by George Worts
“We don’t need help,” Lucky said. “We ain’t interested.”
Sammy drawled, “Let’s hear the rest of this. I am always open to a reasonable proposition.”
“My idea,” Professor Robbins explained, “is — if there’s any truth in these tales — to bring it back alive.”
Singapore Sammy compressed his lips and shook his red head. “It’s a cockeyed idea, mister.”
The young scientist looked displeased. His eyes narrowed, too, and his thin mouth became stubborn. “Let me explain myself, Mr. Shay. About six months ago I inherited, unexpectedly, a fortune from an uncle I hardly knew. It was a large fortune. To be perfectly frank, it was seven million dollars.”
“Yeah?” Lucky breathed.
“Yes, Captain. And it almost ruined my life. Until then I’d been doing research work in the Rockefeller Institute, in New York, perfectly content to plug along in my laboratory on my modest salary.
“I was trying to isolate the infantile paralysis bug. Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, came this lawyer’s letter. I was the sole heir to seven million dollars. Perhaps you read about it?”
“No,” Sammy said, shaking his red head.
“I tried keeping on with my research work — tried to live simply, quietly, as I’d always done. It was impossible. I was hounded. And finally I was kidnapped. A gang of hoodlums grabbed me one night as I was leaving the Institute. I was ransomed for a hundred thousand. Oh, it wasn’t the money I minded. It was the threat to my peace of mind.
“When I returned to work, the director advised me to chuck it. He and others told me that with my fortune I was a fool to go on dabbling in biochemistry. I must do something big, something really sensational for science! It staggered me. There was I, happy in my obscurity, told to do something big and sensational for science! But I chucked my job and started off to look the world over for —” He hesitated.
“For something to discover,” Sammy suggested.
“Exactly! I have roamed Europe and Africa. I have roamed Asia from Urga to Ceylon. And it was not until I stumbled upon your trail in Rangoon that I had had the slightest hope. Of course, I am skeptical, but I am sufficiently interested in this old legend to go to Little Nicobar and defray all costs of the expedition.”
“If you’re skeptical,” Lucky Jones broke in, “why bother?”
They argued about it for some time. It was Lucky’s contention that they didn’t want interference with their plans. It was Sam’s contention that a man who wanted to spend his money as badly as the professor seemed to, ought to be encouraged.
Through it all Professor Robbins remained skeptical of the monster’s actual existence.
He said, “Mr. Shay, just what makes you so sure this fabulous creature exists? Of course, I’ve heard some tales about it, but I put it down as a myth.”
“It isn’t a myth,” Singapore declared. “I can take you to a guy who had a hand to hand encounter with it.”
“In Penang?” the scientist cried.
“Right down the street. Old Pegleg Pyke. He’s bartending at the Blue Grin.”
“I’d like to talk to him,” Bryce Robbins said crisply.
The Blue Grin was perhaps the most sordid grogshop in Penang, putting to shame the Gin & Bitters and the Mudhole.
To judge from his appearance, Pegleg Pyke was a man well into his sixties. His hair was white, what there was of it, and he wore a straggly white mustache. The few teeth remaining in his jaws were all gold-capped. And his metallic, snaggle-toothed grin was almost terrifying.
Introducing the scientist to him, Singapore said, “Professor, this man lost a leg to that monster twenty years ago. Pegleg, you tell this guy what you told me about The Thing in that lagoon. Skip the part where you were shipwrecked and grabbed by the cannibals. Start in where you were running through the jungle to where the canoe was tied up on the beach of the lagoon.”
Singapore had not finished making this request, when into the swirling blue smoke and ancient vapors of the Blue Grin came a man and a girl. The man was a sleek, plump man of forty-eight, looking out of place in his snow-white pea-jacket and white flannel trousers.
As for the girl — Just as Singapore finished, Captain Jones hoarsely-whispered: “Pipe the blonde!”
Larry McGurk turned his head and looked. One eyebrow went up. He had never seen a girl quite like her. She was so beautiful that she dazzled him. She wore some kind of blue dress. But he didn’t notice the dress. Her hair was very blonde. It was silver-golden fleece. In contrast with her face, which was a golden brown, and her eyes, which were of the rich reddish brown of autumn leaves, it was sensational. Brown eyes, not blue.
