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  The transmitter building was farthest from the barracks, being at the base of the mast. It was a one-room house, quite small, with two windows and a door. Often the man on watch there sat in the doorway with the headphones on.

  The electric fence was more than six feet high. It was mounted on wooden posts and glass insulators, and was of web wire so that a man could not go through it. Ken assumed that it was hot all the time for one or the other of the generators was always running, even, the natives said, in the daytime.

  There was no open approach to the transmitter shack from the north for the Japanese had built the electric fence all the way around their buildings, leaving only one wire gate on the southern side. This, too, was hot, Ken guessed, as the wire was set off like the rest on insulators.

  The Japanese had not cleared a path for the fence but had run it through the jungle, crookedly to avoid the big palms. Then they had simply cut away the undergrowth for a foot or so on each side so that no leaves or branches could reach the fence and short it out.

  If they had cleared a wide area on each side of the fence Kens plan would have been much harder. But, as it was, there was jungle on both sides, the only real clearing being around the buildings and along the paths between buildings.

  Although seventeen days of patrolling were a misery to the men in the Shark, they gave Ken time he badly needed.

  The days below the surface were hard on the crew. The boredom ate into them so that men lost their tempers and fought in the cramped spaces. Monotony and heat and foul air frayed and drained them, and the lack of sunlight turned them a ghastly, grayish white, so that, as they moved slowly around, they looked like bloodless ghosts. Once, because two men could not settle their differences, Carney let them fight it out on the foredeck. Many of the crew came up to watch it, standing in silence in a ring around them and with only the light of half a moon on them. It was a mean, savage fight, but at the end the two felt better and within a few days were friends again.

  There were no shovels in the Shark but there were paint and bilge scrapers and other tools which could be used to move dirt. These Ken took ashore.

  And so, night after night, a line of the dark-skinned natives approached the electric fence. Then, in the thickest part of the jungle, they disappeared.

  Inch by inch they dug into the ground. The dirt they moved was passed out behind them and carried by the women to be scattered thinly under the brush.

  Ken went often to help them and to measure the progress of the tunnel. It was large enough only for one man to crawl along it as it went down on this side of the fence, leveled off for ten feet, then turned upward again.

  At last, when a bilge scraper broke the surface on the other side of the fence, Ken called a halt, leaving the earth undisturbed over there.

  They concealed the open end with trash and fronds, brushed away their footprints, and settled down to wait.

  Seventeen days of a blank radar screen, of only the sound of fish in the sonar headphones.

  And then, at eleven in the morning of the eighteenth day, the soundman said, “Slow screw bearing three six zero, distance ten thousand.”

  “Good,” Carney said. “Take her down to a hundred and fifty. Rig for silent running. Do you hear any sign of sonar?”

  “Not yet, sir. Just one slow screw. Sounds like a light ship of some sort. Not a can.”

  Carney plotted the range and bearing as the soundman kept reporting. “It might be what we’re waiting for. She’s headed straight for the lagoon. Any sonar?”

  “None, Captain. No pinging of any sort.”

  “Let’s keep it quiet in the boat.”

  “Steady at one fifty, Skipper,” the Diving Officer said.

  “Hold her there and shut down everything.”

  It grew very quiet in the Shark. And, almost instantly, very hot as the blowers and fans stopped.

  Now, through the hull of the ship, they could all hear the slow, steady chug chug chug of the propeller above them. It grew louder and louder without changing speed at all, then, slowly, it faded away until only the soundman could still hear. “Screw slowing,” he reported. “Now she’s stopped.”

  “What’s the range and bearing?” Carney asked, then plotted them. “She must have anchored close in to Midnight, and at the northern end. Boy, I’d love to take a look, but we’d better wait. Start fans and blowers and come up to sixty feet.” The soundman said, “I hear something but it’s hard to make out what it is. Sounds like high-speed screws, but very light.”

  “What’s the range and bearing?”

