Fifty-Fifty O'Brien

  Picking up a couple of the brass shells, Hardesty headed for home. There was nothing he could do here—not now. Perhaps they’d send out a burial party. Perhaps they would bring the men into the fort. That was not his worry.

  Shadows were jumpy ahead of him. He knew what a fine target he made out here in the moonlight. If the Berbers were about, they’d make short work of him.

  Hardesty slogged back to the pass. Three miles were not much, even for him. He slowed down when he came to the incline. Far ahead he could see the corner of the fort, guarding this one and only pass across these barren peaks.

  A hundred yards from the corner, Hardesty stopped. In the next few steps he would come into sight of the gate. Better test the gunner up there. No telling what might happen.

  Hardesty took a boulder the size of his head and heaved it. It crashed into the trail and rolled. Instantly a machine gun chattered. Slugs yowled and spanged away from the rock walls.

  Mopping his brow, Hardesty sat down. That had been very close—entirely too close. When the gun stopped, he stood up, cupping his hands and yelled, “Hey! It’s Hardesty! Hold that fire!”

  An answer drifted back to him, very thin and far, “Come ahead!”

  Taking the shadowy side of the wall, Hardesty went toward the gate. He expected to be plugged any instant, either by the machine gun up there or possible Berbers. He held his breath and paused every few steps. But no sound came out of the fort, nor from the pass.

  He reached the gate and rapped upon it. In a second it swung back, disclosing the face of Tou-Tou. “Oh,” he said, “you got back, I see. Any Berbers?”

  Hardesty shouldered past the man and then stopped. The two squads were drawn up in heavy marching order in the center of the parade ground.

  Amazed, Hardesty ambled toward them. Bereaux turned and watched him come.

  “But,” said Hardesty, “you’re not thinking of deserting this post, are you?”

  Bitterness was in Bereaux’s voice. “I’m not thinking about it, but these fools will have it no other way. They see themselves torn to pieces by Berber knives.”

  Tou-Tou took his place in the ranks, grinning. Up on the embrasure, Kaslov stared down.

  “Did he shoot at me?” demanded Hardesty, pointing to the Russian.

  Kaslov swung down, leaving his post. “Yes, I shot at you. I get orders to hold the pass, I shot thinking I saw Berbers.” He was scowling.

  “Get back up there!” snapped Bereaux.

  “I’m not covering a retreat,” growled Kaslov. “I don’t get left behind again.”

  Hardesty squared off, facing the Russian. “Did you fire any rounds today from your Chauchat rifles?”

  Taken a little by surprise, the Russian shook his head. “No.”

  “You’re lying,” snapped Hardesty.

  Kaslov advanced, arms swinging at his sides. “Are you big enough to say that I lie?”

  Bereaux drew out a pistol he had found in the lieutenant’s quarters. “Back, Kaslov. What’s the matter, Hardesty?”

  “There was a mound of empties up there where the two squads got it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the shells. “See that bright streak along the side? These were shot out of an auto-rifle, French. A legion gun killed those men!”

  The ranks shifted. Men drifted forward.

  Kaslov stared at the empty. “You … you think I did that, eh? You think I shot my own men, eh? You lie!” He lifted his hands and started to grab Hardesty.

  Hardesty deliberately turned to Bereaux. “When you picked him up, had the Chauchat been fired?”

  “Yes,” replied Bereaux. “I remember seeing the empties now that I think of it. I naturally thought the murderer was trying to help out the squads.”

  Hardesty turned to Kaslov. The Russian was staring about him at the menacing faces of the other Legionnaires.

  Hardesty smiled, but not humorously. He was having his day, now. They were paying some attention to him at last. They would monkey with murder, would they?

  “Tou-Tou,” said Hardesty, “empty a cartridge case right here on the parade ground.”

  Tou-Tou glanced about him and then brought the ammunition. The shells spilled out in a heap, brilliant in the moonlight.

  “What are you going to do?” snarled Kaslov.

  Hardesty picked up a handful of the shells. “Lay down, Kaslov. Flat on your face.”

