The Attack
At dusk a drum began to boom in the temple of the Ogrum. The sun was
just on the edge of the horizon. It hung in the sky as if it hesitated
to take the plunge below the rim of the world. Crouched hidden on the
mountainside as near the city as he dared take his men, Craig could see
the Ogrum, at the signal of the drum, start hurrying toward the temple
as if they were eagerly anticipating the hellish sacrifice soon to take
place.
To one side, beyond the notch in the mountains, was the swamp where the
dinosaurs fed. Already the sound of the great beasts fighting and
screaming could be heard.
All day long the Americans had remained in hiding near the city.
Fortunately none of the Ogrum had ventured to climb the mountain. Craig
had spent the day mercilessly rehearsing his men in the part they were
to play until they were perfect in their parts, or as perfect as they
could become in the short time available. The whole plan of attack
depended on split-second timing. If everything worked right, if
everybody did his job at the proper time, there was a chance that the
attack would be successful. If anything went wrong--Craig preferred not
to think about that. Around him, he could feel a tenseness creep over
his men as the zero hour approached.
The Ogrum, as if driven by the quickening beat of the drum, disappeared
within the temple.
The sun, making up its mind at last, plunged below the line of the sky.
Zero hour!
Craig could not see them but he knew that men had leaped from hiding and
were running toward the projecting wing of the temple that formed the
plane hangar. His fingers gripped the stock of the tommy-gun so tightly
the knuckles showed white. They had to get that hangar, first. The
planes had to be destroyed. Several times during the day he had seen
planes take off. All had returned by night.
The vultures were in their nest.
Boom, boom-boom, BOOM, boom.
Craig almost sobbed at the sound. Grenades exploding! Grenades flung
into the hangar by the attacking group. Grenades blasting among the
mystery planes of the Ogrum!
Boom, boom, boom-boom-boom! Grenades exploding like a chain of giant
firecrackers. In the hot darkness Craig caught glimpses of flashes of
light as the grenades detonated.
Boom, boom, boom, boom-boom!
The flat sullen thuds echoed up the side of the mountain. From the
darkness where the sailors crouched a low cheer arose. The men there in
the night knew the meaning of those explosions.
Craig held his breath, waiting. The attack was on. Now, no matter what
happened, it was too late to withdraw. Now it was kill or be killed,
fight or be struck down, destroy or be destroyed. With the knowledge of
the savage sacrifice about to take place within the temple, there was no
question of the urge of the men to destroy. The Ogrum were beyond the
meaning of mercy. Blast them, mow them down, kill them, destroy them
utterly!
Craig waited. Tommy-guns chattered in the darkness. Grenades thundered.
Then he saw what he had been waiting for. A tongue of flame licked out
of the hangar.
Fire in the nest of the vultures!
The flames grew in violence.
"Withdraw!" Craig said huskily. "Get back. Draw them away with you."
He was talking to himself. The men attacking the hangar could not hear
him. Their retreat was the next phase of the attack. Retreat and draw
the Ogrum after them.
* * * * *
They began to retreat. Flames were roaring from the hangar. It was
constructed of stone and the walls would not burn. Leaping tongues of
fire poured out of the open door.
For a few minutes after the attack began, the drum-beat continued from
the temple. The instant the first explosion had sounded, the drum-beat
had faltered. Then it had caught itself and continued. But the continued
explosions were unsteadying the hand of the drummer.
The drum stopped beating. The Ogrum poured from the temple. The moon had
not yet risen. The burning hangar provided the only illumination. By its
light, Craig could see streams of startled beast-men rushing from every
entrance.
For a few minutes, they milled in confusion. Something had happened that
was not on their schedule. They did not in the least understand the
explosions they had heard and they could not grasp what had happened to
their hangar.
Eventually they seemed to understand that they had been attacked and
that the enemy was retreating. Stabbing flashes of fire from the
sub-machine guns showed where the enemy was retreating.
Angry Ogrum charged the enemy.
