by P. W. Child
At the top of the snug vertical channel, the Purdues rolled out over the rim and when they sat up to look around, their jaws dropped in disbelief.
Chapter 34
“Hold still, Sam. This is the last of the bandaging,” Nina said. Sam moaned more than he hoped to if only to look tough, but by now he had abandoned the need to be manly. He was sore, very sore, and he was too tired to put in the effort anymore.
“How is it we never have alcohol when we need it?” he complained through gritted teeth.
“Aye, story of my life,” Nina agreed as she finished wrapping the rapidly deteriorating bullet wound on Sam’s leg. “Dr. Philips, you are more fascinated by those books than I am, and that’s saying something. Have you found anything of value to us there yet? Where do these books fit in with the Library of Forbidden Books?”
He looked dazed at first, as he realized he was being addressed. Surrounded by Nina’s collection of old books, his eyes glanced upward to formulate a proper response. With a bit of an uncertain stutter, he replied, “Well, from what I see here, most of these books have one thing in common. They have no print company, ISBN, or similar identification on them. Of course, I am not referring to the obvious journals and such.” Nina and Sam nodded, eager to hear the rest of his findings.
“By what I see throughout the writings, apart from the subject matter . . . ”
“God, Pasty really takes his time to get to the point, doesn’t he?” Sam remarked to Nina through pursed lips. Her shoulders shook from her subdued giggle.
“Is that several chapters of these books stop in midsentence every time, every single one,” Richard Philips frowned. “It is rather odd, but then, this interesting codex tells us that the half sentences are complete . . . if one knows where to look.”
“Library of Forbidden Books,” Nina nodded.
“Precisely. The hidden library holds the rest of the information set forth in these chapters, these books. Each one, their own subject, has a mate somewhere in the library that completes the information. And once every two mates are united the full code is revealed.”
“In the wrong hands that shit would be the end of the world, you know,” Sam said. His voice was growing a bit weaker, but he pulled his blanket up to his ears and sank into its warm protective folds with a sigh. Nina looked worried, but somewhere under her concern another emotion haunted her. Sam deciphered it as some sort of sadness, perhaps even melancholy. It made him feel so sorry for her, because he knew she missed her house and the life of obscurity she so desired, once more obliterated by him and Purdue.
“What is that hideous thing about, Dr. Philips?” Sam asked.
Nina pulled up her nose and turned her head with an almost inaudible, “Christ.”
“I see it freaks you out just as much as me, aye?” Sam told her.
Dr. Richard Philips agreed, yet unlike his companions he was unafraid to handle the so-called spider book of Nina and Gretchen’s nightmares. “Yes, it is quite ghastly, right?”
“Quite,” Nina scoffed, amazed at his calm scrutiny of the grotesque human skin and hair that covered the book.
“It looks disturbingly much like my 11th grade science teacher, Mr. Innsworth,” the pasty-faced academic attempted a joke in his dry manner. It caught on with Sam, but Nina was still stuck on “it looks.” Richard had the book open and paged rapidly through it as he scanned the contents throughout. “It is a book of worship to one of the primary old gods the SS had attempted to cross here, mainly Argathule. I am not familiar with this one, but by the writings in every chapter by different authors, it appears to be aquatic, no matter which tongue or hand they have been written in,”
“Please don’t say ‘tongue or hand’ when you discuss that cadaverous book, Richard,” Nina sighed, to his amusement.
“We would want to stop this one from coming to visit, trust me,” Richard shivered wildly to convey what he was reading about Argathule, his eyes glued to the page he was on. He looked up at Nina, “But, my God, would it not be a magnificent sight to see!”
Sam raised his brow. Nina looked disgusted. It made the wan-skinned lecturer recoil back into his reading and he kept quiet again.
“I’m going to see if I can find some canned food that won’t kill us,” Nina said, and headed for the galley.
Two hours later, Sam was breathing heavily, curled up on the corner bunk, drifting in and out of sleep while the clanking hull sounds and bubbling vents played a lullaby.
