The Pirate of the Pacific

Chapter 22 RED BLADE

FROM the concealment of the jungle, Doc and his men watched developments.

"Juan Mindoro is aboard one of the planes," Doc declared. "At least, he should be, according to the information he gave me by radio."

"Can he depend on the men manning the planes and destroyers?" Ham questioned uneasily. "Tom Too may have some of them on his pay roll."

"He did have," Doc admitted. "But the records I got out of that brief case gave their names, and I passed the dope on to Mindoro. Tom Too's hirelings are under arrest."

Monk kneaded his enormous, furry hands. "How about us getting in this scrape?"

"We'll tackle that big junk," Doc agreed. "Tom Too is probably aboard.''

The junk in question had hove to close to the beach. Yellow men were dropping a light boat overside, evidently to be used in ferrying Tom Too ashore. A bomb exploded in the bay, and the wall of water it flung out smashed the small boat against the junk hull.

Doc and his men ran for a sampan beached near by. They were fired upon, and returned the lead. A plane dived upon them, unable to distinguish them from foes in the increasing darkness. Doc led the others back into the jungle to evade the searching machine-gun metal. There they encountered a gang of a dozen desperate pirates. They fought, skulking in the jungle, each party shooting at the gun flashes of the other.

Plane motors bawled overhead. The planes flew so low that prop streams thrashed palm fronds. Detonating bombs made such concussions that the very island jumped and shuddered. Men yelled, cursed in an assorted score of dialects. Machine guns gobbled continuously.

"Kinda like old times!" Renny rumbled in the gloom.

Doc and his fellows rushed the yellow gang with whom they skirmished. Doc used only his hands in the scrap that followed. He moved like a bronze phantom. Man after man fell before his fists, or was rendered helpless with wrenched and broken limps. The pirate group broke and fled.

"To the sampan!" Doc's powerful voice commanded. "We'll make another try at reaching that big junk!"

They ran out on the beach, found the sampan, and shoved off.

Overhead, a plane dropped a parachute flare, then another. The calcium glare whitened the entire island.

The illumination showed Tom Too's junk trying to work out of the bay. Destroyers, however, blocked its escape. The hulking vessel turned back.

The flares sank fizzing into the sea and were extinguished. Bending to the sampan paddles, Doc's party headed for the junk.

"They won't expect to be boarded from a small boat," Renny boomed softly.

Doc guided the sampan expertly. They came alongside the junk in the gloom. A pirate saw them, hailed. Doc answered in a disguised tone, speaking the same dialect, telling the corsairs to hold their fire.

The sampan gunwale rasped along the junk hull. All six leaping at once, Doc's gang gained the deck of the larger vessel.

ANOTHER bomb, exploding harmlessly on the distant beach, threw a flash like pale lightning. It disclosed Doc's identity.

A yellow man howled and leaped, swinging a short sword. Doc twisted from under the descending blade. His darting fist seemed a part of the same movement. The Oriental collapsed, his jaw hanging awry.

Fighting spread swiftly from end to end of the junk as Doc's men scattered. In the darkness, they could fight best when separated.

Doc himself made for the high, after part of the vessel, seeking Tom Too.

Below decks, the Orientals manning the engines became excited and threw the craft into full speed ahead. It plowed about aimlessly, no hand at the tiller.

Doc found a long bamboo pole, evidently a makeshift bat hook. He converted it to a weapon of offense, jabbing and swinging it in club fashion. A corsair bounced off the pole end as if he were a billiard ball, and tangled with one of his fellows.

The little machine guns had been latched back into rapidfire. Once more they tore off series of reports so rapid they resembled the sound of coarse cloth tearing.

"One!" Doc barked.

"Two!" echoed Ren ny's strong voice. "Three!" said Long Tom. The others called off in rapid succession — four, five, six!

This was a procedure they followed often when fighting in the darkness. It not only showed the entire gang was still up and going, but also advised each mail where the others were located.

Doc descended a carved companionway. He wanted to get the engines stopped before the junk crashed into some other craft.

