CHAPTER V
The Fight in the MarshTwice, within the next two hours, the Ragged Men mustered the courage to charge. They came racing across the semi-solid ooze like the madmen they were. Their yells and shouts were maniacal howls of blood-lust or worse. And twice Tommy broke their rush with a savage ruthlessness. The sub-machine-gun’s first magazine was nearly empty. It was an unhandy weapon for single-shot work but it was loaded with explosive shells. The second rush he stopped with an automatic pistol. There were half-naked bodies partly buried in the ooze all the way from the jungle’s edge to within ten yards of the hillock on which he and Evelyn had taken refuge.
It was hot there, terribly hot. The air was stifling. It fairly reeked of moisture and the smells from the swamp behind them
