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

sky, no one knew. They made no attempt to bomb the ship, or to attack it in any way. This seemed ominous.

The Idaho carried four planes of her own. One had been lost. Before dawn, Captain Higgins ordered another catapulted into the sky, to search the surrounding area. This plane went aloft. It was not attacked or molested. The pilot, by radio, reported the presence of a large body of land very near. Navigators, consulting their charts, discovered that this body of land was not on any of their maps.

Dawn, that hour of danger when an attack might reasonably be expected, came. The crew of the Idaho stood by their guns, waiting. No attack came.

The sun rose. Still there was no attack. The ship, moving very slowly, entered an area where the surface of the sea seemed to have turned to silver. This effect was caused by some oily substance that floated on the water, a new phenomenon to officers and men alike.

On the horizon the land mass the pilot of the scouting plane had reported was dimly visible, a range of forested hills sloping upward to mountains in the background, the rim of some mighty continent of the old time. Later, millions of years later, only the tops of these mountains would remain above the sea, to form the thousands of islands of the Pacific.

Craig breakfasted below. He came on deck just as the alarm sounded. The crew raced to their stations. He discovered the cause of the alarm.

Overhead, at a height of thirty to thirty-five thousand feet, was a plane. It was shadowing the ship. It made no attempt to attack. Craig went to the bridge. Captain Higgins had been on the bridge all night. He was still there. He greeted Craig wanly.

"We're being watched," Higgins said. "I don't like it."

"Anything we can do about it?"

Higgins squinted upward through his glasses. "Too high for ack-ack. No, there is nothing we can do about it. And I'm not sure we want to do anything about it."

"What do you mean?"

"We're not fighting a war here in this time," the captain answered. "We don't want to fight, if we can possibly avoid it."

"It may be a problem to avoid fighting," Craig said. "Remember, they shot down the pilot of your scouting plane."

"I remember," Higgins said grimly.

"Of course, we could surrender," Craig suggested.

"How would you like to go to hell?" Higgins said.

"It was only an idea," Craig grinned. "But I don't like this business. We don't know what we're trying to avoid fighting, or what strength they have, or how they will attack, if they attack."

"I don't like it either," Higgins answered. "But I didn't choose it. Damn them, if they're going to attack, I wish they would get on with it!"

Over the huge ship the tiny plane circled. Every man on the Idaho knew the situation was nasty. They were being watched. There was nothing they could do to stop it. The shadowing plane was above anti-aircraft fire. The warship could not hide from it. There was no protecting destroyer to lay a friendly smoke screen to shield them from the eyes in the sky. Meanwhile, somewhere around them a hidden enemy might be marshalling forces to destroy them.

"Have you tried to contact them?" Craig asked.

"I tried to reach them by radio all last night," Higgins answered. "There was no answer. The radio operators say there are no signals in the air. This, plus the fact that they have not attempted to answer our signals, forces me to the conclusion that they have not discovered radio. Of course they may use wave bands beyond the range of out receivers—Hello! What's that?"

From somewhere near them a shout had sounded.

Leaning over the edge of the bridge, Craig saw a sailor on the lower deck. The man was also leaning over pointing down toward the sea. He shouted again and turned upward toward the bridge. His face was white with terror.

"What is it?" Captain Higgins demanded.

"It's—It's that silver stuff on the surface, sir," the sailor answered. "It's—it's eating the sides of the ship sir. It's eating the ship."

The Idaho was still in the area of the bright substance that floated on the surface of the sea. Captain Higgins raced from the bridge down to the main deck. Craig followed him. By the time they reached the spot where the sailor was standing several other officers had gathered. They were all staring down at the sea.

Craig leaned over the rail, looked down. Horror tightened an iron band around his heart.

At the waterline, a great gash had been eaten into the steel hull of the Idaho. The plates of the ship were the best grade of chrome steel, heat-treated and hardened. They were designed to withstand the battering of sixteen-inch shells. The steel in them was the toughest metal that had ever come out of Pittsburgh.

Where the oily, shiny substance touched it, the steel was crumbling away.

"Acid!" Craig heard an officer gasp. "That's what the silver stuff is. Acid! They sprayed it on the sea."

"They plotted our course and set a booby-trap for us."

"That can't be an acid," someone protested. "It is impossible to secure a concentration of acid on the surface of the sea strong enough to eat holes in steel."

"Maybe it's impossible but it sure as hell has happened!"

Each passing wave tossed the oily liquid against the hull of the Idaho. It hissed softly when it struck and promptly began its deadly work. What was happening below the waterline was not visible. Probably no damage was being done there because the acid was on the surface and did not touch the areas below the waterline. But enough damage was being done above the water! Pits two inches deep were already appearing in the steel sides of the ship.

"Full speed ahead!" Captain Higgins ordered.

Their hope was to get out of the area covered by the acid and to get out of it quickly. But—the patch of silver was miles in extent. And there was no way to determine exactly how much damage had been done to the ship. The line of corrosion extending around the hull might have weakened her so badly that she was unseaworthy.

Captain Higgins took the only possible course. He ordered the ship to make for land.

