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Authors: J. T. Edson

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To one side of the orderly room, with a door opening on to the square as well as in the office, lay the fort commander’s office. Dusty turned the handle and stepped in. He shoved the door closed and stepped forward. A soft footfall came behind him and two hands came around, warm, soft hands, covering his eyes and a woman’s voice said:

‘Guess who, Dandy?’

Gently Dusty removed the hands then turned. The woman gasped and staggered back a couple of steps, her face reddening in a blush as she gasped, ‘You’re not Dandy van Druten!’

‘No, ma’am,’ Dusty replied. ‘What’re you doing in my office?’

He studied the woman. She was not tall, five foot two at most, with a rich plump little figure and a cheap gingham dress cut a trifle more daringly than one might expect. Her hair had a mousey brown tint and her face was passable pretty but her eyes were inviting, bold, teasing and her lips looked ready to smile, or laugh encouragingly at any man she saw.

‘But—but I—we——!’ she began.

Not only did Dusty’s office have a front door to the square and party door to the orderly room, there was a third entrance at the rear, leading to his quarters instead of his having to go around the front. This third door suddenly burst open and a red-faced sergeant burst in. He stopped just inside the door, a middle-sized man with the light spring of a sword fighter in his poise, the sabre in his hand gripped like its owner knew how to handle it, the blade bare. To Dusty’s eyes the man was a tough professional non-com and not the kind to burst unannounced into the office of his Commanding officer Without the stress of some emotion.

On recalling his greeting as he entered the office Dusty could guess what the emotion might be.

For a couple of seconds the sergeant, woman and Dusty stood without a word.

‘Get out of here, Noreen,’ said the sergeant.

‘Sergeant!’ snapped Dusty, then heard a knock and Hogan asked if he could come in. ‘Wait!’ Dusty barked and looked at the sergeant as the woman almost ran by him to the door. ‘I’d like—’

‘You’re not Dan—Captain van Druten, sir.’

‘Did I say I was?’

‘No—no, sir. But orders reached us that—’

‘Does the Department of the Interior inform you if they make a change of orders, Sergeant?’ snapped Dusty. ‘Why did your wife, I take it she is your wife, come in here just now?’

Smartly, too smartly for a frontier trained soldier, the sergeant came to a brace and brought his sabre up in a salute.

‘No excuse, sir.’

A half smile flickered across Dusty’s face and went before the sergeant could see or put meaning to it. Everybody in Fort Tucker appeared to have no excuse for their conduct.

‘Your name, Sergeant?’

‘Kallan, sir. Acting as D.I. for the battalion.’

‘You’ll have a chance to show me how well you’ve done your work in the morning, Kallan. In future don’t be in such a hurry to see me that you come from sabre practice without sheathing your weapon. Open the door and allow Sergeant-major Hogan to come in.’

The sergeant rested his sabre against the wall and stepped forward, saluting. ‘I’d like to apologize for my wife’s behav—’

‘If the lady is industrious enough to get here first and try to arrange for my washing to augment her allowance it’s to be commended, not apologized over. How did she get in?’

‘One key’ll open every lock in the fort, sir. But my wife—’

Dusty swung to face the man. ‘The explanation I gave will be all we need say. But, Sergeant, happen you hope to hold those bars, when I tell you to do anything, be it impossible, or as easy as opening a door, I expect you to start on it Without hesitation.’

Kallan headed for the door fast, jerking it open and Hogan entered, throwing a glance at him.

‘Howdy, Ted,’ he greeted, looking worried. ‘I sure didn’t know you’d come out to Tucker.’

‘Kraus took down with the fever and I filled in his place,’ Kallan replied, but he still looked puzzled.

At any moment he would ask, in a furtive whisper, who the new officer might be, thought Dusty, and took steps to avoid this until he’d time to discover more about the Kallan family.

‘Would you gentlemen mind discussing old home week in your quarters?’ he barked. ‘I’d prefer to have my office to myself.’

Stiffening into a brace and throwing salutes along with their apologies like two non-coms rebuked by their commanding officer, the two men gave their attention to watching the heavy payroll box moved into the office. The previous box, empty now except for company funds, stood to one side of the roof and would return to the Regiment’s headquarters with the supply wagons.

By the time the box had been placed against the inner wall of the building and the carrying detail marched out of the room Dusty received two of his three officers, both a trifle red in the face from the rush to make themselves smart and presentable, their strikers both being off the post.

