E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action by E. Hoffmann Price

Author:E. Hoffmann Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: war, western, combat, cowboy, action
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

ALLAH MADE THEM AS THEY ARE

Originally appeared in Short Stories, December 1944.

CHAPTER I

Ahmat had plenty of time to get the people of his village organized to welcome the Japs when they came to take over the most important town in Northern Sumatra; and when the invaders landed in Kota Raja, he said, somewhat for the benefit of all of his waiting people, but mainly for his lovely young wife, “Praise be to Allah! This is my day of days!”

Zeynab answered, dutifully enough, “May Allah make it happy for you!”

The yellow scarf which all but hid her sleek black hair was caught about throat and shoulders, and with an instinctively achieved elegance. Gilt embroidery adorned her blue blouse, but then, everyone had that; Zeynab’s real triumph was high-heeled red shoes. They murdered her feet, but they were worth the pain.

“Don’t forget,” Ahmat said to the betel-chewing group of elders who crowded about him, “to yell banzai when you wave the flags.”

White-haired Saoud, who wore an ink and pen case at his belt, left off polishing the silver-rimmed spectacles which served no purpose other than to make it clear that he was a schoolteacher and a scholar. “By Allah, that banzai is nonsense! Ten thousand years for what?”

“For the Emperor,” Ahmat snapped; he’d explained everything the previous evening.

“No man lives that long. The Japs are doubtless an absurd people, the one who used to come to take our pictures was.”

“Yell it anyway! They like it.”

Ahmat scowled fiercely, but seeing that the teacher did not flinch, he turned his bitter gaze on the others.

Ahmat was a brown and wrinkled man in blue silk jodhpurs, gold embroidered jacket, and European shoes which tormented his feet. His eyes slanted slightly, his nostrils flared like those of a stallion scenting a rival; the beetling of his brows made dark depths from which his eyes gleamed as challengingly as the topaz eyes of the red-and-yellow plumed fighting cock he carried in a wicker cage; Merah, the local champion, stood next to Zeynab in Ahmat’s affection.

Smoke from the ruined airport, the docks, and the railroad yards reddened the setting sun, so that by contrast it exaggerated the green rice fields which terraced the Acheen hills; but Ahmat’s village a few miles away from the river, was untouched.

The soldiers disembarking from the barges wore dirty and sweat-stained uniforms. Though no air attack menaced, each had leaf and grass camouflage on his helmet.

Ahmat waved the small white flag on which Zeynab had stitched a rising sun. “Banzai! Banzai!”

The villagers followed the mayor’s example; all, that is, except Saoud, and Zeynab, outstanding examples which did not improve Ahmat’s disposition. Certainly the country had gone to the devil under Dutch rule!

The invaders tramped past, a dirty ragged, reeking column of tired but triumphant soldiers from Singapore. Some grinned at the cheering Malays; most, however, walked in their sleep, since they had time only for advancing from one victory to the next. There was nothing clean about them except their rifles, which were as well kept as the straight-hiked swords the grimy officers carried.

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