by Anthology
In ten minutes, the shoes were reduced to ragged piles of tattered leather. Erickson’s deft fingers painstakingly placed the nails, one by one, in the line. The distance left to cover was less than six inches!
He lined up the last few nails. Then both men were sinking back on their heels, as they saw there was a gap of three inches to cover!
“Beaten!” Erickson ground out. “By three inches! Three inches from the present . . . and yet it might as well be a million miles!”
Miller’s body felt as though it were in a vise. His muscles ached with strain. So taut were his nerves that he leaped as though stung when Major nuzzled a cool nose into his hand again. Automatically, he began to stroke the dog’s neck.
“Well, that licks us,” he muttered. “There isn’t another piece of movable metal in the world.”
Major kept whimpering and pushing against him. Annoyed, the druggist shoved him away.
“Go ’way,” he muttered. “I don’t feel like—”
Suddenly then his eyes widened, as his touch encountered warm metal. He whirled.
“There it is!” he yelled. “The last link. The nameplate on Major’s collar!”
In a flash, he had torn the little rectangular brass plate from the dog collar. Erickson took it from his grasp. Sweat stood shiny on his skin. He held the bit of metal over the gap between wire and pole.
“This is it!” he smiled brittlely. “We’re on our way, Dave. Where, I don’t know. To death, or back to life. But—we’re going!”
The metal clinked into place. Live, writhing power leaped through the wire, snarling across partial breaks. The transformers began to hum. The humming grew louder. Singing softly, the bronze globe over their heads glowed green. Dave Miller felt a curious lightness. There was a snap in his brain, and Erickson, Major and the laboratory faded from his senses.
Then came an interval when the only sound was the soft sobbing he had been hearing as if in a dream. That, and blackness that enfolded him like soft velvet. Then Miller was opening his eyes, to see the familiar walls of his own kitchen around him!
Someone cried out.
“Dave! Oh, Dave, dear!”
It was Helen’s voice, and it was Helen who cradled his head in her lap and bent her face close to his.
“Oh, thank God that you’re alive—!”
“Helen!” Miller murmured. “What—are—you—doing here?”
“I couldn’t go through with it. I—I just couldn’t leave you. I came back and—and I heard the shot and ran in. The doctor should be here. I called him five minutes ago.”
“Five minutes . . . How long has it been since I shot myself?”
“Oh, just six or seven minutes. I called the doctor right away.”
Miller took a deep breath. Then it must have been a dream. All that—to happen in a few minutes—It wasn’t possible!
“How—how could I have botched the job?” he muttered. “I wasn’t drunk enough to miss myself completely.”
Helen looked at the huge revolver lying in the sink.
“Oh, that old forty-five of Grandfather’s! It hasn’t been loaded since the Civil War. I guess the powder got damp or something. It just sort of sputtered instead of exploding properly. Dave, promise me something! You won’t ever do anything like this again, if I promise not to nag you?”
Dave Miller closed his eyes. “There won’t be any need to nag, Helen. Some people take a lot of teaching, but I’ve had my lesson. I’ve got ideas about the store which I’d been too lazy to try out. You know, I feel more like fighting right now than I have for years! We’ll lick ’em, won’t we, honey?”
Helen buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and cried softly. Her words were too muffled to be intelligible. But Dave Miller understood what she meant.
He had thought the whole thing a dream—John Erickson, the “time impulsor” and Major. But that night he read an item in the Evening Courier that was to keep him thinking for many days.
POLICE INVESTIGATE DEATH OF SCIENTIST HERE IN LABORATORY
John M. Erickson, director of the Wanamaker Institute, died at his work last night. Erickson was a beloved and valuable figure in the world of science, famous for his recently publicized “time lapse” theory.
Two strange circumstances surrounded his death. One was the presence of a German shepherd dog in the laboratory, its head crushed as if with a sledgehammer. The other was a chain of small metal objects stretching from one corner of the room to the other, as if intended to take the place of wire in a circuit.
