Under Arctic Ice
CHAPTER IV
"_No Chance Left_"
His entrance was an unpleasant experience. He had forgotten thecondition of the air inside the submarine, and what its effect on him,coming straight from comparatively good and fresh air, would be, untilhe was seized by a sudden choking grip around his throat. He reeledand gasped, and was for a minute nauseated. Lights flashed around him,and teetering backward he leaned weakly, against some metal objectuntil gradually his head cleared; but his lungs remained tortured, andhis breathing a thing of quick, agonised gulps.
Then came sounds. Figures appeared before him.
"From where--" "Who are you?"
"What--what--what--" "How did you?"
The half-coherent questions were couched in whispers. The men aroundhim were blear-eyed and haggard-faced, their skins dry and bluish, andnot a one was clad in more than undershirt and trousers. Alive andbreathing, they were--but breathing grotesquely, horribly. They madeawful noises at it; they panted, in quick, shallow sucks. Some lay onthe deck at his feet, outstretched without energy enough to attempt torise.
Beautiful and slumber-like the submarine had appeared from outside,but inside that effect was lost. There were the usual appurtenances: amaze of pipes, wheels, machinery, all silent now, and cold; here werethe two port-locks for torpoons; the emergency steering controls; thesmall staterooms of the _Peary's_ officers. Looking forward, stillstriving for complete clear-headedness and normality, Ken could seethe two intact forward compartments, silent and apparently lifeless,with dim lamps burning. They ended with the watertight bulkhead whichstood between them and the flooded bow compartment.
Ken at last found words, but even his short query cost a sickeningeffort.
"Where's--the commander?" he asked.
* * * * *
A man turned from where he had been leaning against a nearby wheelcontrol. He was stripped to the waist. His tall body was stooped, andthe skin of his ruggedly cut face drawn and parchment-like. His facehad once been dignified and authoritative, but now it was that of aman who nears death after a long, bitter fight for life. The smilewhich he gave to Ken was painful--a mockery.
"I am," he said faintly. "Sallorsen. Just wait, please. A minute. Iworked port-lock. Breath's gone...."
He sucked shallowly for air and let his smile go. And standing there,beside him, gazing at the worn frame, Ken felt strength come back. Hehad just entered; this man and the others had been here for weeks!
"I'm Sallorsen," the captain went on at last. All his words wereclipped off, to cost minimum effort. "Glad you got through. Afraidyou're come to prison, though."
"No!" Ken said emphatically. He spoke to the captain, but what he saidwas also for all the others grouped around him. "No, Captain! I'mKenneth Torrance. Once torpooner with Alaska Whaling Company. Theythought me crazy--crazy--'cause I told about sealmen. Put me insanitarium. I knew they had you--when--heard you were missing." Hepointed at the brown-skinned creatures that clustered close around thesubmarine outside her transparent walls. "I got free and came. Just intime."
"In time? For what?"
Another voice gasped out the question. Ken turned to abroad-shouldered man with a ragged growth of beard that had been atrim Van Dyke; and before the torpooner could answer, Sallorsen said:
"Dr. Lawson. One of our scientists. In time for what?"
"To get you and the submarine free," said Ken.
"How?"
* * * * *
Ken paused before replying. He gazed around--out the side walls ofglistening quarsteel into the sea gloom, into the thick of the smooth,lithe, brown-skinned shapes that now and again poised pressing againstthe submarine, peering in with their liquid seal's eyes. Dimly hecould see the taut seaweed ropes stretching down from the top of the_Peary_ to the sea-bottom. It looked hopeless, and to these men insideit was hopeless. He knew he must speak in confident, assured tones todrive away the uncaring lethargy holding them all, and he frameddefinite, concise words with which to do it.
"These creatures have caught you," he began, "and you think they wantto kill you. But look at them. They seem to be seals. They're not.They're men! Not men like us--half-men--sealmen, rather--changed intopresent form by ages of living in the water. I know. I was captured bythem once. They're not senseless brutes; they have a streak of man'sintelligence. We must communicate with that intelligence. Must reasonwith them. I did once. I can do it again.
"They're not really hostile. They're naturally peaceful; friendly. Butmy friend--dead now--killed one of them. Naturally they now think allcreatures like us enemies. That's why they trapped your sub.
