Bill Bolton Flying Midshipman Part 6

"He's lying in the room over at the barracks where he was about to handcuff me and put me into a pair of leg irons. He's wearing them now, or was when I left him."

"Did you b.u.mp him off?"

"No. His jaw may be broken where I socked him-otherwise, I guess he's O.K."

Tom took half a cigar from his pocket, thrust it into his mouth and chewed steadily for a minute or two.

"Well, you're a smart kid, Bill," he admitted, "but not quite smart enough for this outfit. Got the keys to them cuffs and leg irons?"

Bill handed over the keys without a word.

"Zeppi," Tom ordered, "trot up to the barracks. Let that fool Diego loose and bring them things here." He tossed him the keys and Zeppi hurried away.

"You men," continued Tom, "go back to the cells with Tony and bring out them guys. Not old man Bolton, remember. Martinengo ain't sendin' him along with this batch. Take 'em out the back way and line 'em up in the road till I come. That's all-beat it!"

Tony and the detail trooped into the corridor, closing the door behind them. Tom ejected a stream of tobacco juice on to the floor.

"I don't know as how I can blame yer," he said to Bill. "You're in a bad way, kid, and I reckon you know it."

"What about my father? Will Martinengo have it in for him because I tried to get away?"

"Naw-the boss is hot on discipline, but he'll enjoy the joke, seeing as how n.o.body except Diego is the worse for it. That mug is sure to have a sweet time explaining but youse two won't get strafed. The workin's is bad enough punishment. He'll let it go at that."

"What are these workings you're all talking about, Tom?"

The man shook his head. "You'll find out soon enough," he returned evasively. "Here comes Zeppi. Orders is orders, and you gotta get into that hardware."

Bill was handcuffed and his ankles were locked into iron bands on either end of a short chain. This made walking possible, but scarcely comfortable, since he could not take a step over a foot in length. He shuffled out of the jail, accompanied by Tom and Zeppi, to find a group of twelve men in chains like himself, lined up by the roadside. Tom gave the word and the party and its guard filed off down the road toward the harbor.

From his place at the rear of the line Bill studied his fellow prisoners. They were a nondescript crew, negroes, Indians (Seminoles, from the Everglades, he thought) and poor whites. All were dressed as he was. They were dirty and unshaven, stumbling along quite evidently dispirited and hopeless.

The atmosphere was stifling and the white sh.e.l.l dust stirred by the tramping of many feet set them to coughing. Bill tried to show a brave front to his guards but the utter hopelessness of his position, the uncertain future and the separation from his father made him feel desperately blue and discouraged. He trudged along in the blinding dust and heat, almost praying that his troubles might be ended with a bullet.

But when they topped the rise and began to follow the zig-zagging road down the cliff, the sight of blue water below cheered him considerably.

It was cooler out of the valley, and he somewhat regained his spirits.

He spotted his own plane, moored out in the bay near the yacht _Pelican_. Tied up to the concrete pier was the larger of Martinengo's two amphibians, a tri-motor plane of huge dimensions.

The shambling party drew closer and he saw that she was constructed with a windowed cabin forward to house pilots and pa.s.sengers. Aft of this and having a separate entrance was a large freight hold. When carrying a capacity load, he fancied that her weight must be terrific. Now, with her retractible wheel landing gear drawn up to the metal covered hull, the big flying boat rocked gently at her mooring. A mechanic tinkered with her central engine. Two young fellows in smart white uniforms and gold-banded caps, who were smoking cigarettes on the wharf called a greeting to Tom as the party arrived. Bill realized that they must be pilot and a.s.sistant pilot of this craft. A short gangway led across from the pier to the freight cabin entrance and over this Bridge of Sighs the clanking prisoners were herded.

The interior of this large compartment of the air cruiser may have been originally designed for carrying freight. Bill now found that the remodeled hold served quite another purpose. At right angles to the entrance, a narrow corridor ran lengthwise down the middle of the cabin.

Opening off this were tiny wooden cubicles with just enough s.p.a.ce behind their barred doors for a man to sit on the narrow bench which served as the sole article of furniture in each tiny cell. The place reminded Bill of the eighteenth century prison hulks about which he had read. Light and air were let in through iron barred portholes and Bill was glad to find that the cell that housed him contained one of these small windows.

By squeezing sideways on his seat, he got a restricted view of the bay.

Presently the door to the prison hold was shut and an armed guard took his seat at one end of the cell corridor. A few minutes later, Bill heard the engine idling and they floated away from the dock. The hum of the three motors soon increased to a roar and they started to taxi toward the mouth of the harbor.

Trained aviator that he was, Bill Bolton knew the exact instant that the pilot lifted his heavy bus on to her step. There came an increased spurt of speed, as the plane skimmed the surface of the bay and rose into the air with the smooth grace of a bird taking flight.

Her nose pointed toward the western horizon she sailed over the heads at the harbor's mouth, gaining alt.i.tude every second. When she reached a height which Bill, staring out of the porthole, judged to be about a thousand feet, her pilot banked sharply to starboard. Again she swung back on an even keel; and now with throttle wide open the big flying boat roared into the northwest.

Bill saw that the round red orb of the sun was perhaps still an hour above the horizon. He craned his neck and the sea near at hand became visible. It looked smooth and calm. Here and there low islands, the dark green of their vegetation contrasting with the bluish green of the water, dotted the silken surface of the bay.

