West from Singapore (Ss) (1987) by Louis L'amour Read Free Book Online Page B

few hours across the peninsula to Gorontalo.
    An armed freighter could lay there a week."
    Dawn broke, with the sun bright and the sea choppy. Ponga Jim was drinking coffee in the wheelhouse when Selim came up with a rush.
    "Men gone!" he shouted. "He take boat off poop. All gone!" "What?" Jim demanded.
    "Well, maybe it's good riddance." He stood up and raised the binoculars.
    "Selim! Get below and turn out the crew. Send Milian to me."
    Gunner Milian came running. He was minus a shirt, but had strapped on a gun. Ponga Jim turned quickly.
    "Go aft and jerk the cover off number five. Then hoist out that gun you'll find in the 'tween decks under canvas. I want it mounted aft. You know how to handle that.
    Lucky this damned old barge is a war veteran and still carries her gun mounting."
    "Where'd you get the gun?" Milian asked.
    Jim grinned. "I knocked over a load of munitions a few weeks ago. That gun looked good, so I kept it and sold the rest.
    Unless I'm mistaken, we're going to have the fight of our lives. I didn't get the idea until Selim told me Dussel and his boys got away"Got away?" Millan cried.
    "Yeah, they launched that lifeboat from the after wheelhouse. It was a gamble, but they took it. The weather broke about four bells. They'll contact that cruiser of theirs."
    "It'll take them a couple of days to get to Himana," Millan exclaimed. "By that time we'll be in Amurang."
    "No," Jim said. "There's a radio in that boat. Himana Bay isn't more than thirty or forty minutes from where they left us. Even if the radio wouldn't do it, they could sail with the breeze they've had since they started." He pointed with the hand that held the glasses. "There's smoke on the horizon. Unless I miss my guess, that will be them."
    Millan clambered down, and Ponga Jim crossed to the wheel. "Swing back to eighty degrees. At four bells, change her again to one hundred and thirty degrees."
    Longboy mumbled the course back to him, and Jim walked back to the bridge. It was going to be a tight race. Changing course was going to bring them up on him faster.
    But it was going to take him in close to the coast, nearer Amurang, in waters he knew and where his shallower draft would be an advantage. The other ship was doing at least fifteen knots to the Semiramis's ten.
    Slug Brophy came up, looking tough.
    "This is going to be good, Cap. Ever see Millan handle one of those big guns?"
    "He used to be on the Hood. I never saw him work."
    "That guy could knock the buttons off your shirt with a sixteen-inch gun." Brophy chuckled. "He could knock off anything with our four-inch gun."
    Ponga Jim glanced aft. "She's coming up fast. Looks like about forty-eight hundred tons."
    "Yeah," Brophy muttered. "And riding fairly low. But she's not loaded by a damn sight."
    Ponga Jim pointed to a spot on the chart.
    "See that? That point is Tanjung Bangka. Right about here is a patch of reef. She lies in about a fathom and a half. Loaded the way we are, she will give us just enough clearance. You're taking her over."
    "Maybe she's not so deep now, Cap. What if there ain't that much water?"
    "Then it's going to be tough. We're going over, and I only hope that monkey back there follows us!"
    Ponga Jim ran down and hurried aft. Selim, Sakim, Abdul, and Hassan were all standing by with rifles. Millan crouched at the gun with two men.
    Smoke leaped from the bow of the other vessel. A shot whistled overhead. Another blasted off to starboard.
    "Get that gun if you can," Jim said quietly. He picked up a rifle. "I want that monkey in the crow's nest."
    Whipping the rifle to his shoulder, he fired three times. The man in the crow's nest slumped forward. His rifle slid from his hands.
    Millan's gun roared. Jim saw the shell smash into the bulkhead of the forward deckhouse.
    The gun crashed again. At the same instant a shell blasted open number four hatch, ripping a winch and ventilator to bits.
    "There goes my profit on this trip," Jim said. "I never did care for