fell. That was because of their bulletproof undergarments of a substance invented by The Avenger and called celluglass. The stuff was transparent, fine as heavy silk, and with more bullet-stopping power than any steel. Each of Benson’s little band wore one, always.
So Mac and Smitty were kicked around considerably—but did not fall, since none of the slugs, fortunately, got them in the throat or head. And the attackers, faces black with rage, stopped shooting and used brute force.
And there they miscalculated.
Twelve men against two, but the two were Fergus MacMurdie and Algernon Heathcote Smith.
Smitty was struck by a human wave an instant before Mac was. He howled with something like berserk delight and grabbed a throat with each hand. His hands twitched, the heads atop the throats suddenly leaned in horrible off-direction, and then the two men were flung bodily at the rest.
On the other side of the closed brown truck, Mac was swinging those bone hammers he called fists. A driving right broke the jaw of the man owning it, and that man subsided into pained quiescence. A left made almost in the same breath draped another man over the doughty Scot’s fist like a limp rag over the end of a pole.
From there on, however, it was not so easy.
Mac got in four more hard blows that dazed but did not disable, and then he went down under a human steam roller of sheer numbers. Almost happily, he wrenched at legs, pounded up at faces, and jerked his sandy-thatched head around to try to avoid a rain of blows from fists and clubbed guns.
Opposite him, Smitty was teaching the four men remaining on their feet that odds of four to one didn’t necessarily mean a thing.
He smashed a man in the shoulder with a mighty left, and that man crawled off with a broken collar bone. He drove straight through the guard of another man and smashed the head behind the guard. That fellow sagged too.
The other two stopped dancing around. Their actions were those of first-class boxers as well as rough-and-tumble fighters. But what good does it do you to know the science of fighting when you’re up against a man-mountain who doesn’t bother with boxing at all but just drives steam-hammer blows through any guard you put up?
One of the two had the presence of mind to try to use a gun again. He leaped back four steps and leveled the automatic with which he’d been clubbing around a moment before.
Aimed it, this time, at Smitty’s head!
Smitty. roared like a bull elephant, picked up the other man and shoved him straight ahead. And it was this man who took the shot.
The man screamed, grasped at his chest and fell. And the one remaining out of six stared, then ran with terrified jerks of his straining mouth.
By now, police sirens were sounding from every direction. At least three squad cars were racing here from different parts of the section.
The men pounding at Mac redoubled their efforts, saw the giant coming apparently unscathed, from the other side of the truck, and they showed their heels right then and there.
So the cops got there and saw something resembling a battlefield in the late evening, with two men responsible for all the carnage. But they arrived too late to do anything but stare, and then to take the human wreckage to headquarters.
They also took the truck for the intense, microscopic examination Mac and Smitty had intended to make but were in no mood to do now. They wanted something besides monotonous routine.
Mac looked at the neighborhood, and then looked at Smitty. They both dismissed from their minds the plate-sized bruises on their torsos where bullets had been stopped from piercing but not from kicking like so many mules.
They were not so very far from the noisome alley on which was the rear-house where Old Mitch dwelt. And Smitty and Mac had been near enough when The Avenger questioned the guard to have heard him mention Old Mitch.
“Let’s go,” snapped Mac.
So they went to the rear-house.
Just what they
So Mac and Smitty were kicked around considerably—but did not fall, since none of the slugs, fortunately, got them in the throat or head. And the attackers, faces black with rage, stopped shooting and used brute force.
And there they miscalculated.
Twelve men against two, but the two were Fergus MacMurdie and Algernon Heathcote Smith.
Smitty was struck by a human wave an instant before Mac was. He howled with something like berserk delight and grabbed a throat with each hand. His hands twitched, the heads atop the throats suddenly leaned in horrible off-direction, and then the two men were flung bodily at the rest.
On the other side of the closed brown truck, Mac was swinging those bone hammers he called fists. A driving right broke the jaw of the man owning it, and that man subsided into pained quiescence. A left made almost in the same breath draped another man over the doughty Scot’s fist like a limp rag over the end of a pole.
From there on, however, it was not so easy.
Mac got in four more hard blows that dazed but did not disable, and then he went down under a human steam roller of sheer numbers. Almost happily, he wrenched at legs, pounded up at faces, and jerked his sandy-thatched head around to try to avoid a rain of blows from fists and clubbed guns.
Opposite him, Smitty was teaching the four men remaining on their feet that odds of four to one didn’t necessarily mean a thing.
He smashed a man in the shoulder with a mighty left, and that man crawled off with a broken collar bone. He drove straight through the guard of another man and smashed the head behind the guard. That fellow sagged too.
The other two stopped dancing around. Their actions were those of first-class boxers as well as rough-and-tumble fighters. But what good does it do you to know the science of fighting when you’re up against a man-mountain who doesn’t bother with boxing at all but just drives steam-hammer blows through any guard you put up?
One of the two had the presence of mind to try to use a gun again. He leaped back four steps and leveled the automatic with which he’d been clubbing around a moment before.
Aimed it, this time, at Smitty’s head!
Smitty. roared like a bull elephant, picked up the other man and shoved him straight ahead. And it was this man who took the shot.
The man screamed, grasped at his chest and fell. And the one remaining out of six stared, then ran with terrified jerks of his straining mouth.
By now, police sirens were sounding from every direction. At least three squad cars were racing here from different parts of the section.
The men pounding at Mac redoubled their efforts, saw the giant coming apparently unscathed, from the other side of the truck, and they showed their heels right then and there.
So the cops got there and saw something resembling a battlefield in the late evening, with two men responsible for all the carnage. But they arrived too late to do anything but stare, and then to take the human wreckage to headquarters.
They also took the truck for the intense, microscopic examination Mac and Smitty had intended to make but were in no mood to do now. They wanted something besides monotonous routine.
Mac looked at the neighborhood, and then looked at Smitty. They both dismissed from their minds the plate-sized bruises on their torsos where bullets had been stopped from piercing but not from kicking like so many mules.
They were not so very far from the noisome alley on which was the rear-house where Old Mitch dwelt. And Smitty and Mac had been near enough when The Avenger questioned the guard to have heard him mention Old Mitch.
“Let’s go,” snapped Mac.
So they went to the rear-house.
Just what they
Similar Books