Dusty sat at the commanding officer’s desk as the two officers entered. He looked at Hogan and Kallan, standing in the corner of the room. ‘Sergeant-major, take a detail and move my belongings into my quarters. Sergeant Kallan, go to the guardhouse and tell the corporal of the guard his duties, then take him around the sentry posts.’

‘Yo!’ replied Kallan, the only answer he could make under the circumstances. He wished he could go with Hogan and solve the mystery of this captain who clearly was not Dandy van Druten. This way he would be kept busy for some time and not have a chance to see Hogan until finished with the duty.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ Dusty said quietly, looking at the two officers. ‘May I ask what’s happening at this post?’

‘We are carrying out our orders, sir, maintaining patrols with the intention of keeping rushers—’ began Gilbey.

‘I understood there were three officers on the post, Mr. Gilbey,’ Dusty interrupted. ‘Or do your services render you worth two?’

‘Second-Lieutenant Cardon is escorting Joanna on a hunting trip, sir,’ put in Jarrow.

‘Mister,’ Dusty answered dryly. ‘I’ve no doubt you are a man of some talent and ability, although for the moment both escape me. But I’m only human, not a mind reader. Who might Joanna be?’

‘Major Lingley’s daughter, sir,’ Gilbey put in, throwing a warning glance at Jarrow. ‘She stayed at the post awaiting a proper escort to take her back to headquarters.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Gilbey. Now, the state of the Fort is far from good enough.’

Gilbey stiffened slightly. ‘I assume full responsibility as senior officer, sir.’

‘Very well, mister.’

With any other answer Gilbey would have found Dusty showing a very different attitude. He deserved some commendation for the way he assumed the full blame for the condition of the Fort, even though it might cause him to face court martial and ruin. He’d stood like a man and prepared to take his medicine.

A smile came to Dusty’s lips and his eyes lost the hard grim look with which he first studied them.

‘Youth and inexperience can be classed as extenuating circumstances for some things, mister—once. Our problem now is how to get our command back to its former standards!’

In those words Dusty made another two friends, two more of the many who would gladly side the Rio Hondo gun-wizard in anything he planned without caring what the circumstances might be. Neither missed the way he referred to the battalion as their command. Yet Dandy van Druten had never been noted, from what they’d heard of him, as a man who would give his juniors credit for doing more than living and breathing. They were beginning to change their minds about him.

Neither lieutenant failed to notice as they walked through the camp to the office how many people scurried about and got on with their work. The men they saw already showed something of the liveliness which Major Lingley’s command instilled in them and they worked with a will. Already word spread around the Fort of Dusty’s actions on arrival. Such noncoms as were still on post studied their own chevrons and set their men to work with gusto. The men heard, from the new recruits, highly embroidered stories of Dusty’s vigorous leadership and strict expectance that any order he gave be instantly obeyed, if not even quicker than that. So everybody now moved with a will and purpose, all except those lucky enough to be off post and out of the way of the new commanding officer.

‘Request permission to speak alone with the captain,’ Gilbey said.

‘Granted,’ replied Dusty. ‘You’re dismissed, Mr. Jarrow. Have assembly sounded in ten minutes.’

‘Yo!’ ejaculated Jarrow, saluting and taking a rapid departure.

‘They never change, do they?’ smiled Dusty as the door closed on Jarrow.

‘Who, sir?’

‘Young shavetails. Never saw one yet who wouldn’t hightail it out of his commanding officer’s way. Have a chair, Mr. Gilbey.’

‘A kind of natural protection, sir,’ Gilbey answered, a little pride in his tone that his captain should regard him as superior in intelligence and rank to at least one person in the world. ‘I broke a sergeant and ordered him for court martial on a charge of insolence, sir.’

‘You have the papers on the case?’

‘Er—no, sir. After I broke him—well——’

‘Start from the beginning, mister, please. I’m not a mind reader, as I told Mr. Jarrow.’

‘The sergeant’s name is Magoon, sir. He’s a typical combat soldier. Put him anywhere he can’t be out fighting Indians and he’s back to private in days. He was my company sergeant and a good man. I’m afraid we both became a little heated over a party of rushers who slipped by us and into the Black Hills.’

