CHAPTER XXIII
MARK SIX METRES EIGHTY-FIVE
WHEN AT THE end of a few moments I recovered from my dejection I found myself alone with Von Treischke. Fritz and the nephew had disappeared. The Admiral came up to me and said:
“We know what happened during the last few days on the ‘Vengeance’ which is firing submarine broadsides off shore at Vigo. If we wish to save her who before she was Madame von Treischke was Amalia Edelman, we haven’t more than an hour in which to do it, Monsieur Herbert of Renich. Captain Hyx is where I told you he was, and when he returns on board his ship, the most frightful tragedy of the war may perhaps occur. That is why I’m sending you to him before he does return. That’s why you must take the documents, which have been entrusted to you, to him at the exact spot where our espionage service informs us that he is to be found — at Mark six metres eighty-five in Vigo waters.”
I gazed at the monster and marvelled at his cynicism. He never forgot anything. To save the life of his wife he coldly reminded me that I had been and was still in love with her.
“You need have no fear. You will go to this man as the bearer of a flag of truce, and he will know that you came in that quality. My nephew will explain the whole thing to you. Do all that my nephew tells you, no matter what you may think or what you may see.”
He coughed, gave me a sidelong glance, and continued: “You must expect to see some amazing sights, Monsieur Herbert of Renich; but the more amazing they may appear to be, the more you will grasp the necessity of jealously guarding those secrets. Persons who see those things are not allowed to talk about them elsewhere. As far as you are concerned, when you have completed your mission, you will regain your liberty, because I venture to say that we can be certain of your discretion, Monsieur Herbert.”
“Of course, Admiral, you may be certain of my discretion. I know that your arrangements are such that you have nothing to fear on that score. But don’t you think, Admiral, that you will be more certain of my devotion in carrying out a task, which is very difficult for me since I have to plunge under the seas, and may never return, if you gave me your word that my mother is incurring no danger, will incur no danger, and is receiving every care and attention?”
“You have my word,” replied Von Treischke, “and now go.”
“But what must I say to Captain Hyx?”
“You will give him the letter which is in your possession, and you have only to confirm the contents of it if you are asked to do so. Then you will bring me back his answer.”
At this moment the nephew returned and took me away. I scarcely had time to salute in due form the Terror of Flanders whom I was cursing with all my heart.... But we must dissemble.... I imagine that everything is not over between us! Where was the nephew taking me? He led me through several large low rooms and dark passages, and we descended a worm-eaten staircase; and then I found myself on the outer quay of the small private harbour at Goya. Here we boarded a motor picket-boat. The current was switched on and we left the harbour and surged swiftly over the bay, steering a north-westerly course, and making for Subvido Point.
The sun had risen. A splendid dawn flushed the hills behind the terraces of the town, and the entire estuary was awaking in an enchanting atmosphere of peace. I knew that our picket-boat was sailing above the battle which was in full swing; and yet nothing was revealed to the eyes and ears of the profane. The Invisible Battle was raging underneath our feet, the battle that I should know something about very soon. And yet — will it be believed? — instead of being seized with terror at the thought of penetrating into this submarine horror, I was chiefly conscious of a feeling of curiosity, though it was certainly an anguished curiosity.
Yes, curiosity was stronger than fear, because in my heart of hearts, assuredly, I was afraid. I have never tried to play the braggart, and often enough I have said that there was nothing in my training which marked me out for the part of a hero. I had more curiosity in me than fear, that was all. It was not the first time that the thing had happened to me, and perhaps it was logical to trace to this morbid and partly feminine curiosity — slightly touched with fear — to trace to this cause, I say, all the exceptional misfortunes in my career.
