Tarzan and "The Foreign Legion"

Edgar Rice Burroughs

To

Brigadier General Truman H. Landon

 

My knowledge of Sumatra at the time that I chose it as the scene of a Tarzan story was pathetically inadequate; and as there was not a book on Sumatra in the Honolulu Public Library, nor in any of the book stores, it bade fair to remain inadequate.

  I wish therefore to acknowledge my indebtedness to those whose kindness furnished me with the information I sought. If this volume happens to fall into the hands of any of them, I hope they will not feel that I abused that kindness.

  And so, my sincere thanks to Messrs. K. van der Eynden, S. J. Rikkers, and Willem Folkers of the Netherlands India Government; to Mr. C. A. Mackintosh, Netherlands Consul in Honolulu; to Messrs. N. A. C. Slotemaker de Brume, Director, B. Landheer, and Leonard de Greve of The Netherlands Information Bureau, New York, and to my good friend Capt. John Philip Bird, A.A.C. of S., G-2, USAFPOA, who arranged my first meeting with the Netherlanders.

 

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

Honolulu,

11 Sep. 1944

Chapter 1

 

PROBABLY not all Dutchmen are stubborn, notwithstanding the fact that stubbornness is accounted one of their national characteristics along with many virtues. But if some Dutchmen lacked stubbornness, the general average of that intangible was maintained in the person of Hendrik van der Meer. As practiced by him, stubbornness became a fine art. It also became his chief avocation. His vocation was that of rubber planter in Sumatra. In that, he was successful; but it was his stubbornness that his friends boasted of to strangers.

So, even after the Philippines were invaded and Hong Kong and Singapore fell, he would not admit that the Japanese could take Netherland East India. And he would not evacuate his wife and daughter. He may be accused of stupidity, but in that he was not alone. There were millions in Great Britain and the United States who underestimated the strength and resources of Japan—some in high places.

Furthermore, Hendrik van der Meer hated the Japanese, if one can hate what one looks upon contemptuously as vermin. "Wait," he said. "It will not be long before we chase them back up their trees." His prophecy erred solely in the matter of chronology. Which was his undoing.

And the Japs came, and Hendrik van der Meer took to the hills. With him went his wife, who had been Elsje Verschoor, whom he had brought from Holland eighteen years before, and their daughter, Corrie. Two Chinese servants accompanied them—Lum Kam and Sing Tai. These were motivated by two very compelling urges. The first was fear of the Japanese, from whom they knew only too well what to expect. The other was their real affection for the van der Meer family. The Javanese plantation workers remained behind. They knew that the invaders would continue to work the plantation and that they would have jobs.

Also, this Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity appealed to them. It would be nice to have the tables turned and be rich and have white men and women to wait on them.

So the Japs came, and Hendrik van der Meer took to the hills. But not soon enough. The Japs were always right behind him. They were methodically tracking down all Nether-landers. The natives of the kampongs where the van der Meers stopped to rest kept them informed. By what natural or uncanny powers the natives knew while the Japs were still miles away is beside the question. They knew, as primitive people always know such things as quickly as more civilized peoples might learn them by telegraph or radio. They even knew how many soldiers composed the patrol—a sergeant, a corporal, and nine privates.

"Very bad," said Sing Tai, who had fought against the Japs in China. "Maybe one time an officer is a little human, but enlisted men never. We must not let them catch," he nodded toward the two women.

As they went higher into the hills, the going became bitter. It rained every day, and the trails were quagmires. Van der Meer was past his prime, but he was still strong and always stubborn. Even had his strength given out, his stubbornness would have carried him on.

Corrie was sixteen then, a slender blonde girl. But she had health, strength, and endurance. She could always have kept up with the men in the party. But with Elsje van der Meer it was different. She had the will but not the strength. And there was no rest. They would scarcely reach a kam-pong and throw themselves down on the floor of a hut, wet, muddy, exhausted, before the natives would warn them away. Sometimes it was because the Jap patrol was gaining on them. But often it was because the natives feared to let the enemy find them harboring whites.

Even the horses gave out at last, and they were compelled to walk. They were high in the mountains now. Kampongs were far apart. The natives were fearful and none too friendly. Only a few years ago they had been cannibals.

For three weeks they stumbled on, searching for a friendly kampong where they might hide. By now it was obvious that Elsje van der Meer could go but little farther. For two days they had come upon no kampong. Their food Was only what the forest and the jungle offered. And they were always wet and cold.

Then late in the afternoon they came upon a wretched village. The natives were surly and unfriendly, but still they did not deny them such poor hospitality as they could offer. The chief listened to their story. Then he told them that while they could not remain in his village, he would have them guided to another far off the beaten track, where the Japs would never find them.

Where, a few weeks before, he might have commanded, van de Meer now swallowed his pride and begged the chief to permit them at least to remain overnight that his wife might gain strength for the journey that lay ahead. But Hoesin refused. "Go now," he said, "and I will furnish guides. Remain, and I will make you prisoners and turn you over to the Japanese when they come." Like the headmen of other villages through which they had passed, he feared the wrath of the invaders should they discover that he was harboring whites.

And so the nightmare journey was resumed through terrain cut by a frightful chasm, river eroded in tuff strata laid down through the ages by nearby volcanoes. And this river cut their trail, not once, but many times. Some times they could ford it. Again it could be crossed only on frail, swaying rope bridges. And this long after dark on a moonless night.

Elsje van der Meer, now too weak to walk, was carried by Lum Kam in an improvised sling strapped to his back. The guides, anxious to reach the safety of a kampong, urged them constantly to greater speed, for twice they had heard the coughing of tigers—that coughing grunt that chills the blood.

Van der Meer walked close to Lum Kam to steady him should he slip upon the muddy trail. Corrie followed behind her father, and Sing Tai brought up the rear. The two guides were at the head of the little column.

"You tired, missy?" asked Sing Tai. "Maybe so better I carry you."

"We all are tired," replied the girl; "but I can carry on as long as any of you. I wonder how much farther it is."

They had started to ascend a trail steeply. "Pretty soon there," said Sing Tai. "Guide say kampong top of cliff."

But they were not pretty soon there, for this was the most arduous part of the journey. They had to stop often and rest. Lum Kam's heart was pounding. But it was this loyal heart and an iron will that kept him from sinking down exhausted.

At long last they reached the top, and presently the barking of dogs told them that they were approaching a kampong. The natives, aroused, challenged them. The guides explained their presence, and they were admitted. Taku Muda, the chief, greeted them with friendly words.

"You are safe here," he said. "You are among friends."

"'My wife is exhausted," explained van der Meer. "She must have rest before we can go on. But I do not wish to expose you to the anger of the Japanese should they discover that you had helped us. Let us rest here tonight; and tomorrow, if my wife can be moved, find us a hiding place deeper in the mountains. Perhaps there is a cave in some isolated gorge."

"There are caves," replied Taku Muda, "but you will remain here. Here you are safe. No enemy will find my village."

They were given food and a dry house in which to sleep. But Elsje van der Meer could eat nothing. She was burning with fever, but there was nothing they could do for her. Hendrik van der Meer and Corrie sat beside her the remainder of the night. What must have been the thoughts of this man whose stubbornness had brought this suffering upon the woman he loved? Before noon Elsje van der Meer died.

There is such a thing as a grief too poignant for tears. Father and daughter sat for hours, dry eyed, beside their dead, stunned by the catastrophe that had overwhelmed them. They were only dully conscious of sudden turmoil and shouting in the compound. Then Sing Tai burst in upon them.

"Quick!" he cried. "Japs come. One man guide last night bring 'um. Hoesin bad man. He send 'urn."

Van der Meer rose. "I will go and talk with them," he said. "We have done nothing. Maybe they will not harm us."

"You no know monkey-men," said Sing Tai.

Van der Meer shrugged. "There is nothing else I can do. If I fail, Sing Tai, try to get missy away. Do not let her fall into their hands."

He went to the door of the hut and descended the ladder to the ground. Lum Kam joined him. The Japs were on the far side of the compound. Van der Meer walked boldly toward them, Lum Kam at his side. Neither man was armed. Corrie and Sing Tai watched from the dark interior of the hut. They could see, but they could not be seen.

They saw the Japs surround the two men. They heard the voice of the white man and the monkey jabber of the Japs, but they could not make out what was said. Suddenly they saw a rifle butt rise above the heads of the men. It was thrust as suddenly downward. They knew that on the other end of the rifle was a bayonet. They heard a scream. Then more rifle butts were raised and lunged downward. The screams ceased. Only the laughter of the sub-men was to be heard.

Sing Tai seized the girl's arm. "Come!" he said, and drew her to the rear of the hut. There was an opening there and, below, the hard ground. "I drop," said Sing Tai. "Then missy drop. I catch 'urn. Savvy?"

She nodded. After the Chinese had dropped safely, the girl leaned from the opening to reconnoiter. She saw that she could climb most of the way down. To drop into Sing Tai's arms might easily have injured him. So she came safely down to within a few feet of the ground, and Sing Tai lowered her the rest of the way. Then he led her into the jungle that grew close to the kampong.

Before dark they found a cave in a limestone cliff and hid there for two days. Then Sing Tai returned to the kampong to investigate and to get food if the Japs had left.

Late in the afternoon he returned to the cave empty handed. "All gone," he said. "All dead. Houses burned."

"Poor Taku Muda," sighed Corrie. "This was his reward for an act of humanity."

Two years passed. Corrie and Sing Tai had found asylum in a remote mountain kampong with Chief Tiang Umar. Only occasionally did news from the outside world reach them. The only news that would be good news to them would have been that the Japs had been driven from the island. But that news did not come. Some times a villager, trading far afield, would return with stories of great Japanese victories, of the American Navy sunk, of German victories in Africa, Europe, or Russia. To Corrie the future seemed hopeless.

One day a native came who did not belong to the village of Tiang Umar. He looked long at Corrie and Sing Tai, but he said nothing. After he had gone away, the Chinese told the girl. "That man bad news," he said. "Him from kampong Chief Hoesin. Now he go tell and monkey-men come. Maybeso you better be boy. Then we go away and hide some more."

Sing Tai cut Corrie's golden hair to the proper length and dyed it black. He painted her eyebrows, too. She was already deeply tanned by the equatorial sun, and with the blue trousers and the loose blouse he fashioned for her, she could pass as a native boy anything but the closest scrutiny. Then they went away again, taking up their interminable flight. Tiang Umar sent men to guide them to a new sanctuary. It was not far from the village—a cave close to a tiny mountain stream. There there were to be found many varieties of the edible things that grow in a Sumatran forest jungle, and in the stream there were fish. Occasionally, Tiang Umar sent some eggs and a chicken. Once in a while pork or dog meat. Corrie could not eat the latter, so Sing Tai got it all. A youth named Alam always brought the food. The three became fast friends.

Captain Tokujo Matsuo and Lieutenant Hideo Sokabe led a detachment of soldiers deep into the mountains to locate strategic positions for heavy coastal guns and survey practical roads leading to them.

They came to the kampong of Hoesin, the chief who had betrayed the van der Meers. They knew of him by report as one who would collaborate with the Japanese. Still it was necessary to impress him with their superiority; so, when he failed to bow from the waist when they approached him, they slapped his face. One of the enlisted men ran a bayonet through a native who refused to bow to him. Another dragged a screaming girl into the jungle. Captain Matsuo and Lieutenant Sokabe smiled toothy smiles. Then they demanded food.

