16

ATTACK

By forced marches the party reached the north shore of the oil lake early the third morning after leaving the ship. Lane, Anderson, Ole and Drake had gone by land. Edith was to arrive at the base by air. While the men marched she flew back and forth to the ship for last minute supplies which she dropped conveniently near the southern boundary of the oil lake.

No detail that might increase the safety of the expedition had been neglected. Between the ship and the north shore of the lake a chain of provision caches made starvation impossible no matter what might happen. The party of five might all have hung onto the plane somehow, and so have reached their goal more quickly. But for several reasons they decided to march, carrying with them the essentials of a light prospecting outfit. Anderson half expected to find indications of oil by zigzagging slightly across the line of caches. He was nothing if not optimistic.

In case of an accident to the ship, Bronson's men had deposited provisions in caches parallel to the inlet north a distance of forty miles. As a final measure of safety they had landed every gallon of petrol, storing it a mile inland in a deep dugout. Even if forced to flee on foot the expedition would have sufficient provisions. Each man could pack on his back a sleeping bag and short rations enough from the northerly caches to last him to the coast. Should no whaling vessel appear within two weeks to take them off, Edith or Ole was to fly northeast to the nearest whaling station for help. No member of the party expected the worst to happen. But Anderson disbelieved in luck, preferring arduous certainty to easy going chance.

At this moment the Captain, speechless with cupidity, was gazing over the thirty-mile expanse of bubbling black oil. With a hundred huge fortunes before his eyes he was beginning to regret that Ole and the crew had been promised a share of the profits. More potential gold bubbled and swirled in that vast bowl than the most ingeniously dissolute debauchee could squander in fifty lifetimes. Yet the Captain wished that Ole and the crew were in Halifax. Such is human nature.

The men were waiting for Edith. She was to transport them and their packs comfortably one at a time to the south shore of the lake. They were then to march at once for the blowholes where Edith and Ole had seen the monsters warming themselves. Lane's objective was the ruined crater. He and Drake were determined to inspect the black rocks at first hand. The shattered floor being his ultimate goal, the Doctor hoped also to penetrate the black smoke at the bottom and search for further animal remains.

An immediate assault on the crater would, of course, be suicide. The famished monsters would consider the party as a trifling hors d'oeuvre vouchsafed by the generosity of Heaven for the great feast to come.

How then were the explorers to traverse the region of blowholes, scale the crater lip, and reach the Doctor's objective? This puzzle had exercised the wits of the party for the first two days after the return of Edith and Ole with the devil chick. Between the oil lake and the black rocks lay the blowholes, and round these the sociable monsters might gather at just the most embarrassing moment.

The puzzle had indeed seemed unsolvable. Of all unpracticable beings it was Drake who solved the problem by a brilliant flash of imagination. And of all things that might have inspired him it actually was the last that might occur to a practical man. Who but Drake would have turned for inspiration to the memory of his sufferings in a dentist's chair? Having sat for several hours with the glass hook of a long rubber siphon under his tongue, he now remembered his discomfort with advantage.

As a consequence Edith and Ole during the six days following had transported every foot of hose—fire hose and other—on the ship to the south shore of the oil lake. All the iron pipe that could be spared also was taken to the same depot. To both ends of each section of hose the men had tied heavy iron slugs, and the end of each pipe they bent into a short L. This inefficient looking junk, a tangle of doubly weighted hoses and bent pipes, constituted the entire arsenal of the attacking party. With this alone they must overcome the army of huge lizards. Otherwise they must turn back, provided they were not eaten first.

"There she comes," the Doctor announced, pointing to a tiny speck against the blue far to the north. "Ole, you fly over the first and take our packs. Hang them on somehow."

Ole seemed nervous at the prospect of being left alone with the packs on the south shore while Edith returned for the next passenger.

"What if those brutes come out to get warm while the plane is over on this side?"

"But you said the blowholes end quite a distance south of the lake," the Doctor replied. "They won't come several miles from the heat just to say hello to you."

"They will if they smell me."

"Cheer up, Ole," said Drake; "we will see you avenged."

"Lot of good that will do me. You go over first."

"I'm not fat enough."

The dispute was cut short by the landing of Edith.

"Captain Anderson," she began at once, "Bronson asked me to tell you that he may be forced to steam down the inlet at any minute. A wave of warm water came down again early this morning."

"Boiling?"

"No, just warm enough to raise a thick fog over the inlet."

"There is no great danger, I guess. If he has to run he can make it. And we are safe with all the supplies cached and the plane. What did he want me to do?"

"To send back word by me if he is to move at once. If he doesn't hear from you by night he will stay where he is."

"What about it, Lane?"

"I see no immediate danger. There has been no violent earthquake."

"That's my best judgment too. He is safe enough where he is. All right, Ole, hop in. Miss Lane will waft you over for lunch."

"For lunch?"

"Yes, idiot. Not yours, theirs."