But to return to the Bay of Vigo now awaking to the dawn. One must have been forewarned, as I was, by the incidents that had gone before, to pay the least attention to the black hulks stationed in certain parts of the roadstead. They might have been colliers waiting in the ordinary way for steamers which they were to coal. Some of the hulks, a little further off, Toralla Island way, and consequently not far from Mark six metres eighty-five, had the rig of dredgers, and it might be thought that they were dredging the mud in the channels.... But they were sweeping into their black sides gold and blood — treasure and wounded men — very tranquilly, to all outward seeming at least. I was aware of it. And, maybe, many others in the roadstead were aware of it, but they crossed the waters, as I did, looking as if they knew nothing at all. For there were clever people who had noticed something and had bitterly regretted that nature had endowed them with such powers of discernment....
At length we reached without incident the north-west mouth of the bay; and suddenly we entered Barra Bay which was so dangerous to approach, and wherein Gabriel had met with his adventures. I recognised, from his description, the mysterious buildings resting on a foundation of piles at the foot of the cliffs, and I noticed those peculiar tarpaulins which hung down to the sea and thus prevented prying eyes from seeing between the piles.
A few calls from a shrill whistle, regulated in a special manner, and a gate was opened in the medley of buildings, tarpaulins and piles... and we were again inside a small haven which reminded me of the tank which may be seen in swimming baths. A flight of steps ran down to the water leading to wooden platforms, and on those platforms were low trucks filled with motionless fighting men. I shall never forget the sight, never!
I don’t know what the knights of olden days looked like — in the days of Sir Walter Scott’s Old Mortality — when they were encased in full mail. Of course, like everyone else, I have seen armour in museums. But I have never seen a body of steel knights in battle array wearing their helmets with their visors down. No indeed. But I could fancy that I saw such a body of knights that morning in Barra Bay. Those men, in order to fight under the seas, seemed to have buckled on the armour of old, the armour with which men fought on the plains of Agincourt, and assuredly in every other mediæval battle. Only instead of being seated solidly on powerful steeds, barded and caparisoned like themselves, they were comfortably ensconced on low wagons. Each wagon — they resembled platforms furnished with wheels and seats — contained a dozen motionless warriors, absolutely motionless. And the truth is, I verily believe, that it would have been very difficult, perhaps even quite impossible for them to move, because they were attired not like ordinary divers but in an armour of bronze, steel and other metal plates secured at the joints by thick bands and hoops of metal which fitted one into the other like the shields of Crustacea.
Their heads were enormous, consisting not only of the spherical helmets of divers but crested casques with projecting peaks like those of ancient warriors, as pictured in the head pieces of Ajax and Minerva and other Greek gods; projections obviously intended to preserve the leader from the blows of his adversary.
The impressive statues held a rifle which was nearly the same shape as the ordinary rifle, but the butt end, it was explained to me afterwards, contained a magazine of compressed air which discharged the bullet. Fixed to these rifles were gleaming bayonets like those used with ordinary rifles, and their sharp points took the appearance of lighted tapers in the slanting rays of the morning sun. Moreover, the formidable monsters wore, at the belt, a sword, a holster containing a revolver, an axe and other weapons. It appears that these things become appreciably lighter under water. Above the bellows-bag of compressed air which they carried on their shoulders was another swelling bag which, my companion informed me, contai
ned grenades of a special sort.
The train, which was drawn by cables, worked by a steam engine in the building, began its journey, and by degrees the trucks loaded with their inanimate warriors slid down the inclined plane into the sea. They disappeared from sight while the waters around became covered with foam.
“Well, what do you think of that?” questioned my companion, tapping me on the shoulder. “Unfortunately we arrived too late to see the new square artillery depart..... Let’s go.”
I was taken aback but I did not forget that it was my duty to appear to be more amazed than I really was, inasmuch as Von Treischke’s nephew imagined that I knew nothing whatever about the Invisible Battle.
“What’s that?... What’s that?” I said, hypocritically throwing up my arms to heaven.
“That’s modern war,” he replied, pushing me into a small room and at once closing the door. “What you’ve seen is nothing to what you’re going to see. We can show you something better than that.”
“But, I say, are they fighting here?”