Hoesin would rather have cut their throats, but he had food brought to them and to their men. The officers said that they would honor him by making his village their headquarters while they remained in the vicinity. Hoesin saw ruin staring him in the face. Frantically he searched his mind for some artifice by which he could rid himself of his unwelcome guests. Then he recalled the story that one of his people had brought him a few days before from another village. It did not seem to him very likely to be of value in ridding himself of these monkeys, but it would do no harm to try. He thought about it during a sleepless night.

The following morning he asked them if they were interested in finding enemies who had taken refuge in the mountains. They said that they were. "Two years ago three whites and two Chinese came to my village, I sent them on to another village, because I would not harbor enemies of Greater East Asia. The white man's name was van der Meer."

"We have heard of him," said the Japs. "He was killed."

"Yes. I sent guides to show your soldiers where they were hiding. But the daughter and one of the Chinese escaped. The daughter is very beautiful."

"So we have heard. But what of it?"

"I know where she is."

"And you have not reported it?"

"I only just, discovered her biding place. I can give you a guide who will lead you to it."

Captain Matsuo shrugged. "Bring us food," he ordered.

Hoesin was crushed. He had food sent them, and then he went to his hut and prayed to Allah or Buddha or whatever god he prayed to, asking him to strike the monkey-men dead, or at least cause them to depart.

Matsuo and Sokabe discussed the matter over their meal. "Perhaps we should look into the matter," said the former. "It is not well to have enemies in our rear."

"And they say that she is beautiful," added Sokabe.

"But we cannot both go," said Matsuo. Being both lazy and the commanding officer, he decided to send Lieutenant Sokabe with a detachment to find the girl and bring her back. "You will kill the Chinese," he ordered, "and you will bring the girl back—unharmed. You understand? Unharmed."

Lieutenant Hideo Sokabe came a few days later to the kampong of Tiang Umar the Chief. Being a very superior person, Lieutenant Sokabe slapped the old chief so hard that he fell down. Then Lieutenant Sokabe kicked him in the belly and face. "Where are the white girl and the Chinese?" he demanded.

"There is no white girl here, nor any Chinese."

"Where are they?"

"I do not know what you are talking about."

"You lie. Soon you will tell the truth." He ordered a sergeant to get him some bamboo splinters, and when they were brought, he drove one beneath one of Tiang Umar's finger nails. The old man screamed in agony.

"Where is the white girl?" demanded the Jap.

"I know of no white girl," insisted Tiang Umar.

The Jap drove another splinter beneath another nail, but still the old man insisted that he knew nothing of any white girl.

As Sokabe was preparing to continue the torture, one of the chief's wives came and threw herself upon her knees before him. She was an old woman—Tiang Umar's oldest wife. "If you will hurt him no more, I will tell you how you may find the white girl and the Chinese," she said.

"This is better," said Sokabe.

"How?"

"Alam knows where they hide," said the old woman, pointing to a youth.

Corrie and Sing Tai sat at the mouth of their cave. It had been a week since Alam had brought them food, and they were expecting him soon with eggs perhaps, and pork or a piece of dog meat. Corrie hoped that it would be eggs and a chicken.

"Pretty soon some one come," said Sing Tai, listening. "Too many. Come back into the cave."

Alam pointed out the cave to Lieutenant Hideo Sokabe. Tears welled from the youth's eyes. Had his life alone been forfeit, he would have died before he would have led these hated monkey-men to the hiding place of this girl whom he fairly worshipped. But the lieutenant had threatened to destroy everyone in the village if he failed to do so, and Alam knew that he would keep his word.

Hideo Sokabe and his men entered the cave, Sokabe with drawn sword, the men with fixed bayonets. In the dim light, Sokabe saw a Chinese and a young native boy. He had them dragged out. "Where is the girl?" he demanded of Alam. "You shall die for this, and all your people. Kill them," he said to his men.

"No!" screamed Alam. "That is the girl. She only wears the clothes of a boy."

Sokabe tore open Corrie's blouse. Then he grinned. A soldier ran a bayonet through Sing Tai, and the detachment marched away with their prisoner.

Chapter 2

 

S/SGT. JOE "DATBUM" BUBONOVITCH of Brooklyn, assistant engineer and waist gunner, stood in the shade of the wing of Lovely Lady with the other members of the combat crew of the big Liberator.

"I've found them pretty swell guys," he said in evident disagreement with a remark made by ball turret gunner S/Sgt. Tony "Shrimp" Rosetti of Chicago.

"Yeah? So I suppose dat Geo'ge Toid was a swell guy. Say, we got a mayor in Chicago oncet wot dared dat guy to come on over. He said he'd punch him in de snoot."

"You got your dates mixed, Shrimp."

"Yeah? Well, I don't like cartin' no bloody Britisher around in de Lovely Lady. An' I hear he's a dook, or sumpn."

"I guess here comes your duke now," said Bubonovitch.

A jeep pulled up beneath the wing of the B-24, disgorging three officers—an RAF colonel, an AAF colonel, and an AAF major. Capt. Jerry Lucas of Oklahoma City, pilot of the Lovely Lady, stepped forward; and the AAF colonel introduced him to Col. Clayton.

"All set, Jerry?" asked the American colonel.

"All set, sir."

Electricians and armorers, having given the final, loving check-up to their gadgets and guns, dropped through the bomb bay doors; and the combat crew climbed aboard.

Col. John Clayton was flying as an observer on a reconnaissance and photographic mission over Jap held Sumatra in Netherland East Indies, from an air field in (censored). Going forward to the flight deck when he came aboard, he stood behind the pilots during the take-off. Later, on the long flight, he took the co-pilot's place, sometimes the pilot's. He talked with the navigator and the radio engineer. He edged his way aft along the catwalk through the bomb bay between auxiliary gas tanks necessitated by the long flight. The plane carried no bombs. Shrimp and Bubonovitch and the tail gunner and the other waist gunner were sprawled on the deck against life rafts and parachutes. Shrimp was the first to see Clayton open the little door forward of the ball turret.

"Hst!" he warned. "Here comes the dook."

Clayton edged around the ball turret, stepped over Shrimp and Bubonovitch, and stopped beside the photographer, who was fiddling with his camera. None of the enlisted men stood up. When a fighting plane takes to the air, military formality is left grounded. The photographer, a Signal Corps sergeant, looked up and smiled. Clayton smiled back and sat down beside him.

Cold wind was swirling up around the ball turret and hurtling out the tail gunner's open window. The noise of the motors was deafening. By placing his mouth within an inch of the photographer's ear and shouting, Clayton asked some questions about the camera. The photographer screamed his replies. A B-24 in flight discourages conversation, but Clayton got the information he wished.

Then he sat down on the edge of a life raft between Shrimp and Bubonovitch. He passed around a package of cigarettes. Only Shrimp refused. Bubonovitch offered Clayton a light. Shrimp looked disgusted. He remembered George III, but he couldn't remember what he had done. All he knew what that he didn't like Britishers.

Shouting, Clayton asked Bubonovitch his name and where he came from. When Bubonovitch said Brooklyn, Clayton nodded. "I've heard a lot about Brooklyn," he said.

"Probably about dem bums," said Bubonovitch. Clayton smiled and nodded.

"They call me 'Dat Bum,'" said Bubonovitch, grinning. Pretty soon he was showing the English colonel pictures of his wife and baby. Then they signed each other's Short Snorter bills. That brought the other waist gunner, the tail gunner, and the photographer into the picture. Shrimp remained aloof and superior.

After Clayton had gone forward, Shrimp allowed that he'd just as soon have Tojo or Hitler sign his Short Snorter bill as a "dirty Britisher." "Look wot they done at the Alamo," he challenged.

"You mean Thermopylae," said Bubonovitch.

"Well, wot's the difference?"

"He's a good guy," said the tail gunner.

"Like our officers," said the other waist gunner. "No side."

It was dawn when they sighted the northwesterly tip of Sumatra, and a perfect day for a photographic mission. There were clouds above the mountains that form the backbone of the eleven hundred miles long island that sprawls across the equator south and west of the Malay Peninsula; but the coast line, as far as they could see it, was cloudless. And it was the coast line they were primarily interested in.

The Japs must have been taken wholly by surprise, for they had been photographing for almost half an hour before they encountered any flak. And this was most ineffective. But as they flew down the coast, it increased in volume and accuracy. The plane got some shrapnel from near misses, but luck held with them for a long time.

Near Padang, three Zeros roared down on them out of the sun. Bubonovitch got the leader. They could see the plane burst into flame and plummet earthward. The other two peeled off, and kept at a respectful distance for a while. Then they turned back. But the ack ack increased in volume and accuracy. The inboard starboard engine got a direct hit, and shrapnel sprayed the cockpit. Lucas's flak vest saved him, but the co-pilot got a direct hit in the face. The navigator slipped the co-pilot's safety belt and dragged him from the cockpit to administer first aid. He was already dead.

So thick and so close was the flak by now, that the great ship seemed to be bucking like a broncho. To attempt to avoid it, Lucas turned inshore away from the coast where he knew that most of the anti-aircraft batteries would be located. In shore, too, were clouds above the mountains in which they could hide as they turned back toward home.

Home! Liberators had made great flights in the past on three engines. The twenty-three year old captain had to think quickly. It was a snap judgment, but he knew it was sound. He ordered everything thrown overboard except their parachutes—guns, ammunition, life rafts, everything. It was the only chance they had of making their base. Zeros didn't worry Lucas. Zeros usually kept their distance from heavy bombers. Except for one stretch of water, the crossing of Malacca Strait, he could keep near land all the way, skirting the coast of Malaya northwest. If they had to bail out over water, they would be near shore; and their Mae Wests would have to answer. That was why he felt that he could jettison the life rafts.

As they turned in toward the mountains and the clouds, the flak came thicker and thicker. The Japs must have guessed the pilot's plan. Lucas knew that some of the mountain peaks rose to twelve thousand feet. He was flying at twenty thousand now, but slowly losing altitude. But he was leaving the shore batteries behind.

They were well above the mountains when a mountain battery opened up on them. Lucas heard a terrific burst, and the plane careened like a wounded thing. He fought the controls. He spoke into the intercom, asking reports. There was no reply. The intercom was dead. He sent the radio man back to check the damage. Clayton, in the co-pilot's seat, helped with the controls. It required the combined strength of both men to keep the plane from nosing over. Lucas called to the navigator. "Check and see that everybody jumps," he said. "Then you jump."

The navigator poked his head into the nose to tell the nose gunner to jump. The nose gunner was dead. The radio man came back to the flight deck. "The whole goddam tail's shot off," he said. "Butch and that photographer went with it."

"Okay," said Lucas. "Jump, and make it snappy." Then he turned to Clayton. "Better bail out, sir."

"I'll wait for you, if you don't mind, Captain," said Clayton. "Jump!" snapped Lucas. Clayton smiled. "Right-o!" he said.

"I've opened the bomb bay doors," said Lucas. "It's easier out that way. Make it snappy!"

Clayton reached the catwalk in the bomb bay. The ship was falling off on one wing. It was evidently going into a spin. One man could not hold it. He wanted to hang on until Lucas jumped—until the last minute. It was the last minute. The ship careened, throwing Clayton from the catwalk. His body struck the side of the bomb bay and then rolled out into thin air.

