Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  A convoy—it could be nothing else!

  Rapidly, Brick made an estimate of the number of merchant craft in the convoy. He shook his head unbelievingly. There were at least eight hundred craft involved, possibly a thousand!

  And to guard these ships there were the combined Atlantic naval forces of both the United States and Great Britain![9]

  The U.S. Fleet, from the story told by the map, was to take the convoy several hundred miles out to sea where—at a designated rendezvous—they would join the British fleet. Both naval convoys would then join and guard the fleet of merchant ships through the more hazardous journey that lay ahead.

  And that hazardous journey brought the entire convoy—quite unwittingly—directly over the undersea submarine base at Atlantis!

  BRICK’S FACE was ashen, and he stepped back from the desk falteringly, not quite able to comprehend fully the terrible disaster that waited the convoy. Now he knew. Now he was certain that his hunch had been right. Von Herrman’s veiled hints, the rush of activity around the base, were for one reason. And that reason was an attack against the greatest convoy man had ever known!

  He had a horrible vision of Von Herrman’s undersea sharks slipping up through the green murk of the waters over the base. Slipping stealthily surfaceward, hundreds of submarines thirsting to wreak horrible destruction on the great flotilla that would pass unwittingly above.

  Brick was also terribly certain now that this attack upon the combined U.S. and British convoy was dreadfully close. Closer than he dared imagine. And there would be no one to warn the convoy. No one to stop the hell and fury of death and destruction that would mark the most staggering Axis naval victory in this war.

  No one, that was, but Brick himself. For he was the only one who knew of the impending disaster. He was the only one who could hope to stop this ghastly ambush.

  But how?

  With sickening bitterness, overpowering despair, Brick realized that he was one man against thousands. He felt a maddening surge of helpless rage and futility. There had to be a way. If it meant the trading of his own life to save the thousands of those on the convoy ships it would be a cheap bargain. Brick had been through too much in these past few weeks to value his own life as worth a damn. Snuffing the spark from it uselessly, futilely, was one thing—finding something worth dying for was another.

  Brick’s brain was racing, seeking an idea that might have a chance in a million, a hundred million. Something. He had to think of something.

  He turned away from the desk, picking up the map automatically, and walked to the filing cabinet. He rolled the thick, water-proof paper and crammed it in the open drawer.

  Brick was shoving the case shut, and suddenly a sound behind him made him wheel.

  Captain Von Herrman stood in the door of the office!

  “Am I to understand that I have a new clerk-orderly?” his iron voice asked smoothly. There was a mocking, taunting grin on his face.

  And there was a thick, blue-barreled Luger held levelly in his hand. It pointed directly at Brick’s belly!

  CHAPTER IX

  Trapped!

  BRICK’S BLOOD CONGEALED IN his veins, and icy fingers played over his spine. He found words hard to command as he stood there frozen in fear. But this was a different fear, Brick knew. This was a terror not for himself, but for the thousands and thousands of souls who would have their death sentences signed by the crisp bark of the gun held in Von Herrman’s hand. This was a fear for the men in the vast convoy whose lives depended on what happened to Brick Harrington in the next few minutes.

  Von Herrman stepped up within three yards of Brick.

  “Put your hands aloft, please!” he snapped.

  Brick raised his arms above his head, his eyes still fixed in numb fascination on the muzzle of that Luger.

  “You have found your perusal of my, ah, library interesting?”

  Suddenly Brick was choking with rage. His words were a merciful escape valve for the maddening frustration that held him.

  “Damn you, Von Herrman!” Brick’s hands clenched to fists above his head.

  “Steady, my Yankee hothead!” Von Herrman’s voice didn’t raise. His eyes flicked over to the still half-open filing cabinet. “You have seen that very interesting map,” he stated matter-of-factly. “A most unfortunate observation on your part.”

  Brick’s lips worked, but he said nothing.

  “Within twenty-four hours I could make you a present of that map, my friend. I’d be quite finished with it then. Yes, I could make you a present of that map, but unfortunately you’ll be dead by then.” Von Herrman seemed amused as he spoke. Then he turned and barked a command in German.