  “Same as the slow screw, sir.”

  “They must have put a motorboat over the side to take supplies ashore. Do you still hear it?”

  “Yes, sir. Very light high-speed screw.”

  Ken said, “I hope they’ve got a boatload of sake and barrels of brandy. I want them to have all hands drunk as skunks up there tonight.”

  “Pity you can’t get in there and give ’em all a Mickey Finn,” Pat said. “Slip something in that sake that’ll knock ’em all out.”

  Ken turned to him. “That’s the best idea you’ve had since you made lieutenant, Lieutenant. What have we got?” He swung down the ladder from conn and went aft to where the Pharmacist’s Mate kept the ship’s supplies of medicines. “Doc,” Ken asked him, “what have we got that I can put in a bottle of sake that’ll put a man to sleep—but not kill him?”

  Doc scratched around in his uncombed hair. “Let me see, let me see, Lieutenant,” he said, unlocking the cabinet. “I’ve got some sodium barbital. How’ll that do?”

  “What is it?”

  “Sleeping pill.”

  “What does it taste like?”

  Doc rolled a pill out and let Ken taste it. It had only a slight bitter taste.

  Doc began reading from a book. “Says here a dose of three to ten grains induces drowsiness within an hour or so and then a satisfactory period of natural sleep should ensue. The effect lasts from six to eight hours and there aren’t any unpleasant aftereffects.”

  “What would happen if you doubled the dose?”

  Doc kept on reading. “Fifty grains and he’s a dead Japoon.”

  “What would twenty do?”

  “Let me see, let me see,” he said, reading. “Here we are: too much and, instead of sleep, you get loss of consciousness or coma.”

  “That’s what we want. How about mixing me up a good-sized double dose, Doc? Make it into a powder so I can pour it into a bottle.”

  “Rodger dodger.”

  “Wait a minute. Will the stuff dissolve in alcohol?”

  “That I don’t know. It’ll dissolve in water OK.”

  “Have you got any drinking alcohol?”

  “Who, me? No, but the captain has.”

  Ken got a miniature of brandy from Carney and asked him if it was anything like the Japanese drink, sake.

  “Sake is a beer,” Carney told him. “It’s got a kick like a mule, though. Lots of alcohol. They usually drink it hot instead of cold.”

  Ken took the brandy back to Doc and dropped one of the pills into it. The pill took about two minutes to melt. Satisfied, Ken went back to the wardroom and asked Willy to get him an empty ketchup bottle. Then, while Willy stared at him, he practiced dumping salt into the mouth of the bottle. He would wrap a little salt in a piece of paper and then, by just feeling, he would try to empty it as quickly as he could into the bottle. He got very good at it.

  And then he waited. At four-thirty in the afternoon sound reported the slow screw again and the Shark went back to a hundred and fifty feet down and silent. Again the screw went over them and faded away.

  In Carney’s cabin he and Ken went over their final plans. Ken had seen that the Japanese stood watches just as the U. S. Navy did: four to eight, eight to midnight, midnight to four. He planned now to start for the island earlier than usual and to be all set when the watch at the transmitter shack was changed at midnight. That would give the new watchstander plenty of t
ime to get drunk—if he was going to get drunk—

  and give Ken four hours before the watch would be changed again.

  That done, he spent the final hours getting ready. Into one waterproof package he packed both the Minox cameras and exposure meters. He also packed the two twenty-grain doses of sleeping pills, each separately wrapped so that if he spilled one he’d have a spare. He also packed one of the small metal distress mirrors. Then he checked his Aqua-Lung, rigged a full tank, and gathered up his gear.

  At ten o’clock that night he was ready. Except for the first trip ashore, he had not been using the escape hatch but, instead, Carney had been bringing the boat up so he could get out the deck hatch. Tonight, however, they decided not to surface, but to use the escape hatch.

  Standing under it with Malone, Ken heard Carney’s order to stop engines.

