Chapter I Fists

Chapter I Fists

VEN now I can't tell you exactly how the fight started. We had finished unloading the Eastern Gull on the quays of Surabaja, and Captain Cook had announced that we would steam out of the Kali Mas in the morning. We were to take the rusty old freighter through the islands again, seeking another cargo of copra for delivery in Java.

Leaning over the rail and smoking my pipe, I felt at peace with the world. The night was lovely, with a full moon pouring its white radiance over the houses of Surabaja. I was just thinking of turning in, when Captain Cook emerged from his quarters—as big and muscular a skipper, I imagine, as the Java Seas had ever known.

He was fully six-feet-three, and his weight did justice to his height. Close to sixty he was; but, looking at him casually, you'd have sworn, despite his curly grey hair, that he couldn't be much beyond forty-five.

I had been his mate for seventeen years, and I had never refused an invitation to drink with Jerry Cook.

It was in Gan How's pasangrahan—a noisy, dirty, little saloon frequented by E

Thrilling Adventures

2 Javanese, Eurasians and Europeans—that we had our first glimpse of the red-haired young man.

He stood alone at the end of a long, liquor splashed bar, and seemed to be the only one in the crowded place who was finding no pleasure there. A whiskey glass stood in front of him, untouched. His deep-set eyes were fixed in bitter preoccupation on the wall in front of him.

If I looked at him with unusual interest, it was, first, because I felt certain he was an American; and secondly, because he was so tall—almost as tall as Captain Cook himself. He must have heard us order drinks in English, but he didn't even glance in our direction. He continued to glower at the wail—his eyes almost savage, his lips clamped tight in a sullen, bitter line.

APPARENTLY he had given the red-haired stranger scant attention. I, too, forgot the fellow. A few drinks put me in a rollicking frame of mind and, while the gamelan orchestra played its noisiest, I found myself dancing with one of the Eurasian girls. She laughed up gayly into my face and did her best to lure a few coins out of my pocket.

And then, of a sudden, it happened.

A shout of alarm from the Chinese barkeeper made me turn my head in time to see the red-haired man crash a fist against Captain Cook's jaw.

Cook staggered back, arms flailing, eyes round in amazement. He would have fallen if he hadn't found a sudden desperate hold on the edge of the bar. For an instant he rocked there, dizzy and off balance. He had to shake his head like a dog emerging from water before his wits returned.

I immediately started toward the captain. The music abruptly stopped. The dancers halted. Everybody gaped in bewilderment.

His voice was hoarse. His big face was suddenly flushed in a way I knew was dangerous. With a few drinks under his belt, he was usually a pretty hard man to handle. And before I could reach him, he lunged straight at the red-haired man, swinging his tremendous fist straight at the younger man's head.

It was a blow furious enough to fell a bull. But it missed—missed widely because that red head was unexpectedly jerked aside. The fist flew over the stranger's shoulder and was still traveling forward when an answering blow caught Captain Cook flush on the chin.

Neither man paid any heed. They were mixing things up enthusiastically now. You could hear the ugly thuds of blows. They stood toe to toe, battering each other's abdomens. They fought lustily, cursing and panting and giving no quarter. To my amazement, I saw that Captain Cook—whom I'd never known to lose a fight—was getting the bad end of the encounter.

Slowly, inexorably, he was retreating. The redhead was pressing him along the edge of the bar. Blood dribbled from the younger man's nose, but he seemed unaware of it. Something like a gargoyle's grin—malicious and completely contented—distorted his features. He appeared to be actually enjoying this fight. He smashed a fist into the captain's face, another into his chest. His arms worked like pistons.

The Chinese barkeep lifted a bottle as though it was a club. So I flung a chair at him.

It missed, but it diverted his aim. He hastily lowered the bottle and backed away.

Naturally, I had no doubt that Captain Cook would eventually send the red-haired

Hoodoo of the Sea

3 stranger crashing to the floor. For the past seventeen years I had seen the captain in action too often to have any qualms as to what would happen. Even his age couldn't affect the power of his blows.

I waited expectantly, watching. But the fight ended as abruptly as it had begun when four native policemen smashed their way into the door.

There was a great deal of jabbering in Javanese. Captain Cook, who knew the language, passionately argued with the policemen. There was blood on his mouth, and he had to spit it away in order to talk. Somebody picked up his seaman's cap and jammed it on his grey hair. He seemed to be pleading with the officials to allow the fight to continue.

But they obdurately shook their heads. They had no desire to make an arrest; these waterfront encounters were no novelty. Yet they did insist that the fight immediately stop.

So presently Gan How's pasangrahan was decently quiet again. Captain Cook, however, was far from appeased. Glaring across a dozen heads, he rapped out to the red- haired stranger:

Having wiped the blood away from his nose, the red-haired man grinned in that savage way of his.

It'll have to be before dawn. I'm sailing in the morning."

The red-haired man nodded. "I'll remember," he promised. "Only I don't aim to go chasing after you. If you're interested, you can locate me on the quays, too. I'm Dan Rassel—Captain Rassel."

The red-haired man picked up his seaman's cap and strode out of the pasangrahan. I turned to speak to Captain Cook.

But I didn't. I stood bewildered, my lips falling open.

Something had happened to Jerry Cook, something that could not be explained either by the fight, by the blows he had sustained, nor by the liquor he had drunk. He sagged against the bar. His face was suddenly white and stunned. Round-eyed, he gaped at the door through which Dan Rassel had vanished. A ghost of the past gripped him.

For an instant I thought his knees were going to crumple under him. He stood blinking at the door in a kind of horror, as if he had seen something unspeakably fantastic and stupefying.