CHAPTER V
The Fight in the Marsh
Twice, within the next two hours, the Ragged Men mustered the courage to charge. They came racing across the semi-solid ooze like the madmen they were. Their yells and shouts were maniacal howls of blood-lust or worse. And twice Tommy broke their rush with a savage ruthlessness. The sub-machine-gun’s first magazine was nearly empty. It was an unhandy weapon for single-shot work but it was loaded with explosive shells. The second rush he stopped with an automatic pistol. There were half-naked bodies partly buried in the ooze all the way from the jungle’s edge to within ten yards of the hillock on which he and Evelyn had taken refuge.
It was hot there, terribly hot. The air was stifling. It fairly reeked of moisture and the smells from the swamp behind them were sickening. Tommy began to transfer the shells from the spare bent magazine to the one he had carried with the gun.
“We’ve a couple of reasons to be thankful,” he observed. “One is that there’s a bit of shade overhead. The other is that we had the big magazines for this gun. We still have nearly ninety shells, besides the ones for the pistols.”
Evelyn said soberly:
“We’re going to be killed, don’t you think, Tommy?”
Tommy frowned.
“I’m rather afraid we are,” he said irritably. “Confound it, and I’d thought of such excellent arguments to use in the City back yonder! Smithers said the Death Mist was two miles across, to-day, and still growing. The people in the city are still pouring the stuff down through Jacaro’s Tube.”
Evelyn smiled faintly. She touched his hand.
“Trying to keep me from worrying? Tommy….” She hesitated until he growled a question. “Please—remember that when Daddy and I were in the jungle before, we saw what these Ragged Men do to prisoners they take. I just want you to promise that—well, you won’t wait too long, in hopes of somehow saving me.”