Convoy to Atlantis

by William P. McGivern

  "I am sorry we can't give you a full quota for your firing squad. Military procedure should allow you that. However, we're using every available man in the base for preparations at the moment. You will be allowed a handkerchief, if you like. It should be painless, comparatively. These men are excellent shots."

  Brick was left alone with the three sailors. One of them stepped forward, prodding him with a rifle end, and nodded with his head toward the door. Then, with a guard on either side, and another marching directly behind him, Brick walked slowly out of the office and into the corridor he'd left but minutes before.

  Another prod from the rifle of the sailor behind him, and Brick started down the corridor in the direction from which he had originally come. They walked in silence, the only sound coming from the rhythmic stomp of the heavy boots they wore.

  Hazing Brick's mind was a dull, hopeless agonizing despair. This was it. This was the finish. Exit Brick Harrington—and exit the thousands of poor damned souls on the convoys that were at this very minute steaming toward Atlantis, and a meeting with death.

  Another corridor, a turn.

  There seemed no sailors about, now, and the silence, broken only by the thump-thump-thump of heavy boots grew almost unbearable. Brick could see the blood washing the green foam of the sea. He could hear the screams and curses of bewildered, dying men. Men caught without a fighting chance. Men drowning and dying in a mad mardi gras of horror and confusion, while their guns thundered uselessly against the unseen enemy that lurked below them.

  The next corridor was narrower, and followed by another turn. Brick realized dully that this was precisely the way he had traveled in finding Von Herrman's quarters.

  Thump-thump-thump. Rhythmic, precision-like, taking him to a wall somewhere at the end of these corridors. A wall against which Brick Harrington and a thousand other Yanks and Britishers would die.

  Far ahead, Brick could see the dull sheen of the great bronze door that lead to the unexplored reaches of Atlantis. The door was at the end of this very corridor. But it seemed miles away.

  "These men are excellent shots." The words echoed in Brick's mind. Von Herrman hadn't been lying. He had promised Brick that. And he'd given Brick an indication of what to expect if he were so very foolish as to try an escape.

  Brick could practically hear the impact of the bullet which would thud into his spine from the rifle of the sailor behind him, should he try to escape. There were three of them, he kept reminding himself, all excellent shots. But still a taunting, maddening little voice at the back of his brain urged him to try. He bit hard into his underlip. If a chance presented itself— just one chance—

  Thump-thump-thump. Then a harsh, guttural command from the sailor behind him, a hand hard on his shoulder, and the procession came to a halt.

  Brick saw it then. An alcove, just off the side of the passageway. It was perhaps ten yards wide and five yards deep. It was illuminated by three arc bulbs that threw the white walled stone into bald relief.

  And then Brick saw the chipped pock marks that ran straight across the back wall, and a chill swept up his spine. Bullets had left those traces. This was the place where Von Herrman settled unpleasant matters concerning spies, or mutiny within the ranks. This was the firing wall.

  The sailor who had marched behind Brick now took him by the elbow and pushed him back into the alcove and up against the wall. There was the same phlegmatic lack of expression on his features. His eyes registered neither sympathy nor curiosity. He stepped back from Brick, his rifle still held in readiness, just in case.

  Fishing deep into the pocket of his uniform tunic, the sailor drew forth a dirty linen handkerchief. He extended it to Brick, motioning toward his eyes. "Keep it," Brick snarled. "I don't like your laundry."

  The sailor shrugged, put the handkerchief back in his pocket. Then he stepped back and joined his fellows. They formed a precise line, guns pointing toward the floor.

  The sailor who'd proffered the handkerchief barked an order. The guns snapped up to their shoulders.

  Another harshly barked command. Brick knew it to be "Ready!" Then the guttural German command for "Aim!"

  Brick's nerves screamed, urging him to drive forward at them, to take a chance—his last chance!

  Then suddenly the corridor reverberated with the sound of a rifle shot blasting through the tenseness of the silence.

