Two Thousand Miles Below
Page 19
CHAPTER XVIII
_The Dance of Death_
Through an airplane's thick windows of shatter-proof glass, so toughand resilient that a machine-gun bullet would only make a temporarydent, the midday sun flashed brightly as the big ship rolled. Alongeach side of the small room, high up under the curve of the cabinroof, windows were ranged. Others like them were in the floor. And,above, the same glass made a transparent dome from which an observercould see on all sides.
Outside was the thunderous roar of ten giant motors, but inside thecabin--the fire-control room of a dreadnought of the air--that blastof sound became more a reverberation and a trembling than actualnoise.
Certainly the sound of motors and of slashing propellers, as thebattle plane roared up into the sky, did not prevent freeconversation among the three men in the room. Yet there was neitherlaughter nor idle talk.
At a built-in desk, before a battery of instruments, sat Farrell, thecaptain of the ship. Farther aft, in solidly anchored chairs, ColonelCulver and Smithy were seated. Occasionally the captain spoke into atransmitter, cutting in by phone on different stations about the ship.
"Check up on that right-wing gun, Sergeant--number two of the topwing-battery. Recoil mechanism is reported stiff.... Tell Chicago,Lieutenant, we will want one thousand gallons in the air--gas only--nooil needed.... Gun room? Have the gun crews get some sleep. They'llhave to stand by later on...."
Colonel Culver spoke musingly. "Guerilla warfare, the hardest kind tomeet."
* * * * *
Smithy nodded absently. He rose and stared from one of the sidewindows that was just level with his eyes. He could see nothing butthe broad expanse of wing, a sheet of smooth gray metal. Along itsleading edge was a row of shimmering disks where great propellerswhirled. From the top of the wing a two-inch Rickert recoilless thrustforth its snout; it rose in air till the whole weapon was visible,then settled again and buried itself inside the wing.
They were testing a gun. Smithy knew that inside that wing sectionwere other guns, and men, and smoothly running motors. The whole shipwas only a giant flying wing of which their own central section wasmerely a thickening.
He looked down through a bull's-eye in the floor. The city they hadjust left was beneath them. Washington, the nation's capital; thegolden dome of the Capitol Building was slipping swiftly astern. Onlythen did he make a belated reply to Culver's statement.
"Well," he said shortly, "they'll have to meet it their own way. Wetold them all we knew. And a lot of good that did--not!"
"Five days!" said Culver. "It seems more like five years since thedevils first came out. Nobody knows where they will hit next. Butthey're working north--and there's no trouble in telling where they'vebeen."
Smithy's voice was hot in reply, hot with the intense anger of ayoung, aggressive man when confronted by the ponderous motion of a bigorganization getting slowly under way.
"If only we'd gone down underground," he exclaimed; "carried the fightto them! They live there--there must be a whole world underground. Wecould have carried in power lines, lighting the place as we wentalong. We could have fought 'em with gas. We'd have paid for it, surewe would, but we'd have given them enough hell to think of down belowso they wouldn't raise so much of it up above.
"But no! We had to fight according to the textbooks. And those reddevils don't fight that way; they never learned the rules."
* * * * *
"Guerilla warfare," Colonel Culver repeated. "There are certaindifficulties about fighting enemies you can't see."
"They're clever," Smithy admitted. "We taught them their lesson downthere in the desert--they've never been seen in daylight since. Out atnight--and their invisible heat-rays setting fire to a city a mileaway, then mopping up with their green flame-throwers if anyone'sleft. They pick our planes out of the sky even when they're flyingwithout lights. Darkness means nothing to them! It was murder to sendtroops in against them, troops wiped out to a man! Artillery--that'sno good either when we don't know how many of the devils there are, orwhere they are. There's no profit in shelling the place when thebrutes have gone back underground."
Colonel Culver shot a warning glance from Smithy to the seatedofficer. "About a hundred square miles of the finest fruit country onearth laid waste," he admitted gravely; then sought to turn Smithyfrom his rebellious mood:
"What's underground, I wonder? Must be a world of caves. Or perhapsthese mole-men can follow up a mere crack or a fault line and open itout with their flame-throwers to make a tunnel they can go through."
The plane's captain had caught Culver's glance. "Speak your piece," hesaid pleasantly. "Don't stop on my account. There's a lot to what Mr.Smith says--but you don't know all that's going on."
He had been half turned. Now he swung about in his little swivelchair, whose base was riveted solidly to the floor and whose safetybelt ends dangled as he turned.