"They think you're enemies; think you want to kill them. But I'll tellthem--through pictures, as I did once before--that you mean them noharm. I'll tell them you're dying and must have air--just as theymust. I'll tell them to release submarine and we'll go away and notdisturb them again. Above all I must get across that you wish them noharm. They'll listen to what my pictures will say--and let usgo--'cause at heart they're friendly!"
* * * * *
He paused--and with a ghastly, twisted smile, Captain Sallorsenwhispered:
"The hell you say!"
His sardonic comment brought a sudden chill to Kenneth Torrance. Hefeared one thing that would render his whole value useless. He askedquickly:
"What have you done?"
"Those seals," Sallorsen's labored voice continued "--they've killedeight of us. Now they're killing all."
"But have you killed any of them?" Breathless, Ken waited for theanswer be feared.
"Yes. Two."
The men were all staring at Ken, so he had to hide the awful dejectionwhich clamped his heart. He only said:
"That's what I feared. It changes everything. No use trying to reasonwith them now." He fell silent. "Well," he said at last, trying toappear more cheerful, "tell me what happened. Maybe there's somethingyou've overlooked."
"Yes," Sallorsen whispered. He started to come forward to thetorpooner, but stumbled and would have fallen had not Ken caught himin time. He put one of the captain's arms around his shoulder, and oneof his own around the man's waist.
"Thanks," Sallorsen said wryly. "Walk forward. Show you whathappened."
* * * * *
There were men in the second compartment, and they still fought tolive. From the narrow seamen's berths that lined the walls came thesound of breathing even more torturous than that of the men in therear. In the single bulb's dim light Ken could see their shapesstretched motionlessly out, panting and panting. Occasionally handsreached up to claw at straining necks, as if to try and rid throats ofstrangling grasps. Two figures had won free from the long struggle.They lay silent and still, the outline of their dead bodies showingthrough the sheets pulled over them.
Slowly Sallorsen led Ken through this compartment and into the next,which was bare of men. Here were the ship's main controls--her helm,her central multitude of dials, levers and wheels, her televisiscreenand old-fashioned emergency periscope. A metal labyrinth it was, alllong silent and inactive. Again the weird contrast struck Ken, foroutside he could still see the scene of vigorous, curious life thatthe sealmen constituted. Close they came to the submarine's sheerwalls of quarsteel, peering in stolidly, then flashing away with aneffortless thrust of flippers, sometimes for air from some break inthe surface ice.
Like men, the sealmen needed air to live, and got it fresh and cleanfrom the world above. Inside, real men were gasping, fighting,hopelessly, yielding slowly to the invisible death that lay in thepoisonous stuff they had to breathe....
Ken felt Sallorsen nudge him. They had come to the forward end of thecontrol compartment, and could go no farther. Before them was thewatertight door, in which was set a large pane of quarsteel. Thecaptain wanted him to look through.
Ken did so, knowing what to expect; but even so he was surprised bythe strangeness of the scene. In among the manifold
devices of thefront compartment, its wheels and pipes and levers, glided slowly thesleek, blubbery shapes of half a dozen sealmen. Back and forth theyswam, inspecting everything curiously, unhurried and unafraid; and asKen stared one of them came right up to the other side of the closedwatertight door, pressed close to the pane and regarded him with largeplacid eyes.
Other sealmen entered through a jagged rip in the plates on thestarboard side of the bow. At this Sallorsen began to speak again inthe short, clipped sentences, punctuated by quick gasps for air.
* * * * *
"Crashed, bow-on," he said. "Underwater ice. Outer and inner platescrumpled like paper. Lost trim and hit bottom. Got this door closed,but lost four men in bow compartment. Drowned. No chance. Sparks among'em, at his radio. That's why we couldn't radio for help." He paused,gasping shallowly.
"Could've got away if we'd left immediately. One flooded compartmentnot enough to hold this ship down. But I didn't know. I sent two menout in sea-suits--inspect damage. Those devils got them.
"The seal-things came in a swarm. God! Fast! We didn't realize. Theyhad ropes, and in seconds they'd lashed us down to the sea-floor.Lashed us fast!" Again he paused and sucked for the poisoned air, andKen Torrance did not try to hurry him, but stood silent, lookingforward to the squashed bow, and out the sides to where he could seethe taut black lines of the seaweed-ropes.