“Yes, here, in the bay... but we mustn’t say so,” he replied, leaning over me as if he were going to eat me.
“I understand.... I understand.”
“Oh, I know you are very quick.... The Admiral said: ‘Don’t you worry about Herbert of Renich. He’s very intelligent.’”
“The Admiral flatters me,” I returned somewhat glumly. “But what’s that other thing?” I asked, finding myself before a monstrous caricature of a man in armour.
“That’s your costume, and I shall be glad if you’ll put it on.”
“You don’t mean it.... Why I should frighten everyone if I wore that.”
Certainly the Admiral had not exaggerated. They had provided me with the latest model of what was the most extraordinary thing in diving dresses.
“You see,” said the other, who laughed at my dismay, “they’re spoiling you.... Besides, you need a special diving dress when you go down to a special depth.”
“Oh really... Am I to go down to a special depth?”
“Well, yes, three hundred feet at least.”
“But that’s impossible,” I explained. “I know the hydrographical map of Vigo and there are no such depths in the bay. Depths of sixty, seventy-five, ninety to one hundred and twenty, and as an exceptional case one hundred and thirty-five feet, are quite enough; in fact, too much! And besides, wasn’t I to go down to Mark six metres eighty-five as the Admiral said? So what does it mean?”
“It means that to reach Mark six metres eighty-five, without danger, you must, my dear Herbert of Renich, pass certain artistic constructions which have slightly altered the conformation of the sea-bottom, and go down into certain trenches, as deep as shafts, where the sea pressure would flatten you to a pancake if you were wearing a diver’s ordinary dress.”
“Very well... particularly if that is the case.”
“Of course it is a fault on the right side.”
“Oh, the right side!” and I covered my eyes so as to shut out the sight of the iron monster.
“My dear Monsieur Herbert, don’t be childish but listen to me. I’m going to give you a few particulars about your little suit with the iron jacket....”
“Yes, if you don’t mind.”
And going up to my little suit with the iron jacket, handling it, manipulating it, and stroking it as if it were cloth and he a cloth merchant or a tailor, he dilated on its “smartness” and its practical virtues.
“The apparatus,” he explained, “is entirely made of steel plate and its lines have been studied so that they might resist the highest pressure without losing their shape. For that matter it would be comparatively easy to render this steel plate effective if it were a question only of constructing a rigid armour. But it is infinitely less so when, on the contrary, it is a question of manufacturing an apparatus which will permit of the movement of the joints; in other words a certain quantity of water always percolates through the joints owing to the sea pressure however watertight they may be. This difficult problem has, however, been solved, thanks to the use of compound joints the various parts of which complement each other and blend into one their own impermeability.”
So saying the charming young man vigorously set the joints, or rather the articulation of the monster in motion.
“It is difficult to make them work in the air but you’ll see how they’ll go under water.”
“I hope so,” I sighed.
My companion smiled at my sigh and went on:
“Of course we couldn’t think of allowing the wearer’s hands outside the costume, for the pressure would produce, with tremendous rapidity, a veritable local asphyxia and mortification of the tissues. Accordingly one of the arms is furnished with a part which constitutes a sort of rudimentary hand capable of grasping objects, and this is worked from the inside by means of a hand lever, while the other has an electric torch at the end of it!” That is certainly the explanation, I thought to myself, of the artilleryman’s metal arm which Gabriel mentioned when he told me about his excursion in Barra Bay. The man in the barracks beside the square gun, was being drilled, in the barrack courtyard, in the use of his metal arm and fingers, preparatory to going down into the furnace; that is to say before taking his part under water in the Invisible Battle.
“Have you a great number of these machines?” I asked.
“A few.... A few....” replied the other evasively. “At least, as many as we require.”
“Of course I’m sure of that!”
“But this one,” went on the young man, “is certainly the most wonderful, the masterpiece of them all; in short the one that is worn by Admiral von Treischke when he thinks fit to honour us by visiting in person the battlefield.”
