Bamboo Terror Page 18

  There was no sound except the lapping of the water against the sides of the many boats, and as Hazzard drew nearer, the man turned around to face him. It was Moro, his hands covered with fresh blood, with a long slender dagger held loosely in his hand. His shoulders hung limply, and his head was bent forward as he looked blankly at the ground.

  His attitude puzzled Hazzard, and then, hearing a gasping moan, he looked beyond Moro and saw the man lying spread eagle at the edge of the wharf.

  Pushing the unresisting Moro to one side, Hazzard looked down at the prostrate form. There, lying on his back, reaching with weak, shaking fingers toward his face and his bloody, empty eye sockets, was Wong.

  Hazzard turned away from the grisly sight, looked once again at Moro, then slowly trod his way back up the trail to spread the news that the spy had been caught, and that he had already been tried and punished. Tried in Moro's brain from the day Sturmer had returned with sightless eyes, punished in the ancient, and this time factual law of "an eye for an eye.

  19 The Sacrifice

  HAZZARD lay on his bed, sleeplessly staring up at the folds of the mosquito netting above him. The excitement of the previous twelve hours had exhausted him beyond the point of sleep.

  Wong had lived long enough to tell them the basic details of his nefarious activities. Doctor Kelly had tried to save the houseboy, but he had gone into shock after thirty minutes of questioning and within the hour he had died.

  The Chinese telegraphic book had been hidden in Kelly's office months before when Wong had ceased to use it after memorizing a newer and simpler code. He had made it a practice to listen to all the conferences at the villa through the thin walls of the next room. He had been sent to Tu-Hao-Tuc, disguised and among a group of refugees, by the commander of the Secret Police in North Vietnam. He had. forced the young native girl to work for him by threatening to have her father, who was still in North Vietnam, executed if she refused to obey him. Wong could speak French, English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, and had been trained at the special intelligence school in Peiping. He had been well chosen, and even Hazzard had to admit that the houseboy had done his job with amazing efficiency and thoroughness.

  Now it was over, and Hazzard knew he would soon be on his way back to Japan. He had received another note from Ling Ling Yung, and his thoughts ran to her as the first grayness of dawn began to make the room grow lighter. She knew he would now be leaving, and she wished to thank him personally and say good-by. He wondered if this last meeting with Ling Ling Yung would be as intriguing as the first.

  Then suddenly, the hand of fate reached out and changed the course of all the lives at Tu-Hao -Tuc. The furious ringing of the alarm bell began to echo across the village.

  By the time Hazzard had dressed and found Chang, the distant sound of small arms fire could be heard coming from the north and west.

  "What's going on?" asked Hazzard.

  "The enemy troops that were encamped to the north are attacking," Chang replied. "We must evacuate the area as soon as possible. You can either help out at the lagoon and see that the refugees get aboard the boats, or you can take your men into the jungle. I can't order you to do anything—I can only ask."

  Hazzard grinned. "I'll take my boys into the jungle. I'd never sleep nights again if I missed a chance like this. I've just got to know if that training I gave them did any good."

  "Be careful, it will be very dangerous," advised Chang.

  "Yeah," grinned Hazzard as he turned to go in search of his men. "But for who—them or us?"

  Hazzard found his men being issued ammunition at a large thatched roofed building that served as a warehouse. Runners were coming back at intervals from the jungle, and Hazzard soon pieced together the details of the attack.

  The communist troops had split themselves into two forces; one attacking from the north, the other from the west. They had run into Chang's patrols at dawn, and were slowly advancing toward the village. In about another hour they would come to the first line of prepared defense positions.

  Hazzard decided to take his men to the north, as this area presented the enemy with the greatest possibility for a rapid advance.

  Thirty minutes later, after double timing the men along the narrow paths and deploying them through the jungle, Hazzard heard the first sounds of mortar shells hitting the outskirts of the village. Instinctively, he knew that the Reds would not just lob mortar shells around the area at random, but they would have somebody stationed at a vantage point who could direct the fire for utmost effectiveness.

