THE ISLAND OF DARKNESS.
A destroyer took the pair northward, flinging itself madly over the
dark, dark sea. After the lights of Portland vanished behind them there
was a period when the solid deck beneath seemed the only object in
existence. There was no sky, no sun, no horizon. There was no land.
There was only an invisible bulk beneath them which quivered insanely,
and a wind blowing from the oblivion before them to the oblivion
behind. There was no up, no down. One grew giddy from the sheer absence
of anything by which to orient oneself. The utter loneliness of the
dark was terrifying, because not even the sea could be seen. Even in
some imagined spaceship, isolated in empty space, there would be stars
for comfort. Here there was only nothingness.
When a yellow light glowed far away and seemed like a star, it was
actually a lamp in a farmhouse window overlooking the sea. And in that
farmhouse the sense of isolation was so great as to induce hysteria.
The folk in the farmhouse were experiencing exactly the sensations
of people on a tiny fragment of earth set floating free in a cosmos
containing nothing else--nothing! Not even other worlds unthinkably
remote.
It was a loneliness, a desolation, that clutched at the throat. All
through the world that same despair was descending. In the cities it
was less appalling, but on ships that steamed over invisible seas, and
in lighthouses that were always isolated and now became small hells,
and in tiny mountain cabins, and small hamlets and places innumerable,
the dread of the dark grew and grew.
Some people went insane, and many grew hysterical. It is a matter of
record that folk went solemnly out of their villages and set the woods
about them on fire so that the flames and firelit smoke would give them
something to look at other than the awful blackness which lay over
the world. It was a curious aftermath of the darkness that the use of
illuminants at night was multiplied many times. But on the destroyer
these things were unknown. It swept on northward, horribly alone,
until presently lights appeared to the left, and searchlights stabbed
futilely upward, and there was a confused droning tumult over the land.
The whole air force of the Army and Navy was being massed for action,
together with the ships of a naval division and the artillery of an
army corps.
Then the destroyer slackened speed, and went on into a bay where
bonfires burned brightly, and its engines stopped and its anchor-chain
clanged thunderously as it ran out. A thirty-foot cutter came
alongside, moving by oars, and made fast to the landing-ladder of the
destroyer. It waited.
"Efficiency," said Hines dryly. "No time lost, Schaaf. These men are
volunteers for our forlorn hope. You know why I want to be on the
island, but I'm able to have the zero hour held off only because the
government wants to get hold of Preston's apparatus if it can. As a
military weapon. We're going to try to take the island by storm."
"Der idea," observed Schaaf grimly, "is a lot of hooey."
Hines said nothing. He led the way down to the boat.
* * * * *
Oars dipped. The cutter pulled away. A navy launch swarmed up
officiously and flung a line. Half a minute later the launch was
speeding for the blackness of the open sea and the cutter went tearing
through the water after it, squatted down astern until it seemed the
waves should come in over the gunwale.
They could see little as the two boats moved, of course, but Hines
stared up at the dark shore line. Guns were massed and massing there.
Waiting and ready along a four-mile front. At one single word a storm
of steel would spring from the hungry muzzles. A hurtling, screaming
hail of death would leap upward and forward through the darkness. Six
miles away it would descend.
Four miles of guns, packed as closely together as they could be brought
up by straining locomotives and racing, swearing men. Four miles of
guns concentrating on a little more than one mile of target, with the
heaviest guns of the fleet to blast away what little of the island the
shore artillery left.
There was no wind save that made by the movement of the towing launch,
but that was bitter. The men on the seats of the cutter huddled down
into their greatcoats, taking it easy. A flash light signaled off to
seaward.
"We're passing between some islands," said Hines evenly. "They'll cast
off when we're well on our way. The oars are muffled. If we can land on
the damned island secretly, so much the better."
Five minutes, and the launch on ahead was slowing up. The men in the
cutter bestirred themselves. A man in the bow tossed the towline
overboard. The oars stretched out again. The launch swept around and
went purring softly back into the darkness.
The cutter, without a word of command, began to move with the rhythmic
pulsatory effect of a rowed boat toward the utter blackness of the open
sea.
"Who's in command here?" demanded Hines.
"I am," said a voice. A flash light glowed through cupped fingers. A
clean-shaved and rather anxious young ensign's face could be made out.
