_The Duel_
Upon seeing this, all hope for life left Ken. He had only six shells
left, and at best he could kill only six sealmen. Already, there were
more than twenty about him, completely encircling the torpoon. They
seemed afraid of it, and yet desirous of finishing it--they hung back,
watching warily the thing that could strike and hurt from either end;
but Ken knew, of course, that he could not count on their inaction
long. One concerted charge would mean his quick end, and the death of
most of the men above.
Well, there was only one thing to do--try to hold them off until those
men above had climbed out, every one.
With this plan in mind, he maneuvered for a commanding position.
Quietly he slid his motor into gear, and slowly the torpoon rose. At
this first movement, the wall of hesitating brown bodies broke back a
little. It quickly pressed in again, however, as the torpoon came to a
halt where Ken wanted it--a position thirty feet beneath, and slightly
to one side, of the escaping men above, with an angle of fire
commanding the area the sealmen would have to cross to attack them.
Almost at once came action. One of the surrounding creatures swerved
suddenly up toward the men. Instinctively angling the torp, Ken sent a
nitro-shell at it; and the chance aim was good. The projectile caught
the sealman squarely, and, after the convulsion, it began to drift
downward, its body torn apart.
"That'll teach you, damn you!" Ken muttered savagely, and, to heighten
the effect he had created, he brought his sights to bear on another
sealman in the circle around him--and fired and killed.
This sight of sudden death told on the others. They grew obviously
more fearful and gave back, though still forming a solid circle around
the torpoon. The circle was ever thickening and deepening downward as
more of those that the explosion had rendered unconscious returned to
life.
And then, above, the first man reached the hole, clawed at its rough
edges and levered himself through.
That was a signal. From somewhere beneath, two brown bodies flashed
upward in attack. Fearing a general rush at any second, Ken fired
twice swiftly. One shell missed, but the other slid to its mark.
Almost alongside its fellow, one of the creatures was shattered and
torn, and that evidently altered the other's intentions, for it
abandoned the attack and sought safety in the mass of its fellows on
the farther side.
Another respite. Another man through the hole. And but two
nitro-shells left!
* * * * *
The deadly circle, like wolves around a lone trapper who crouches
close to his dying fire, pressed in a little; and by their ominous
quietness, by the sight of their eyes all turned in on him, their
concerted inching closer, Ken sensed the nearness of the charge that
would finish him. All this in deep silence, there in the gloomy
quarter-light. He could not yell and brandish his fists at them as the
trapper by the fire might have done to win a few extra minutes. The
only cards he had to play were two shells--and one was needed now!
He fired it with deliberate, sure aim, and grunted as he saw its
victim convulse and die, with dark blood streaming. Again the swarm
hesitated.
Ken risked a glance above. Only three men left, he saw; and one was
pulled through the hole as he watched. Below, in one place, several
seal-creatures surged upward.
"Get back, damn you!" he cursed harshly. "All right--take it! That's
the last!"
And the last shell hissed out from the gun even as the last man,
above, was pulled through up into the air and safety.
Ken felt that he had given half his life with that final shell.
Completely surrounded by a hundred or more of the sealmen, he could
not possibly hope to maneuver the torpoon up to the hole in the ice
and leave it, without being overwhelmed. He had held off the swarm
long enough for the others to escape, but for himself it was the end.
So he thought, and wondered just when that end would come. Soon, he
knew. It would not take them long to overcome their fear when they saw
that he no longer reached out and struck them down in sudden bloody
death. Now it was their turn.
"Anyway," the torpooner murmured, "I got 'em out. I saved them."
But had he? Suddenly his mind turned up a dreadful thought. He had
saved them from the sealmen, but they were up on the ice without food.
There had been no time to apportion rations in the submarine; all the
supplies were stacked around him in the torpoon!
Searching planes would eventually appear overhead, but if he could not
get the food up to the men it meant their death as surely as if they
had stayed locked in the _Peary_!
But how could he do it without shells, and with that living wall
edging inch by inch upon him, visibly on the brink of rushing him.
Some carried ropes with which they would lash the torpoon down as they
had the others. Must all he and those men had gone through, be in
vain? Must he die--and the others? For certainly without food, those
men above on the lonely ice fields, all of them weakened by the long
siege in the submarine, would perish quickly....
And then a faintly possible plan came to him. It involved an attempt
to bluff the seal-creatures.
* * * * *
Thirty feet above the lone man in the torpoon was the hole he had
blasted in the ice. He knew that from the cone of light which filtered
down; he did not dare to take his eyes for a second from the creatures
around him, for all now depended on his judging to a fraction just
when the lithe, living wall would leap to overwhelm him.
