Convoy to Atlantis

by William P. McGivern

  He was too weary to argue. He stumbled to the conning tower and an officer helped him down the narrow steel ladder that led to the depths of the sub. Vaguely Brick realized that he was seated on a stool and his water soaked windbreaker had been removed.

  Later, as his head cleared, he saw more men climbing down the iron ladder. Reaching the bottom they received a small, soggy body handed down to them. Two of them stretched the body on the floor and another seaman went to work on it with artificial respiration.

  Brick shook his head and climbed to his feet. There was something disturbingly familiar about that huddled figure on the floor. He took several unsteady steps toward the small knot of men, and then one of them moved and he got a look at the face of the man on whom they were working.

  It wasn't logical that he should have been so shocked, but his legs almost collapsed as he recognized the pale, pinched features of his shipmate, Pop Carter.

  He dropped to his knees beside the little man's inert figure.

  "Is he—has he got a chance?" he demanded hoarsely to the men who were working over him.

  As if in direct answer to his question the small, soaked figure on the floor stirred weakly. Brick watched tensely as the old fellow's bright little eyes opened and stared up at him. For a moment his face was blank, but then recognition dawned, and a faint flash of ire glinted in his eyes.

  "Dang it!" he wheezed. "I told you to get below. Now get movin' before I—I—I—"

  His voice trailed off weakly. His eyes closed again but a faint flutter of color was showing in the tough little man's leathery cheeks.

  Somehow, Pop's presence acted like a tonic to Brick. Except for the dull pain in his right side he was feeling considerably better. Strength was flooding into his healthy, well-muscled body and his head was clearing rapidly. Though still weak and tired, he was feeling more himself every minute.

  He stood up and the German who had spoken to him on the deck stepped to his side.

  "Please," he said, "will you come with me? The captain wishes to see you."

  "Okay," Brick shrugged. He started to leave, but stopped and glanced back uncertainly at Pop's still figure.

  The German guessed his anxiety.

  "Your comrade will be in good care," he said earnestly. "Everything he needs will be provided for him."

  Reassured, Brick followed the German through the narrow ship to a small gray door which was closed. The German opened the door and saluted smartly.

  "The American," he said stiffly.

  "By all means bring him in," a smooth, cultured voice answered from the room.

  Obeying a nod from the German, Brick stepped into the room. He heard the door click behind him silently.

  Standing behind a desk in the middle of the room, Brick saw a tall, dark-haired man in an officer's uniform regarding him. There was silence for an instant as the eyes of the two men locked and held with an almost physical force.

  Brick noticed fleetingly the hard features, the thin black mustache and the arrogant bearing of the German officer. Then his gaze flicked back to the German's eyes, light blue and as cold as sunlight on snow, mirroring the nature of the man behind them.

  They were the reflections of a ruthless, dangerous mind and will. Flintlike in their hardness, chilling in their coldness, they pierced Brick like twin lances of deadly flame.

  It was the German officer who broke the strained silence.

  "I am Captain Von Herrman," he said. Brick noticed again the flawless, precise pronunciation, the clipped, metallic voice. "I picked you up because I think you may have information I can use. If you are sensible you will cooperate with me. However I don't expect your answer now. You may have time to think it over."

  Brick's hands tightened into fists, but there was the flicker of a humorless smile on his lips as he said.

  "I wouldn't think of keeping you waiting. You can have my answer right now. Go to hell!"

  The Captain shrugged.

  "You are bitter, perhaps. You are still thinking of the sinking of your ship. I would advise you to forget such things. They are part of the past. They are over and done with and nothing you or I can do will change them."

  "I am not thinking so much of the sinking of the ship," Brick said coldly, "as the method used in sinking it."

  The captain smiled, displaying strong even teeth.

  "You Americans are too idealistic. You play at war as if it were some school game. You let your sympathies rule your head. The world today has no room in it for boy scouts."

  "Perhaps room will be made," Brick said softly.

  "That will be difficult to do," the captain said. "More difficult than you know. You have been attempting it and how far have you progressed? The convoy you were supposed to be protecting was destined for Britain. How much good will it do them at the bottom of the ocean?"