"Shoot der works," said Schaaf amiably. "What haff you done?"
"I've a pair of microphones overboard," explained the young officer
nervously, "of the sort used for listening for submarines. They'll give
us the line on two launches that are working submerged sounders for us.
I can get the angles from both of them to make a course for the island
even if we are blinded. And besides, we'll be able to hear the waves on
the beach when we get near."
"Clefer," said Schaaf. "Fery good."
"And my men are all in linemen's boots and rubber. They're armed
with--er--the regular mopping-up equipment."
"Which is?" said Schaaf encouragingly.
"Why--er--grenades, automatic pistols, and automatic shotguns throwing
nine extra-sized buckshots to a shell. Also we've a couple of Lewis
guns with us. We have twenty men."
"I can think of nothing you haff left out for a fine party but der
beer," said Schaaf. "You haff done excellently, sir."
Oars rose and fell in a ghostlike silence. There was no splashing.
Hines had ordered a boat propelled by oars because any motor-driven
craft would be heard approaching the island. Hines had no hope of
leaving that spot of land, but he did want to land on it alive. He
fumbled for a cigar and lit it. The light of his match was the only
glow of illumination in all the world.
They were far enough from shore and low enough in the water to make
any possible light invisible. The sky was wholly black. The water was
wholly black. Ahead and behind and to the right hand and the left there
was no relief from the abysmal blackness anywhere. Hines's cigar small
as was its gleam, provided a literal illumination by which the farthest
man in the bow of the boat saw the face of his seat-mate faintly
pinkened.
"If that darkness--" began the ensign.
He stopped. He was watching Hines's cigar fascinatedly. It had been a
dull-red coal, brightening to what seemed a vivid incandescence when
Hines puffed on it. Now it seemed to have gone out, and revived very,
very faintly at each puffing. A moment later it seemed no longer to
exist.
* * * * *
"We're in the darkness now," said Hines dryly.
His tone was entirely matter-of-fact, which was wise; for the men at
the oars had been watching the glow of his cigar. It was the only spot
of light in the universe. And when it went out, the effect was horrible.
"How do der microphones work?" asked Schaaf interestedly.
"I have the line," said the ensign unsteadily. "We're a shade under
three miles from the island."
The boat went on silently. About the island Preston had brought
darkness down to earth over a circular space some six miles across.
The cutter rose and fell, and rose and fell, and the three men in the
stern felt the rhythmic pulling of the oars. Every man felt the opacity
of the air weighing upon him, pressing upon him.
All the world had been dark enough anyhow, but to feel that by no
possible device could a light be made to shine was queerly horrible.
A man felt as if he were buried alive. He had an almost hysterical
impulse to beat at the darkness with his hands, to thrust it away from
him.
"I hear the surf on the beach in the headphones," said the ensign, a
long time later.
"You should," said Schaaf placidly.
Hines then spoke shortly.
"We land and form a line. By the way, we want to land at the
southern-most tip of the island. I know the lay of the land, roughly.
We are to be entirely silent, passing signals by touching each other in
the blackness. There are probably charged wires about the island. If
we run into lines of wire, we will short-circuit them with gun-barrels
to the earth, and then cut them. When Preston's instruments show a
short-circuit, he will probably cut the darkness to see about it. We
go ahead then. Mop up the island. There is one woman here. Be careful
not to hurt her. But this is one time to fight hard! If we don't kill
Preston, he'll kill us!"
The ensign said--steadily this time--"You men heard that. Those are
your orders."
There was a little gurgling noise ahead, a washing, splashing sound.
It ran a long distance in a straight line across the bow of the boat.
The rudder squeaked, and the boat's course shifted until the sound was
abeam. The oars worked monotonously. Presently the washing sound seemed
to come to an end and to go away in the distance. The rudder squeaked
again. They went on their former course once more.
"If you put your ear to the gunwale," said the ensign in a voice that
was barely a whisper, "you'll hear a queer humming, sir. The hull picks
up the sound from the water. I've been hearing it in the microphones
for some time. It sounds like engines, sir."
"Dynamos," said Schaaf in as low a tone. "Der dynamos and der Diesel
engines that make der juice."
"I'm heading in for the beach," whispered the ensign. "Easy, men! Get
ready to beach her, up forward."