Police, however, discount this idea, as there was a roll of wire only a few feet from the body.
THE DEVIL OF THE WESTERN SEA
Philip M. Fisher
Time rolled back four centuries before the startled eyes of the Destroyer Shoshone’s crew. Were they trapped forever in the past, or had they sailed into an eerie time-mirage from which they could escape?
Foreword
Events of the past sometimes have in them things strangely prophetic of the present. Some one will probably say to that statement: “Oh, yes, Ben Franklin, with his kite string, brought electricity from the clouds to his finger tips—and now we have the radio. What of that?”
But I do not mean the statement to be construed that way. Were I to re-word the thought, then, I might better say and perhaps more clearly, that there are certain strange occurrences of the years gone by that may be linked with, and are peculiarly explainable by, certain perhaps unusual events of today.
Please do not take that last as a gratuitous insult. The blame of it lies with me. I simply desire to be clear; to be very clear, indeed, for I wish all to understand with the same clarity that I understand myself, so that you, too, may come to agree with me in my conclusion.
There have been strange incidents in the past. There are strange events of today. It is my belief, sincere and frank, that between certain of those of the past and these of the present there lies a definite and explainable relationship.
There is in the archives of La Academia de Historia in Madrid, a manuscript, penned in a monkish hand upon parchment brittle and yellowing with age, that tells of one event of the past. It is one of many written by the professional historian, Francisco Verdugo de Coloma, and bears the quaintly charactered date of: 12 de Abril del aho 1564. It is entitled: Otra Occur encia Mysteriosa de los Mares Occidentales. And that it cites a case in point, the case in point, is my frank and whole-souled belief.
The following excerpt, a rather crude translation I fear, contains the very pertinent resume that I would bring to your attention. Read it if you will, and carry its simple story with you as you continue on. And pardon if I persist and repeat. I want you to understand, and, when you finish, agree.
. . . And thus, gray and forbidding, it rushed upon them. A monster of the deep, high-headed and huge, lean-bodied, and in length even as the greatest ship of the fleet; and as it approached in the dying sun, taking on by its awful witchcraft something of the appearance of a diabolic serpent ship—glowing, fiery eyes from head to tail, spouting black smoke as it roared down upon His Majesty’s vessels, and snorting and bellowing as with rage at this invasion of its hunting grounds.
In pious supplication they fell upon their knees and begged forgiveness of Beloved Mary and of God and the Son of God, and the priests gave to all the final sacraments, then made exhortation that this hellish demon be conquered by the guns. Thus the fleet belched forth all its artillery, and the priests on bow and poop displayed the crucifix, and pronounced the curse of God.
At this the monster swerved, somewhat from its onward rush so as to point its great head upon the middle of the fleet.
The horrid panting of its breath came clearly across the waters, and a raucous, intermittent note as of sobbing reached their ears. Whereupon the priests exhorted with redoubled effort, and held the crucifix on high, and the cannon roared again.
At this the fiery eyes of the devil tight closed, and it emitted a scream as of the fear of God. Yet it r
ushed on and on, cleaving the sea and piling wave upon wave—then passed through our fleet, disturbing the equilibrium of the galleons with the lashings of its tail so that the priest Francisco de Casceres fell into the sea bearing his crucifix with him, and then he disappeared from sight.
At this all men fell upon their knees and besought mercy, thinking they were assuredly lost. And as by fear of the Power of Powers the monster bellowed again, and disappeared in the falling night. And all prayed in thanksgiving.
One hour later came another visitation.
A great white eye appeared, and swept the seas as in searching. It fell upon one galleon, and fixed upon it, growing ever greater and more blinding in the intensity of its devilish glare. Again the guns of the fleet belched forth, and this time the monster eye dimmed.
Shortly, mid awful fires, the Cristobal was seen to tear asunder, and a terrific bellowing roar shook the fleet. The eye peered forth again upon where the Cristobal had been, then dimmed once more. Again the same-volcanic roar that shook the sea, and the Maria Nuestra blew asunder, and. disappeared. And then another ship, and another, and still others, until eleven of His Majesty’s galleons were gone beneath the sea.