"The two men put up fight. Had crowbars. Useless--but they killed oneof the devils. That did it. They were torn apart in front of us.Ripped. Mangled. By spears the things carry. Dead like that."
"Yes," murmured Ken, "that would do it...."
"I quick tried to get away," gasped Sallorsen. "Full-speed--back andforth. No good. Ropes held. Couldn't break. All our power couldn't! Sothen--then I acted foolishly. Damn foolish. But we were all a littlecrazy. A nightmare, you know. Couldn't believe our eyes--those sealsoutside, mocking us. So I called for volunteers. Four men. Put 'em insea-suits, gave 'em shears and grappling prongs. They went out.
"They went out laughing--saying they'd soon have us free! Oh, God!" Itseemed he could not go on, but he forced the words out deliberately."Killed without a chance! Ripped apart like the others! No chance!Suicide!"
Ken felt the agony in the man, and was silent for a while beforequietly asking:
"Did they kill any more of the sealmen?"
"One. Just one. That made two of them--six of us. What the hell arethe rest of them waiting for?" Sallorsen cried. "They killed eight inall! To our two! That's enough for them, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid not," said Ken Torrance. "Well, what then?"
"Sat down and thought. Carefully. Hit on a plan. Took one of our twotorpoons. Lashed on it steel plates, ground to sharp cutting edges.Spent days at it. Thought torpoon could go out and cut the ropes.Haines volunteered and we shot him and torpoon out."
"They got the torpoon?" Ken asked.
Sallorsen's arm raised in a pointing gesture. "Look."
* * * * *
Some fifty feet away from the _Peary_, on the side opposite to the oneKen Torrance had approached, a dimly discernible object lay in themud. In miniature, it resembled the submarine: a cigar-shaped steelshell, held down to the sea-bottom by ropes bound over it. Cuttingedges of steel had been fastened along its length.
"I see," said Ken slowly. "And its pilot?"
"Stayed in the torpoon thirty-six hours. Then went crazy. Put onsea-suit and tried to get back here. Whisk--they got him. Killed andmangled while we watched!"
"But didn't his torpoon have a nitro-shell gun? Couldn't he havefought them off for a time?"
"Exploring submarine, this! No guns in torpoons like whalers. Gunwouldn't help, anyway. These devils too fast. No use. No hopeanywhere...." Sallorsen sank back against the bulkhead, his lipsmoving but no sound coming forth. Dully he stared ahead, through thesubmarine, for a moment before uttering a cackling mockery of a laughand going on.
"Even after that, still hoped! Blew every tank on ship; blew out most ofher oil. Threw out everything not vital. Lightened her as much as could.Machinery--detachable metal--fixtures--baggage--instruments--knives,plates, cups--everything! She rose a couple of feet--no more! Put motorsat full speed--back and forth--again, again, again. Buoyancy--power--nogood. No damn good!
"And then we tried the last chance. Explosives. Had quite a store,Nitromite, packed in cases; time-fuses to set it off. Had it forblasting ice. I sent up a charge and blew hole in the ice overhead,for our other torpoon.
"Nothing else left. Knew planes must be nearby, searching. Lasttorpoon was to shoot up to the hole--pilot to climb on ice and staythere to signal a plane."
"Did he get there?"
"Hell no!" Sallorsen cackled again. "It was roped like the other.Pilot tried to get back, but they got him like first. There's thetorpoon--out ahead."
Ken could just make it out. It lay ahead, slightly to port, lasheddown like its fellow by seaweed-ropes. His eyes were held by it, evenwhen Sallorsen continued, in an almost hysterical voice:
"Since then--since then--you know. Week after week. Air getting worse.Rectifiers running down. No night, no day. Just the lights, and thosedamned devils outside. Wore sea-suits for a while; used twenty-nine oftheir thirty hours air-units. Old Professor Halloway died, and anotherman. Couldn't do anything for 'em. Just sit and watch. Head aching,throat choking--God!...
"Some of the men went mad. Tried to break out. Had to show gun. Quickdeath outside. Here, slow death, but always the chance that--Chance,hell! There's no chance left! Just this poison that used to be air,and those things outside, watching, watching, waiting--waiting for usto leave--waiting to get us all! Waiting...."
"Something's up!" said Ken Torrance suddenly. "They've got tired ofwaiting!"