Joe and Dorkin exchanged puzzled glances.
“If you haven’t,” Hendricks went on, “you’d better.”
Dorkin smiled triumphantly. “Perhaps you gentlemen could do that for us!”
Hendricks turned and looked sourly at Flaherty. Then he turned stiffly to Dorkin. “Very well. We’ll be back in the morning. Good night.”
We spent the rest of the day getting the Triton berthed at the docks on the Thames, and readying the huge flatbed trailer Dorkin had procured for the monster. We fell exhausted into bed at sundown and tried to snatch a night’s sleep for the big day.
True to their promise, Professors Flaherty and Hendricks showed up early in the morning and administered the tranquilizers to Gorgo, who had spent the night shifting restlessly about on the deck of the Triton, confused and bewildered at the strange sounds of London about him. Needless to say, his own howls of resentment had likewise alarmed half of London.
At dawn we began the gigantic operation of lifting Gorgo and his net onto the flatbed. But the tranquilizers had apparently done their work well. Gorgo dozed in a somnolent state all the way through London. For emergency’s sake, Joe and I had Dorkin hire some flame throwers to accompany us.
We set out finally, bands playing and flags waving, with Gorgo inside his net on the flatbed. I was astonished at the crowds we pulled. People leaned out of windows in every building and crowded the housetops. The streets were so jammed no traffic could move.
We drove up from the London Docks along the Thames past the Tower of London, past London Bridge, through Cheapside, along Fleet Street and Strand to Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall to Westminster Bridge and House of Parliament with Big Ben, past Buckingham Palace, Victoria Station, and on over the Chelsea Bridge to Battersea Park.
It was here that we finally pulled into the grounds where Dorkin’s Circus was staked out. It was dusk when we entered the gates. All around us I could hear the growls and restless movements of the big wild animals caged about us.
Gorgo, meanwhile, hadn’t let out a peep all day. He dozed in his huge shark net, seemingly at peace with the world. I hadn’t seen a glint from those fiery, red eyes for a full eight hours.
I wondered about the wild animals, who were so suspicious of each other under normal circumstances. What did they think of Gorgo, a water-lizard freakishly snatched into this modern age from some pre-history.
I could smell the restlessness and the fear in the air. I began to have a foreboding of trouble and turned to Joe to say something, but Sean’s big eyes caught me first. “The animals do not like Ogra.”
I shivered. “You’re right, Sean. But there’s not much we can do about it.”
Sean nodded agreement, and looked out at the cages we were passing. A lion bared its teeth, wrinkling up its nose and snarling at the monster. A tiger prowled back and forth, vaguely disturbed. At the end of the street an elephant, staked out in an open field, moved its huge feet up and down in a kind of nervous stamping.
I didn’t like it one bit.
Then I saw the huge tank which had been constructed to house the monster. It was a beautiful job. I had to hand it to Dorkin. It was in the shape of a bowl, about a hundred and fifty feet in diameter, it rim a raised concrete parapet four feet off the ground. In the center stood an artificial rock just like the kind zoos have in polar bear tanks.
The giant bowl was filled with fresh water, with a standpipe for continuous circulation. The parapet was about twenty feet deep, so that it would come to the bottom of the monster’s forearms when Gorgo stood at full height. A network of high tension wires, five strands of them four feet apart, were mounted on steep posts embedded in the parapet at about twenty-four intervals. Heavy porcelain insulators attached them to the posts.
About twenty feet back from this stood an eight-foot fence to keep the spectators away from the tank and wires.
A twenty-foot opening had been cut into the fence now, through which Gorgo was to be passed into the enclosure, and then up a ramp placed in front of the tank.
We stood by while the craneman got the big machine ready. Then the flatbed trailer was backed up to the opening in the wire fence.
Jack Finn came up to us. “Okay, Captain,” he said to Joe. “The crane’s ready. You better take over.”
We walked out into the roadway, and Sean and I kept back away from the workmen. I looked around and saw the two flame throwers standing by. Dorkin himself stood on the opposite side of the giant bowl between Professors Flaherty and Hendricks.