Two hours later the Idaho was resting in a natural harbor between low hills. A river emptied into the sea here. Captain Higgins had grown years older as he took the ship into the mouth of the harbor. He had no charts of the place, no way of knowing how much water was available, or whether there were hidden reefs waiting to rip the bottom out of the ship. He took her in blind, the hardest job any ship's master ever has to face.

Like a wounded lion, the Idaho was seeking a place where she could lie up and determine how badly she had been hurt. In entering the harbor she was going into what might easily be a death trap but if she stayed outside, her weakened hull might give away and she might go down with all hands.

Higgins sent his engineers in boats to determine how much damage had been done to the hull. With his officers, he waited on the bridge for the engineers to report. There was none of the acid on the surface of the harbor.

Craig heard the chief engineer report.

"The hull is so weak that the ship may sink at any moment, sir. An effort to move her might crumble the plates. Holes in the sides six to eight inches deep, sir."

The captain's hands on the rail of the bridge tightened until the knuckles showed white.

"Very well," he said. "Beach her."

"Beach her, sir?"

"Yes. If we stay here, we may find more of that acid sprayed on the water, in which case the ship will sink."

The crew began preparations to carry out the orders. The Idaho was done, finished, ended.

High overhead the single watchful plane still circled.

Higgins shook his fist at it. "Damn you—" he said. "Damn you—"

The Idaho was carefully brought into the mouth of the river until she touched bottom. Fortunately the bottom was sandy mud. The ship sighed and settled herself into it like a tired sea monster coming out of the ocean to die. Everyone on board her knew that this was the ship's last resting place. Her steel bones would remain here until they rusted away. As the ship's keel grated on the bottom, Captain Higgins looked like a man who is hearing his own death sentence but his back was stiff as a ramrod and his chin was high.

CHAPTER V The Ogrum

"Exploring parties ashore," Captain Higgins ordered.

"With your permission," Craig said, "I should like to be a member of one of those parties."

"Certainly," the captain said. "I'll do even better than that—I'll put you in charge of one of them."

"Thank you, sir," Craig said. In accordance with the best naval tradition, he kept his voice emotionless, but his heart leaped at the thought. He was going to lead a squad of blue-jackets ashore!

He was assembling his group when Michaelson, wildly excited, came dashing up. "I understand you are taking a squad ashore!" the scientist excitedly panted.

"That's right," Craig answered.

"I want to go along."

"You want to go along?" Craig glanced toward the nearby shore. Above the swamps bordering the river one of the lizard-birds was flapping. It was carrying in its taloned claws something that looked like a small monkey. Now and then coughing grunts came from the swamp, evidence of the beasts lurking there. "You want to go into that?" Craig questioned.

"Certainly," the scientist vigorously answered. "This is the opportunity of a life-time. We shall have a perfect chance to observe the flora and fauna of this time. We shall see them alive. No other scientist ever had a chance like this."

"You mean you will have a fine chance to be gobbled up," Craig said grimly, nodding toward the shore. "That's jungle country."

"You are taking these men into it," Michaelson protested.

"They volunteered," Craig answered.

"So do I volunteer," Michaelson said.

"All right," Craig said, grinning in spite of himself at the impetuous way this scientist flung himself into what at best could only be a nasty situation. "Get yourself a gun and come along—" He broke off to stare at the second person who was approaching him.

It was Margy Sharp. She went directly to the point. "How about me volunteering too?" she asked.

"Well, I'm damned," Craig said.

"Does that mean I can go?"

"It does not!" Craig said emphatically. "It means I'm astonished that you should have taken such sudden leave of your senses."

"Why can't I go?" she challenged.

"Because you're a girl," he answered. "And because you would be in the way. No sale, Margy. Not today and not any other day if I have anything to say about it. You stay here where you belong."

"You damned men have all the fun," the girl said bitterly, turning on her heel. Craig watched her walk directly to Captain Higgins and make the same request and he observed the astonishment of that naval officer. But in spite of his astonishment, the captain was quite able to say "No."

The last he saw of her, she was leaning over the rail watching the small boat put out for shore. He waved at her. She thumbed her nose in reply.

Looking back as they neared the shore, Craig saw she was still standing at the rail. He also heard the boom of the ship's catapult and saw a plane launched into the air. Captain Higgins was sending out a plane to scout the surrounding area. Craig knew what the captain was worried about—the place from which those cursed silent airplanes came.

High in the sky, he could see one of the silent floaters keeping its vigil over the Idaho.

"We'll cross the swamp and reach the hills," Craig directed.

Shots roared in the distance as they forced the boat through the pools of stagnant water. Apparently the shots came from the other exploring parties shooting flying lizards or other creatures. Once a flying lizard swooped over their boat but it changed its mind and went on to attack something else. And, as they forced the boat through a clump of reeds and into a clear channel, something monstrous snorted near them. Loud crashes sounded in the swamp tangle.

"It looks as big as an elephant," Craig shouted. "Get your guns ready."

He could see the movement of the reeds as the beast crashed toward them. Small trees were shaking, marking its passage, then it thrust its head out of the tangle not fifty feet from them.

"It's a dinosaur!" Michaelson shouted. The scientist was wildly excited. "It's a live dinosaur."

"It's going to be a dead one if it