Trouble in Burma by Van Wyck Mason

Author:Van Wyck Mason
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, espionage, murder, adventure, spy
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Section 1

Phru Ponombyiu found a relatively calm bayou on the right bank of the Rangoon just before dark and was tied up to a tree by the bow, the stem being allowed to swing out from land under the sweep of the current.

When the boat’s engines stopped and she gradually ceased complaining, creak by creak, clank by clank, squeal by squeal, Hugh looked forward to getting a good night’s sleep, something he had not enjoyed since reaching Burma. By that time, Colonel Yuan T’sai’s map was ready, a tracing on a sheet of official paper stamped TOP SECRET in big red letters. This paper was part of a small supply that North carried in the lining of one of his bags and which he never before in all his years as a G-2 operative had felt called upon to use.

As soon as the boat was tied up, General Nu sent off a brief report to Rangoon, giving their location, and then returned to the saloon to try to promote some entertainment. Madame Bo had not appeared. Neither had Git Ackerson. Yuan and his Eurasian girlfriend were keeping to their cabins (or cabin) and when North announced that he was for bed, no bridge for him, Nu had to be content with a three-handed game of cut-throat rummy with Pilanung Pokh and Marianne Champeau.

“I don’t know about Marianne,” Hugh warned General Nu as he left the saloon, “but watch the captain from Bangkok—he’s a sand-bagger and I’m a guy who should know.”

“Coward,” Pilo jeered. “Is not even my own cards.”

Hugh was only halfway down the deck toward Cabin Eight when he realized that sleep would not be as easily come by as he had fondly believed. Although Phru Ponombyiu had stopped making noises, the jungle had just begun.

Hugh had been in the jungles of Southeast Asia many times before this but his last visit had been some time ago and he had forgotten just how much hell the wild beasties could raise when on the prowl. Added to their usual uproar this night was an especially peevish note doubtless due to the fact that their hunting and feeding grounds were flooded and they resented wet feet. The squeals, sobs, and whinnies that emerged from the black depths of the rain-drenched wilderness so close at hand were spine-scraping. When Hugh reached his little oven, shucked his raincoat and tossed it blindly toward a chair and then threw himself on his bunk, it seemed that every savage member of the animal kingdom plus a flock of evil-sounding night birds were all perched on the deck just outside, slavering.

He lay there in the blackness, drenched with sweat, trying to induce sleep by all the methods that usually worked for him. None succeeded despite his all-out try. He considered taking a pill and vetoed the idea: GI laboratories ran up pills that reduced after-effects to the least possible minimum but he could not risk any slowed reaction when he put on his act for Colonel Yuan—and Tola Duvaine—at eleven-thirty.

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