Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

18 hold and lay motionless, the fight completely knocked out of him. Belden was still a force to be reckoned with, however. He had collected his wits and now he hurled himself at Terry and grappled with him, and, locked in a savage embrace, clerk and revenue officer stag- gered to and fro across the hold, thumping against oil-drums and against stacked crates of merchandise. Each striving to gain the mastery, they battled like wildcats for the space of some thirty seconds. Then Terry managed to fling Belden from him, and though the clerk steadied himself and leapt at the Goast Guard heutenant again it was only to make the acquaintance of a hard jolt to the solar plexus. Belden folded like a half-shut clasp- knife as Terry's fist rammed him in that vital nerve centre just above the waist- line. Gasping, he clutched at his tortured body with both hands, and thereby left himself exposed to a shattering uppercut that straightened him and threw his weight on to his heels. Back went Belden, to blunder into a pile of the heavy crates of merchandise that abounded in the hold, and, those crates toppling, the clerk was buried in their crushing downfall—a single, half-stifled cry breaking from his lips as he was flattened beneath them. In the quiet that settled upon the hold as the echoes of the crates' collapse died away Terrv Kent spun round and cast about him for the Colt that had belonged to the gunman whom he had accounted for. He speedily located the revolver, and, snatching it up, he began to ascend the ladder cautiously. He reached the hatchway, and as he raised his head above the deck-level he saw that the trawler which had appeared to be in distress was now alongside the Adamic, the fishing vessel's funnel and masts beino visible. He saw something else—the figures of three men who were climbing over the rail of the Adamic at a point near the freighter's bridge. One of them was the gigantic Thorg, another was the fellow known as Degado, and the third was an individual who was a stranger to Terry. It was as this trio set foot an the Adamic's deck that a member of the tramp steamer's crew stole from some inadequate hiding-place under the bridge and started to creep aft, seemingly with the intention of seeking a new and more effective covert. But he was detected by the three newcomers, and, quickly inter- cepting him, they brought him down after a brief struggle and commenced to tie him v.-ith some cordage that was lying near by. But Terry had not remained idle in the meantime. Gun in hand, he had issued from the main hatchway of the after- hold and was moving noiselessly towards the spot where Thorg. Degado and the other rogue had overpowered the man who had ducked from under the bridge. The rascally trio had pinioned their captive's arms and were about to bind his ankles together when the revenue officer interrupted them in their handiwork. "Leave that man alone!" he said quietly. "And don't try any tricks, or I'll plug the three of you!" Boroff's hirelings sprang up at the sound of his voice, and, finding them- selves covered, they recoiled from the lieutenant in a discomfited manner and lifted their hands. Then Degado spoke. '^You can't get away with this, Kent!" he breathed. "There's half a dozen of our gang down on the fore-deck. Every one of 'em's packing a gun, and " The sentence was never finished, for at that instant a shot rang out. It was a shot fired by a man who had rounded the bridge—one of the rogues who had been taken aboard the Adami'^ from the trawler's lifeboat—and the bullet he had discharged hit the barrel of the revolver Terry was grasping and sent the weapon spinning from his fingers. In a moment Thorg, Degado and the fellow who was with them were upon Terrv, and though the revenue officer put October ittli, iii:;'.i. BOY'S CINEMA up a furious resistance that baffled his three assailants in their efforts to quell him, the crook who had rounded the bridge came running up and hit him a stunning blow over the back of the head with the butt of his gun. The cruel shock of that blow dashed the senses out of Terry Kent, and, sinking under the impact of it, he was unconscious of all that ensued in the course of the next twenty minutes or so. When at length he did come round, it was to find himself sprawled on the deck beside the man who had been tied up near the bridge, and as he roused himself into a sitting posture the voice of the captive fell upon his ears—a voice couched on a note of wild agitation. "Quick, lieutenant!" the prisoner gasped. "Get up to the wheelhouse and take the helm! You're the only one who can save the ship!" Terry looked at him dully. "Save the ship? " he echoed. "Yeah!" the other jerked out. "Those rough-necks packed the rest of the Adamics crew into the for'ard hold and battened down the hatch on them! Then they took some oil-drums outa the after- hold and loaded 'em on board their own craft, and when they'd done that they sheered off in the trawler—but not before they'd started the Adamic's engines and fixed the helm so we'd drive shoreward and founder among the rocks just off the coast! They left you an' me where we were—flguriii' we couldn't do nothing about it, I guess." It now dawned on Terry that the Adamic was indeed ploughing through the water—and at a