“Excellent.... Excellent.... I feel very honoured.... Battlefield.... Battlefield.... Certainly one cannot turn round on land or under water,” I ventured, “without encountering a battlefield.”
“You would be wrong to dwell upon it.”
“I understand.... I won’t enlarge on it. I won’t be astonished at anything, and I will be guided by you in everything.” All the same I shook my head doubtfully. “If one were to fall, one would be put to it to get up again in that particular suit of clothes.”
“Never fear,” he replied. “Of course this apparatus is heavy, very heavy, seeing that it weighs half a ton, but by virtue of Archimedes’ old principle, its weight does not prevent any insuperable obstacle to the movements of the man who is wearing it. Equally, of course, a man attired in a rigid armour in which the articulations have a limited flexibility, cannot show any very great activity when submerged. But, in practice, the slower movements which are possible to him are sufficient for the purpose of investigation.”
“In short, these are admirable apparatus for Generals, Admirals and all persons who work with eye and brain.”
“Precisely.... They are also admirable for diplomatists and bearers of flags of truce who move forward between the two enemy camps, and are not absolutely anxious to be reduced to a little heap of sand before they can fulfil their mission...
“Oh, I see.... I’m to move forward between the two enemy camps?...”
“Look here, hasn’t the Admiral told you anything?”
“Yes.... Oh, yes.... I beg your pardon. He made no secret of the fact that I was to rejoin Captain Hyx, and as Captain Hyx is in the opposite camp..
“Enough said.... No unnecessary words,” interrupted the young man brusquely. “I’m going to accompany you, but in a diving suit a little more pliant” — and he pointed to a cupboard in which was a fighting diver’s suit of rather smart appearance—” I shall not leave you until it is pretty well necessary.”
“I see.”
“Nor until I’ve given you every information that may be useful.”
“That’s just it,” I exclaimed. “But if you don’t give me the information now, when will you give it to me?”
“The telephone was not invented for fishes,” he r
eplied, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously.
He showed me the small instrument thanks to which I should be able with the greatest ease to speak to him. It was merely a question of putting two divers into communication by means of a wire which he pointed out. The portable electric battery from which we obtained our light provided us also with the power of hearing and making ourselves heard. This last matter pleased me more than anything else. From my previous experience of the diving suit I knew nothing more disagreeable than the feeling of solitude, of being left to oneself, amid the elements, which one experienced under water in an iron armour. It was particularly so with the diving dress that is constructed now, with its bag of compressed air and its absolute isolation.... But so long as there was a human voice in my ear to guide me I should feel less miserable. Miserable was the word, and I shall not try to pretend the contrary nor claim to be cleverer than Nature made me.
A quarter of an hour later the Hun officer and I, in our costumes ad hoc were seated, in our turn, on one of the low trucks; and with a body of men-at-arms newly equipped, we slid down to the bottom of the sea.... And then I learnt about the Invisible Battle.
Certainly the sight that met my gaze — I am about to describe it with the complete good faith of a neutral and an honest man — astonished me greatly, and will astonish many of my readers; but I have since reflected upon these things and I will beg others to reflect upon them also. Submarine war has existed from the remotest antiquity, and the wonder would have been if this war, like other wars, had not undergone what man, in his frenzy of destruction, calls the law of progress.
Divers have long since taken the place of under-sea swimmers, and history tells us something of the work which the latter accomplished in naval warfare. “When Xerxes’ navy was assailed by the tempest,” writes Pausanius, “near Mount Pelion, Scyllis and his daughter Cyané contributed greatly to their destruction by diving below and cutting the cables and moorings of the vessels.” Scyllis of Sycone was thus the founder of a school. When the Greeks attacked Syracuse, divers helped the Athenians in the same way as Scyllis had formerly helped them against the Persian king. The besieged closed the entrance to their harbour by a species of submarine stockade of piles, and clever divers cut the piles under the sea.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 375