In the bunk farther down, Dr. Richard Philips kept busy by reading an old log he found in one of the drawers, while Gretchen was handling the pilot duties, thanks to her late husband’s insistence that she savvy herself in maritime machinery. She never knew why he was so adamant, but lately, with all the new revelations about the Nazis and the dumb luck of an aquatic military vessel as their only escape, she was beginning to understand why he told her that such skill would benefit her when “the shit struck the fan.” That was another thing she only came to realize the true meaning of in the past few days.
It was clear to her now that her beloved husband knew more than the construction and design of buildings. There was something he had worked on in Italy—that thing he could never tell her about—that had him instruct his wife thusly, for her to only do it out of love and blind faith that her husband was not prone to lunacy. Now Gretchen Mueller knew that his death was probably not an accident after all. The provisions he made for her were just too coincidental.
There were the other odd coincidences pertaining to the lecturer, the estate agent, and the surreal discovery of a Second World War submarine under her old friend’s new house. Gretchen frowned to herself as she checked the battery and hydrogen levels. For the first time since she became infatuated with Dr. Philips and his doctrines, and since she was reunited with Nina Gould, she had become aware of some form of pattern. It was as if they were all pawns on someone’s chessboard. Why else were they each in the professions they were and happened to be in certain places at certain times to join up by force of necessity.
“Gretch, where are we going with this thing?” Nina asked her friend when the two women sat down for a breather.
“We are supposed to head to Venice, but the diesel would never hold out. And we are too far from the nearest garage to fill up,” Gretchen sighed seriously, hiding her jest just long enough for Nina to realize and slap her on the arm with a chuckle.
“Do you have any idea how honored we should be?” Gretchen beamed.
“I’m feeling a little flat on honor right now. Why?” Nina asked.
“Do you have any idea what submarine this is, Nina? Oh my God, you are going to love this . . . we are currently traversing the North Sea in the legendary HMS Trident, doll!” Gretchen shrieked excitedly.
“Trident,” Nina repeated, trying to register the name in her historical archives. “Was it not the U-boat that had a baby doe onboard during the Second World War?”
Gretchen looked at Nina with an uncertain amusement, “Eh, what?”
“Yes, the HMS Trident was given a reindeer doe as a gift by the Russians. I shit you not,” Nina smiled. “It was some diplomatic gesture to celebrate the Russian and British alliance during the war. They kept the little doe as a pet on this very submarine, if it is indeed this one. Most of them were decommissioned, sold for scrap, or destroyed by now, though. Are you sure?”
“Hell yes! See? N52, the Trident’s number,” Gretch giggled, and tossed her the logs of the navigator in charge of bearing and attack strategy. “And . . . ” Gretchen grinned, “in there it says Commander James Gordon Gould was CO of this machine when it departed from Oban for its first patrol on 27 October 1939!”
“What? Really?” Nina marveled. “Imagine if he was related to me. I’d have to look into that, Gretch! That is just fucking awesome!”
“Precisely! How is that for coincidence? It’s a surreal synchronicity across decades, I think. The very submarine he commanded happened to be secretly hidden under the very house you
happened to buy without even knowing anything about it!” Gretchen exclaimed with a whimsical smile.
Nina was dumbstruck, and intrigued in a good way, for a change.
On the outside of the beastly steel vessel, eerie clanking sounds constantly startled the occupants, testing their nerves with unfamiliar habits. They had no food and very little to drink, thanks to Nina’s quick thinking to grab the six pack of Purely Scottish Natural Mineral Water she had on the kitchen table before they went to retrieve the books in her attic.
“Our own fuel is running very low. Where are we now?” she asked Gretchen.
“By what the instruments indicate . . . and I don’t know how effective they are . . . we should be just past the north point of Kirkwall now and then I’ll take her south toward the mainland,” Gretchen explained in all sincerity.