  Three sailors, clad in gray-blue uniforms and carrying rifles, stepped through the door. They’d obviously been stationed outside by the captain. Their faces expressed no emotion as they faced Brick, rifles targeting him menacingly.

  Von Herrman shoved his Luger into its holster beneath his uniform coat.

  “If you hadn’t made such a meddling fool of yourself,” the Captain said, “you might have lived to leave here someday. However, I’m very much afraid that I’ll have to order these men to take you out and shoot you.” His eyes flicked over the uniform Brick had taken from the sentry. “You leave me no other course, inasmuch as you have taken the guise of one of my sailors, and were caught spying in my quarters.”

  Brick watched Von Herrman turn, heard his steely voice coolly issue orders to the sailors. Then the captain turned back to Brick for an instant before he stepped from the room.

  “I am sorry we can’t give you a full quota for your firing squad. Military procedure should allow you that. However, we’re using every available man in the base for preparations at the moment. You will be allowed a handkerchief, if you like. It should be painless, comparatively. These men are excellent shots.”

  BRICK WAS left alone with the three sailors. One of them stepped forward, prodding him with a rifle end, and nodded with his head toward the door. Then, with a guard on either side, and another marching directly behind him, Brick walked slowly out of the office and into the corridor he’d left but minutes before.

  Another prod from the rifle of the sailor behind him, and Brick started down the corridor in the direction from which he had originally come. They walked in silence, the only sound coming from the rhythmic stomp of the heavy boots they wore.

  Hazing Brick’s mind was a dull, hopeless agonizing despair. This was it. This was the finish. Exit Brick Harrington—and exit the thousands of poor damned souls on the convoys that were at this very minute steaming toward Atlantis, and a meeting with death.

  Another corridor, a turn.

  There seemed no sailors about, now, and the silence, broken only by the thump-thump-thump of heavy boots grew almost unbearable. Brick could see the blood washing the green foam of the sea. He could hear the screams and curses of bewildered, dying men. Men caught without a fighting chance. Men drowning and dying in a mad mardi gras of horror and confusion, while their guns thundered uselessly against the unseen enemy that lurked below them.

  The next corridor was narrower, and followed by another turn. Brick realized dully that this was precisely the way he had traveled in finding Von Herrman’s quarters.

  Thump-thump-thump. Rhythmic, precision-like, taking him to a wall somewhere at the end of these corridors. A wall against which Brick Harrington and a thousand other Yanks and Britishers would die.

  Far ahead, Brick could see the dull sheen of the great bronze door that lead to the unexplored reaches of Atlantis. The door was at the end of this very corridor. But it seemed miles away.

  “These men are excellent shots.” The words echoed in Brick’s mind. Von Herrman hadn’t been lying. He had promised Brick that. And he’d given Brick an indication of what to expect if he were so very foolish as to try an escape.

  Brick could practically hear the impact of the bullet which would thud into his spine from the rifle of the sailor behind him, should
he try to escape. There were three of them, he kept reminding himself, all excellent shots. But still a taunting, maddening little voice at the back of his brain urged him to try. He bit hard into his underlip. If a chance presented itself—just one chance—

  Thump-thump-thump. Then a harsh, guttural command from the sailor behind him, a hand hard on his shoulder, and the procession came to a halt.

  Brick saw it then. An alcove, just off the side of the passageway. It was perhaps ten yards wide and five yards deep. It was illuminated by three arc bulbs that threw the whitewalled stone into bald relief.

  And then Brick saw the chipped pock marks that ran straight across the back wall, and a chill swept up his spine. Bullets had left those traces. This was the place where Von Herrman settled unpleasant matters concerning spies, or mutiny within the ranks. This was the firing wall.

  THE SAILOR who had marched behind Brick now took him by the elbow and pushed him back into the alcove and up against the wall. There was the same phlegmatic lack of expression on his features. His eyes registered neither sympathy nor curiosity. He stepped back from Brick, his rifle still held in readiness, just in case.

