CHAPTER VI
_In a Biscuit Can_
Ken Torrance glanced with dull, hopeless eyes over the compartment hestood in. Figures stretched out all over the deck, gasping, panting,strangling--men waiting in agony for death. His head sank down, and hewiped wet hands across his aching forehead. Nothing to do butwait--wait for the end--wait as the patient horde outside had beenwaiting in the sea-gloom for their moment of triumph, when the softbodies inside the _Peary_ would be theirs to rip and mangle....
A dragging sound brought Ken's eyes wearily up and to the side. One ofthe crew who had been lying on the deck was dragging his bodypainfully toward a row of lockers at one side of the compartment. Theman's eyes were feverishly intent on the lockers.
Ken watched his progress dully, without thinking, as inch by inch heforced himself through the other bodies sprawled in his way. He sawhim reach the lockers, and for a minute, gasping, lie there. He saw aclawing arm stretch almost up to the catch on one locker, while theman whimpered like a child at his lack of quick success.
_Crash!_ The grinding blow of the torpoon hitting the quarsteelclanged out from behind. But Ken's mind was all on the reaching man'sstrange actions. He saw the fingers at last succeed in touching thecatch. The door of the locker opened outward, and eagerly the manreached inside and pulled. With a thump, a row of heavy objects strungtogether rolled out onto the deck--and Ken Torrance sprang suddenly tothe man's side:
"What are you doing?" he cried.
The man looked up sullenly. He mumbled:
"Damn fish--won't get me. I'll blow us all to hell, first!"
At that the connection struck Ken.
"Then that's nitromite!" he shouted. "That's the idea--the nitromite!"
And stooping down, he wrenched the rope of small black boxes whichcontained the explosive from the man who had worked so painfully toget them.
"I'll do the blowing, boy!" he said. "Don't worry; I'll do itcomplete!"
* * * * *
Ken, holding the rope of explosives, crossed the deck and pulledSallorsen and Lawson around. Their worn faces, with lifeless,bloodshot eyes, met his own strong features, and he said forcefully:
"Now listen! I need your help. I've found our one last chance forlife. We three are the strongest, and we've got to work like hell.Understand?"
His enthusiasm and the vigor of his words roused them.
"Yes," said Lawson. "What--we do?"
"You say there's an hour's air left in the sea-suits?" Torrance askedthe captain.
"Yes. An hour."
"Then get the men into the suits," the torpooner ordered. "Help theweaker ones; slap them till they obey you!" There came the ugly,deafening crash of the hurled torpoon into the compartment door. Kenfinished grimly: "And for God's sake, hurry! I'll explain later."
Sallorsen and Lawson unquestioningly obeyed. Ken had reached thespirit in them, the strength not physical, that had all but beendriven out by the long, hopeless weeks and the poisonous stuff thatpassed for air, and it had risen and was responding. Sallorsen'svoice, for the first time in days, had his old stern tone of commandin it as, calling on everything within him, he shouted:
"Men, there's still a chance! Everyone into sea-suits! Quick!"
A few of the blue-skinned figures lying panting on the deck looked up.Fewer moved. They did not at once understand. Only four or fivedragged themselves with pathetic eagerness towards the pile ofsea-suits and the little store of fresh air that remained in them.Sallorsen repeated his command.
"Hurry! Men--you, Hartley and Robson and Carroll--your suits on!There's air in them! _Put 'em on!_"
* * * * *
And then Lawson was among them, shaking the hopeless, dying forms,rousing them to the chance for life. Several more crawled to obey. Bythe time the next crash of the torpoon came, eleven out of thetwenty-one survivors were working with clumsy, eager fingers at theirsea-suits, pushing feet and legs in, drawing the tough fabric up overtheir bodies, sliding their arms in, and struggling with quick pantingbreaths to raise the heavy helmets and fasten them into place.Then--air!
Again the ear-shattering crash. The scientist and the captain drove atthe rest of the crew. They stumbled, those two fighting men, and twiceLawson went down in a heap as his legs gave under him; but he got upagain, and they began dragging the suits to the men who had not eventhe strength to rise, shoving inert limbs into place, switching on theair-units inside the helmets and, gasping themselves, fastening thehelmets down. Theirs was a conflict as cruel, as hard and brutal asmen smashing at each other with fists, and they then proved theirright to the shining roll of honor, wherever and whatever that rollmay be. They fought on past pain, past sickness, past poisoning, thatman of action and men of the laboratory.
And outside that foul transparent pit the tempo quickened also. Thesledging blows at the last door came quicker. All around the captive_Peary_ the sleek brown bodies stirred uneasily. For weeks there hadbeen but little activity inside the submarine; now, all at once, threeof the figures that were men whipped the others into action, rousingthose lying dying on the deck--working, working. Observing this, thelithe seal bodies moved with new nervous, restless strokes, to andfro, never pausing--passing up and down in a milling stream the lengthof the craft, clustering closest outside the walls of the fourthcompartment, where they pressed as close as they could, their widebrown eyes already on the haggard forms that worked inside, theirsmooth bodies patterned by the constantly shifting shadows of theirfellows above and behind.