Unconscious, he hurtled toward death. Through heavy, enveloping clouds his body fell. Lovely Lady, her three motors still roaring, raced past him. Now, when she crashed she was sure to burn, leaving nothing for the enemy to learn or salvage.

But momentarily stunned, Clayton soon regained consciousness. But it took several seconds before he realized his situation. It was like awakening in a strange room. He had passed through the cloud bank, and was now in a torrential tropical rain below it. Perhaps it was to the cold rain that he owed his salvation. It may have revived him just in time to pull the rip cord while there was still a margin of seconds.

His chute billowed above him, and his body snapped grotesquely at the sudden retardation of his fall. Directly beneath him a sea of foliage billowed to the pounding of hurtling masses of rain. In a matter of seconds his body crashed through leaves and branches until his chute caught and held him suspended a couple of hundred feet above the ground. This close had he come to death.

Simultaneously, he heard a rending and crashing a few hundred yards away—a dull explosion followed by a burst of flame. Lovely Lady's funeral pyre lit up the dismal, dripping forest.

Clayton seized a small branch and pulled himself to a larger one that would support him. Then he slipped off the chute harness and his Mae West. His uniform and his underclothes, to the skin, were soaked and soggy. He had lost his cap during his fall. Now he removed his shoes and threw them away. His pistol and ammunition belt followed. Then his socks, tunic, trousers, and underclothes. He retained only a web belt and his knife in its scabbard.

He next climbed upward until he could release the snagged chute. He cut away all the lines, wrapped the silk in a small bundle; and, together with the lines, tied it to his back. Then he commenced the descent toward the ground. He swung down easily from branch to branch. From the lowest branches, giant creepers depended to the ground undergrowth below. Down these he clambered with the agility of a monkey.

From the silk of his chute, he fashioned a loin cloth. A sense of well being, of happiness surged through him. Now, that which he had lost he had regained. That which he loved most. Freedom. The habiliments of civilization, even the uniform of his country's armed forces, were to him but emblems of bondage. They had held him as his chains hold the galley slave, though he had worn his uniform with pride. But to be honorably free of it was better. And something told him that Fate may have ordained that he was to serve his country quite as well naked as uniformed. Else why had Fate plunged him thus into an enemy stronghold?

The poring rain sluiced down his bronzed body. It tousled his black hair. He raised his face to it. A cry of exaltation trembled on his lips but was not voiced. He was in the country of the enemy.

His first thought now was of his companions. Those who had alighted within sound of the crashing plane would naturally attempt to reach it. He made his way toward it. As he went, he searched the ground. He was looking for a certain plant. He did not entertain much hope of finding it in this strange, far away land. But he did. He found it growing luxuriantly. He gathered some and macerated the great leaves between his palms. Then he spread the juice over his entire body, face, limbs, and head.

After that he took to the trees where travelling was easier than through the lush and tangled undergrowth. Presently he overtook a man stumbling toward the wrecked plane. It was Jerry Lucas. He stopped above him and called him by name. The pilot looked in all directions, except up, and saw no one. But he had recognized the voice.

"Where the heck are you, colonel?"

"If I jumped, I'd land on your head."

Lucas looked up, and his mouth dropped open. An almost naked giant was perched above him. He thought quickly: The guy's gone off his bean. Maybe he hit his head when he landed. Maybe it was just shock. He decided to pay no attention to the nudity. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Clayton. "And you?"

"Fit as a fiddle."

They were but a short distance from the Lovely Lady. The flames were rising high above her, and some of the trees were blazing. When they got as close to her as the heat would permit they saw Bubonovitch. Bubonovitch saw Lucas and greeted him happily. But he did not see Clayton until the latter dropped from a tree and alighted in front of him. Bubonovitch reached for his .45. Then he recognized the Englishman.

"Migawd!" he exclaimed. "What happened to your clothes?"

"I threw them away."

"Threw them away!"

Clayton nodded. "They were wet and uncomfortable. They weighed too much."

Bubonovitch shook his head. His eyes wandered over the Englishman. He saw the knife. "Where's your gun?" he asked.

"I threw that away, too."

"You must be crazy," said Staff Sergeant Bubonovitch.

Lucas, standing behind Clayton, shook his head vigorously at his crewman. But the remark didn't seem to excite Clayton, as the pilot had feared it might. He just said, "No, not so crazy. You'll be throwing yours away pretty soon. Inside of twenty-four hours it will be rusty and useless. But don't throw your knife away. And keep it clean and sharp. It will kill and not make as much noise as a .45."

Lucas was watching the flames licking through the openings in his beloved plane. "Did they all get out?" he asked Bubonovitch.

"Yes. Lieut. Bumham and I jumped together. He should be close around here somewhere. All those who were alive got out."

Lucas raised his head and shouted: "Lucas calling! Lucas calling!"

Faintly an answer came: "Rosetti to Lucas! Rosetti to Lucas! For Pete's sake come an' get me down outta dis."

"Roger!" shouted Lucas, and the three men started in the direction from which Shrimp's voice had come.

They found him—dangling in the harness of his chute a good hundred feet above the ground. Lucas and Bubonovitch looked up and scratched their heads—at least figuratively.

"How you goin' to get me down?" demanded Shrimp.

"Damifino," said Lucas.

"After a while you'll ripen and drop," said Bubonovitch.

"Funny, ain'tcha, wise guy? Where'd you pick up dat dope wid out no clothes?"

"This is Colonel Clayton, half-wit," replied Bubonovitch.

"Oh." It is amazing how much contempt can be crowded into a two letter word. And S/Sgt. Tony Rosetti got it all in. It couldn't be missed. Lucas flushed.

Clayton smiled. "Is the young man allergic to Englishmen?"

"Excuse him, colonel; he doesn't know any better. He's from a suburb of Chicago known as Cicero."

"How you goin' to get me down?" demanded Shrimp again.

"That's just what I don't know," said Lucas.

"Maybe we'll think of some way by tomorrow," said Bubonovitch.

"You ain't a-goin' to leaf me up here all night!" wailed the ball turret gunner.

"I'll get him down," said Clayton.

There were no vines depending from the tree in which Shrimp hung that came close enough to the ground to be within reach of Clayton. He went to another tree and swarmed up the vines like a monkey. Then he found a loose liana some fifty feet above the ground. Testing it and finding it secure, he swung out on it, pushing himself away from the bole of the tree with his feet. Twice he tried to reach a liana that hung from the tree in which Shrimp was isolated. His outstretched fingers only touched it. But the third time they closed around it.

The strength of this liana he tested as he had the other; then, keeping the first one looped around an arm, he climbed toward Shrimp. When he came opposite him, he still could not quite reach him. The gunner was hanging just a little too far from the bole of the tree.

Clayton tossed him the free end of the liana he had brought over with him from an adjoining tree. "Grab this," he said, "and hang on."

Rosetti grabbed, and Clayton pulled him toward him until he could seize one of the chute's shrouds. Clayton was seated on a stout limb. He drew Rosetti up beside him.

"Get out of your chute harness and Mae West," he directed.

When Shrimp had done so, Clayton threw him across a shoulder, seized the liana he had brought from the nearby tree, and slipped from the limb.

"Geeze!" screamed Rosetti as they swung through space.

Holding by one hand, Clayton seized a waving branch and brought them to a stop. Then he clambered down the liana to the ground. When he swung Rosetti from his shoulder, the boy collapsed. He could not stand. And he was shaking like a leaf.

Lucas and Bubonovitch were speechless for a moment. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it," said the pilot.

"I still don't believe it," said Bubonovitch.

"Shall we look for the others?" asked Clayton. "I think we should try to find them and then get away from the plane. That smoke can be seen for miles, and the Japs will know exactly what it is."

They searched and called for several hours without success. And just before dark they came upon the body of Lieut. Burnham, the navigator. His chute had failed to open. With their knives they dug a shallow grave. Then they wrapped him in his chute and buried him. Jerry Lucas said a short prayer. Then they went away.

In silence they followed Clayton. His eyes were scanning the trees as they passed them, and it was evident that he was searching for something. Quite spontaneously, they all seemed to have acquired unlimited confidence in the big Englishman. Shrimp's eyes seldom left him. Who may say what the little Cicero mucker was thinking? He had not spoken since his rescue from the tree. He had not even thanked Clayton.

It had stopped raining and the mosquitoes swarmed about them. "I don't see how you stand it, colonel," said Lucas, slapping at mosquitoes on his face and hands.

"Sorry!" exclaimed Clayton. "I meant to show you." He searched about and found some of the plants he had discovered earlier in the afternoon. "Mash these leaves," he said, "and rub the juice on all the exposed parts of your body. The mosquitoes won't bother you after that."

Presently, Clayton found that for which he had been looking—trees with interlacing branches some twenty feet above the ground. He swung up easily and commenced to build a platform. "If any of you men can get up here, you can help me. We ought to get this thing done before dark."

"What is it?" asked Bubonovitch.

"It's where we're going to sleep tonight. Maybe for many nights."

The three men climbed slowly and awkwardly up. They cut branches and laid them across the limbs that Clayton had selected, forming a solid platform about ten by seven feet.

"Wouldn't it have been easier to have built a shelter on the ground?" asked Lucas.

"Very much," agreed Clayton, "but if we had, one of us might be dead before morning."

"Why?" demanded Bubonovitch.

"Because this is tiger country."

"What makes you think so?"

"I have smelled them off and on all afternoon."

S/Sgt. Rosetti shot a quick glance at Clayton from the corners of his eyes and then looked as quickly away.

Chapter 3

 

THE Englishman knotted several lengths of chute shrouds together until he had a rope that would reach the ground. He handed the end of the rope to Bubonovitch. "Haul in when I give you the word, Sergeant," he said. Then he dropped quickly to the ground.

"Smelled 'em!" said S/Sgt. Rosetti, exuding skepticism.

Clayton gathered a great bundle of giant elephant ears, made the end of the rope fast to it, and told Bubonovitch to haul away. Three such bundles he sent up before he returned to the platform. With the help of the others, he spread some on the floor of the platform and with the remainder built an overhead shelter.

"We'll get meat tomorrow," said Clayton. "I'm not familiar with the fruits and vegetables here except a few. We'll have to watch what the monkeys eat."

There were plenty of monkeys around them. There had been all afternoon—chattering, scolding, criticizing the newcomers.

"I recognize one edible fruit," said Bubonvitch. "See? In that next ree, Durio zibethinus, called durian. That siamang is eating one now—Symphalangus syndactylus—the black gibbon of Sumatra, largest of the gibbons."

"He's off again," said Shrimp. "He can't even call a ant a ant."

Lucas and Clayton smiled. "I'll get some of the fruit of the Durio zibeth-whatever-you-call-it," said the latter. He swung agilely into the adjoining tree and gathered four of the large, prickly skinned durians, tossing them one by one to his companions. Then he swung back.

Rosetti was the first to cut his open. "It stinks," he said. "I ain't that hungry." He started to toss it away. "It's spoiled."

"Wait," cautioned Bubonovitch. "I've read about the durian. It does stink, but it tastes good. The natives roast the seeds like chestnuts."

Clayton had listened to Bubonvitch attentively. As they ate the fruit, he thought; What a country! What an army!

A sergeant who talks like a college professor—and comes from Brooklyn at that! He thought, too, how little the rest of the world really knew America—the Nazis least of all. Jitterbugs, playboys, a decadent race! He thought of how gallantly these boys had fought their guns, of how Lucas had made sure that his crew and his passenger were out before he jumped. Of how the boy had fought hopelessly to save his ship.

