Kenneth Robeson - The Pirate of the Pacific

"Have any trouble?" Monk asked.

Doc shrugged. "Not much."

At this point a second shark carcass appeared beside the first. The hideous creature had been slain with a single expert knife rip. Monk and the others recognized Doc's handiwork. He had battled the monster under water and dismissed it as "not much."

"Huh!" ejaculated Monk. "What were you doin' way over there? The sunken plane is under us."

"Tom Too had a brief case with him, but dropped it when the shark tackled him," Doc replied. "I dived for it from here, not wanting him to know I was after it."

"You get it?"

The bulge in Doc's shirt front gave answer.

THEY now paddled the raft to shore. Tom Too did not fire at them again — a wise move on his part.

"Make for the sampan!" Doc directed.

They sped northward along the beach.

Monk glanced over his shoulder. "Hey — lookit!"

Wheeling, the rest saw Tom Too. The master pirate had come out on the beach half a mile to the south. He was running for dear life, headed for the encampment of his yellow cutthroat horde.

"I'm in favor of going after him!" Renny boomed. Apparently it did not occur to him that they might not be able to whip several hundred slant-eyed pirates who had been fighters all their lives.

"The sampan!" Doc said impatiently. "We'd better get it and clear out of here."

They resumed their sprint for the sampan, smashing their way through the jungle growth in a short cut across a little headland and reached the beach in short order.

"Good!" rapped Ham, catching sight of the sampan where Tom Too had beached it. "I was afraid he might have jabbed a hole in the bottom, or something."

Renny pointed at the outboard motor.

"Look!" he roared. "The gasoline has been let out!"

The valve of the fuel tank was located in such a position as to spill the emptying fuel upon the sand, where it was hopelessly lost.

"This puts us in a swell mess!" Monk groaned.

Four hardwood paddles reposed on the sampan floorboards. Doc indicated them. "Grab 'em!"

"We can't escape by paddling," Monk pointed out. "The pirates have speed boats Tom Too will send them after us."

With a mighty shove, Doc sent the sampan into the water.

"We'll get back to the other island!" he declared.

There was no more argument. The sampan surged away from the beach, propelled by lusty paddle strokes.

Ham, between sweeps of his paddle, nodded at the bulging front of Doc's shirt, which held the contents of Tom Too's brief case.

"Do you suppose there's anything worth while in there?" he asked.

"We'll let that slip for a while and examine it later," Doc said, then leveled an arm. "Tom Too didn't lose much time!"

They all followed Doc's gesture. Around the other end of the island, a pair of junks appeared, together with several speed boats. More craft followed — junks, sampans, launches, and other boats.

The hardwood paddles bent and creaked as Doc's men increased their pace. Water split away from the sampan bows with a steady, sobbing noise. They were making good speed for the palm-crowned smaller island.

"We'll beat them to the island!" Ham decided aloud.

"Yes — and then what?" snorted Monk.

Doc's five men exchanged bleak looks. They were perfectly aware they had never faced greater odds. They were experienced fighting men, and they knew a fight against these hundreds of pirates could be nothing but hopeless.

A corsair machine gun dropped a shower of slugs some hundreds of yards short. The spent bullets continued to drop in the water, coming closer and closer. But the little island was now but a few fathoms distant away from the men.

The rasp of the sampan keel on the beach was a welcome sound.

DOC and his men piled out. A few rifle slugs made chopping noises in the tangled jungle growth. Doc eyed the belts and bulging pockets of his men.

"Got plenty of ammunition?" he questioned.

Monk grinned wryly. "Not as much as I'd like to have. We've got a couple or three hundred rounds apiece. That was about all we could swim with when we left the plane last night."

"Latch the guns into single-shot fire," Doc directed.

Each man flipped a small lever on his compact little machine gun. The weapons now discharged only a single bullet for each pull of the trigger.

Using a sampan paddle as a spade, Doc set to work digging a shallow rifle pit. He located it slightly within the jungle, so he could quit it without being observed.

The others followed his example, saying no word.

Straight toward the beach plunged the pirate boats. The launches, being more speedy, were far in the lead. The pirates had erected small shields of sheet steel in the craft — their usual precaution, no doubt, when going into battle.

Prows scooping foam, they approached to within two hundred yards. Then a hundred! Their speed did not slacken. A machine gun in the bow of one began to cough bullets through a slit in a metal shield. The lead hissed and screamed and tore in the jungle about Doc and his men.

"Let the first one land!" Doc commanded.

An instant later the leading speed boat hit the beach. It was traveling fast enough to skid high and dry out of the water. The slant-eyed killers, braced for the impact though they were, nevertheless slammed against thwarts and bulkheads.

"Now!" Doc clipped. "Get 'em in the legs and arms!"

His gun spat. The weapons of his men rapped a multiplied echo. They were crack marksmen, these men. They took their time and planted bullets accurately.

Two yellow men fell out of the launch almost together, bit in the legs. Pain made them squall noisily. Others cackled in agony as slugs, placed with uncanny precision, took them in the hands and arms.

There was psychology behind Doc's command not to kill. One wounded Oriental, yelling bloody murder, could do more to spread fear among his fellows than three or four killed instantly.

Bedlam seized the launch occupants. They could not even see Doc and his men. A tight group, they sought to charge. Those in the lead went down, legs drilled.

Howling, the gang ran back and tried to shove the launch into the water. They were not sufficient in number for the job. In remorseless succession, these also fell.

"Now — the other launches!" Doc ordered.

The volley he and his men fired sounded ragged, scattered. But hardly a bullet went wild.

The nearer launches, four in number, could not hold up before shooting like this. One careened about madly, the helmsman pawing a drilled shoulder, and barely missed crashing another craft. Then all four sheered off, the occupants expressing their opinion of Doc and his men in assorted tongues.

They were going to await the arrival of the heavier junks and sampans.

Monk, flattened in the pit he had scooped, asked Doc:

"What now?"

Doc's pit was in the jungle to the right. No answer came from the spot. Puzzled, Monk squirmed up to look.

Doc was gone. He had vanished silently the instant the fight was over.

NO more than a minute passed before Doc returned. He bore a bulky object — the army-type portable radio transmitter and receiver which Tom Too had left in the island cabin.

Doc gave a short gesture of command. The men plunged out of the jungle and leaped for the speed boat stranded on the beach.

A wounded pirate shot at them, but he was wounded in the arm, and missed. Doc fired a single bullet, and the corsair shrieked as the lead mangled his hand. The other yellow men fled, dragging themselves along or running furiously, depending on where they were hit.

Doc and his five aids laid hands on the launch, strained, and ran it back into the surf.