The message itself was terse. It directed Marston to report to the commanding officer’s headquarters first thing Monday morning. In traditional naval fashion Marston was told to show up at or about 06:00 hours, on or about July 3, 1944. Marston had never heard of anyone in the Navy arriving after the designated time and date with the excuse that he had arrived “about” the indicated time.
Aurelia Blenheim steered Marston into an easy chair and carried the bag of groceries into his kitchen. She had visited the Brookside Drive cottage before, although months had passed since her last visit. Marston put some light music on the turntable, an RCA Red Seal twelve-inch recording of ‘Vltava’ by the tragic Bohemian madman Bedrich Smetana.
With astonishing speed Blenheim produced a tempting bouillabaisse. The odour coming from the kitchen was mouthwatering and the flavour of the marine stew proved delicious. The only problem, for Marston, was that everything seemed overdone. He would have preferred to consume the aquatic creatures uncooked.
After dinner they relaxed in Marston’s living room with glasses of pre-war brandy. Jokingly, Aurelia Blenheim asked why Marston’s mother hadn’t taught him to take better care of himself. When he reacted to the question with frowning silence the older woman set down her glass and took his free hand between both of hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Marston drew away. Of late his arthritis had become worse. The last joints of his fingers and toes had curled downwards and his finger- and toenails seemed to be turning into claws. He worked to keep them trimmed but they grew back rapidly. The small triangles of flesh between the bases of his digits were growing, also, a change that proved helpful in water but embarrassing in public.
Desperate to draw attention away from his increasing physical abnormalities, Marston said, “No, I’m afraid she didn’t.”
Blenheim frowned, “Who didn’t what?”
“My mother. She never taught me to take care of myself. She never taught me anything. I never knew her. My father told me that she loved to swim. They lived in Chicago and she would swim in Lake Michigan all year round. She joined a group, they called themselves the Polar Bear Club, and they would plunge into the lake every New Year’s Day, no matter how cold it was, even if it was snowing. But that was just a stunt. They used to get their picture in the Chicago Times and the Tribune and the Sun. But Mother took it all very seriously. The photographers loved her, she was the only female Polar Bear.”
He took a deep draught of golden liqueur.
“She was an immigrant,” he resumed. “I never knew where she was born. Father just said it was a cold country. I was born on December 25th, you know,” he changed the subject. “I was a Christmas baby.” He said it with bitterness. “Father brought Mother and me home from the hospital on New Year’s Eve. The next day Mother insisted on her annual plunge with the other Polar Bears. They used to run out into the lake, throw themselves into the surf, frisk for a few minutes and then come running back out of the water. But Mother swam out. Snow was falling, Father told me, and visibility was poor. Mother just swam out into the lake. They sent search parties after her but they never found her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Aurelia Blenheim said. She started again to reach for his hand, then drew back, avoiding a repetition of his previous withdrawal. After a moment she said, “Did your father ever re-marry?”
Marston shook his head. “He raised me alone, as best he could, until he was gunned down when I was six. I had no other relatives and I wound up bouncing from one orphanage to another until I went out on my own.”
“But you’ve made such a success of yourself, Delbert. I never knew about your childhood. How sad. But look at you now, a tenured professor, a respected member of the community. I’m so proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself.”
She insisted on clearing the dishes and cleaning up Marston’s kitchen. She returned to the living room and said, “You know I live nearby. I’ll just walk home, it’s such a warm evening. Please promise me you’ll take better care of yourself. And let me know how things work out at Port Chicago. As much as the Navy lets you tell me, of course.”
He stood on his lawn and watched until she disappeared. He returned to his house and filled another snifter of brandy, then sipped until it was gone. The summer evening was long and he was in agony by the time full darkness descended. Then he left the house and drove to the marina. He parked, disrobed at the water’s edge and slipped into the Bay.