Now Joe was monitoring the craneman to lower the chain over Gorgo’s net. The chain man climbed out on the crane arm, and shimmied down the chain. As the hook at the end came down closer to Gorgo’s net, the monster seemed to stir a bit, lifting its massive head and gazing up at the man. The chain man hooked into the net, and signaled to the crane operator.
The giant arm moved slowly skyward, and the net tightened around the quiet monster. Finally, the net left the flatbed and started through the air. I could see Gorgo’s red, bright eyes. He had awakened and was looking about him.
“The tranquilizer seems to be working,” I heard Hendricks say.
Flaherty nodded. “So far.”
The crane swung the suspended animal over to a spot directly above the ramp leading to the pool. Joe signaled and the crane arm slowly lowered. The chain man, suspended above Gorgo’s still body, took over from Joe, indicating the speed of the descent to the operator. Slowly, gently, Gorgo came to rest on the inclined ramp and the chain was pulled free.
A group of workmen ran in with huge metal clippers and started to cut the steel net from around Gorgo. I glanced across at Dorkin. The big man was watching with badly concealed apprehension.
I ordered Sean to join Dorkin, and I went over to Joe and Jack Finn. They would need me in the delicate operation of freeing the net from around the monster’s head.
Up close I could see that Gorgo seemed to have dropped off to sleep again. Two men with clippers worked quickly and steadily along the animal’s back. As they cut, the three of us pulled the big net aside, until most of Gorgo’s body was freed.
Then it happened. Some stupid idiot of a cameraman dashed out of the crowd and shot a flash picture. The flash instantly roused Gorgo, whose huge beady red eyes opened and glared out at us. Now Gorgo roared, thrashing about, snapping the last threads of the steel net. Joe, Jack Finn and I ran for our lives.
“Flame throwers!” Joe hollered. “Get those flame throwers!”
I turned to watch. As I did so I felt the ground tremble beneath me. The elephant, staked out a hundred yards away, was stamping the ground again, as the animal had when we first rode by.
I cowered there, caught between the roaring of Gorgo, now thoroughly aroused, and the snarling and trumpeting of the angered elephant. I heard a great rending sound as if a tree had been snapped in two, and I squinted through the evening darkness toward the elephant’s stakeout. The elephant reared on its hind legs, its front leg completely free! In its agitation, it had pulled the stake out of the ground. The elephant now began pounding toward me, drawn by the roaring of Gorgo.
Over my shoulder I saw Gorgo lashing about with its massive tail. Now, for the first time, Gorgo was actually free of the confines of the steel net. He moved out tentatively, down the ramp. The flatbed stood in his way. With a swipe of the tail, Gorgo turned the truck over.
The ground trembled again. The roars of the elephant and Gorgo drowned out all other sound. My heart was in my throat. I ran pell-mell for the safety of the roadway, and none to soon. All I could see were quickly moving shadows as panicked men dashed off into the darkness, trying to get as far away as possible from the enraged prehistoric monster.
I turned, cowering like a rabbit behind the safety of the cement bowl. Joe stood not far from me, cursing. And behind us stood Jack Finn, Sean and the professors. The enraged elephant, charging madly over the ground, headed straight towards the green sea monster.
Gorgo moved out curiou
sly, meeting this new challenge with grim determination. Gorgo swung toward the elephant, and observed it for a moment. He moved his head sideways, indulging in an intellectual study of the strange, tusked pachyderm.
The elephant ran full blast into Gorgo, burying its tusks deeply in the massive green body. The monster staggered back under the impact, but immediately regained its balance, turned, and faced the elephant, beating the ground angrily with the huge, powerful lizard-like tail.
The elephant back off, stunned. For the first time in its life it had not succeeded in goring an enemy with its tusks. This enemy was a brand new one with a peculiar smell and a tough hide that did not damage.
The elephant charged again, coming in from the side to sink its tusks into Gorgo’s throat, instinctively seeking the jugular. As it came running in, Gorgo shifted stance just the slightest, and flipped at the elephant head with its massive tail.
