded with pain, he nevertheless lunged forward and grabbed the man by the knees. The fellow struck again. Cowan rolled free, lashing out with a short blow that landed without much force. Both men got up at once.

The big fellow’s eyes flashed angrily. He rushed in, swinging wildly. Cowan lashed out himself, but caught one on the side of the head. The guard missed a vicious kick as Steve Cowan fell.

But Cowan was up quickly, and breathing hard. Steadying down, he met the rush with a hard right. The big fellow was fighting savagely, and apparently he had not considered a yell for help. Cowan knew he must get him, must knock the man out or kill him before he could shout.

It was more than a fight to win. It was more than a fight for mere life—although Cowan knew to lose meant death. It was a fight for all the lives that might be lost if those fifty crated pursuit ships out there got into Japanese hands.

The guard charged again, trying to close with him. Cowan struck with a short left to the face, then smashed a hard right to the wind. The guard lunged again. Cowan’s left speared his mouth. Then he drove in close, his big shoulders swaying with the rhythm of his punches.

The guard staggered, tried then to shout. But Cowan’s rocklike fist smashed his lips again. The man went down, falling into a left hook that knocked him to the sand.

Cowan fell on him instantly and tied his hands behind his back. Then he bound his feet. Panting with the exertion, Cowan started for his first opponent. One glance was enough. The man was dead.

Picking up the guard’s rifle, Cowan threw the other man’s weapon into the brush. Then he sauntered around the hut, keeping his head down. If observed with glasses from the freighter, he might pass to an unsuspecting watcher for the guard. That individual was heavier, but it was not too noticeable at a distance.

Once around the shack Steve Cowan stepped warily inside, fearing there might still be a third guard. But there were only two people—an elderly man and a girl, both bound to chairs. They stared at him anxiously.

Hastily Cowan knelt and freed them. He glanced then at the man.

“You, I take it, are the captain of that ship out there,” he said.

The man nodded, questioning gratitude in his eyes.

“Name of Forbes, Ben Forbes. This is my niece, Ruanne. Had a mutiny off the Cape. Left Dakar for Saigon, French Indochina, the sixth of last December, Mr. Mataga brought us in here after a week’s layover at Amsterdam. The island, you know.”

Cowan stepped back into the doorway.

“You’ll have to stay in here until dark. I think they are watching. They’ll believe I’m your guard.”

“What happened to him?” Ruanne asked suddenly. It was the first attempt she had made to speak.

“He had a little trouble out back,” Cowan said dryly. “He’s tied up. There was another man, too.”

“That was Ford. The big fellow is Sinker Powell. They were in the black gang,” Captain Forbes explained.

“Ford’s not going to be in any black gang again,” Cowan said quietly. “The Sinker is still around, though.”

Forbes couldn’t yet contemplate his release.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Turning us loose, maybe I shouldn’t ask, but—”

“The name is Steve Cowan. I’m a flyer. Commercial, not Army.”

“You’ll help me take back my ship?” Forbes pleaded.

“Take it back?” Cowan gave him a sidelong glance. “Cap, there must be twenty men aboard there.”

“Are you afraid?” Ruanne looked at him quietly, her eyes inscrutable. “You don’t look like a man who would be afraid. But I could be wrong.”

Cowan grinned, feeling his face tenderly.

“I only wear this blood on my head when I meet ladies. Anyway”—he looked at Forbes—“I couldn’t help you, Captain. I’m a guy who doesn’t beat around the bush. I came here for one reason, to blow your ship sky-high, and blown up it will be before I leave this island.

“You can help me, though. If you don’t want to, all I ask is that you stay out of my way. I’ve got a plane, and when this is over I’ll fly you out.”

Forbes glared at him.

“Blow up my ship? Are you crazy, man! There’s cargo aboard that ship for Saigon.”

“No,” Steve Cowan replied quietly. “There are planes aboard that ship for Japan.”

Forbes’s eyes narrowed.