Simultaneously, across the city, puffs of light began to appear. Spots
of dancing illumination leaped from thatched hut to thatched hut,
leaving behind them bright knots of light.
The knots of light grew. They spread. The spots of dancing illumination
ran on ahead of them, leaving new knots of light.
On the far side of the city the sky grew bright.
Masses of Ogrum, bewildered by this new spectacle, paused in confusion.
Their city was on fire. They did not understand it. They began to hurry
toward the fire.
"Phases one and two of the attack are now complete," Craig said to his
waiting men. "The third phase begins. Come on. It's our turn now."
The attack on the hangar, the subsequent retreat, and the firing of the
city had been carried out perfectly. On the far side of the city the
torch squad was still firing the thatched huts. This squad was beginning
to withdraw also, pulling the Ogrum after them.
"The attack is a success!" Craig thought exultantly. "We've burned their
planes and set their city on fire. Before they know what has happened,
we will have rescued the prisoners. We've won!" The thought was burning
in his mind. "We've won! Stinky and Margy and the lads from the Idaho
will be free again!"
With him at their head, the sailors formed a wedge that drove straight
at that part of the temple where the prisoners were held. To effect a
rescue, they would have to enter the heart of the big building.
The old Roman phalanx, that fearsome mass of men that struck such terror
to the hearts of the barbarians, must have looked something like the
wedge of men that drove through the Ogrum city. The Romans were armed
with spears, swords and shields whereas the sailors carried tommy-guns
and grenades, but the effect was the same--a hard-driving body of men
that stops at nothing.
The Ogrum were not expecting this charge. They were busy trying to put
out the fires raging in their city. Meeting no organized opposition of
any kind, and smashing down the Ogrum who accidentally got in their way,
the sailors drove straight to the temple--and into it! Like a perfectly
trained team executing a long-practiced maneuver, a strong rear guard
slipped into place at the entrance. Craig, driving into the temple, was
not going to leave his rear unprotected, to leave his line of retreat
open to the chance of being cut.
* * * * *
In the vast arena there was a handful of yellow-clad guards surrounding
the pool of boiling lava. All the other Ogrum had left the temple.
"Blast them!" Craig grimly ordered.
Machine guns thundered in what was probably the first temple of the sun
ever built on earth! Hot lead screamed down at the guards around the
lava pool. When the sailors saw the human, bound, ready to be offered as
a living sacrifice to the hideous white beast that was always hungry,
the priests of the temple lost what little chance they ever had of being
taken alive.
The sacrifice had been prepared. The sailors had arrived at the last
possible moment.
Two minutes after the sailors had entered the temple, there was not a
yellow-clad priest left alive in the vast open arena in the center of
the building. Craig was knocking bars from the cage where the prisoners
were penned. Captain Stinky Higgins was standing behind those bars.
Margy Sharp was standing beside the captain. Higgins had a strange look
on his face.
"By the Lord, Craig--" was all he said when the bars went down. Craig
felt his knuckles pop as the captain shook his hand.
The girl's face was paste white but she had her nerves under control.
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" she said, looking at Craig. Then, as
silently as a falling shadow, she collapsed.
"No, no, she's all right," Higgins said, in answer to Craig's frantic
questions. "She has only fainted. She--all of us--have been through
hell. Those damned beasts came in here and grabbed one of the men. We
watched them--get ready to toss him into that pool of lava. Craig, how
did you get here?"
Captain Higgins was dazed. Behind him the captives were pouring out of
their prison cell.
"No time to talk," Craig said hastily. "We've got to get the hell out of
here. Each of us brought an extra gun and as many grenades as we could
carry. We'll have to fight our way back to the mountains--"
Already the sailors were tossing guns to their comrades who had been
held prisoner. The look on the men's faces as they eagerly grabbed the
weapons boded no good for any Ogrum who tried to stop them from
escaping. Meanwhile Craig and Higgins revived Margy Sharp. The man who
had been prepared for the Ogrum sacrifice was released.
"Everybody out!" Craig yelled.
