Robert Jones - Blood Tide

Balabatchi nodded to the Hapon. They took Mufaddhi by the arms and frog-marched him to the big, black-and-silver machine that stood on a bench near Balabatchi. Haji Hassam began to edge backward, toward the door. Another Hapon was there. He had a machine pistol in his hands. The haji recognized it—an Uzi. Made in Israel, the enemy of all men.

One of the Hapon grabbed Mufaddhi’s right hand by the wrist and forced it into the mouth of the sail-sewing machine. His partner stood by with a finger on the power switch.

“Friend or enemy?” Balabatchi asked again.

“Friend,” Mufaddhi said, his voice cracking.

“You are lying,” Balabatchi said. He nodded abruptly toward the man at the switch.

The machine thudded swiftly, loud yet muffled, like a distant machine-gun. Mufaddhi stifled a scream. The heavy-gauge needle slammed through his hand a hundred times, tearing it to pulp.

The haji had stepped forward again, involuntarily.

“Too late,” Balabatchi said. He made a quick gesture across his throat to the Hapon, then led the three younger guards to the door. Looking back, they saw Mufaddhi and the haji slumping to the floor, their throats slashed from ear to ear by the Hapons’ knives. One of the Hapon jumped back to avoid the splash of blood. He cursed in a voice harsh as the sewing machine.

“Now we release the prisoners,” Balabatchi told them as they climbed into his jeep. “The boats should be here at any minute.”

They bounced out over the rutted track toward the salt flats through the shimmer of noonday mirages—afrits and djinns danced to the whine of the engine.

“So tell me,” the commodore said, “just what were those thumps, then?”

“What I told you before, sir,” Billy Torres replied. “Probably just some locals dynamiting fish.”

“Probably? I told you to check.”

“I know it was just dynamite,” Torres said. “Why send a Thunder down there when we already have four of them at the basin?”

“Because they might have been attacking the basin!”

“Not enough explosions for any kind of serious attack,” Torres said.

They were standing on the beach at the end of the Balbal channel. The commo had his binoculars to his eyes, trying to see around the southern bulge of the island all the way to the Lázaro boat basin. It couldn’t be done. He jerked the glasses upward. Black clouds rose and thinned over San Lázaro.

“That’s smoke,” he said sharply. “Just about where those thumps were. Just where the basin is.” He lowered the glasses and turned to Billy. “What did they say on the radio?”

“Their radio isn’t working,” Billy said. But he was worried now. That was smoke to the south. “I’ll send a boat out.”

He signaled the first of the eight Thunders moored behind a revetment in the channel, caught the pilot’s eye, and pointed toward San Lázaro. The pilot nodded; he’d already been briefed.

The Thunder eased out into the channel, then speeded up a bit. But after only a hundred yards or so it backed down suddenly, its engine throwing blue smoke.

“ Minas! ” the man at the wheel yelled, pointing seaward. “Boat mines! Many of them there!”

“Oh, fuck!” the commo said. He started to throw his binoculars down, then thought better of it. “Goddamn it, Billy—”

Just then the sound of heavy firing broke out from the jungle behind them.

A high adobe wall topped with razor wire and spikes encircled the base from the rear and down both sides to the beach. Loopholes pierced it every few yards—firing slits for riflemen. Curt was walking in the shade, whistling for Brillo. He’d ordered the dog to sit and stay while he talked with the commo, but he was gone now. Ahead Curt saw Tausuq guards suddenly crouch and duck away from the grilled rear gate. One of them fell over on his back, kicking. Something stuck up from this throat. Another guard raised his M16, then snapped backward like the first. An arrow? Sticks clattered against the far side of the gate, and one wobbled toward Curt, bounced sideways off his shoulder to the dust. He picked it up. Bamboo fletched with jungle-cock feathers, a long, hand-forged iron head spiked as with the barbs of a stingray’s whip and covered with sticky black tar—poison .

Gunfire exploded all around, from both sides of the gate. Guards crumpled and crawled. A bright flash—the gate toppled on one hinge and lay askew. Little black children came pouring through the gap, naked kids, carrying spears and long-barreled rifles. Kids with beards? Pygmies! A pygmy saw Curt and cocked his arm. Something dark and long and heavy flew past his ear. Other pygmies raced toward him with bolos in their hands.

Brillo slammed past Curt, dodging as he leapt, growling deep in his throat. A pygmy went down beneath the dog, and then Brillo was up. The pygmy kicked once. He had no throat left. Bolos whirled. The dog was everywhere, a red-brown blur, slashing white teeth. Pygmies screamed.

“Brillo!”

Curt was running back past the gunboat shed, the dog loping beside him looking back, snarling. His muzzle was red. Tausuqs streamed past Curt, running toward the gate, firing from the hip as they ran. Brass spun through the noon dazzle. Curt turned a corner of the shed and collided with the commodore. They both lay sprawled on the ground.

“What . . .” The commo swung a .45 wildly in one hand as he scrambled to his feet.

“They’ve carried the gate,” Curt shouted over the clattering gunfire. “Pygmies! Hundreds of them!”

The commo looked ahead—to the flash and crump of grenades behind the boat shed. Smoke. More mundos were running past them, slowing as they recognized the commodore. Torres ran up with an M60 machine gun in his hands, its belt draped over one shoulder. He was breathing hard, his eyes were ablaze.

“There’s boats all over the place out there,” he shouted, pointing seaward. “Some kind of a big old island schooner with no masts chugging up behind them, covered with goddamn Moros. Should we hit them? Sortie the Thunders?”

“There’s Negritos coming through the rear gate,” the commo said. He sounded calm, white under his tan, but composed. “Get back there and organize the perimeter. Get more of those M60s back there. Cross-fire on the gate.” He looked around. “ Here! You men!” A dozen mundos racing toward the rear gate skidded to a halt. They all carried M16s and bolos. “Come with me.” He turned back to Torres. “I’m going out the side gate, if it hasn’t been taken yet, and try to flank these Negritos. Hughes, get a weapon and come with me. We’ve got to take the pressure off our flank before we can tackle those boats out front.”

One of the Tausuqs ran up to a pile of bodies at the corner of the gunboat shed and came back with an M16. He slammed it into Curt’s hands. He smiled grimly—it was Abdul. Then he slung a bandolier of magazines over Curt’s shoulders. The commo was already running. . . .

* * *

Sergeant Grande watched his troops fall back as planned, still throwing poison arrows and stick grenades through the gate. The satchel charges had blown it open as he’d hoped they would, and now the enemy was looking to its rear. Grande had two Lewis guns sited to keep the gate under fire as long as necessary. Negritos waited beside him for orders. Some carried heavy, conical bundles—shaped charges of the sort the sergeant had used in the war to shatter the walls of Japanese bunkers. He sent the four men with the charges to their assigned positions. The others—a dozen of them—he ordered on another mission, back into the jungle to round up his secret weapon. They smiled happily and trotted off, silent as stalking hunters. Some, he noticed, had severed Tausuq heads swinging from thongs across their shoulders. Sergeant Grande checked his wrist-watch: 1235 hours. Right on schedule . . .