  A buzzer sounded suddenly in the room as the captain finished speaking. He stepped quickly to the wall and lifted a communication hose from a hook on the wall.

  "Ja?" he snapped curtly.

  He listened for a few seconds and Brick saw an anxious frown spreading over his hard features. For another interval he listened and then he spoke one tense, electric word into the mouthpiece.

  "Tauchen!" Submerge!

  He replaced the hose with a savage gesture and strode to his desk.

  "Our little discussion must be postponed," he snapped. "Two enemy destroyers have evidently picked up our vibrations. They are closing in under full steam."

  Brick felt a slight shift under his feet as the sub tilted downward. The captain seated himself at the desk and was intently studying the charts and current indicators spread before him.

  Brick knew destroyer tactics and he felt a grim exultation sweeping through him. Once they picked up a sub's vibrations it was generally curtains for the undersea craft. Tons of depth bombs would be the opening phase of the battle. Then the sleek destroyers would flash through the water like sharks on the trail of blood, watching for the ominous signs of air bubbles and oil that indicated their charges had scored.

  But their great advantage lay in the sub's necessity to rise to the surface for oxygen within a time limit. The destroyers could play a waiting game. The subs could not. They must get to their bases or rise for air. They couldn't do either as long as a destroyer was on their trail.

  *This is the case when destroyers go on a hunt for submarines, but in a convoy, the menace to an undersea boat is less, because the sub can, and does, submerge and lie quiescent until the convoy and destroyers are past. Then it can resume its voyage. However, when a sub is picked up by a convoy boat, its location can very swiftly be plotted, and by sweeping back and forth over the area, dropping depth charges, it is quite possible that the sub is doomed. A depth charge does not have to hit a submarine, but merely explode nearby. The concussion in the water does the rest.—Ed.

  "You haven't got a chance," Brick said grimly.

  The captain glanced up briefly from his charts. There was a cold, mocking light in his eyes.

  "Your stupid American optimism is annoying even though there is a logical basis for it. We are in danger now, but in a few minutes I can promise you we will be out of it."

  "You're whistling in the dark," Brick said, grinning, "You're a thousand miles from your closest base, and you'll soon be out of oil and oxygen."

  "Your calculations are off," the Captain snapped. "We are closer to our base than you imagine."

  Brick started to reply but an imperative clamor of the buzzer interrupted him.

  He watched the captain step quickly to the wall, remove the ear phone with a quick motion.

  And then it happened!

  The floor beneath him jerked spasmodically and a thunderous reverberation throbbed in his ears. Stunned by the impact of sound he found himself sprawled on the floor, head ringing. His side, which he had momentarily forgotten, was aching again as he crawled to his knees.

  Following the first blast of sound came an almost continual rumble
of explosions in quick succession that jarred the sub with sledge-hammer blows.

  Delicate wall instruments rattled and crashed to the floor as the craft shuddered under each successive impact. Brick saw that the captain had struggled to his feet and was barking frantic orders into the communication hose.

  Under his feet Brick felt the floor shift to a steeper angle as the sub pointed downward.

  Brick crawled to his feet, holding his breath against the pain the movement caused. The steep angle of the floor held, and minute after minute ticked off in silence. The rumble of the depth bombs was changing to a faint sound, above them and off to their leeward side.

  Then he felt the floor beneath him level itself out. It was no longer necessary to brace himself against the wall to maintain his balance. He glanced at the captain and saw that he was smiling coldly.

  "In spite of your expectations to the contrary," the Nazi said in his clipped, sarcastic voice, "the danger is past. Your stupid destroyers will chase about for a few days like dogs after their own tails, then they will boast of the sinking of another German submarine."

  Brick remained silent. The captain's confidence was genuine, he felt sure, but it puzzled him.

  He felt, or thought he felt, a slight jar travel the length of the sub. He couldn't be sure for there was a strange lightness in his head that was making thinking a difficult job. The pain in his side had subsided again to a dull throbbing ache.