The elephant crawled to its feet, swaying and weaving, staring with unfocused eyes at the green monster eyeing it truculently. Clambering from the ruins of the oak tree, the elephant again mounted an attack, and rushed across the ground at the beast. In the do-or-die tactic, the elephant leaped off the ground in its last dozen yards, and hurtled directly at Gorgo’s neck.
Gorgo’s shifted stance again to sidestep the elephant’s rush. The elephant tore into Gorgo’s side, and as it did so, Gorgo turned and sank his own sharp fangs into the neck of the elephant. With a sudden flip of the body, Gorgo lifted the entire five tons of wriggling elephant into the air and threw him down to the ground.
We could feel the shock waves go through the earth at our feet.
An then, as the elephant lay twisted and bleeding on the ground, the monster of Nara rose to its full height and plunged its talons into the body of the elephant. Instantly the elephant was rent to pieces and moved no more.
There was a short hiatus to the violence. As Gorgo looked down at the kill, Joe signaled the flame-throwers again, and they rushed in toward the monster. Joe and I ran over with them. I saw Jack Finn come up behind us, the inevitable cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was charged with emotion, but on the surface he appeared as placid and expressionless as he’d ever been on the Triton.
The flame-throwers advanced on Gorgo from two directions. I could see the monster’s red eyes staring at the flames. Gorgo’s head moved from side to side. Actually, the monster looked as if he was in a mood to take on the whole bunch of us, and the circus animals besides.
Joe gave a whistle, and the flame-throwers tried a couple bursts of flame. Gorgo roared, and pawed at the ground. The talons grazed the two men. Joe moved in, waving the flame-throwers closer. They edged in, keeping a blast of flame steadily directed on Gorgo’s tough hide. The flames touched Gorgo. He bellowed in anguish, and moved back.
“Oh, God!” someone cried beside me. I looked down. It was Sean.
“Get out of here!” I yelled. “You little fool, do you want to be killed?”
Sean looked up at me with pain in his eyes. He was visibly suffering along with the monster.
Now the beast began to retreat, bellowing in pain, guided and urged on by carefully controlled bursts of flame. I saw Jack Finn move in to help the first flame-thrower.
Gorgo turned and saw the ramp. Avoiding the fire, he headed for the ramp, deciding that was where salvation lay. I began to feel a slight relaxation of tension. Gorgo was just about safely caged.
Then, so fast no one could anticipate it, the great tail flicked. Jack Finn had just moved close to direct the flame-thrower. The tail hit him full in the body, a smashing blow. He sailed into the air and slammed to the ground, lying motionless.
I ran over there, disregarding the damned beast and the flame-throwers. I reached him first, Joe right behind me. I turned the terribly mangled body over. I saw the blood and the broken bones and the torn flesh and I was sick.
“Boats!” I murmured, and let the body settle to the earth.
Joe closed his eyes. “God,” he said, almost a prayer.
I stared into the darkness about us. I saw Sean in the light of the flame-thrower. His eyes were on mine. There was no surprise in them. It was almost as if he had known from the first. Who was next. I wondered. Joe? Sean? Me?
In the distance I could see that the flame-throwers had now finished their job. Gorgo had finally climbed the ramp, and was moving uneasily about in the cage. Once inside the pool, he rose to his full height at the parapet, reached out and grasped the lowest strand of charged wire.
Instantly there was a bright, crackling flash. Gorgo bellowed in pain, backed off, and climbed upon the rock in the center of the pool. Then he lifted his head and sounded a long, plaintive roar.
Sean watched with level, understanding, compassionate eyes.
Chapter 11
We drew crowds. We broke records. People came from all over England to ogle the Eighth Wonder of the World. There wasn’t enough room for everybody who wanted to see Gorgo.
I should have been the happiest man in the world.
I was the most miserable.
I’d stand out there and watch the shrieking, yelping fools as they peered and goggled at the monster in the tank. I’d watch them, and then I’d watch Gorgo.
Gorgo was bewildered and unhappy. The milling, gaping crowd seemed to outmaneuver him. Every so often he would give a mournful, lonesome bellow, at which the stupid crowd would roar in delight. Then Gorgo would shrink from the sound, and try to get under the surface of the water.
