by Don Wilcox
“With the arms of an octopus,” one of the men put in cynically. “An octopus grabs Old Man Gregory by chance. By chance he misses being blown up. Is there anything mysterious about that?”
These people gathered along the shore here were making a show of washing their clothes and camping equipment that they had brought ashore. This for the benefit of the German guards who watched from the elevations farther back.
On closer inspection I saw that the men were actually constructing log rafts. From heaps of brushwood they were extricating such bits of dead timber as could be bound together, hiding them among the rushes.
So they, too, had a plan. When darkness came again these bits would be pieced together rigidly, and a quiet exodus would be attempted.
“The undertow ghost will be with us tonight,” said the lady with the unshakable faith.
I glanced at my single octopus arm, at my tanned and bleached human body. How useless I was for this crisis in this form!
“Marcia Gregory believes like I do,” the lady continued. “She told me confidentially that somehow she knew.”
“Knew what?” asked the skeptical man.
“That this—this ghost is helping us because it knows us and believes in us and wants to see us saved. Marcia said that whatever it is it must have a very noble heart.”
“For tonight I prayerfully hope so,” said the lady who had called me a power and a manifestation.
Tonight! If I could only be an octopus again. For Marcia’s sake . . . for these people . . .
“I suppose that volcano last night was the ghost again,” said the cynical man. “I claim the lava caught those three Germans because they were halfway up the cone. We got off with a few minor injuries because we were down near the shore. But if you want to call it a ghost—”
“Shut up, Henry, and tend to your washing,” said one of the ladies. A German guard was sauntering down-the way, so she forced a blanket into her husband’s hands—one that had already been washed a dozen times—and he quickly spread it over his bundle of boughs and went to work on it.
Just before dark I caught sight of Marcia.
She walked out of the west hut looking very much like a hospital nurse on duty, for two bundles of bandages were walking with her, one on each arm.
Old Man Gregory, Dan Wanzer and Marcia—the trio who had come here looking for me. My heart melted for them. I could imagine what hope and faith had been theirs when they and all their friends embarked on this voyage. A voyage in memory of many luckless fellows like myself who had been lost in this corner of the Pacific a year or more ago.
This was a sorry plight for them. Old Man Gregory’s head was bandaged, his wrist was in a sling, he was walking lamely. Danny Boy was doing surprisingly well, considering that he had recently caught a bullet.
It was a good thing that my octopus arm clung to the alligator gar with all suction cups at that moment. Otherwise I might have yielded to that impulse. More than anything else in the world I wanted to run up the beach to Marcia.
To run to her—to hold her—to bless her for coming . . .
To hold her . . . with the arm of an octopus? No, that would never, never do.
I must wait now. My little part in this drama was over. If the Americans could work their plan—to slip back to their yacht tonight under cover of darkness, all would be well. My service now was simply to keep out of the way, to let no German suspicions be aroused.
Soon after dark I succeeded in changing my appearance in several details so that I felt more like a civilized human being. I had given myself a rough haircut and manicure. I had borrowed some clothing and a shaving outfit from the German guard camping on the quiet south side of the island.
The guard would be missed before the night was over. I need not state what became of him. I simply mention that for me the war was still going on: the missing guard would never be found.
My nakedness had been covered with the Nazi’s trousers, though it made me feel like a heel to wear them. I also donned the luckless guard’s military cap—a castoff from an official Nazi uniform. I might need it to get past a flashlight.
It was a starry night. My alligator gar swung far out around the east end of the island so that the flashes of the guards couldn’t catch us. Good old gar was learning to respond to the reins like an Indian pony.
We approached the reeds below the huts cautiously. I slipped off and gave the gar a few taps on the fin. He obediently swam away. I crept forward, keeping an eye on those tricky flashlights a double stone’s-throw up the shore in either direction. It was still early and the guards were very much on the alert.
Within twenty yards of the bank I stopped, held my breath. Someone was whispering only a few feet away.
“All three rafts are off, thank God!”
“We’ve got a long wait,” someone replied in an undertone. “Gregory thinks we’ll put through five trips with each raft before dawn.”
“I doubt it.”
“So do I. It’s so damned quiet they could hardly row.”
“They sure had a time getting Dan to go across with the first load. He wasn’t going off and leave Marcia here. But she made him go.”
“You can see who’ll be the boss in the family.”
“He needed to go. He needs a bed and some doctoring. I hope we can all get away in another night. We put ourselves in one helluva hole, all coming ashore.”
“Marcia’s whims, you know . . . Not that she had any hand in this trouble.”
“Hell, no. She’s innocent. Kuntz was lying. Anyone with a sense of smell can tell a Nazi lie.”
“We were awful saps, though, when they asked us to lend them some radio equipment when we landed. We put our own ship’s transmitter on the blink—”
A flash beam floated across the reeds and put this very informative conversation to an end.
I ducked under—my recent octopus habits were still with me. My head went under but my Nazi cap didn’t. When I though it was safe for me to loop up again, I saw that my cap was floating away.
“Hi, there!” a German guard shouted. “What’s that?”