‘He was sober at the time?’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Gilbey. ‘We both were, Magoon never drinks when he’s on duty. However, I broke him and he made a remark, which I’ll admit I asked for, and I ordered him to await return to Regimental headquarters for court martial.’

‘Your problem, mister?’ asked Dusty.

‘He’s a good soldier, sir, and a first-class three bar. Our hold on the men was weakened just that much when I broke him. I was at fault and now—’

‘You want me to refuse to approve the court martial and try to give him back his rank without endangering discipline?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Dusty rose and paced the room with his hands clasped behind him. He came to a halt at his desk and looked at Gilbey but his eyes held a twinkle.

‘I think it was General Hardin who said the main purpose of a lieutenant was to provide problems for his seniors to solve. I’ll do what I can,’ he remarked. ‘Now to the matter of the Fort.’

Sitting at the desk facing Gilbey, Dusty got down to the business of his taking over the Fort. Outside he heard the notes of a bugle before they’d had a chance to do much. Assembly sounded and they shoved their chairs back to get to their feet. Gilbey opened the door and they stepped out. Jarrow stood waiting, looking worried and as he looked towards the parade square Dusty saw why.

CHAPTER FIVE

MAGOON MEETS HIS HERO

For a long five seconds Dusty studied the men on the parade square before him. The recruits, not having been allocated to their companies yet, stood to one side. The remaining men, under their sergeants, stood in the three company blocks. Dusty knew each company held a strength of thirty men instead of the regulation fifty. This did not surprise him, for most regiments found themselves under strength; the thirty recruits were here to build up the company numbers, not make another company.

However, standing in the three blocks of the ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies were less than half of their strength. Dusty estimated almost fifty men out of ninety were not on parade.

With fingertips tapping lightly on his sides, Dusty turned to Gilbey. ‘Well, mister?’ he said.

‘They’re most likely off the post, sir,’ put in Jarrow, hopping along with the grace of a club-footed moose where angels and Frank Gilbey would fear to read. ‘Down to the sutler’s and— well, maybe they didn’t hear the call, sir.’

The latter part of his words came to a lame halt as he realized he hadn’t exactly helped the situation in any way. He stiffened into a brace and Gilbey threw a withering look at him.

‘You’d suggest we sent the bugler down to blow the call inside, mister?’ asked Dusty in a quiet growl which reminded Jarrow unpleasantly of instructors at West Point just before they handed out pack drill or extra guard detail. ‘Do it that way and they might decide to come along and do a bit of soldiering.’

‘No, sir. I’ll go and—’

‘No, mister, I’ll go!’ snapped Dusty. ‘Mr. Gilbey, I want those supply wagons emptied before night, so put the men to it. I also want the names of every man on this working detail.’

Acknowledging the salute, Dusty turned on his heel and walked away. Gilbey mopped his brow. ‘Come on, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘Let’s make a start. And another thing, unless you want to wind up helping me with my week of officer of the day you want to restrict your conversation with Captain van Druten to three words. Yes, sir and no, sir. But for your own sake get them in the right places.’

Hogan fell in alongside Dusty as the small Texan headed for the west gate and the post sutler’s store.

‘Your
amigos
put your horses and theirs in the officers’ stables, sir. I fixed for them to bunk with the officers. They’ve gone along to the sutler’s to get tobacco and cigarette papers.’


Bueno
,’ Dusty replied. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Slasher KaIlan’ll be the hard part. He was at the Point when van Druten did his time. I didn’t know he was with this battalion.’

‘Why’d he leave the Point?’

Hogan did not reply for a moment, he looked rather embarrassed at the words. ‘Nobody knows for sure. They moved a tolerable lot of staff personnel out at the same time, put it down to general turnover. Only Slasher Kallan had been the best D.I. and sabre instructor they’d had and his sort don’t usually get affected by general turnover. Beyond that, sir, I know nothing.’

‘You didn’t like van Druten?’ asked Dusty.

‘Devil the few who did, sir.’

‘And was he any way connected with Kallan?’

‘Like I said, I know nothing. Only vague rumours. True or not I can’t say and don’t want to try.’

They strode on again with Dusty returning the salutes of such men as they passed for his words on the subject were relayed around the fort. He worked the problem out in his mind.

‘We’re going to need a change of plan, friend. I’m going to have to come out flat-footed and use my own name. Is that story about General Grant offering me a commission in the Union Army after the war ended* known to many folks?’