  Sending two men with a pair of binoculars out onto a high promontory that jutted from the sheer cliff he sent back for a rifle with a telescopic sight.

  Ten minutes later, the jungle in front of them erupted with the screaming cries of charging communist soldiers. Waiting until the Reds were less than thirty yards away, Hazzard gave the command to fire and was pleased at the results of the long sessions of ride practice he had given the men. At the first volley the charging Reds had faltered, and within seconds they had turned and fled back into the protection of the dense undergrowth.

  As the firing died down, the man Hazzard had sent to the rear returned with an old Springfield ride that had a battered telescopic sight crudely mounted on it. Hazzard could not trust the setting of the sight, and he crawled out onto the overhanging cliffs to zero it in by firing at stones along the rocky coast.

  He finally managed to adjust the sight well enough to be able to hit a ten inch object at three hundred yards, then he crawled up to the edge of the high promontory where the two men with the binoculars were excitedly beckoning to him.

  Taking the glasses from them, he searched the area that they pointed out, and soon caught the movement of a man among the branches of a high tree. Small puffs of almost colorless smoke erupted from time to time from the jungle around the tree. These would be the positions of the mortars. Looking to the left, Hazzard found that the man could get a clear view of the village from his vantage point above the jungle.

  The range was about four hundred yards from Hazzard to the tree, and rather than waste time zeroing in again for a longer distance, Hazzard decided to aim just above the distant figure and fired the gun.

  The first shot brought down a small branch to the left of the observer, but the man was too faraway from Hazzard, and the noise of the mortars too loud, for him to notice that he was being fired at.

  Resting the Springfield firmly in a crack in the rocks, Hazzard took careful aim at a spot slightly above and to the right of the man's hunched up body. Slowly and carefully he squeezed the trigger until the recoil of the shot jarred the butt into his shoulder. Holding the rifle steady, he was rewarded with the sight of the observer falling through the branches to disappear into the thick foliage of the jungle.

  Using a stick, Hazzard made pictures on a large flat rock to explain to the two men where to hold the cross hairs of the telescopic sight when firing at the tree. Then, leaving the Springfield with them, he crawled back along the rocks and into the jungle.

  A quick survey showed that two men had been killed and one wounded. Since the first yelling charge, the Reds had stayed well hidden in the jungle and limited themselves to sporadic small arms fire which was not very effective, but the sound of the bullets cutting through the leaves and branches was keeping Hazzard's men pinned to the ground.

  Hazzard knew it was a hopeless and losing situation, and his only concern was to be able to hold the communists troops off long enough for Chang to complete his evacuation of all noncombatants.

  Abruptly, the enemy fire ceased, and Hazzard braced himself for another screaming assault. The silence was suddenly punctuated by a loud pop, and looking up, he saw a red parachute flare drifting lazily over the treetops. It was the signal to withdraw. Without being told, the men silently fell back. Half of them at first, then the remainder, each group stopping to cover the withdrawal of the other.

  They had covered more than one hundred yards when the Reds attacked.
Finding no opposition, the communists soldiers grew bolder, and came crashing through the jungle at a fast run. Hazzard regrouped the men and they took up positions behind the larger trees and fallen logs. They let the communists come within point-blank range, and it was a slaughter. The Reds had become confused by the lack of fire and had bunched up as they ran forward. When the first shock of concentrated fire hit them, they milled around, bumping into each other, and ran about like blind men who had suddenly been caught in a burning budding.

  It seemed like an eternity, but the engagement lasted for only several minutes, then ad was silent again. The ground before them was littered with the sprawled, dead bodies of the attackers, and Hazzard's men, pausing only long enough to look at the scene in silent satisfaction, once more began their orderly withdrawal.