“A crank, eh? Young man, if you have an idea you can start injuring Japan by sinking my ship, you’re all wrong. You sound like one of these ‘Yellow Peril’ loudmouths. You talk like a blatherskite! I lived in Japan, and—”

Cowan lit a cigarette. When he dropped the match, he leaned his shoulder back against the wall.

“Cap,” he said slowly, “when did you say you left Dakar?”

“On December sixth. Why? What has that to do with—”

“Wait a minute, Uncle Ben.” Ruanne’s eyes were on Cowan. “He wants to say something.”

“You left Dakar on December sixth,” Cowan repeated slowly. “On the morning of December seventh, the Japanese raided the Pearl Harbor naval base. Then they invaded the Philippines, attacked Malaya, took Singapore, Balik Papan, Palembang, Menado, Rabaul, and the whole Dutch East Indies. The islands in this part of the world are filled with their ships and planes.

“The United States Fleet struck back at the Marshall Islands. Our planes have begun action from Australia. You are right on the edge of the biggest war in history!”

Captain Ben Forbes stared at him, unbelieving.

“I—I don’t believe it!” he gasped finally. “Unless Mataga bribed my radio operator to keep me in the dark. I never trusted him much.”

“There’s your answer,” Steve said slowly. “Cap, your freighter out there has fifty Messerschmitt pursuit ships for the Japanese. Those planes can mean many lives lost, much equipment destroyed. They can, for a time and in a few places, give the Japanese equality or superiority in the air. It might be at the crucial spot.

“I know what a man’s ship means to him, Cap,” Cowan added. “But this is bigger than any of our jobs. I was sent here to see that that freighter is blown up. I’m going to do it.”

“He’s right, Uncle Ben,” Ruanne said softly. “He’s very right.”

All through the day they waited, discussing the ship, the crew and the chances there would be. Sinker Powell lay bound and gagged, but he glared furiously and struggled.

Captain Forbes paced the hut.

“I don’t like it!” he said finally. “You’re going aboard that ship alone. If they jump you—”

“If they do,” Cowan said grimly, “it will be up to you, Cap. That cargo must be destroyed.”

Forbes hesitated suddenly.

“There’s a lot of casing-head gas aboard,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s stowed amidships in steel drums. There’s a tank aft we carried gasoline in, but it’s empty now. I was going to have it cleaned when we got to Saigon. But you might dump some of those drums of casing-head. It would make a devil of a fire.”

“I’ll find a way,” Cowan declared. He had not mentioned the explosive he’d brought along. “As soon as it’s dark, I’ll slip aboard. You and Ruanne had better go out on the point under those casuarinas. I’ll meet you there. We’ll have to get away fast when we go. The explosion and the flames will be sure to bring the enemy around here thicker than bees around a honeycomb.”

         

He sat down outside the hut, as Sinker Powell had been sitting when Cowan first sighted the man. There he stayed, alternately watching and dozing while Forbes watched. It was a long day. At any moment Besi John Mataga might decide to come ashore. That was what Cowan feared most; for going aboard the ship was an anticipated danger.

         

Night closed in suddenly as it does in the tropics. Cowan walked back along the shore with Captain Forbes and Ruanne. When he came to the dugout he stopped.

“Go out on the point about halfway,” he said, “but stay back in the jungle out of sight. This shouldn’t take me long. If I don’t get back—” Cowan hesitated, gazing down at Ruanne—“you’d better go back inland to one of the villages.

“The natives are friendly if you treat them right. Then stay there until this war is over or you find a way out. But I’ll be back,” he declared softly.

They walked on. Cowan loaded the gear he had concealed near the dugout and shoved off.

It was deathly still. No breeze touched the face of the water, no ripple disturbed its surface. Clouds covered the sky. The heat was heavy in the humid, unmoving air. Cautiously Cowan dipped his paddle, and the dugout moved easily through the water.

It seemed a long time before he saw the dark hull of the ship. For an instant he hesitated, fearing a challenge. Then he moved on, with scarcely discernible movements of his paddle. He worked the dugout toward the stern, away from the lighted ports. Except for those two ports, the freighter was blacked out. Even as he watched, their lights flicked out, too.

