"I don't know what you are talking about." He had made the obvious answer.
"You know damn well," I said hotly. "You were on that Jap fishing boat that ran me down in the Straits of Georgia."
"You are mistaken. I know nothing about it." He turned away from me to get back to the mooring rope. I grabbed at his left arm. I think he was expecting it. He spun around with my pull, his right hand coming up and over, fast, for my head. I let go his arm and swayed to the right, hoping he wouldn't be too quick with a left hook. As his fist went by my neck I stepped across in front of him with my right foot, swung my backside hard into him and whipped downwards, using his right coat sleeve as a lever. His forward rush lifted him and he went over my back, high and fast, in the Judo version of the flying mare. I heard the gasp and the thud as his breath was driven out of him by the fall. Still crouching, I spun around, and, as I had hoped, the Russian bean pole was coming for me, hands out to shove me over the edge. It was simple. As he came in I fell back, gripping his arms, while my feet found his belly. He rocked over like a seesaw and I shoved up strongly with my legs to flip him. The Japs had clobbered me with that trick so often in the Judo classes that I had it down pat. This fellow really sailed. I heard his feet hit the water, but the splash was drowned out by the harsh aa ... h of his scream when the small of his back smashed down on the edge of the dock.
"One down, two to go," I was thinking as I scrambled to my feet; but I had slowed down since the war. Too late, I saw that familiar thick shape above me, silhouetted against the clearing sky. In his upraised hand there was something round and black. Once again I glimpsed that dull red sparkle of the ring in the now bright moon.
"This proves it," I thought, so I lunged forward desperately, tackling him at the knees. Then the side of my head split and I dropped.
Dimly I heard a high-pitched screaming. I wasn't out cold; I could see but I couldn't seem to get up enough steam to move.
"That damn Russian surely is noisy," I thought dully. I looked up from my knees. Yellow-hair was on his feet again and he and the second man were scrabbling frantically over the side of the boat, dragging the tall man by the shoulders. I heard him groan, "Nyet, nyet!" as they tumbled him into the cockpit, limp as a pithed frog, and started the motor. I suppose the shock of the broken back had cut through the long indoctrination in the English language he must have had, for that was the first and last word of Russian I heard. The screaming kept up and then I realized it wasn't the injured man, but Pat, who had followed me down to the water. Being a really smart girl, she hadn't tried any heroics and had stayed too far from the fight to be caught, so, realizing that they couldn't dispose of the evidence, namely me, without a witness, the Russkis abandoned all pretense in a desperate scramble for safety in the fog that still blocked the harbor entrance. The cruiser foamed away from the dock with a deep roar, rocking the boats down the line of buoys.
The moment they were safely away, Pat was down on the planks, running wildly towards me. As she came close, she stubbed her foot on that same black cylinder that had downed me, and sent it rolling. She reached down and began tugging at my arms to lift me.
"Wait! Where's that thing? It may be evidence," I cried out, my head clearing fast.