The Best of Argosy #5 - The Monster of the Lagoon

by George Worts

  Larry went below and brought her a cup of strong black coffee and told her to drink it down. She asked him what they were going to do.

  “Sam says we stay.”

  “So does Hector. He’s a madman. He didn’t sleep a wink. He paced up and down the deck. He got me out and made a fool of himself. He had the wireless operator up all night. He’s snapping everybody’s head off. Poor Dr. Plank came on deck for the first time today. He wanted to give Hector morphine or something to quiet him. Hector insulted him. It was awful. And of course mother’s having one attack of hysterics after another.”

  The tender, having left Julie on the schooner, had returned to the yacht. It was coming back to the Blue Goose. And in the stern squatted Mr. Barling. He clutched a handful of yellow sheets of paper, which he brandished. He came up the schooner’s ladder, waving them.

  He yelled at Julie: “Look at this. Here’s your sweethearts!”

  Julie wearily asked him what he was talking about.

  “I got a report on him from my Chicago office,” Mr. Barling cried. “I’ve got all the dope on him!”

  “On whom?”

  “This Laughing Larry of yours!”

  “You promised not to use the wireless.”

  “Never mind that. Nothing but a mate on a filthy old ore carrier!”

  “Shut up,” Julie said. “Everybody’s nerves are snapping. It isn’t fair to take your grouch out on everybody else. Go on back to your yacht.”

  “And sail away,” Larry said.

  “You’d like me to, wouldn’t you? You’d like to see me sail away and leave her here!” He uttered bitter, mirthless laughter. “So you’re the fellow who can’t be killed!”

  “That’s right,” Larry said stolidly. “Bandits tried it. Sharks tried it. A tiger tried it A cobra tried it. Natives with spears tried it. Why don’t you try it, you pompous little pipsqueak?”

  “All right!” said Mr. Barling. “Let’s give it a real test! Let’s see you swim across the lagoon! Let’s let that monster try it!”

  Larry began unbuttoning his shirt. “How much’ll you bet?”

  “One — million — dollars! But maybe dirty deckhands on filthy ore carriers don’t save that much!”

  “No,” Larry said. “This dirty deck-hand doesn’t happen to have that much.”

  “All right. I’ll leave you a million in my will if you swim to the middle of that lagoon and come back alive!” He laughed again.

  Bryce came on deck. He, too, was pale and irritable.

  “Sam says to cut it out,” he said. “Sam says to tell you you’re all screwy and to get drunk or do something.”

  “Listen, fellow,” Larry said. “This pompous little squirt bets me a million I can’t swim the lagoon.”

  “I heard him. Anybody within ten miles heard him.”

  “But I haven’t a million, so he’ll leave me a million in his will. A month is a long time. I have a hunch I’m going to outlive him. You know all about wills. Draw up a document. Make it legal and binding. I have a hunch I can spend a lot of that million —”

  Bryce went below. They heard Sam roaring at him. Bryce came above with paper and ink and a pen. He drew up the strange document.

  Bryce said: “Sign it, Barling.”

  Mr. Barling signed it. Bryce witnessed it. Larry was taking off his clothes. He removed everything but his underclothes.

  Julie wailed: “Larry, you can’t do it!” And when she saw that he meant to go through with this suicidal plan, she ran down to Sam’s cabin.

  He was sitting up in his bunk, with his feet on the floor.

  She cried: “Sam! You’ve, got to stop him!”

  “I’ll try,” Sam said. With an effort, he stood up. Groaning, he started for the stairs, with Julie helping him.

  They were halfway up when they heard the splash as Larry McGurk dived. When they reached the bows, where Mr. Barling and the scientist were standing, Larry was swimming toward the inlet.

  “That’s number four,” Singapore said.

  “Five,” Bryce said. “Or don’t we count the king of Little Nicobar?”

  The man who couldn’t be killed did not reach the center of the lagoon, which is more than a half mile from the inlet. When he was less than a third of the way, there was a sudden disturbance in the water all about him — such as is made by a school of small fish trying to escape from a larger fish — a rippling commotion.

  And he instantly vanished, as the sea gulls had vanished, as if a great hand had reached up and plucked him below the surface.