In a long line the sailors trotted toward the passage through the temple
that led to the exit. Once outside, they would reform their phalanx and
fight their way through any opposition that might develop. No sound had
come from the rear-guard they had left at the exit, proving that the
Ogrum had not yet discovered that their prisoners had been released.
"We've won!" Craig said huskily. "We've tricked those devils and beaten
them to the punch."
"You've worked a miracle," Captain Higgins said. "If we were back home,
you would get a Congressional Medal for this."
"Thanks!" the big man grinned. Then the grin vanished from his face.
"What's that?" he said sharply.
From the passage ahead of them came the metallic rattle of machine gun
fire.
"It's the rear guard at the exit!" a sailor said. "They're shooting at
something."
* * * * *
Craig ordered the file to halt and he and Higgins slipped forward to the
exit. Through the hole that served as a doorway came a dull glow of
light. The guard had taken refuge in the passage itself. An ensign came
stumbling down the passage.
"It's a trap!" he shouted. "The whole place is surrounded. There are
thousands of Ogrum out there. They deliberately let us enter the temple,
then they closed up behind us."
"Impossible!" Craig whispered.
"So help me, it's the truth," the ensign insisted. "They deliberately
trapped us. They must have known all along what we were going to try.
They let us try it. We're caught, like rats in a trap."
There was no mistaking the implication of the man's words. Although he
didn't say it, his tone indicated that Craig had led them into the worst
possible booby-trap.
The machine guns were still firing. Dimly audible from outside came a
chorus of shouting--the battle cries of the Ogrum. Craig slipped forward
to the entrance, looked out. His heart climbed up into his throat.
The temple was completely surrounded. Or, as far as he could see, it was
surrounded. From the number of Ogrum he could see in front, he did not
doubt that the whole structure was circled. The Ogrum had stopped
fighting the fires. It became apparent that they had never made any real
effort to fight them but had only pretended to extinguish the blazes,
meanwhile waiting for Craig to lead his group into the temple.
It _was_ a trap.
But how had the Ogrum been able to set such a trap? Had they known all
the time of the presence of the humans on the mountain above them? They
had known something. Otherwise they would not have been able to set the
trap. How had they learned of the attack? How had they known the exact
way the attack would come?
"Yah!" a voice shrilled from outside. "How do you like it now, you big
fat-head?"
Voronoff's voice! Voronoff was out there! Craig's first dazed thought
was that Voronoff's presence outside, among the Ogrum, was impossible.
He tried to remember when he had last seen the man. He hadn't seen
Voronoff all day! Voronoff had not been a member of his group but he had
assumed the man had attached himself to some other group!
Voronoff had not attached himself to some other group. Voronoff had come
secretly to the Ogrum. It was Voronoff who, as far as he knew them, had
revealed the plans of the attack to the Ogrum. Voronoff was a traitor!
"You wouldn't believe me when I said you were just getting us all
killed!" Voronoff exulted. "I wasn't going to get myself killed with you
fools. I told the Ogrum what you were planning. They're going to make me
a chief."
In a flash Craig saw why phase one and phase two of the attack had gone
off so smoothly. The Ogrum had permitted the smashing of the hangar.
What were a few planes? They could build more. What were a few grass
huts? They could erect a thousand others. The destruction of the planes
and the burning of part of their city was a small price to pay if they
could trap all the remaining men of the Idaho.
Craig cursed himself. He had not thought of the possibility of anyone
turning traitor. He should have thought of it. Back there in the
life-boat, while he was asleep, someone had stolen water. Voronoff was
the only person who would have stooped to steal water when water meant
life, and the only person clever enough to accuse Craig of the crime he,
himself, had committed.
"I should have choked that dog to death!" Craig said bitterly. "I should
have thrown him to the sharks."
Captain Higgins had come forward and sized up the situation. "No use
crying over spilt milk," he said to Craig. "I don't blame you for not
thinking of a traitor and I think no one else will blame you. The
question is, what are we going to do?"
"What do you want?" Craig shouted.