But if course, there wasn’t room.
Sean was as sick of the circus as I was.
Joe thrived on it. He counted the money with Dorkin every night, gave me my split, and then disappeared into London somewhere. Wine. Women. Song. And plenty more if I knew Joe. He’d bought himself one of those low-slung foreign cars, a cream white Frazer-Nash Targa Florio, and he’d red dog that through the London traffic. He bought himself about twelve new changes of expensive duds. He liked to live it up big. He was in the chips now. More power to him, if that was what he wanted.
As for me, I was sick and tired of the whole damned business.
About a week after we’d opened, I was sitting inside the circus wagon with Sean, who was in bed asleep, when I heard Joe drive the jalopy up and get out. He was whistling jauntily, and when he opened the door I saw that he’d bought another suit of clothes. He appeared a little uneasy as he walked up to the table where I was sitting. He looked at the bottle of Irish whisky I was working on.
“I was going into town,” Joe muttered hesitantly. “I saw your light.”
I nodded, not looking at him. “Have fun.”
“I thought you might like to go along,” he said nervously. “Have a couple belts with me.”
“Don’t worry about old Sam, kid. I’m having a couple of belts myself.” I looked up at him. “How’s business?”
Joe expanded, his eyes lighting up, ignoring the needle I was giving him. “Great!” Then he deflated, like a broken balloon. “Sam, will you quit bucking it?” He looked around at the circus wagon disgustedly. “Get out of this dump! Live a little! I got a whole suite at Claridge’s!”
I looked over at Sean. “This wagon seems to suit the two of us, Joe.”
Outside there was a sudden commotion in the grounds. We could hear animals roaring, scuttling about in their cages. I got up and looked out of the window. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel it.
“The animals are going crazy. Something’s going to happen, Joe. I can feel it. Boats is dead. Who’s next?”
Joe shook his head and pounded the table with his fist. “I’m as sorry about Jack Finn as you are. It was a tough break, that’s all.”
“He’s got a wife in Galway. That’ll make it just fine for her, knowing it was only a tough goddamned break!”
“Maybe we can send her some dough,” Joe suggested absently.
“Sure. That’ll help a lot. But he’s dead. And nothing’s going to bring him back. There’ll be more tough bre
aks before this is over!”
Joe took a deep breath and turned toward the door. “You’ve been listening to your new buddy too much.” He squinted at Sean’s sleeping form.
“No,” I said softly. “I’ve been listening to someone I should have listened to before. Myself.”
“See you, kid,” Joe said, waving and stepping out into the night. I sat there and poured myself another drink. I could hear the Frazer-Nash start up. Joe threw it into gear and roared down the road toward London.
It was only about five minutes after the sound of the jalopy faded that I got the phone call from Professor Hendricks at Dinosaur Hall at the Natural History Museum. He seemed to be in a state of suppressed excitement, and wanted to see both Joe and me right away. I explained that Joe was out. He suggested I come over as soon as possible.
I left a note for Sean, and flagged down a cab on Queens Road. It was only a short drive across Chelsea Bridge and up to Cromwell Road. I walked up to the big terra cotta building with its distinctive Romanesque front, staring up at the high towers which seemed to loom two hundred feet in the air.
A guard took me to Dinosaur Hall where all the reconstructed reptiles of the Mesozonic Age stand about in shadowy darkness.
I found Professor Hendricks at the top of a fifteen foot ladder, holding a photograph in his hand and comparing it to the skull of the dinosaur skeleton beside him. At the foot of the ladder Professor Flaherty stood, studying three huge photographic blow-ups of Gorgo which he had taken several days before at the circus.
“Oh, hello,” said Professor Hendricks, squinting at me in the gloom. He climbed down the ladder. “I’m glad you could come, at least.”
That seemed to be a cut at Joe, but I let it pass. I shook hands with him and with Flaherty, who said nothing.
“You said there was something important.”
“We think so,” Hendricks said briskly. “Mr. Slade, the creature you’ve captured is not an adult specimen.”
I looked at him. “You mean, Gorgo isn’t full grown?” I glanced at Flaherty who would not meet my eyes.
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