  It was as if Time hung motionless while the gunfire echoed and reechoed through the length of the passageway. And slowly, like a newsreel run at quarter speed, the sailor at the end of the firing line jerked backward, arms going wide, gun falling, as a gruesome red splotch opened at the front of his throat.

  In the next instant he had toppled face forward, dead!

  And in the same instant Brick Harrington had leaped toward the sailor on the far end of the line just as that fellow wheeled in the direction from which the bullet that downed his comrade had come.

  Brick used this momentary advantage to seize the sailor's arm as he raised his rifle to his shoulder. And with one knee in the pit of the German's back, Brick jerked him back and down to the floor.

  In the split second before he was rolling on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, Brick caught a glimpse of the liberator who had fired the shot. He was a small, red faced little man, crouching on one knee, rifle aimed for a second shot, less than a hundred yards down the corridor leading to the bronze door.

  It was Pop!

  Brick had time to drive his fist three times into the face of the sailor with whom he still struggled. And then his palm was hard against his adversary's face as he smashed the fellow's head again and again against the floor.

  Using the inert body beneath him as a shield, Brick rolled over and climbed to his feet, dragging the unconscious body of the sailor up with him.

  The remaining active sailor had dropped flat on his belly and was taking cool aim at the still firing figure of Pop.

  Pop's first shot had been a direct hit, tearing the throat from his victim. But obviously the excitement was telling on his accuracy, for he was firing wildly, now, bullets zinging against the four walls of the corridor and alcove.

  But the Nazi sailor was calm. Brick saw him drawing bead, unmindful of the bullets flying around him. And Brick frantically shoved the unnecessary burden of the unconscious sailor aside and leaped wildly toward the back of the sailor firing from the floor.

  He was too late. Too late, for even as he launched his wild dive, Brick saw the fellow's gun flash; saw Pop half rise from his crouching position, pain and surprise on his features, a growing, horribly crimson blot in the center of his breast. This Nazi was an excellent shot. Von Herrman hadn't lied.

  Brick landed atop the sailor's back, the force of his leap knocking the wind from the fellow's lungs. Brick was sobbing, crying wildly as he hammered the killer beneath him into unconsciousness. Then he rose and dashed down the corridor to where Pop lay queerly sprawled on his side.

  Pop's head was in Brick's arms, and the little man was coughing foamy blood. He looked weakly at Brick, recognition and satisfaction in his eyes.

  "Pop!" Brick cried. "Oh, God, Pop!"

  The little red faced fellow smiled.

  "Ain't the . . . the shot I usta be!" The effort was costing him his remaining strength.

  Brick knew instinctively, without the old man's saying so, that Pop had picked up the rifle belonging to the trussed guard by the bronze door whom Brick had overpowered. Brick knew, too, that Pop's loyalty and devotion had made him restless, uneasy, over Brick's whereabouts. Obviously Pop had started out after him and found him when he had only to lose his life for his trouble.

  There was a glaze dimming Pop's eyesight, now, and he coughed weakly.

  "Brick," he whispered, "Brick!"

  Brick wiped the sweat from the old man's eyes, jaw grim and heart aching.

  "What, Pop?"

  "Stand a good, kughh, good watch, son."

  "Yes, Pop." Brick was crying, unashamed.

&
nbsp; "Last voyage," the old man whispered. "Hafta, kughh, stand a good watch."

  "I'm on watch, Pop."

  "Good, tha's good, son. Las' voyage .. . las' voyage home!" The old man's head rolled limply against Brick's blouse. His eyes lidded for the last time. The muscles of his jaw were frozen rigidly as if he refused to show weakness even in death.

  Brick lowered Pop's head to the floor gently. Far down the corridor he could hear shouting and running footsteps. They were growing louder with every second.

  Others had heard the gunfire, were racing toward the sound of the fighting. Brick stood up, eyes stony, jaw set hard. He looked down at Pop.

  "I'll even that score for you, old fella," he whispered. "You can bet your sea boots on it!"

  He turned then, for the footsteps were drawing nearer, and the voices growing louder.