Night had fallen. The jungle sounds and the jungle voices were different now. There was movement everywhere around them—unseen, stealthy. A hollow, grunting cough rose from the foot of their tree.

"Wot was dat?" asked Shrimp.

"Stripes," said Clayton.

Shrimp wanted to ask what stripes was, but so far he had addressed no word to the Britisher. However, curiosity at last got the best of pride. "Stripes?" he sasked.

"Tiger."

"Geeze! You mean they's a tiger loose down there?"

"Yes. Two of them."

"Geeze! I seen 'em oncet at the zoo in Chicago. I guess it wouldn't be so healthy down there. I heard they ate people."

"We've got to thank you, Colonel, that we're not down there," said Jerry Lucas.

"I guess we'd be a lot of babes in the woods without him," said Bubonovitch.

"I learned a hell of a lot in Colonel Saffarrans' jungle training outfit," said Shrimp, "but nothin' about wot to do about tigers."

"They hunt mostly at night," Clayton explained. "That's when you have to be on your guard." After a while he said to Bubonovitch, "From what little I have read about Brooklyn I was lead to believe that Brooklynites had a special pronunciation of English all their own. You talk like any one else."

"So do you," said Bubonovitch. Clayton laughed. "I was not educated at Oxford."

"Bum had a higher Brooklyn education," explained Lucas. "He went through sixth grade."

Bubonovitch and Rosetti dropped off to sleep. Clayton and Lucas sat at the edge of the platform, their legs dangling, planning for the future. They agreed that their best chance lay in getting a boat from friendly natives (if they could find any) on the southwest coast of the island and then trying to make Australia. They spoke of this and many other things. Lucas talked about his crew. He spoke of them with pride. Those who were unaccounted for, he worried about. Those who were dead were dead. There was nothing to be done about that now. But Clayton could tell by the tenseness in his voice when he spoke of them how he felt about them.

He spoke of Rosetti. "He's really a good kid," he said, "and a top ball turret gunner. Nature molded him for the job. There isn't much room in a ball turret. Bum says the War Department should breed 'em, crossing midgets with pygmies. Shrimp has the DFC and Air Medal with three clusters. He's a good kid all right."

"He certainly hasn't much use for Britishers," laughed Clayton.

"What with all the Irish and Italians in Chicago, it's not surprising. And then Shrimp never had much of a chance to learn anything. His father was killed in Cicero in a gang war when he was a kid, and I guess his mother was just a gangland moll. She never had any use for Shrimp, nor he for her. But with a background like that, you've got to hand it to the kid. He didn't get much schooling, but he kept straight."

"Bubonovitch interests me," said the Englishman. "He's an unusually intelligent man."

"Yes. He's not only intelligent, but he's extremely well educated. The former is not necessarily a corollary of the latter. Bubonovitch is a graduate of Columbia. His father, a school teacher, saw to that. Bum got interested in the exhibits in The American Museum of Natural History in New York when he was in high school. So he specialized in zoology, botany, anthropology, and all the other ologies that a fellow has to know to be valuable to the museum. And when he graduated, he landed a job there. He likes to pull scientific names of things on Shrimp just to annoy him."

"Then it's probably a good thing for Sgt. Rosetti's blood pressure that I haven't an Oxford accent," said Clayton.

As Corrie van der Meer trudged along with her captors her mind was occupied with but two problems: How to escape and how to destroy herself if she could not escape. Alam, walking beside her, spoke to her in his own language, which she understood but which the Japs did not.

"Forgive me," he begged, "for leading them to you. They tortured Tiang Umar, but he would not tell. Then his old wife could stand it no longer, and she told them that I knew where you were hiding. They said that they would kill everyone in the village if I did not lead them to your hiding place. What could I do?"

"You did right, Alam. Sing Tai and I were only two. It is better that two die than all the people of a village."

"I do not want you to die," said Alam. "I would rather die myself."

The girl shook her head. "What I fear," she said, "is that I may not find the means to die—in time."

Lieut. Sokabe spent the night in the kampong of Tiang Umar. The villagers were sullen and glowering; so Sokabe posted two sentries before the door of the house where he and his captive slept. To further preclude the possibility that she might escape, he bound her wrists and her ankles. Otherwise, he did not molest her. He had a healthy fear of Capt. Tokujo Matsuo, whose temper was notoriously vile; and he had a plan.

When he set out the next morning, he took Alam along to act as interpreter should he require one. Corrie was glad of the company of this friendly youth. They talked together as they had the previous day. Corrie asked Alam if he had seen any of the guerrilla bands that she had heard rumors of from time to time, bands made up of Dutchmen who had escaped to the hills—planters, clerks, soldiers.

"No, I have not seen them; but I have heard of them. I have heard that they have killed many Japanese. They are desperate men. The Japanese are always searching for them. They offer the native people rich rewards for pointing out their hiding places; so these men are suspicious of all natives they do not know, thinking they may be spies. It is said that a native who falls into their hands never returns to his village unless they know that they can trust him. And who can blame them? I have also heard that many natives have joined them. Now that we have learned that Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity is for the Japanese alone, we hate them." They passed the spot where the village of Taku Muda had stood. There was no evidence that man had ever set foot there, so completely had the jungle reclaimed it.

"This is the prosperity that the Japanese bring us," said Alam.

The morning wore on. They marched beneath sullen clouds in a tropical downpour. The gloomy forest stunk of rotting vegetation. It exhaled the vapors of death. Death! The girl knew that every step she took was bringing her closer to it. Unless—hope does not die easily in the breast of youth. But unless what?

She heard the roar of motors overhead. But she was used to that sound. The Japs were always flying over the island. Then, from a distance, there came to her ears a crashing and rending followed by a dull explosion. She did not hear the motors again. She thought, of course, that it was an enemy plane; and it filled her with satisfaction. The Japs jabbered about it excitedly. Lt. Sokabe considered investigating. He talked with a sergeant. At last they decided that they could never find the plane in this tangle of jungle and forest. It was too far away.

It was almost dark when they reached the kampong that Capt. Tokujo Matsuo had commandeered for the use of his detachment. Standing in the doorway of the house that two officers had taken for their quarters, Matsuo watched the party approach.

He called to Sokabe. "Where are the prisoners?"

The lieutenant seized Corrie roughly by the arm and pulled her out of line and toward the captain. "Here," he said.

"I sent you for a Chinaman and a yellow haired Dutch girl, and you bring back a black haired native boy. Explain."

"We killed the Chinaman," said Sokabe. "This is the Dutch girl."

"I do not feel like joking, you fool," snarled Matsuo.

Sokabe prodded the girl up the ladder that led to the doorway. "I do not joke," he said. "This is the girl. She has disguised herself by dyeing her hair black and wearing the clothing of a native boy. Look!" Roughly he parted Cor-rie's hair with his dirty fingers, revealing the blonde color close to the scalp.

Matsuo scrutinized the girl's features closely. Then he nodded. "She suits me," he said. "I shall keep her."

"She belongs to me," said Sokabe. "I found her and brought her here. She is mine."

Matsuo spat. His face turned red. But he managed to restrain himself. "You forget yourself, Lieutenant Sokabe," he said. "And take your orders from me. I am commanding officer here. You will find yourself other quarters at once and leave the girl here."

"You may be a captain," said Sokabe; "but now, because of the great size of the imperial army and the many casualties, many officers are low born. My honorable ancestors were samurai. My honorable uncle is General Hideki Tojo. Your father and all your uncles are peasants. If I write a letter to my honorable uncle, you will not be a captain any more. Do I get the girl?"

There was murder in Matsuo's heart. But he chose to dissemble his wrath until such time as Sokabe might meet an accidental death. "I thought you were my friend," he said, "and now you turn against me. Let us do nothing rash. The girl is nothing. Descendants of the gods should not quarrel over such a low born creature. Let us leave the matter to the decision of our colonel. He will be here to inspect us soon." And before he gets here, thought Matsuo, an accident will befall you.

"That is fair enough," agreed Sokabe. It will be most unfortunate, he thought, should my captain die before the colonel arrives.

The girl understood nothing that they said. She did not know that for the time being she was safe.

Early the next morning Alam left the kampong to return to his village.

Chapter 4

 

JERRY LUCAS was awakened by the violent shaking of the platform. It awakened Bubonovitch and Rosetti, also. "Wot fell!" exclaimed the latter.

Bubonovitch looked around. "I don't see anything."

Jerry leaned far out and looked up. He saw a huge black form a few feet above him, violently shaking the tree.

"Gripes!" he exclaimed. "Do you guys see what I see?"

The other two looked up. "Geeze!" said Rosetti. "Wot a mug! I never knew monkeys came dat big."

"That is not a monkey, you dope," said Bubonovitch. "It is known as Pongo pygmaeus, but why the pygmaeus I have not pursued my studies far enough to ascertain. It should be Pongo giganteum."

"Talk United States," growled Shrimp.

"It's an orangutan, Shrimp," said Lucas.

"From the Malay oran utan, meaning wild man," added Bubonovitch.

"What does it want?" inquired Shrimp. "Wot in 'ell 's it shakin' the tree like dat for? Tryin' to shake us out? Geeze! wot a mug. Is he a man eater, Perfesser Bubonovitch?"

"He is chiefly herbivorous," replied Bubonovitch. Rosetti turned to Lucas.

"Do monks eat people, Cap?"

"No," replied Lucas. "Just leave 'em alone, and they'll leave you alone. But don't get fresh with that baby. He could take you apart like nobody's business."

Shrimp was examining his .45. "He ain't a-goin' to take me apart, not while I got Big Bertha here."

The orangutan, having satisfied his curiosity, moved slowly off. Shrimp started stripping his .45. "Geeze! It's started to rust already, just like—" He looked around. "Say! Where's the dook?"

"Gripes! He's gone," said Lucas. "I never noticed."

"Maybe he fell off," suggested Rosetti, peering over the edge. "He wasn't a bad guy fer a Britisher."

"That's sure some concession, coming from you," said Bubonovitch. "Do you know, Cap'n, Shrimp wouldn't play billiards even for fear he might have to put English on the cue ball."

Shrimp sat up suddenly and looked at the others. "I just happened to think," he said. "Did either of youse hear dat scream last night?"

"I did," said Lucas. "What of it?"

"It sounded like some one bein' kilt. Didn't it?"

"Well, it did sound sort of human."

"Sure. Dat's it. The dook fell off an' a tiger got 'im. That was him screamin'."

Bubonovitch pointed. "Here comes his ghost."

The others looked. "Per Pete's sake!" said Rosetti. "Wot a guy!"

Swinging through the trees toward them, the carcass of a deer slung over one shoulder, was the Englishman. He swung onto the platform. "Here's breakfast," he said. "Go to it."

Dropping the carcass, he drew his knife and hacked out a generous portion. Tearing the skin from the flesh with powerful fingers, he squatted in a far corner of the platform and sank his strong teeth into the raw flesh. Shrimp's jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. "Ain't you goin' to cook it?" he asked.

"What with?" inquired Clayton. "There's nothing around here dry enough to burn. If you want meat, you'll have to learn to eat it raw until we can find a permanent camp and get something that will burn."

"Well," said Shrimp, "I guess I'm hungry enough-"

"I'll try anything once," said Bubonovitch.

Jerry Lucas hacked off a small piece and started to chew it. Clayton watched the three men chewing on bits of the warm raw meat. "That's not the way to eat it," he said. "Tear off pieces you can swallow, and then swallow them whole. Don't chew."

