out of New Orleans. Shoot off the bastard in super-missile, practically untried, untested. Mission accomplished.'
It's already out of gear,' I observed dryly.
The sea, John, the sea! That's the great imponderable!'
The Jesus factor,' I added.
He nodded. We haven't allowed for the safety margin of the sea. You know it, I know it. The Dm—he doesn't know
what it is to love a hunk of metal filled with machines. computers and other electrical wonders, something that takes you and brings you out on the other side. He's cold. For him, Devastation, Willow track, Little Bear are all expendable.'
Us, too.'
Us, too,' he echoed sombrely. He swung on his toes and started to pull the sweater over his head, the muscles apparent in his chest and arms. Like to see the ship?' he asked. ' Get a dosimeter from
the hospital orderly to check your exposure to radio-activity —
but I can tell you now, there's less aboard Devastation than you get every day in London or New York.'
I'd like to see the missiles,' I ventured.
He held up a small key which hung on a gold chain round
his neck. I could start a nuclear war with this. It unlocks 67
Devastation's Polaris A-4's. You're free to go into Sherwood Forest.' He made an expressive loop with his arms. ' Big sevenfoot steel tubes from keel to deck, like trees—Polaris silos. Our Little Bear is experimental, but these Polaris
missiles are operational. Better get Bob to take you round. Only officers and operating ratings are allowed in Sherwood Forest.'
Sherwood Forest itself was a disappointment. I felt my heart quicken as Bob Peters—a short, cheerful, sandy-haired man with quiet, shrewd eyes—unlocked the main door. The compartment consisted merely of double columns of circular tubes wrapped in canvas, painted an artistic green. There was nothing to show that these were the deadliest missiles afloat. In the keel's ' mushroom factory' at the base of the missiles, I had the same feeling of clinicism rather than power. Under each Polaris A-4 was a big steel ball like an enclosed, outsized kaffirpot. These were the compressed-air flasks which tossed the deadly birds to the surface. The same sort of thing was built into the casing of Little Bear for the initial take-off.
Peters took me for'ard through the crew's quarters to the torpedo-compartments in the bows. Through a low steel door I saw a heavy bronze tube running out of sight into the bulkhead above. Set into it was a hatch, like an outsize oven door. Peters explained that this was an escape route for the crew if the sub should be flooded. It worked on the principle that when the air pressure inside the tube equalled that of the ocean outside, all the five or six men in the bronze tube need do was to rise to the surface .. .
A telephone buzzed. A rating answered and automatically
jumped to attention. He handed the instrument to Peters. '
For you, sir!'
Peters listened for a moment and slammed it down. '
Quick!' he said. Control Centre!'
He raced through the ship with me at his heels and reached
the Control Centre breathless.
The 00D said quickly, ' Sonar reports contact bearing zeronine-zero true, twelve miles.'
Peters took a quick glance at the fathometer, whose stylus
was clicking and chuckling, as he asked: ' All round?' ' Aye aye, sir. Something massive is blocking our way.'
68
6 S A Y A D E M A L H A
Peters snatched up an intercom. Captain in the controlroom, sir!'
In a moment Peace, pulling on a shirt, joined us at the diving-stand. The sleep seemed to have evaporated from his eyes in the few short moments it took him to get from his
cabin to the Control Centre.
Peters explained the situation briefly. Peace nodded.
Ahead one-third,' he ordered.
Six hundred feet,' chanted the diving officer.
Bring her up—four hundred feet, handsomely,' went on
Peace.
The strong sound of the pumps—the diving officer was careful not to blow the vents for a too rapid rise through water of unknown salinity and temperature—filled the Control Centre.
Sonar?'
Contact now bears zero-nine-zero true, confused background echoes.'
Is it moving?'
No, sir. Steady range and bearing.;
Come right to one-two-zero,' ordered Peace. He swung
Devastation's bows away to point at an oblique angle. The sonar-man said in his flat voice, Contact steady on
zero-six-zero. Confused background noises.'
What the hell is it?' I asked Peace.