  Kaslov growled, “To hell with you.”

  Hardesty reached out, grasped the Russian’s wrist and suddenly Kaslov was flat on his face.

  “Jujitsu,” said Hardesty, complacently. “Now, you Legionnaires, crowd up close here a minute. If Kaslov doesn’t lay still, pin him down with your bayonets.”

  Scooping up cartridges, Hardesty started flipping them across the Russian, exactly as though the shells were streaming out of the smoking breech of a Chauchat.

  Mystified, anger and punishment held in check only by curiosity, the Legionnaires looked on. They saw Kaslov’s mammoth shoulders become surrounded by the brass cases.

  Hardesty stood up, watchfully. He grabbed Kaslov’s collar and jerked Kaslov to his feet. The Russian, realizing that a move for vengeance or freedom would do him no good whatever, planted his big feet sullenly on the ground and watched.

  Hardesty pointed down. The Legionnaires frowned. All they saw was that the shells had left a clear space where the Russian had lain. In fact, they could see the tremendous shape of his shoulders and arms.

  “That’s the pattern of the empties out there,” stated Hardesty. “If any of you want, you can go out and look for yourself. In other words, Kaslov was lying down when the Chauchat gun was fired!”

  And before any of them could grasp that fact, Hardesty whirled on the corporal. “Bereaux! You’re the man!

  “You killed the lieutenant, Bereaux! You sent me for the sergeant when you should have sent me for the lieutenant. Although no one could recognize that corpse outside the gate, you knew the lieutenant was dead!

  “You slaughtered that party! You slugged Kaslov and then brought him back to hang for you in case anybody suspected the trick! You’ve sold out to the Berbers! They’re paying you to leave this post deserted!”

  For an instant, Bereaux was stunned by the flow of words. Then he lost all semblance of his military self. He leaped forward, shouting, “You lying fool, I’ll tear you apart!”

  Bereaux, unused to a revolver, lifted the gun high, ready to deal a blow. Before he could bring it down he remembered the other Legionnaires and whirled obliquely. Taken by surprise, the others had not moved.

  Bereaux, once more in complete control of himself, backed away to a safe distance, gun very steady. He smiled rather gruesomely. “Yes, I sold you out. What of it? Who are you, anyway? Rabble, nothing but rabble. I was once an officer!”

  He was backing slowly toward the gate, revolver swinging in a steady arc. A small corporal’s whistle dangled from his lanyard. He took it in his left hand. “The Berbers are waiting for you outside. The moon is at its zenith, the appointed time has come.

  “I was to have led you into their fire, but failing that, I have another plan. I go outside, seek protection and when I blow this whistle, you’ll be wiped out, to a man, by the attack. You are too few to stand against the tribes—too few to stand between me and my plans.”

  His flare for the dramatic was manifest in his bow. He swung back the gate and stepped into the black patch of shadow outside it, leaving the portals wide open.

  Hardesty glanced swiftly about him. Something glinted from another corporal’s neck. Another whistle! Their lives hung on split-second threads.

  With energy he had not known he had possessed, Hardesty leaped for the second whistle, placing it between his lips. Its shrill blast echoed far through the pass.

  Hardesty found himself running. He heard the chattering roar of a
machine gun outside. He heard the triumphant yell of a hundred men. He heard the snapping yowl of bullets.

  “Man the walls!” cried Hardesty.

  Throwing himself upon the gate he swung it shut. The machine gun had stopped. Sandals were sprinting up the incline. Bodies threw themselves against the opposite side of the panel.

  Hardesty struggled to hold the gate. It gave slowly in. Another instant and he would be trampled under sprinting feet. Another instant and the fort would be taken. Another instant and the seventeen within the walls would be slaughtered to a man.

  Straining, every tendon in his small compact body as taut as a banjo string, beads of sweat standing out against his red forehead, he strove to hold.

  Above him the legion machine gun cut loose. But that would do no good if the gate were not held. Another inch inward. Another and another. Seconds were ages. His whole body ached. Curses rang loudly on the other side.