There was silence, heavy and thick. The dugout bumped gently against the hull. Cowan worked his way alongside with his hands, hoping for a rope line, something by which he could get aboard. There was nothing.

He picked up the coil of line he had brought, adjusted the wrapping on the hook again. Sighting at the dimness where the rail was, he threw the rope. It caught and he hauled it in, testing the line with his weight.

It was now or never. If he fell, there would be no need to shoot him. Sharks would take care of that. As if in answer to his thought, Cowan saw the streak of phosphorescence left by a big fish swimming by. He slipped the band of his carrying sling over his shoulder and went up the line, hand over hand.

He crawled through the rail and crouched there in the stillness. There was no sound, no movement. Treading on cat’s feet, as though part of the night itself, he slipped forward.

Amidships—that was the place. It was most dangerous, as there would be more chance of discovery there and less opportunity of escape. But the casing-head gas was stored there. Its burning would insure practically complete destruction. And this had to be a clean job. Not one Messerschmitt was to remain. A clean job—

A sound amidships made Cowan crouch at the base of a winch. He saw a man walk out on deck, barely discernible in the darkness. The fellow stood there, looking toward the shore. Another man walked out.

“Funny Sinker ain’t got a fire,” one of them said.

“Act your age, Joe,” the other replied. “The Old Man wouldn’t let him have one. Too dangerous.”

“Chiv,” Joe said suddenly, low-voiced, “you think Mataga will give us a square cut on this money? After all, look at the chance we’re takin’.”

“Better forget it,” Chiv whispered uneasily. “We got to string with him. I want mine, but I ain’t no man to cross Besi John Mataga. You see what he done with the second mate? Cut him to pieces with his own knife. The man’s a fiend!”

“Donner’s worse,” Joe said sullenly. “Me, I’m out for the dough. I’m gettin’ mine, see? No wise guy ever crossed Joe Gotto yet. I ain’t so wise to the angles in this part of the world. I’d feel better if I was in Chicago, or Memphis, or the Big Town.”

         

Steven Cowan slipped along the starboard side of the hatch, crouching low. Amidships, he found, as he had feared, that the hatch was still covered. Working swiftly, he took out the wedges, then slid the steel batten from its place. Lifting the corner of the tarpaulin, he got hold of the end hatch cover and slid it slowly out of place, then eased it to the deck.

Swiftly he eased himself into the hole. Pulling the tarpaulin back over him, he went down the steel ladder in the utter blackness of the hold. It seemed a long time before he reached the bottom. Then he was standing on a tier of cargo.

Momentarily Cowan flashed a light. He was standing on a tier of casing-head drums, piled six high. He put the explosive down and coolly spun the tops from a dozen of the drums. Then, as he stooped to adjust the time on the explosive, his flashlight slipped and fell. The glass broke with a faint tinkle on the dunnage below.

For an instant, Cowan crouched in the darkness, his heart pounding. He dared not strike a match, for by now the air around him was filling with fumes of gasoline. For the life of him he could not recall the time for which the bomb was set!

It might be set to go off in three minutes, or five, or an hour. Possibly even a dozen hours. Steve Cowan had planned to adjust it before leaving. Now he had no idea. All that remained was to throw the switch that put the thing to work.

It might blow him up instantly. It might go off before he was out of the hatch. Or off the ship—

It was a chance he had to take. Cowan turned the button and then straightened to his feet. He moved swiftly and his hands found the rungs of the ladder. He went up, quickly and silently.

Pushing back the tarpaulin, he crawled out on deck. A cold voice froze him in his tracks, with one foot under the canvas.

“So? Snooping, is it?”

The voice was Donner’s, and a second later a light flashed in Steve Cowan’s eyes.

He heard a startled gasp, saw the muzzle of a gun.

“Who are you?” The voice was cold, deadly. “Tell me, or I’ll fire!”

“I’m a refugee,” Cowan declared, heart pounding. “I was trying to stow away to get out of here before the Japanese come.”

Someone came out of the passage.