  CHAPTER V

  Attack!

  Leolo sprang to her feet as the heavy door of the work chamber swung open and Brick strode in. His face was white and the tendons along his jaw were as taut as cords. There was an expression in his eyes that was frighteningly new to her. It was hate, controlled and cold, but its very deliberateness was terrifying.

  She hurried to his side, helped him adjust the device that coordinated their thought impulses into understandable speech.

  "I was so worried," she said, almost frantically. "After Pop left—"

  "Pop's dead," Brick said dully. "He saved me, but gave his life doing it."

  The words passed his stiff lips, but hearing them, he was still unable to believe that Pop was actually gone. On the way back from the occupied section the realization of Pop's death was a dull, aching pain that, somehow, didn't seem real.

  Zoru laid his hand gently on Brick's shoulder.

  "He died as he would have wished," he said gently. "As a brave man and hero, fighting for his country. He wouldn't want us to sorrow for him."

  "You're right," Brick said grimly. "He'd say, What the devil are you gabbing about me for when there's a job to be done?' "

  "What did you find out?" Zoru asked quietly.

  Brick told him then as swiftly as possible of the mighty underwater attack against the combined British and American fleets scheduled for the next twenty-four hours.

  "This is the living room. The kitchen and bath are in the fourth dimension!"

  When he had finished Zoru clenched his fists nervously.

  "That doesn't give us much time,” he muttered anxiously. "We still have no practical method for raising the Crawler. It is almost too late now to warn your country even if we did succeed in getting to the surface. While you were gone I moved it into the decompression chamber, but that only takes us fifty feet closer to our objective. Everything is in readiness, if I could just devise some method of accomplishing the elevation."

  Brick groaned and jammed his fists viciously into his pockets.

  "We're no closer than before," he grated. "If we only had a weapon that would blast this damn nest of sharks into Hades I'd be glad to pull the trigger even if it meant my own life."

  "Father!" Leolo cried suddenly. "We do have a weapon. Don't you remember the fisherman's guns? There are two of them in the laboratory locker. Would they help?"

  Brick glanced sharply at the girl.

  "What kind of weapon is it?" he said tensely.

  Zoru answered the question with a weary smile. "I'm afraid they wouldn't be of any use. They are hydrogen guns that our fishermen used in stunning the larger fish of the ocean. They could not—" His voice trailed off and he did not complete the sentence. An excited, speculative expression brought tense lines onto his keenly intelligent features. He began to pace rapidly up and down the floor, his hands clenching and unclenching nervously. "Is there a chance?" Brick cried. "For us," Zoru said thoughtfully, "there is no chance at all. But for the navies of your country there is a chance. A slim, terrible chance. But at least, a chance."

  "For God's sake!" Brick cried. "What is it?"

  "The hydrogen guns as they exist now are useless," Zoru spoke rapidly. "They were constructed to stun, not kill, large fish. But with an amplifying device their power could be increased to the point where they might destroy fish. Even metal fish!"*

  "You mean," Brick almost shouted, "we could turn this weapon against German subs?"

  Zoru nodded.

  "But we will have to use the Crawler as it is. You understand that once we leave in it we cannot come back. And we cannot rise. That is why I said there would be no chance for us."

  Brick hesitated helplessly. For himself there was no decision to be made. But it was not only his life that would be sacrificed. He didn't have the right to ask Leolo and Zoru to sacrifice theirs.

  His shoulders slumped wearily.

  "I can't ask," he began, but Leolo interrupted him softly.

  "You don't have to ask us," she said.

  "Leolo is right," Zoru said quietly. "Let us start to work. We have much to do."

  Brick felt an eager flame of hope fluttering in his breast.