"How did youse learn all dis?" inquired Rosetti.

"From the lions."

Rosetti glanced at the others, shook his head, and then tried to swallow to large a piece of venison. He gagged and choked. "Geeze!" he said, after he had disgorged the morsel, "I never went to school to no lions." But after that he did better.

"It's not so bad when you swallow it whole," admitted Lucas.

"And it fills your belly and gives you strength," said Clayton.

He swung into the next tree and got more durian fruit. They ate it now with relish. "After dis," said Shrimp, "there ain't nuthin' I can't eat."

"I passed a stream near here," said Clayton. "We can drink there. I think we'd better get started. We've got to do some reconnoitering before we can make any definite plans. You might take some of this meat along in your pockets if you think you'll be hungry again soon. But there's plenty of game everywhere. We won't go hungry."

No one wanted to take any of the meat; so Clayton tossed the carcass to the ground. "For Stripes," he said.

The sun was shining, and the forest teemed with life. Bubonovitch was in his element. Here were animals and birds he had studied about in books, or whose dead and mounted frames he had seen in museums. And there were many that he had neither seen nor heard of. "A regular museum of natural history on the hoof," he said.

Clayton had led them to the stream, and after they had quenched their thirsts he guided them to a well marked game trail he had discovered while hunting for their breakfast. It wound downward in the direction he and Lucas had decided they would take—toward the west coast, many, many long marches away.

"There have been no men along this trail recently," said Clayton, "but there have been many other animals—elephant, rhinos, tigers, deer. It was on this trail that I found our breakfast."

Shrimp wanted to ask how he had caught the deer, but realized that he had recently been altogether too familiar with a Britisher. Probably a friend of George Thoid, he thought, and winced. It curled his hair to think what the mob would say could they know of it. Still, he had to admit that the guy wasn't a bad guy, even though he hated to admit it.

They were moving up wind, and Clayton paused and and raised a warning hand. "There is a man ahead of us," he said in a low tone.

"I don't see no one," said Rosetti.

"Neither do I," said Clayton, "but he's there." He stood still for a few minutes. "He's going the same way we are," he said. "I'll go ahead and have a look at him. The rest of you come along slowly." He swung into a tree and disappeared ahead.

"You can't see no one, you can't hear no one; and this guy tells us there's a guy ahead of us—and w'ich way he's goin'!" Rosetti looked appealingly at Lucas.

"He hasn't been wrong yet," said Jerry.

Sing Tai did not die. The Jap bayonet inflicted a cruel wound, but pierced no vital organ. For two days Sing Tai lay in a welter of blood, deep hidden in his cave. Then he crawled out. Suffering from shock, weak from loss of blood and lack of food and water, often on the verge of fainting from pain, he staggered slowly along the trail toward the village of Tiang Umar. Orientals are more easily resigned to death than are occidentals, so greatly do their philosophies differ. But Sing Tai would not die. While there was hope that his beloved mistress might live and need him, he, too, must live.

In the village of Tiang Umar he might get word of her. Then he might be able to determine whether to live or die. So Sing Tai's loyal heart beat on, however weakly. Yet there were moments when he wondered if he would have the strength to carry on to the village. Such thoughts were depressing him when he was startled to see an almost naked giant appear suddenly in the trail before him—a bronzed giant with black hair and gray eyes. This, perhaps, is the end, thought Sing Tai.

Clayton had dropped into the trail from an overhanging tree. He spoke to Sing Tai in English, and Sing Tai replied in English which had just a trace of pidgin. In Hong Kong, Sing Tai had lived for years in the homes of Englishmen.

Clayton saw the blood soaked garments and noted the outward signs of weakness that seemed to verge on collapse. "How you get hurt?" he asked.

"Jap monkey-man run bayonet through me—here." He indicated the spot in his side.

"Why?" asked Clayton, and Sing Tai told his story.

"Are there Japs near here?"

"Me no think so."

"How far is this village you are trying to reach?"

"Not very far now—maybe so one kilometer."

"Are the people of that village friendly to the Japanese?"

"No. Very much hate Japs."

Clayton's companions appeared now from around a curve in the trail. "You see," said Lucas. "Right again."

"That guy is always right," muttered Shrimp, "but I don't see how he done it—not with no glass ball nor nuthin'."

"Not even with the aid of mirrors," said Bubonovitch.

Sing Tai looked at them apprehensively as they approached. "They are my friends," said Clayton—"American aviators."

"Melicans!" breathed Sing Tai with a sigh of relief. "Now I know we save missie."

Clayton repeated Sing Tai's story to the others, and it was decided that they should go on to Tiang Umar's village. Clayton gathered the Chinese gently into his arms and carried him along the trail. When Sing Tai said that they were near the village, the Englishman put him down, and told them all to wait while he went ahead to investigate. The Jap detachment might still be there. It was not, and he soon returned.

Tiang Umar received them well when Sing Tai had explained who they were. With Sing Tai acting as interpreter, Tiang Umar told them that the Japs had left the previous morning, taking the Dutch girl and one of his young men with them. What was their destination, he did not know. He knew that there was a Jap camp one day's march to the southwest. Perhaps they had gone to that camp. If they would wait in his kampong, he was sure that the youth, Alam, would return, as the Japs had taken him along only to act as interpreter in the villages they might pass through.

They decided to wait Clayton was especially anxious to; and when it was decided, he went off into the forest alone. "He'll probably come back wit one of them there water buffalo under his arm," predicted Shrimp. But when he came back he had only some tough and slender branches and some bamboo. With these and some chicken feathers and fiber cord given him by Tiang Umar, he fashioned a bow, some arrows and a spear. The tips of his weapons he fire hardened. With parachute silk, he made a quiver.

His companions watched with interest. Rosetti was not greatly impressed when Clayton explained that his armament would serve not only to insure them plenty of game but as weapons of defense and offense against men. "Do we hold de game w'ile he shoots at it?" he asked Bubonovitch. "Say, an' if any guy ever pricked me wid one of dem t'ings, an' I found it out—"

"Don't be corny," said Bubonovitch. But weapons, to Rosetti, meant .45s, tommy guns, machine guns, not slivers of bamboo with chicken feathers at one end.

Late in the afternoon, Alam returned. He was immediately surrounded by a crowd of jabbering natives. Sing Tai finally got his story and retold it to Clayton. Alam knew that the two Jap officers had quarrelled over the girl and that she was still safe at the tune he had left the village that morning.

Sing Tai, with tears in his eyes, begged Clayton to rescue Corrie from the Japs. Clayton and the Americans discussed the matter. All were in favor of the attempt, but not all for the same reasons. Clayton and Bubonovitch wished to save the girl. Lucas and Rosetti wished to discomfit the Japs.

They were little interested in the girl, both being misogynists. Lucas was a woman hater because the girl he had left behind in Oklahoma City had married a 4-F two months after Jerry had gone overseas. Rosetti's hatred of them stemmed from his lifelong hatred of his mother. Early the following morning they set out, guided by Alam.

Chapter 5

 

THEY moved slowly and cautiously, Clayton reconnoitering ahead of the others. Shrimp didn't see why they had brought Alam, and was sure that they would become lost. In a weird sign language of his own invention, he was constantly asking Alam if they were on the right trail. The native, not having the slightest idea what Shrimp's wild gesticulating meant, nodded and smiled as soon as Rosetti started to point and grimace.

Lucas and Bubonovitch were not as much concerned as Shrimp. They had more confidence in the Englishman than he. However, they could not know that Clayton needed no guide to show him the trail of a detachment of soldiers accompanied by a white girl and a native youth. Everywhere along the trail the signs of their recent passage were obvious to his trained senses.

It was dark when they approached the village. Clayton had the others wait while he went ahead to investigate. He found the village poorly guarded and entered it with ease. The night was moonless and clouds hid the stars. There were dim lights in a few of the houses. Conditions were ideal for the furtherance of the plan Clayton had worked out.

Close to the point at which he had entered his keen sense of smell located the white girl. He heard the angry jabbering of two Japs in the house with her. They would be the two officers still quarrelling over her.

He left the village at the same point at which he had entered it and passed around it to its lower end. There was a sentry here. Clayton did not wish any sentry at this point. The fellow patrolled back and forth. Clayton crouched behind a tree, waiting. The sentry approached. Something leaped upon him from behind; and before he could voice a cry of warning, a keen blade bit deep into his throat.

Clayton dragged the corpse out of the village, and returned to his companions. He whispered instructions; then he led them to the lower end of the village. "Your .45s," he had said, "will probably fire the cartridges that are in the chambers. The chances are that the mechanisms are so rusted by this time that they will not eject the shell nor reload, but fire as long as they will fire. When they jam, throw rocks into the village to keep attention attracted in this direction. And all the while, yell like hell. Start this in three minutes. In four minutes, get out of there and get out quick. We'll rendezvous on the back trail above the village. Keep your watch dial hidden from the village, Captain." Then he was gone.

He returned to the upper end of the village and hid beneath the house in which were the two officers and the girl. A minute later, shots rang out at the lower end of the village and loud yells shattered the silence of the night. Clayton grinned. It sounded as though a strong force were attacking the village.

A second later the two officers ran from the house, screaming orders, demanding explanations. Soldiers swarmed from other houses and all ran in the direction of the disturbance. Then Clayton ran up the ladder that led to the doorway of the house and entered. The girl lay on sleeping mats at the rear of the single room. Her wrists and ankles were bound.

She saw this almost naked man cross the floor toward her at a run. He stooped down and gathered her in his arms, carried her from the house and out into the jungle. She was terrified. What new horror awaited her?

In the dim light within the room, she had only seen that the man was tall and that his skin was brown. Out along a jungle trail he bore her for a short distance. Then he halted and put her down. She felt something cold press against her wrists—and her hands were free. Then the cords around her ankles were cut.

"Who are you?" she demanded in Dutch.

"Quiet!" he cautioned.

Presently, four others joined them; and they all moved in silence with her along the dark trail. Who were they? What did they want of her? The one word, quiet, spoken in English had partially reassured her. At least they were not Japs.

For an hour they moved on in unbroken silence, Clayton constantly alert for sounds of pursuit. But none developed. At last he spoke. "I think we confused them," he said. "If they are searching, it is probably in the other direction."

"Who are you?" asked Corrie, this time in English.

"Friends," replied Clayton. "Sing Tai told us about you. So we came and got you."

"Sing Tai is not dead?"

"No, but badly wounded."

Alam spoke to her then and reassured her. "You are safe now," he said. "I have heard that Americans can do anything. Now I believe it."

"These are Americans?" she asked incredulously. "Have they landed at last?"

"Only these few. Their plane was shot down."

"That was a pretty cute trick, Colonel," said Bubono-vitch. "It certainly fooled them."

"It came near doing worse than that to me, because I forgot to caution you as to the direction of your fire. Two bullets came rather too close to me for comfort." He turned to the girl. "Do you feel strong enough to walk the rest of the night?" he asked.

"Yes, quite," she replied. "You see I am used to walking. I have been doing a lot of it for the past two years, keeping out of the way of the Japs."

"For two years?"

"Yes, ever since the invasion. I have been hiding in the mountains all this time, Sing Tai and I." Clayton drew her out, and she told her story—the flight from the plantation, the death of her mother, the murder of her father and Lum Kam, the treachery of some natives, the loyalty of others.

