Gorgo

by Carson Bingham

  Then Joe tossed his torch at the beast’s head. It hit the monster square on the wounded eye. Bellowing in pain, it let out a roar of anguish, as much as of anger, gush from its cavernous throat.

  Other torches followed Joe’s, and finally I let mine arc up at the beast’s head. Flames leaped off the monster’s scales, but did it no harm. The monster gazed at us all in a pathetic, wistful way, as if it did not know why it was being attacked, and then it turned and headed for the water. As it did so, it scattered the embers of a large bonfire, sending flames flying in all directions with a flick of its tail.

  The monster lumbered to the surf, slid into the water and vanished under the smooth inky surface.

  We stood immobilized for a long time afterward, trying to steady our nerves. But after the beast’s disappearance, there wasn’t a single ripple on the water.

  “Good Lord, let’s get out of here.” Joe whispered.

  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  Chapter 5

  There wasn’t much sleep aboard the Triton for any of us during what remained of the night, and we were hard at work on deck by early morning. I’ve never wanted to get out of a place so fast in my life. I had only one twinge of regret. I’d decided it would be best to forget about Moira. With McCartin ready to rip anybody to pieces who even glanced at her, I figured it wouldn’t do to provoke him. He’d only take it out on her.

  We’d been working no more than a quarter of an hour when we heard a loud commotion on the beach. I could see a group of McCartin’s divers moving toward the dock. And right in back of them, gesticulating and angry, puffed Kevin McCartin himself.

  Joe and I jumped onto the dock and met the group. A stubble-bearded young man stepped forward and approached Joe. McCartin stood back, glowering at us.

  “We’ll be wanting passage on your ship, Mister,” the young man said. He glanced around at McCartin sullenly. “When His Nibs gets around to giving us our pay.”

  McCartin moved around quickly and faced the group. “Now hold on, you men. You’ll get your pay, if you like. But there’ll be no taking passage on any ships!”

  “Why not?” Joe asked.

  McCartin whirled on us. “For God’s sake, Ryan!” He started to frame his words, and then he frowned at the men hovering near him. He grimaced. “Come on over to the house, you two. I want to talk to you.”

  Joe winked at me covertly. “Why not?”

  The divers stayed on the dock while we followed McCartin. I saw Sean regarding us from a window of the cottage. I didn’t catch sight of Moira, but I had the feeling she was watching, also.

  We went into the cottage and closed the door behind us. McCartin faced us looking surprisingly worried.

  “Let’s lay our cards on the table, gentlemen,” he said, beginning to pace up and down in front of his microscope and assaying equipment. “The whole thing’ll go smash if they leave. All my divers. My Boatmen. The lot of them!”

  I grinned wryly. “I kind of see their point.”

  Joe’s yellow eyes gleamed. “You got any special reason you don’t want them to leave?”

  McCartin’s beard bristled. “What do you mean?”

  Joe reached in his pocket and took out the three gold coins that had fallen from the dead diver’s pouch. He showed them to McClartin.

  “Like, maybe you don’t want them to talk too much?”

  McCartin’s face flushed. He moved back a bit, his lips tight, his fists clenched. He spoke in a strangled voice. “Where did you get those?”

  Joe’s teeth glinted, and his lips pulled tight in a wolf’s grin. “The same place you did.” He put the coins carefully back in his pocket. I could see the calculating look in his eyes, and I knew he was ready to sink the shaft. “Suppose we could get rid of that thing out there? Joe said.

  “The beast in the harbor? You think you can?” McCartin was startled.

  Joe rubbed the side of his chin. “Maybe.” I could see his eyes move across to the far door, the door to the store room. “Let’s take another look in there,” he said softly.

  McCartin’s eyes riveted on Joe’s face. Then he wheeled abruptly, pulled the door open and we went in.

  Joe pointed to the safe. “Open it up.”

  McCartin swelled and his face turned red. “Not on your bloody tintype! Look here, I’ve stood about enough of you!”

  Joe shrugged elaborately, looking at me, nodding.

  “Okay. I guess we can always make a few bucks for ourselves taking those diving birds back where they came from.”