“What’s goin’ on, Donner?” It was Mataga’s voice. Then Mataga saw Steve Cowan’s face. “Well, for—”

“You know this man?” Donner’s voice was deadly. “Get inside off the deck,” he snapped.

When they were in the saloon, Besi John sat on the corner of the table. His gross, hard-bitten face was unshaven, and his small eyes were cruel.

“So, Mr. Steve Cowan. After all these years we get together again!”

Mataga’s face flamed suddenly and animal fury gleamed redly in his eyes.

“Again! D’you hear? And I’m top dog this time! I’ll teach you a thing or two, you dirty—”

“Take it easy.” Donner’s voice was even. “Who is this man?”

“Him?” Mataga’s voice was ugly. “This is Steve Cowan. He’s a tramp flyer. The one I told you about who knew this place.”

“Flyer, eh?” Donner looked at the Yank. “Where’s your ship?”

“Lost it at Palembang,” Cowan lied glibly. “Enemy got in too fast and bombed the field before I could get her off. Blew off my tail assembly. I got away into the jungle and came over to the west coast, headed for Padang or Emma Haven.

“The Japanese beat me to it, so I picked up a boat and sailed her here to Siberut. I saw this freighter and decided to stow away and get out.”

         

Donner studied him.

“It’s a good story,” he said slowly. “Almost too good. But where is the girl?”

“Girl?” Cowan felt an empty sensation in his stomach. “What girl?”

“The one,” Donner said coldly, “that left this hair on your shoulder!”

Deftly he picked a long golden hair from Cowan’s shirt. Evidently it had been left there when he was making his way through the trees beside Ruanne.

“Blond?” Besi John’s eyes were hard. “Why, there ain’t a blonde within miles but that Forbes girl!”

“I think,” Donner said coolly, “we had better tie this man up until we investigate a little further. I found him trying to crawl into the hatch. A minute later and he would have been out of sight.”

He turned.

“Mataga, send a couple of men ashore at once. I don’t like the looks of things.” He hesitated. “I’ll go with you.”

         

Steve Cowan, tied to the rail on the starboard side, watched the sky grow gray. At first there had been some sounds ashore, but then the island had settled into silence.

Nothing had happened. Down in the hold amidships the time bomb ticked on. Or had it stopped? Was all his work to be futile, after all? Cowan sat against the rail, gazing blindly ahead of him, weary as he had never been. On the deck, a few yards away, Joe Gotto, the ex-gangster was sitting beside Chiv Laran.

Past them, Cowan could see the open manhole in the deck. He stared, then slowly his weariness fell away. He looked at Joe and Chiv thoughtfully.

“Who opened that manhole?” he demanded suddenly.

Joe glanced up lazily, shifting his rifle.

“That?” He shrugged. “Mataga. He said it would have to be cleaned. He’s as bad as Forbes was. Always cleaning something.”

Cowan eyed the two again.

“You don’t look to me like a sucker, Joe,” he said. “But your side of this deal doesn’t smell so good.”

“Shut up,” Chiv said harshly. “We ain’t turnin’ you loose.”

“You’d be smart if you did,” Steve Cowan declared. “What’s your cut on this deal? You ever think of how much you’ll get—if they split the dough they get for these planes? By the time each of you gets a cut, your end wouldn’t buy you a ticket to a safe port. I know that Mataga. He’d doublecross his own mother.”

Joe looked at Cowan thoughtfully.

“So what? If he don’t collect, we can’t.”

“No?” Cowan glanced at Chiv, who was listening sullenly. “Why is Mataga keeping Forbes alive? Forbes has a cache of jewels aboard this ship, that’s why. Did Mataga tell you that? Or Donner?”

Cowan glanced shoreward, but there was no sign of life.

“Or did they tell you there was a war on? That the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor?”

“Is that straight?” Gotto scowled. “Why, I’d like to—”

“What’s it to you?” Chiv demanded. “The cops run you out, didn’t they?”

“Sure,” Joe argued. “But what the devil! If the Japanese and Nazis take the States, my racket is sunk. I can’t compete with them guys. When I knock over a bank, I want to know there’s some dough in it.”