* * *
Monday morning he rose early and drove to Port Chicago. The naval base consisted mainly of warehouses and barracks. A railroad spur ran onto a pier that extended into the Bay. Even at this early hour he could see crews of coloured stevedores in Navy fatigues working to move munitions from railroad cars to the hold of a ship moored to the side of the pier. The stevedores were supervised by white men in officers’ uniforms.
A guard had demanded to see Marston’s identification and the telegram summoning him to the base. Once satisfied, the guard directed Marston to the headquarters building, a wood-frame structure badly in need of fresh paint. Once inside he was escorted by a smartly uniformed WAVE into the commander’s office.
Captain Kinne looked as if he had stepped out of bandbox. Every crease in his uniform was knife-sharp, every button glistened.
Marston of course wore civilian garb, the academic uniform of tweed jacket, flannel slacks and button-down shirt. He had replaced his customary striped necktie with a scarf that concealed his gill-slits and added a pair of oversized dark glasses. He stood in front of Captain Kinne’s desk wondering whether he was expected to salute or shake hands. The WAVE introduced him and Kinne looked up at him. “You’re Marston, eh?”
He said, “I am.”
“All right, I just wanted to get a look at you. Tell a lot about a man with one look. You’ll do. What happened to your hands, Marston? Some kind of tropical disease? Jungle rot?”
Marston started to answer but Kinne went on.
“Jaspers,” he addressed the WAVE, “take Mr. Marston down the hall. Give him to Keeler.” He turned back to Marston and nodded curtly. “Go with Jaspers. Keeler will tell you what to do. Thanks for coming.”
The WAVE, obviously Jaspers, led Marston to another office. She halted and knocked at the door, then turned the knob and opened the door a few inches. “Mr. Marston is here, sir.”
She gestured and Marston stepped past her into the office. He heard Jaspers close the door behind him. He found himself in a smaller office now, surrounded by charts and manuals. The man who stood up to greet him wore a set of summer khakis with the twin tracks of a Navy lieutenant on the collar.
“A real pleasure to see you again, Dr. Marston. After that little party in Curwen Heights I was afraid you wouldn’t want anything to do with us.”
“Ben Keeler?” Marston said. “You’ve certainly risen fast. You were a junior petty officer the last time I saw you.”
Keeler grinned. “Petty Officer Third Ben Keeler, Lieutenant Benjamin Keeler, same fellow. ONI put me in that EM’s uniform to check out the New Deep Ones Society. They were pretty worried at one point, those kids were getting too close to the truth and the Naval Intelligence wanted them steered off. That was my job. I still attend their meetings, by the way. If you ever want to come by again, I’d love some moral support. Just don’t blow my cover.”
“All right,” Marston smiled. “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with Naval Intelligence.”
“And they’re just a bunch of harmless eccentrics, you know,” Keeler added. He walked around the desk and put his arm on Marston’s shoulders. “Take a walk with me, Dr. Marston. There are some things you need to see, and then some questions I’ll want to ask you.”
Marston acceded, determined not to show the pain that he knew he was in for. At Keeler’s side he made his way along the pier. A freighter stood in the middle of Suisun Bay, black smoke pouring from its stacks. It would clear the Golden Gate before noon, Marston knew, en route to the
soldiers and marines fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. An empty ship had already taken the place of the freighter on one side of the pier, while another, opposite it, received pallets and crates of munitions.
As they moved past work gangs Keeler took salutes from ensigns and petty officers supervising the stevedores. The latter continued to work as Marston and Keeler passed.
At the end of the pier they halted. A breeze had kicked up and the surface of Suisun Bay had turned choppy.
Marston gestured back toward the work gangs they had passed. “All of the stevedores are Negroes, all of the officers are white,” he commented. The question was implicit.
“That’s Navy policy,” Keeler said. “Not very long ago the Navy was trying to get rid of all its Negroes, even though they were just mess-men and laundry workers. Filipinos make better workers. But there’s too much pressure from Washington, finally the service gave in. And these coloured stevedores are pretty good, as long as you keep a close eye on them.”