Nina thought about the route. It would be futile to carry on to Tórshavn just to fly to Amsterdam, where they were first headed before realizing the distance was simply too great. It would be better to stay out of the icier waters and stay in the familiar currents of the North Sea. She blinked rapidly as her mind map worked out their best route.
“If we can make it to Aberdeen, we can make a plan to get diesel to get to Amsterdam, right?” she asked.
“It’s a reach, doll,” Gretchen replied. “With Sam’s injury and no food, not to mention cabin fever and nightmarish noises we can’t investigate, I’d advise against it. I suggest we dock at Aberdeen and charter a Cessna to fly to Italy. No hassles with connection points.”
Nina took her words to heart. Gretchen supported her argument with some good facts.
“They will see us on the radar anyway. You do realize that we’re not in international waters, plus, we are in an aquatic assault vessel, complete with torpedoes I bet!” she told Nina in a nonchalant announcement that reminded both women in what level of trouble they really were.
“Jesus, they’ll bombard us if we don’t answer their radio contact. Do we have functional communication?” Nina asked. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand being in this tin can, you know? God, I’d kill for a fag.”
“You and me both,” Sam said from behind her. He was limping and his face was a moist pallid mess of pain, but he was optimistic. “I second Gretchen’s plan. I’ll take care of the charter. I have contacts,” he flashed the self-assured boyish face, although he was visibly deteriorating.
Chapter 35
“Where is Richard?” Nina asked.
“Sleeping. I have never seen anyone so immersed in a log book before, but ultimately I think it took its toll and he clocked out,” Sam said. “He is hoarding your books like a madman, Nina. Maybe you should sell them to him. You’d make a fortune.”
“Ha! Those books are all I have left of my dream house,” Nina replied, but she suddenly realized that her infamous house had now become a crime scene and there was no doubt that it would be off limits to her. Most of the money she had saved up through the years was sunk into that property and apart from the financial catastrophe it had dumped her in, she was now homeless.
“This was going to be my clean start, you know,” she lamented to nobody in particular. Nina almost became utterly melancholy, now that there was time for what happened to really sink in. Maybe she was so used to running for her life that she did not realize the true loss she had suffered until now. “I was going to renovate it, make it mine, and live in my old town. I was going to be insignificant and invisible.” Her voice cracked a little at the sudden flood of emotions. Gretchen hugged her, facing Nina toward Sam.
“You can never be insignificant, Dr. Gould,” he told her firmly in a soft voice that teemed with admiration and affection. Nina forced a smile as Sam winked at her. His body was shaking terribly under the reeking blanket he had around his shoulders.
“Sam, are you all right?” Nina asked. Her expression changed into one of serious concern as the tremors took to Sam and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. “Oh God, Gretch, help me!” she shouted as Sam’s knees gave way under him and he sank to the ground in a quivering heap.
“His fever is sky high, doll! Let’s get him up on the bunk!” Gretchen cried. “Richard! Richard, some help over here, please!”
“Fuck! We’re down to one bottle of water to make everything worse!” Nina seethed as she flew into the space where Richard had just woken. He rushed to help Gretchen with Sam while Nina got the last bottle of water they had.
“He is in shock,” Richard remarked, as he laid Sam’s strained and shaking frame on the bunk almost entirely by himself, alleviating Gretchen’s burden. “Get more blankets, Nina.” The gaunt lecturer looked up at Gretchen. His countenance was unnerving.
“Is he going to be okay?” Gretchen asked Richard, just as Nina returned with blankets stacked in her arms.
“If we don’t get him to a hospital soon, he will die. The infection has not subsided, and the medi-kit has no more ointment or dressings, as if it even helped in the first place. Everything in here is simply too old to be of any use anymore, I fear. Sam might not make it this time,” he bemoaned his helplessness.
“Hey! Hey!” Nina hissed as she briskly wrapped Sam in another layer of smelly blankets. “Fuck that! He will be fine, you hear me? I don’t want to hear any of that shit from anyone!” she shouted defensively at her companions. “Sam just needs some rest,” she uttered softly, stroking his wet hair and his brow gently. “Just needs rest, that’s all.”