He wondered who the pompous little pipsqueak with her might be. But Larry didn’t care. The wonder of it was that she was staring straight at him and smiling a little — a friendly little smile.
Then she spoke to Pegleg Pyke.
“A gin buck, please!”
“A stengah,” her companion said in a thin, important voice.
Pegleg Pyke gave the newcomers their drinks and returned to the four sighing men. Rather, the three sighing men and the man who couldn’t be killed.
For Larry McGurk wasn’t sighing; he was grinning.
“Know her?” Sammy whispered.
“No.”
“Ever see her before?”
“Only in my dreams.”
This spirited byplay was interrupted by the return of Pegleg, whose eyesight was evidently impaired, for he had hardly glanced at the vision, and he now went brusquely into his story.
“It was like this mister,” he said, addressing Professor Robbins in his harsh old voice. “I was escapin’ from them cannibals — and racin’ for all I was worth through the jungle toward the lagoon.
“I’d heard o’ the monster o’ the Little Nicobar lagoon, but I didn’t take no stock of it. An old sea serpent story, I figured it was.
“I can remember it as plain as if ‘twas only yesterday — the gurglin’ o’ the volcanic mud pots, the smell o’ the big blue orchids — as big as a man, they are — and the steam driftin’ out o’ the jungle from the mud pots and over the lagoon.
“There was a half moon and the light was fair. But where the canoe was pulled up, they wasn’t no light. It was darker there than the inside o’ Adams off ox. Account o’ the cocoanut palms.
“I went sprintin’ past the old stone house on the shore o’ the lagoon. And jest when I was grabbin’ the bow of the canoe, to push her into the water and jump aboard, this — this slimy Thing reached up out o’ the lagoon and grabbed me.”
“You saw it!” the scientist snapped.
“I saw nothin’! It was in the shadow o’ the cocoanut palms. I jumped back and grabbed for the trunk o’ one o’ the palms. Oh, it was grabbin’ my leg and squeezin’ down on it, and I was tryin’ to fight it off with my hands —”
“What did it feel like?” Larry McGurk said.
“Slimy rubber! And it smelled like some kind of acid — nitric, maybe. I dunno. I grabbed a piece of driftwood and bashed away at it, but it ripped off my leg right above the knee. Bone and all! Mister, do you blame me for lookin’ like an old man at the age of fifty?”
“What did you do?”
“I hopped on one leg for the canoe, with that Thing pluckin’ away at my shoulder and arm. I got away somehow. Don’t ask me how. I was off my nut, I was. I was screaming.
“I thought I was a brave man, but I learned that night what fear is. Yes, sir. I got into the canoe and somehow I got that canoe out o’ that lagoon and into the open sea. I must have had presence of mind enough to put a tourniquet above the mangled knee. Leastwise, it was on there when they picked me up, jest at dawn.”
“Who picked you up?” the professor said.
“A Javanese packet, Soerabaya bound. Why the monster didn’t get the rest o’ me is a mystery. It was a miracle! That thing had the strength of a hundred elephants. But it came up out o’ the lagoon.”
“It must ha
ve been a shark!”
“Do sharks come up out o’the sea?”
“Then it was a panther or some other cat animal prowling along the beach. It pounced on you.”
“Do panthers smell like a fish? Do panthers smell like nitric acid? Do they feel like slimy rubber? Do they leave acid burns on you?”
He pulled up his sleeve. And there, coiling down from shoulder to elbow, was a curious depression — an old, old scar.
“If that ain’t an acid burn, you name it!”
Professor Robbins had a stupefied look. He was shaking his head. But his eyes began to glitter with excitement. “Did it make any kind of sound?”
“No, mister. No sound whatever.”
“It was a giant sea snake!”
“Your guess is as good as the next, mister. All I know is that it smelled like acid, and it got my leg — and nothin’ but the biggest luck in the world stopped it from gettin’ all o’ me. I was in the Soerabaya marine hospital six months, out o’ my head. And I ain’t never been the same since.”