  *Late in Atlantis' last days, much of it being submerged, it became necessary to depend to greater and greater extent on the foodstuffs of the sea for existence. Therefore, fishing became an important factor for continued existence, and new methods were devised. The hydrogen gun was invented, and worked on a principle of breaking down the water into its component gases. Fish, caught in the huge bubbles, suffered an expansion of their gills and consequent shock that stunned them upon emergence into water again. They then floated to the surface and were easily captured. The principle of this breaking down of water into its gases is a simple one, being simply a matter of electrolysis. Two electrodes, giving off a current, as in a battery, cause the action to take place. Hydrogen and oxygen are the two major gases in the makeup of water, and both are equally able to knock a fish out of action.—Ed.

  "Come on," he said with grim exultation.

  It took sixteen precious hours for Zoru to transform the two hydrogen guns into weapons of destruction. Even when the job was completed, the guns, to Brick, looked hopelessly innocent. Each gun consisted of a six-foot barrel about four inches in diameter. The barrel connected to a thick drum about the size of a wash tub on which was welded a control board. Their principle was a mystery to him but he knew that time was too important to waste in explanations, so he did not impede Zoru with questions.

  When the guns were in place their muzzles protruded from the nose of the Crawler like the feelers of a giant bug.

  And twenty-five hours had flitted past. Neither of the three had slept. They were grimy and exhausted, but there was an unquenchable inner flame driving them on far beyond the limits of their normal strength.

  Brick's impatience burned him like a fever. Already the deadly subs would be slipping upward like schools of sharks to unleash their terrible destructive power on the convoy of ships carrying supplies that meant life to the British.

  "How much longer?" he asked desperately.

  Zoru didn't answer. Instead he made a last adjustment on the guns, then straightened up, his face haggard with weariness, but a glint of triumph in his eyes.

  "We are ready," he said.

  With a smile, the first in days, Brick wheeled and climbed out of the Crawler. It was the work of an instant to twist the wheel that controlled the water locks. A steady trickle of water flowed through the valve spreading over the floor in a widening circle.

  Leolo was standing by the ladder when he turned and started for the rear door of the makeshift compression chamber. There was a strange mixture of relief and sadness in her expression. He could understand something of what she felt.

  "Better climb in," he said gently. "When I close and clamp the rear door we're shoving off."

  She smiled at him fleetingly. Then with a last long look back, she turned and climbed into the Crawler. In that look she had said good-bye to Atlantis.

  The water was up to Brick's ankles as he strode toward the rear door. In six more minutes the chamber would be fille
d, the pressure equalized, then the great door that held back the crushing force of the ocean would open automatically.

  It was then that he saw, through the half open door of the chamber, the three Germans moving cautiously through the laboratory, guns in hand!

  The expressions of greedy triumph on their faces told the whole story. They had evidently stumbled on the sealed section of Atlantis, and followed the twisting corridors to the lab.

  Brick had perhaps one-half second advantage over them. But he was too stunned to utilize it. It was gone then, for they spotted him, and with a concerted roar, hurled themselves forward.

  Their guns coughed spitefully, viciously, as they charged the door. A slug slammed into Brick's shoulder with enough force to knock him on his back had he been standing still.

  But he wasn't standing still. He was charging forward, every muscle in his body straining. The slug turned him half-way around, but it didn't stop him. With a desperate lunge he hurled himself at the door. His good shoulder drove into its hard surface at the same instant that the Germans crashed against it.

  For a second the door remained motionless, pressed in a vise of the human bodies straining at either side of it. Then it swung inward, slowly but inexorably, as the superior weight of the three Germans told against Brick's tiring body.

  Dimly he heard a scream behind him, but it was blotted out as one of the Germans forced his arm through the steadily widening crack and pounded his thick fist against Brick's face. He tasted salty blood in his mouth.

  Then he heard a heavy, ponderous, crunching sound growing in volume in back of him. With a sudden flash of clarity his mind identified the sound. It was the Crawler's spikes biting into the floor.

  Desperately, Brick hurled himself sideways. He slipped to his knees, foundering in the waist-high water. But he was out of the path of the huge spiked wheels of the Crawler as they pressed against the door and closed it with powerful, irresistible force.

  Brick pressed his hand to his face as a horrible, gasping scream broke high and then gurgled into frothy silence.