high speed, the pulsing of her motors seeming to keep time with a throbbing ache that was beating through his temples. He realised, too, that the gloom of night's onfall had deepened, and that the mist which had been gathering over the sea had increased in density. Pulling himself together, he struggled to his feet and. making for the wheel- house, he ascended a companionway that led up to it and reeled to the helm. The wheel had been lashed by cords, and with feverish hands Terry began to unfasten those cords—was still engaged upon that task when he saw a light flash- ing somewhere ahead of the vessel. It came from the cupola of a lighthouse which was dead in the path of the Adamic, and as the structure loomed up befoi'e his view amid the drifting mist and the encompassing darkness the Coast Guard officer worked madly to slacken the ropes that held the steering-gear rigid. Driving on through the brine, the Adamic rapidly drew nearer to the light- house, and it seemed inevitable that a fatal collision must take place ere Terry could accomplish his purpose. But when the ship was desperately close to the lighthouse and a reef on which the stone tower had been built, he contrived to free the helm and wrench it hard a-port. The Adamic answered to the wheel, and veering away from the lighthouse in the nick of time, described a wide semi-circle and swung out for the open sea. Then, heaving a sigh of relief, Terry made the helm fast so that the ship would keep her stern to the coast. This done, he dived out of the wheel- house, hurried down to the deck again and sprinted towards the engine-room. But as he was passing under the deep shadow of the bridge he tripped over the outstretched legs of the man who had warned him that the Adamic had been set on a course that spelled doom for all aboard her. He tumbled to the deck, striking it with a force that knocked the breath out of him. He was soon up again, however, and as he rose the fellow who was lying by the bridge spoke to him huskily: "You turned the ship away from the coast all right, then, lieutenant," he gasped. Terry answered him in a laconic voice. "Yes," he announced, "and we're head- ing clear out for the open sea. Whate^'er Every Tuesday else happens, we won't run aground and founder on the rocks that lie off the coast —as those devils intended. But we had a close call. We came within an ace of ram- ming a lighthouse." "I know," the other rejoined. "I saw it loomin' up in the fog. It was the light- house on the BaiTier Reef off Cape Variant. I tell you, I shut my eyes and prayed when I spotted it. "Gee, lieutenant," he added fervently, "it's a lucky thing you recovered con- sciousness when you did. The skipper and all the men imprisoned in the forard-hold owe you their lives—and so do I. I tried to struggle loose, but those crooks hog- tied me too tight. They bound my ankles as well as my arms after you were laid out —yeah, and those ropes were cuttin' into me something cruel " Ten-y interrupted him. "You'll have to put up with those ropes cutting into you a little longer, friend," he said. "I've swung the Adamic away from the coast, but we're not out of danger, for there's a chance of us running smack into some other ship in this fog. Listen. I'm going down to the engine-room to shut off the turbines. Then I'll come back and set you free, and while I'm opening the for'ard-hold you can nip up to the bridge and start sounding the fog-horn—in case there's any craft in the offing that might run us down." With that he turned from the bound figure of the man near the bridge and resumed his hurried journey towards the engine-room. He had soon reached his objective, and there he switched off the motors. Yet he had scarcely done so when his glance came to rest on a steam-gauge that indicated the pressure in the tramp's boilers, and as he noted the position of the gauge's needle his handsome features blanched. The needle had passed a red mark that was the danger line, and, aware that an explosion was imminent, Terry spun to- wards a door on his right. It was a door marked "boiler-room," and bounding to it, Terry flung it wide open. Immediately he found himself at the too of a flight of steps communicating with a stoke-hole that was half-filled with steam—steam that was hissing from a row of boilers at the far side of the compart- ment, where unattended furnaces were blazing luridly. That much Terry saw at a glance and then, through the foetid haze he distinguished a safety-valve on the left-hand wall of the stoke-hole. He knew that if he could gain that safety-valve he could prevent the im- pending explosion, and with that intention in mind he started down the steps. But he had only taken a couple of paces when the boilers burst with a deafening report, torn metal flying in all directions, scald- ing vapoui belching from the ripped water-tanks! (What hapoened to Terry Kent? Did he meet his death as a result of that terrific explosion? Will Boroff succeed in his plan to supply Morovania with the disinteg:ra- ting gas he has invented? On no account must you miss "Deadly Cargo," the sixth powerful episode of this dramatic serial, published by l<ind permission of British Lion Film Corporation, Ltd.) tlis I f:;,^ Order your copy of BOY'S CINEMA NOW! SPECIAL ORDER FORM APPEARS ON PACE 22 Jobody ^^[ pone "Va( ^'^ ftice,"