"The Colonel is right," said Jerry.
"I suppose he is," admitted Corrie.
"That's the good soldier," said Tak.
"There is another who should not go," said Doctor Reyd. Everybody looked at Jerry. "Captain Lucas has been a very ill man. If he goes on a long forced march now, he'll be in no condition to undertake the trying marches to the south which you are contemplating."
Jerry glanced questioningly at Tarzan. "I wish you wouldn't insist, Jerry," said the Englishman.
Jerry unbuckled his ammunition belt and laid it at the foot of the tree. He grinned ruefully. "If Corrie and Sarina can be good soldiers, I guess I can, too; but I sure hate to miss out on this."
Ten minutes later twenty men started down the valley at a brisk pace that was almost a dogtrot. Tarzan, at the head of the column with van Prins, explained his plan to the Dutchman.
Captain Tokujo Matsuo and Lieutenant Hideo Sokabe had been drinking all night—drinking and quarreling. There had been much drinking among their men, too. The native men of the kampong had taken their women into the forest to escape the brutal advances of the drunken soldiers. But now, shortly before dawn, the camp had quieted, except for the quarreling of the two officers; for the others lay for the most part in a drunken stupor.
The single guard before the prison pen had just come on duty. He had slept off some of the effects of the schnapps he had drunk, but he was still far from sober. He resented having been awakened; so he vented some of his anger on the two prisoners, awakening them to revile and threaten them. Having been born and educated in Honolulu, he spoke English. He was an adept in invective in two languages. He loosed a flow of profanity and obscenity upon the two men within the barbed wire enclosure.
Staff Sergeant Carter Douglas of Van Nuys, California, stirred on his filthy sleeping mat, and raised himself on one elbow. "Aroha, sweetheart!" he called to the guard. This plunged the Jap into inarticulate rage.
"What's eatin' the guy?" demanded Staff Sergeant Bill Davis of Waco, Texas.
"I think he doesn't like us," said Douglas. "Before you woke up he said he would kill us right now except that his honorable captain wanted to lop our beans off himself in the morning."
"Maybe he's just handin' us a line to scare us," suggested Davis.
"Could be," said Douglas. "The guy's spifflicated. That stuff they drink must be potent as hell. It sounded like everybody in camp was drunk."
"Remember that butterfly brandy they tried to sell us in Noumea at eighty-five smackers a bottle? Three drinks, and a private would spit in a captain's face. Maybe that's what they're drinking."
"If this guy had got a little drunker," said Douglas, "we could have made our get-away tonight."
"If we could get out of here, we could rush him."
"But we can't get out of here."
"Hell's bells! I don't want to have my head lopped off. What a hell of a birthday present."
"What do you mean, birthday present?"
"If I haven't lost track, tomorrow should be my birthday," said Davis. "I'll be twenty-five tomorrow."
"You didn't expect to live forever, did you? I don't know what you old guys expect."
"How old are you, Doug?"
"Twenty."
"Gawd! They dragged you right out of the cradle. Oh, hell!" he said after a moment's pause. "We're just tryin' to kid ourselves that we ain't scared. I'm good and goddam scared."
"I'm scairt as hell," admitted Davis.
"What you talk about in there?" demanded the guard. "Shut up!"
"Shut up yourself, Tojo," said Douglas; "you're drunk."
"Now, for that, I kill you," yelled the Jap. "I tell the captain you try to escape." He raised his rifle and aimed into the darkness of the shelter that housed the two prisoners.
Silently, in the shadows of the native houses, a figure moved toward him. It approached from behind him.
Matsuo and Sokabe were screaming insults at one another in their quarters at the far end of the kampong. Suddenly, the former drew his pistol and fired at Sokabe. He missed, and the lieutenant returned the fire. They were too drunk to hit one another except by accident, but they kept blazing away.
Almost simultaneously with Matsuo's first shot, the guard fired into the shelter that housed the two Americans. Before he could fire a second shot, an arm encircled his head and drew it back, and a knife almost severed it from his body.
"Were you hit, Bill?" ask Douglas.
"No. He missed us a mile. What's going on out there? Somebody jumped him."
Aroused by the firing in their officers' quarters, dopey, drunken soldiers were staggering toward the far end of the village, thinking the camp had been attacked. Some of them ran so close past Tarzan that he could almost have reached out and touched them. He crouched beside the dead guard, waiting. He was as ignorant of the cause of the fusillade as the Japs. Van Prins and his party were at the opposite end of the kampong; so he knew that it could not be they firing.
When he thought the last Jap had passed him, he called to the prisoners in a low tone. "Are you Douglas and Davis?"
"We sure are."
"Where's the gate?"
"Right in front of you, but it's padlocked." Van Prins, hearing the firing, thought that it was directed at Tarzan; so he brought his men into the village at a run. They spread out, dodging from house to house.
Tarzan stepped to the gate. Its posts were the trunks of small saplings. Douglas and Davis had come from the shelter and were standing close inside the gate.
Tarzan took hold of the posts, one with each hand. "Each of you fellows push on a post," he said, "and I'll pull." As he spoke, he surged back with all his weight and strength; and the posts snapped off before the prisoners could lend a hand. The wire was pulled down to the ground with the posts, and Douglas and Davis walked out to freedom over it.
Tarzan had heard the men coming in from van Prins's position, and guessed it was they. He called to van Prins, and the latter answered. "The prisoners are with me," said Tarzan. "You'd better assemble your men so that we can get out of here." Then he took the rifle and ammunition from the dead Jap and handed them to Davis.
As the party moved out of the village, they could hear the Japs jabbering and shouting at the far end. They did not know the cause of the diversion that had aided them so materially in the rescue of the two men without having suffered any casualties, and many of them regretted leaving without having fired a shot.
Bubonovitch and Rosetti fairly swarmed over their two buddies, asking and answering innumerable questions. One of Davis's first questions was about Tarzan. "Who was that naked guy that got us out?" he asked.
"Don't you remember the English dook that come aboard just before we shoved off?" asked Rosetti. "Well, that's him; and he's one swell guy. An' who do you t'ink he is?"
"You just told us—the RAF colonel."
"He's Tarzan of the Apes."
"Who you think you're kiddin'?"
"On the level," said Bubonovitch. "He's Tarzan all right."
"The old man ain't here," said Douglas. "He wasn't—?"
"No. He's O.K. He got wounded, and they wouldn't let him come along; but he's all right."
The four talked almost constantly all the way back to the guerrilla camp. They had fought together on many missions. They were linked by ties more binding than blood. There existed between them something that cannot be expressed in words, nor would they have thought of trying to. Perhaps Rosetti came nearest it when he slapped Davis on the back and said, "You old sonofabitch!"