They turned to face the buildings of Port Chicago. “What we’re concerned about, Del, is a very special cargo that we’re going to ship out this month.”
Marston nodded, then waited for Keeler to continue.
“It’s a very special bomb. It’s coming in by train next week, and Captain Kinne wanted to get your help in handling it.”
Marston shook his head. “What do I know about bombs?”
“Oh, we have plenty of people who know about bombs,” Keeler grinned. “We need somebody who knows hydrology and submarine geology to keep this baby safe.”
“What is it, something bigger than the ones LeMay is dropping on Japan? The closer we get to the home islands, the easier it’s’ going to be to hit ’em.”
“No,” Keeeler shook his head. “This is something different. Look, everybody knows that we’re close to finishing off the European war. Ike took a big risk with the Normandy landings but that was a big success and Patton and Montgomery are rolling through France. Italy’s out of the game. And the Russians are closing in on the Nazis from the East. It’s just a matter of time now.”
“And in the Pacific, too, don’t you agree, Benjamin?”
“But we’re taking terrible losses. The President is up for reelection this November and those casualties are going to hurt him. He’s put pressure on the War Department and the Navy Department to give him this bigger, better bomb. We figure once we drop a couple of these babies on Japan, maybe one on Tokyo and one on Kobe, even the fanatical Nips will cave in. Washington doesn’t want to have to invade the home islands, don’t you see. That’s what this is all about, Del.”
There was a moment of silence as a zephyr swept in from the Bay, bringing the smell of brine and brackish waters with it. Then the wind shifted and the clatter of tools, the sound of voices, the roar of donkey engines came to them from the ships and the railroad cars.
“And there’s another thing,” Keeler added. “You know Uncle Sam didn’t much care for the Bolshies when they first took over Russia twenty-five years ago. President Wilson even sent some troops over there. The government doesn’t like to talk about that any more now that Joe Stalin is our buddy but you know we took sides in their civil war and we picked a loser.”
“That was a long time ago,” Marston put in.
The combination of the choppy Bay and the increasingly brisk breeze whipped up a spray of salt-flavoured water that pelted onto the pier and onto Keeler and Marston. Keeler pulled a bandanna from his uniform trousers pocket and wiped his face, frowning. Marston licked his lips. He felt hugely refreshed.
“The US wouldn’t even recognise the new government in Russia until Roosevelt came in, and there are still a lot of powerful men in Washington who don’t trust Stalin and his gang. They want to get this new bomb and use it before the war is over as a warning to the Reds not to get too big for their britches.”
He hooked his arm through Marston’s and the two men strolled back along the pier, returning finally to Keeler’s office. Keeler said, “Will you get to work on this, Del? Captain Kinne has already worked it out with his counterparts, you’ll be excused from your other duties until the special bomb is safely out on the ocean, on its way to a bomber base in the islands. We need your analysis and your recommendations about the seabed and waters from here to the Farralons. And we need your report before that ship moves. The bomb is coming in next week, and we need to get it out of here on the Quinalt Victory. Our Negroes will be working on the Bryan most of the time, that will serve as cover for the bomb going out on the Quinalt.”
Keeler opened a safe and extracted a pass for Marston. “This will get you anywhere on the base,” he said. “Guard it, Del, it could be dangerous if it got away from you.”
Marston accepted the pass, slipped it into his pocket and left.
* * *
He spent the next few days alternating between Port Chicago and the University campus in Berkeley, studying the physical layout at Suisun Bay and existing charts and studies of the area. He could hardly hold himself back from examining the seabed in person, but he resisted the temptation until he felt ready.
Then he drove from Berkeley to Port Chicago after dark, parked the Cord, and walked out to the pier. The work here went on around the clock, seven days a week. There was no way he could use the pier without being observed, so he informed the young officer supervising the loading work of his intentions.
At the end of the pier he left his clothing, climbed down a ladder, and slipped into the water.
