Attack
Syd O'Brien said glumly, "I knew it! Now we're in a mess. I guess I'll
write my thesis in a Saigon prison!" But the expedition leader turned
on him testily. "Nonsense, Sydney! There is absolutely no cause for
alarm. Naturally, the Japanese had to investigate a falling 'plane. But
they can't possibly know the aviators are safe, and masquerading as
members of our party--" He turned to the others--"Shall we go out to
meet them? It will look better. No, Sheila--I think you'd better stay
here!"
The girl's shoulders stiffened defiantly. A strange admiration
brightened Ramey's eyes. Or perhaps it was not so strange, after all.
Many times, during the preceding hour of conversation, he had found
his gaze wandering toward her. In a happier, more peaceful world,
perhaps--
"Why should I, Daddy?"
"Sydney--" Dr. Aiken ignored the question--"you'd better go down and
speak to the workmen. Reassure them. Get Tomasaki to help you. Ramey,
you and Lake and I will talk to our visitors. All right, Sirabhar, you
may come, too."
"How about me, Doc?"
Dr. Aiken glanced meaningfully toward the bandage on Barrett's head.
"I think you'd better stay here and keep out of sight," he said wryly.
"That--er--turban you're wearing is the weak spot in our story!"
A few minutes later they were moving forward to meet the Japanese
scouting detail. Despite Dr. Aiken's assurance, Ramey's confidence
was bolstered by the comforting heft of an automatic in his hip
pocket. The Nipponese, over-cautious in this as all things, had sent a
sizable investigating party to Angkor. Thirty squat, brown, dusty men;
truculent; ready for any emergency.
Their captain made his mission known in a faltering, school-book
English. An airplane had been seen to descend of the sky, please. Did
the gentlemens opportune to see--?
Good gracious--an airplane? How alarming! No, the gentlemens had not
seen anything out of the ordinary. Would the honorable captain care to
look around for himself?
It struck Ramey that Dr. Aiken was sticking his neck out unnecessarily
far. The captain barked commands, his company split into details of
two and three men, wandered off in different directions. Then Ramey
realized Aiken had followed the proper course. With such a wide area
to cover ... with the burned ship lying a half mile off, in a field
concealed by an arras of tangled bamboo ... with the Japanese not even
sure the 'plane _had_ landed in this vicinity ... the chances of their
stumbling across it were extremely remote. And to have seemed any less
willing to help would have been to invite suspicion.
* * * * *
Having done his duty, the little leader was inclined to be friendly. He
stared about him with awed respect. This was a great marvel, not so? He
had not known there were such sights in Cambodia. One would not suppose
it from seeing the miserable hovels at Pnompenh, down the river. It was
not, of course, to be comparison with the beautiful, modern buildings
of Tokio and Kobe, still--
He sucked his teeth politely. "Who makes this great structures, please?"
"We're not sure," Dr. Aiken told him. "It was built many, many years
ago. By a race now vanished."
The small captain looked excited.
"Many years? A--a _ber-oo_ race, perhaps?"
Now it was the doctor whose eyes widened.
"Blue! Did you say a _blue_ race?"
"But, yes!" answered the Jap. Everyone knew that long ago there dwelt
on earth the blue-skinned gods. "The legends of my peoples speak of
them," he said. "The _Kojiki_ tells how they brought to mankind wisdom,
and--" he continued serenely--"when they departed, it was ordained that
my people should henceforth rule the world."
[Illustration: "Stop!" shouted Ramey, leaping from behind the idol.]
Dr. Aiken had completely forgotten, now, why the Jap was here. This was
another precious piece fitting the jigsaw puzzle he was striving to put
together. He cried to Lake and Ramey, "Hear that? In the _Kojiki_, too!
The ancient Japanese Book of Records! That makes four places I've
found reference to blue ones.[3] The Hindu folklore tells of them; the
Druidic ritual worships blue warriors. I tell you, lads, Angkor is a
vital link in the chain of Man's past! We _must_ find a way to read the
writing. When we do--"
[Footnote 3: Follows another reference which would have interested Dr.
