by W E Johns
That was no doubt why he was inclined to be taciturn as he leaned over the Seafret’s rail watching the inky water glide past as the destroyer thrust her hatchet bows into the darkness in the direction of Elephant Island. Ginger, sensing his anxiety as he stood beside him, said nothing, but stared moodily at the bridge, on which the vague silhouette of Commander Sullivan’s head and shoulders could just be seen against the sky. Algy, as arranged, had been left behind with the Nemesis at the Hastings Island anchorage.
‘What’s the time?’ asked Biggles at last. ‘We must be nearly there.’
Ginger looked at his wrist watch. ‘Twenty to ten,’ he answered quietly.
‘Another five minutes,’ murmured Biggles, obviously glad that the time for action was at hand, for the sepulchral gloom that surrounded the ship, which, of course, was showing no lights, did nothing to enliven the proceedings.
A minute or two later the barely perceptible vibration of the destroyer’s engines ceased, and Sullivan joined them.
‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘It’s as black as pitch. I’m afraid you’re going to find things rather difficult until the moon gets up.’
‘You put a compass in the dinghy?’
‘Yes, with a tin of food and a beaker of water.’
‘That’s all right, then. We shan’t miss the island, although I shall have to wait for moonrise before I start operations.’ Biggles turned and walked slowly towards the davits where a number of sailors were preparing to lower a small boat. ‘I shall expect you back about the same time tomorrow night,’ he told Sullivan quietly as he climbed into the suspended dinghy. ‘If it’s very dark I may have to whistle for you; we daren’t risk showing lights. If you do see me show a light you’ll know things are pretty urgent.’
‘Good enough. Best of luck,’ was the naval officer’s farewell as the boat was lowered to the water.
Biggles picked up an oar and pushed the dinghy clear; then, after rowing for a short distance, he paused to make himself comfortable and arrange the compass on the seat in front of him.
Ginger, in the stern, could do nothing but sit still and watch him. When he next looked behind him the destroyer had merged into the black background of night. They were alone.
‘We have some funny sort of picnics, don’t we?’ he murmured, for the sake of something to say, for the darkness, the silence, and the lap of water on the keel all combined to create an atmosphere of mystery that was by no means conducive to peace of mind.
‘This hardly comes in the category of picnic, I think, and I shall be surprised if you haven’t endorsed my opinion by the time the day dawns,’ replied Biggles softly. ‘Keep your eyes open and tell me if you see anything which looks like a rock or an island.’
For some time Biggles rowed in silence; then he looked up, resting on his oars. ‘See anything?’ he asked.
‘I shouldn’t be able to see a church if there was one an oar’s length away,’ declared Ginger. ‘It’s as black as your hat.’
‘Then we’ll take it easy until the moon wakes up and does its stuff,’ said Biggles. ‘We’ve only about another ten minutes to wait.’
He was quite right. In seven or eight minutes a faint luminosity in the sky provided enough light for them to see about them, and they were relieved to find that their position was as they intended it should be. Lying right across their bows lay the solid black mass of Elephant Island; nearer, not more than two hundred yards away, was the nearest of the rocky islets behind which they proposed to take cover. Several similar islets, all smaller, dotted the dark surface of the gently heaving waters.
Biggles dipped his oars again and the dinghy forged forward, leaving a gleaming trail of phosphorescence in her wake. The water that dripped from the blades of the oars each time they were raised flashed like molten silver, and Ginger watched it, fascinated; but he had no time to remark on it, for their objective was at hand, and reaching over the side he grabbed at a projecting piece of rock to steady the boat. There was no beach. The islet was just a mass of rock, roughly oval in shape, perhaps two hundred yards long and forty or fifty feet wide at the widest part. In most places it was low enough to enable them to step straight ashore, but towards the northerly or right-hand end, which was the end farthest from the island, it rose gradually to a maximum height of about ten or twelve feet. At this spot the rock, for the islet was little more than that, was some three hundred yards from the main island, but the other end, which tapered considerably, curved round until the tip was not more than thirty to forty yards from a spit of sand that jutted out from the beach, the sand deposit no doubt being caused by the islet’s effect on the currents.