They reached the village of Tiang Umar at dawn, but they remained there only long enough to get food; then they moved on, all but Alam. A plan had been worked out during the night. It was based on the belief that the Japs would eventually return to this village to look for the girl. Furthermore Corrie wished to have nothing done that would jeopardize the safety of these people who had befriended her.

Corrie and Sing Tai knew of many hiding places in the remote fastnesses of the mountains. They had been forced to move closer to Tiang Umar's village because of their inability to get proper or sufficient food for themselves in these safer locations. But now it would be different. The Americans could do anything.

They had been forced to leave Sing Tai behind, as he was in no condition to travel. Tiang Umar assured them that he could hide the Chinese where the Japs could not find him if they should return to the village.

"If I can, I shall let you know where I am, Tiang Umar," said Corrie; "then, perhaps, you will send Sing Tai to me when he is strong enough to travel."

Corrie led the party deep into the wilds of the mountain hinterland. Here there were rugged gorges and leaping streams, forests of teak, huge stands of bamboo, open mountain meadows man deep with tough grasses.

Lucas and Clayton had decided to go thus deeper into the mountains and then cut to the southeast before turning toward the coast. In this way they would avoid the area in which the plane had crashed, where the Japs had probably already instituted a thorough search. They would also encounter few if any villages whose inhabitants might put Japs upon their trail.

Clayton often foraged ahead for food, always returning with something. It might be partridge or pheasant, sometimes deer. And now at their camps he made fire, so that the Americans could cook their food.

On the trail, Clayton and Corrie always led the way, then came Bubonovitch, with Lucas and Shrimp bringing up the rear, keeping as far away from the Dutch girl as possible. They were unreconciled to the presence of a woman. It was not so much that Corrie might jeopardize their chances to escape. It was just that they objected to women on general principles.

"But I suppose we gotta put up wit de dame," said Rosetti. "We can't leaf the Japs get her."

Jerry Lucas agreed. "If she were a man, or even a monkey, it wouldn't be so bad. But I just plain don't have any time for women."

"Some dame double-cross you?" asked Shrimp.

"I could have forgiven her throwing me over for a 4-F as soon as I was out of sight," said Jerry, "but the so-and-so was a Republican into the bargain."

"She ain't hard to look at," conceded Shrimp, grudgingly.

"They're the worst," said Jerry. "Utterly selfish and greedy. Always gouging some one. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! That's all they think of. If you ever decide to marry, Shrimp," advised Jerry, pedantically, "marry an old bag who'd be grateful to any one for marrying her."

"Who wants to marry an old bag?" demanded Shrimp.

"You wouldn't have to worry about wolves."

"Whoever marries dis little Dutch number'll have plenty to worry about. All de wolves in de woods'll be howlin' round his back door. Ever notice dem lamps w'en she smiles?"

"You falling for her, Shrimp?"

"Hell, no; but I got eyes, ain't I?"

"I never look at her," lied Jerry.

Just then a covey of partridges broke cover. Clayton already had an arrow fitted to his bow. Instantly the string twanged and a partridge fell. The man's movements were as swift and sure and smooth as the passage of light.

"Geez!" exclaimed Rosetti. "I give. The guy's not human. Howinell did he know them boids was goin' to bust out? How could he hit 'em with dat t'ing?"

Jerry shook his head. "Search me. He probably smelled 'em, or heard 'em. Lots of the things he does are just plain uncanny."

"I'm goin' to learn to shoot one of dem t'ings," said Shrimp.

Presently, Rosetti overcame his Anglophobia sufficiently to permit him to ask Clayton to show him how to make a bow and arrows. Lucas and Bubonovitch expressed a similar desire. The next day Clayton gathered the necessary materials, and they all set to work under his guidance to fashion weapons, even to Come.

The Dutch girl braided the bow strings from fibers from the long tough grasses they found in open spaces in the mountains. Clayton shot birds for the feathers, and taught the others how properly to fletch their arrows. The fashioning of the weapons was a pleasant interlude to long days of scaling cliffs, battling through jungle undergrowth, marching down one declivity only to climb up once more to descend another. It was the first time that the five had had any protracted social intercourse, for after each hard day's march their greatest need had been sleep.

The Dutch girl sat near Jerry Lucas. He watched her nimble fingers braiding the fibers, and thought that she had pretty hands—small and well shaped. He noticed, too, that notwithstanding two years of bitter hardships she still gave attention to her nails. He glanced at his own, ruefully. Somehow, she always looked trim and neat. How she accomplished it was beyond him.

"It will be fun to hunt with these," she said to him in her precise, almost Oxford English.

"If we can hit anything," he replied. She speaks better English than I, he thought.

"We must practice a great deal," she said. "It is not right that we four grown-up people should be dependent upon Colonel Clayton for everything, as though we were little children."

"No," he said.

"Is he not wonderful?"

Jerry mumbled a "Yes," and went on with his work. With awkward, unaccustomed fingers he was trying to fletch an arrow. He wished the girl would keep still. He wished she were in Halifax. Why did there have to be girls around to spoil a man's world?

Carrie glanced up at him, puzzled. Her eyes reflected it. Then she noticed his awkward attempts to hold a feather in place and fasten it there with a bit of fiber. "Here," she said. "Let me help you. You hold the feather and I'll bind the fiber around the shaft. Hold it close in the groove. There, that's right." Her hands, passing the fiber around the arrow, often touched his. He found the contact pleasant; and because he found it so, it made him angry.

"Here," he said, almost rudely, "I can do this myself. You need not bother."

She looked up at him, surprised. Then she went back to braiding the bow strings. She did not say anything, but in that brief glance when their eyes had met he had seen surprise and hurt in hers. He had seen the same once in a deer he had shot, and he had never again shot a deer.

You're a damned heel, he thought of himself. Then, with a great effort of will power, he said, "I am sorry. I did not mean to be rude."

"You do not like me," she said. "Why? Have I done something to offend you?"

"Of course not. And what makes you think I don't like you?"

"It has been quite obvious. The little sergeant does not like me, either. Sometimes I catch him looking at me as though he would like to bite off my head.

"Some men are shy around women," he said.

The girl smiled. "Not you," she said.

They were silent for a moment. Then he said, "Would you mind helping me again? I am terribly awkward at this."

Corrie thought, He is a gentleman, after all.

Again she bound the feathers fast while he held them in place. And their hands touched. Chagrined, Jerry found himself moving his so that they would touch oftener.

Chapter 6

 

MUCH time was devoted to archery even on the march. Corrie shamed the men. She was very quick and very accurate, and she drew a strong bow—the full length of a two foot, eight inch arrow until the feathers touched her right ear.

Clayton complimented her. Shrimp told Bubonovitch that it was a sissy sport anyway. Jerry secretly admired her prowess and was ashamed of himself for admiring it. He tried to concentrate on the girl in Oklahoma City and the Republican 4-F.

Corrie explained that she had belonged to an archery club for two years in Holland while there at school, and that she had kept up the practice after she returned to her father's plantation. "If I were not good at it by this time, I should think myself very stupid."

Eventually, even Shrimp commenced to brag about his marksmanship. They were all pretty good, and woe betide any game bird or animal that crossed their path. They had found a couple of dry caves in a limestone cliff, and Clayton had decided that they should remain there until some new clothing and footwear could be fashioned, for their shoes were practically gone and their clothing in shreds.

The Englishman had roughly cured a deer skin, and had fashioned an awl and needles from bamboo. With the same tough fiber used for their bows and arrows, Corrie was making crude sandals for them with these materials and tools.

She worked alone one morning while the men went out to hunt. Her thoughts ranged over the two years that had passed—years of sorrow, hardship, and danger. Years of pain and unshed tears and hate. She thought of her present situation—alone in the vastness of a mountain wilderness with four strange men, four foreigners. And she realized that she had never felt safer and that for the first time in two years she was happy.

She smiled when she thought of how terrified she had been when that almost naked brown man had carried her off into the forest. And how surprised she had been when she learned that he was a Royal Air Force colonel. She had liked him and Sergeant Bubonovitch from the very beginning. Her heart had warmed to the sergeant from the moment that he had shown her the pictures of his wife and baby. She had not liked "the little sergeant" nor Captain Lucas. They are both boors, she had thought; but the captain is the worse because he is an educated man and should know better than to behave toward me as he has.

That was what she had thought until lately, but since the day that she had helped him fletch his arrows he had been different. He still did not seek her company, but he did not avoid her as he had in the past. Bubonovitch had told her what a fine pilot he was and how his crew worshiped him. He cited several examples of Lucas' courage, and they lost nothing in the telling. Crew members are that way if they like an officer.

So Corrie concluded that Lucas was a man's man and possibly a woman hater. And she found the latter idea intriguing. It was also amusing. She smiled as she thought of how a woman hater must feel in such a situation—forced into close companionship with a woman day after day. And a young and pretty woman, she added mentally. For Corrie was eighteen, and she knew that she was even more than pretty—even in rags and with that horrid head of hair, mostly a rusty black, but blonde at the roots. She had no mirror, but she had seen her reflection in still pools of water. That always made her laugh. She laughed easily and often these days, for she was strangely happy.

She wondered if Captain Lucas would have disliked her if they had met under normal conditions—she with lovely gowns and her beautiful, golden hair becomingly arranged. Had she been given to self analysis, she would probably have wondered also why he was so much in her thoughts. Of course he was goodlooking in an extremely masculine way.

She thought of him as old, and would have been surprised to have learned that he was only twenty-three. Responsibility and many hours of intense nervous strain had matured him rapidly. To hurl thirty tons of aluminum and steel and high explosives into the air and into battle, to feel that upon you alone depends the safety of a beautiful, half million dollars worth of plane and the lives of nine of your best friends is sufficient responsibility to bring lines of maturity to any face. They had left their mark on Jerry Lucas's. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices. At first she assumed that the hunters were returning. Then, as the sounds came nearer, she recognized the intonation of native speech; and a moment later several Sumatrans appeared in the mouth of the cave. They were duty, vicious looking men. There were ten of them. They took her away with them. From their conversation she soon learned why: The Japs had offered a reward for the capture of her and Sing Tai.

The sun was setting when the hunters returned to the cave. The brief equatorial twilight would soon be followed by darkness. The men missed the girl immediately and commenced to speculate on the explanation.

"She probably run out on us," said Shrimp. "You can't trust no dame."

"Don't be a damn fool," snapped Lucas. Shrimp's jaw dropped in surprise. He had been sure that the captain would agree with him. "Why should she run out on us?" demanded Lucas. "We offer her the only chance she has to escape the Japs. She probably went hunting."

"What makes you think she has run away from us, Roset-ti?" asked Clayton, who was examining the ground just outside of the cave entrance.

"I know skoits," said Shrimp.

"I'd want better evidence than that," said the Englishman.

"Well, she didn't go hunting," said Bubonovitch from the back of the cave.

"How do you know?" asked Lucas.

"Her bow and arrows are here."

"No, she didn't go hunting and she didn't run away," said Clayton. "She was taken away by force by a band of natives. There were about ten men in the band. They went that way." He pointed.

"You got a crystal ball, Colonel?" asked Bubonovitch skeptically.

"I have something more dependable—two eyes and a nose. So have you men, but yours are no good. They have been dulled by generations of soft living, of having laws and police and soldiers to surround you with safeguards."

"And how about you, Colonel?" asked Lucas banteringly.