These are seas with coral formations,' he replied. Theoretically, there should be a gradual shelving approach towards land, or shoals like the Saya de Malha.' He swung round. Depth?'
' Four hundred.'
The fathometer sounding read 1800 fathoms under our
keel, and on Peace's orders Devastation lost way, hanging in mid-ocean. The diving officer stood with his eyes glued to the ballast-control panel, trimming, adjusting, holding her delicate balance.
The sonar-man reported, 'Contact now bears zero-fiveseven, ten miles.'
Without warning, Devastation rocketed upwards, caught by some formidable power combination of current and salinity. '
Flood her down—emergency!' roared Peace. My ears
69
clicked and clacked as scores of tons of high-pressure water poured into the tanks.
Then—Devastation plunged downwards in the opposite direction. The men in the Control Centre hung on to the trolleystraps.
` Blow negative to the mark!' rapped the diving officer.
With a roar like an express train, high-pressure air creaked against the cork insulation lining the control-room dome.
` Blow secured, negative at the mark!' came the answer.
' Shut the flood, vent negative, pump auxiliaries to sea!'
My stomach righted itself as we pulled out of the unexpected dive. Beads of sweat stood out under Peters's eyes. Peace, at the raised periscope stand, glanced round with
narrowed eyes. There was an indefinable atmosphere of fear. John, it can't be coral,' said Peace.
Limuria! I saw it so clearly that I could have laughed. Limuria had died a million years ago, not by volcanic upsurge—which would have meant customary coral formations —
but by subsidence, by falling into the sea! The huge obstacle barring our way—was it the high rim, the ancient boundary of Limuria, a giant rock soup-plate resting on the ocean bed, the inside of it being the Saya de Malha? My
idea would account for the lack of shelving and the shallow, unknown, broken waters extending over 12,000 square miles
of treacherous ocean.
I told Peace quickly what was in my mind. Before I had
finished he ordered, ' Make your depth two hundred feet.'
I was becoming more accustomed to the swift, deft responses of the planesinen and the ballast control.
' By God, John!' Peace exclaimed, after giving the order. '
The only person with the guts to run these shoals was old Surcouf, the French corsair.'
Surcouf logged an island two hundred years ago somewhere off the northern extremity of Saya de Malha. He named it Roquepiz. Today it's supposed not to exist.' I indicated the fathometer. ' But Surcouf didn't run like a bull at a gate at his shoals.'
In my mind's eye I saw the picture, straight ahead the drowned land of Limuria, a giant rim, probably volcanic, the wall of a vast plateau on which the ancient continent had stood. Our sonar showed that the rim lay in a broad arc across our bows. Inside that rim—what? Few except some eighteenth-century pirates had ever ventured to Saya de Malha on the surface; beneath the ocean, we were the first. What was under that narrow slot, shown on the charts 70
as lying between the main mass of Saya de Malha and my
Disney elephant's head?
' Captain, sir!' It was the sonar-ma
n.
Peace and I joined him for'ard.
' Listen to this doppler effect, sir.
T h e o p e r a t o r t u r n e d u p t h e s o n a r s c o p e v o l u m e o n t h e sound reproducer. Even with the primitive instruments I had been schooled in, I had been able to recognize the change in pitch of the echo which comes back to a listening sub from a target or underwater obstacle. Devastation's sona'
was sophistication itself. The doppler effect was clear through the transducer. We were converging on a solid object in our path.
The searching sound went out as a long purr-purr impulse. but it returned with a faint break in it.
' Land?' Peace, too, was puzzled.
' Aye aye, sir—but more—seems something solid is standing out, sort of, from the land.'
' Hill?'
' No, sir. You can hear yourself. Regular, all round the,
clock. Waves, too, sir.
I caught the faint crunch of water on the transducer. Peace shook his head. ' Water, not waves.'
' Could be, sir,' replied the sonar-man. ' Tide-race against these—
unidentified objects.'