  McCartin looked first at Joe and then at me, and bit his lip. Moving quickly, he spun the dial and flipped open the safe door. He stood back so we could see. Inside was a king’s ransom in gold coins and gold chalices studded with precious stones. A fortune in salvage. I could feel the itch in my own palm. Joe had drawn to a bobtailed flush—and won! But he wasn’t through yet. He was still as cool as a December morning.

  “Nice,” he grinned, reaching in. He picked out the biggest of the gleaming chalices. He brought it out, hefted it, admired it and showed it to me. “How about this, Sam, for a little down payment? You like?”

  I tried to keep a straight face. “Not bad.”

  McCartin ground his teeth in rage. “You’re out of your mind! A thing like that is priceless! And how do you think you’re going to dispose of it? This stuff belongs to the government!”

  Joe’s mouth thinned to a tight little grin. “I’ll bet you had some way figured. And if you did, so can we!”

  McCartin advanced on Joe, his hands moving convulsively, “Filthy blackmailer!”

  Joe dodged aside, and backhanded him savagely in the mouth. McCartin staggered, more surprised than hurt.

  “We’ll get your beast for you,” Joe said. “But mind your lip!”

  McCartin put his handkerchief to his bleeding lip and glowered at Joe.

  “You’re getting off easy friend. After all, you’ve in no spot to squawk, even if we grabbed the whole thing. Milking the government, holding out on them, for fifteen years?”

  McCartin rubbed his cheek. “I’ve been here fifteen years, yes. But I didn’t locate that wreck until two years ago. I’m merely accumulating this stuff for the proper time.”

  Joe laughed harshly. “I’ll bet. The proper time for taking it on the lam!”

  McCartin slammed the safe shut, and glared at us. “When will you start?”

  “Now,” Joe said. “Why not?”

  We left McCartin eating his heart out, and went down the slope to the path. When we’d turned the bend away from the house, we found Sean and Moira waiting for us in the path.

  “Mr. Ryan,” Sean said.

  Joe wasn’t looking at Sean. He was looking hungrily at Moira. His cheek twitched. I felt a sudden surge of anger, but caught myself before I moved on him.

  “Call me Joe, kid.” Joe was staring at Moira.

  Sean’s eyes were big with pleading. “You’ll be trying to catch him? Ogra?”

  “Yeah Sean,” Joe said, reaching out and tousling the boy’s hair. “Stick around for a good show.”

  “No!” It was Moira who spoke now, her sea-green eyes alarmed. She darted a glance at me, then faced Joe.

  “You can’t!”

  Joe’s face lit up. “You’re worried!” He turned to me. “She’s concerned over me, Sam!”

  A flush crept into the girl’s cheeks. “No,” she said quickly. “But ’tis a bad thing you’re doing. I do not worry about you. I worry for all of us. The world . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Joe grinned. “I don’t get it.”

  “ ’Tis a manifestation of evil,” Moira said rapidly. “Don’t you see? ’Tis the monster of the devil, making its appearance on earth to warn us all of the cataclysm. We have a saying: Nuair atá tú go sóúil fulaing thú féin. Do you understand what I am saying? Leave well enough alone. Heed the warning. Do not tempt the devil.”

  “Don’t catch the monster?” Joe grinned. “Is that what you’re sayi
ng?”

  “Yes,” Moira whispered. “Or it will be the death of us all. Mark my words.”

  With a glance at me, she turned abruptly from us and vanished around the rock outcrop. Sean glanced at us briefly and followed her.

  I didn’t say anything until we hit the beach. “What about all that? She’s no dummy, you know. She may have something.”

  “Superstitious hogwash!” Joe snapped. “Now, how the hell do we catch it? With the shark net? And how do we kill a thing that flicks off harpoons like toothpicks?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Dynamite?”

  Joe’s eyes glinted suddenly. “Sam,” he mused. “You ever think how much that thing could be worth to us—alive.”

  I could almost see him counting the greenbacks. And somehow, even though I’m no angel myself, and I’d run guns to the Cubans with Joe, and smuggled contraband, I felt a shiver run up and down my spine. I somehow felt there was something inherently evil in everything that touched this operation. Or maybe I just had a powerful imagination.