Aiken:
"I accept that, in the past ... inhabitants of other worlds
have--dropped here, hopped here, wafted, sailed, flown, motored--walked
here, for all I know--been pulled here, been pushed; have come singly,
have come in enormous numbers; have visited occasionally, have visited
periodically for hunting, trading, replenishing harems, mining; have
been unable to stay here, have established colonies here; have been
lost here; far-advanced peoples, or things, and primitive peoples or
whatever they were: white ones, black ones, yellow ones--
"I have a very convincing datum that the ancient Britons were blue
ones. Of course we are told by anthropologists that they only painted
themselves blue, but in our own advanced anthropology, they were
veritable blue ones--
"_Annals of Philosophy, 14-51_: Note of a blue child born in England.
That's atavism!"--from _The Book of the Damned_, by Charles Fort.--Ed.]
Then his words died abruptly. A call had risen from across the moat.
Soldiers, standing at the edge of the cane-grove, were gesturing,
shouting. As he listened, the smiling captain ceased to smile; Dr.
Aiken, who apparently understood at least part of the message, glanced
suddenly, worriedly, at Ramey. In an undertone he breathed, "Your
airplane! They've found it! And--and somehow they know you're one
of--Hurry! We've got to get out of here!"
He tugged at Ramey's sleeve. But even as they edged away, the little
captain turned, his eyes hard and angry, his friendliness vanished.
"A moment, please! You have lied to me. Halt! or it is necessary to--"
His revolver was already halfway out of its holster. But swiftly as
he moved, Lake O'Brien was even quicker. With a sudden twist, Lake
wrenched the gun from his hand, shoved a leg behind his knees and
shoved violently. The small captain went sprawling and--
"Come on!" cried Lake, "up to the temple."
He cried a needless warning. For even as he shouted the Jap leader's
voice screamed a shrill command. Soldiers came running from every
section of the court, and the brooding silence of Angkor was shattered
with the sharp, explosive crack of a modern rifle.
* * * * *
In that moment, when it seemed impossible the racing four could cover
four hundred vulnerable yards, relief came from an unexpected source.
From around the corner of the temple charged two uniformed warriors of
Nippon. Beyond them lay temporary safety but--how to pass them? Already
one was raising rifle to shoulder, his finger tense on the trigger.
Then from the building itself snarled the bark of an automatic. The
Jap jerked as though sledged with the blow of an invisible ramrod. His
jaw dropped suddenly and the gun flew clattering from his hands as he
doubled and pitched forward. Then another shot from the same source;
another, and yet another. The familiar voice of Red Barrett boomed from
the portico.
"Keep coming, keed! We're covering you!"
Four hundred yards is a meager distance, but it seemed like miles.
Ramey Winters gasped to his comrades, "Duck! Zigzag! Bad target!" and
set the example, hunching, shifting his course like a frightened crab,
as he scuttled for the gateway.
His own pistol was in his hands. He used it once to take a flying
potshot at a brown-clad figure emerging on an upper terrace, and had
the satisfaction of seeing the figure duck hastily out of sight,
howling with pain and dismay as the riflestock splintered in his hands.
Lake, too, was emptying his commandeered pistol at such targets as
presented themselves. With what success Ramey had no time to judge, for
a bedlam of gunfire howled about them now; hot lead glanced screaming
off ancient stone.
How they won through that maelstrom of seething death, Ramey could not
afterward say. He was only conscious of his own plunging motion, dimly
aware that all three of his companions were still on their feet and
racing forward with him. Once a puff of glittering powder leaped from
the causeway inches before him, and coarse, stony granules lashed his
face stingingly. Once a voice beside him grunted, and glancing up he
saw that Lake O'Brien's shirt was redly plastered to his shoulder.
Then suddenly the heat of the day, the dancing sunlight, were gone.
Grateful murkiness engulfed them, and friendly hands tugged them to
shelter. Red Barrett's voice bellowed in his ear, "Nice, going, pal! I
thought for a minute you wouldn't make it. Them damn yellow devils!"