My mind was out in front, in Devastation's sonardrome where hyper-sensitive instruments probed ahead through water where sunlight never penetrated, parallelling the dark dreadful night of the spirit when all is lost. I shuddered. We were deeper than man had ever been before over the detritus of a once-great continent which had fallen victim to the sea. I' was afraid.
Peace's voice broke the oppressive silence. ' Navigator!
What is our position?'
W i t h o u t w a i t i n g f o r a r e p l y , h e s t r o d e o v e r t o a g l a s s t o p p e d t a b l e u n d e r w h i c h m o v e d a n e e d l e p o i n t o f l i g h t . striking up through a chart folded over it. The navigator marked its path towards the opening between the two great banks of Saya de Malha. He gestured, unspeaking.
The sonar-man chanted formally. ' Contact evaluated as
land, with confused echoes, may be surf.'
Peace watched ' the bug ', as the needlepoint of light is called, move across the dead-reckoning tracer. Then he went to another instrument console to watch the nervous whip of the precision depth-recorder stylus on its sensitized paper,
71
sketching, with frantic haste, it seemed, every sea-bed undulation. He walked slowly back to his raised stool at the periscope stand, glancing half-left beyond the attack periscope to the depth-gauge and course-indicator. The crew were tense, over-attentive to every sound. This sort of waiting game is the test of the submariner.
Peace said softly to me, There's a temperature or salinity barrier blocking the sonar return—I think.' He paused. ' I don't think it's land.'
Then, as if ashamed of his confession of uncertainty, he ordered: Left fifteen degrees rudder. Come left to course zerofour-five. Decrease speed to ahead one-third.'
Peace had swung Devastation's nose in towards the barrier. Would he dare go in at this depth? Unconsciously, I turned to the person next to me. It was Adele. I whispered: Keep quiet!'
Ease her up—two-fifty feet,' said Peace.
I breathed again. With his deadly instinct, Peace was easing up on his target—whatever it might be. Rig for ultra-quiet!'
A pall of silence fell on all, on every machine not vital to the running of the sub. From the sonar-repeater came a curious, fogged thump like the sound of a distant diesel. Peters's eyes were wide with anxiety. The thump was followed by a sharp whining swish and a noise like brown paper being crumpled.
Possible goblin contact bearing one-zero-zero,' came the sonar-man's chant.
Goblin! Only a hostile submarine is called a goblin. Catandmouse—but Devastation had the edge, for she had gone ultraquiet first. The disembodied voice went on. ' Range twelve thousand yards. Approximate course zero-two-zero degrees, speed fifteen knots.'
A cold thrill of excitement passed through me as I watched Peace's hand reach out for the general alarm-button. He unhooked his command microphone with the other.
An unidentified submarine was passing across our bows at less than seven miles! We knew there were no friendly subs
in the area.
Then came a faintly apologetic note in the sonar-man's voice. 'Contact now evaluated as giant ray.' He said to Peace, Sorry, sir, at first I thought it might be a one-thirty r. p.m. fish, but there was that extra something I couldn't account for'
Fish are a sonar-man's nightmare. The brown paper crum72
piing noise we had heard was probably a school of small
fish and the sonar-man could be forgiven for being ultracautious. The operator went on, ' That doppler effect is still there, sir.It was clearer now, a curious sort of measured echo coming back to the transducer. The precision depth-recorder showed a steep shelf leading to the entrance slot.
Peace committed Devastation.
The ship was still rigged for ultra-quiet. Peters whispered, Bottom shaliowing rapidly, sir.
Peace went to the precision depth-recorder. I saw the twitch of his jaw muscles and his look of surprise. John,
come over here, will you!'
The stylus had given up its St Vitus' Dance movements.
Instead, it was moving up, across, down, up, across, in regular patterns.
It's packed up,' I said briefly. No sea-bed ever looked like that.'
Peace shook his head. No. There are other instruments monitoring this one. It's okay.'
I peered closer. Traced on sensitized paper were a number
of small rectangular blocks, followed by an intersection, and then the small blocks began again. When the stylus came
opposite the next intersecting line, Peace gave an order and Devastation swung along the course of the plainly demarcated line. The stylus traced it straight, unfalteringly. We had 600 feet of water under our keel.