With a fat groan Ole obeyed orders.

Arrived at the south shore of the lake they noted with alarm that the oil had risen since their visit the previous week. The black waves were crawling slowly up the narrow rise separating the lake from the chain of blowholes. Should the wall of rock and ice give way under the steadily increasing pressure, Anderson's fortune would vanish down the blowholes in a week. The thought that even if the wall held yet a flow of oil over the top might overspread the plain and catch fire from the blowholes, setting the entire lake aflame, was anything but reassuring. Leaving Ole to his dismal theories Edith skimmed back for the next passenger.

Shortly after one o'clock the party assembled on the south shore with their packs, ready for the opening move of their offensive. The blowholes were still quiescent. This favoring the strategy of the proposed attack the party decided to take advantage of it immediately.

Their first question was, who is to bell the cat? More definitely, which members of the party should risk their lives to carry out Drake's ingenious plan? The scheme demanded half an hour's work around the blowholes. The workers, if seen by the reptiles, certainly would be welcomed by the whole rookery. And no pair of human legs was a match for the slowest of the huge lizards. Again, if the work party proceeded on foot by daylight to the blowholes they were sure to be seen. If they waited till dark the blowholes might flare up just at the wrong time, and refreshments would enliven an otherwise dull gathering round the home fires. It was clear that the party must go by airplane.

The landing on a plain spotted with bottomless wells would be difficult enough, but the quick escape, if necessary, would be a feat for the most expert aviator. A landing at night obviously was out of the question.

Edith was elected pilot by the simple process of elimination. Who should be her helper? An active, practical man was needed for the job. Although Drake pleaded for the honor of carrying his scheme into effect, he was rejected on the first ballot. His forte was brains, not beef. Lane followed him on the second. It was between Ole and the Captain. Anderson being ignorant of aviation, Ole won the honor which only Drake coveted.

Having loaded the plane with all the bent pipe and weighted hose it could lift, Ole took his place behind Edith. They were off.

In all they made ten trips. Their work, they hoped, had converted a hundred and eight of the blowholes nearest the ruined crater into deadly engines of destruction. They had worked unmolested. The rookery either was asleep or all except the babies were away for the week-end foraging under the black smoke of the crater.

"Well, Drake," the Doctor asked, "have you the courage of your invention?"

"Absolutely. It would wipe out an army."

"That may be just the optimism of the inventor. What about it, Anderson? Do you feel like marching forward to await developments? Or shall we camp here until after the blow is over?"

"To stay here would be the sane thing, I suppose. Still, I want to see the show. I vote for marching."

"So do I. Unless we sit on him Drake of course won't miss seeing his idea in action. How about you, Ole?"

"Miss Lane and I will take care of the plane."

"All right, go ahead with our packs and wait for us on this side just before the beginning of the blowholes. If the reptiles see you before the blow, don't bother about our packs. Leave them and fly due east to confuse the brutes. Then they won't blunder into us."

Two hours after sundown Edith heard the far off crunching of the men's boots in the frozen snow.

"There they are," she said. "Ole, meet them and show them the way here."

A hot drink all round from the thermos bottles and a full meal cheered the tedium of the early watch. Deciding at eleven o'clock that the blowholes probably would not spout that night, all but the first watchman turned into their sleeping bags. The temperature being several degrees above zero they were quite comfortable.

In the brilliantly clear starlight the black barrier of the crater lip seemed ominously near. Yet, conscious as they were of what the rocks hid, all but the sentry slept like stones. The rookery also was fast asleep or numbed by the cold, for no drowsy squawks floated over the silence of no man's land.

It was the calm sleep before battle. Should Drake's strategy prove inadequate the attackers would not see the sunrise. If on the other hand Drake's invention was all that he hoped, those huge two-legged reptiles would never again visit the black ruins of their shattered paradise. Their next gathering round the cheerful fires would be their last. They would die happy, poor brutes. Better one last hour of comfort and then oblivion forever, than the slow death of years of recurrent cold and increasing starvation. Left to themselves they might starve and fight and freeze and cling with all their brute instinct to life for half a century. It was more humane to destroy them outright.

Midnight passed without a tremor. Anderson relieved Lane. Two o'clock uneventfully came and went, and Drake relieved Anderson.

For the first half hour of Drake's watch all remained quiet with the stillness of a dead world. Then he became aware of a faint stirring among the infested rocks. Huge creatures not yet awake were moving uneasily in their sleep. Something had disturbed them.

In a few moments they might awake fully and scour the plain. For all Drake or the others knew the creatures might be nocturnal in their habits, prowling for their food only in the darkest hours of the early morning. He had not anticipated this. Should the monsters emerge before the blowholes spouted his strategem was worthless. It took him but a second to make up his mind. He instantly roused the sleepers.

"Get out of here at once. They're coming."