The other two exchanged worried looks. Suddenly the U-boat was struck by something massive and immovable, sending Richard and Gretchen sprawling on the floor and Nina fell off the bunk. Sam’s body jerked against the wall beside the bunk, but he was out cold. The electrical current was interrupted, the lights flashing, and it was followed by a bone-chilling sound that reverberated through the very metal of the vessel.
Sam opened his eyes weakly. He listened intently, but only heard the other three people scuffling, gradually getting back up with befuddled looks. Nina held her ankle, Gretchen nursed her shoulder, and Richard ignored his bloody nose to concentrate on the sounds that pulsed about the outer hull, just short of the bilge keels. The four terrified occupants of the HMS Trident sat stunned, listening to the ghastly scratching noises, as if metal hooks of impressive size were challenging the tactile strength of the submarine.
The lights died with the next thump, evoking cries of brute panic from all of them. In the pitch blackness, Gretchen and Nina held on to each other, sobbing softly as an awful wail shook the sheeting of the boat. Rattling ensued so violently throughout the enormous submarine that Sam, Nina, Gretchen, and Richard believed that every bolt and screw was being detached. They all expected the war machine to fall apart at its seams at any moment.
“Did we hit rocks?” Nina asked, hoping that the boat’s double-layered metal sheeting had not been ruptured.
“Could be,” Richard replied. “If our hull is on the rocks, the current could be propelling us into these jolts, changing direction from the velocity.”
“Or it could be a whale,” Gretchen mentioned, slowly letting go of Nina so that she could scamper over to Sam to secure him.
In the dark, Nina slipped into Sam’s embrace, feeling the furious temperature of his body burn against hers. There was not much else they could do. They were probably going to die in the next few minutes, a thought pondered by all aboard in the grasp of unadulterated horror.
Like a keening banshee the whine sent sharp sound waves through the immediate proximity of the boat, shaking it in its course, like a dog shook a toy in its mouth. Nina screamed curses of terror. Gretchen’s arms were shaking around her bent face as the lights flashed with white lightning every now and then, attempting to regain current. Richard sat flat on his ass on the floor against the wall, staring at Sam, who returned his glare with his timid black eyes.
“What was that, Richard?” he asked meekly.
“Probably an orca,” the eloquent American answered, but Sam knew he was bluffing.
“That is no orca, mate,” Sam protested.
Nina listened and spoke from under Sam’s chin, where she had nestled her head.“Whatever that is must be three times the size of a whale. Besides, it doesn’t sound like any whale I have ever heard.”
“Me neither,” Gretchen murmured, while her eyes stretched to see in the frightening flashes of the lights. “Did you know Orcinus orca means ‘bringer of death’?”
“Thank you, Gretchen,” Nina moaned.
“It is not a fucking whale,” Sam grunted laboriously through the fever and fear. “Just ask Richard. He did not look all too surprised about it, just . . . inconvenienced, eh, Pasty?”
“Don’t be foolish,” Richard dismissed him out of hand.
Sam was pissed. He propped himself up over Nina and with reddened eyes he pinned Philips to the wall, “You and I both know what it is. We both saw that thing in Oban.”
The women perked up instantly, frowning and perplexed.
“Excuse me? That sounds just a little fucking horrible! Care to share your wisdom with us, lads?” Nina gawked with that well-known fire in her dark eyes
“What did you see in Oban?” Gretchen asked, pulling her legs in even closer against her body and tightening her embrace around them even more. Her face was distorted in dread, unlike Nina’s.
The two men remained silent, neither one quite knowing how to describe what they had seen. Nina got up and went over to where Gretchen was clutching at her clothing. She put her arm around her friend and stared the two men down with a hellish glare that would make the devil think twice. “What seems to be the trouble, gentlemen?” she shouted, Gretchen sobbing with fear in her arms.