  Once we started working on the shark net, however, I forgot my twinges of apprehension, and plunged into the deckside activity. We’d finished with our repairs at the dock, and steamed out about a half mile to sea. It was here that we were rigging the big net.

  We had our two giant booms out over the side, running steel cables from dead-end snatch-blocks on deck, up through the blocks on the booms, and back to the winch. From these cables we hung the huge steel net, and watched Jack Finn at the winch as he slowly lowered the shark net down into the water.

  Joe and I put the finishing touches to the bathysphere operation. I’d rigged the cable of the ’sphere to a small boom, and had it in position to lower over the side. I was ready to climb into the ’sphere now. Joe and I had flipped a coin, and I won.

  The ’sphere was a good idea, really. We’d decided the best was to flush out the monster was to attract it with a light of some kind. And the ’sphere has illumination inside, and powerful movable spots outside. That would bring out the beast, if anything would.

  “Okay, Boats?” Joe called to Jack Finn.

  Finn nodded.

  Joe turned to me, and stuck out his hand. “Luck, kid.”

  I grinned and stepped inside the ’sphere. The heavy door clanged shut with a shudder, and I instantly felt the oppressive claustrophobia I always experience once I’m inside the damned thing. It’s always the same feeling a professional actor get just before going on stage every night. I’ll never get over it, either.

  I put on the earphones and blew into the speaker phone. “Am I coming through, Joe?”

  “Loud and clear,” Joe said, his voice filtered and electronic and unnatural in the headset.

  “I’m ready to dive if you are.”

  I could feel the gentle hum of the big deck winch as it started up, and then I could feel myself suspended slightly in the air, free from the rocking solidity of the deck. Up we went, until the bathysphere cleared the rails. Then I felt myself swing out over the ocean. Now I went down, and it was dark as the water closed over me.

  I stood at the view plate and watched the water as I continued into the depths. It grew darker and I could feel the murky weight of the sea close in over me. I switched the interiors on and was instantly bathed in a glow of artificial yellow light.

  “Give me about fifteen fathoms, Joe,” I said into the phone. “Then I’ll tell you.”

  Groups of fish swirled by, peering in at me, as the outer regions grew even darker. I saw the bulging eyes and protruding snout of a black grouper as it nosed around my view plate, and then it lazily swam off and disappeared. I flipped the exterior spotlight on, and the big beams cut into the water around me. The nature of the sea changed gradually down here. The life was of a different type. Light was an unknown thing. I could feel animal eyes staring at me, wondering what I was.

  “Fifteen fathoms,” Joe’s voice crackled in the ear phones.

  “Okay. Hold it.”

  I moved the exterior spotlight about. I could see nothing unusual.

  “Give me slow engines, Joe. Four or five knots. Head her down the bay.”

  After a moment I felt a slight tremor on the cable holding the bathysphere, and then I began moving along through the water, tilted at a slight angle.

  “Where are we, Joe?” I asked.

  “Just off the point.”

  I kept the lights moving, and flushed out a few strange undersea fish, but nothing interesting. And then, about ten minutes after I’d been down, the big beam of light seemed to lift out something huge, vague, and ill-defined—a shadow in the dark, just beyond the range of the lights.

  “Joe! Stop engines!”

  I saw it! I saw it coming slowly out of the darkness into the light. It had seen me, and it was attracted to the light. It was not moving fast, but it was prowling about, confused, its tremendous reptilian head swaying back and forth in the water. But it kept moving toward me.

  “Christ! It’s here. Stand by with that net!” I yelled.

  I could see the big head now, and the gleaming red eyes studying the ’sphere. It extended its head then, somewhat like a fish investigating a lure. And when it did I could feel the tremendous power of the huge body movements. The ’sphere moved slightly, like a swaying pendulum. The huge, scaly, green face pressed up to the view plate, and I could almost feel the monster’s slimy, rubbery, tough-plated hide.

  “Take me up,” I said cautiously into the phone. “But not too fast. I don’t want to lose him.”

