Sword in Sheath Read Free Page A

wall was a reminder of the martyrdom of Manila's last days of captivity. There was only one light, a naked bulb swinging from a black cord looped above the battered table.
    And under its glare Sam was hunched over a collection of dirty papers. His brown back was bare from the neck fringe of his wavy black hair — gift of at least one Hawaiian ancestor — to where a pair of green-and-orange shorts were on duty. His skin had an oily sheen, and now and again he rubbed face and chest with atowel.
    It was smotheringly hot, and somehow the dusk gathering outside the cloth-screened window made the heat thicker — more tangible. Kane mused. Was it worth the energy expended to reach for the lime drink he had left on the chair by the bed? He decided it was not — just as Sam raised his head and rubbed his eyes wearily.
    “Those chicken tracks might be of importance,” he answered Kane's remark of minutes before. “And men were writing books using these characters to express abstract thoughts when — ”
    “When my barbarian ancestors wore blue paint for Sunday best. Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. Only take it easy, fella, this is no climate in which to work yourself to death. You've been on that job too long. When Dead-Eye dropped those in your lap he didn't mean that they were to be translated today — ”
    “Didn't he? You should know our Capt Boone better. I think he will — ”
    “Will what?”
    From force of long habit Kane's hand whipped under the pillow beneath his head — just as Sam's went as swiftly to the gleam of steel in the waistband of his shorts. Then both relaxed as the loose-jointed man at the door came into the full light of the room, shoved Kane's legs over, and coolly sat down on the bed without waiting for an invitation from its occupant.
    “Boone will what?” He repeated his question.
    “Someday” — Kane was scowling— “you'll get a slug right between your eyes because you pussy-footed around where you weren't wanted, Dead-Eye.”
    “If you continue to keep your gun here” — Capt Richard Boone gave the pillow a twitch to reveal a wicked and well-kept automatic — “you won't be the one to do it. And why am I greeted in such a bloodthirsty fashionanyway? Haven't you boys thrown away your cloaks and daggers yet? Fie — you are peaceable private citizens now, you know.”
    “Are we?” Sam was arranging his papers in two piles. “Old Ironjaw spoke a little differently on the same subject Well, here's your dirt, Boone — at least all that I have been able to translate so far. This bright effusion on top is a poem about cherry blossoms in the early spring. The poet has a lousy sense of rhyme and a fair memory for everything he has ever heard on the subject
    “Next we have a bill of sale for five measures of rice, across the bottom of which is a comment about the state of the rice when received which will not bear repeating, not even in this low company. Then we have a quaint bit of local color — an order to one Susaki to watch someone referred to throughout as ‘he’, very unenlightening. Susaki is to make daily reports — ”
    Boone reached over and deftly plucked the paper out of Sam's grasp.
    “I’ll take that one. Anything else.”
    “Two letters from homesick soldiers.” Sam shrugged. “Pretty mixed batch. What were you expecting — an expose of the late secret police?”
    Boone put Susaki’s instructions away in his wallet “I don't ever expect anything from these little grab bags. I just accept thankfully what the gods may send. That all?”
    “Two here I haven't had a chance to do yet Most of these chaps write a vile hand — ”
    “Well, slave driver, did he pass with honors?” Kane rolled over.
    “Pass — ?” murmured Boone.
    “Yeah. Didn't you give him that mess of junk just to see whether the old brain was still functioning? As if you didn't have a corps of good translators right under your nose at headquarters! I wonder what sort of an exam you've