The Devil—With Wings

  “What are you waiting for?” roared Forsythe.

  “Nothing,” whimpered Ching.

  “Get going. They need your help.”

  Ching turned very slowly and went around the wing. He stopped once, wanting badly to go back. But he did not dare.

  When he reached the bluff above the river, Ching turned once more. He could see a glowing dot of red pulsating beside the vague outline of the ship.

  Forsythe, sitting on the pack of his harnessed parachute, listened quietly. He had been hearing a far-off drumming sound for some time. It was distinct now, though still miles away.

  He stood up and glanced southeast at the glowing sky, painted pearl with the rising moon. Shinohari was on his way with a score of ships at his back.

  Forsythe ground the glowing coal of the cigarette into the dust and stepped wearily up to slide down into his pit. He kicked the engine into life and braked one heel to turn.

  Full gun he streaked southeast, exhausts flaring against the night.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Death of

  Akuma-no-Hané

  THE car had crossed the river, heavy-laden, though the cargo in the black wooden boxes was very small. Bob Weston was driving across the open plain, setting his course by a star as engineers will.

  Lin and Ching were kneeling on the back seat, looking upward and southward. They could see the pinpoint of red which was the attack ship’s flaming exhaust and they could hear the drumming roar of many engines far away but coming nearer. Sadness and death were in their dark eyes as they watched.

  Patricia turned to look at them and then followed their gaze. Her eyes were misty, sorrow lay heavily in her breast. “Ching. Did he… Is he doing that because the Japanese will think we are in the plane?”

  “You didn’t know that all the time?” said Ching bitterly.

  “Then…then there isn’t any chance of his getting away from them?”

  “One plane against twenty?” said Ching angrily. “Not a chance! He knew he could never fly away from here alive. He knew it! You did that to him!”

  Patricia looked startled.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” said Ching. “He’s doing this to let you get away. They’ll never send a patrol to search for us after he’s shot down. They’ll think we all died with him. The men on the dredge are too far away to know what happened afterwards and they’ll be too rattled to figure it out. One night of wind will hide the tracks this car is making. If he wasn’t up there to hold them back, do you think, with all this border trouble, that the Japanese would stop on the river’s other side? No. They’d find us and gun us by moonlight—and an easy job it would be. But they won’t suspect, until it is too late.”

  Patricia suddenly hid her face in her hands, weeping. Ching’s glare was merciless upon her shoulders.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I…I thought I hated him. But it wasn’t hate. It wasn’t hate! And now I’ve let him go up there alone without ever telling him.…”

  Ching was looking back. The moon was over the horizon now, bathing the world with an orange flood. Against it, like wasps, the Japanese pursuit ships were framed. And roaring down the sky to meet them went The Devil With Wings.

  Forsythe, crouched in his pit, looked tiredly through his ringsights at the approaching armada. He clamped the phones on his ears and clicked his switch, getting the band of the Japanese.

  He heard Shinohari’s yelping voice crying, “There he is! That is he! Keep in close formation and dive past him in groups of three. Bow guns, then let the gunners get him. Don’t pull up until you’re far below. Turn then and climb above him again. Get him at all costs!”

  Forsythe’s lips curved downward into a twisted grin. He picked up the radiophone.

  “Shinohari? Akuma-no-Hané speaking. If you’ll let me land and discharge my passengers, I’ll give up.”

  Shinohari’s startled yip cracked through the phones. “Passengers? You say ‘passengers’?”

  “Bob Weston and his sister,” replied Forsythe to the dot growing bigger in his ringsight.

  He thought he heard a relieved chuckle. He had spoken in English because he was fairly sure no pilot in the squadrons ahead could understand it.

  “You are too tricky,” cried Shinohari in Japanese. “I cannot risk it. Military necessity demands your instant death.”

  In English, Forsythe said, “My death will not help you greatly, worthy Captain. Already word has been passed to certain powers and I think you will be wise enough to listen to their orders. I know you will. The evidence is too great and you cannot even resort to hari-kari.”

  Hurtling at each other across the palely glowing sky, enemy to enemy. And the man who was to die still held the winning hand.

  Forsythe took off the phones. He did not want to hear more, he had nothing more to say. The crackle told him that Shinohari understood and that nothing could stop the hammering slugs which would soon riddle the attack plane.

  He must be careful, Forsythe thought, not to fire. He did not know which ship was Shinohari’s and Shinohari had to live. Living, to the captain, would be a fate far worse than flaming down into the dark earth far below.

  Hands away from his trips, without even trying to get above his foes, Forsythe looked down toward the long silver strip which was the Amur River.

  The exhaust stacks of the coming ships flared blue and red against the moon. The wings were spread out into groups, all compact, getting ready for their dives.

  Forsythe looked up. Over his head a squadron started over the hump and stabbed down, engines screaming, scarlet pom-poms beating through their props.

  Forsythe flew onward, keeping his course straight.

  He was smiling.

  The car was miles away by now and Bob was driving fast. Ching and Lin saw the exploding muzzles of the diving guns long before they heard the chattering roar.

