Dave Dawson at Singapore

by Robert Sidney Bowen

The instructions were quite unnecessary as far as Dave was concerned. The instant he had felt the pin prick of pain in his neck he had frozen stiff. Even his heart seemed to stop beating. Like a man carved out of stone he stood there in the darkness while fingers seemed to ripple all over his body from head to toe. And not for a single instant did the needle point tip of the knife leave the side of his neck. He sensed rather than saw or heard the second figure there in the pitch darkness who was searching Freddy Farmer.

Then suddenly the pin prick of the knife point was gone and steel fingers closed over his right arm at the elbow.

"Come with me!" the hissing French voice said. "It is but a short distance."

It was at that. Dave didn't take more than a dozen steps before his "guide" halted him, turned him to face the right, and pushed open a door. Before Dave could blink, and focus his eyes to the sudden change of light, he found himself in a dimly lit room that at least smelled a little less obnoxious than the coffee room up front. It was furnished as a sort of combination sleeping quarters and business office. There was a bed in the corner, a table, a desk and a few chairs. Posters quoting market spices and coffee prices hung on the wall. And scattered about here and there were empty packing boxes and cartons that had the names of shipping ports on them from all over the world.

Dave gave all the trimmings but a fleeting glance. What caught and riveted his attention was Serrangi seated in a grease-smeared over-stuffed chair. The Sumatran looked more hideous than ever in the pale light, and the brown paper wrapped cigarette he was smoking was all of five inches long. He stared at the youths out of eyes that were expressionless as those of a dead fish. He made no move, nor sign, nor said anything. He seemed not to hear the rapid jumble of a Far Eastern tongue that hissed over Dave's shoulder. Nor did his eyes follow two figures as they glided out of the room, and softly closed the door.

He simply stared unseeing at Dave and Freddy, and Dave could feel the cold sweat begin to form in his armpits and trickle down his ribs. It was as though he and Freddy had been left standing like a couple of wooden Indians staring unspeaking at a dead man with a live cigarette in his long claw-like fingers. It was an awful feeling. Dave wanted to yell, or jump up and down. Anything to shake the evil looking Serrangi out of his trance, or whatever it was.

Suddenly an idea came to Dave. For a moment he was afraid to try it, but when Serrangi continued to stare at them out of almost sightless eyes he did so out of sheer desperation. He clicked his heels together, stiffened rigid, and flung up his right arm to the horizontal, and shouted,

"Heil Hitler!"

He heard the gasp of startled amazement from Freddy Farmer's lips, but he didn't waste time looking at his friend. He kept his eyes riveted on Serrangi's face, and in the next second he received his reward. The owner of the Devil's Den relaxed outwardly. Most of the fishy look left his eyes. He nodded his head slightly, and what probably was meant for a smile caused one corner of his mouth to twitch.

"You took long enough, comrade," he said in a voice that sounded like ashes sliding down a tin roof. "Heil Hitler! And what brings you two here to the Devil's Den? I have received no word that you were to be expected!"