  Julie’s weight against Sam’s side had become complete. She had fainted and was limp in his arm.

  Sam tightened his hold and watched the lagoon.

  “That’s all,” he said.

  But the agitation in the water had not subsided. And suddenly Larry reappeared. It was a grotesque and horrible spectacle. He was under water for fully forty seconds. And when he reappeared, it was to shoot into the air. The swiftness of his flight, some trick of vision, made him seem twice the length of an ordinary man — twice his own length. He shot out of the water fantastically, gleaming wet in the sun. It was like a leap of a salmon after a fly.

  He disappeared again. Lucifer Jones came lurching forward. His eyes were bloodshot. He was unshaven and dirty. He stared at the group, then at the lagoon, and just then Larry McGurk was cast into the air again.

  Lucky said, “That’s Larry! What’s the idea?”

  Bryce Robbins briefly told him. Lucky looked at Barling with the brooding intensity of the very drunk. He said, “You didn’t do that, did you, Barling? You didn’t dare the kid to do that?”

  And Mr. Barling snarled: “Go to hell! If he can’t be killed, he won’t be killed!”

  Lucky reached out with one hand, snatched at and secured a fold of Mr. Barling’s white silk shirt, lifted him off his feet — all with the one hamlike hand — and with the other he punched the patent medicine king in the nose.

  Mr. Barling fell flat on his back, with arms and legs asprawl, and with blood spurting from his smashed nose.

  Sam, at that instant, shouted: “Get that engine started! Bryce help me get this anchor up! Barling, damn you, give us a hand!” He shook Julie. She opened sick eyes. Her head wobbled on her neck.

  He shook her again. “He’s swimming back! It didn’t get him!”

  Larry was swimming toward the inlet. Swimming feebly. Hardly able to lift one hand ahead of the other, or to kick his legs. But he was still alive. Still swimming!

  But the miracle had happened. He had escaped.

  They met him midway through the inlet, a swimmer spent. But he gave them a white grin as hands reached down, grabbed his hair, grabbed his shoulders.

  Utterly spent, he was hauled aboard. Ah Fong met him at the rail with his bathrobe and wrapped it about him.

  And then Julie proved herself a liar. She refuted what she had been solemnly swearing. She pushed the rest of them aside and gathered the limp swimmer into her arms, and said, “Oh, my darling, my darling! I was so afraid.”

  She cuddled his head to her breast and kissed him. And Mr. Barling, holding a silk handkerchief to his smashed nose, bleated: “Hah! I told you so! She’s madly in love with him.”

  “I admit it,” Julie said.

  “But he’s still a liar,” Larry muttered.

  “Don’t say you don’t love me!” Julie wailed.

  “Yes, I will. I like you. I like you a lot. But I don’t love you!”

  Larry went limping aft and below to get dressed. His left knee was wrenched and beginning to swell.

  Chapter 21: War Canoes

  TROUBLE was brewing in many quarters. It was in the air, like the sensation of thickness, of tensely-drawn electricity, before a thunder storm.

  With Julie’s emotional declaration of her love for Larry McGurk, the situation was made even more delicate and dangerous. Bryce Robbins was infatuated with the brown-eyed blonde girl. So was Lucky Jones. Heretofore these men had been on the friendliest
terms with Larry. Now they suddenly hated him. Under the present nervous stress, anything might happen.

  And Mr. Barling had definitely shown his intention to make trouble. He was going to stay. He said he was going to stay to the bitter end, and he meant it. And a man in his nervous condition might do anything.

  Sam had the feeling that hell was going to pop at any moment; that he would see murder before this ill-fated expedition up-anchored and sailed away.

  Trouble came from an unexpected source. Oangi came gibbering aft at tiffin time. The Kanaka sailor was flinging his arms toward the island, but what he said was too incoherent to make sense. They were having tiffin under the afterdeck awning. The tide had swung the schooner around, so that the stern pointed toward the Wanderer and the barrier reef.

  Sammy hobbled forward to investigate. He saw five large war canoes, bristling with spears, making out from the mangrove point. The canoes were loaded with men whose faces were painted with white and blue and red.