Then a cooler, grimmer voice crisped orders. "No place to stop. This
spot's too vulnerable. They'll shoot us down like trapped rats. Below,
everybody!"
And again they were running, this time down a shadowy ramp to the
entrails of the temple, to the bulwarked suite of chambers wherein Dr.
Aiken had established his headquarters. Behind them the _spang!_ of
rifle fire died away, but there followed them down the corridor the
shrill cry of the Japanese captain rallying his men.
Dr. Aiken seized a moment of respite to offer thanks.
"You saved our lives, boys," he panted. "But--but how did you happen to
be up there? I ordered you to stay below--"
"It was _his_ idea," claimed Red.
Syd O'Brien grunted gloomily, "Knew there'd be trouble. Got out the
guns. Left Johnny with Sheila. Figured Red and I better go topside to
make sure everything was all right."
His brother chuckled appreciatively. "Well, this was once your dismal
hunches paid off, Cassandra.[4] Now wait a minute, Sheila--don't get
excited!"
[Footnote 4: Cassandra, daughter of King Priam of Troy, was said to
have been loved by the god Apollo, who gave her the gift of prophecy.
But afterward, offended with her, he rendered the gift unavailing by
ordaining that her predictions should never be believed!--Ed.]
* * * * *
They had reached their refuge. From it Sheila Aiken rushed forward to
greet them, exclaiming at the twin's wound. "You're shot, Lake! What
happened? Did they--?"
"I'm all right," Lake assured her. "Just barely grazed me. Everybody
in? Watch that door, Ramey. What happened? Why, those damned, stinking
little Japs spotted Ramsey's plane, that's what."
"But we knew there was a possibility they might do that," said the
girl. "That's why we dressed Red and Ramey as members of our party. Why
should that cause them to--?"
Dr. Aiken said gravely, "I can't understand it myself, Sheila. But
somehow the soldiers learned Ramey was one of the aviators. That's
what they called to their captain. Wait a minute! What's that? I hear
footsteps!"
"It's all right," called Syd. "It's just Johnny. He's got Sheng-ti with
him. This way, Johnny. You all right? Where've you been?"
Grinnell entered, his face serious. "I ducked down to the digs when
the shooting started, told the workmen to head for Pnompenh, get a
message to the consul there. Lake! Your shoulder!"
"Only a flesh wound. Where did _he_ come from?"
"Sheng-ti? Oh, I bumped into him in the causeway. I told him to beat it
but he insisted on shuffling along. Look, Sheng-ti, you'd better get
out of here. This is bad. Trouble. Danger. Savvy?"
The _bonze_ was paying no attention to him. His eyes had lighted
upon Ramey Winters. Now he raised both arms high above his head in
a jeremiac gesture. His voice rolled stridently through the vaulted
chambers. "_Aiee!_ Doom! Doom! When the bird man drops from the skies--"
"Very well, Sheng-ti. That will do," Dr. Aiken silenced him curtly. He
turned to the others, frowning. "Well, there's your answer."
"Answer?"
"How the Japs found out about Ramey. Sheng-ti must have shouted his mad
prophecies in their hearing, pointed Ramey out. Well, what's done is
done. We might as well make the best of it."
Ramey's brows were knotted anxiously. "This has gone far enough, Dr.
Aiken. Red and I can't stay here a minute longer. We've gotten you into
trouble as it is. We're pulling out, _now_!"
The archeologist shook his head. "Thanks, boy, but it's no use. We're
all in the same boat now. Have been ever since we defied their orders,
returned their fire. They're resentful little beasts, the Japs. And
don't condemn yourself. It's not altogether your fault. Our work here
was finished the day they marched into Indo-China. If it hadn't been
this they would have found other excuses to close in on us.
"No, the only thing we can do now is hold the fort. Try to defend
ourselves until one of the coolies gets word to the American consul
about what's going on up here. And I'm afraid our future actions will
be determined entirely by our little yellow friends. Whether it is to
be truce or war is a decision they must make--"
"A decision," interrupted Syd O'Brien from the vantage-point over which
he stood guard, "they've already made. It's war, Doctor! Because here
they come now!"