Not stopping to argue the men shook themselves together. They were still half-dazed by sleep. Drake's news falling on befogged brains completed their befuddlement. It did not occur to one of them that all five might easily climb onto the plane and reach safety in ten minutes. The unpractical Drake, being the only member of the party with all his wits, of course did not think of anything so simple and obvious.

"Take your father north ten miles, leave him, and come back for one of us," he ordered Edith. "Ole, crank up."

Ole was about to obey when a sleepy chorus of clattering squawks drifted over the ice of no man's land. It occurred to him that probably the reptiles had been away from home, foraging, while he and Edith were preparing the attack that afternoon. This, in Ole's opinion, accounted for their good luck.

"If I start the motor," he said in a hoarse whisper, "those brutes will hear it. In five minutes we shall be smothered."

"They are awake anyway," Drake whispered back. "If they come out they will see the plane against the snow."

Still hesitating Ole regarded Drake curiously in the dark.

"I can't see your face, String Bean," he said, still whispering hoarsely, "but I can guess its color. What are you going to do if those brutes race out before Miss Lane comes back to fetch you? She will take you next."

"Don't stand there whispering and shaking like a blasted jelly. Crank that motor! She could have been there and back by now."

"All right, General," Ole whispered. "One second. Now before I obey orders I'll tell you what I'm going to do next. The instant this propeller hums you'll see me making tracks for the nearest blowhole. If I beat the brutes to it, I dive. It won't be suicide because there is no way out. I had rather smash or drown in oil than die the other way. Take my tip and follow me. I've seen the brutes; you haven't. And I've had one race. Miss Lane will tell you about it in Heaven. I don't want another. All right, General, here goes."

He braced himself to spin the blades.

"Wait," Lane whispered tensely. "I felt it coming."

His more sensitive nervous system had detected the true cause of the reptiles' awakening. Scarcely breathing the others stood rigid in an agony of hoping. Did the ice sway beneath their feet ever so gently? Or was it merely the wish rocking their imaginations? Seconds passed without a recurrence of the sensation. Then, with infinite relief they heard, miles beneath them and far to the north, the faint, muffled buffeting of subterranean thunder. The jarring became unmistakable. In a moment the icebound plain was vibrating like a steel plate beneath the impact of a trip-hammer.

Half a mile to the south they heard the swish of air being sucked down the blowholes. Then while the ice heaved like a wave of the sea, they saw the black skyline of the ruined paradise boiling with gigantic shapes that inked out the low stars for an instant and vanished.

A moment later a thudding in the upper air announced the kindling of the innumerable flame cones, the ice for twenty miles around leapt into dull crimson, and they saw the whole herd of gigantic monsters racing with incredible speed directly toward them.

Ten minutes would decide whether Drake's invention meant victory or death. The flame cones descended, hovered a second in mid-air, lengthened downward with a reverberant roar and became pillars of fire.

Once more the sociable monsters forgot the miseries of their frozen existence. Gathering round the comforting flames with ludicrous yet touching exclamations of delight they surrendered themselves to the gracious warmth. Around many of the roaring fires a dozen or more snuggled at a safe distance in rings of blissful enjoyment. Thawing rapidly in the fierce heat they licked their flanks, rolled over on their backs and pawed luxuriously at the warm air.

The sounds of their pleasure, the inarticulate noises of their gratitude, would have softened the most calloused heart to pity. There was an appeal in the playful antics of the colossal beasts that was irresistible. Huge tails that might have buckled steel plates in the full viciousness of their cut slapped harmlessly against lean sides whose ribs stuck out like the timbers of an unfinished hull. They were starving; yet for this hour they frolicked in the enjoyment of their other great need, heat.

Their slow brains neither speculated nor dreamed. When once more the flames vanished into the bowels of the earth they would crawl back to their frozen caves. Waking or sleeping they would remember nothing of their transient happiness. Only at the distant thunder of the next subterranean tide would their instincts urge them to break anew the iron spell of their misery. Without memory each pain was a miracle, each pleasure an accident without cause or consequence. Without consciousness of the past their future was a blank, their existence a void. With no pleasure remembered they could look forward to none.

They were damned with life. Would it not be a gentle act of mercy to bless them with death?

Watching their happiness the author of their destruction felt no regret. They would be killed painlessly at the high tide of their pleasure.

"Look," he said, pointing to a blowhole where four of the great lizards basked in the heat. "Those have it already."

They saw the four huge bodies roll over as if to sleep. The monsters shuffled on their sides and lay still, their great tails listlessly curved on the ice, and their long necks resting on one another's flanks.

One by one others of the friendly rings fell asleep. Then, in fifteen minutes, all were locked fast in death.

Still the cheerful flames thundered up undiminished. The late comers, the babies of the sleeping monsters, began to arrive. Hopping feebly they joined their mothers and nestled down in the genial glow. Soon they too were asleep forever.

Suddenly the air about the sleepers burst with a dull explosion into a sheet of fire. The instant flame lived but a second. Only the cheery fires rustled and glowed above the dead.