‘There’s quite a few have heard it. We’ve a sergeant out here, Reb we call him, Milton Granger’s his name, rode under Hood in the War. He’s told enough of us about it.’

‘Then that’s how we’ll play it. We’ll let things ride that way, give out my name and leave it that folks allow I’ve taken on the General’s offer.’

‘It might raise some confusion, sir. The recruits have been calling you van Druten,’ Hogan pointed out.

‘Then we’ll unconfuse them. You’ll put it out that I reckoned everybody’d know my name and didn’t bother to announce the change of orders.’

By this time they’d reached the gate leading to the post sutler’s store and the sentry came to attention, fetching up his carbine smartly. Hogan threw a look at the building, listening to the drunken laughter and shouts which came from it. He knew what Dusty aimed to do.

‘Need me along, sir?’ he asked hopefully, for he wished to see how, not if, Dusty handled the matter.

‘Not this time. I’ll want to see all officers and sergeants as soon as I’m through in here.’

Leaving Hogan to attend to his orders Dusty stepped through the gate, giving a smart salute in return to the sentry’s drill square movements with his Springfield carbine. Then with purposeful strides Dusty headed for the post sutler’s store.

After attending to their own and Dusty’s horses and leaving them in the officers’ stables Mark and the Kid headed for the orderly room to find Dusty busy. Hogan told them to take their bedrolls to the spare room in the officers’ quarters as they classed as Dusty’s guests rather than scouts. With this done and being very short of smoking material they headed for the post sutler’s store.

Set in a large one-storey log building the store contained, in a quarter of its length, an establishment where a variety of goods could be bought and even more ordered through the wish books which lay on the counter, catalogues from various mail order houses. The remaining three-quarters of the building, since Karl Madlarn took over, became a saloon, rest home, sporting house for the soldiers. It also, in the opinion of the experienced sergeants, provided a brewing ground for discord and dissent, a centre of anarchy and near mutiny, for Madlarn encouraged the men tä drink when they should be working, which made a good start to wrecking the discipline of the battalion.

On entering the saloon end Mark and the Kid knew they’d best stay a while. The room had a large number of soldiers sitting around tables, drinking, gambling, talking or singing. They were not such soldiers as would meet Dusty’s approval, for not one had a clean uniform and few appeared to have shaved that morning or for a few days. Mark and the Kid also knew the
amigo
would come alone to handle the matter and so should stay a while in case he needed a hand.

‘Ole Dusty sure ain’t going to be happy about this lot,’ drawled Mark as they took their beers to a table by the wall and sat down.

‘He surely ain’t,’ answered the Kid with a grin. ‘These Yankee blue-bellies are headed for real trouble and soon.’

‘That’s Madlarn, I’d say,’ Mark went on, indicating a tall, florid faced man who moved around the room.

‘Likely,’ agreed the Kid.

The guess did not have much chance of failing for the florid faced man was a civilian and wore the clothes of a boss, not a worker. He might have been termed handsome in some places, sporting the latest fashion in moustaches and side-whiskers and with hair slicked down by liberal dosage of bay rum, Madlarn looked like a typical city slicker. His eastern style suit fitted well and though he might be powerful he’d run to fat after the way of a man who took little exercise and spent most of his time sitting at a card table.

At this moment Madlarn was not seated at a card table. He passed among his guests dispensing cheerful words and laughing at coarse replies. Behind the bar the two bartenders, his sole employees, served drinks. They were a pair of big, hefty, brutal-looking men who looked to have learned their trade in some raw Barbary Coast tavern where a customer was likely to wake up after one drink and find himself on a clipper ship headed for China.

‘They tell me your new boss’s here, boys,’ Madlarn said, with a broad grin on his face. ‘I reckon you’ll soon show him who’s the real bosses of Fort Tucker.’

There came a muttered growl of agreement from the men at the words. Discipline, long enough lacking to have almost gone from the heads of a lot of the soldiers, would need to be thrust home hard and fast. Unless Dusty did it, or if he failed to do it fast, there’d be mutiny and worse at Fort Tucker.

The notes of assembly sounded, coming to the ears of the celebrating soldiers. Some of them, in fact most, started to thrust back their chairs but Madlarn went among them like a hostess trying to revive interest in a flagging party. He poured drinks and shoved men into their seats.