Bill straightened on his narrow, uncomfortable seat. Rather than stare at the poor fellow in the cell opposite, who was weeping, he closed his eyes. But this did no good, for he conjured up the dreadful picture of his father in the stifling calaboose on Sh.e.l.l Island.

Twisting round again, he sought relief from troubled thought in the view from his tiny porthole. They were traveling overland now. Fifteen or twenty miles away, he could make out the sea's dim outline. But what interested Bill far more was the nature of the country below.

Innumerable water-courses intersected a dense cloak of dark green foliage which seemed to be banded with a somber red along the waterways.

Then as the plane's pilot dropped her nose, seeking to avoid the increasingly strong headwind, Bill caught the sickening stench that he remembered so well.

"Mangrove!" he exclaimed aloud, his voice drowned in the roar of the engines. "We're over the mangrove swamps of Florida, south of the Everglades! That red line along the banks of the streams-exposed roots, of course."

He watched the swamp for some time, wondering what the pilot would do if a forced landing became necessary, and thanking heaven that the motors seemed to be running smoothly.

Then the amphibian sailed over wide water again. "Whitewater Bay, on a bet," thought Bill, who remembered his map of Southern Florida. "Chuck full of mangrove islands, too. If I'm right, we'll cross a strip of mainland soon, and if that pilot keeps to this north-by-west course, we'll be over the Ten Thousand Islands in fifteen or twenty minutes!"

Bill's guess was a good one. The bay gave way to swamp once more, and then they shot out over a weirdly beautiful stretch of water, studded again with countless islands. He knew now that the plane was paralleling the south-western border of the Everglades-that huge, swampy basin on the southern Peninsula which covers an area much the same as Connecticut. But unlike the populous New England state, the only human inhabitants of the Everglades are a few hundred Indians who thread its lonely water-paths in primitive dugout canoes.

Evidently the plane's pilot did not intend to cross the Everglades. They were still heading north, but the amphibian's nose had been swung to starboard. By the time they left the Ten Thousand Isles, Bill realized that they were traveling a point or two east of north. Could it be that they were making for those dark, watery woodlands known as the Big Cypress?

Bill had heard about the Florida Cypress Swamps, and knew them to be a trackless labyrinth of swamps, lagoons, creeks and low, fertile islands, all deeply buried in the shadows of a mighty cypress forest. Twilight was deepening over the earth now, as the red ball of the sun sank below the horizon. Bill thought he could just discern the first outlines of the big trees; then all was dark, and the amphibian roared on into the maw of black night.

He continued to gaze into the darkness. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, his vigil was rewarded by the sight of a pinpoint of red light far ahead and slightly to the left of the speeding plane. It was soon evident that the pilot recognized this signal, far below in the wilderness. The light disappeared from Bill's view, and he knew the reason why. The plane's nose was now headed directly for the light and therefore it was out of range from his porthole.

Down there in the trackless swamps of Big Cypress, someone was signalling the amphibian. Could this be their destination? Had they reached "the workings" that the men on Sh.e.l.l Island mentioned with such obvious loathing?

The big bus tilted forward and down. The three motors ceased to function and Bill knew that the plane was about to land.

CHAPTER VI-OSCEOLA

Bill was conscious of the amphibian's upward swing as she leveled off preparatory to landing. Her tail dropped slightly and a second or two later she was gliding through smooth water propelled by her own momentum.

Electric lights flashed in the prison cabin, illuminating the place with blinding suddenness and making it impossible to see further into the black night outside the porthole.

The plane's momentum decreased and she stopped with a slight jar. Orders were shouted. Men called to each other to pull on this rope and that.

Then the door to the cabin swung open, the prisoners trooped from their cells, and marched up a gangway on to a large wooden dock.

Lanterns glowed in the darkness. Bill caught a glimpse of black water, then he found himself shuffling along a narrow corduroy road with the rest. Great trees arched intertwining branches overhead and cast an even deeper gloom on their path. From time to time the swaying lantern of a guard cast its beam on gnarled trunks covered with creepers which reared upward from black water. There was the rank stench of rotting vegetation in the humid air. Before Bill tramped the log road twenty feet, he was wringing wet with perspiration.

They swung to the right and up a sharp incline, halting before a high stockade. Thick plank doors in the wall of tree-trunks opened inward and the party entered the enclosure. Here arc lights on high wooden standards flooded the yard with brightness. Numerous one-story buildings were set about a large open square of hard baked earth. So far as Bill could see there were no trees within the stockade, nor had any attempt been made to beautify the place. Most of the buildings were of unpainted boards, although the squared logs of several of the largest proved them of more solid construction.

Few people were about. The enclosure was as bare and uninviting as a military training camp. It was toward one of the log buildings that the prisoners were hustled. A guard unbarred an ironbanded door and they were thrust within the building. With a clang the door slammed and at last the band from Sh.e.l.l Island were left to their own devices.

Bill looked about him. The only light came from the arc lights' rays which shone through barred windows set high in the four walls. This meager illumination cast the place into somber twilight. Their new quarters consisted of a not too roomy, barn-like, rectangular s.p.a.ce, the peak of whose slant roof was lost in the shadows overhead. The terrific heat, the reek of perspiring humanity added to the rank odor of the swamp was almost overpowering.

As Bill's eyes gradually became accustomed to the gloom, he soon discovered that the newcomers were to have plenty of company. Dark figures sprawled in all sorts of att.i.tudes on the damp earthen floor.

Most of them seemed sunk in the slumber of exhaustion. A few talked in low tones as though the humidity had sapped all vitality from their voices. From a dark corner came the uncontrolled sobbing of a man in agony.