They pulled the boat into a fairly deep indentation in the rock and Biggles stepped ashore. For a moment he stood gazing at the island with speculative eyes. Then he turned back to Ginger.
‘I think this place will suit us pretty well,’ he observed, glancing around. ‘The boat will ride here quite comfortably while you sit on the rock and keep an eye open for me to come back.’
‘Right you are,’ agreed Ginger. ‘Where do you want me to put you ashore?’
‘Anywhere on that beach will do,’ replied Biggles, regarding a little sandy cove that lay immediately opposite the islet. ‘It all looks the same, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone about.’
The final remark may have been induced by the fact that the moon was now clear above the horizon, flooding everything with its silvery light. The beach to which Biggles had referred lay clear and white, with hardly a ripple to mark the water-line, but beyond it and at each end the jungle towered up steeply to the usual central eminence, black, vague, and forbidding.
‘Well, I might as well be getting ashore,’ announced Biggles getting back into the boat, and pushing it out again into deep water. He picked up the oars, and a minute or two later the keel grated quietly on the soft sand of Elephant Island. ‘Well, so long, laddie,’ he whispered softly, getting out again. ‘Keep awake; don’t show a light, and above all don’t make a noise.’ Then, with a cheery wave, he set off at a brisk pace along the beach.
Ginger watched him until he was swallowed up in the dense shadows where the sand gave way to rock at the extremity of the bay. Then he turned his eyes on the primeval forest, silent, brooding, sinister, unchanged through the years, untouched by human hands, as far removed from the surging crowds of civilization as though it were on another planet. Apparently it slept—but only apparently. Within its sombre heart moved—what? Things. Things that crawled. Nameless horrors of a thousand legs and stings of death waging a perpetual warfare in the rotting tropic debris that cloaked the steaming earth. Larger things: panthers—sleek, black as the night through which they moved; pythons—twenty feet of sinuous horror; crocodiles of unbelievable size, survivors of another age that had outlived the centuries.
Ginger shivered, oppressed by a sudden pang of anxiety for Biggles. Then, knowing that he could do nothing to help him, he rowed back slowly to the islet.
Several hermit crabs scuttled into the sea as he backed the dinghy into the tiny creek that was not much larger than the boat, and stepped ashore. He did not tie the boat, for one reason because there was nothing to tie it to, and, as the water was almost motionless. there seemed to be no reason why he should. But he took the painter ashore, threw the end down near his feet, and, with his eyes on the pallid crescent of sand that fringed the bay, settled himself down to await Biggles’s return.
A faint clicking noise made him turn again to the seaward side of the islet, and he saw that the crabs were coming back, crawling ashore on their ridiculous stilt-like legs in greater numbers than before. Some, already on the rock, were marching to and fro in small companies, for all the world like soldiers on parade. For a long while he watched them with interest, glancing from time to time at the beach, for there was something fascinating about the spectacle. Vaguely he wondered how long they had been carrying out their absurd exercises, and how long they would continue to do so.
Then, at la
st growing weary of them, he turned and watched the beach with a renewed interest, knowing that Biggles might return at any time. Occasionally a silver ripple would surge across the narrow strait that divided the islet from the island, a gleaming streak that threw up two little waves on either side of it, and he was thankful that swimming formed no part of the programme. He could not see, but he could guess what caused the ripples. And when, presently, a small fish shot high out of the water and he saw the huge grey shape that flashed beneath it, he knew that his suspicions were correct.
It was a little while after this that he became aware of something different. Something had changed. Something that had been there was no longer there. At first he could not make out what it was. But then, suddenly, he knew. The crabs were no longer doing their exercises. The bony clicking of their long legs had ceased, and quite casually he turned to see why.