‘Settle down, boys,’ he said. ‘Shucks, it’s Saturday afternoon. You show him that you know your rights as fighting soldiers. Go on, finish your drinks.’ He came to halt at one table where two corporals and a big, burly private still remained on their feet. It was to the private he spoke. ‘Sit down, Paddy. Didn’t they bust you at the Fort and for no reason. You show these boys you know your rights.’

Mark and the Kid studied the big man, noting the darker patches on his sleeves where three chevrons had been for some considerable time and only recently removed. In size and heft he all but equalled Mark, although without the trimming down at the waist. His close-cropped red hair framed a face which proclaimed his nationality as clearly as if it were painted emerald green and had Ireland tattooed across the forehead.

‘That big hombre’s got a tolerable amount of pull,’ the Kid said, nodding to the burly ex-sergeant.

Watching the way other men sat and relaxed when Magoon took his seat once more, Mark agreed with the Kid. Mark could guess at the big Irishman’s action. Magoon wished to see how the new fort commander acted, for a man must always prove himself before Paddy Magoon accepted him.

Talk welled up again, with Madlarn passing among the crowd to keep up the feeling that they were within their rights. Magoon sat down once more, talking with the two oldish, tough-looking corporals in a low voice. The minutes crawled by and Madlarn stood in the centre of the room. He did not see the door open behind him as he announced:

‘There you are, boys. He knows you’re men who stand up for your rights. He’s not blown assembly again.’

Somehow Madlarn got the idea his words did not quite make the impression he wanted. Talk died away throughout the room, men seemed to be staring towards the door in a most unnatural and uneasy manner. A glance taken in the mirror told Madlarn why.

Dusty Fog stood just inside the door, his hands tucked into his waist belt, his captain’s bars glinting in the light of the room. For a long moment he stood there, then stepped forward to halt just before Madlarn. He turned and looked at the men, the disgust and anger in his eyes making them look any place but at him.

‘All right, you goldbricks,’ he said. ‘Out!’

A big, burly soldier of Germanic origin pushed himself to his feet. He’d managed to raise a fair head of steam on the raw whisky sold by Madlarn and so leaned on the table, one palm against it, the other on top of a whisky bottle, giving the necessary support to stand erect.

‘This is not right,’ he began. ‘Wha—’

Which was as far as he got, it having taken Dusty just that long to reach him. Dusty’s left hand came around, slapping the bottle from under the man’s palm and throwing him right off balance so his jaw came forward. Knotted into a hard fist Dusty’s right hand drove up to connect with the German’s thrust out jaw. The blow cracked like a pair of king-sized billiard balls coming together and the soldier snapped erect, crashed back into his chair, shattered it under his weight and landed flat on his back.

Mark winced in sympathy as he saw the blow land. Once, in a wild burst of horseplay, at the OD Connected he’d walked into one of Dusty’s punches, thrown at much less power than the one just landed. His jaw ached for a day after it and so he didn’t reckon the big German would feel like eating any hard food for a few meals to come.

The punch made an impression on quite a number of people. At his table big Paddy Magoon let out a sigh and said reverently, ‘Now there’s a real Irishman’s punch, darlin’s.’

Stepping towards Dusty, Madlarn snarled out. ‘You can’t stop these soldiers having their rights!’

Then he proceeded to make a fool mistake. Mark and the Kid could have warned him not to try his next move. He shot out his hand to catch Dusty’s arm and turn him at the same time drawing back his other fist.

‘Try your games on with—’

Accepting the invitation even before it ended Dusty moved. His left fist sank almost wrist deep in Madlarn’s fat belly, bringing forth a grunt of agony and making the big man stagger a couple of paces backwards. Dusty leapt in after him, the right fist ripping up to catch the offered jaw, snap Madlam’s head back and throw him backwards but not down. This was not due to lack of power but because the big man crashed into the bar and hung there with glassy eyes and mouth hanging open.

The two bardogs showed loyalty if not good sense. The one known as Kete came around the bar at the far end while his partner, Tuck, hurled clean over it and at Dusty with arms ready to grab and mangle. He hurled himself at the small Texan like a cougar at a cottontail rabbit.

Only Dusty was more dangerous than any cottontail. His danger in such a situation increased due to the teachings of a small, slit-eyed, yellow-skinned gentleman of oriental birth, who served as valet to Ole Devil Hardin. From Tommy Okasi, Japanese, not Chinese as many thought, Dusty learned the secrets of ju-jitsu and karate. These gave him an added power and advantage over bigger and stronger men as he proceeded to demonstrate.

