Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  Jim shouted as he stumbled down the slope. Shouted wildly, with every remaining gasp of breath in his lungs—shouted a savage rallying cry of hate.

  THE Radion creatures, several dozens of them, swarmed around him as he reached the level of the valley. Their faces in the darkness, touched only by the crackling fire that was once the radio transmission shack, were wide with wonder at the blazing words from the wounded young Earth creature who commanded them to follow him. There was no hesitation among them as they swarmed behind him back up the ragged surface of the knoll. For he was leading them to the encampment of their oppressors, and they needed no more urging to follow the strange, mad-eyed young self-appointed leader.

  Scattered groups of Radion guerillas joined them along the route, and now their band numbered more than eighty. The young American was still at their fore.

  And half a mile from the Nazi encampment, he turned and shouted to his followers.

  “We’ll die. We’re bound to die. But by whatever Gods you worship, I swear that not one of those dogs will live when we are done!”

  The hoarse, blood-lusting roar that was answer to these words sprang fiercely from every throat. They swept on once more, until, a quarter mile from the Nazi garrisons, they met the ragged, retreating remnants of the first attackers.

  “Our parties are still inside the camp,” the leader of these retreating Radion creatures gasped. “How many of them, I do not know. But they are cut off from aid, and are being slain like animals!”

  “You are afraid to die?” Jim blazed at the speaker.

  The other’s eyes flashed. “Never!” he said.

  “Then turn back. Join us. Fill our ranks, for we’re going into that camp. We’re going to fight until we die or they die!”

  Over a hundred of them followed Jim, now. A wave of more than a hundred howling, fanatical madmen who cared not at the thought of death. Men sworn to kill and die killing.

  The small Nazi patrol which had set out to follow the fleeing remainder of the original attackers encountered this wave. They fought but briefly before the wave rushed over them, leaving nothing but bodies of the Nazi swine in their wake.

  Their entry into the camp—a group of fanatically inspired demons swarming back from what should have been their retreat—took the Nazi defenders utterly by surprise.

  Twenty-five creatures of Radion gave their lives to smash through the first defense line of the camp. And twice that number of Nazis were left lifeless as the unarmed members of Jim’s horde tore from their dead fingers the weapons which had failed to save the German troopers.

  The wave swept on, shrieking, howling, cursing above the din of battle and the chatter of leaden death.

  At the center of the camp, Jim sent them off into two groups to cover either flank, while with a squad of ten he led a headlong rush on the central barracks.

  It was Jim who picked the tommy gun from the death grasp of a slain

  Nazi trooper. It was Jim who smashed in the door of the strongest redoubt at the corner of the central barracks.

  He blazed leaden death at the occupants of that redoubt as he rushed into the room, and had the deep satisfaction of seeing the pain twisted features of the Nazi Schiller freeze into a grimace of death as he sprawled to the floor with a dozen bullets from the tommy gun in his chest.

  IT WAS later, almost half an hour later, that they relieved the besieged camp radio transmission shack. The occupants of that shack, creatures of Radion, had been gallantly standing off a Nazi machine gun cross-fire. The Boche gunners, taken by surprise in an assault from behind them, had scarcely time to cry out.

  And it was then, as Jim stumbled into that shack, that he stopped strickenly, open-mouthed, numbed with amazement and a sudden impossible hope.

  For Phil Roberts was there. A white-faced, fever-eyed, delirious Phil Roberts who sat before the radio transmitter flashing an endlessly repeated message out into space.

  He looked up at Jim Hawkins, grinned grotesquely, and through thick lips mumbled one sentence before he pitched from his chair to the floor.

  “You sure as hell took your time!”

  Unbelievingly, Jim stared at the weird, absolutely incredible hodgepodge of twisted materials with which Phil Roberts had somehow repaired that radio transmitter.

  Then he leaped into action, barking a command to two of the Radion creatures, ordering them to take care of Phil, as he slipped into the chair from which his buddy had fallen.

