Authors: J. Clayton Rogers
Above the smoke and chaos the huge beast rose higher and higher. The ship lurched wildly.
It was climbing on board!
Ignoring his pain, William leapt to his feet--only to fall hard and roll into the wheelhouse as the ship lifted at the bow. "Lead Foot!" he cried, hauling himself up by the rail bolted to the wheelhouse. Steadying himself on the angle between the deck and the cabin, he rounded the wall.
The purser was working frantically at one of the whaleboat davits.
"You'll tip it over!" William shouted. Struggling forward, he grasped the weather rail and worked over to the whaleboat platform. "You'll tip it over!" The noise of the bombs and the din of the beast had deafened them both. William thought if he repeated himself enough times, the purser would finally hear him.
The ship jumped like a derailed car and William and the purser fell against the whaleboat. Regaining his feet, the purser again set himself against the lashing.
"Both sides at once!"
The purser looked as though he was about to strike William, but he was getting nowhere with the falls. Reluctantly, he accepted the boy's help.
"We'll work them loose, then go back for the wounded. Once we get them in--" And then he caught a glimpse inside the boat. It was loaded with a breaker and several lengths of duff dough.
"You were loading the boat the whole time! You were going alone!"
The purser mouthed some words, then hand-signaled for William to loosen his end. It took only seconds. Had the purser known anything about gravity davits, he would have been long gone.
"You bastard! Lead Foot would've--"
The stern dipped. Whirling, William saw the remains of the deckhouse covered by a tremendous flipper. The creature was only half on board, yet with its chest out of the water its neck rose as high as the mizzen mast. Legs stuck like toothpicks from its mouth.
Glancing back, he saw many of the crew had rolled against the taffrail in a terrible, wounded mass. There had to be a way to get back and save them--to at least bring the whaleboat around so they'd have a chance to jump in.
There was a shocking uplift as the beast slipped off the ship with a tremendous splash. Keeping his grip on the boatfall, William just managed to stay in place.
The purser was not so lucky. Catapulted over the larboard rail he fell precisely into the mouth of the creature that had watched William and Lead Foot load the harpoon cannon. Swishing up and down the port beam, it had been observing the frantic goings-on of the odd two-legged creatures. Its jaws seemed agape in curiosity and fascination, not voraciousness. When it heard the purser shout, it darted aft to investigate--and abruptly found a man in its mouth.
It was taken completely by surprise. Before it could contract its throat muscles, the hapless purser was halfway down. The monster rolled its neck, thrashed and sputtered wildly, then vanished below the bulwarks.
The ship warped down like dropped lead. Falling, William's face struck the gunwale. He felt as if his skull had turned to mush, yet he did not lose consciousness. Instead, a red fog descended before his eyes. Red water rushed up. The largest monster, luridly red, came up full-body upon the
Lydia
Bailey
. It worked its flippers over the ruined main cabin and deckhouse, its massive chest heaving like a building in an earthquake. Its eyes were incarnadine, like the sky.
The whaleboat, loosened from the cables, skittered into the water, the ropes spinning off like red pythons. Stumbling over the holding blocks, William dropped into the boat even as water crashed into the whaling ship's forecastle.
The red ocean swelled up. The
Lydia
Bailey
was going under. If he didn't pay out some distance, the whaleboat would be sucked under with her.
Whaleboats were not made to be rowed by a lone man, but William's thoughts were not clear enough to recognize this as an obstacle. He clamped two oars into a pair of oarlocks. Straddling the centerboard, feet propped against the thwarts, he raised the large oars and rowed with all his might. By the time salt water hit the
Lydia
Bailey's
boilers, he was well away.
His hearing had recovered enough to detect the terrific explosion belowdecks. Looking up, he discovered the world had regained its normal color. But the thing on top of the
Lydia
Bailey
destroyed all sense of reality. Rising like God's own pylon, it literally shoved the whaler underwater. When the second boiler blew, the coal hatch flew up like a rocket and bounced off the creature's head. Loose ratlines coiled around it like a hoary wig.
A hump of water approached the whaleboat. Shipping the oars, William slipped down against a bench and closed his eyes.
There was an ever-so-faint swish, then a bump at the gunwale. A strange tweaky sound came close, then receded--came close again, receded again. Slowly, William opened his eyes.
He thought it was one of the smaller creatures, but at such close proximity it was hard to tell. At three yards away, it was stupendous.
The portal of Hell--only three yards away.
The huge, black, billiard-ball eyes stared at him.
Three yards away.
Yet it seemed disinclined to come closer.
William heard a deep inrush of air and his sticky shirt tugged up a little as if being pulled off. The creature was sniffing him.
It drew back a little, then came forward again. Its jaw unhinged just enough for the boy to glimpse its huge teeth. An odd, fecal stink emerged from lungs that were underwater. William cowered against the far side of the boat, his knees drawn up to his chest.
Yet the beast stopped once more, seemingly unable to come closer. It sniffed, wobbled its head stiffly, pulled back.
It hit William like a blow from an angel: the duff sauce! It couldn't stand the smell of the duff sauce!
Tossing its long neck in revulsion and frustration, the creature announced its annoyance with a wide yawn.
From the side of its mouth the purser gazed out at William. The boy's laugh became a scream.
The purser's body--the half that was left--was impaled on the serpent's lower jaw, his head jammed neatly between two teeth, chin down, the beard touching black gums. One of the purser's hands was up against his head, palm out. A thin line of human entrails wormed in and out of the creature's rear teeth. What was left of the purser seemed to be marveling at what was gone. His face was covered with viscous fluid from the creature's throat. Before being coughed up and chewed, he had been thoroughly coated. The gleam made it seem he was crying. Or perhaps the tears were real. William met his sweet gape of amazement with scream after scream.