  “Here we go again,” Malone said.

  Ken nodded as he put the Aqua-Lung on.

  Malone ran down the check-off list, item by item.

  The talker said, “The Skipper says good luck, sir.”

  Ken put the fins on and opened the lower door of the escape hatch.

  Pat said, “This is the big one, Ken. How do you feel?”

  “All right.”

  “No bucket this time?”

  Ken tried to grin. “Not yet. But have it ready when I get back.”

  Malone said quietly, “I’ve been praying for you, Ken.”

  “Thanks, Pat. Hope it works.”

  “Take care of yourself. All the way.”

  “I will.”

  Pat looked away for a second and then back at him. “Don’t let them get you. Not alive.”

  “I’ll try. Well, so long.” Ken climbed up into the escape hatch and put the mouthpiece in.

  “See you soon,” Malone said, closing the door.

  Ken stood there in the absolute darkness and waited for the creak and then the avalanche of water.

  He wasn’t afraid. He felt no courage, no feeling of bravery, he just simply was not afraid. He wasn’t trembling, nor sweating. His mouth wasn’t dry, nor his stomach sick.

  The water pouring in knocked him to his knees. When it stopped moving he straightened and pushed his way upward.

  On the deserted southern beach he took off the gray nylon coverall and wrung the water out of it. While it was drying he buried the swimming gear and unwrapped the package. Then, putting the coverall back on, he slung the two Minox cameras and the meters on their thin chains, and the mirror on a string, around his neck. He put a packet of sleeping powder in each side pocket.

  He had come a long way toward the native houses before he heard any sounds of man. But, as he came closer, he could now hear a great deal of noise. People were crying and yelling and the little children were screaming.

  He stopped some distance from the houses of the natives and whistled as the men had taught him to do. Soon an answering whistle came and, in a moment, the leader emerged from the bushes.

  “They are bad tonight,” the man said somberly.

  “Are they drunk?”

  “Like pigs,” the man said in disgust.

  “That’s bad for you, but it’s good for me,” Ken told him, then added, “I’m going now.”

  “I’ll go with you. As far as the fence.”

  “I’d better go alone,” Ken told him. “You’ve done all that you could to help me.”

  “Will we see you again?”

  “Perhaps you won’t see me again. But you will see Americans again. Endure this; try to keep alive until we come.”

  “It’s easier to live knowing that. Hunger doesn’t seem so savage.” The man suddenly smiled, his teeth white in the darkness. “And we are catching fish now. We will live, I think.”

  Ken touched his shoulder. “That’s fine. Good-by, and thanks.”

  “Good-by, and may God go with you tonight.”

  Ken kept close to the beach as he went past the village. He could hear the crying of the old women and children, and the coarse shouts of the drunken men. Occasionally, as he moved along in the shadows, he could hear people crashing in the underbrush and he guessed that they were Japanese, as the natives made almost no sound when they moved.

  As he neared the northern end he could hear a lot of noise at the Japanese camp, and when he reached the fence, he could see the Japanese.

  Most of the men seemed to be gathered in the barracks. In the bright fight he could see them sitting around tables. Many of them were singing, a few were staggering around, and some were lying on the floor.

  He went along the fence slowly until he reached the entrance of the tunnel. From there he could look over the jungle growth and see the radio shack. The man on watch was sitting in the doorway, the headphones on, the chair tilted back against the doorjamb.

  It was now midnight. Ken checked his watch and kept looking at the man in the doorway. As no one came to relieve him, Ken began to worry. Maybe he had been relieved early. Maybe no one would remember to come.

  He could see no sign that the man on watch had been drinking. He certainly wasn’t drinking anything now and there were no bottles in sight.

  Kens whole plan was built around the necessity for the Jap on watch to be drinking. If he was not, then Ken would have to make really radical changes in his plans and danger would increase a thousand times.