  The transmitter was alive, juiced, sparking. And over the receiving apparatus there flashed an incessant message which failed at first to register on Jim Hawkins’ stunned consciousness.

  “Hang on,” the message begged. “Help will come. Hang on. Help will come. Instructions clear. Hang on. Colonel Mollison.”

  Jim’s hand went to the transmitter key. He grinned madly and began to flash an answer to those wonderful, wonderful words.

  “Having . . . a . . . hell . . . of . . . a . . . fine . . . time,” Jim flashed in code. “Wish . . . you . . . were . . . here. Signed: Hawkins.”

  JIM HAWKINS, one arm suspended in a white medical sling, clean shaven, dressed in his best uniform, tiptoed grinningly up to the hospital bed in which Phil Roberts lay white faced and slumbering.

  For an instant, standing over his buddy, Jim’s grin grew broader. Then he turned to the nurse, an attractive brunette.

  “The big bum doesn’t look so bad, considering everything.”

  “He’s doing fine,” the nurse whispered in answer. “Rest is all he needs.”

  “Great guy,” Jim whispered. “But don’t ever tell him I said so.”

  The nurse smiled, a very enchanting smile, and nodded.

  “Ah, incidentally,” Jim said, forgetting to whisper, “haven’t I seen you somewhere before, Miss, ah—”

  The lovely brunette nurse smiled even more sweetly.

  “I really don’t believe so, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, we’ll certainly have to do something about that,” Jim declared.

  A sudden voice made both of them turn to the bed. Phil Roberts, eyes wide open, had lifted himself up on one elbow and was glaring at Hawkins. A very baleful glare it was.

  “Listen, you big baboon,” Phil grunted. “You get those smart ideas outta your head. I have a date with Miss Selwin the minute they let me outta here—see? I have a date. Not you.”

  Jim Hawkins grinned from ear to ear.

  “Well, well, chum,” he said happily. “I think you’ll live after all.” He turned to the nurse. “Don’t you, Miss Selwin?”

  Nurse Selwin smiled at the two of them.

  “I think he will,” she agreed. “If only to spite you, Lieutenant.”

  [*] In the final months of 1943, after the successful establishment of a second front in Europe by the United Nations, a concentrated combined offensive, in the eastern theater of operations, on the Japs in Burma, Malaya, and the Philippines (which move was foretold by the initial recapture of Gona in the Solomons in December of 1942) and an overwhelming drive through Tripolitania and other Nazi-Italian held African territory, the Axis powers seemed to be on the verge of military collapse.

  The tremendous American-British air offensive over Germany, which resulted in the collapse of the German attack on Russia just two months after the Japanese ill-timed thrust into Siberia, left the Red armies free to press in through Poland and drive deeply into Manchuko and other Jap-held territories in China.

  The bloody uprisings against the Nazi government by the people of half-starved, downtrodden France, enabled them, in overthrowing the betrayers among them, to aid greatly in the Allied drive which liberated more than eighty-percent of their native soil from Axis control.

  And in these final months of 1943 the Axis powers pressed into a last ditch fight for survival, suddenly brought to the battlefields the crude but effective weapons of radium warfare. These weapons, still in an experimental stage, were nevertheless so deadly that the tide of Allied victory was stemmed, then pushed ine
xorably backward as the supposedly beaten Axis hordes began a steady reconquering of territories previously seized by them.

  Allied scientists, in possession of some of the captured radium weapons, knew well the secrets of their use and make, but this knowledge was of little use, inasmuch as the radium supply on Earth seemed impossibly scanty to supply even a fraction of the radium being used by the Axis. The United Nations were faced with the grim fact that somehow, from some unknown source, the Axis had tapped a seemingly inexhaustible fount of radium.

  And even more grim was the realization that each passing day brought improvements in the now less and less crude version of radium weapons being sent to their fronts by the Axis. In spite of the fact that the greatest scientific minds on the side of the Allies were pooled in exhaustive research of every known natural element from which radium might be tapped, nothing had yet been accomplished in the frantic search.