  Abruptly the pressure slackened, or at least it seemed to. And then Hardesty was aware of a raging bulk beside him. The mighty-bodied Kaslov. Boards creaked in the doors. Shots splintered through. Kaslov swore in a loud bellow, holding the gate with his shoulders.

  Suddenly the thing was closed. Hardesty snatched at the bars and pulled them across. A moment later, he sagged back, glowing with the knowledge that he had won.

  The machine gun roared above them. Death smashed into the pass. A Chauchat started up with its hysterical clatter. They were clearing the pass with enfilade fire. Grenades exploded down on the incline, setting the night on fire with their blinding flashes.

  Abruptly everything was still. A murmur started along the embrasure. The murmur grew and became a shout. Kaslov looked at Hardesty and said, “You got a cigarette?”

  Hardesty handed one over and lighted it for the Russian. Kaslov dragged thankfully at it and then dug in his tunic for a flat bottle. The warmth of the fluid slid easily down Hardesty’s throat.

  After Kaslov had taken a drink, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and said, “About those empties. Was that right? Did they leave a pattern around me?”

  Hardesty laughed. “It was a good story, wasn’t it?”

  Kaslov chuckled, then sobered. “Too bad he got away, wasn’t it?”

  “Wasn’t it?” said Hardesty. He swung back the small inner door and pointed out. Kaslov looked through and grunted.

  Riddled by the first burst, and sprawled in death amid the tribesmen, lay Corporal Bereaux, victim of ideas. Even in the pale moonlight they could see that the sand beneath the body was turning red.

  Story Preview

  NOW that you’ve just ventured through some 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 Iron Duke. Join Blacky Lee, a man wanted by nearly every government in Europe, who happens to be the spitting image of a leader in the Balkan kingdom of Aldoria. With nowhere else to hide, the enterprising Lee flees to Aldoria and attempts to make the most of his mistaken identity in a startling tale of intrigue, humor and romance.

  The Iron Duke

  STUB always had an uneasy feeling about Blacky Lee. Stub’s state of mind was that of a man watching another holding a cannon cracker and not knowing just when he’d let that cracker explode. At least once a day Stub wondered why he had ever allowed himself to become associated with as nerve-racking a fellow as Blacky Lee. One never knew what was going on in Lee’s mind and never, never knew just when those thoughts would amalgamate with a bang. And sitting there watching Blacky just now, Stub forgot all about how grateful he was for the warmth in the radiator.

  Blacky Lee had come out of his reverie and was now, by aid of his reflection in the glass, carefully twirling his ginger mustache into a pair of military points. Stub, who always ran on the assumption that now, at last, he knew everything about Blacky Lee, was sorely jolted by the little container of mustache wax which Blacky was using. Never in all the years he had been with Blacky had Stub known him to carry wax or use wax, and now, with their baggage abandoned in Austria, a thing as nonsensical as mustache wax was here in Blacky’s possession! Certainly Blacky was attempting no disguise, for pointing a mustache would be a very weak attempt in that direction.

  Stub gave over wondering. He sighed and rested his little round face in his pudgy hands. “There was such a nice bottle of anisette in my trunk,” he sighed. “Do you suppose I’ll ever see that bottle again, Blacky?”

  “Probably never.”

  “And that nice new suit with the yellow stripes—”

  “It’s probably adorning the porter of the King’s Hotel—if his taste in clothes is as bad as yours.”

  “Gosh! You really think so, Blacky?”

  “You’re lucky,” said Lee, “not to have that suit full of holes—with you in back of each hole.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you’re always telling me how lucky I am to be alive,” sighed Stub. “You pull me through hell and high dives with one of your ideas, and then when we escape on the razor edge of execution you tell me how lucky I am! I’m not complaining, you understand, but sometimes I think my nerves just won’t stand it anymore. Tonight we should have been dining with generals and getting paid real money, but here we are, on a train without tickets, in a country which we didn’t enter legally, without so much as an Aldorian dime or a forged birth certificate!”

