Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “I hope you’re right,” Brick said briefly. “Anyway we’ll know soon enough. It’s about time for dinner. During the meal you make some excuse to get into the washroom. Then if everything works right I’ll handle the rest.”

  “It ain’t goin’ to be a snap for you,” Pop said. “There’s two of ‘em, you know. And the sour little guy who serves the food to boot.”

  For the next few minutes the men were silent, tensely awaiting the tread of boots in the corridor.

  When the sound came it was a relief. As the measured stamp came closer Brick felt his taut nerves relaxing. He slumped back in his cot and closed his eyes. His muscles were loose and free, his breathing regular. Except for the pain which still bothered his ribs, he was in perfect shape.

  Pop’s face was impassive but his blunt fingers were trembling slightly with excitement. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his dungarees to hide their perturbation.

  THE TWO men were apparently resting easily when the lock clicked and the two guards entered. The German guards were heavy-set and capable-looking in their blue-grey uniforms. Their faces were stern and watchful as they stepped aside to allow the orderly to enter with the tray.

  Brick opened his eyes, blinked, and then sat up yawning sleepily.

  “I was just about to yell for you guys,” he muttered, “I’m hungry as a lumberjack.”

  The tray was set on a small table in the center of the cell and Pop pulled up his chair and began eating.

  One of the guards, Brick noticed, had his gun in his hand, but the other wore his in the holster at his hip. They kicked the door shut and took up their positions, one on either side of it.

  Brick appraised their location and attitudes carefully before joining Pop at the table. He kept his eyes on the plate rather than risk a glance at Pop that might give away the excitement and hope that boiled within him.

  Halfway through the meal, Pop suddenly clutched at his stomach. With a moan of pain he staggered to his feet his face twisted in a grimace of agony.

  The German guards watched him with stoic suspicion, but when he hugged his arms to his stomach and stumbled weakly toward the lavatory they made no move to stop him.

  Brick slowly released the breath he had been holding.

  If the guards had stopped him, or insisted on following him, their applecart would have been neatly kicked over. But they hadn’t.

  Without attracting attention Brick managed to slide his chair back a few inches to give his knees clearance from the table. His feet twisted slightly as he braced himself for quick action.

  Outwardly he was calm, almost sleepy looking. But every muscle of his powerful body was coiled to strike and behind his expressionless face his brain was racing keenly and swiftly.

  Timing was all important. A tenth of a second one way or the other would mean the difference between success and failure, life and death.

  With a vicious effort of will he drove all thoughts of failure from his mind. He couldn’t fail. To avoid suspicion he forced himself to raise his fork again to his mouth.

  The fork was halfway to his lips when an incoherent, screaming voice blasted through the room. It was the voice of a madman, raging and shouting a stream of incomprehensible words and phrases. For a dazed second, as the frenzied, but strangely muffled sounds crashed through the room, the German guards stared in helpless bewilderment about them.

  Brick crouched at the table, his muscles gathering and bunching. His slate gray eyes were on the guards unwinkingly.

  For another chaotic second the guards hesitated as the maniacal sounds poured into the room. Then with an automatic motion they stiffened to rigid attention, their hands snapping outward in the Nazi salute.

  “Der Führer!” one gasped.

  BRICK MOVED then! With a tigerish motion he wheeled and charged the guards. The one with the gun in his hand cried out in surprised rage, but he was too late to use the gun. Brick’s shoulder slammed him against the concrete wall and his right fist drove into the Nazi’s middle with the force of a battering ram.

  With an agonized cry the man slumped to the floor, his eyes rolling wildly as he clutched at his stomach.

  Brick jerked around but the other guard was already on top of him his big fists slamming into his head and shoulders.

  Brick weaved backward, snapping his left into the guard’s enraged face. The German was big and powerful, with heavy shoulders that looked dangerous.

  Cursing he followed Brick, his arms pumping punches like well-oiled pistons. Brick backed away, waiting for an opening. If it hadn’t been for the aching pain in his chest he would have slugged it out, toe-to-toe, but he couldn’t take any chances now.

  Confident and careless the German dropped his arms and rushed Brick, hoping for a chance to grapple with the elusive American.

  Brick stabbed a left into his face and stepped in suddenly, his right chopping down in an axe-like blow that exploded against the German’s exposed jaw with a sickening smack! It was a terrible blow, almost enough to kill an ordinary man. The German staggered back, eyes glazing, his jaw hanging queerly.

  Brick moved into follow up, but it wasn’t necessary. The German sprawled backward to the floor, out cold.

  Brick wheeled—and his hands rose into the air.

  The orderly was facing him, a Luger pistol clutched in his fist. He was standing in front of the wash-room door, face working excitedly. For that reason he didn’t see the door open, didn’t see Pop’s roundhouse blow coming.

  The first knowledge he had of it, was when something like a sixteen inch shell crashed into the back of his neck exploding a complete constellation of stars before his eyes. He hit the floor and crumpled up like a sack of meal.

  “In the well-known nick of time,” Brick panted.

  Pop’s face was flushed triumphantly.

  “The first round is ours,” he grinned. “Tell me lad? Did I really sound like Adolf, himself? My German is awful.”