"My orders are to deliver you two gentlemen at San Francisco. Butthere's a show scheduled for to-night down south of there--two hundredplanes, big and little, scouts, cruisers, battle planes. They're goingto swarm in over when the enemy makes his first crack. There's a devilof a storm in the mountains along the route we would usually take. I'mafraid I'll have to swing off south." He was grinning openly as heturned back to his desk.
Colonel Culver smiled back. "Attaboy!" he said.
But Smithy's forehead was still wrinkled in scowling lines as hewalked forward to an adjoining room. "Underground," he was thinking."We've got to carry the fight to them; got to lick 'em so they'll staylicked. But Rawson--good old Dean--we're too late to help him. And thelives of all the devils left in hell can't pay for that."
* * * * *
Smithy had been dozing. The shrill whistle of a high-pitched sirenbrought him fully awake in an instant. Culver, too, sprang alertly tohis feet. Both men knew the signal was the call to quarters.
They had spread blankets on the floor of the fire-control room. Culverimmediately folded his into a compact bundle, and Smithy followedsuit, as he said: "That's right; we don't want any feather beds flyingaround here in case of a mix-up."
Even Culver's simple act of stowing the blankets back in their littlecompartment thrilled him with what it portended. His nerves weresuddenly aquiver with anticipation. A real fight! A determined effort!No telling what these big dreadnoughts could do. Two hundred, big andlittle, Captain Farrell had said. If they could catch the enemy out inthe open, show him up in a blaze of enormous flares....
Captain Farrell was calling them. A section of the floor had beenraised up mysteriously to form a platform beneath the shallow dome ofthe conning tower. Farrell was there, headphones clamped to his ears,one hand on the little switchboard at the base of the glass dome thatkept him in touch with every station on the ship. Beside him was thefire-control officer similarly equipped, though his headphone wasconnected only with the gun crews.
* * * * *
"The enemy's out!" said Captain Farrell. "And not just where they wereexpected--they're raising fourteen kinds of hell. The ships have beenordered in. I'm hooked up with the radio room now. They're less than ahundred miles ahead. Of course we won't mix in on it, but I thought itbest to have my men standing by."
He pressed a little lever on his switchboard and spoke into themouthpiece of his head-set. "Pilot room? Our two passengers, ColonelCulver and Mr. Smith, are coming forward. Let them see whatever theycan of the show."
He gave the two a quick smile and a nod and waved them forward withthe binoculars in his free hand. "It will be 'lights out' after youget there. We'll be flying dark except for wing and tail lights up ontop. The enemy's movements are uncertain; perhaps he can see usanyway, but we won't advertise ourselves to him."
The ship's bow was a blunt, rounded nose of glass, cut by cross barsof aluminum alloy. That deeper central portion of the big flying wingwas carried ten feet forward; it was but
one of many details thatSmithy had looked at with interest when he had seen the ship waitingfor them on the field.
* * * * *
The pilot room was dark when they entered. Only the glow from theinstrument panel showed the two men who were seated behind the wheelcontrols. One of them turned and nodded a welcome.
"Can't offer you gentlemen seats," he said, "but if you'll stand righthere behind us you can see the whole works." He did not wait for areply, but turned back toward the black night ahead.
Smithy glanced past him at the lighted instruments and found thealtimeter. Twelve thousand--yes, there was nasty country hereabouts.Then he, too, stared out into the dark at the sky sprinkled withstars, at the vague blur of an unlighted world far below, and off ateither side and behind them the quivering lines of cold light wherestarlight was reflected dimly from the spinning propellers.
Other wing lights winked out as he watched, and he knew that from thatmoment on, they were invisible from below--invisible to human eyes atleast--that they were sweeping on through the darkness like somegargantuan night bird pursuing its prey.
"Flares ahead, sir," one of the pilots had spoken into the mouthpieceof his telephone, spoken lightly, reporting back to Captain Farrell.The words whipped Smithy's head about, and he, too, saw on a distanthorizon, the beginning of a white glare.
They were fighting there--two hundred planes roaring downward, oneformation following another. In his mind he was seeing it so plainly.
The white blaze of light dead ahead grew broader. It had not been asfar distant as he had first thought, and the scene that he hadpictured came swiftly to reality.
* * * * *
Their own ship was still at the twelve-thousand-foot level. Ahead, andfive thousand feet below, tiny lights, red and white and green, lightswhose swift motion made their hundreds seem like thousands instead,were weaving intricate patterns in the night. The flying lights of thefighting planes were on for the planes' own protection; and, too, nofurther concealment was possible in the glare that shone upward frombelow.