A glance revealed the reason. They were no longer there. But it was not this simple fact that brought him to his feet with a. startled cry. It was the discovery that the dinghy had drifted unaccountably away from its berth; already it was at the seaward end of the tiny creek, although fortunately the end of the painter still rested on the rock. But only just.
He saw that in another moment it would be in the water, and he sprang forward quickly to pick it up; but even as he stooped, he stopped, staring. What was wrong with the boat?
It seemed to be all lop-sided, as if a weight was pulling the side down into the water. He could see the weight, a dark, indistinct mass, hanging on the side of it. Then, as he stood staring, with his heart thumping strangely and his throat constricting, there was a swish in the air as of a rope when it is thrown. A dark, snake-like object curled through the air and fell with a soft thud across the rock on which he stood. It came so close that it grazed his ankle, and at the feel of it he leapt backwards, an involuntary cry of horror breaking from his lips.
He no longer thought of saving the boat. His only immediate concern was for his own preservation, and in a panic he ran towards the centre of the islet until, reaching what seemed to be a safe place, he turned and looked again. He was just in time to see the weight slide off the side of the dinghy, and the boat, thus released, right itself with a gentle splash.
His knees seemed to go weak, and he sank down limply on the rock, wondering with a sort of helpless horror how he was going to recover the boat now floating placidly some ten yards from the water’s edge. To swim for it with that ghastly creature about was unthinkable. He knew what it was, of course: either an octopus or a decapod, perhaps the most loathsome living thing in all creation.
His anxiety was nearly as great as his fear. Without the boat he was helpless; what was even worse, Biggles would be helpless, too, when he arrived on the beach, and he might be expected at any moment. Yet he could do nothing except stand and stare in an agony of despair, clenching and unclenching his hands in his extremity. Then he saw something that once more put all thought of the boat out of his head. The octopus was crawling out of the water on to the rock.
For a second or two the horror of it nearly overwhelmed him, for he could see it clearly now; a great pig-like body as large as a barrel, with two long tentacles protruding in front and a number of shorter ones behind. A decapod. Indeed, so far did his nerves collapse that it was all he could do to prevent himself from screaming. He could only hope that the creature would not see him, for without the boat escape seemed to be out of the question; the mere thought of voluntarily entering the water in an attempt to swim to the island turned his skin to goose-flesh. He did not forget his automatic, but the weapon seemed hopelessly inadequate against such an adversary, quite apart from which he shrank from making a noise which could hardly fail to rouse the entire island to Biggles’s undoing.
Then, farther down the islet, another of the creatures dragged itself out of the water, and began turning over pieces of rock as if searching for some sort of food that it expected to find underneath. At the same time the original decapod began to move slowly towards him, the two long tentacles groping with a soft slithering noise over the rocks in front of it.
Ginger fled. He dashed up the incline to the higher end of the islet, but a glance showed that there was no escape that way. To make matters worse, he saw that in another moment his pursuer would reach the foot of the slope and effectually cut off his retreat. He waited for no more, but in a condition that can only be described as blind panic, he tore back down the hill, leaping such obstructions as lay in his path, and raced to the narrow end of the islet, nearest to the island. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the second horror had taken up the chase, and he distinctly heard its tentacles fall across the rocks behind him as he dashed past it.
Nearing the end of his run, a swift glance backward revealed both monsters not thirty yards behind, moving swiftly over the ground in a sort of rolling motion. The sight drove the last vestige of control from his paralysed faculties. He reached the absolute extremity of the islet, but he did not stop. A few yards away another rock, quite small, rose clear of the water, and he launched himself at it in a manner that in cold blood he would have regarded—quite properly—as suicidal. Miraculously he landed on his feet, and, stumbling to the top, he saw yet another rock, half submerged. Again he leapt.
This time he was not so lucky. The rock, which was almost awash, was covered with seaweed, and few things are as slippery as seaweed-covered rock. His feet landed squarely, but they shot away from under him, and he ricochetted sideways into the water.