In the darkness it seemed that the power of God were as naught before this thing of Satan, and the one galleon afloat, that of the vice-admiral of the fleet, and bearing the choicest treasure from Darien, silenced its guns and fled, hoping that God in His mercy would save them.
But the burning eye sought this last out, and with a great snorting and puffing the monster suddenly appeared and cried out in the voice of man speaking in a bastard Spanish tongue, saying that it was a friend. Whereupon all men fell upon their knees—the devil of the sea, in the clothing of a serpent-ship, ranged alongside, closed in with the galleon, and in a moment more the decks were alive with strangely clad, man-like demons to, the number of two hundred. And all crossed themselves, believing that their day had come. But with the deceiving smiles of Satan these manlike spirits of evil made friendly approaches; and undaunted by the courageous priest, proceeded as by preconceived command to different parts of the ship.
Some, much beguiled upon the arms, sought out the vice-admiral. Others brought up the treasure. Others still released the English pirate prisoners, and spirited them with the treasure onto the monster itself. Others attached iron ropes to the bow of the galleon and thence to the tail of the loudly breathing demon, whose stench had all but overcome the crew.
And shortly all the man-like things save sixteen returned to the monster, which, with much blowing and stench of smoke, proceeded on again, with His Majesty’s ship helpless in tow.
Thus, for the space of twelve hours, when land appeared ahead, and buildings ashore which our officers declared to be of the New World city of Darien in the Panama, which they had left two days before.
Whereupon the sixteen man-like demons bade the anchor be dropped, and our viceadmiral, helpless under the spell they had cast upon him, complied. The great monster gave a screeching roar, and halted too, close aboard.
Thus for perhaps five minutes, when of a sudden the creature dissolved from sight. And the sixteen man-like demons on board the galleon vanished before the very eyes of our men.
Five men were seen struggling in the waters in the very space where the demon had last lain—but our own vessel heeded them not, believing it but another trick of evil. In haste the anchor was gotten up, and the galleon, favored by winds and the grace of God, made away with all sail. Truly the seas of Las Indias Occidentales are in the power of Satan, and it behooves His Majesty well that great fleets be sent with soldiery and priests to rid the water and the land of his evil—
Enough of the manuscript, with its story of the long past year, 1564. Two other paragraphs of it I have reserved to the end. They are more fitting in conclusion than as preface to the rather extraordinary event of the present day that follows.
Chapter I
SILENCE
The door of the flagship’s radio shack opened softly, and the squadron commander himself stepped in.
At the men’s startled looks and movement as to arise, he shook his head and put his finger to his lips. His eyes went swiftly about the little room, then he bent quickly and pulled out a bucket, which he inverted, and sat upon. For a moment he pressed his temples, rubbing them gently as though some slight pain beat in them, or as a man might to soothe a growing perplexity. Then he drew from the pocket of his white coat a radio blank, white, with red lettering, and pored over, and over again, the three short lines in black typing that constituted the message sent up to him the night before. His eyes flashed once to the clock on the port bulkhead over the phones. And his lips moved slowly for the first time.
“Three—o’clock!”
The words were barely audible, yet the startled glances of the two operators betrayed their alertness, and that they had heard—and understood.
In the silence the squadron commander watched the radio officer as he tuned and retuned, as the key punctuated the hot hiss of the sparkling apparatus.
Suddenly the officer reached and pulled the switch that broke the sending contacts. Then he jerked off the head gear with a grunted oath.
“Not a damn thing, Biggins!”
The first class radio electrician leaped from his seat on the desk by the phones. “Sir?”
“Either I’m crazy, Biggins, or their radio is on the bum, or they’ve gone to the bottom of the sea with all hands. Take the watch—you know the stuff better than I do. Keep tryin’, every second on the jump. You know what the matter is now, and we’ve got to get something or the old man’ll go crazy with all—”
Something in Biggins’ eyes made him swing about. At sight of the squadron commander he stopped short, his eyes wide open, his jaw dropped.