  Just as I spoke, I knew it was too late. The big head reared back, and then it darted right at the ’sphere; the beast’s jaws opened wide. The mouth wouldn’t swallow the bathysphere, I told myself nervously. It couldn’t swallow me! But I was sweating and shaking. It looked in at me, puzzled. Then I felt the whole bathysphere shudder and lurch about. I realized what had happened. It had clapped one of its great talons over the ’sphere to steady it, and was knawing at the metal with its mouth. I thought ludicrously of a puppy trying to get his mouth around a tennis ball that was too big for it.

  I went down to my knees as the monster chewed at the big bathysphere, flicking it about in the water. I could see through the view plate now, and the powerful beam of the spotlight showed redness and fleshy pulp. I was looking right down the monster’s open throat!

  “Pull up! Pull up!” I shouted at the speaker phone.

  The bathysphere trembled, jerked, heaved up, swayed and rotated. I couldn’t keep my footing. I was being bounced from side to side of the ’sphere. The monster’s inner mouth covered the view plate now, and I could hear the terrible sounds of steel tearing and rivets snapping and bolts shearing.

  I was on the floor of the ’sphere and a jetting stream of water suddenly spurted in through a wide crack at the seam.

  “For God’s sake, Joe! Pull! Pull!”

  The water was spraying all over me, and I couldn’t stop it. I was wallowing in it now. It poured in faster as the seam widened. The monster was tearing the ’sphere to pieces with its powerful jaws.

  I knew it couldn’t be long now. I grabbed the phone again.

  I don’t know how many seconds elapsed, but I do know that after a moment the ’sphere stopped its agitation and hung limply in the water. Then the spotlight picked out the monster, and I clambered to my feet. I stood hip deep in water now, yelling frantically to be hauled up.

  I started to move. And as I did so the spotlight from the ’sphere caught the monster. I could see that the shark net had descended over its back. And the monster reacting to the new enemy, had slashed at it with a powerful talon, letting go of me.

  The monster was shaking the claw, trying to get it loose from the net. It was caught tight.

  The monster, anxious now, swiped at the net with its other talon, and became entangled from both sides.

  “Snug up! Snug up the net!” I cried into the phone. “We’ve got him!”

  Now, as I moved up through the water, I could see the
net turning in around the monster, tightening up like a string purse. The monster was hopelessly entangled now, fighting frantically in a losing battle.

  I felt the welcome relief of swift ascent. It was only a few moments before I climbed out of the ’sphere, shaken to the core, and saw that the fight was just getting under way on deck.

  Jack Finn was working the winch. Joe was supervising the operation from the rail. Just as I climbed into dry clothes, I saw the huge net emerge from the water with the madly struggling monster inside.

  “Swing her in!” Joe cried.

  The boom moved the big monster in toward the deck and Joe yelled out: “Get ready with the shackle bolts!”

  Crewmen leaped to execute his orders, pulling tight on the cable running through the shackle bolts and attached on the deck to rim bolts. As they pulled in tightly, the netted monster was secured to the deck, enmeshed in its flexible steel prison.

  We had caught the monster of Nara!

  Chapter 6

  It didn’t take long for the news to get out. Nara was a lighthouse island, and it had a government radio tower. By nightfall the news was all over the world. I caught a radio broadcast in my bunk that night after dinner.

  “Headlines of the entire world are being monopolized today by news of the capture of a fantastic sea monster, seemingly of prehistoric origin, off the coast of Ireland,” the announcer trumpeted.

  “Puzzled scientists are already speculating that the monster may have been released from some vast sub-oceanic cavern far beneath the earth’s crust, by unprecedented volcanic eruptions which occurred in the area recently.

  “Some scientific authorities, however, are suggesting that the whole thing is no more than an elaborate Irish hoax. Nevertheless, the Irish government is sending two of its top paleontologists to claim the creature for Ireland.” The broadcaster’s voice turned sardonic. “If it does exist.”

  I snapped off the set and grinned. It existed all right. I heard Joe snort disgustedly at the end of my bunk. He had come in and caught the last of the announcer’s words.