"I have survived simply because my senses are as acute as those of my enemies—usually far more acute—and are combined with experience and intelligence to safeguard me where there are no laws, no police, no soldiers."

"Like in London," observed Bubonovitch. Clayton only smiled.

"What makes you sure she didn't go with the natives willingly?" asked Jerry Lucas. "She might have had some good reason that we, of course, can't know anything about. But I certainly don't believe that she deserted us."

"She was taken by force after a very brief struggle. The signs are plain on the ground. You can see here where she held back and was dragged along a few feet. Then her tracks disappear. They picked her up and carried her. The stink of natives clings to the grasses."

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" demanded Lucas. "Let's get going."

"Sure," said Shrimp. "Let's get after the dirty so-and-sos. They can't take—" He stopped suddenly, surprised by the strange reaction the abduction of the hated "dame" had wrought.

It had started to rain—a sudden tropical deluge. Clayton stepped into the shelter of the cave. "There is no use in starting now," he said. "This rain will obliterate the scent spoor, and we couldn't follow the visible spoor in the dark. They will have to lie up somewhere for the night. Natives don't like to travel after dark on account of the big cats. So they won't gain on us. We can leave immediately it is light enough in the morning for me to see the trail."

"The poor kid," said Jerry Lucas.

The moment that it was light enough to see, they were off to track down Corrie's abductors. The Americans saw no sign of any spoor, but to the habituated eyes of the Englishman it ran clear and true. He saw where they had put Corrie down a short distance from the cave and made her walk.

It was midmorning when Clayton stopped and sniffed the breeze that blew gently from the direction from which they had come. "You'd better take to the trees," he said to the others. "There's a tiger coming down the trail behind us. He's not very far away."

Corrie's abductors had camped at the edge of a mountain meadow as darkness approached. They built a fire to keep the great cats away, and huddled close to it, leaving one man on guard to tend it.

Tired, the girl slept for several hours. When she awoke, she saw that the fire was out and knew that the guard must have fallen asleep. She realized that now she might escape. She looked toward the dark, forbidding forest—just a solid blank of blackness. But in it lurked possible death. In the other direction, the direction in which these men were taking her, lay something worse than death. She balanced the certainty against the possibility and reached her decision quickly.

Silently she arose. The guard lay stretched beside the ashes of the dead fire. She passed around him and the others. A moment later she entered the forest. Though the trail was worn deep it was difficult to follow it in the darkness; and she made slow progress, often stumbling. But she went on, that she might put as much distance between herself and her captors as possible before daylight, being certain that they would follow her.

She was frightened. The forest was full of sound—stealthy, menacing sound. And any one of them might be the footsteps or the wings of Death. Yet she felt her way on, deeper and deeper into the impenetrable gloom until she heard a sound that turned her blood cold—the cough of a tiger. And then she heard it crashing through the undergrowth as though it had caught her scent or heard her.

She groped to the side of the trail, her hands outstretched. She prayed that she might find a tree she could scale. A hanging vine struck her in the face as she blundered into it. She seized it and started to climb. The crashing of the beast's body through the tangle of shrubbery sounded closer. Cor-rie clawed her way upward. From below came a series of hideous growls as the tiger sprang. The impact of his body nearly tore the vine from her grasp, but terror and desperation lent her strength.

Once more the vine swayed violently as the beast sprang again, but now the girl knew that it could not reach her if the vine held. There lay the danger. Twice more the tiger sprang, but at last Corrie reached one of the lower branches—a leafy sanctuary at least from the great cats. But there were other menaces in the jungle that could range far above the ground. The most fearsome of these was the python.

The carnivore remained beneath the tree for some time. Occasionally it growled. At last the girl heard it move away. She considered descending and continuing her flight. She was sure that Clayton at least would search for her, but he could do nothing until daylight. She thought of Jerry Lucas. Even if he did not like her, he would probably help in the search for her—not because she was Corrie van der Meer, but because she was a woman. And of course Bubonovitch would come, and the little sergeant might be shamed into it.

She decided to wait until daylight. Sometimes Stripes hunted in the daytime, but most usually at night. And this was what the Malays called tiger weather—a dark, starless, misty night.

Eventually the long night ended, and Corrie clambered down into the trail and continued her interrupted flight. She moved swiftly now.

Chapter 7

 

FROM the branches of a tree that overhung the trail, the survivors of Lovely Lady waited for the tiger to pass and permit them to descend. They had no intention of interfering with his passage. The Americans assured one another that they had not lost a tiger, and grinned as though the remark was original.

They had accompanied Clayton into trees so many times that Shrimp said he expected to sprout a tail most any time. "That's all you need," Bubonovitch assured him.

Around them were the ordinary daylight sounds of the forest, to which they were now so accustomed—the raucous cries of birds, the terrific booming of siamang gibbons, the chattering of the lesser simians—but no sound came from the tiger. Shrimp decided that it was a false alarm.

Below them, not more than a hundred feet of the trail was visible between two turnings—about fifty feet in each direction. Suddenly the tiger appeared, slouching along loose-jointed and slab-sided, noiseless on his cushioned pads. Simultaneously a slender figure came into view around the opposite turning. It was Corrie. Both the tiger and the girl stopped, facing one another less than a hundred feet apart. The tiger voiced a low growl and started forward at a trot. Corrie seemed frozen with horror. For an instant she did not move. And in that instant she saw an almost naked man drop from above onto the back of the carnivore. And following him instantly, three other men dropped to the trail, jerking knives from their sheaths as they ran toward the man battling with the great cat. And first among them was S/Sgt. Rosetti, the British hater.

A steel thewed arm encircled the tiger's neck, mightily muscled legs were locked around its groin, and the man's free arm was driving a keen blade deep into the beast's left side. Growls of fury rumbled from the savage throat of the great cat as it threw itself about in agony and rage. And, to Cor-rie's horror, mingled with them were equally savage growls that rumbled from the throat of the man. Incredulous, the three Americans watched the brief battle between the two—two jungle beasts—powerless to strike a blow for the man because of the wild leapings and turnings of the stricken tiger.

But what seemed a long time to them was a matter of seconds only. The tiger's great frame went limp and sank to the ground. And the man rose and put a foot upon it and, raising his face to the heavens, voiced a horrid cry—the victory cry of the bull ape. Corrie was suddenly terrified of this man who had always seemed so civilized and cultured. Even the men were shocked.

Suddenly recognition lighted the eyes of Jerry Lucas. "John Clayton," he said, "Lord Greystoke—Tarzan of the Apes!"

Shrimp's jaw dropped. "Is dat Johnny Weismuller?" he demanded.

Tarzan shook his head as though to clear his brain of an obsession. His thin veneer of civilization had been consumed by the fires of battle. For the moment he had reverted to the savage primordial beasts that he had been raised. But he was almost instantly his second self again.

He welcomed Corrie with a smile. "So you got away from them," he said.

Corrie nodded. She was still shaken and trembling, and almost on the verge of tears—tears of relief and thanksgiving. "Yes, I got away from them last night; but if it hadn't been for you, it wouldn't have done me much good, would it?"

"It is fortunate that we happened to be at the right place at the right time. You had better sit down for a while. You look all in."

"I am." She sat down at the edge of the trail, and the four men gathered around her. Jerry Lucas beamed with pleasure and relief. Even Shrimp was happy about it all.

"I'm sure glad you're back, Miss," he said. Then, when he realized what he had said, he turned red. Shrimp's psyche had recently received terrific jolts. A couple of lifelong phobias were being knocked into a cocked hat. He had come to admire an Englishman and to like a dame.

Corrie told them of her capture and escape, and she and the Americans discussed the killing of the tiger. "Weren't you afraid?" she asked Tarzan.

Tarzan, who had never been afraid in his life, only cautious, was always at a loss to answer this question, which had been put to him many times before. He simply did not know what fear was.

"I knew I could kill the beast," he said.

"I thought you were crazy when I saw you drop on it," said Bubonovitch. "I was sure scared."

"But you came down just the same to help me, all of you. If you thought you might be killed doing it, that was true bravery."

"Why haven't you told us you were Tarzan?" asked Jerry.

"What difference could it have made?"

"We were sure dumb not to have recognized you long ago," said Bubonovitch.

Corrie said that she could go on. The men gathered the bows they had flung aside when they dropped to the ground, and they started back toward their camp. "Funny none of us thought to shoot it wit arrows," said Shrimp.

"They would only have infuriated it," said Tarzan. "Of course, if you got one through his heart that would kill a tiger; but he would live long enough to do a terrible lot of damage. Many a hunter has been mauled by lions after sending a large caliber bullet through its heart. These great cats are amazingly tenacious of life."

"To be mauled by a lion or tiger must be a terrible way to die," said Corrie, shuddering.

"On the contrary, it would seem to be a rather nice way to die—if one had to die," said Tarzan. "A number of men who had been mauled by lions and lived have recorded their sensations. They were unanimous in declaring that they felt neither pain nor fear."

"Dey can have it," said Shrimp. "I'll take a tommy gun for mine."

Tarzan brought up the rear of the little column on the way back to camp, that Usha the Wind might bring to his nostrils warning of the approach of the Sumatrans, if they were pursuing Corrie, before they came too close.

Shrimp walked beside him, watching his every move with admiring eyes. To think, he said to himself, that I'd ever be runnin' around in a jungle wit Tarzan of de Apes. Bubono-vitch had convinced him that it was not Johnny Weismuller. Jerry and Corrie led the way. He walked just behind one of her shoulders. He could watch her profile from that position. He found it a very nice profile to watch. So nice that, though he tried, he couldn't conjure up the likeness of the girl in Oklahoma City for any length of time. His thoughts kept coming back to the profile.

"You must be very tired," he said. He was thinking that she had walked this trail all the day before and all this day, with practically no sleep.

"A little," she replied. "But I am used to walking. I am very tough."

"We were frightened when we found you gone and Tarzan discovered that you had been abducted."

She threw him a quick, quizzical glance. "And you a misogynist!" she chided.

"Who said I was a misogynist?"

"Both you and the little sergeant."

"I didn't tell you that, and Shrimp doesn't know what a misogynist is."

"I didn't mean that. I meant that you are both misogynists. No one told me. It was quite obvious."

"Maybe I thought I was," he said. Then he told her about the girl in Oklahoma City.

"And you love her so much?"

"I do not. I guess my pride was hurt. A man hates to be brushed off."

"Brushed off? What is that?"

"Jilted—and for a Republican 4-F."

"Is that such a terrible person? I never heard of one before."

Jerry laughed. "Really, no. But when you're mad you like to call names, and I couldn't think of anything else. The fellow is really all right. As a matter of fact I am commencing to love him."

"You mean that it is better to discover, before marriage, that she is fickle rather than after?"

"We'll settle for that—for the time being. I just know that I would not want her to be in love with me now."

Corrie thought that over. Whatever she deduced from it, she kept to herself. When they reached camp a few minutes later, she was humming a gay little tune.

After she had gone into the cave, Bubonovitch said to Jerry, "How's the misogynist this afternoon?"

"Shut your trap," said Jerry.

Tarzan, in questioning Corrie about her abductors, had ascertained that there had been ten of them and that they were armed with kris and parang. They carried no firearms, the Japs having confiscated all such weapons as they could find.

