The Lost Warship, Robert Moore Williams [macos ebook reader TXT] 📗

It also went plunk. No explosion. Just a plunk. A cloud of white smoke puffed out.

"What the devil is that?" Craig thought uncertainly. "Are they throwing grenades at us? Was the first grenade a dud?"

He started toward the grenade. A whiff of the smoke stung his nostrils, sent a warning bell clattering wildly in his brain.

"Gas!" he yelled. "They're throwing gas grenades at us. Stay away from that smoke."

The Ogrum had attacked the Idaho with their sleeping gas! The guards in the temple had carried sacks of what Craig had thought were ordinary grenades. They had been gas grenades!

Plunk went the projector outside the temple. Plunk went the grenade that struck on the roof.

Plunk, plunk, plunk—A shower of grenades came over. Gas swirled over the roof of the temple.

"Knock out those projectors!" Craig shouted. He leaped to the wall of the temple, began firing. All around him other guns were letting go. Up to now it had been necessary to conserve ammunition as much as possible. If the projectors were not knocked out, no amount of ammunition would do the humans any good.

The rattle of sub-machine guns was a continuous tumult of sound. Fires still burned in the city and the air was becoming heavy with smoke. All around the temple the Ogrum were lurking. They were not venturing into the open. Now and then they could be glimpsed darting from shelter to shelter.

Plunk—plunk—plunk—

More gas grenades hit on the roof.

Somewhere near him Craig heard a man choke and gasp for breath. Everywhere, even above the rattle of the machine guns, he could hear men coughing. Something stung his lungs and he coughed himself. The machine gun fire began to thin out as choking men dropped their guns. Craig found himself firing blindly, searching for the hidden projectors. The plunk of the gas grenades was loud in his ears.

"Tough luck," a thin voice said near him.

He looked around and saw Margy Sharp. The girl was holding a handkerchief over her nose and was trying to keep from breathing. She was swaying.

"I feel like I want to go to sleep," she whispered.

The gas was getting to her. It was getting to others, too. Many of the sailors had fallen. Some of them were trying to drag themselves back to the edge of the roof, trying to lift guns with hands that no longer had the strength for the task.

"We fought a good fight," Margy Sharp whispered. "Too bad we lost."

"We haven't lost yet," Craig gritted.

He was lying and he knew it. His only hope was phase four of the attack plan. Unless phase four went into operation within the space of minutes, they were doomed. "What the hell has happened to Michaelson?" he thought.

Plunk, plunk, plunk, went the grenades.

Had the scientist failed? Had something happened to Michaelson?

The night was hideous with the yells of the Ogrum. Sensing victory, they were screaming with delight. Meanwhile, all over the roof of the temple, more of the gas grenades were exploding. The wind, which had quickened to a stiff breeze, swept much of the gas away. But not all of it. One whiff of it and a man lost half his efficiency. Three whiffs and he was asleep.

A man in an officer's uniform crawled to Craig's feet, looked up at him. It was Captain Higgins.

"I—I guess this is it," the captain said.

"I guess so," Craig said miserably. The gas stung his lungs again and he coughed. Slowly, a little at a time, he could feel a deadly lassitude stealing over him. A weight was tugging at his knees, trying to force his legs to buckle. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to lie down and go to sleep. He fought against the impulse. From this threatened sleep a man would awaken all right—in the prison pen of the Ogrum, there to wait his turn to become a sacrifice to the sun.

Two or three machine guns—no more—were still firing, holding off the Ogrum horde. When those guns stopped—

The flames of the burning city danced in the night. The air was heavy with smoke. The screams of the dinosaurs were louder, as if the great beasts were excited by the conflagration in the city of the Ogrum. Craig was vaguely aware that only two guns were firing. In spite of all his efforts to resist the impulse, he sank to his knees. The grenades continued to plunk on the roof. Only one gun was firing. Beside him, Craig saw that Margy Sharp had gone quietly to sleep. She looked like a little girl who is all tired out with play and has decided to lie down and take a nap.

Boom-boom! Boom-boom-boom!

Five thudding explosions came through the night. They did not come from the temple, or near it. They were at least half a mile away.

The sound lifted Craig to his feet.

"Michaelson!" he screamed. He tried to look in the direction from which the sound of the explosions had come. The smoke was too heavy. He could not see.

"Michaelson—" his voice was a whisper. "For God's sake, hurry!"

There was no answer. Craig waited. No more explosions came. He sank to his knees, fighting against the impulse to sleep. He was dimly aware that the screams of the Ogrum had died into abrupt silence. No more grenades were plunking on the roof. He wondered if the Ogrum were preparing to charge the temple, to strike down all who had strength left to oppose them. He lifted himself up, looked over the edge.

The Ogrum were no longer watching the temple. They were staring in the direction of the explosions. They had come out into the open. He could see little groups of them nervously looking in the other direction.

Dimly, in the distance, he heard the beginning thunder of sound. It was something like the vague roar of a starting avalanche, a rumble, a mutter, a dim murmur growing louder. The smoke was too thick for him to see what was happening.

The murmur grew in volume. It became as loud as the roar of a tornado. The Ogrum stared toward it, trying to understand what it was. They were getting nervous, now. A few of them had started to run.

Something came through the smoke. It came in a lumbering gallop, a huge and terribly frightened beast. It saw the fires in front of it. Screaming it tried to turn back. The pressure of the horde behind carried it along.

A confused mass of dark bodies poured into the city. There were hundreds of them, thousands of them. Scared to the point of madness their one thought was how to escape. The smallest of them weighed more than two tons.

Craig, fighting against the effect of the gas, sobbed in sudden relief.

"Michaelson," he whispered. "You got there in time. You did it! You did it—"

Phase four of the attack plan had come into operation. Phase four called for Guru and the scientist to go around the edges of the vast swamp and set it on fire. Part of the swamp foliage would not burn under any circumstances. But great areas of dry reeds would burn like tinder.

The dinosaurs would run from the fires. The blazes would be set so the great monsters would have to flee toward the city. At the proper moment, the wall the Ogrum had built to keep them from the city would be blown up.

The dinosaurs would stampede across the city.

Craig remembered reading of the stampede of the long-horn cattle in the early days of the American west. Thousands of cattle, running madly, shook the earth with the thunder of their hooves, destroyed everything that stood in their way.

Not cattle, but dinosaurs, were stampeding across the city of the Ogrum.

Too late, the Ogrum saw them coming. They tried to run. The great beasts trampled them into muck. Huts, struck by the maddened animals, flew to pieces. Many of them, blinded, not knowing where they were going, ran into the temple. The great building shuddered at each impact. Voronoff, caught somewhere in that wild stampede, must have known too late that he had deserted too soon, before he knew the complete plan of attack. Either he did not know of phase four or the Ogrum had not believed him when he told them about it.