He found the engine room without difficulty. Only two Orientals were there, huddling nervously under the pale glow of an electric lantern. They offered no fight at all, but threw down their weapons at Doc's sharp command. Doc shut off the motors.

"Where is Tom Too?" Doc asked.

The yellow men squirmed. They were seared. They had seen this giant bronze man slain by the sword and his body burned. Was he a devil, that he could come to life again?

One pointed toward the stern. "Maybe Tom Too, he go that dilection," he singsonged.

Doc made for the spot — the richly fitted quarters which were no doubt Tom Too's private rooms. Two Orientals barred his way. He was almost touching them before they were aware of his presence, so dark was the junk interior.

Doc shoved them both violently, and while they stumbled about and slashed viciously at black, empty air, he eased past them. There was movement ahead, and the glow of a flashlight.

A faint rasping sounded — a windowlike porthole of the junk being opened! It must be Tom Too, Doc knew. And the man was in the act of escaping from the junk into the waters of the bay.

Doc flung for the port — and had one of his narrowest escapes from death. Tom Too was easing through the porthole feet first. He turned his flashlight on Doc and threw a knife.

Doc saw the blade only when it glinted in the flash beam. He dodged, got partially clear. The blade lodged like a big steel thorn in his side, outside the ribs.

Tom Too dropped through the port. His madly splashing strokes headed for shore. Suddenly the splashing increased. A terrified scream pealed out.

Doc leaned from the porthole.

Overhead, a plane dropped another aerial flare. The blinding illumination it spread could not have been more timely, for the swimming f]gure of Tom Too was plainly disclosed.

A small shark had seized the pirate leader. Tom Too had no knife with which to defend himself this time — he had expended that on Doc. The corsair chief screeched and beat at the grisly monster which had fastened upon his leg.

The shark was but little longer than Tom Too. For a moment it seemed the pirate king would escape. Then a larger sea killer closed upon the human morsel.

Tom Too's distorted face showed plainly before he was submerged to his death.

The features were those of slender, dapper First Mate Jong of the ill-fated liner, Malay Queen.

IT was dawn, and the sun blazed a flame of victory in the east. The fighting was over. A cowed, frightened cluster, the surviving pirates had been herded upon the beach and were under heavy guard, awaiting consignment to a penal colony.

The planes had managed to land on a level portion of the beach. Juan Mindoro had boarded the big junk. He was striving to express his gratitude to Doc Savage and the other five adventurers who had done so much for his native land.

"I have just received a radio message from Mantilla," he said, addres,ing Doc. "Thanks to the information in Tom Too's records, which you gave us, the pirates in Mantilla have been captured, almost to a man. They even got Captain Hickman, of the Malay Queen. There is only one thing bothering me — are you certain Jong was Tom Too?"

"Positive," Doc told him. "The records disclosed that. Jong, or Tom Too, undoubtedly bribed Captain Hickman to sign him on the Malay Queen as first mate."

Mindoro ran a finger inside his collar and squirmed. "Words seem very flat when I try to express my thanks to you. I shall ask the Luzon Union government to appropriate a reward for — "

"Nix," Doc said.

Mindoro smiled, went on: " — a reward which I think you will accept."

Mindoro was right, for the reward was one Doc found entirely satisfactory. It consisted of a simple bronze plate bearing the plain words, "The Savage Memorial Hospital."

The plate was embedded in the cornerstone of a structure that cost millions. Other millions were placed in trust to insure operation of the hospital for years. The institution was to operate always under one inflexible rule — payment from no one but those who could afford it.

The laying of the cornerstone was accomplished with ceremony before Doc and his men left the Luzon Union.

Monk, uncouth in high hat and swallowtail coat, perspired under the derisive gaze of the dapper Ham throughout the ceremony. He was glad when it was over and they got out of the admiring crowd.

"Fooey!" snorted Monk, and made a present of his high silk hat to a brown-skinned, half-naked street urchin. "It'll take a good fight to get me feelin' like a human being again!"

Monk was going to get his fight, even if he didn't know it.