Tuck saw Dusty going backwards even before being touched and might have put this down to the power of his personality scaring the small Texan into a swoon had he been given time to think. Before Tuck’s never fast-moving thoughts started to work on this phenomenon he felt his shirt front gripped, two feet placed in his stomach. He lost his balance, felt as if the world had suddenly spun around and he was flying. Only he did not land with the grace of a bird but rather smashed down hard on to his back.

Taking his chance the other bardog charged forward, lifting his foot to stomp Dusty into the woodwork as Tuck sailed over and clear, Dusty caught the down-driving foot, bracing himself and holding it between his hands. Then he rolled his hips so that he hooked one leg behind Kete’s other leg, placed his other leg against the front and heaved. With a yell Kete sprawled across the room, hit the wall and went to his hands and knees by the table where Mark and the Kid sat. Muttering curses under his breath he rolled to a sitting position and dropped his hand to the gun at his side.

‘Loose it,
hombre
!’ purred a voice mean as a diamondback rattling a warning. ‘You wouldn’t look good with a mouth under your chin.’

Obligingly Kete let it loose. A bowie knife-point pricking the neck being always a fine inducement to complaisance. He looked up into a pair of red hazel eyes and a babyishly innocent face, although to his mind the face was far from being either. Not for a moment did he doubt that failure to obey would see the knife go home into flesh. He raised no objection when the Kid lifted the revolver from his holster but what came next was something of a surprise.

‘Now you can try your luck,’ said the Kid.

From before Kete’s eyes came a scene which should call for his interference or aid. Yet the quiet spoken words worried him.

‘You—you mean I can go back and help my boss now?’

‘Why sure. Don’t make no never mind to me happen you figure on tangling with Dusty again. It’s your fool hide, not mine.’

The words jarred Kete down to his toes. He’d thought the Texans to be a couple of hired guns on hand to back up and keep the new officer from harm. Yet they showed a strange way of doing it as neither offered to help him, and the black-dressed one had sheathed his knife once the gun did not threaten the captain. Like Tuck, Kete did not think fast or brightly. Yet even he could add two and two to make four. The Texan knew his small
amigo
could handle the threat. So Kete decided to stay out and watch developments.

They came fast and showed his wisdom in waiting. Dusty made his feet in a rapid bound as Madlarn came from the bar. Behind Dusty, Tuck had also stood up and, bottle in hand, made for Dusty’s back.

For an instant Mark thought he’d need to lend a hand. Then he saw his help would not be required, saw also that Dusty had won over the big Irishman.

With an angry yell Magoon hurled himself forward. His big fist drove out in a looping, power-packed smash which caught Tuck at the side of the jaw and knocked him clear from his feet, across the room and into the wall. Tuck lit down hard and did not look like he’d be getting to his feet for a spell.

On his part Karl Madlarn found himself learning what not a few would-be hard cases found to their cost when they tangled with Dusty Fog. He had a name as a hard-case rough-house fighter but was on the muscle with little or no science to back it. Against most people Madlarn tangled with such tactics worked for they fought in the same manner and he’d his two helpers when things got rough. Now he had no helpers for Tuck couldn’t get up and Kete didn’t aim to cut in, having troubles of his own. The final point against Madlarn was that Dusty did not rely on muscle.

Going under the punch, powerful enough to have put him down for hours had it landed, but slow and telegraphed to Dusty, the small Texan again smashed Madlarn in the middle. The big man let out a croak of agony. His hands jerked out and Dusty caught the right between his hands, pivoted so the man’s stomach rested against him then, with a bending of the knees, sent him flying over with the ju-jitsu
Kata seoi,
the one-side shoulder throw which looked so spectacular and landed an unprepared man down hard. The watching soldiers gasped their amazement, for they’d never seen a wrestling throw quite like it. Nor had Madlarn, although he did not air his views on the subject for some considerable time to come.

Before the winded and dazed man had time to recover Dusty hauled him again to his feet, smashed a punch into his stomach. Madlarn’s back arched once and then went limp and he lay without a move on the floor.

Turning to face Kete who still stood by the wall, Magoon asked, ‘The captain or me, Kete?’

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