  As Sam returned aft, he called to Larry to break out the machine guns. Obviously, the warriors of Little Nicobar were on their way to avenge the death of their white chieftain.

  The five canoes crossed the schooner’s bows a full quarter mile away. They were headed for the Wanderer. They had presumably been watching, and knew that the murderer of their white chief was aboard the Diesel yacht.

  And apparently the crew of the yacht were fully aware of the impending danger. Sammy saw men running about the decks. Some had guns in their hands. And Mr. Barling was running about among them shouting orders. His voice was once again shrill with hysteria.

  The five canoes were about a quarter of a mile away from the Wanderer when a machine gun on her bridge began rattling. Sammy, watching through his glasses, saw that the gun was in the hands of Captain Milikin, and he was relieved; for Captain Milikin was a cool-thinking, solid individual.

  The water across the bows of the five war canoes was suddenly a-churn with plunging lead. There was immediate confusion aboard the war canoes. Spears waved and wobbled as men scrambled about. But Sammy was certain that none of the bullets had entered the boats; that Captain Milikin had merely wished to show the black warriors that it would be imprudent to venture closer.

  That sensible idea was not, however, being shared by Mr. Barling. Five boatloads of savages had the effrontery to threaten his life! And he was evidently determined to show them what happened to men insolent enough to threaten the life of Hector H. Barling.

  Sammy watched that pantomime on the Wanderer’s beautiful flying bridge. Mr. Barling started emptying a gun at the boats. Captain Milikin knocked the muzzle of the gun upward with his fist.

  But some damage had been done. Several of the black men had fallen to the bottom of the boat at which Mr. Barling had shot.

  The five boats had stopped their advance. The paddlers were evidently demoralized. By this time, Captain Milikin had disarmed his owner, and Mr. Barling had disappeared from the bridge.

  No more shots were fired. It took the natives upwards of half an hour to restore order. And when their yelling and milling about had stopped, and the paddlers resumed their work, the canoes were put about and headed back to the point.

  Julie had gone to the Wanderer for tiffin. She had returned during the siesta hour with a report on Mr. Barling’s latest outbreak.

  “He wanted to wipe them out. He wanted Captain Milikin to break out the one-pounder he carries and shoot grapnel at them — destroy every one. But Captain Milikin is sensible. He had a talk with Dr. Plank and they practically used force in giving Hector some kind of hypodermic injection — morphine or something to calm him down. He’s a lot calmer, but he’s still dangerous. I think this is the first time in his life anybody ever really opposed him. Certainly, he’s never had any real excitement before. And it’s too much for him.”

  “I’d like to see you get that little squirt away from here,” Sammy said.

  “But he wouldn’t dream of it, Sammy. Don’t you realize that he can’t go — that he’s got to stay? It’s in his blood now. It’s like dope.”

  “It’s worse than dope,” Sam said. “What’s he planning to do?”

  “He has ordered the captain to have the crew serve day and night as sentries. Larry,” she said suddenly, “I want to talk to you.”

  Sammy watched them go forward. He hadn’t liked the feverish look in Julie’s eyes, and the wild flush in her cheeks. Larry, however, appeared to be calm, restrained, uneasy.

  Julie came aft, alone, a few minutes later. Her head was high, her face was pale, her eyes were blazing. She evidently intended to pass by Sam without speaking.

  He said, “Baby, you ought to know better.”

  Sam said uncomfortably, “I don’t know what to do about it. If you were a man, I’d tell you to get plastered. I don’t know what to tell you. But go ahead and have a good cry. Listen! Listen to that! War drums!”

  Tumpa-tump-tump — tumpa-tump-tump.

  “You’ll hear it,” Sam said, “for a long time. It’ll get into your brain and into your blood. Fifty years from now, if you listen right, you’ll hear that drum. It’s worse than that bird in Siam — The Bird That Beats on Gold.” He sighed. “It’s going to help a lot.”

  Julie returned to the Wanderer soon afterward. She told Sam she intended to lock herself in her room, with the phonograph, turn it on, and have hysterics until she felt better.