Settling downward were balls of blinding fire, flares dropped by thesquadron of scout planes that had torn through in advance. Theylighted brilliantly a valley which, a few hours before, had been oneof many like it--square fields, dark green with the foliage of fruittrees, straight lines of crossing roads, houses, and off in thedistance a little city.
And now the valley was an inferno of spouting flame. That city was avast, roaring furnace under smoke clouds of mingled blood-red andblack. The valley floor was a place of desolation, of drifting smokeand of flashing shell-bursts as the fleet swept in above.
The myriad lights of the planes had drawn into a circle, a greatwhirlpool of lines that revolved above a mile-wide section of thatvalley.
Beside Smithy a wheel control was moving. He clung to the pilot's seatas their own plane banked and nosed downward. And now he shouted aloudto Culver:
"The mole-men! There they are! Thousands of them!"
* * * * *
He was pointing between the two pilots as their own plane swept down.He could see them plainly now, clotted masses of dark figures surgingfrenziedly to and fro. For an instant he saw them--then that part ofthe world where they had been was a seething inferno of bursting bombsand shells.
Beside him Colonel Culver spoke quietly: "Caught them cold! That'shanding it to them."
Their own plane had leveled off. With motors throttled they weredrifting slowly past, only a thousand feet higher than the circlingplanes just off at one side. Culver's quiet tones rose to a hoarseshout: "The ships! My God, they're falling!"
His wild cry ended in a gasp. Beside him Smithy, in breathless horror,like Culver, was staring at that whirlpool of tiny lights that hadgone suddenly from smooth circular motion into frenzied confusion, orvanished in the yellow glare of exploding gas tanks. The light oftheir own white flares picked them out in ghastly clarity as theyfell.
Straight, vertical lines of yellow were burning planes. Again theymade horrible zigzag darts and flashed down into view torn andhelpless, while others, tens and scores of others with crumpled wings,joined the mad dance of death.
Smithy knew that he could never tear his eyes away from the sight. Yetwithin him something was clamoring for his attention. "They didn't doit from below!" that something was shouting. "Not down in that hell.There are more of them somewhere." Then somehow, he forced his eyes tostare ahead and outside of that circle of fearful fascination and heknew that for an instant he was seeing a single stab of green flame.
* * * * *
One single light on the darkness of a little knoll that stood closebeside this place of white flame and destruction. One light--and inthe valley there had flashed a million brighter. It had shone but aninstant, but, to Smithy, watching, it was the same he had seen whentheir own camp was attacked. And now it was Smithy who was abruptlystone cold.
One hand closed upon a pilot's shoulder with a grip of steel; hisother pointed. "Down there--they're hiding back of that hill, pickingoff our ships from the side." And then, like a guiding beacon, a pointof green showed once more.
The plane banked sharply while one of the pilots spoke crisp, clearlyenunciated words into his phone. He listened; then: "Right!" hesnapped. "Power dive for bow-gun firing. Level off for bombing fromfive hundred feet."
Off into the night they were headed. Then a left bank and turn broughtthe place of blazing flares and falling planes swinging smoothly intoview; they were flying toward it.
* * * * *
Against the white glare in the valley of death was a hill, roundlyoutlined. Then the ship's nose sank heavily down; and, from each broadwing, in straight, forward-stabbing lines, was the steady lightning ofthe Rickert batteries in action.
The pilot's room was a place of unbearable sound. The crash ofgunfire, it seemed, must crush the glass wall like an eggshell by thesheer impact of its own thunder. In that pandemonium Smithy never knewwhen they flattened out. He knew only that the hill ahead twinkledbrilliantly, and that each flashing light was an exploding shell. Heknew when the hill passed beneath them.
Then, in the night, close beside them and just outside the pilot-roomglass, was a quick glow of red. The plane lurched and staggered.Smithy clung desperately to the seat ahead. The pilot was fightingmadly with the wheel. The roar of bombs from astern, where the bombershad launched their missiles at the approaching hill, was unheard. In aworld suddenly gone chaotic he could hear nothing. He knew only thatthe valley dead ahead was whirling dizzily--that it sank suddenly fromsight.
They were crashing. That red glow--they had been hit. Then somethinghard and firm was pressing against him, pressing irresistibly. It wasthe last conscious impression upon Smithy's mind.