  He waited. Five minutes. Ten. This was time he could not afford to lose. But, he argued, if he started for the shack now, or even reached it and started getting rid of the man on watch, the relief might suddenly show up. Then he would have two Japs to handle. And neither of them must, at any time, see him. How could he do it?

  Ken heard loud, drunken singing. He turned his head a little and looked toward the barracks.

  A man was coming down the path toward the radio shack. He had an armful of dark green bottles and was singing at the top of his lungs.

  The man on watch stood up.

  The two met in the doorway and, it seemed to Ken, argued about something for a few minutes. At last the one with the bottles put them carefully down beside the chair.

  The argument went on, their voices rising. Finally the newcomer pushed the other toward the path and bawled at him as he walked away.

  Ken watched the newcomer put on the headphones, sit down in the chair, tilt back. Then he reached down for one of the green bottles and raised it to his mouth.

  Ken said silently to himself, “Drink some more, my friend. Drink some more.”

  For now it was time to go.

  Chapter 5

  The mouth of the tunnel was small and very black. Ken, down on his hands and knees, suddenly wondered if any snakes or scorpions had gone down into it. The idea made him shiver as he went slowly, head first, into the damp, pitch-dark hole. He slid for a little way and then came to the level section which ran under the electric fence. Now he could see absolutely nothing. Dirt fell on him as he crawled along and the bottom was muddy with rain water. There was a disagreeable smell of something dead in there.

  Coming at last to the other end, he pushed gently against the earth above his head. He could feel the tangled ends of wet roots dripping from the topsoil above him.

  More and more moonlight streamed in as he gently made an opening in the ground.

  The radio shack was ahead and to his left. The man was still sitting in the doorway, the earphones on.

  That helped, for Ken could not avoid making slight noises as he crawled, almost on his stomach, through the thick brush.

  He headed away from the shack to his right, planning to circle back when he was behind it.

  Once he stopped because of a sudden increase in the noise the Japs were making, but it was only a bunch of drunks bawling at the closed gate.

  Going on, he soon found that he could no longer see around the corner of the shack, so that he could not tell what the man on watch was doing.

  He went faster now as he reached the cleared area around the foot of the transmitter shack. Light streamed from
one window in a broad, faint band, stronger than the moonlight. He got in close to the house and, almost touching the wall, crept to the comer.

  The man was still sitting there, the chair tilted back.

  Ken watched the yellow hand reach down for a green bottle standing a little apart from the others. The mans back was to him as he drank and put the bottle down again.

  It was still half full. Ken got a packet of the sleeping powder and opened it, pinching the paper to form a little funnel.

  His practice with the ketchup bottle came in handy. The white powder poured into the neck of the sake bottle without a grain touching the glass.

  That done, he lay down close to the side of the building and watched.

  It was half past twelve.

  Soon the yellow hand came reaching down again, feeling for the bottle. This time the man held it in both hands, spinning it slowly back and forth as though warming it.

  Ken waited, hardly breathing. The man was clumsy and, at each turn of the bottle, came close to dropping it on the concrete stoop.

  At last he raised it, still holding it with both hands, and drank.

  He drank long and deep and then, instead of putting the bottle down, he held it for a while in his lap.

  Then he drank again, this time emptying the bottle. Ken couldn’t see what he did with it but guessed that the man had put it down on the floor of the shack on the other side of the chair.

  Then he picked up another of the long, heavy bottles and pulled the cork out with his teeth. The sake foamed thickly over his hands and down on his clothes but he seemed either not to notice or not to care. He started drinking again.

  He drank steadily. At five minutes past one he began to sing softly to himself.

  At fifteen minutes past one he nodded, his head going down on his chest. But he recovered and pulled the cork from another bottle.

  At one-thirty his head fell straight down on his chest, his arms dropped down beside the chair, and his legs sprawled.

  Ken, watching him, waited for five minutes but the man did not move again.

  He moved behind the chair and touched the man lightly on the back of his neck. There was no reaction at all.