Kenneth Robeson - The Pirate of the Pacific

"It was necessary to throw a knife at them to decoy them away from their sampan long enough for me to get aboard and find a place to hide under the sail."

Doc fell silent and let his eyes rove over the room. It was not often that he went into such detail in describing his methods. But finding his five friends alive had made him a bit talkative.

Long Tom whipped aside the curtain behind which he and the others had been concealed for a time. This disclosed an army type portable radio transmitter and receiver.

"This is undoubtedly the set the Mongols intended to communicate with from the junk," he declared. "But where's Tom Too?"

"Did he have a chance to dodge you?" Doc asked.

Ham tapped his sword cane thoughtfully. "He might have. We met two of the pirates on the bay shore, had a little fight, and the others came to see what it was about. Tom Too might have remained behind, seen we had cleaned up on his gang, then skipped out."

"He hasn't had a chance to leave the island!" Monk grunted. "We searched the shore line. There wasn't a boat around. And one man couldn't navigate by himself the log raft we came over on."

Countless times Doc's ability to observe any movement about him, however slight, had proved invaluable. It served again now.

His mighty form whipped aside and down, flaky golden eyes fixed on the door.

Lead shrieked through the space he had vacated. A pistol, firing from the jungle, made stuttering clamor.

"Tom Too!" Renny boomed.

THE shot echoes were still bumping around over the island when Doc's five men turned loose with the little machine guns. The weapons poured bullet streams that were like rods of living metal. The slugs razored off leaves, twigs, branches the thickness of Monk's furry wrist.

After one volley they ceased firing.

Loud crashings reached their ears over the caterwauling of disturbed birds.

"He's beating it!" Renny shouted.

Doc and his men dived out of the room, leaving the cowering prisoners to their own devices. They weren't important game, anyway.

"Did you get a look at Tom Too's face, Doc?" Ham demanded.

"No. Only his gun shoving out through the leaves. I didn't even get the color of his skin. He was wearing gloves."

They spread out in a line, in the order of their running ability. Doc was far in the lead. Next was Johnny, gaunt and bony, but a first-class foot racer. Monk and Renny, the two giants, trod Johnny's heels. Ham and Long Tom were last, pretty evenly matched, with Ham the hindermost because he was trying to keep thorns from tearing his clothes. Ham was always jealous of his appearance.

"He's heading for the sampan!" Doc called.

An instant later they heard the outboard motor on the sampan start.

Doc reached the pondlike bay just in time to glimpse the stern of the sampan vanishing beyond the curtain of vines which screened the tiny harbor from the sea.

His men came up. They drove a few rasping volleys of lead at the drapery of creepers. Then they ran around the bay. This consumed much precious time.

The sampan was nearly three hundred yards distant, traveling like a scared duck:

If they had hoped to glimpse Tom Too's features, they were disappointed. The pirate leader was not in sight.

"Lying in the bottom of the boat to be out of the way of bullets!" Renny said grimly, and took a careful bead on the distant sampan.

His gun moaned deafeningly. The others joined him. Their bullets tore splinters off the sampan stern and scraped the sea all about the craft. But the range was long, even for a rifle, and they did not stop the fleeing boat.

"Where is the raft you fellows came over on?" Doc demanded.

"Up the beach!" rapped Ham, and led the way.

The furry Monk lumbered alongside Ham. They came to a spot where mud was underfoot, slimy and malodorous. In the middle of this Ham suddenly fell headlong. He floundered, then bounced up, smeared with the smelly goo from head to foot. He waved his sword cane wrathfully.

"You tripped me, you hairy missing link!" he howled at Monk. "Bugs to you!" leered Monk. "Can I help it if you fall over your own feet?"

However, Monk was careful to keep out of Ham's reach for the next few minutes.

Nobody had seen Monk do the tripping, but there was no doubt about his guilt. He had done worse things to Ham. And it was also certain that Ham would return the favor with interest. The going seldom got so hot that these two forgot to carry on their good-natured feud.

They reached the raft.

"IT'S a wonder the sharks didn't get you birds, riding that thing," said Doc, surveying the raft.

Monk snorted. He was in high good humor, now that he was one up on Ham.

"This shyster lawyer here wanted to feed me to 'em, claimin' they'd die of indigestion from eatin' me," he chuckled with a sidelong look at Ham. "Fallin' in the mud serves him right for makin' cracks like that."

Ham only scowled through the mud on his face.

The raft consisted of a pair of long logs, crumbling with rot, secured in catamaran form with crosspieces and flexible v]ines.

Doc eyed the sticks which had served as oars. They were highly inefficient.

"Put it in the water!" he directed. Then he vanished into the jungle.

The raft was hardly in the sea before Doc came back. He was carrying an armload of planks ripped from the house. These were much more suitable as paddles.

"What about the prisoners we left in the shack?" Renny demanded.

"They were still there." Doc exhibited one of the finger-tip thimbles containing the drug-laden needles — thimbles which produced long-lasting unconsciousness. "They'll be there quite a while, too."

They shoved off, taking positions on the shaky raft like a trained rowing crew. In a moment the paddles were dipping with machinelike regularity, shoving the crude craft forward at a fair clip.

Their eyes now sought the sampan bearing Torn Too. Doc had expected Tom Too to head for the pirate encampment on the south end of the island. But the sampan was skipping for the northern extremity, where the plane ]lay.

"We're in luck!" Doc said softly. "Tom Too doesn't know the temper of his cutthroats. He could dominate them easily and send the whole horde out to finish us. But he's afraid to go near them."

"Yeah, but he's headin' for our plane!" Monk grunted. "And there's bombs aboard it."

"Oh, no, there's not!" Ham clipped. "I stayed behind a little while last night after we heard the birds falling off their roosts and knew there was a gas cloud coming, long enough to chuck the bombs overboard."

The sampan swerved around the north end of Shark Head Island, entered the little bay, and was lost to sight.

Johnny spat a couple of words that would have shocked the natural science class he used to teach, and chopped at a cruising shark with his paddle. After that every one was careful that his feet did not drag in the water.

"Wilt they jump out of the water and grab a man?" Monk asked doubtfully.

"Probably not," said Johnny.

They kept their eyes on the little bay at the north end of Shark Head Island. The rattle of the outboard motor, made wispy by distance, had stopped.

Suddenly a shower of what looked like sparks shot into the air around the bay. The sparks were gaudily colored tropical birds. A moment later the froggy moan of plane motors wafted over the sea. It was their starting which had flushed up the birds.

"Why didn't you think to take something off the motors so they wouldn't run, wiseheimer?" Monk asked Ham.

Ham glared through his mud, said nothing. He did not dare dip up water to wash his face, due to the sharks.

Soon the plane skidded up into the sunlight. It wobbled, pitched, in the bumpy air. It flew like a duck carrying a load of buckshot.