  Because of this, the Allied Nations—who had but a few months before considered themselves nearing inevitable victory—now faced the seemingly unshakable fact that chaotic defeat would soon engulf them.

  ENCHANTED BOOKSHELF

  First published in the March 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

  Phillip Poincare liberated more than a dust-encrusted novel when he discovered the original Alexander Dumas manuscript hidden in his precious French bookshelf.

  CHAPTER I

  PHILLIP POINCARE was a small undistinguished man with pale sensitive features and hair that was graying slightly at the temples.

  However, on this particular morning, as he hurried along Michigan Boulevard, there was an unusual flush of excitement on his face and his small neatly gloved hands were clenching and unclenching nervously.

  “Mon Dieu, if I am too late!” he murmured to himself for the dozenth time.

  At this thought his hurrying steps quickened perceptibly. Panting slightly from his exertions he turned off the Boulevard and continued rapidly down a narrow, twisting side-street that was lined with taverns and small shops.

  He did not stop until he reached a used furniture shop, the windows of which were so grime-crusted that it was practically impossible to see the various goods on display.

  With nervous apprehension Phillip Poincare peered through the grimy glass and, as his gaze focused, the worried expression on his face faded away and was replaced by a relieved smile.

  “Ah!” he murmured softly. “My beauty is still waiting for me.”

  The object of his attention was a small, dusty book repository of the period Louis Quatorze. There were innumerable pigeon-holes and drawers in the little cabinet and a flat wide extension for writing. It was supported by four fragile legs, hardly thicker than pencils.

  Phillip Poincare let out his breath in one final rapturous sigh and entered the shop.

  The proprietor, a fat genial man in a dirty leather apron put aside his morning newspaper and heaved himself to his feet.

  “Good morning,” he said, smiling. “I wondered when you was going to break down and come in. I’ve noticed you looking in every morning now for the past month.”

  “It has been thirty-four days,” Phillip Poincare said gravely. “The bookcase in the window I desire very much to buy. What is your price?”

  The proprietor glanced speculatively at his customer’s neat but inexpensive suit and noticed his slightly frayed gloves. He frowned and began to scratch his chin thoughtfully.

  “Well, it’s a mighty nice piece of furniture,” he said. People lately seem to be interested in that kind of stuff.”

  An expression of worry flitted across Phillip Poincare’s features.

  “But you have not sold it, yes?”

  “No, it’s still for sale,” the proprietor said. “For one hundred bucks.”

  “One hundred dollars,” Phillip Poincare repeated softly. He looked helplessly at the bookcase and he blinked his eyes nervously. “I see, sir. Thank you very much. I will return when I have a hundred dollars. I did not expect it to be quite that much.”

  He walked slowly toward the door.

  “Now just a minute,” the proprietor said. “I might throw off a little on that price. How much was you figuring on paying?”

  “I have only sixty-four dollars. It has taken me thirty-four days to save that much. You see, I began saving the day I noticed the bookcase in your window.”

  “Sixty-four dollars, eh?” the proprietor said musingly. “Are you sure that’s all you’ve got?”

  Phillip Poincare smiled wanly. “I am quite sure,” he said.

  The proprietor shrugged.

  “I’ll never make a dime this way, but it’s a deal. Take it for sixty-four dollars.”

  The proprietor was being ambiguously truthful. He would not make a dime. He would make approximately five hundred dimes.

  BUT Phillip Poincare turned from the door, his face shining.

  “That is extremely good of you,” he said. He drew a thin well-worn wallet from his inner coat pocket and carefully removed the entire contents, exactly sixty-four dollars.

  The proprietor of the shop took the money eagerly.

  “Where do you want it delivered?” he asked.

  Phillip Poincare gave him the address of a rooming house on the Near North Side.

  “I have informed my landlady to expect an article of furniture,” he said. “She will let your men into my room.”