The word passed to the bow in murmurs. The washing of waves became
louder and louder. The booming of small breakers on sand grew more
distinct. Hines visualized the southern end of the island as he had
seen it from the air and tried to guess at the spot from the fact that
they were headed for a sandy beach. He nodded to himself.
The boat checked with a grating sound. There was the little lifting
feel of men leaping out to ease it ashore.
"And now," said Schaaf grimly, "_Gott strafe_ Breston!"
* * * * *
They disembarked as blind men, feeling the foaming small breakers
beating utterly unseen about their rubber-booted legs. They fumbled at
each other to form a skirmish-line. At a low word from Hines they moved
on.
It was a slow, a stumbling, an infinitely cautious party of the blind.
Every man's eyes were wide and staring, through sheer instinctive
effort to catch some glimmer of the light that in nature is nowhere
quite absent. But here, the very air was opaque.
The blackness was oppressive past conception. A man felt as if he were
buried alive, as if the darkness pressed upon him, as if a shifting
stuff pressed upon his breast and would presently stop his breathing.
A tiny clatter, off in the darkness. The line halted. A message passed
along its length in a murmur.
"A wire about a foot off the ground. It isn't charged."
"Step over it and go on," ordered Hines. "At any alarm, fling
yourselves flat on the ground and wait." The line moved on again. Hines
had cracked the crystal from a watch-compass and by the feel of its
needle led the way. He, also, came upon that uncharged wire, stretched
upon stakes no more than a foot above ground. It gave a little as he
touched it. He passed over it.
Then, quite suddenly, a man screamed, down at the end of the line. A
weapon went off thunderously in the blackness. One of the two Lewis
guns roared itself empty. There was the clatter of men flinging
themselves to the earth. Then silence.
Hines pressed his jaws tightly together. Instinctively he peered about,
though his eyes could convey no possible sensation to his brain. There
was only blackness and stillness.
Presently he became aware of the surf drumming away behind him. Then
he heard the faintest possible humming noise overheard. At the same
time a pungent odor stung his nostrils. He heard Schaaf exclaim softly,
swearing under his breath.
Some one came writhing along the ground, counting the prone figures he
passed.
"Inspector Hines!"
The faint humming noise passed toward the right. It died away.
"Here," said Hines quietly.
The ensign's voice panted.
"We've lost three men. Stone dead. Electrocuted."
Schaaf's voice came from astonishingly near by.
"Der four-centimeter beam," he said grimly. "They heard us. Perhaps
der low wires were burglar-alarms. Breston passed der beam of
four-centimeter wafes all about, with der high-tension current in it.
Those three men were struck by it. It was like being struck by a life
wire with ten thousand volts in it. I smelled ozone just now. My nose
stings yet with it. Der beam passed humming ofer our heads."
The ensign asked nervously: "What do we do now, sir?"
"Lie still," said Hines coldly. "They'll get curious presently."
The ensign crawled away. Darkness. Blackness. The sound of the surf
behind them. Time seemed endless, waiting. One had a ghastly feeling
that it had been an hour or more, two hours--that it was time for the
massed guns, six miles away, to open fire. One's ears strained for the
whistling sound of that first flight of projectiles from four miles of
guns.
Gradually an infinitely faint rumbling noise made itself felt. It was
felt as much as heard. The sound came through the earth. The dynamos
and the monstrous generators in Preston's underground dugouts, making
the power that had darkened the world.
* * * * *
Without a trace of flickering, the darkness broke. With startling
clarity the line of prone men could see. An unbearable glare smote upon
their eyes, but despite it they saw.
The darkness had vanished from before their eyes. They seemed to be
in a monstrous cavern whose walls were angular masses of jetty black.
A great magnesium flare was burning on the ground. It lighted up
three clumsy concrete structures three-quarters sunk in the ground.
There were men standing near those structures. Three of them stood
by a bowl-shaped thing of wires. They were looking--all the men were
looking--at the line of prone riflemen. The darkness seemed to have
been lifted for the precise purpose of permitting Preston's aids to
look. From half a dozen tripods some six feet or so across darkness
poured out in wide, fanlike beams. Those beams united overhead to form
a roof of darkness, seemingly supported by the inverted pyramids of
black. They united to shut off the rest of the world. They blended
almost at the edge of the surf to cut off all vision upon the water.
