Return to Skull Island by Ron Miller & Darrell Funk

Author:Ron Miller & Darrell Funk [Miller, Ron & Funk, Darrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2014-12-08T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We found Englehorn waiting impatiently in the port city of Ying-kou. The Venture had been sitting there for days without any word from us. For all the captain knew, we were still in Tang’s camp. After getting our things into our cabins and polishing ourselves up a little, Pat and I met the captain on the bridge. A few minutes later, he was up-to-date.

“I think,” I said, “it would probably be a good idea for us to get on our way as soon as possible.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Englehorn replied, “but that might be easier said than done.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Take a look at this,” he said, handing me a sheaf of colorful paper. It was a thick stack of Chinese currency.

“Well? Isn’t this enough?”

“I thought so when I handed it to the chandler after I’d ordered our coal and supplies. But it’s all phony, Denham. Counterfeit.”

“Counterfeit? You mean it’s no good?”

“Unless you plan to paper the walls in your cabin with it. Otherwise it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.”

“Would you pardon me a moment, Pat?”

“Sure, Carl. I’m sure I’ve heard worse.”

I did my best to prove her wrong and placed every curse on General Tang I could think of and a few I made up on the spot. I was disappointed to see that not one made Pat blush.

“Well,” I said to Englehorn when I’d finished, “what do we do now?”

“I don’t know. I doubt we have enough to get out of the Yellow Sea. If we can’t fill the bunkers, we’re stuck in Chinese waters.”

“That won’t do us any good.”

“What really irks me,” Pat said, “was losing those planes.”

“Well,” said the captain, “there’s some good news there. Tang had only two pilots, so he bought only two planes. The old ones because his pilots weren’t experienced enough for the modern job. There’s a plane still in the hold.”

“That’s something at any rate,” she said.

“Yeah. Maybe we can chop it up and feed it into the boilers.”

“Over my dead body.”

“You hear anything,” I asked the captain, “from Buck or Andrews before you left?”

“Both of them boys ran into trouble. Buck with the Jap authorities, Frank with the bandits that seem to have taken over the area west of Manchuko. They were both headed back to Yulin last I heard. I would’ve waited for them, but I was anxious to get to Ying-kou to meet you. They’ll be all right.”

Pat offered to go ashore and find a bank. “I can cash a check,” she said, “and be back here in a couple of hours.”

I told her no dice. A dinky burg like Shenyang was one thing, but Yulin was another altogether. I was still worried about Henry and just how far his influence might reach. I doubted whether the Japs took him very seriously, but you never knew. I wouldn’t feel really comfortable until we’d gotten into international waters. But at the moment, I didn’t see any way for us to get out of Ying-kou’s harbor, let alone anywhere else.

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