  “Fine. We’ll have it over before noon.”

  “Thank you,” Phillip Poincare said. “Now I must be going.”

  The proprietor walked with him to the door.

  “Not that it’s any of my business,” he said, “but why are you so interested in that particular piece of furniture?” Phillip Poincare shrugged his slight square shoulders and a faint smile curved his lips.

  “It is hard to explain, even to myself,” he murmured. “Perhaps because at one time it was a part of France.”

  “Are you a Frenchie?”

  Phillip Poincare nodded. His sensitive features were clouded.

  “Like that bookcase I too was once a part of France. But it has the happier memories. If it can dream it dreams of the Musketeers and King Louis and the days of France’s glory. My dreams are bitter reminders of Laval and Darlan and their minions. But—” He stopped suddenly and passed his hand over his brow, shaking his head from side to side. “Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I am not often a bother such as this. Good day.” When Phillip Poincare left the furniture shop he glanced at his watch. It was almost 8:45. He was due at his desk in fifteen minutes and he had a long walk ahead of him. He set off, walking swiftly toward Michigan Boulevard.

  Phillip Poincare was at his desk in the large offices of the Bartlett Brokerage Company by 8:56. It took him only a moment to change his coat for the neat gray smock, which was practically the uniform of Bartlett employees, and when the nine o’clock buzzer sounded, he was busily at work, totalling figures and checking accounts as he had done every day for the past twelve years.

  PHILLIP POINCARE had come to America in 1930, because economic conditions in France had become so bad that making a living was practically an impossibility. He had applied for his citizenship papers, because he thought it only fair that he should pay his taxes and give his allegiance to the country whose arms had welcomed him when he was in desperate need. But a part of his affections had ever remained with his own beautiful France, which he had known and loved so well. Because of this sentimental attachment he had collected in his small room books and paintings and articles of furniture that expressed the quiet charm of his native land. It was something of a hobby with him, his only avocation, for he was a shy retiring man, and he had never learned the knack of making friends quickly and easily.

  As sometimes happens to men who are unable to mix smoothly and normally with their fellow man, Phillip Poincare found another existence, another life in books of fiction, and in these romantic chronicles of swashbuckling heroes of other times, he enjoyed a thrilling escape from reality. Sometimes
, when he was lost in the adventures of some romantic hero, he found it difficult to be sure which was his real existence, so completely did he live and share the vicissitudes of the character he happened to be following.

  The day passed quickly, because part of his thoughts were busy with the bookshelf and desk he had acquired that morning. When he had spent a few evenings cleaning and polishing its fine old wood there would be a wonderful difference in its appearance. Although the sixty-four dollars it had cost him had been saved from his lunch money and by scrimping on everything else, he didn’t in the least regret the expenditure.

  When he had completed his work the five o’clock buzzer sounded. He cleared up a few last details, dusted off the top of his desk and was about to slip into his suit coat when the office manager, an unsmiling, sharp-tongued man named Harker, came up behind him.

  “I hope you’re not in a hurry, Poincare,” he said. “I’ve got a little job I’d like you to finish before you leave.”

  Phillip turned slowly, trying to keep the disappointment out of his face. The other clerks were already jamming their way through the door, laughing and talking animatedly. Harker never asked any of them to put in extra time. It was always he who was assigned such chores.

  “I didn’t have anything in particular to do, Mr. Harker,” he said. “What is it you want?”

  “You don’t sound very happy about staying,” Harker said. He was a big man with a round red face and straight black hair. For some reason he took a peculiar pleasure in tormenting and humiliating his subordinate, Phillip Poincare.

  “I do not mind staying,” Phillip said quietly. There were times when he longed for the courage to tell Harker precisely what he thought of him, but he was desperately afraid of what might happen if he lost his job. He had known hunger and the gnawing fear of insecurity the better part of his life, and those privations had left a mark on his soul. Any dim spark of revolt that might have kindled in his breast, had long since been stamped out.