Free Return to Skull Island by Ron Miller, Darrell Funk

that’d fallen into Nanking Road and destroyed the street in front of the hotel as well as most of the hotel’s once-stylish façade, one dropped into the Great World Amusement Park, on the edge of the International Settlement. This killed five hundred Chinese refugees outright. Not, I think, exactly what the Chinks had had in mind. A supposedly well-known American missionary named Rawlinson was killed, too, but I didn’t find that out until much later.
    “I think it’s time for us to be on our merry way,” said Pat and I wholeheartedly agreed.
    It was impossible to get any sort of transportation to Kwang-an Road, so Pat—who flatly refused to wait at the hotel—and I had to make our way on foot through mobs of panicked Chinks. It was like trying to make headway through a mudslide and it took us over an hour to cover the scant half mile that separated the hotel from Frank’s place. I pounded on the door, afraid that he’d already fled the city.
    The door suddenly flew open with Frank shouting, “Jesus, Carl, what the hell are you doing back here ?”
    “Offering you a way out, Frank, but we’ve got to go now. How much time you need?”
    “Time?” He held up a battered valise. “I started packing when I heard the planes coming.”
    “Got room for one more, I hope?” This was from Andrews, coming down the stairs behind Frank He stopped on the last step and let loose with a low whistle. “Say, who’s the wren?”
    “If you boys are ready,” I interrupted, “we’d better get to the Venture before the harbor’s shut down. It’s going to be tough going—everyone in the city’s trying to get to the water.”
    “I got a car around back—that should make all the difference.”
    It sure did. By dint of blaring the horn and making it clear that he wasn’t about to slow down regardless of who was in front of him, Frank plowed through the seething mob like an icebreaker. Andrews and I were in the back while Pat rode shotgun with Buck. The paleontologist leaned forward, stuck his hand out to the girl and said, “Say, I’m Roy Chapman Andrews, ma’am.”
    She took his hand, shook it and replied, “Glad to meet you. I’m Pat Sa—Wildman.”
    “The pleasure’s all mine, ma’am.”
    I slouched in the corner, crossed my arms and frowned. That was the second time Pat had stumbled over her last name. I wondered what it really was and what the big secret was supposed to be.
    “You wouldn’t be the same Roy Chapman Andrews who found the dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert?”
    “The very one, ma’am!”
    “Well! This is a real honor! I’ve read your reports at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Incredible work you’ve been doing, just incredible!”
    “Thanks a lot, ma’am. That surely is appreciated. Say—now that you mention the museum, you do look mighty damn familiar. I’m plum sure I’ve seen you before. Aren’t you on the board of—”
    “Look, I hate to interrupt old home week,” said Frank, “but I think a war’s just started and it just might behoove us not be in the middle of it. This is only a suggestion, you understand.”
    They all agreed that this did indeed seem to be a fine idea—and it didn’t escape me that Pat seemed to be particularly eager for an excuse to cut the conversation short.
    Making our way to the harbor wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected. Buck and Andrews took the lead, since they were the only ones who knew their way around Shanghai. The bombing had stopped some time earlier and much of the initial panic was over, so all we had to deal with was dazed people, screaming fire engines and the occasional detour around a street blocked by a collapsed building or a barricade of sandbags. And we missed even most of that, since Frank’s route took us through a maze of back alleys—something he seemed more familiar with than I thought any honest man ought to have been.

CHAPTER NINE
    A week later found us about as far up the Luan Ho as the old bucket could