Five minutes later three German guards were pointing flashlights at the spot where they had seen the cap go down.
Not one of them had the nerve to swim out and try to find it. “The undertow ghost” they were muttering.
They knew that cap belonged to the guard camping on the opposite side of the island, and that meant only one thing to them. The undertow ghost had claimed another victim.
The cap had gone under, incidentally, because I still knew how to play octopus. I made an underwater swim, reached up for it with my tentacles and swam on into the thick reeds before coming up for air.
With a cluster of guards baffled and temporarily out of circulation, I made my way through the darkness along the beach and up to the hut.
Marcia was in there sleeping. I had come because she was there. I only wanted to be a little nearer before she went away.
Only a little nearer. I wouldn’t go in. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t go in.
A German guard trudged by and turned his light toward the open doorway. The several women were apparently sound asleep. I caught a glimpse of Marcia lying there on a blanket, her wavy auburn hair half covering her arm that served as a pillow.
The guard trudged on. Almost before his footsteps were out of hearing, two men came up quietly from the shore,
“The rafts are coming back,” one of them whispered. “Who is ready to go next?”
From the low whispers that followed
I knew that two or three women were leaving to join the escape party.
“Don’t wake Marcia,” one of them said. “She’ll go only when her father goes, and he’ll wait till the last.”
Five minutes later all was again quiet. I forgot my vows. I crept in and kissed Marcia.
I kissed her lips, her forehead, her eyelids.
Then her lashes trembled against my cheek. I drew away.
&nbs
p; Softly she breathed my name. “Walter . . . Walter . . . It’s you.”
She was talking in her sleep. She gave a little sigh, then breathed quietly, the slow, rhythmic breathing of sleep.
“Marcia, dear,” I whispered. “I love you deeply, Marcia. It was so good of you to come here to find me . . . You’ve found me now. Remember that when you wake up. You’ve found me and I’ve talked with you . . . I may never talk with you again, but I’ll always love you . . . One thing more, Marcia . . . Your friend Dan must get well . . . and you two must be happy together. Goodbye, Marcia.”
CHAPTER XV
Secrets of the Lake
My military cap was damp upon my brow. Not only from being soaked in the ocean, but from perspiration.
Someone was approaching the hut as I came out of the door. If only starlight had not outlined my form, I might have slipped away unseen. But at that moment a guard, some distance away, chanced to swing his flashlight across my path.
Whoever was approaching ducked in time to miss the beam. But he must have had a telling glimpse of me. Very well, I would be taken for a German guard, wearing the cap. I would hurry on. No American would dare accost me.
There I was quite mistaken.
“Careful, Dan, don’t start anything,” I heard one of the men call in a warning tone.
“Why do you think I came back?” the voice of Dan retorted hotly. “I knew some damned Nazi would try to molest Marcia. I didn’t come a minute too soon.”
I made rapid tracks west until an approaching flashlight turned me back into a thicket.
Dan’s footsteps were following me, cautious and sometimes tottering, yet determined. Another warning call from one of his friends failed to turn him back. Sick or well, he was going to get the Nazi who had intruded upon Marcia.
Instinctively I felt that he was following me with a gun. He could have brought one back with him from the yacht. But surely he wouldn’t be fool enough to use it.
My dodging the light of the guard ahead told Dan he was not on the trail of a Nazi.
“Halt, whoever you are!” he called in a commanding whisper. “I’ve got you covered.”
I halted, for again the flashlight ahead forced me to cover. Dan kept coming, now on hands and knees to avoid the light. I waited, frozen like a rabbit that expects its enemy to pass. Now Dan was beside me.
His face, visible in the thin light that filtered through the thicket, showed at that moment a startling expression of aggressive courage. He was sick and in pain, but he was following me up with the tenacity of a fighter who know’s what he’s fighting for.
“Before I knock your head off,” he whispered, “who the devil are you?
Why are you ducking the light?”
“Go peddle your apples,” I said. “I’m not ducking the light. I’m looking for blackberries. Go find a thicket of your own.”
I started on, and happily the guard’s light shifted to another direction.
But the persistent Danny Boy was not to be shaken, and at once he blurted something that shook me to the roots.
“Sutter! . . . Walter Sutter! . . . That’s who you are! I know you by your picture.”
“Hussshhh! Not so loud.”
“Where the hell have you been and why aren’t you dead? We’ve looked everywhere. Why, this is terrific, to know you’re still alive after all.”
“You’re all wrong, son,” I whispered. “I’m a ghost . . . Whoo-OOO! See? Now run along like a good boy.”
“How did you do it, Sutter? You did fix those blasts, didn’t you? But you can tell us about all that later. The main thing now—” he was talking on so excitedly I couldn’t stop him—“is to wake Marcia and tell her.”
“No you don’t!”
“And her father. They must know at once, so you can get in on their plan.”
“Stop it, Wanzer,” I said. “They are not going to know a thing. See? You’re not going to tell a soul. If you do, I’ll—”
My left arm accommodated me with a little gesture that put teeth in my words by massaging Dan’s throat with suction cups.
