Free The frogmen by 1909-1990 Robb White Page B

"You ask us to trust you, but you won't even prove who you are by showing John the coding board."
    "Without the radio and the coding board, this mission would have to be scrubbed," Tanaka said. "I can't take a chance with you people in the mood you're in now."
    "Commander," Amos said, "we're either going to see that coding board or you're not going to be able to use it. We're going to stay in here, around the clock."
    "Don't bother, Amos," Tanaka said. "The message I'm waiting for will come in one word—one five-letter group, John. I've memorized the key codes I need to hear that message and the two letter groups for each day."
    Amos looked over at John. "Can he do that?"
    "He wouldn't even have to," John said. "He could have them scribbled down anywhere and we wouldn't know what we were looking at."
    John turned to Tanaka. "But we don't need to see the coding board, Commander. Because, without this radio there'll be no message. And no reason to go on. In thirty seconds I can fix this radio so you'll never talk, or listen, to anybody on it again."

    Without saying anything, Tanaka went aft into the engine room and came back with a heavy, rusty hammer. He held it out to John. "Here. Use this, John. Smash the radio."
    John took the hammer, weighing it in his hands, and turned slowly to face the radio.
    The only sound in the cabin was the steady, soft roar of the diesel and the small noises made by the sea and the boat.
    John reached out and laid the hammer on the table.
    Tanaka said quietly, "Thank you, John. I knew you wouldn't. You're not that kind of people."
    "That doesn't change anything," Amos said.
    "You're right, Amos." Tanaka picked up the hammer and took it back to the engine room. He hung it on the pegs and came slowly back into the cabin. "So if you and John elect to take over this boat, remember that none of you can navigate and we are now 750 miles from the nearest friendly shore, which is an island about a mile long. If you try to go back but are off your course by a fraction of a degree, you'll miss that island by hundreds of miles. . . ."
    "I heard that these Polynesians can navigate with nothing but stars," Amos said.
    "They can. But every navigator has to know where his destination is. My crew had never before seen that island we left and don't know where it is."
    "Maybe we could just persuade you to take us back," John said.
    "You know you couldn't, John."

    Amos couldn't help admiring this man a little.
    "So," Tanaka went on, "when your fuel runs out, the currents and winds will drive you westward again. What do you think your chances are of drifting through the entire Japanese Empire until you reach, say, India?"
    Amos swung the wall shut, blocking off the radio. He hung the clothes back on the nails and arranged the china in the fiddles. At last he turned back to Tanaka. "You've got everything under control, haven't you?"
    "Everything except you, Amos."
    "So it's a standoff."
    "It's this: you can't survive now without me, and I can't pursue this mission without you. But I can, and will, pursue it without the radio; I just don't want to have to do it that way. So will you do me a favor?"
    They didn't answer him.
    "Please don't let Reeder destroy the radio. I can trust you two, and Max. But not Reeder."
    Amos said in a low voice, "Aye, aye, sir."

    It was night again and raining.
    Amos leaned back against the copra sacks. His swollen cheek seemed to be going down and the cool water felt good running in the cuts in his skin.
    The fight had started when Reeder got a claw hammer and began working on the wall concealing the radio. Amos had asked him to stop, saying that the noise gave him a headache. He realized now how lucky he'd been, for Reeder had just whirled around and thrown the hammer at him. If it had hit him he would have been in bad shape.
    And then Reeder was all over him. It was like

    fighting a hay baler. Reeder had him up against the wall before Amos even realized he had a problem.
    It was a