The scientist and Larry McGurk were gazing at him as if hypnotized. And the radiant blonde girl and her escort, sipping their drinks, were staring at Pegleg Pyke with the same breathless interest.
Professor Robbins said indignantly, “Then, it must have been an octopus!”
“Nope. Nope, I didn’t hear no suckers. They hiss, they do.”
“I should think you’d want to get back there and try to kill it,” Larry McGurk suggested.
“Sure, son I’ve thought of that.”
“You’d better come along,” Singapore said. “We’re pushin’ off for Little Nicobar in the morning.”
“I’d like to go,” the one-legged man said wistfully. “I sure would like to go back there and have a hand in killing that monster.”
“We aren’t going to kill it,” Professor Robbins said. “We’re going to bring it back alive.”
Lucky began wrathfully, “Who the hell —”
“Pipe down,” Sammy stopped him. “Fix us another drink, Pegleg. Professor,” he said. “I’ll charter you the Blue Goose for this expedition for five thousand, gold — on certain conditions.”
Professor Robbins looked at him thoughtfully and said, “That seems fair enough. What are the conditions?”
“That Captain Jones, Mate McGurk and I run the show — and that anything we take aboard, aside from the monster, is ours.”
“What do you expect to find, Mr. Shay?”
“Pearls. You didn’t hear that in Rangoon, did you?”
“No.”
“This is the lay, Professor: I’ve got pretty fair information that the old Dutchman, a guy named Vandernoot, who lived in that little stone house on the lagoon for fifteen years, was pearling. He never left the island with his pearls. My understanding is, he cached his pearls in a little coral cave below his house. Maybe it’s only a rumor, but I want those pearls.”
“I understand.”
“Okay. But here’s the hitch. Old Vandernoot vanished in 1907. In 1908 there was a volcanic disturbance on Little Nicobar. The east end of the island, where the lagoon is, sank fifteen feet. This cave is now under about ten feet of water. I can’t get those pearls without getting rid of the monster in the lagoon.”
Professor Robbins was nodding. “I think I understand. You want the pearls. You don’t want to share them if you find them. Is that it?”
“That’s it,” Lucky said grimly.
“There won’t be a quarrel about that,” the scientist said. “I have no interest in profits. All I care about is — to bring that Thing back alive — if it exists in actuality. On this basis, I will charter your schooner for five thousand, gold. Does that sum it up?”
Singapore nodded. “That sums it up, brother. Pegleg, you grew up in sail. Come along and I’ll sign you on at quartermaster’s pay. American scale.”
The old man was looking through him, beyond him, at something remotely distant, invisible and fearful. “You’re on!” he cried harshly. “I’ll sign!”
Chapter 5: Anchors Aweigh!
PROFESSOR BRYCE ROBBINS came aboard the Blue Goose early the following morning to discuss with Singapore Sammy the special equipment which would be needed for the expedition to Little Nicobar.
He inspected the schooner from cutwater to counter and expressed his approval of her slim lines, her staunchness and the ship-shape condition in which her owners maintained her.
Captain Jones followed the tall, lean-jawed man about, listened to his remarks and scowled continuously.
He let it be known that he was financing this expedition, chartering the Blue Goose, for the sole purpose of bringing the monster back alive.
“It must be brought back alive, and we must prepare to bring it back alive.”
“Sure,” Sammy agreed. “But I’ve got to look after the lives of my crew.”
Professor Robbins asked him what steps he was taking to safeguard his crew.
By way of answer, Sammy told the Malay serang and a deckhand to open the ‘midships cargo hatch. Stacked in neat piles at the bottom of the hold were steel bars about a yard in length which resembled bayonets. At one end they were sharply pointed. The other end was flat and contained holes.
Singapore explained that these bayonets were to be fastened all about the deck rail, with the pointed ends sticking out about two feet over the water. The flat ends were to be lugged to the rail. The bayonets were to be spaced about six inches apart.