  “Close enough,” Brick said. “With that blanket over your head disguising your voice I almost started goose stepping myself. Now aren’t you glad you know German?”

  Pop stepped quickly to the guards and orderly and picked up their guns. He tossed one to Brick.

  “Let’s get movin’,” he snapped. “We can’t wait to tie these lugs up.”

  Brick stuck the gun in his belt and stepped to the door. One cautious glance showed the corridor still to be empty.

  “Let’s move,” he said grimly.

  Together they crept silently down the hall.

  THEIR GREATEST handicap was in their total unfamiliarity with the layout of the base. Then there were the lights, glaring brightly at all hours, ruining any chance or attempt at concealment.

  The corridor they were using was wide and deserted. They passed other doors, some barred and some of solid steel.

  Within a hundred yards Brick heard a faint throbbing sound growing in volume. He had noticed it subconsciously when he had left the cell but now its sound was all around them, like the pulse of a mighty heart.

  It must mean they were nearing the region that housed the dynamos. As they passed intersecting corridors Brick began to gain a mental picture of the base. The docks and operating machinery would probably be centrally located, and it would be logical that the officers’ quarters would be close to them. Then the main corridors angled away from this hub like the spokes of a huge wheel. The corridors they were intersecting were probably circular in shape, spreading out in gradually widening rings from the center or hub of the base.

  He noticed an increasing smell of oil in the warm air that further convinced him they were heading right for the center of the base. Nothing could be better. If they were going to accomplish anything in the way of delaying or destroying its workings, they would have to strike at its heart.

  “Let’s take a side tunnel,” Brick suggested. It had occurred to him that if the guards they had slugged stumbled out of the cell, he and Pop would be instantly visible to them.
r />   They turned off at the next corridor, moving swiftly, but cautiously.

  Not a second too soon—

  A hoarse cry sounded behind them, echoing loudly and clamorously through the tunnel-like corridors. Brick and Pop looked at one another apprehensively.

  A second later they heard the sound of running footsteps and shouted cries. Due to the acoustical peculiarity of the low corridors it was impossible to guess the origin of the sound. It seemed to break all around them, echoing up and down the length of the corridor.

  Brick hesitated. There was nothing to guide them or give them an inkling which way to turn. Around every corner lay danger. There was no more time left for deliberation or reasoning.

  “Come on,” he snapped. “It’s up to Lady Luck now.”

  With Pop panting behind him they charged ahead through two intersections of the larger corridors that led to the center of the base.

  Their luck had been phenomenal so far, but they were helpless to take advantage of it. They were running blindly with no destination in mind.

  THE GALRINGLY illuminated corridors offered no place of concealment. And their luck couldn’t hold forever. Suddenly a new, but unmistakable sound joined the babel of footsteps and voices that were closing on them.

  A muffled crack! sounded and Brick felt something hiss spitefully past his cheek. Jerking around he saw three Germans charging after them with drawn guns.

  Fortunately the next intersection was but a few feet away. Reaching it, Brick grabbed Pop by the arm jerked him roughly out of the line of fire into the temporary shelter afforded by the angle of the corridor.

  He pulled the Luger from his belt and fired two random shots at the oncoming Germans. It would slow them down he knew, give them a few seconds’ start down the corridor in which they found themselves.

  With Pop at his side, he sprinted ahead, but it was not until they had covered a hundred feet that they saw their mistake. For the corridor ended abruptly a hundred yards ahead of them. It was a dead end. Brick flicked a helpless glance over his shoulder. There was no turning back now. They were trapped without a chance in the world to save themselves.

  He was still looking over his shoulder when he heard Pop’s gun blast next to him. Turning he saw a German guard clutching his wrist and cursing wildly.

  “He just appeared out of thin air,” Pop said grimly.

  When they reached the man they saw that the corridor widened at its termination, forming a rectangular space which had concealed the sentry from their sight.

  Brick disarmed the guard swiftly. Then Pop was gripping his arm.

  “Look!” he cried, pointing.

  Brick followed his hand and saw that he was indicating the dead end of the corridor. Then he saw the reason for Pop’s excitement. It wasn’t a dead end, but a huge bronze door that blocked off the tunnel.

  Pop was already springing for the massive handle of the door, and Brick, with a slight twinge of conscience, jerked the guard around and slugged him in the jaw with a vicious eight-inch right.

  The German slumped in his arms with a sodden limp weight. Brick eased him to the floor and jumped to Pop’s side. Tenths of seconds counted now.

  Pop turned the latch of the door and with Brick’s help they jerked it open wide enough to slip through. A half dozen shots spattered viciously against the bronze of the door as they slammed it shut behind them. An automatic bolt clicked.

  Brick wheeled, stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened incredulously as they traveled over the unbelievable scene spreading before him.

  “Jeez!” Pop gasped hoarsely. “I—It ain’t real, is it?”

  CHAPTER V

  In Atlantis

  FOR A TIMELESS INSTANT they stared in mute wonder at the vastness and majesty of the room.