  By the time they came to the edge of the village, the Reds began to bombard the area again with mortar sheds, and one remaining woman was running through the battle-torn streets hysterically screaming for her lost child. The men called to her, but she paid them no heed. Then they saw the child, dirty and crying, waddling along between the buddings. A mortar shed landed and splattered the area in front of the hospital with flying bits of mud. The woman screamed and ran toward the child.

  The fluttering sound of an incoming mortar shed made the men throw themselves to the ground, yelling to the woman as they fell, but with only the thoughts of a mother for the safety of her child in her mind, the woman ran on.

  Hazzard buried his head in his arms as the explosion shook the area, and when he looked up again, the woman was lying face down in the middle of the street, her clothing ripped and torn from the countless pieces of shrapnel. She had been between the explosion and the child, and in dying, she had unknowingly protected her offspring by absorbing the lethal force that would have brought death to her baby.

  The child, dazed by the explosion, now sat in the middle of the street, its face wet and dirty as it cried.

  Two of the men rushed to the woman, turned her over, and left her as they ran to the child. Picking it up roughly, they continued to run toward the trail that led to the lagoon. Hazzard knew without looking that the woman was dead, and he turned his head away. It was not good to have memories such as this to return and haunt you in your sleep.

  Chang's troops were now running through the village in large groups, while here and there a few squads set up machine guns to hold off the advancing Reds. There was no reason to stay longer in the village, and waving his men toward the boats, Hazzard set off at a dogtrot along the trail that led to the cliff above the lagoon.

  He found Chang and Maurice looking at the village through binoculars, and seated on a rock among a small group of soldiers, he saw Sturmer, with Moro standing his perpetual guard behind him.

  "The last of the refugees have been evacuated," Chang told Hazzard. "And in about ten more minutes all of our troops will be out of the village. Everything is working very well."

  Hazzard jerked his head in the direction of the German. "What's he doing here?" he asked.

  "I don't know," replied Chang, and went back to watching the village through his binoculars.

  Walking up to where Sturmer sat, Hazzard touched him on the shoulder. "Sturmer, go down and get in one of the boats."

  "I shall wait for the last boat, Mr. Hazzard," came the calm, unemotional answer from the German.

  "Look, Sturmer, this is no time for heroics," Hazzard said in a harsh voice, and reaching down, he grabbed Sturmer's arm. "Come on, get up," and Hazzard looked at the impassive face of the little Oriental behind Sturmer. Take him to the boats."

  "No!" cried Sturmer angrily. "I will not be treated as an invalid. I will go when the others do—in the last boat."

  Hazzard had now lost his patience with the German and was about to jerk Sturmer to his feet when Moro laid a firm hand on his arm. There was something cold and deadly in the little Oriental's eyes that told Hazzard it was better to forget Sturmer and go about his own business. Reluctantly he released the German's arm and went back to the large boulder where Chang was still observing the village.

  "It is almost time," Chang remarked. "The last of the men have pulled back from the village." He glanced back at Sturmer and lowered his voice. "What is wrong with Herr Sturmer?"

  "Nothing," replied Hazzard. "He's just being stubborn. He won't leave until the last."

  Chang looked at Sturmer for a long time. "I wonder what we would do in his position?" he muttered half to himself.

  Just then a group of soldiers carrying machine guns and wounded went by on their way to the boats, and one of them, turning to face Chang, held his ride above his head with both hands.

  "It means that they are the last ones," explained Chang. "It is now time to give our guests a warm welcome." And turning to the small group of soldiers, he began to give orders in rapid Chinese.

  The soldiers opened a large wooden box that contained a complex array of storage batteries, and fastened to the inside of the cover was a large, two-pole, knife switch. Uncoiling a large spool of wire, they attached the bare ends to the switch with thumb screws, and stood back as though awaiting further orders. Chang inspected the box and the wires, and then sent all but two of them running down the trail to the boats.

  "Zey are beginning to enter ze village," said Maurice, who had been watching the movements of the enemy.

  Chang looked at his wrist watch. "We will wait two more minutes," he said.