Now the torpoon was enclosed by what was more a sphere of brown bodies
than a circle. But it was not a solid sphere. It stretched thinly to
within a few feet of the ice ceiling where, in one place, was the hole
Ken had blown in the ice.
He began to play the game. He edged the gears into reverse, gently
angled the diving-planes, and slowly the torpoon tilted in response
and began to sink back to the dark sea-floor.
Motion appeared in the curved facade of sleek brown heads and bodies
in front and to the sides. The creatures behind and below, Ken could
not see; he could only trust to the fear inspired by the damage his
propeller had wreaked on one of them, to hold them back. However, he
could judge the movements of those behind and below by the
synchronized movements of those in front; for the sealmen, in this
tense siege, seemed to move as one--just as they would move as one
when a leader got the courage to charge across the gap to the torpoon.
In reverse, slowly, the torpoon backed downward. Every minute seemed a
separate eternity of time, for Ken dared not move fast at this
juncture, and he needed to retreat not less than fifty feet.
Fifty feet! Would they hold off long enough for him to make it?
Foot by foot the torpoon edged down at her forty-five-degree angle,
and with every foot the watching bodies became visibly bolder. There
was no light inside the torpoon--inner light would decrease the
visibility outside--but Ken knew her controls as does the musician his
instrument. Slowly the propeller whirled over, the torpoon dropped,
slowly the diffused light from the hole above diminished--and slowly
the eager wall of sealmen followed and crept in.
Twenty-five feet down; and then, after a long time, thirty-five feet,
and forty. Seventy feet up, in all, to the hole in the ice....
Ken wanted seventy-five feet, but he could not have it. For the wall
of sleek bodies broke. One or two of the creatures surged forward;
other followed; they were coming!
The slim torpoon leaped under the unleashed power of her
motors--forward.
* * * * *
For one awful moment Ken thought he was finished. The vision of the
hole was obscured by a twisting, whirling maelstrom of bodies, and the
torpoon quivered and shook like a living thing in agony under glancing
blows.
But then came a patch of light, a pathway of light, leading straight
up at a forty-five-degree angle to the hole in the ice above.
Sealmen and torpoon had leaped forward at the same moment. Doubtless
the creatures had not expected the shell to move so suddenly and
decisively ahead, so that when it did, those in the van swerved to
escape head-on contact.
The torpoon gained speed all too slowly for her pilot. It naturally
took time to gain full forward speed from a standing start. But she
moved, and she moved fast, and after her poured the full tide of
sealmen, now that they saw their prey running in retreat.
From somewhere ahead appeared a rope, noosed to catch the fleeing
prey. It slipped off the side. Another touched the bow, but it too was
thrown off. The torpoon's forward momentum was now great; she was
sweeping up at the full speed Ken had gone back to be able to attain.
He needed full speed! The plan would fail at the last moment without
it!
Another rope; but it was the seal-creature's last gesture. Through the
side plates of quarsteel the light grew fast; the ice was only ten
feet away; a slight directional correction brought the hole dead
ahead--and at full speed, twenty-four miles an hour, the torpoon
passed through and into the thin air of the world of light and life.
Right out of the hole, a desperate fugitive from below, she leaped,
her propeller suddenly screaming, and arched high through the air
before she dove with a rending, splintering crash onto the upper side
of the sheet ice.
And the sun of a cloudless, perfect Arctic day beat down on her; and
men were all around, eagerly reaching to open her entrance port. It
was done.
* * * * *
Kenneth Torrance, dazed, battered, hurting in every joint but
conscious, found the torpoon's port open, and felt hands reach in and
clasp him. Wearily he helped them lift him out into the thin sunlight.
Sitting down, slitting his eyes against the sudden glare, he peered
around.
Captain Sallorsen was beside him, supporting him with one hand and
pounding him on the back with the other; and there in front was the
bearded scientist, Lawson, and the rest of the men.
Ken took a great gulp of the clean, cold air.
"Gosh!" was all he could say. "Gosh, that tastes good!"
"Man, you did it!" shouted Sallorsen. "How, in God's name, I don't
know--but you did it!"
"He did!" said Lawson. "And he did it all himself. Even to the food,
which should keep us till a plane comes by. If they haven't stopped
searching for us."
His words reminded Ken of something.
"Oh, there'll be a plane over," he said. "Forgot to tell you, but I
stole this torpoon--see?--and told the fellows they could come and get
it somewhere right around here."
Kenneth Torrance grinned, and glanced down at the battered steel shell
which had borne him out of the water below.
"And here it is," he finished. "A little damaged--but then I didn't
promise it would be as good as new!"
* * * * *