So they watched and waited, while in the third compartment thebattered torpoon was slung at the last door, and drawn back, and slungagain--waited for the final moment, the crisis of their month-longsiege beneath the floes of the silent Arctic sea!
* * * * *
Kenneth Torrance worked by himself.
He saw that Sallorsen and Lawson had answered his call; man after manwas clad in his suit and sucking in the incomparably fresher, thoughartificial, air of the units. As he had hoped, that air wasrevitalizing the worn-out bodies rapidly, giving them new strength andclearing their brains. His plan required that--strength for the men tomove and act for themselves--sane heads!
The plan was basically simple. Bringing his best concentration to theall-important details, Ken started to build the road to the worldabove.
First he opened the inner door of the starboard port-lock, wherein layhis torpoon. Opening the entrance panel of the steel shell, he quicklytransferred within the cans of compressed food retrieved from thesecond compartment. When he had finished, there was left barely roomfor the pilot's body.
And then the nitromite.
The explosive was carried by the _Peary_ for the blasting of such icefloes as might trap her. It was contained for chemical stability in ahalf dozen six-inch-square, water-proof boxes, strung one afteranother on an interconnecting wired rope. Ken would need them all; hewished he had five times as many. It would not matter if the whole ofthe _Peary_ were shattered to slivers.
Ken tied the rope of boxes into a strong unit, as small as it could bemade. Firing and timing mechanisms were contained in each unit: hewould only have to set one of them. He wrapped the whole charge,except for one small corner, in several pieces of the men's discardedclothing--monkey jackets, thick sweaters, a dirty towel--and stuffedit in an empty tin container for sea-biscuits.
* * * * *
All this had taken only minutes. But in those minutes the quarsteel ofthe watertight door had been subjected to half a dozen smashing blows,and already a flaw had appeared in the pane. Another grinding crunch,and there would be the visible beginning of a crack. Three more,perhaps, and the door would be down.
But the plan was laid, the counter move ready; and, as Sallorsen andLawson, last of them all, got into suits, Ken Torrance, in short,gasping sentences, explained it.
"All the nitromite's in this," Ken said. "I hope it's enough. In amom
ent I'll set the timing to explode it in one minute--then eject itfrom the empty torpoon port-lock. It's a gamble, but I think theexplosion should kill every damned seal around the sub. Water carriessuch shocks for miles, so it should stun, if not kill, all the otherswithin a long radius. See? We're inside sub, largely protected. Whenthe stuff explodes, you and men make for the hole you blew in the iceabove."
Another crash sent echoes resounding through the remainingcompartment. All around the three were suit-clad figures, grotesqueclumsy giants, all feeling new strength as they gulped with leathernthroats and lungs at the artificial air which was giving them arespite, however brief, from the death they had been sinking into. Inthe third compartment of the _Peary_, five seal-like creatures withswift and beautiful movements picked up their torpoon battering ramagain; while all around the outside of the _Peary_ their hundreds ofwatching fellows pressed in closely.
* * * * *
"Yes!" cried Lawson, the scientist. "But the explosion--it mightshatter the ship!"
"No matter; I expect it to!" answered Ken. "Then you can leave througha crack instead of a port-lock."
"Yes--but you!" objected the captain. "Get on a suit!"
"No; I'm jumping into my torpoon in the other port-lock. I've got thefood in it. Now, Sallorsen, this is your job. I'll be in my torpoon,but I won't be able to let myself out the port. You open it, rightafter the explosion. Understand?"
"Yes," replied Sallorsen, and Lawson nodded.
"All right," gasped Ken Torrance. "Empty the chamber." As the captaindid so, Ken opened the lid of the biscuit can and adjusted the timingdevice on the exposed unit in the clothing-wrapped bundle. Then hereplaced it, ticking, in the can and thrust the can bodily into theemptied chamber of the port-lock. He closed the inner door of thechamber, and said to the men by him:
"Close your face-plates!"
And Ken pushed the release button: and then he was running to theother port-lock and to his torpoon, and harnessing himself in.
His brain teemed with the possibilities of the situation as he laystretched out in the torpoon, waiting. How much would the submarine besmashed? Would the charge of nitromite, besides killing the sealmen,kill everyone inside the _Peary_? For that matter, would it affect thesealmen at all? How much could the creatures stand? And would thefiring mechanism work? And then would he himself be able to get out;or would the lock in which the torpoon lay be damaged by the explosionand trap him there?
Seconds, only seconds, to wait, small fractions of time--but they weremore important than the days and the weeks that the _Peary_ had lain,a lashed-down captive, under the Arctic ice; for in these seconds wasto be given fate's final answer to the prayer and courage of them all.
Time for Ken expanded. Surely the charge should have gone off longbefore this! The pulse beat so loudly in his brain that he could hearnothing else. He counted: "... nine, ten, eleven--" Had the fusefailed? Surely by now--"... twelve, thirteen, fourteen--"
On that the submarine _Peary_ leaped. Ken Torrance, himself inside thetorpoon, felt a sharp roll of thunder made tangible, and then completedarkness took him....