  “You haven’t forgotten how to use a pen,” said Lee.

  “Yeah, but now I haven’t even got a pen. Sometimes, Blacky—”

  The train came to a screaming halt, nearly throwing Stub into the middle of the floor. He clutched the sill, staring with terrified eyes at Blacky.

  “That conductor saw us. The Austrians figured we’d shuttle across the frontier and snag this rattler! Hell’s bells, Blacky, what are we going to do now?”

  “Sit tight and hope,” said Blacky Lee imperturbably. “It’s impossible that they could have extradited us that fast.”

  “They’d send word that we were in the country without papers,” groaned Stub. “Blacky, I can hear the rats in the dungeons already!”

  Blacky was giving the troops outside the window an interested examination. A patrol, booted and greatcoated, was splashing flashlights along the side of the track and boarding the train at the next car.

  “We’re in for it now,” said Stub. “And me without so much as a drink!”

  Stub twisted his neck so that he could look up the track at the somber figures of the patrol, and then, when he next glanced at Blacky Lee and saw that a 9 mm Webley showed its snout from beneath Blacky’s folded topcoat, his eyes got big and then narrow. Stub, without sigh or protest, put his hand into his side pocket and gripped the butt of the Colt Police Positive .38 therein. If Blacky was going to make a fight for it even against a large and well-armed patrol, then it would be a fight.

  They sat very still, though there was no perceptible change in Blacky, hearing the patrol going through the cars ahead, hearing the complaints of roused passengers who, having had to stay up to pass through the frontier, now thought they were being slightly imposed upon. The search was coming closer, compartment by compartment.

  Their compartment door was thrown open by the trainmaster, who consulted his record so as to address the occupants by name and save them as much embarrassment as he could. The trainmaster’s watery eyes came up with a jerk from the record and drilled Blacky Lee.

  The lieutenant in charge of the patrol was all business. He had stripped off his great gauntlets and tucked them in his belt, but he had his crop in hand and was cutting nervously at his boots as he waited for the trainmaster to speak up.

  “Well?” said the dark-faced lieutenant.

  “Your honor,” said the trainmaster, trembling, “I have no record of the two gentlemen in there.”

  “Ah!” And the lieutenant, with all the savor of a bloodhound at last treeing his quarry, th
rust himself into the room, one hand resting on the butt of his gun.

  Stub was waiting for the shot that would start the war. He could see the troopers in the corridor and the dull gleam of their carbines, and he knew how slight were his chances. But he had an accurate bead upon the lieutenant’s greatcoat, third button from the top.

  The lieutenant’s smile of triumph suddenly congealed upon his face and then, from the eyes down, there dropped a curtain of fumbling terror. This, in turn, was swept away by a stolid parade-ground expression and looking straight ahead, his heels close together, the lieutenant spoke.

  “My apologies, Your Highness. We are searching for one Balchard, leader of the Sons of Freedom, reported to have been on this train. My stupidity, Your Highness, is only that of zeal. May I be granted the favor of remaining aboard and posting adequate guard over your compartment?”

  “I do not care,” said Blacky Lee, “to have attention called to my presence aboard the Trans-Balkan Express. You are excused, Lieutenant. Carry on.”

  The lieutenant, embarrassed, about-faced and marched out. Angrily he motioned his men from the corridor.

  The trainmaster stood blinking and peering, stupefied, and undoubtedly promising himself a new set of glasses, pride or no pride, at the next stopover.

  “Is … is there anything Your Highness could wish, sire?”

  “Yes,” said Blacky Lee. “A bottle of anisette for my friend and a ham sandwich for myself.”

  “Immediately, Your Highness.” And he stumbled away.

  Stub looked, slack-jawed, at Blacky Lee, finding it difficult to force a question out of his constricted throat.

  “Your Highness?” gulped Stub. “He—they called you ‘Your Highness’!”

  Blacky Lee smiled enigmatically and slid the Webley 9 mm into his side pocket. The train had started again and he sank back, staring thoughtfully out of the window at the flying night.…

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