Hines and Schaaf and the volunteers gazed for exactly three seconds the
length of a colossal cavern in which lights could glow, but which was
roofed and walled with opacity.
Three seconds; while a man could breathe in and out and in again. Then
from all along the line of prone men gunfire flashed at the exact
instant that darkness fell upon them again. The remaining Lewis gum
blared into nothingness, emptying its drum of cartridges. The automatic
shotguns bellowed their magazines empty.
Somewhere off in the darkness a man shrieked, and there were shoutings,
and then a deadly, snarling voice cried out. Something was roaring
horribly, off there in the new-fallen blackness. A spark was leaping a
colossal gap with the tearing thunderous rasp that only a current up in
the thousands of volts will make.
"Scatter!" snapped Hines. "They've sighted that beam on us!"
He leaped to his feet and bolted--ahead. Some one pounded along beside
him, though the presence of the other man was felt rather than heard,
and of course nothing at all could be seen. Up ahead the sparking sound
cut off sharply, leaving Hines's ears ringing with the sudden silence.
It seemed as if some wire--perhaps the high-tension wire to the
four-centimeter beam--had been cut by a bullet, and now a switch
was thrown. Through the ringing in his ears Hines heard the snarling
voice ahead of him shout an order. He blundered on and tripped over
something. The smell of scorched rubber rose from his boots.
He struck savagely at the thing with his gun-barrel, and somehow
the darkness about him seemed to change. It was probably a beam
darkness-transmitter, which he had smashed. But in an intangible cavern
whose walls were opacity there was no great difference.
He went racing on, straining his yet-ringing ears for sounds, and
crashed headlong into concrete. He gave a cry of satisfaction and began
to fumble his way feverishly along its length. The man who had run
beside him, panting, grunted with satisfaction as he in turn felt the
concrete.
It was Schaaf. He mumbled to himself and Hines caught, "_verdammt_,"
and "_Schrecklichkeit_" and other much less repeatable words.
A door! Hines fumbled at his belt and found one single grenade.
"A steel door, Schaaf!" he panted. "I'm setting off a grenade before
it. Get back around the corner!"
He deposited the little globe of iron, jerked out the pin, and fled.
The earth shook and a blast of sound which was like a blow on the chest
smote them--for all that they were around the corner of the concrete.
Then Hines flung himself forward again, rasping his fingers on the
rough concrete and choking on the fumes of the explosive.
The door was blown away, blasted from its frame. No glimmer of
illumination came through the awful darkness that was everywhere, but
Hines stepped boldly through the opening with his automatic shotgun
held ready for the instant light should reach him.
The curious feeling of a metal floor under his foot. Then emptiness!
He went hurtling downward, falling into bright and blinding light.
He struck something with his shoulder in the act of falling, and it
wrenched his muscles cruelly but partly broke the drop. He wound up
with a crash on concrete, all of fifteen feet down, and lay still for
an instant, dazed.
* * * * *
He had a vague impression of a room that was sunk deep in the ground.
There were masses of glittering glass, and many lights, and a humming
noise filled all the air with a monotonous drone. Hines realized
indistinctly that the curious squat structures on the island were
merely the roofs of dugouts, dug down to safety below the surface of
the earth. Then he heard a peculiar tearing, spitting sound near by.
His eyes focused dazedly on his shotgun, lying on the floor a little
distance off. It was smoking strangely. Sparks were darting from it
into the stone floor. It began abruptly to glow a dull red. Suddenly
it exploded luridly. Every shell in its magazine went off in a single
blast which was not disastrous solely because the red hot metal offered
so little resistance to the expanding gases. They tore it apart almost
like so much dough.
Somebody or other was racing down the steel steps Hines had tumbled
from. Huge hands swept Hines from the floor. He smelled burning rubber.
He knew that it was Schaaf who tore his automatic pistol out of his
belt and flung it away. He knew, also, that it was Schaaf who leaped
with him to one side of the room. He had a dizzy impression of glowing
tubes of glass ail about him.
Then a snarling, arrogant voice said in insolent satisfaction:
"Police Inspector Hines, I believe, and my former assistant, Professor
Schaaf. Very well met! I've wanted to have you two men killed for a
long time."