Silver on the Sea
Night had come hours ago. Craig stood on the deck, watching the sea and
the sky and the stars in the sky. Up overhead the constellations had
changed. They were not the familiar star clusters that he knew.
Completely blacked out, the Idaho moved very slowly through the
darkness. Her speed was kept to almost nothing because the charts of the
navigators were useless. The charts had been made in that far future
which the battle wagon had quitted forever and they revealed nothing
about this sea. There might be a mile of water under the ship. She might
be scraping bottom. The navigators were going mad worrying about what
might be under the ship. Captain Higgins was going mad worrying not only
about what might be under the ship but about what might soon be over it,
when the mysterious planes returned. The pilot of the scouting plane had
been rescued. He had not lived to tell what he had found.
Craig was aware of a shadow near him but he thought it was one of the
crew until the match flared. It was Margy Sharp. She was lighting a
cigarette.
A sharp reprimand from an officer caused her to drop the match.
"What's wrong?" she demanded. "Why can't I smoke?"
"Blackout," Craig said.
"Oh, it's _you_," the girl spoke.
"Where have you been?" Craig asked. "I looked around for you but I
couldn't find you."
"In the hospital," she said. "Helping out a baffled doctor."
"How is English?" Craig asked.
"English has been dead for hours," she said. "I've been with Mrs.
Miller."
"Oh! How is she?"
"Fine. But the doctor almost went nuts. He said it was the first time in
naval history that a baby had been born on a battleship. He seemed to
think it violated the rules of etiquette, or something. It was a girl,"
she went on, a little breathlessly now, as if talking about babies made
her excited. "Mrs. Miller said she was going to name it Margaret, after
me. Isn't that nice? She says her husband will be worried to death about
her and she wants to use the ship's radio to send him a message. Do you
think she could do that?"
"Do I--" Craig choked. "Listen, girl, do you know what has happened?"
The tone of his voice alarmed her. "No," she said quickly. "I don't
know. What has happened?"
She had been busy down in the hospital bay, too busy to wonder what was
going on up above. Craig told her the whole story. She listened in
incredulous amazement. He had to tell it twice before she began to
understand it. And then she didn't believe it.
"You're kidding me," she said.
"Sorry," Craig answered. "But I'm not kidding."
"You mean--you actually mean we're back somewhere in the past?"
"Exactly."
"But--but what are we going to do?"
* * * * *
The big man shrugged. "We're going to wait and see what happens. That's
all we can do. Wait and see." There were tones of excitement in his
voice.
"You sound pleased about this," she challenged.
"I'm not pleased," he quickly corrected her. "I'm sorry for Mrs. Miller
and for Margaret, for you, for Captain Higgins, and the men on the
Idaho. But as for myself--well, I'm not sorry. This is the ultimate
adventure. We have a new world to explore, new things to see. I know
hundreds of men who would give an arm to be dropped back here into this
world. I've met them in every mining camp I ever saw, in every trading
post on the frontiers of civilization, in every corner of earth. They
were misfits, most of them. I'm a misfit, or I was, back in our time. I
didn't belong, I didn't fit in. I wasn't a business man, I never would
have made a business man. I couldn't have been a lawyer or a clerk or a
white-collar worker. But here--well I seem to belong here. This is my
time, this is my place in the world." He broke off. "I don't know why I
am telling you all this," he said shortly.
She had listened quietly and sympathetically. "You can tell me," she
said. "Remember, back in the life-boat, when I told you we were two of a
kind? I didn't fit in, either, back home. I belong here too."
She had moved closer to him, in the soft darkness. He could sense her
nearness, sense her womanliness. He started to put his arms around her.
"Well," a voice said behind him.
Craig turned. Voronoff stood there. "What do you want?" Craig said.
"From you, I want nothing," Voronoff answered. "I was not speaking to
you. I, at least, have not forgotten about the water."
"The water?" Craig said puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
"The water that wasn't in the cask we had in the life-boat," Voronoff
answered. "The water that you drank in the night when the rest of us
were asleep."
"Damn you--" Craig said.
Voronoff walked away. Craig made no attempt to follow him. He had
completely forgotten about the water. With an effort, he got his temper
under control and turned back to the girl.
She had turned away and was looking at the sea. When Craig spoke, she
did not answer. A moment before, a warm magic had been between them.
Voronoff's words had changed the warmth to coldness.
* * * * *
That night the lookouts on the Idaho were constantly reporting that the
ship was being shadowed. Overhead in the darkness were planes, silent
planes. The lookout occasionally spotted them against the moon.
The fact that the planes flew silently, like shadows in the night,
perturbed the lookouts and their uneasiness was communicated to the
crew. No one would have much minded planes that made the proper amount
of noise, but ghost planes that made no noise at all were dreadful
things. The silent planes scouted the ship, then seemed to disappear. At
least they were no longer visible, but whether or not they were still
hidden somewhere in the 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.