“I heard from an old pearler,” the red-haired man explained, “that pearling luggers have gone into the lagoon — and never came out again. That’s why, when we go into that lagoon, this old hooker is going to bristle with steel like a porcupine. If any deep-sea fish tries to wrap itself around the Blue Goose, it won’t get far.”
The professor was reluctant to approve of this arrangement. He seemed to have more solicitude for the monster than he did for the schooner’s crew. He had found, in a Penang shipyard, a diving suit which he thought might be useful. It had been left there by an outfit that had gone broke trying to salvage a sunken treasure ship in the Strait of Malacca.
“It was made for deep-sea work,” the professor said, “It’s steel — and uncrushable. It has articulating joints, a face plate of glass almost two inches thick, a steel armored air hose — and it looks like a man from Mars. Shall I buy it?”
“We might use it,” Sammy said. “I’ll show you the arms locker.”
He took Professor Robbins down into the main saloon. Laughing Larry McGurk, the man who couldn’t be killed, was at work with oiled rags and cleaning rods. The Pelican’s mate was oiling and cleaning a submachine gun.
“We’ve got six of ‘em,” Sammy said, “also some sawed-off shotguns, plenty of small arms and a dozen cutlasses.”
They discussed ways and means of capturing the monster of which nothing was known as regards size, shape or weight. They agreed, however, that the strongest tackle available should be purchased.
The professor, Singapore and Lucky Jones went ashore to attend to tackle and to inspect the deep-sea diving suit. Larry McGurk remained aboard to check off supplies from the supply boat which had just come alongside.
The rest of the morning he spent reclining in a Bombay chair, studying the beautiful white yacht that was anchored a half mile astern — the Wanderer. He saw men holystoning her decks and polishing her bright-work. He saw a man and two women descend her accommodation ladder and enter the immaculate white tender alongside. All three were in white.
He watched the tender proceed to the landing stage at the foot of Beach Street and he watched the trio disembark. With binoculars he confirmed his suspicions that the girl had beautiful legs. The trio vanished.
Early in the afternoon a motor boat brought out the tackle, the armored diving suit, and the professor’s dunnage, including a dozen large and small chests containing scientific apparatus and supplies.
The Blue Goose, completely outfitted and manned, was ready to start, but Captain Jone
s waited for the night wind and ebb tide. At eight bells, midnight, he ordered sails up and anchor aweigh. The sails filled to the steady breeze from the north, masts strained against the slim and beautiful hull, the schooner slipped through hissing water, aflame with the green phosphorus, and passing the yacht Wanderer, with its rows of glittering white lights, started down the Strait of Malacca — toward what dark and ominous destiny!
Chapter 6: Gone Overboard
HECTOR BARLING was in a beastly temper. He was peevish and disgruntled. He was indignant. He had been grossly mistreated and he resented it. He was, indeed, so upset that he had been unable to sleep all night.
His guests were responsible. He had spent most of the day with Julie Farrington and her impossible mother in the bazaars of Penang. He had bought Julie every sarong, every trinket she had expressed a liking for. And he had done almost as well for her mother.
The day had been very fatiguing to Mr. Barling. The strong tropical sunlight had given him one of his headaches, and he had acquired another bad sunburn — one that would certainly blister.
All in all, it had not been Mr. Barling’s day. Nor his evening. It was really the evening that rankled and kept Mr. Barling awake throughout the night.
In the evening he had gone looking for Julie — this had been shortly after dinner — and found her again standing in the bows, staring across the magical moonlit night at that little tub of a schooner.
Perhaps because of the accumulating vexations of the day, he gave way to the impulse which he had stifled so nobly the previous evening. He swept Julie into his arms — and tried to kiss those sweet, soft, seductive lips.
A punch in the nose had been his reward. It spoiled his maneuver and sent him backward with such force that he tripped over a neat pancake of rope and sat down so heartily that his headache almost leaped out of his head.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was that Julie had gazed down at him with the utmost abhorrence and said, slowly and distinctly, “You pig! I detest you!” — and had walked away, leaving him sitting there, stunned, as it were, before and behind, and pouting as his indignation kindled.