Peace then reversed course, and Devastation glided over the straight line being traced by the stylus. Then the precision depth-recorder started to rise vertically.
All stop! Rudder amidships!'
Speed zero,' reported the navigator.
The needlepoint of light under the chart was still. The planesmen sat quiescent in their red leather-backed bucket seats. There was a faint splash of water down the leaking
periscope gland. All eyes were on Peace. At the ballastcontrol panel, the petty officer might have been a statue, hands extended to the multiplicity of switches in front of
him.
Bring her up to five hundred feet—handsomely,' commanded Peace. Slowly, now. Stop her there.' The first mechanical noise I seemed to have heard in hours brought reassurance—the purr of a ballast pump. Like a Navy dirigible hanging over a suspect contact, Devastation drifted slowly upwards. Twenty feet, thirty feet. The stylus levelled off. 73
` Secure!' said Peace.
Devastation hung, a masterly example of touch-and-go. Whatever it was, was right under our keel. The pointer
outlined a big flat slab.
Àhead one-third, one minute!'
The 15-foot propeller bit, turned, slowed. The stylus fell
away, showing a gully, or way, about 25 feet in depth. The
pattern on the sensitized paper was now one of big rectangular blocks divided by channels some 50 feet wide. Èase her down. Take it very easy.'
Again the quick purr of the pump, and a slight thump as
Devastation settled on the sea-bed.
Peace went to the periscope. His face was strained. By his
skill he had already undertaken a manceuvre so delicate and so dangerous that few men afloat could have matched it. I remained, at the precision depth-recorder. What could those rectangular blocks be? They looked like fashioned pieces of concrete used for building breakwaters, except that they were ten times the size. Among the rectangles were bigger and smaller ones; only a few were square.
Ùp periscope!'
The periscope jockey flicked the control-lever and with a
hiss like a s
pitting cat the long tube rose up, slowly, lethargically, thrusting against the outside sea-pressure. The leaky gland gave a spurt. The eyepiece with its double wooden handles emerged from the well. With the gesture I knew so well, Peace snapped down the handles and fiddled with the focus-lever. He gestured to me.
I put my face to the soft rubber eyepiece. I swung round. Darkness. Nothing.
At my elbow, Peace ordered, ` Turn on the sail floodlight.
Active television eye.'
I was still at the instrument. Automatically I put my eyes to the periscope.
I looked straight into the carving of a ship.
It lay, in sharp focus, in the middle of a carved pediment. The spotlight illuminated a small area. Carved pedimentbuilding—a city!
I knew then. I was looking at the ancient drowned city of Limuria.
The rectangular blocks were buildings, some big, some
small. The channels between were streets.
Limuria !
My thoughts raced to something which had stuck in my
mind from Mauritius. The Mauritius Institute recorded that
when the first explorers set foot on the island—the Portu74 guese, about 450 years ago—they had found carved tablets in wax, inscribed with lettering which they thought to be Greek. Hands trembling, I swung the eyepiece round. Above the dim ship outline—could it be lettering?
I snapped up the handles and turned to Peace. The iv screen showed nothing beyond a murk of water. A city . . All eyes in the control room were on me. How could one tell?
I gestured silently to Peace. He went to the eyepiece, looked and withdrew. Our eyes met. There, lying on the steep rim of the slot, was what must once have been a harbour and, with the cataclysmic collapse of the ancient continent, it had half-slid down the steep side of the undersea mountain plateau.
We'll plot this,' said Peace in a quiet voice. This was perhaps what was meant by " The Flood ".
Down periscope!'
The sleek tube hissed into the well. Secure from ultraquiet.' There was a subdued whispering among the officers. Peace picked up the control-stand microphone.
Captain here. We have just made what may be a major ocean-floor discovery. I am about to carry out a gridsearch.' He clicked off the instrument. Bring her up to four hundred feet, handsomely. Grid pattern search. Ahead onethird.'
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