  Two minutes—one hundred and twenty seconds. It is a short space of time, but it can be an eternity when nerves are keyed up to the snapping point, and you must idly wait.

  "Now we shad teach them a lesson they will never forget," Chang said when the time was up. He squatted down beside the box, and everyone tensed.

  Gritting his teeth, Chang closed the blades of the switch with a quick motion. Hazzard instinctively crouched and bent his head. There was a long pause, and when the expected explosion did not come, Hazzard looked up to see a bewildered Chang open and close the switch a second time.

  The two soldiers rushed forward and examined the batteries and wires. There was a quick conversation in Chinese, then Chang stood up and turned to face the others.

  "Something must have happened to the wires," he said wearily. "There is nothing we can do now. We must go down to the boats quickly. I will leave one man here for five minutes in case there should be any stragglers." He looked down at the box of batteries. "We will leave the detonator like it is. There is still a slight chance that it might go off."

  Hazzard turned around to make sure that Sturmer would be taken to the boats, but the German and Moro were gone. Going to the edge of the cliff, he looked down the trail leading to the lagoon, but Sturmer was nowhere to be seen.

  "Hazzard, come here," called Chang, and handing the binoculars to Hazzard, he pointed toward the village. "Along the trad, to the village, just this side of the trees behind the hospital."

  Hazzard put the glasses to his eyes, focused on the hospital and slowly swept the area. Sturmer, groping his way blindly from tree to tree, was heading for the village. Hazzard set the binoculars down on the rock. "The damn fool. He doesn't have a chance," and he started to run toward the village.

  "Hazzard, stop!" cried Chang, and as Hazzard turned around, he saw the tad Chinese pointing a revolver at him. "Come back here, Mr. Hazzard, and don't think I won't shoot you. If you make one more move in the direction of the village, I shad be forced to put a bullet in your leg."

  "Are you crazy?" said the frustrated Hazzard. "He's blind. He's walking into a death trap."

  "Yes, I know," Chang replied grimly. "But if he were my own brother, I could not risk sending a man after him and waiting here. We have to leave now."

  Anger and emotion drowned ad reason from Hazzard's brain as he turned slowly and walked down the trail ahead of Chang to the last remaining boats in the lagoon. At the moment he hated Chang, but later he would realize that there was no alternative. The German, for some odd reason, had
chosen to return to the village from which there was no escape, and the actions of one man could not be placed above the safety of the majority. It was the same in every battle that had ever been fought, but when it suddenly concerns a person closely associated with your life, a man was inclined to become emotional and forget the rules of war.

  Hazzard jumped aboard a sampan and sat down wearily in the bow, oblivious to the shouts of the soldiers as they poured gasoline on the boats that would be left behind, and turned them into floating infernos with lighted torches.

  The man that Chang had left on the cliff came running down the trail, leaped into the boat, and babbled to Maurice in rapid French, between short rasping gasps of breath.

  "He eez ze last man," Maurice explained to Chang. "Zere eez no one else."

  'No one but Sturmer,' Hazzard thought bitterly, and he turned to look out at the sea as the soldiers began to scull the sampan toward the lagoon.

  Sturmer had overheard Chang's remark about the failure of the charges to detonate, and remembered seeing Wong the houseboy crawling out from underneath the raised floor of the hospital one dark night. At the time, he had stepped into the shadows, and thinking nothing wrong, he had let the houseboy pass unchallenged. He also recalled that Wong had been carrying something in his hand, and it was not until now that he realized it had been a pair of wire cutters. This, then, was the reason why the charges had failed to go off. The main wires from the battery detonator were buried alongside the trail leading to the village, and came up under the hospital. From here they radiated across the entire area. Cutting the main line under the hospital would prevent any of the buried charges from exploding.

  Sturmer stumbled into the side of a building, and with searching hands, he felt the edges of the windows and ran his hands along the rough board siding. This was not the hospital, but the building next to it. Turning around, he placed his back against the wall, put one hand outstretched in front of his face, and walked slowly away from the building.