The Bay water was cold and dark and as it welcomed him he felt the aches leave his body and limbs. He had always been a strong swimmer; now, the webbing between his fingers and between his toes turned him into a virtual amphibian. His eyes, too, had developed a sensitivity that permitted him to manoeuvre in the dark, brackish water.
He spotted a huge dark-green crab scuttling toward a large rock on the seabed. The creature didn’t have a chance. Marston’s new, powerful jaw and strong, triangular teeth crunched through its shell. The living meat was sweet and the juices of the crab were more delicious than the finest liquor.
Marston saw human-like forms swimming nearby and pursued them. Ever since his encounter with the dead creature he had wondered about these beings. They might be a species of giant batrachian hitherto unknown to science, far larger than any recorded frog or toad; perhaps they were survivors of a species of amphibian that had evolved aeons ago only to disappear from most of the world.
He swam after them and they permitted him to approach them but not to establish direct contact. They swam with the current created by the waters of the Sacramento River as it emptied into Suisun Bay. They looked back from time to time as if to encourage Marston to follow them, but the speed and stamina with which they swam far exceeded even his enhanced abilities.
Finally he gave up and swam back toward the loading pier and the two ships at Port Chicago.
He climbed the ladder, then drew himself onto the pier. The young ensign he had spoken with earlier greeted him with a shake of his head. “I was getting pretty worried,” the ensign said. “Do you know how long you were gone, sir? And do you realise how cold the Bay is, and how tricky the currents can be?”
Marston didn’t feel like talking with this youngster but he managed a few polite words. Yes, he knew exactly what he was doing, he had never been in danger, there was nothing to worry about but he appreciated the ensign’s concern.
During the brief conversation he had been pulling his clothing back on. He had purchased new shoes, as wide as he could find, to accommodate his newly altered feet. Even so, it was fiercely painful to force his feet into them.
He repeated his activities each night. The underwater creatures gradually grew accustomed to him, permitting him to approach ever more closely, permitting him to accompany them farther and farther from Port Chicago. It was clear to Marston that they communicated with one another, mainly by means of subtle gestures made with their broad, webbed, clawed hands. Marston inferred th
at they had a language as sophisticated and complex as any spoken by land-dwellers.
Now that he was affiliated with the Port Chicago base Marston had discontinued all contacts with his former associates in Berkeley. He did not worry about running into Aurelia Blenheim at the grocery as he now relied entirely on a diet of creatures he encountered during his nocturnal explorations of the Bay’s waters.
He maintained a relationship with Lieutenant Keeler and though him with Captain Kinne, furnishing reports and recommendations as required of him. He resented every meeting he had to attend, every conversation he had to conduct; in fact, he found himself living for his submarine excursions and suffering through each hour he spent walking on land, breathing with his gradually atrophying lungs instead of his gills.
On Friday, July 14, Keeler demanded that Marston attend a meeting with Captain Kinne. Also present were two high-ranking officers, one from the Navy and the other from the Army, the latter with Army Air Force insignia on his uniform blouse, and the commanders of the Negro stevedoring gangs.
Captain Kinne’s WAVE secretary, Jaspers, ushered Marston into the commanding officer’s area. When the meeting participants were assembled they were joined by a pair of armed shore patrolmen and the doors were securely locked.
“The bomb will arrive in forty-eight hours,” the Army officer announced. A major general’s paired silver stars glittered on his uniform shoulders. “We will deliver it to the loading pier, then we need a sign-off from the Navy and our job is finished.”
“And ours begins,” the naval officer took over. His uniform sleeves bore the broad gold stripes of a rear admiral. “Captain Kinne, are your men ready to get the bomb stowed in Quinalt Victory Monday evening? ONI insists that we do the loading at night, but it must be finished in time to catch the late tide out of the Golden Gate.” The admiral cast a sharp look at Marston. “Dr. Marston has provided all the information we’ll need to get Quinalt Victory safely out of the Bay and on her way by midnight?”
The utterance was worded as a statement but spoken as a question.
Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth Page 7