  By watching the direction of fire they made out the attack plane.

  Ching’s fists were balled tightly. His throat was dry and rasping as he whispered hoarsely, “Take some of them with you. Please take the captain. Please…”

  Patricia was turned in the seat, staring up and back. She could not see distinctly. A shining film covered her eyes.

  From afar they saw the attack plane burst into leaping yellow flames.

  Like a comet it stabbed down the sky trailing fire, lighting up the wings of the greedy swarm about it.

  Like a comet it stabbed down the sky trailing fire, lighting up the wings of the greedy swarm about it.

  Patricia tried to look away but she could not.

  The brilliant arc of fire ended abruptly in the river and went out.

  Ching was suddenly crazy but it lasted only a few seconds. He sagged back into the seat and stared at Patricia.

  Belatedly they heard the long overdue whoosh and crash of the crumpled attack.

  In a choked voice of disbelief, Lin whimpered, “He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Vladivostok

  IN a café just off the lobby of the Seven Flags Hotel in Vladivostok, Patricia, Bob and Ching sat at a table. A cosmopolitan crowd, made up with samples from half the races of the earth, jangled incessantly and moved restlessly up and down, ever changing, past the lobby door.

  It was this which Patricia watched. There was no fire of hope in her eyes now. For five days she had delayed her brother with the faint hope that somehow, some way, Akuma-no-Hané had cheated death. The hope had dwindled to a spark which no longer fanned into a blaze when she fed her milling thoughts to it.

  “You’d better eat something,” said Bob concernedly. “Gee, you haven’t been eating enough to keep a canary alive. And you haven’t either, Ching.”

  Ching looked downheartedly at Bob and then shifted his weary gaze to Patricia. He saw she was watching
the door and he too turned to look. But there was nothing there to hold her eyes except the changing crowd past the entranceway.

  He looked back to her. At first he had hated her for what she had caused to happen, but now in his generous heart he could understand. He had tired of chanting to himself that he had been the one who had first brought her to Forsythe. He had wearied of telling himself that he should have sensed the omen held in that first meeting. It had been ordained by the gods from the very beginning that Patricia Weston would kill Akuma-no-Hané. No matter how it had been done. She… But he knew she was suffering. Everything was unreal to her, hazy, far away.

  Bob turned to her. “There’s a ship sailing this afternoon. I’m going to take passage on it and get you out of here.” He started to rise but her hand reached up swiftly to catch his sleeve and pull him down again.

  “No. He said…he said to wait.”

  Bob was impatient. “We’ve waited. We’ve stood on one foot and then the other for five days. I tell you I don’t like to hang around. We’ve got a third of a million dollars left after all the bribes we’ve had to give and the sooner I get it aboard a ship under the Stars and Stripes, the better I’ll feel about it.”

  But he sat down again and poured himself a drink. “Aw, I don’t blame you, kid. That was a swell thing he—”

  “Shut up,” said Ching, tight-lipped, looking warningly from Patricia to Bob. Ching knew how close the girl was to cracking under the strain.

  “Would…would he look for us here?” faltered Patricia, eyes never leaving the door.

  Ching had answered it for her a thousand times. “Yes. He always comes to the Seven Flags Hotel.”

  “Always?” she said, snatching at hope again.

  Ching looked down into his glass, conscious of her glance upon him, knowing she was begging him to give her something on which she could peg her confidence.

  “There’s no chance,” said Bob. “We saw…”

  Patricia suddenly tensed. Her eyes on the door grew wide.

  Ching whipped around to look and to be hurled back in his chair by the force of his surprise.

  A tall officer with pale yellow hair had stopped in the doorway to the café, to stand and rove his silver gray glance about the room.

  His left arm was in a sling and the triangle of cloth almost hid the spreading gold wings of the flying corps and the half-dozen service ribbons on his tunic. Golden globes and anchors were on his collar and on the cap which he held in his right hand.

  His face was smoothly shaven but none of the sprucing he had done could hide the tiredness in every line of him.

  Suddenly he turned and saw the three at the table. Something happened to him. Life seemed to flow visibly back into him. A glow came to his face and glance as he straightened up and smiled.

  He paced happily across the floor with eyes only for Patricia.

  Until then she had not dared to be sure. She had never seen his face in full. But now, when she saw him smile and saw him walk, she knew.

  She was crying then. Uncontrollable sobs were shaking her as she reached out and clung to him, pressing her face against his tunic.

  His good right arm went around her and held her tightly.

  For a long time no one said anything. They could not trust themselves to speak.

  Finally Forsythe and Patricia sat down at the table, looking at each other. Ching pushed a drink into Forsythe’s hand but Forsythe did not seem to know it was there.

  Bob broke the silence. “Hey, how in the hell did you manage it?”

  Forsythe did not hear him and Bob had to repeat his question.

  “Parachute,” said Forsythe absently, all his attention for the girl.

  Ching diverted Bob’s attention. “He had everything done in black. For the effect, see? Black parachute. Probably bailed out before they even started to fire. Locked his controls. Nothing to it for… Say, by the way,” exclaimed Ching. “You don’t even know his name, Patricia. Miss Weston, Captain Forsythe of the Royal Marines.”