“I’ll squeeze the life out of you,” I concluded, “with this octopus arm of mine.”
“Octopus arm!” Dan gasped. He passed his hand over my left shoulder and down the spiraled length of my arm. “I—I don’t understand!”
“It’s a long story, and this freak arm is only the beginning. But you realize that I mean it. Marcia mustn’t know.”
“Marcia mustn’t know,” Dan repeated slowly, incredulously.
From the shore came more ominous sounds of unplanned activities. At once Dan and I knew that the raft game was up. The Americans were slipping back through the darkness.
Dan met them; a few minutes later he returned to me with the bad news. Guards with flashlights and guns had closed in just in time to prevent the second embarkation. The rafts, abandoned, would float away.
“The night is yet young,” I said. “Cheer up, Danny Boy. I’ve got a plan. How many guards stand between us and the lake?”
“None,” said Dan. “From the rear of the huts we could make our way over a bit of foothill without disturbing a single Nazi. But what good is the lake?”
“Listen to me, Dan. I’ve got to talk fast. I—”
“What’s wrong, Sutter? Your voice is trembling. Are you cold?”
“It’s an old wound coming back. You wouldn’t understand. Don’t mind. Just listen—”
But Dan reached out to touch me. He gasped. “Man, your shoulders are cold, like a fish. What’s happening?”
“I’m changing, Dan. There’s no time to explain.” If ever I talked fast it was now, for all at once I knew that my whole body was undergoing a metamorphosis unlike anything ever known in the world beyond the island.
“I’m changing,” I repeated. “In a few minutes I won’t be able to talk. You must follow my instructions to the letter.”
“Shoot!”
“Lead your people to the innermost point of the lake. Creep along the water-line till you find the cave directly below the point where you’ve seen the sign, Sutter’s Lake. You’ll find an immense fish waiting there to taxi you out to your ship.”
“From the lake?”
“There are water tunnels leading out to the sea. You’ll need to use the two Nazi diving helmets which I’ve left there in the cave. Do you follow?”
“You’re probably crazy, Sutter, but I’ll do it.”
“The fish has reins and a saddle. It can manage two passengers to a trip. Twenty trips will take care of everyone.”
“And if daylight overtakes us?”
“It will, but you’ll keep right on going. Under water you’ll not be seen.”
“How the dickens will this fish know where to go? How do we know it will ever come back for a second load? What happens to the diving helmets?”
“There’ll be a certain sea creature near the mouth of the cave to feed it biscuits and give it instructions. Don’t worry about the fish. It will know what to do.”
“If you say so. But the sea creature—is it dangerous?”
“Believe me, Danny, no. It is your friend. It’s me.”
“You!”
“That’s another secret between us, Danny Boy. I’m trusting you to keep it.”
“But—Sutter. How in the name of common sense—”
“I’m going now. See you at the lake. Don’t fail—” My voice suddenly gave forth in tones of a croaking frog, then choked off completely.
“Sutter!” Dan reached out his hand to me, passed it over my mantled head and round, cone-shaped body, over four or five of my long, mucilaginous tentacles.
“Octopus!” he whispered in awe. “Octopus!”
CHAPTER XVI
“Destroy the Silver Belle!”
I worked the rest of the night.
It was no easy job keeping the procession going. Some of the elderly ladies had never ridden horseback. Some of the men were too scared of man-eating sharks—but Dan persuaded the
m that the alligator gar knew his way around.
“Take a look at his teeth and rest assured,” Dan would say. “All aboard for the submarine express.”
When you came right down to it, these Americans were as much afraid of that undertow ghost as they were of the wild ride in a diving helmet. They couldn’t seem to understand that this undersea mount was a part of said ghost.
Dan engineered the trips on the start. I had been rather too optimistic. He had to ride over with each passenger until the business got systematized; so at first there was only one net passenger transported on each run. It was a terrific job for the gar; but his almost perpetual motion motor required nothing more than his regular biscuit.
Dan had undertaken far too much for a sick man. On the third trip he arrived at the Silver Belle just in time to faint, and they had to put him to bed. What he would need for some weeks to come would be rest and more rest. But he had certainly played his part like a hero.
After that Marcia herself engineered the lake end of the shuttle service. Two passengers to a trip. The gar always came back on the dot with a couple of diving helmets and refilled oxygen tanks strapped to his harness.
“Whatever aquarium or zoo that fish escaped from,” Marcia would say, “I’ll spend the rest of my life blessing him for what he’s putting across this night.”
And to my delight she also had an occasional good word for the octopus that tossed him his regular biscuit.
By dawn the Nazis began to sense a difference in their surroundings. From the American camp there was not the usual stir of activity. The guards began to run back and forth along the bank looking for traces of more rafting. There were too few prisoners this morning.
“Who guarded the launch?” the captain barked. “You’re sure it never was off the bank all night long? . . . What happened on the south side? Hans is still missing, is he? And what tracks over there of rafts? . . . None at all? What’s the answer? Did they swim or did they fly?”
The more Captain Kuntz tried to check up the madder he got.
