Nick Carter - A Korean Tiger

In a far corner of the hole was a cache of gasoline — a dozen jerricans marked U.S. Army. Nick Carter began to work fast. The Three Bears would be home anytime now. His grin was taut. They would be pretty sore bears — and there would be more than three of them. Hurry, boy!

"So I watched and I listened and you know I never forget anything and they told me they would pay me a lot and I could have all the girls I wanted and I never saw the girls except fat old Jane and I did try to get in the CIA and they laughed and the FBI they laughed and they all laughed and said I was too weak and I couldn't pass the tests and they always laughed and the Army said I should stay home and be four eff and oh how I like the beautiful soft girls with their softness and breasts and thighs and to strangle them so they won't laugh at me…"

Nick had all he needed out of the hole. He took two of the jerricans of gas outside the hut. He lined them up with the rock fortress, placing them just underneath the overhang of the thatched roof. He opened one of the cans and sloshed gas up over the thatch and down the side of the hut. He left the cans there and went back into the hut.

"He never came back he gave me the little tiger and then he never came back with the girls he was going to bring he never did…"

Nick made Bennett swallow some of the ginseng liquor. "Drink it, fella. Might do you some good. You can't be any worse off than you are."

Bennett spat out the liquor. "I can't that's horrible I can't drink blood there was so much blood you know when I pulled the hatchet out of her head I tried to stop it I put the hatchet back in but it wouldn't stop it was like a river I couldn't…"

Nick Carter's flesh was crawling. He was tempted for a moment to gag the man. No. Bennett might turn lucid and spill something worth hearing. Meantime get on with it!

He picked up the man, still bound hand and foot, and ran all the way to the jumble of boulders on the slope. He put him against a huge rock and ran back to the hut. There had been burlap sacks in the hole and he filled one with rice and dried fish and the jugs of Korean booze. Into another sack he flung all the ammo he could carry, being careful to include tracer and incendaries. He took four of the machine guns with him. He cast a look at the water jug, then forgot it. By noon it would probably be pouring again. Water was the least of his worries.

After carefully checking the jerricans again — they were an integral part of the half-baked plan he was nurturing — he staggered back to the rock fort.

He was just in time. He had barely time to load the machine guns, carefully inserting a tracer every ten and an incendiary every fifteen, when he peered over the rocks and saw the first guerrilla coming out of the cliff opening.

Killmaster leveled the machine gun over the rock and let go a sighting burst. Rock shards exploded high and to the right. So startled, so surprised, were the guerrillas that he got the lead man before he could duck back into cover. Silence descended again on the little valley.

Nick studied the corpse. The man had fallen near the cliff entrance and lay unmoving. Even at the distance Nick could make out the rubber shoes, the dirty white trousers and ragged field jacket. The man wore heavy leather bandoleers crossed over his chest. A rifle lay near at hand. Nick breathed a little easier. They were guerrillas, all right. Bandits to the police and military. But it could have been the Korean police coming through that gap — he had taken a chance in firing before looking. A necessary chance. He couldn't let them get a foothold inside the valley.

He sent a long spray of lead at the cliff entrance, sighting with the tracer now and hosing a murderous fire down the passage. He kept it up, in short bursts so the gun wouldn't heat, until he had exhausted the drum. He slipped in a fresh drum and waited. That was one confused bunch of bandits about now. Cut off from home base.

"I used to dream of the big tool and I would hurt them with it and they would all scream and run and hurt themselves on it and like it and it was a big tool and the best tool in the world and mother I'm sorry I killed you but you were too fat and you should never have laughed at me…"

Nick shot a glance at the man lying bound in the shelter of the big rock. Bennett's eyes were closed. A ropy thread of saliva leaked from the loose mouth.

There was movement again at the cliff entrance. A dirty white handkerchief suspended from the end of a bamboo pole came into view. Nick smiled tightly. They wanted a truce. While they took time to figure the score. They must know he wasn't the police. He glanced back over his shoulder, up the slope behind him. He was vulnerable in that direction — it was the only way they could get at him — but it would take them a long time to circle around and scale the valley wall.

A voice hailed him from the cliff. "Tongsun— tongsun!" Roughly it meant hey you! There followed a long spate of Korean.

Nick cupped his hands and yelled back. "Korean talkee have no! English. Speak English!"

More Korean followed. Nick could make out the word jeepo repeated over and over. House. They wanted to get to their house. Yeah. He would bet they did. They were probably almost out of ammo after the raid on the train.

Again he yelled back. "English! Hava no Korean speak. Have English only!" On sudden thought he added, "Eigo— eigo… " Japanese for English. Most Koreans over twenty spoke Jap.

That did it. After another long silence a man appeared cautiously at the cliff opening. He wagged the handkerchief back and forth. Nick yelled, "Okay — I won't shoot. What do you want?"

"Want our house — many things in house, jeepo, we need. Who you come here take house? What want? We not care, no hurt you now. Let us come house get things. No? Yis?"

Nick glanced at the sky. The sun was still shining through wispy cloud but it was darkening in the south. Rain soon. Then he heard it again, the insect buzzing of a plane far off. He saw it. A gnat in the sky far to the west. Must be somewhere near the railroad. He watched the plane. If it came closer, just a bit closer, he would take a chance. Shoot the works. Go for broke.

The guerrilla spokesman grew impatient. Nick knew that his pals were circling to get into the next valley and take him from behind. A lot of them would get killed that way and they knew it. If this crazy big nose could be talked into surrendering it would save a lot of bother and blood…

The plane was closer. Flying low, dipping and rising, following the rugged contour map of Korea. Looking for something? Someone? Nick strained his eyes — it was a light plane of some sort. A scouting plane.

"What say, crazy fool English?" The bandit was whipping himself into a lather now. "You let us go jeepo by God! You sonbitch sullender or we cut neck good! What say, English?"

"Truce over," yelled Nick. He sent a burst at the cliff just over the speaker. Rock dust flew. The man dived back into the hole in the cliff. A moment later he stuck his head out again to scream, "Cruddy sonbitch!" That guy, Nick thought, has been associating with GIs.

He yelled back. "Harabachie you!" His Korean was scanty and bad, but he thought it meant something like up your honorable grandfather's. In a land of ancestor worship it was a deadly insult.

The plane was closer now and its present line of flight would bring it over the valley. Nick sent another spray of lead at the cliff, just to hold them down, then turned to sight on the two jerricans he had so carefully placed beside the hut. The thatch was sodden from the rains, but the underside might be dry enough to catch. There should be enough smoke and flame for the pilot to sec. If he missed the signal and flew on past — well, Nick preferred not to think about that.