West from Singapore (Ss) (1987) Read Online Free PDF Page A

with a rifle, and Ponga Jim fired. The man ran three steps and then pitched headlong over the rail, the rifle clattering on the deck.
    Blue Coley started out of the passageway below, and Jim's gun coughed. The bullet smacked against a steam-pipe housing at his feet, and Blue stumbled back into the passage in a desperate hurry. Another shot chased him down the passage.
    Leaping through the door, Jim was just in time to snap a shot at the lascar at the wheel as the man tried to throw a knife. The native dropped, coughing blood. Jim leaped past him to the engine-room telegraph and jerked it over to SLOWthen to STOP.
    A bullet whistled by his head and smashed the chronometer, and he saw an oiler standing in the forecastle door. Jim fired, and the man jumped back inside. Another rifle shot crashed, and then Ponga Jim chanced a shot into the open doorway, and there was nothing further. He turned suddenly, snapping a shot at a gun in a forecastle port.
    Borg had come up the other ladder and was standing in the doorway, staring at him.
    The man was unshaven, and his face was almost black.
    Ponga Jim glanced down at the empty automatic, tossed it aside.
    "I got something for you, big boy," he said. His left jabbed quickly, but Borg ducked and laughed, crashing right into a whipping right uppercut.
    "Go ahead, Jim!" a voice shouted from the door behind him. "I'll hold this bunch!"
    Mayo whirled, stepping back to watch the door and Borg at the same time. The lascar with the red turban stood in the doorway with an automatic rifle. He was grinning.
    "William!" Ponga Jim shouted. "William, by all that's holy!" "Righto, old chap!"
    The cheery voice sounded in his ears as Borg rushed. Jim lashed out with another left, and this time stabbed Borg over the eye, splitting it to the bone. A ponderous fist crashed against the side of Jim's head, and a million stars sprang into the sky. Jim laughed suddenly, full of the lust to fight, and fired both hands into the big man's body furiously.
    Borg hooked a hard left to his head and then grabbed him, but Ponga Jim jerked away, crossing a short right to the face, and hooking a left to the body. Borg rushed, clubbing with his right, but missing. Then suddenly Borg launched himself in a vicious flying tackle!
    Ponga Jim's knee jerked up into the man's face, knocking him sprawling to the deck.
    But Borg was up, a wild right catching Jim in the body. He gasped, and a left slammed against his head, dropping him to his knees. Borg lunged, kicking, and Ponga Jim hurled himself at the one leg Borg had on the floor.
    The big man came down with a crash, and then both men were on their feet. Jim walked in wide open, his eyes blazing with the joy of battle. Left-right, left-right, punch after punch he ripped into the big man's head and body, hooks, uppercuts, and swings, a battering volley.
    Borg was powerful, but too slow. He started to back up, lifting his arms to get that blinding fury of punches out of his eyes and face only to catch a terrific right in the solar plexus. He gasped and Jim let him have another in the same place and then another. The man fell forward on his face, and turning, Jim heard the hoarse rattle of the automatic rifle.
    Suddenly, Arnold's puckered scar twisted and his eyes widened.
    "Jim!" he yelled. "The sub!"
    Mayo sprang to the door. The sub had come up on the port bow, and the officer in the conning tower was staring at the ship in amazement. And it was no wonder. The Natuna was swinging idly on a flat sea, her deck a rattle of gunfire.
    Arnold was yelling something about a sack, and Ponga Jim ran out on the bridge. Behind the corner of the wheelhouse was a canvas sack, and, jerking it open, he saw it was full of hand grenades. The sub was closing in for a better view, and a gun crew had swung the gun around to cover the ship. They were launching a boat, and a dozen men were climbing into it.
    Ponga Jim jerked the pin and hurled the grenade. It hit the side of the submarine near the