“I know where the jewels are,” Steve Cowan said quietly, looking directly at Chiv. “We could get them and get out. Let Mataga have his crummy planes.”

“Get out?” Chiv sneered. “You mean swim?”

“No, I mean in my plane. I told Mataga it crashed, but it didn’t. It isn’t ten miles from here. We could grab those jewels, just the three of us, and take it on the lam.”

Joe studied him thoughtfully. Then he glanced sideward at Chiv, whose yellow eyes were narrowed.

“You sound like a right guy,” he said. “I like the sound of it. Anyway, if the Japanese are going to use the planes against our gang, why—”

“What the deuce do you care?” Chiv snarled. “Nuts! I don’t care who gets the planes. I want some dough! I’m no Yank.”

“Those stones are close by,” Steve Cowan hinted. “We haven’t much time.”

“Yeah?” Chiv sneered. “Suppose I let you loose? Then you’d get them! Don’t be a sap! Mataga will be back in a little while.”

“Sure.” Cowan shrugged. “And then you get the dirty end of the deal. You think I’m a sap? Those stones are down in that manhole, Chiv, in a box back in the corner of the tank. That’s why Mataga opened it. That’s why I wanted to know.

“He’s letting it air out a little, that’s all. You get that box and we’ll get out of here.”

Joe said nothing. He glanced at Cowan curiously, shifted his rifle a little.

Chiv got up and looked shoreward. Then he approached the manhole, flashing his light down the rungs of the ladder. It wouldn’t reach to the corner.

“You got that plane, sure thing?” he demanded. “Because, if you haven’t—”

“You got a rod, Chiv, haven’t you?” Joe cut in suddenly. “He’s tied up, ain’t he? If it ain’t there, what do we lose? If it is, we take this guy, still tied, and head for the plane.”

“How does he know we won’t bump him?” Chiv asked. “We could have it all.”

His yellow eyes shifted back to Cowan, and the Yank felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

“I’m the flyer,” Cowan said. “I know where the plane is.”

“All right.” Chiv glanced shoreward again quickly, then he looked at Joe. “Don’t let him try anything funny, see? I’ll be right back up.”

His light thrust in his belt, he started down the ladder.

Joe Gotto sat up a little, watching his prisoner, his eyes very bright. Cowan stared at the manhole. They both heard Chiv slip, heard the hollow thump when he hit the bottom.

Cowan tore his eyes from the manhole.

“Now it’s just us, Joe. You’re a Yank and so am I. Do the Japs get this load of planes to get our boys with? You’re a tough cookie, pal. So’m I. But we aren’t either of us rats!”

“What was it?” he asked. “What happened to Chiv?”

“No oxygen. Those tanks are dangerous. I had an idea that in this heavy air, darned little of that gas would escape.”

He bent over Cowan and hurriedly unbound him. The Yank straightened up, stretching his cramped muscles.

Cowan grabbed up the shotgun dropped by Chiv Laran and ran with Joe to the gangway. A lifeboat bobbed alongside.

“What happened to Mataga?” Joe demanded. In running forward he had picked up a tommy gun from the petty officer’s mess, where it had been left on the table.

“He’s hunting Forbes and the girl!”

Steve Cowan sprang ashore when the boat grated on the beach. Then as Joe jumped down beside him, he shoved the lifeboat back into the water.

Turning, he led the way into the jungle, heading for the point. They had gone only a dozen steps when Cowan stopped suddenly, holding up a hand.

“Listen!” he said. Someone was floundering through the brush, panting heavily. Joe lifted his tommy gun, his eyes narrowed.

“Hold it!” Cowan whispered.

It was Captain Forbes. The old sea dog broke through the brush, his face red, his lungs heaving. His clothing was torn by brambles, and his face and hands were scratched.

“They’re comin’!” he said. “Right behind!”

“Where’s Ruanne?” Steve Cowan demanded.

“At the plane!” Forbes looked bad, the veins in his throat standing out, his lungs heaving. “We found it! I tried to lead them away; they got too close!”