  Chapter 22: A Mad Scheme

  ALL that night, men armed with machine guns patrolled the deck of the Wanderer, and from dusk to dawn the searchlight on her bridge sent its blue-white beam swiveling about the water. And all that night the drums beat out their slow, deliberate rhythm.

  Mr. Barling visited the Blue Goose shortly after breakfast. His eyes had a glazed look, his movements were slow and curiously measured, and Sammy correctly assumed that the patent medicine king was under the influence of sedatives.

  The man was touchy and irritable. He flared into bursts of petty rage at the slightest provocation.

  It was all keyed to a single obsession. All the hatred stored up in him, all his resentments — the resentments, it seemed, of a lifetime — were directed against the murderous thing in the lagoon. It was an epic hatred — a seething, blistering hatred. Everyone in contact with him was scorched, as bystanders might be scorched by flames from the mouth of a cannon fired at a distant target.

  Foremost among them was Bryce Robbins. For it was Mr. Barling’s fierce and fixed purpose to destroy the thing in the lagoon.

  Their discussion became a wrangle which went on for hours. Lucky Jones sided with Mr. Barling. He too, had a truly blasphemous hatred of the hungry, nameless monster. He disapproved of Bryce’s plan to secure a live portion of it to take back to civilization. He wanted to blow it to smithereens.

  Singapore Sammy and Larry McGurk sided with Bryce Robbins. And from time to time that argument had the aspects of a pitched battle, with men shouting and yelling insults and taunts and curses.

  It went on through tiffin and lasted well into the afternoon. The scientist, the red-headed man and the man who couldn’t be killed stood their ground, and in the end, won.

  The ravenous beast of the lagoon was not to be killed!

  “But we are to waste no more time,” Mr. Barling said. “I will place the Wanderer across the inlet, as close inshore as it is safe. We will study it. We will somehow lure it aboard the Wanderer, into the swimming tank. The tank is large enough to hold all of it, or most of it. Once it’s aboard, we will sail immediately for New York. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Having that thing aboard, in that tank,” Sammy said, “will be worse than having a tiger by the tail. But it’s your risk. I wouldn’t have more than a hundred pounds of it aboard this schooner. It’s powerful.”

  “So’s the tank.”

  “How’ll you get it in?”

  “Easy! Get it used to meat. Put meat over. Lure it aboard! I’ll have the engineers reinforce the hatch covering. We’ll leave a h
ole in the hatch — and fill the tank with meat and all the fish we can catch. We’ll lay a trail of meat to the hole, and it will pour itself inside. Once we have it inside, we’ll slam a lid over that hold. Trapped!”

  Sam said dubiously: “According to Bryce, it won’t live in ordinary sea water.”

  “That’s easy,” said Mr. Barling. “Once it’s in the tank, we’ll take the Wanderer into the lagoon and pump the tank full of lagoon water. And we have enough storage tanks on board for a fresh supply.”

  The Wanderer’s anchorage was changed that afternoon. She was placed across the inlet, a few hundred feet offshore, with bow and stern anchors down so that she would not swing ashore with the changing tides. And her crew fell in readily with Mr. Barling’s rather mad plan. All but the captain. Captain Milikin declared that he had a premonition, a dream in which he had seen that horrible thing swarm aboard and devour them all.

  But Mr. Barling’s scheme to strengthen the hatch cover of the tank was enthusiastically carried out by his engineers. They strengthened it to such a degree that even Sammy was forced to admit that it might hold the monster, although he was still dubious of the plan. It took the engine-room crew five days to complete their work.

  And in this time, a number of interesting facts were discovered concerning that diabolical mass of hungry protoplasm in the lagoon. One was that it could be enticed out of the lagoon if the tide was ebbing, so that the sea water was sufficiently diluted with lagoon water. Another was it apparently had centered on Julie as the tidbit it wanted most!

  This discovery was made soon after the monster began making daylight appearances. Ordinarily, it spent most of its time in the precise center of that round body of water. But when the crew of the yacht began throwing in chunks of meat and fish which they had caught, the filmy gray mass would come into the inlet, provided the tide was ebbing. It could be seen clearly in the water, a shapeless mass always changing, always shooting out and drawing in its cloudlike tentacles, searching, always searching for food.