He was up in a flash, catching his breath in a great gasp, and was overjoyed to discover that he could stand on what seemed a hard, sandy bottom. Instinctively he made for the island, deliberately splashing and making as much turmoil as possible in the water.
Twice he went under as he stumbled into deep channels, and had to swim a few strokes each time; but his objective was not far away, and almost before he was aware that he had reached it, he was dashing through a cloud of spray of his own making up the firm, sandy beach to the softer sand beyond. Then, and not before, did he stop to look behind him. All was silent; motionless except for the glowing ripples on the water that marked the course of his berserk passage. Of the decapods there was no sign, and so unreal did the whole thing seem at that moment that he almost fancied he had been the victim of a particularly vivid nightmare. The dinghy he could not see because, as he realized, it was on the other side of the islet.
Panting, he sank down on to the dry sand to recover his breath and as much self-control as he could muster, clenching his hands to stop the trembling of his fingers, for although the danger was past, the shock had left him weak and shaken. Human enemies were something he understood, a natural hazard only to be expected, encountered, and outwitted; but these dreadful creatures of the deep—
He brushed his hair back from his forehead impatiently and rose to his feet, peering in the direction of the islet in the hope of seeing the boat drift beyond the end of it, for his only chance of recovering it was, he knew, the rather forlorn one of a current or slant of air carrying it to the shore.
Nothing would have induced him to go back into that monster-haunted water in the hope of retrieving it, not even the knowledge of what the result of losing it might mean to Biggles as well as himself. There were, he discovered, limits to what he was prepared to do for the success of their enterprise, although only a few hours before he would have denied hotly any such imputation.
He derived a modicum of comfort from the thought that perhaps the tide might bring the boat in to the shore, and he watched the water-line for some minutes trying to make out whether the water was advancing or receding. The wavelets were, he observed, a little below the high-water mark indicated by the usual line of seaweed and shells, but whether the water was advancing or receding he could not discover, for there was little or no movement.
It dawned upon him suddenly that, standing as he was in the middle of the white beach, he was exposed to the gaze of any living creature, human or animal
, that might be prowling about, which, in the circumstances, was hardly wise. The nearest and easiest cover for him to reach was, of course, the jungle that rose up behind him like a great black curtain, but he regarded it with disfavour. The end of the bay where Biggles had disappeared was not very far away, and this made a much greater appeal, particularly as Biggles might reasonably be expected to return the same way as he had gone.
Without any loss of time, therefore, he set off towards it, and was presently relieved to find that, although the sandy beach petered out, it gave way to a sloping shelf of rock that rose gradually to a low cliff about fifty feet high and continued along the foreshore as far as he could see. The only vegetation on it consisted of a few stunted bushes and gnarled trees, which suited him very well, for these enabled him to conceal himself, yet at the same time permitted a clear view of the beach, besides giving a fairly open aspect of the cliff along which Biggles had presumably gone.
A little farther along a queer formation of small trees attracted his attention, and towards these he made his way with the intention of taking up his stand amongst them, there to await Biggles’s return. Accordingly he turned his steps towards them, only to find on closer inspection that the trees were even more unusual than he had at first realized. Indeed, they almost looked as if they had been arranged by human hands instead of being a perfectly natural growth. Generally speaking, they occurred in groups of three or four, although in a few cases there were only two. But it was not the trees themselves that made his eyes grow round with wonderment as he approached, but what lay on top of them.
Another few paces and he saw beyond all doubt that even if the trees were natural, the burdens they bore were not; they were obviously artificial, although whether they had been fashioned by men, birds, or animals, he had no means of knowing. It appeared that across the lower forks of the trees, normally some ten or twelve feet from the ground, had been laid other slender branches. Across these, at right angles, was a rough trellis-work of smaller branches, while on top had been piled a great mass of twigs not unlike a gigantic jackdaw’s nest. But the nests were not round. They were rectangular, or roughly oval, being between seven or eight feet long but only two or three feet wide.