  Fishing deep into the pocket of his uniform tunic, the sailor drew forth a dirty linen handkerchief. He extended it to Brick, motioning toward his eyes.

  “Keep it,” Brick snarled. “I don’t like your laundry.”

  The sailor shrugged, put the handkerchief back in his pocket. Then he stepped back and joined his fellows. They formed a precise line, guns pointing toward the floor.

  The sailor who’d proffered the handkerchief barked an order. The guns snapped up to their shoulders.

  Another harshly barked command.

  Brick knew it to be “Ready!”

  Then the guttural German command for “Aim!”

  Brick’s nerves screamed, urging him to drive forward at them, to take a chance—his last chance!

  Then suddenly the corridor reverberated with the sound of a rifle shot blasting through the tenseness of the silence.

  It was as if Time hung motionless while the gunfire echoed and reechoed through the length of the passageway. And slowly, like a newsreel run at quarter speed, the sailor at the end of the firing line jerked backward, arms going wide, gun falling, as a gruesome red splotch opened at the front of his throat.

  In the next instant he had toppled face forward, dead!

  And in the same instant Brick Harrington had leaped toward the sailor on the far end of the line just as that fellow wheeled in the direction from which the bullet that downed his comrade had come.

  Brick used this momentary advantage to seize the sailor’s arm as he raised his rifle to his shoulder. And with one knee in the pit of the German’s back, Brick jerked him back and down to the floor.

  In the split second before he was rolling on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, Brick caught a glimpse of the liberator who had fired the shot. He was a small, red faced little man, crouching on one knee, rifle aimed for a second shot, less than a hundred yards down the corridor leading to the bronze door.

  It was Pop!

  Brick had time to drive his fist three times into the face of the sailor with whom he still struggled. And then his palm was hard against his adversary’s face as he smashed the fellow’s head again and again against the floor.

  Using the inert body beneath him as a shield, Brick rolled over and climbed to his feet, dragging the unconscious body of the sailor up with him.

  The remaining active sailor had dropped flat on his belly and was taking cool aim at the still firing figure of Pop.

  Pop’s first shot had been a direct hit, tearing the throat from his victim. But obviously the excitement was telling on his accuracy, for he was firing wildly, now, bullets zinging against the four walls of the corridor and alcove.

  But the Nazi sailor was calm. Brick saw him drawing bead, unmindful of the bullets flying around him. And Brick frantically shoved the unnecessary burden of the unconscious sailor aside and leaped wildly toward the back of the sailor firing from the floor.

  He was too late. Too late, for even as he launched his wild dive, Brick saw the fellow’s gun flash; saw Pop half rise from his crouching position, pain and surprise on his features, a growing, horribly crimson blot in the center of his breast. This Nazi was an excellent shot. Von Herrman hadn’t lied.

  BRICK LANDED atop the sailor’s back, the force of his leap knocking the wind from the fellow’s lungs. Brick was sobbing, crying wildly as he hammered the killer beneath him into unconsciousness. Then he rose and dashed down the corridor to where Pop lay queerly sprawled on his side.

  Pop’s head was in Brick’s arms, and the little man was coughing foamy blood. He looked weakly at Brick, recognition and satisfaction in his eyes.

  “Pop!” Brick cried. “Oh, God, Pop!”

  The little red faced fellow smiled.

  “Ain’t the . . . the shot I usta be!” The effort was costing him his remaining strength.

  Brick knew instinctively, without the old man’s saying so, that Pop had picked up the rifle belonging to the trussed guard by the bronze door whom Brick had overpowered. Brick knew, too, that Pop’s loyalty and devotion had made him restless, uneasy, over Brick’s whereabouts. Obviously Pop had started out after him and found him when he had only to lose his life for his trouble.

  There was a glaze dimming Pop’s eyesight, now, and he coughed weakly.

  “Brick,” he whispered, “Brick!”

  Brick wiped the sweat from the old man’s eyes, jaw grim and heart aching.

  “What, Pop?”

