Matting sails of the junk acquired great ragged rips. Splinters flew from the decks and hulls. Several of the crew dropped. Others replied to the machine-gun fire of the planes. A bomb, dropped by one of the aircraft, narrowly missed the junk, but made it roll sickeningly. The junk put back into the bay.
Out of the twilight haze that mantled the sea plunged several slender, gray, grim vessels. These were destroyers, little larger than submarine chasers, of the type that served the Luzon Union as a navy. Other planes appeared — giant tri-motored bombers and fast, single-engined pursuit ships.
The truth dawned on the yellow pirates. Instead of the bronze man being trapped, they were themselves cornered.
Doc had summoned aid by radio!
Chapter 22
RED BLADE
FROM the concealment of the jungle, Doc and his men watched developments.
'Juan Mindoro is aboard one of the planes,' Doc declared. 'At least, he should be, according to the information he gave me by radio.'
'Can he depend on the men manning the planes and destroyers?' Ham questioned uneasily. 'Tom Too may have some of them on his pay roll.'
'He did have,' Doc admitted. 'But the records I got out of that brief case gave their names, and I passed the dope on to Mindoro. Tom Too's hirelings are under arrest.'
Monk kneaded his enormous, furry hands. 'How about us getting in this scrape?'
'We'll tackle that big junk,' Doc agreed. 'Tom Too is probably aboard.''
The junk in question had hove to close to the beach. Yellow men were dropping a light boat overside, evidently to be used in ferrying Tom Too ashore. A bomb exploded in the bay, and the wall of water it flung out smashed the small boat against the junk hull.
Doc and his men ran for a sampan beached near by. They were fired upon, and returned the lead. A plane dived upon them, unable to distinguish them from foes in the increasing darkness. Doc led the others back into the jungle to evade the searching machine-gun metal. There they encountered a gang of a dozen desperate pirates. They fought, skulking in the jungle, each party shooting at the gun flashes of the other.
Plane motors bawled overhead. The planes flew so low that prop streams thrashed palm fronds. Detonating bombs made such concussions that the very island jumped and shuddered. Men yelled, cursed in an assorted score of dialects. Machine guns gobbled continuously.
'Kinda like old times!' Renny rumbled in the gloom.
Doc and his fellows rushed the yellow gang with whom they skirmished. Doc used only his hands in the scrap that followed. He moved like a bronze phantom. Man after man fell before his fists, or was rendered helpless with wrenched and broken limps. The pirate group broke and fled.
'To the sampan!' Doc's powerful voice commanded. 'We'll make another try at reaching that big junk!'
They ran out on the beach, found the sampan, and shoved off.
Overhead, a plane dropped a parachute flare, then another. The calcium glare whitened the entire island.
The illumination showed Tom Too's junk trying to work out of the bay. Destroyers, however, blocked its escape. The hulking vessel turned back.
The flares sank fizzing into the sea and were extinguished. Bending to the sampan paddles, Doc's party headed for the junk.
'They won't expect to be boarded from a small boat,' Renny boomed softly.
Doc guided the sampan expertly. They came alongside the junk in the gloom. A pirate saw them, hailed. Doc answered in a disguised tone, speaking the same dialect, telling the corsairs to hold their fire.
The sampan gunwale rasped along the junk hull. All six leaping at once, Doc's gang gained the deck of the larger vessel.
ANOTHER bomb, exploding harmlessly on the distant beach, threw a flash like pale lightning. It disclosed Doc's identity.
A yellow man howled and leaped, swinging a short sword. Doc twisted from under the descending blade. His darting fist seemed a part of the same movement. The Oriental collapsed, his jaw hanging awry.
Fighting spread swiftly from end to end of the junk as Doc's men scattered. In the darkness, they could fight best when separated.
Doc himself made for the high, after part of the vessel, seeking Tom Too.
Below decks, the Orientals manning the engines became excited and threw the craft into full speed ahead. It plowed about aimlessly, no hand at the tiller.
Doc found a long bamboo pole, evidently a makeshift bat hook. He converted it to a weapon of offense, jabbing and swinging it in club fashion. A corsair bounced off the pole end as if he were a billiard ball, and tangled with one of his fellows.
The little machine guns had been latched back into rapidfire. Once more they tore off series of reports so rapid they resembled the sound of coarse cloth tearing.
'One!' Doc barked.
'Two!' echoed Ren ny's strong voice. 'Three!' said Long Tom. The others called off in rapid succession — four, five, six!
This was a procedure they followed often when fighting in the darkness. It not only showed the entire gang was still up and going, but also advised each mail where the others were located.
Doc descended a carved companionway. He wanted to get the engines stopped before the junk crashed into some other craft.
He found the engine room without difficulty. Only two Orientals were there, huddling nervously under the pale glow of an electric lantern. They offered no fight at all, but threw down their weapons at Doc's sharp command. Doc shut off the motors.
'Where is Tom Too?' Doc asked.
The yellow men squirmed. They were seared. They had seen this giant bronze man slain by the sword and his body burned. Was he a devil, that he could come to life again?
One pointed toward the stern. 'Maybe Tom Too, he go that dilection,' he singsonged.
Doc made for the spot — the richly fitted quarters which were no doubt Tom Too's private rooms. Two Orientals barred his way. He was almost touching them before they were aware of his presence, so dark was the junk interior.
Doc shoved them both violently, and while they stumbled about and slashed viciously at black, empty air, he eased past them. There was movement ahead, and the glow of a flashlight.
A faint rasping sounded — a windowlike porthole of the junk being opened! It must be Tom Too, Doc knew. And the man was in the act of escaping from the junk into the waters of the bay.
Doc flung for the port — and had one of his narrowest escapes from death. Tom Too was easing through the porthole feet first. He turned his flashlight on Doc and threw a knife.
Doc saw the blade only when it glinted in the flash beam. He dodged, got partially clear. The blade lodged like a big steel thorn in his side, outside the ribs.
Tom Too dropped through the port. His madly splashing strokes headed for shore. Suddenly the splashing increased. A terrified scream pealed out.
Doc leaned from the porthole.
Overhead, a plane dropped another aerial flare. The blinding illumination it spread could not have been more timely, for the swimming f]gure of Tom Too was plainly disclosed.
A small shark had seized the pirate leader. Tom Too had no knife with which to defend himself this time — he had expended that on Doc. The corsair chief screeched and beat at the grisly monster which had fastened upon