         

Someone yelled back down the shore. Cowan turned, leading the way toward the mangroves.

“Make it fast!” he whispered. “We’ve got a chance!”

They were almost to the amphibian before Cowan noticed that Joe had not followed. He wheeled and started back. Ruanne stopped helping her uncle in the cabin door.

“Where are you going?” she cried. “Come on!”

“Can you fly?” Cowan hesitated, the shotgun dangling. “If you can, warm that ship up. We’ll be back!”

He turned and plunged back into the jungle. Even as he broke through the first wall of green, he heard the angry chatter of a tommy gun and Joe’s raucous yell, then the sound of more guns. Joe cried out suddenly in pain.

Cowan burst into a small clearing just as Donner and Besi John Mataga, followed by a dozen men, came through on the opposite side. A bullet smashed by his head, and Cowan jerked up the shotgun. It roared. Donner grabbed the pit of his stomach and plunged over on his face.

Joe Gotto, down on one knee, was raking the killers with his tommy gun. Steve Cowan fired again, and the line broke and ran.

Lunging across the clearing, Cowan swept Joe Gotto to one shoulder and ran for the mangroves. Beyond, the amphibian’s twin motors were roaring music in his ears.

Almost at the same instant, a plane roared by overhead. Cowan glanced up, swearing. It was a Kawasaki. It was circling for a return when Cowan boosted Joe into the cabin and then grabbed the controls.

“Strap him in!” he yelled.

He opened the plane wide and let her roar down the open water, throttle wide. Just short of the trees he pulled back on the stick, and the amphibian went up in a steep climb.

Roaring on over the casuarinas, Cowan gave a startled gasp. A long, slim gray destroyer was alongside the Parawan, and a stream of Japanese sailors and marines were running up the gangway!

Then he pulled back on the stick again just as the Kawasaki came screaming back toward him. Opening the ship wide, he fled; for the enemy was on his tail and his only safety at this low altitude lay in speed.

A roaring chatter broke out in Steve Cowan’s ears. Turning his head, he saw Joe Gotto, strapped in a seat, firing his tommy gun out the port.

The burst of bullets missed, but the Japanese wavered. In that instant, Cowan skidded around in a flat turn, raking the Kawasaki with a quick burst of fire. But the soldier was no fool. Screaming around in a tight circle, he tried to reach Cowan with his twin guns in the nose, while his observer opened fire from the rear cockpit.

A bullet hole showed in the wing. Then Cowan pulled the amphibian on around and climbed steeply. Rolling over before the enemy could follow, he poured a stream of fire into the Kawasaki’s ugly blunt nose.

The engine coughed, sputtered. Then Cowan banked steeply and came back with the son of Nippon dead in his sights. His guns roared. The Kawasaki burst into a roaring flame and went out of sight.

Then for the first time Cowan heard a pounding in his ears. Off to his left a puff of smoke flowered. Glancing down, he realized with a shock that the destroyer’s anti-aircraft guns were opening up on him.

He pulled the stick back and shot up into the sky, reaching for all the altitude he could get. He was still climbing in tight spirals when he rolled over a little to obtain a better view.

It was like that, with Steve Cowan watching the scene below, when it happened. He had forgotten the time bomb. He had forgotten everything in the rush of action. How it had been set, he never knew. But suddenly, it turned loose with a tremendous detonation.

         

A pyramid of flame shot skyward until Cowan thought his own wings, hundreds of feet above, must be singed. The puff of explosion struck his ship and sent it staggering down the sky. He got it righted, banked steeply, and circled slowly over the roaring fire below.

The Parawan was gone. Where it had been was a mass of flaming wreckage. Beside it settled the Japanese destroyer, ablaze from stem to stern, with the bay around it for many yards a furnace of burning oil.

Steve Cowan leveled off and then pointed his ship south.

“Better have a look at Joe,” he said to Ruanne. “He may be hit bad.”

“Aw, it’s nothin’,” Joe protested, blushing. “Take me somewhere where I can join the Army. Boy, what I just seen! And me, I thought Brooklyn’s ‘Murder Incorporated’ was tough!”