"The Ogrum demand unconditional surrender!" the answer came. "They say,
if you will surrender, that half of you will have to be offered to the
gods, but that the lives of the rest will be spared. Who shall be
sacrificed and who shall be spared will be determined by lot. If you
don't surrender all of you will be taken prisoner and offered as
sacrifices. You have five minutes to meet our demands."
* * * * *
Voronoff's voice went into silence. Craig, tommy-gun ready, strained to
see the man. Voronoff was hidden. He was not likely to offer himself as
a target.
"What are you going to do?" Captain Higgins asked. Tactfully, since
Craig had planned and executed the rescue attempt, Higgins was making no
effort to exert his own authority. "If I understand correctly, they
offer half of us a chance to live, if we surrender."
"I don't believe they will keep any promise they make," Craig said
slowly. "I think they are trying to trick us into surrendering. However
I might be wrong. I am willing to put it to a vote. What do you say:
Shall we surrender or shall we fight?"
The narrow passage was full of sailors who had overheard everything that
had been said. There was a moment of silence. Then a gruff voice
growled.
"I say fight!"
A chorus instantly answered the first voice.
"Fight the devils!"
"They won't ever give us a chance if we surrender."
"Fight our way out of here."
Captain Higgins listened. "They're good boys," he said, a suspicious
quaver in his voice.
"All right," Craig said. "We fight. This temple is almost a fortress. In
here, we can hold them off indefinitely. They don't have artillery, so
they can't blast us out, and their planes have been destroyed, so they
can't bomb us. We'll hold here until we have a chance to escape."
In the back of his mind was the thought that they _did_ have a chance to
escape. After all, phase four of the attack had not yet gone into
operation. Phase four was due to start any minute now.
"To the roof!" he ordered.
By the time the five minutes of grace were up everybody was on the flat
roof of the temple. The moon was just rising. It looked like a gigantic
conflagration on the horizon.
"Time is up!" Voronoff yelled, from some place of concealment. "What did
you decide."
"We decided you could go to hell!" Craig answered. "If you want us,
you've got to come and get us."
Hiding around the temple thousands of the Ogrum could be vaguely
glimpsed. Captain Higgins surveyed the scene. "We command all approaches
to the building," he said. "If they try to charge us, it will be
slaughter. We've still got a chance, Craig."
"You're damned right we have!" the big man answered.
"Except," the captain continued thoughtfully, "for ammunition, food, and
water, we're all right."
"If we're not out of here by the time our ammunition runs out, we'll
never escape," Craig answered. "However, we'll be out of here in an
hour."
"I hope you know what you're talking about," was Higgins' only comment.
The Ogrum were making no attempt to attack. Craig circled the roof of
the temple, seeing that sub-machine guns covered all approaches. A wind,
moving from the direction of the swamp, brought with it the sound of the
dinosaurs. The scene was like a setting from some fantastic movie--a
full moon burning like a huge fire on the horizon, incredible beasts
screaming in the night, a group of embattled humans on the roof of a
temple as old as time.
"We've got them!" Craig thought. "They can't get to us and they don't
dare attack. If they wait an hour--"
* * * * *
In some hidden spot outside the temple something went _plunk_. The sound
was not sharp enough to be called an explosion. It was a plunk, like a
rock falling in a rain barrel.
A small round object arched slowly through the air and hit on the roof
of the temple. 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.
[Illustration: The great beast trampled them into the muck]
For hours, it seemed to Craig, the screams of the Ogrum echoed through
the city. The screams were drowned in the earth-shaking thunder of the
stampede. The herd of dinosaurs crossed the city, turned and swept along
the edge of the bay. By the time the last of them had passed through,
the only building left standing in the whole area was the temple.
Everything else had been smashed flat. Smouldering fires were rising
again in the wreckage of the huts. What the dinosaurs had started, fires
would finish.
When the last of the beasts had gone, Michaelson, his squad of sailors,
and Guru came hurrying through the darkness. Guru was accompanied by
dozens of his people, hastily recruited for the task of firing the
swamp. Craig yelled at them.
"Come up here and stand guard!" he shouted. "I'm going to take a nap."