  It was long and wide with an arched ceiling that sprang upward hundreds of feet in the air. The walls and floor were composed of some substance that gleamed like chalk-white marble. From the ceiling a soft, mellow luminance emanated, flooding the vast chamber with a radiant brilliance. The room was starkly empty, but it was this very emptiness that emphasized its breathtaking size and simplicity.

  An archway sloped down at the far end of the room, forming a corridor which led to another room, apparently identical with the one in which they were standing.

  Brick was the first to recover from the shock.

  “We’ve got to keep moving,” he said. “This must be the unexplored region of Atlantis the captain mentioned.”

  He mentioned Atlantis for the first time with complete credulity in his voice. It was impossible not to admit its existence when gazing at these magnificent white rooms completely unlike any architecture he had ever viewed.

  It was somewhat terrifying to realize, to accept the fact that he was standing in the halls of a race that had died twelve thousand years ago. A race whose memory was only a series of scattered legends and folk tales.

  Pop was still staring dumbly over the vast hall.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said weakly.

  Brick flashed a grim look at the bronze door as a faint muffled sound came to him.

  “Let’s go,” he hissed. “Our chums are just on the other side of that door.”

  There was only one direction to run, and that was straight ahead through the large hall to the connecting archway, and then into the mysterious, unexplored caverns of ancient Atlantis.

  Brick flung a glance over his shoulder as they reached the archway that connected with the next room. The bronze door that separated them from the Germans was sagging inward at a drunken angle as they smashed into it with some sort of battering ram.

  They had covered the length of the second room before a crackling volley of shots told them that the Germans had broken through and were hot on their trail.

  Brick leaped to one side, into a passageway that connected with the second room. From the protective angle of the wall he reached out and dragged Pop in after him. But he wasn’t soon enough.

  Pop stumbled and dropped to his knees, his hand clutching his shoulder. His face was twisted into an agonized mask, but no sound came through his locked jaw.

  BRICK HAULED him to his feet, as carefully as he could. He pulled Pop’s hand away from the wound, saw that the bullet had bored through the flesh alongside the collarbone. Blood was welling from the small black hole, but it didn’t look as if a bone had been hit.

  “I’m a long way from dead,” Pop said grimly. “Let’s get movin’.”

  Brick glanced about, deciding swiftly. The passageway they were in was narrow and brightly lighted. It extended endlessly straight ahead of them. They would be as visible as shooting gallery ducks if they followed it, but there was no other course.

  “Come on, sailor,” he snapped.

  Together they charged down the passage. The only sound for awhile was the pounding of their feet on the hard floor and their noisy, labored breathing in their ears. But within a hundred yards they heard the excited shout they had been expecting. Twisting about, Brick saw that the Germans had reached the intersection, had spotted them.

  Their situation was hopeless he knew, but something in him refused to quit. Pop was staggering along, obviously weakening from the loss of blood. He turned a desperate face to Brick.

  “You keep goin’,” he wheezed. “I—I’ll try and hold ’em for awhile.”

  Brick hooked an arm about Pop’s waist to keep him from falling.

  “The hell you will,” he grated. “We go together or not at all.”

  The Germans weren’t shooting. Evidently they realized that their quarry was helpless and had decided to capture them alive.

  For another fifty feet Brick lunged on, almost carrying Pop’s limp figure with his right arm. He could hear the Germans closing behind him, and he knew in seconds it would be over. But he kept on.

  Then, through the mist of sweat streaming into his eyes, he saw a narrow dark opening in the bright, white wall. It was a few feet wide, but it stretched from the flo
or to the ceiling.

  He was beyond deliberating or reasoning. Instinctively his tired legs drove toward the dark sanctuary. As he lunged into the passageway, a merciful, concealing blackness cloaked him. He dropped to his knees and eased Pop to the floor.

  He heard a sudden rattle of gunfire, and bullets plowing past the mouth of the dark corridor with a deadly hiss. Jerking the Luger from his pocket he fired hastily into the lighted corridor. The bullet struck the wall at an odd angle and he could tell from the startled yell of the German pursuers, that it had checked their reckless advance. But he knew the pause would only be temporary.

  Crawling to his feet, he hoisted Pop up and headed into the darkness. For fifty feet the corridor continued straight ahead and then he collided with a solid wall. Groping with his free hand he discovered that the tunnel connected with another which stretched to the left.

  Half carrying, half dragging Pop, he moved cautiously along the new tunnel for perhaps a hundred feet before he encountered another turn. He made more turns after that. How many he couldn’t tell. Through the clammy blackness of the labyrinthine passages, he plodded on, interested only in putting distance between themselves and their pursuers.

  For minutes the only sound that broke the deep silence was the tired scuff of their boots; but dimly at first, and then with steadily increasing volume, he heard muffled cries echoing about him. It was difficult to locale exactly where they were emanating, but there was little doubt as to the possessers of the voices. The harsh guttural tones told him all too plainly that the Germans were following him into the black twisting corridor.

  Again, he collided with a solid substance. Extending his hand to the left he touched another wall. Turning right he lurched ahead—and stopped short, colliding again. For an instant he was unable to comprehend the situation. He groped about a semi-circle touching each wall again. It was only then that he realized they were helplessly trapped against a dead end in the black passageway.