  "We are docked,” he heard the captain's voice as if from a great distance.

  Brick shook his head in an effort to clear the white mists.

  "I don't understand," he muttered thickly. "Where are we?"

  The captain drew himself erect, his eyes lighting with a cold flame.

  "Atlantis," he said. There was a pride in his voice that was almost exultation.

  Brick tried to laugh, but no sound came from his throat. Atlantis! The continent that had sunk thousands of years ago. Now he knew this was all a wild, crazy nightmare.

  Then something struck him a blunt blow in the face and chest and when he tried to lift his arms he found that he had fallen to the floor. Before he could figure out this surprising development a wave of dirty black spilled over him, smothering him. . .

  CHAPTER III

  Atlantis!

  Pop Carter stared at the still figure on the cot anxiously. His round, red face was wrinkled worriedly and his gnarled, blunt fingers were twisted together in something very like entreaty.

  Long slow minutes passed and then the figure on the cot stirred restlessly.

  Pop leaned forward in sudden anxiety.

  "Brick, boy," he whispered pleadingly.

  Brick opened his eyes slowly, painfully. It was like coming up from black silent water or walking from darkness into a brightly lighted room. He blinked his eyes and managed to focus them on Pop's worried, wrinkled face.

  "Are you feeling all right, lad?" Pop asked urgently.

  Brick hesitated a bit before replying. He felt fairly well except for the constricting tightness about his chest. Moving his hands under the light covering he discovered that his torso was bound closely with adhesive tape and bandages. Breathing was somewhat difficult, but his head was clear and his arms and legs felt strong and rested.

  "Why shouldn't I be?" he asked with a weak grin.

  "No reason except you've been out like a light for thirty-six hours, got about three cracked ribs and had the krauthead sawbones wondering if you were goin' to pull through at all."

  "Thirty-six hours," Brick muttered, dazed. "I must've pulled a weak sister act at that." He raised himself on one elbow and ran a hand through his tousled, fiery hair. A glance about showed a small, frugally furnished room with two bunks, two chairs and one door with a barred window.

  "This the brig?" he asked.

  "Nothin' but," Pop snapped. "And we're in for the duration."

  Brick started to speak but Pop leaned close to him and said:

  "Lemme do the talking for a minute." He shot a quick glance at the door, then turned back to Brick. "This is worse than a brig. It's a German sub base, a whopping big one, built right on the floor of the ocean. They've got subs by the hundreds docked here and enough men to run 'em. It's the reason why the British have been losing about two of every three ships they operate on the Atlantic. And I think they're gettin' ready to turn these subs loose on American supply ships. This Captain Herrman is about the toughest and coolest thug I've ever run into. But I've got a plan—"

  "Slow down a minute," Brick begged. "I'm getting dizzy."

  His mind flashed back to the events of his last conscious hours. The sinking of the Vulcan, the rescue of the German sub, the escape from the British destroyers and finally the captain's incredible statement that they were docked at a German base in the mythical continent of Atlantis.

  Whether this last was true was highly debatable, but the sub base did exist, constituting a terrible menace to all American Atlantic shipping. That much was definite. The only clear fact in the bewildering chain of circumstance was that America's men and material were in immediate danger.

  Pop's voice broke into his thought, tense and cautious.

  "We got a chance to throw a monkey wrench into their works. The guard outside steps into the cell when the flunkey brings the food. He wears two guns, but he keeps his eyes on me all the time cause he's used to you lyin' there like a dead man."

  Brick's eyes glinted as his mind raced ahead of Pop's.

  "I see," he said softly. "You maneuver him to turn his back to me and I'll play possum. Then when he gets close enough to the cot I'll let him have it."

  *Shortly after the Lend-lease program got underway, British officials revealed to American officials the real truth of losses in the Atlantic. For a time, debate was hot in the Senate, because it was claimed Britain was "angling" for actual convoys and the losses were not true.—Ed.

  An hour later a surprised guard was seized from behind by a pair of steel-hard arms, hurled to the floor and his guns whipped from their holsters.