  “Stand a good, kugkh, good watch, son.”

  “Yes, Pop.” Brick was crying, unashamed.

  “Last voyage,” the old man whispered. “Hafta, kughh, stand a good watch.”

  “I’m on watch, Pop.”

  “Good, tha’s good, son. Las’ voyage . . . las’ voyage home!” The old man’s head rolled limply against Brick’s blouse. His eyes lidded for the last time. The muscles of his jaw were frozen rigidly as if he refused to show weakness even in death.

  Brick lowered Pop’s head to the floor gently. Far down the corridor he could hear shouting and running footsteps. They were growing louder with every second.

  Others had heard the gunfire, were racing toward the sound of the fighting. Brick stood up, eyes stony, jaw set hard. He looked down at Pop.

  “I’ll even that score for you, old fella,” he whispered. “You can bet your sea boots on it!”

  He turned then, for the footsteps were drawing nearer, and the voices growing louder.

  CHAPTER X

  Attack!

  LEOLO SPRANG TO HER feet as the heavy door of the work chamber swung open and Brick strode in. His face was white and the tendons along his jaw were as taut as cords. There was an expression in his eyes that was frighteningly new to her. It was hate, controlled and cold, but its very deliberateness was terrifying.

  She hurried to his side, helped him adjust the device that co-ordinated their thought impulses into understandable speech.

  “I was so worried,” she said, almost frantically. “After Pop left—”

  “Pop’s dead,” Brick said dully. “He saved me, but gave his life doing it.”

  The words passed his stiff lips, but hearing them, he was still unable to believe that Pop was actually gone. On the way back from the occupied section the realization of Pop’s death was a dull, aching pain that, somehow, didn’t seem real.

  Zoru laid his hand gently on Brick’s shoulder.

  “He died as he would have wished,” he said gently. “As a brave man and hero, fighting for his country. He wouldn’t want us to sorrow for him.”

  “You’re right,” Brick said grimly. “He’d say, ‘What the devil are you gabbing about me for when there’s a job to be done?’ ”

  “What did you find out?” Zoru asked quietly.

  Brick told him then as swiftly as possible of the mighty underwater attack against the combined British and America
n fleets scheduled for the next twenty-four hours.

  When he had finished Zoru clenched his fists nervously.

  “That doesn’t give us much time,” he muttered anxiously. “We still have no practical method for raising the Crawler. It is almost too late now to warn your country even if we did succeed in getting to the surface. While you were gone I moved it into the decompression chamber, but that only takes us fifty feet closer to our objective. Everything is in readiness, if I could just devise some method of accomplishing the elevation.”

  Brick groaned and jammed his fists viciously into his pockets.

  “We’re no closer than before,” he grated. “If we only had a weapon that would blast this damn nest of sharks into Hades I’d be glad to pull the trigger even if it meant my own life.”

  “Father!” Leolo cried suddenly. “We do have a weapon. Don’t you remember the fisherman’s guns? There are two of them in the laboratory locker. Would they help?”

  Brick glanced sharply at the girl. “What kind of weapon is it?” he said tensely.

  ZORU ANSWERED the question with a weary smile.

  “I’m afraid they wouldn’t be of any use. They are hydrogen guns that our fishermen used in stunning the larger fish of the ocean. They could not—” His voice trailed off and he did not complete the sentence. An excited, speculative expression brought tense lines onto his keenly intelligent features. He began to pace rapidly up and down the floor, his hands clenching and unclenching nervously.

  “Is there a chance?” Brick cried. “For us,” Zoru said thoughtfully, “there is no chance at all. But for the navies of your country there is a chance. A slim, terrible chance. But at least, a chance.”

  “For God’s sake!” Brick cried. “What is it?”

  “The hydrogen guns as they exist now are useless,” Zoru spoke rapidly. “They were constructed to stun, not kill, large fish. But with an amplifying device their power could be increased to the point where they might destroy fish. Even metal fish!”[10]

  “You mean,” Brick almost shouted, “we could turn this weapon against German subs?”