The purser blinked.
Then the creature slipped away.
In the distance, the largest creature swooped and dipped gracefully as a swan through the floating debris as it scooped up floundering seamen. William did not have to watch long to realize he was the last crewman alive.
In turn, the other two creatures closed on the lonely whaleboat. The one with green stripes took one whiff at the boy and flashed the water so hard the boat nearly capsized.
When the largest of the three sculled up, William could see clearly the shallow furrow his harpoon had made. It came so close William could smell its seal-like odor, oily and cold. There were odd patches on the skin similar to the discolorations around hair follicles on some whales.
The boy was so numbed by the approach and reapproach of death that a certain objectivity set in. As the largest of the creatures sniffed one final time, then turned away, William vaguely thought:
Well... I'm still alive….
And I'm hungry.
April - May, 1908
37°49'N, 122°27'W
From the
Deck Log of the
USS Florida
:
Mess Att. S. Thuesen, Oiler C. Waak, 1/c Fireman Newman, C. Yeo Maxwell, Cabin Cook Egan, 2/c Firemen Forrester, Haassengier, Lowman, 1/c Mach. Ohst, 2/c QM Risenberger, Lds Roberts (English), O.S. Ridley, W. O. Cook Smith etc (see attached for complete list) declared deserters; Mast gave Ship's cook 1/c 2 weeks restriction for drunkenness; tours conducted for citizens of S.F.; Lieut. Brian H. Coverlick joined as watch officer; Mast warned 3 seamen for being out of uniform; Ship Surg. lectured on perils of drunkenness and lewd women.
San Francisco had good millionaires and bad millionaires. The agreed rule of thumb was that the good millionaires were always out of power and the bad millionaires were always in. This held true even after good millionaires won an election.
For Captain Oates' money, the bad millionaires weren't such a bad lot. There was no social snobbery on display that evening, at least. Although the lobbies of the Fairmont blazed with unimaginable wealth, the rich received the sailors of the Fleet and their fellow grafters with equal gusto. Nor had fame made any of them shy. The recent spate of magazine articles exposing the corruption of His Lord Mayor E.E. Schmitz had not prevented him from joining the party. There he was now in the main lobby, puffing on his famous bassoon.
And the women? Sort of elegant and refined, sort of strange and lovely, and most of them sort of willing to listen to an old geezer fart away about the only things he knew about: oceans and ships.
The administration might be rotten to the core, but it certainly knew how to throw a bash.
The skipper of the
Florida
had lost count of all the fetes and balls he'd attended between Virginia and California. Since social drinking was
de
rigueur
during this world cruise (among the officers, at least), Oates had also lost track of all the potted plants he had watered with gin while his hosts' backs were turned. Not that he was adverse to a good belt now and then, but he'd seen too many captains carted back on board their ships after dark, dead drunk.
This was a treat, though. For one thing, everybody spoke English. Well, almost everyone. Behind the tray that appeared in front of him was an Oriental face. Sighing, Oates chose a glass.
The woman holding his arm gave it a firm squeeze. Looking down into her lovely azure eyes, Oates wondered what exactly was on the young lady's mind.
Have to watch out for the innocent-looking ones,
he cautioned himself.
They're the worst of a tricky lot--and I should know.
But as the woman beamed her admiration, the captain felt his old bones shake with her flattery.
"What's that?"
"You said you were going to tell me how you searched for Atlantis."
"Oh... yes. It was a long time ago, you know."
"But I find it fascinating!"
Oates felt a stirring in his loins. Good Lord! When was the last time
that
had happened?
"I was with the
Gettysburg
. The Secretary had sent us to gather data for Sailing Directions for the Mediterranean. We were to test the new Thompson sounding machine. At the last moment, President Grant added the Atlantis mission."
"President
Grant
?" the young lady said, a bit stunned. The true dimension of his age had finally struck home.
"We had Plato for our guide. The pertinent quote goes something like: 'Beyond the Strait where you place the Pillars of Hercules there was an island larger than Asia and Libya combined. In one fatal day and night there came earthquakes and inundations which engulfed its mighty people.' Not much to go on, I'll admit. Still, after we left Horta in the Azores, we started to take radial soundings one hundred and thirty miles off the Iberian Peninsula."
"And did you find Atlantis?"
"Hard to say. We dredged up rounded pebbles. Only weather and surf could account for that kind of wear. We were fairly certain that at one time they had been near the--"
"Halloa, Oates!"
Oates was appalled when Greenlief Merriman of the
Missouri
staggered up to them. "What kind of galley yarns you feeding this lovely creature?"
Laughing, he slapped Oates on the back. Since Oates was in the process of lifting a cigarette to his lips, a face-full of sparks was the result. Merriman was one of the reasons Oates moderated his drinking. There had been a scandal in Rio when the captain of the
Missouri
failed to control his drunken sailors. Rumor said it was because Merriman had been drunk himself.
"Galley yarns?" the woman inquired.
"Scuttlebutt," said Merriman, wiping the liquor perspiration from his brow. "Rumors... falsehoods...
lies
...."
"I was just telling Miss Foglesong here about my cruise on the
Gettysburg
."
"
The
Gettysburg
? Just how old are you, Oates?"
"I think you need some air, Captain. Let me get someone to assist you." Oates signaled to a pair of midshipmen standing against the far wall. They were so busy ignoring each other that they failed to see him.