  Pop in turn slugged the gaping white-coated man who brought the food into the cell and the first phase of the plan had worked beautifully.

  While Brick held a gun at the guard's neck, Pop tied his hands and feet with their two belts.

  "The corridor is clear," he grunted. "All we got to do is get to the powder room at the end of it. It's only a hundred feet away. Then we'll finish this place for good."

  Brick slipped into his trousers and, barefooted and shirtless, followed Pop stealthily into the corridor.

  Moving swiftly they stole past unbarred doors on either side of the corridor until they reached an intersection where another tunnel-like corridor right-angled their own.

  The walls and ceilings of the corridors were of heavy, reinforced concrete and were brightly illuminated by powerful lights set at intervals of every six feet in the ceiling.

  The second corridor was deserted and quiet. Everything was proceeding smoothly. Too smoothly, Brick thought worriedly. This suspicion brought hackles of his skin up warningly, but it came too late to do them any good.

  "Looking for someone?" a cold, mocking voice inquired from behind them.

  Brick wheeled. Captain Von Herrman stood in the corridor, a cigarette drifting smoke up past the sardonic twist of his lips. He had obviously stepped from one of the rooms they'd passed.

  Brick's fingers tightened on the gun in his hand, but the captain raised a thin hand deprecatingly.

  "They're not loaded," he said calmly. "It was just a little clinical test of mine to see if you were going to be sensible. I instructed the guard to give you an opportunity to overpower him. Of course I wasn't foolish enough to put loaded guns into your hands."

  Brick stared helplessly at the gun in his hand, a dull feeling of defeat stealing over him.

  "After this," the captain went on imperturbably, "we will have to be more careful with both of you. I thought for a while of giving you your freedom here in return for such informati
on of America which you might happen to possess. Now you will be confined indefinitely."

  As if that word were a signal of some sort a number of doors opened along the corridor and a dozen grinning German seamen piled out.

  "I took additional precautions," the captain pointed out. "Now you will be shown your new quarters. Since we realize that we are harboring dangerous and resourceful Americans, we must be very careful. Very, very careful."

  His broad sarcasm brought grins to the faces of the German seamen.

  Pop threw his gun to the floor bitterly.

  "If I had a minute alone with you," he fumed, "I'd—"

  "You'd regret it exceedingly," the captain said coldly.

  Brick was silent as they were led to their new quarters. It proved to be a larger room with a small lavatory connecting. But the door and walls were plated with steel sheeting and the bars were several times thicker than the ones in their former cell. "I hope you'll be comfortable here," the captain grinned, "because it looks as if your stay is going to be a long one."

  "By that,” Brick said, "you mean the war will be a long one."

  "Long enough to accomplish its purpose," the captain said, "and no longer. When the world is willing to admit the superiority of the German people and grant them their ordained position in the ruling of the world, then, and then only, will the war cease."

  "Supposing," Brick said, "the people of the world decide not to admit the superiority of the Germans. Supposing they'd rather rule themselves than be enslaved to a gang of power-drunk fanatics. What then?"

  A hot flash of anger reddened the captain's face. One of the guards in the cell stepped menacingly toward Brick, but the captain checked him with a motion of his hand.

  "You're safe in your insolence," he said coldly, "because you happen to be defenseless and injured."

  "That hasn't stood in the way of your armies," Brick snapped. "They've never displayed any noticeable scruples about attacking nations half their size."

  The captain's anger was under check now, and a frosty gleam of sardonic amusement played in his eyes. "The idealistic American again," he jeered. "If you had an ounce of intelligence you'd realize that such things are necessary to the creation of a new order. For years we have been laying the ground work for our military machine and if tiny, undefended nations are impudent enough to attempt resistance they must pay the price for their folly. "This submarine base is an excellent example of our invincibility and thoroughness. Equipped now for a thousand ships, soon it will hold ten thousand. The British are laughing at the fleets of pocket submarines we are constructing because they know their cruising range to be less than fifty miles. But stationed at this base a submarine needs only a cruising range of five miles to operate at maximum destructive efficiency.