He was running and marveled that he had it in him.
“N’Goni,” he yelled, but there was no answer. Stopping, he looked back. The native had disappeared.
The guns were still going, but he lost the sound of them as he resumed his run. The run dwindled to a trot, the trot to a determined slog. When next he stopped to listen, there were no guns, although a flickering brilliance still glowed ahead.
“They got him,” he told himself. “They got Hank!”
And the thought became a drum that beat through his brain, a marching song that kept his feet moving down the sand.
He cursed himself that he had left Hank behind. He should have insisted on the gunner coming with him. They should have destroyed the ship in the first place. That really was what they were supposed to do.
It was near dawn as he drew near the point where they had left the Avenger and from there on he moved cautiously. The moon had sunk several hours before, but the beach still was lighted by the wash of stars that spangled the tropic sky.
The Avenger, he saw with a start, still was there, half hidden in the clump of palms. The explosion, then, hadn’t been the ship, but something else.
Hope welled within him as he lay stretched flat in a jungle thicket and watched. Hank might still be there, out there watching the plane. The explosion might have been something else, maybe miles away. It would have been hard to estimate distances out there on the beach last night.
A figure moved near the plane and Foster caught his breath, half raised himself, a shout welling in his throat. But the shout died and he hugged the earth again. The figure wore a battle helmet and carried a rifle on its shoulder.
In the half light of the waning stars, he saw the first figure meet a second one, saw the two wheel about and continue their patrol. There was no question now. The Japanese had found the ship and were guarding it.
That meant that Hank was dead.
Tired, baffled rage shook Foster as he lay there, watching. Finally he moved, crawling and running at a crouch, stalking. One fact drummed in his brain. The Japs must never keep that ship!
He reached the palm thicket, slid belly-flat through the scanty undergrowth, stopping and lying like one dead when the Jap sentry was in sight, moving swiftly, but cautiously when the opportunity presented itself.
Crouching in a thicket, he waited. One of the Japs was coming. Foster listened to the steady tramp, the methodical drill-field tread. The Jap was opposite him now, was moving on.
The American pilot was a silent wraith that rose out of the bushes almost at the Jap’s side, the hands that moved to the Jap’s throat were death itself.
The guard opened his mouth to cry out, but the sound died in his throat and he was lifted from his feet and iron-like fingers bit into his neck. He dropped his rifle and it thudded on the damp ground, but that was the only sound. He kicked his feet and thrashed his arms, but the fingers did not relax. When Foster laid him down, the Jap was dead.
Back in his bushes, Foster waited.
The second guard ended his beat, stopped uncertainly when he did not meet the first one. Half turning to resume his march, he hesitated, moved softly, almost like a cat, down the side of the ship where his missing companion should have been.
Rigid, Foster kept his eyes on him, saw him stop when he sighted the limp figure on the ground.
For a long time the Jap stood there, staring, rifle at the ready, occasionally glancing about, sharp, quick glances as if he might surprise someone.
He came closer, thought better of it. Plainly he was afraid of a trap, afraid that what had struck down his companion might strike him down as well.
Foster could have shot him as he stood there, but that would have meant the sound of a shot; would have aroused any enemy within earshot.
Quickly, as if he made a swift decision, the Jap turned about and started to run. Foster rose silently, gripping his revolver by its barrel. He threw it with all his might and it glittered in the fading starlight as it tumbled toward the Jap, twirling end over end. It caught the little man in the small of the back, knocked him sprawling.
With a rush, Foster was on him, pinning him to earth, crushing his face to the ground to prevent an outcry. But the man twisted under him like a greased eel and thick-fingered hands clawed at the American.
Foster chopped at the man’s chin with an awkward right, for there was no room to swing. The Jap’s fingers found the pilot’s throat, failed to get a grip, clawed viciously at his face, leaving painful gashes on the cheek.
A knee came up viciously, slugged into Foster’s stomach, knocking the wind half from him.
In a blind haze of rage, the American reached the Jap’s throat with one hand, dragged him forward. His other clutching hand closed on a leg. Slowly, fighting with all this strength, Foster rose to his knees, struggled to his feet, lifted the squirming Jap above his head. Lifted him and threw him, with all his strength, against the Avenger’s metal side.
The Jap screamed shortly before he crashed against the plane, before he flopped into a grotesque rag-doll bundle, head twisted at an angle that said his neck was broken.
Foster leaned weakly against the ship, stared dully out to sea, where the first pale streamers of the sun were lighting a new day.
Minutes later, he walked over to pick up his revolver. Then he dragged the two dead Japs into the brush and staggered down the beach.
There, behind a spur of rock, he found the machine gun from the Avenger and on the rock a belt of ammo and many empty cases.
On the beach beyond was the burned skeleton of a truck and bursted steel drums. There also were dark spots in the sand … spots where men had died.
Legs braced wide, his body drooping with the punishment it had taken, Foster stared at the tracks of the truck leading out of the jungle, shifted his gaze to the climbing jungle, black and green with the coming dawn.
Up there somewhere was the Jap air base. Up there was a job to do.
And there was the Avenger to be destroyed and bombs that could be used.
Another thing, too. Hank was dead. That called for some sort of fitting gesture, some sort of rough tribute.
Steve Foster stood, stiff-legged, and stared at the hills.
But Hank Mason wasn’t dead.
He sat on the edge of a bed fashioned of poles and held his head in his hands. His head ached. No wonder, he thought, after the clout he’d got with that rifle butt.
The jungle bowl in which lay the Jap base swam with sullen heat.
A Japanese guard lounged against the hut’s door and looking past him Mason could see the air field, small but good enough for small planes and pilots that didn’t care whether they lived or died. Taking off and landing would be tricky in such a place, but it had the advantage of being well hidden, hard to find. The only way it could be spotted, Mason knew, was by a plane flying directly over it.
Great drums of fuel were stacked along the field and a line of planes rested under a flimsy camouflage. A group of natives were toiling on the field, wrestling stones and stumps, while Jap guards kept close watch, shrilling sharp words at any who might lag.
Mason took his left hand down from his head and looked at his wrist watch. It was almost 10 o’clock. By this time Foster and his native guide would have reached the American base. Soon a plane or two would be roaring out to rescue the stranded Avenger. If there was only some way to let them know. N’Goni, of course, would have told them of the Jap base, but there was the problem of finding it. Unless a plane flew directly overhead, it would be hard to spot.
If there were only some way—
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the fuel drums. There might be a way, after all. If only he just knew when those planes would be around.