The five were gathered at the mouth of the cave discussing plans for the future, which included tactics in the event the tribesmen returned and proved belligerent. Those who wished always had an equal voice in these discussions; but since they had left the ship, where Jerry's authority had been supreme, there had been a tacit acknowledgement of Tarzan's position as leader. Jerry realized the fitness of this. There had never been any question in his mind, nor in the minds of the others, that the Englishman was better equipped by knowledge and experience of the jungle, acute sense perceptivity, and physical prowess to guide and protect them than were any of the others. Even Shrimp had had to acknowledge this, and at first that had been hard. Now he would have been one of the Britisher's most ardent supporters had there been any dissidents.

"Corrie tells me," said Tarzan, "that there are ten men in the party that took her. Most of them, she says, are armed with a long straight kris, not the wavy bladed type with which most of us are familiar. They all carry parangs, a heavy knife designed more for use as a tool than a weapon. They have no firearms."

"If they come, we shall have to stop them before they get to close quarters. Corrie will act as interpreter. While they outnumber us more than two to one, we should have no difficulty in holding our own. We are four bows—"

"Five," corrected Corrie.

Tarzan smiled. "We are five bows, and we are all good shots. We shall try to convince them that they had better go away and leave us alone. We shall not shoot until it is absolutely necessary."

"Nuts," said Shrimp. "We'd ought to let 'em have it for stealin' de kid." Corrie gave him a look of surprise and incredulity. Jerry and Bubonovitch grinned. Shrimp turned red.

"There goes another misogynist," Bubonovitch whispered to Jerry.

"I know how you feel, Rosetti," said Tarzan. "I think we all feel the same way. But years ago I learned to kill only for food and defense. I learned it from what you call the beasts. I think it is a good rule. Those who kill for any other reason, such as for pleasure or revenge, debase themselves. They make savages of themselves. I will tell you when to fire."

"Perhaps they won't come after all," said Corrie.

Tarzan shook his head. "They will come. They are almost here."

Chapter 8

 

WHEN Iskandar awoke the sun was shining full in his face. He raised himself on an elbow. His eyes took in the scene before him. His nine companions slept. The sentry slept beside a dead fire. The captive was not there.

His cruel face distorted in rage, Iskandar seized his kris and leaped to his feet. The shrieks of the sentry awakened the other sleepers. "Pig!" screamed Iskandar, hacking at the head and body of his victim as the man tried to crawl away from him on hands and knees. "The tigers could have come and killed us all. And because of you, the woman has escaped."

A final blow at the base of the brain, which severed the spinal column, ended the torture. Iskandar wiped his bloody kris on the garments of the dead man and turned his scowling face upon his men. "Come!" he ordered. "She cannot have gotten far. Hurry!"

They soon picked up Corrie's footprints in the trail and hurried in pursuit. Half way along the trail to the cave where they had captured her, they came upon the body of a tiger. Iskandar examined it closely. He saw the knife wounds behind its left shoulder. He saw many footprints in the muddy trail. There were those of the girl and others made by the same crude type of sandal that she had worn, but larger—the footprints of men. And there were prints of the bare feet of a man. Iskandar was puzzled. There seemed ample evidence that someone had stabbed the tiger to death. But that was impossible. No one could have come within reach of those terrible talons and jaws and lived.

They pushed on, and in the afternoon they came within sight of the cave.

"Here they come," said Jerry Lucas.

"There are but four men," said Iskandar. "Kill the men, but do not harm the woman." The nine tribesmen advanced confidently with bared kris. Tarzan permitted them to approach within a hundred feet; then he had Corrie address them. "Stop!" she said. "Do not come any closer."

Each of the five had fitted an arrow to his bow. The left hand of each held additional arrows. Iskandar laughed and gave the word to charge. "Let them have it," said Tarzan, sending an arrow through Iskandar's leg, dropping him. Four others were hit by that first flight of arrows. Two of the others stopped, but two came on yelling like demons. Tarzan drove an arrow through the heart of each. They were too close to be spared as he had spared Iskandar. So close that one of them fell almost touching Tarzan's feet.

He turned to Corrie. "Tell them that if they throw down their weapons and put their hands up, we will not kill them."

After the girl had translated the instructions, the Sumatrans grumbled sullenly; but they did not throw down their weapons nor raise their hands.

"Fit arrows to your bows and advance slowly," ordered Tarzan. "At the first threatening move, shoot to kill."

"You wait here, Corrie," said Jerry. "There may be a fight."

She smiled at him but ignored his directions; so he put himself in front of her as they advanced. It was a long arrow that Tarzan had fitted to his bow, a heavy bow that only Tarzan could draw. He aimed the arrow at Iskandar's heart, and whispered to Corrie.

"He will count to ten," the girl explained to the Sumatran. "If you have not all thrown down your weapons and raised your hands before he finishes counting he will kill you. Then we will kill the others."

Tarzan commenced to count, Corrie translating. At five, Iskandar gave in. He had looked into the gray eyes of the giant standing above him and he was afraid. The others followed the example of their leader.

"Rosetti," said Tarzan, "gather up their weapons and retrieve our arrows. We will keep them covered."

Rosetti gathered the weapons first; then he yanked the arrows from the limbs and bodies of the five who had been hit but not killed. With the dead he was more gentle.

"Tell them to take their dead and get out of here, Corrie. And that if they ever annoy us again we will kill them all."

Corrie translated, adding a punch line of her own devising: "This man who speaks to you through me is no ordinary man. Armed only with a knife, he leaped upon the back of a tiger and killed it. If you are wise, you will obey him."

"Just a minute, Corrie," said Jerry. "Ask them if they have seen any American fliers recently who had bailed out of a damaged plane, or heard of any."

Corrie put the question to Iskandar and received a sullen negative. The chief got to his feet and gave orders to his men, none of whom was seriously wounded. They picked up their dead and started away, but Iskandar stopped them. Then he turned to Tarzan. "You will let us take our weapons?" he asked. Corrie translated.

"No." This seemed to need no translation or admit of argument. The chief had looked again into the gray eyes of the giant who had killed the tiger he had seen upon the trail, and what he had seen there had frightened him. They are not the eyes of a man, he thought. They are the eyes of a tiger.

Snarling a Malayan oath beneath his breath, he ordered his men to march, and followed them.

"We'd orter have killed 'em all," said Shrimp. "They'll tell the foist yellow-bellies they see where to find us."

"If we followed that plan to its logical conclusion," said Tarzan, "we'd have to kill every human being we meet. Any of them might tell the Japs."

"You don't believe much in killin' people." Tarzan shook his head in negation.

"Not even Japs?"

"That is different. We are at war with them. Neither in hatred nor revenge and with no particular pleasure I shall kill every Jap I can until the war is over. That is my duty."

"Don't you even hate 'em?"

"What good would it do if I did? If all the many millions of people of the allied nations devoted an entire year exclusively to hating the Japs it wouldn't kill one Jap nor shorten the war one day."

Bubonovitch laughed. "And it might give 'em all stomach ulcers."

Tarzan smiled. "I can recall having felt hatred but once in my life or killing for revenge but once—Kulonga, the son of Mbonga. He killed Kala, my foster mother. Not only was I very young then, but Kala was the only creature in the world that loved me or that I loved. And I thought then that she was my own mother. I have never regretted the killing."

While they talked, Corrie was cooking their supper. Jerry was helping her—not that she needed any help. They were grilling pheasants and venison over a fire just inside the mouth of the cave. Bubonovitch was examining the weapons left by the Sumatrans. He selected a kris for himself. Jerry and Shrimp followed his example, and Jerry brought Corrie a parang.

"Why did you ask that bandit if he had heard of any American fliers who had bailed out recently?" Corrie asked Lucas.

"Two of my crew, who are known to have bailed out, are unaccounted for—Douglas, my radioman, and Davis, a waist gunner. We hunted for them, but could find no trace of them. We found the body of Lieutenant Burnham whose chute had failed to open. So we figured that if either of the other chutes had failed to open we should have found the body nearby. We all jumped within a matter of a few seconds."

"How many were you?"

"Eleven—nine in the crew, Colonel Clayton, and a photographer. My bombardier was left behind because he was sick. Anyway, we weren't carrying any bombs. It was just a reconnaissance and photographic mission."

"Let's see," said Corrie. "There are four of you here, Lieutenant Burnham makes five, and the two unaccounted for make seven. What became of the other four?"

"Killed in action."

"Poor boys," said Corrie.

"It is not those who are killed who suffer," said Jerry. "It is those who are left behind—their buddies and their folks back home. Maybe they're better off. After all, this is a hell of a world," he added bitterly, "and those who get out of it are the lucky ones."

She laid her hand on his. "You mustn't feel that way. There may be a lot of happiness in the world for you yet—for all of us."

"They were my friends," he said, "and they were very young. They hadn't had a chance to get much out of life. It just doesn't seem right. Tarzan says that it does no good to hate, and I know he's right. But I do hate—not the poor dumb things who shoot at us and whom we shoot at, but those who are responsible for making wars."

"I know," she said. "I hate them, too. But I hate all Japs. I hate the 'poor dumb things who shoot at us and whom we shoot at.' I am not as philosophical as you and Tarzan. I want to hate them. I often reproach myself because I think I am not hating bitterly enough." Jerry could see that hate reflected in her eyes, and he thought what a horrible thing it was that such an emotion could have been aroused in the breast of one so innately sweet and kind. He said to her what she had said to him: "You mustn't feel that way," and he added, "You were never made for hate."

"You never saw your mother hounded to death and your father bayoneted by those yellow beasts. If you had and didn't hate them you wouldn't be fit to call yourself a man."

"I suppose you are right," he said. He pressed her hand. "Poor little girl."

"Don't sympathize with me," she said almost angrily. "I didn't cry then. I haven't cried since. But if you sympathize with me, I shall."

Had she emphasized you? He thought that she had—just a little. Why, he asked himself, should that send a little thrill through him? I must be going ga-ga, he thought.

Now the little band gathered around the cooking fire for supper. They had broad leaves for plates, sharpened bamboo splinters for forks, and of course they had their knives. They drank from gourds.

Besides pheasant and venison, they had fruit and the roasted seeds of the durian. They lived well in this land of plenty. "T'ink of de poor dogfaces back at base," said Shrimp, "eatin' canned hash an' spam."

"And drinking that goddam G-I coffee," said Bubonovitch. "It always made me think of one of Alexander Woolcott's first lines in The Man Who Came to Dinner."

"I'll trade places with any dogface right now," said Jerry.

"What's a dogface?" asked Corrie.

"Well, I guess originally it was supposed to mean a doughboy; but now it sort of means any enlisted man, more specifically a private."

"Any G-I Joe," said Shrimp.

"What a strange language!" said Corrie. "And I thought I understood English."

"It isn't English," said Tarzan. "It's American. It's a young and virile language. I like it."

"But what is a doughboy? And a G-I Joe?"

"A doughboy is an infantryman. A G-I Joe is an American soldier—Government Issue. Stick with us, Corrie, and we'll improve your American and ruin your English," concluded Jerry.

"If you will pay special attention to Sergeant Rosetti's conversation they will both be ruined," said Bubonovitch.

"Wot's wrong wit my American, wise guy?" demanded Shrimp.

"I think Sergeant Shrimp is cute," said Corrie.

Rosetti flushed violently. "Take a bow, cutie," said Bubonovitch.

Shrimp grinned. He was used to being ribbed, and he never got mad, although sometimes he pretended to be. "I ain't heard no one callin' you cute, you big cow," he said, and he felt that with that come-back his honor had been satisfied.