“Captain, I—”
The squadron commander raised his hand with a smile, nodding toward the set. “Nothing, Gordon?”
Lieutenant Gordon shook his head. “Not a single word, captain. Not a single word. I don’t understand it. They were in first rate condition when they went out. The experiments went O.K. And that message came through—that—”
“I know,” said the captain, “Tuned to perfection. Quite ready to try it out.” There was a short silence, broken only by the hiss of the spark as Biggins sent out the call.
The squadron commander cleared his throat. “You are quite sure this set is in working order?”
Lieutenant Gordon nodded emphatically.
“Absolutely, sir. I tested that out this morning at eleven. Had ’em semaphore to the Apache to open up, and we exchanged spark and phone for ten minutes. We’re all right, captain, I know that. It’s this other—thing. This—”
“The Apache’s pretty close. How about your distance?”
The squadron commander shook his head in perplexity.
“Got Guantanamo with the spark at eleven-thirty, captain. I know we’re all right, sir,” insisted the lieutenant. “Better let one of the other ships try to reach them.”
“I did, sir.” Gordon threw out his hands. “Between twelve noon and two o’clock, I had four of ’em open up in half-hour watches. They couldn’t get a thing, sir. And since then I’ve been at the set myself. And still nothing doing. It’s three fifteen now.”
“They were due at eight o’clock this morning,” the captain mused aloud. His eyes flashed to the clock. “And now—three sixteen. Seven hours since they should have dropped anchor. And nothing but silence since nine o’clock last night.” Slowly his black eyes met Gordon’s. “Their position when they sent this message would put them not a hundred and sixty miles due east, at the most. One hundred and sixty miles—at fifteen knots—ten hours. They should have anchored before eight this morning.”
Gordon stared at him in sympathy.
The thing had been done by department order. It was not the squadcom’s fault in any possible way. But, still, he had the responsibility.
“That—that message—” Gordon nodded to the radio
blank—“it says that the experiment was successful, doesn’t it, sir?” The captain nodded heavily.
Gordon went on. “The Cheyenne and the Hopi got in at two. Nothing from them, sir? They found nothing?”
“Nothing, Gordon.”
The radio officer swung about to Biggins, who was now listening, his head cocked to one side, one hand upon the wave dial, in the other a pencil ready at the pad. “Anything doing, Biggins?”
The first class lifted one ear receiver. “What’s that, sir?”
“Do you get anything?”
“Not a thing, sir. It’s just kind of—silent, sir.”
Chapter II
RADIO
When Professor Antonio Callieri first brought his discovery to the Navy Department he was listened to with patient interest. But when he was finally ushered to the door his heart was heavy within him. He had failed utterly.
He knew what wide sweeping effect upon all radio communication his discovery would have. He knew of the inestimable value it would be to any single world power into whose hands its secret would fall. And to America, the America that had done so much for world peace, he had dearly wished that secret to come. He swore within himself that he would yet persist. He would try again. And to that end he must get some one trusted by the United States Navy to help him.
Professor Callieri finally found his man. And through the medium of this man’s understanding and his high influence, the navy came into control of the secret of what has come to be known as the Callieri Cool Wave.
Of the secret itself we have but little to say here, save for the fact that through it the strange relationship between events of the past and certain ones of the present have come, in my mind, at least, to be as clear as day.
Suffice it to say, then, that through the sifting of the ordinary electric wave through a peculiar, tube-like device, it was made possible to send through the ether a new type of wave impulse which could not be picked up by any other apparatus than one embodying with it the Callieri Detector. That should be sufficient—by its medium the intricate processes of coding and decoding messages in time of war might be entirely obviated. Messages could be transmitted in the ordinary manner, alien ears could not even detect their presence in the atmosphere, and alien minds would be none the wiser.