  That also failed to shake them.

  “But it’s all over the Orient that you’re dead,” said Bob, still doubting the fact that Forsythe was alive.

  Forsythe turned and smiled at him. “It’s true and yet it isn’t true. There’s no further use for Akuma-no-Hané, Weston.”

  “Why not?”

  Forsythe’s smile broadened as he thought about it. “He’s dead. And his work of keeping His Majesty informed of Japanese operations in the Far East is now being very efficiently done by a man who should know best of all.”

  “Who?” said Bob.

  “By Captain Ito Shinohari of the Imperial Japanese Intelligence.”

  “But that can’t be,” said Bob. “I just read where they’re giving him a medal for killing you. The Order of the Rising Sun!”

  Ching and Forsythe suddenly relaxed into a blast of laughter and then, by way of apology, Forsythe said to Patricia, “I passed along data about the man and unless he obeys and gives us intelligence service, he knows he will be forever disgraced. Yes, my work is being done.… But it isn’t done at all. I’ve served my time in Intelligence and now I am back to the line. They tell me, Patricia, that I am being ordered to a nice quiet post in Bombay.”

  She looked at him with a smile which warmed him and sent small thrills of pleasure through him.

  In a soft, caressing voice, she said, “I think I shall love Bombay.”

  Story Preview

  NOW that you’ve just ventured through one of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age collection by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of The Green God. Join Lieutenant Bill Mahone, who is stationed in the besieged Chinese city of Tientsin—as Mahone starts to realize why the city is under attack, he begins a deadly quest to recover the Green God, a stolen sacred idol. Twists and turns lead inexorably to the grave of one General Tao, and a terrifying secret.

  The Green God

  SWIFTLY Lieutenant Bill Mahone of Naval Intelligence pulled his automatic from its shoulder holster and crawled along the side of the coffin, screening himself from possible guards.

  Against the dark sky he could see the outline of the mound which marked the tomb of General Tao Lo, and around it the many unburied coffins which might or might not house the dead of Tientsin.

  It was a dangerous mission that had brought Mahone venturing into the night. He had convinced his commander that they would not be able to stop the constant looting and murdering that had cast a reign of terror over the city until the Green God was back in its temple.

  Tientsin’s Native Quarter was half in flames; the dead were heaped in the gutters. The Chinese were convinced that their city would fall, now that their idol was gone. Before long these fanatics might sweep into the International Settlement and wipe it out.

  Mahone had received a slip of paper that one of the natives in the Intelligence Department had brought in. It had been found in the Native Quarter, and the Chinese ideographs had read, “A jade calling card for General Tao Lo.” The general had been dead for a year, but Mahone was convinced that the Green God had been hidden in his tomb.

  Now Mahone, disguised as a Chinese coolie, had come alone to try and get the Green God from the general’s tomb and save the city before it was too late.

  As he crawled along the side of the coffin a cry rang out directly above him and he felt the bite of a knife in his shoulder. With a spring he catapulted away and looked back. A dark figure leaped to follow him! Mahone’s automatic spat fire and the shadow by the coffin screamed in agony. In front of him he could see other shadows rising up like ghosts. The faint light fell on the blades of many knives. Vicious snarls were hurled at Mahone as the guards swept down on him.

  Knives flashed. The automatic spat again and again. There seemed no end to these fanatics. Bodies hurled their fighting lengths upon
Mahone.

  With his empty automatic he clubbed and beat about him. He could feel the impact of his steel crashing down upon skulls, arms, bodies. Chinese were sweeping over him in a stifling mass. Knives bit into his flesh like white-hot irons.

  He felt men go down upon him, beside him, as he brought his gun butt down. But each time he struck, another screaming demon leaped to take the empty place. His arm was aching with exertion. He was bleeding from many wounds, but he fought on relentlessly.

  Feet kicked him in the face, talonlike hands sought his throat, knives lanced in for his heart. His hand was sticky from the blood of crushed skulls.

  By rolling over and over he managed to baffle the knives which flashed above him. Suddenly he brought up against a coffin. Then, protected on one side, he tried to gain his feet.

  But each time he rose as high as his knees, a body would launch itself into him, pinning him again to the ground. He was partially protected by the inert Chinese he had either killed or knocked unconscious, and hope that he might be able to escape welled up within him.

  His left hand fell upon the hilt of a knife and he snatched it up, lashing at the air before him. He felt that blade catch again and again, but each time, he pulled it from the flesh it had met and threshed out for new targets.

  The knife blade was growing sticky and he felt a hot trickle of moisture running down inside his sleeve. The salty stench of blood was in his nostrils as he fought.

  He was almost exhausted when the rush stopped momentarily.

  To find out more about The Green God and how you can obtain your copy, go to www.goldenagestories.com.

  L. Ron Hubbard in the

  Golden Age of

  Pulp Fiction

  In writing an adventure story

  a writer has to know that he is adventuring

  for a lot of people who cannot.

  The writer has to take them here and there

  about the globe and show them