Chapter 5: The Last Assault

Sallorsen turned his head and followed the torpooner’s intent, amazed gaze.

Ken said:

“There’s proof of their intelligence! I’ve been watching--didn’t realize at first. Look, here it comes!”

Several sealmen, while Sallorsen had been talking, had come dropping down from the main mass of the horde, and had grouped around the abandoned torpoon which lay some feet ahead of the submarine’s bow. Expertly they had loosened the seaweed-ropes which bound it to the sea-floor, then slid back, watching alertly, as if expecting the torpoon to speed away of its own accord. Its batteries, of course, had worn out weeks before, so the steel shell did net budge. The sealmen came down close to it again, and lifted it.

They lifted it easily with their prehensile flipper-arms, and with maneuvering of delicate sureness guided it through the gash in the Peary’s bow. Inside, they hesitated with it, midway between deck and ceiling of the flooded compartment. They poised for perhaps a full minute, judging the distance, while the two men stared; and then quickly their powerful tail flippers lashed out and the torpoon jumped ahead. It sped straight through the water, to crash its tough nose of steel squarely into the quarsteel pane of the watertight door, then rebounded, and fell to the deck.

“My God!” gasped Sallorsen. But Ken wasted no words then. He pressed closer to the quarsteel and examined it minutely. The substance showed no visible effect, but the action of the sealmen destroyed whatever hope he had felt.

The sealmen had swerved aside at the last minute; and now, picking up the torpoon again and guiding it back to the other end of the compartment, they hurled it once more with a resounding crash into the quarsteel pane.

“How long will it last under that?” Ken asked tersely.

Obviously, Sallorsen’s wits were muddled at this turn. He remained gaping at the creatures and at the torpoon, now turned against its mother submarine. Ken repeated the question.

“How long? Who knows? It’s as strong as steel, but--there’s the pressure--and those blows hit one spot. Not--long.”

Capping his words, there re-echoed again the loud crash of the torpoon’s on the quarsteel. The sealmen were working in quick routine now; back and quickly forward, and then the crash and the reverberation; and again and again...

The ominous crash and ringing echoes regularly repeated, seemed to disorganise Ken’s mind as he looked vainly for something with which to brace the door. Nothing unattached was left--nothing! He ran and examined the quarsteel pane again, and this time his brain heated in alarm. A thin line had shot through the quarsteel--the beginning of a crack.

“Back!” Ken shouted to the still staring Sallorsen. “Back to the third compartment. This door’s going!”

“Yes,” Sallorsen mumbled. “It’ll go. So will the others. They’ll smash them all. And when this is flooded--no hope of running the submarine again. Controls in here.”

“That’s too damned bad!” Ken said roughly. “Are there any sea-suits, food, supplies in here?”

“Only food. In those lockers.”

“I’ll take it. Get into that third compartment--hear me?” ordered Kenneth Torrance. “And have its door ready to close!”

He shoved Sallorsen away, opened the indicated lockers and piled his arms with the tins revealed. He had time for no more than one load. He jumped back into the third compartment of the Peary just as a splintering crash sounded from behind. The door between was swung closed and locked just as the one being battered crashed inward.

Turning, Ken saw that the torpoon had cracked through the weakened quarsteel and tumbled in a mad cascade of water to the deck of the abandoned second compartment. In dread silence, he, with Sallorsen and those of the men who had strength and curiosity enough to come forward, watched the compartment rapidly fill--watched until they saw the water pressed high against the door. And then horror swept over Ken Torrance.

Water! There was a trickle of water down the quarsteel he was leaning against! A fault along the hinge of the door--either its construction, or because it had not been closed properly.

Ken pointed it out to the captain.

“Look!” he said. “A leak already--just from the pressure! This door won’t last more than a couple of minutes when they start on it--”

Sallorsen stared stupidly. As for the rest; Ken might not have spoken. They were as if in a trance, watching dumbly, with lungs automatically gasping for air.

One of the seal-creatures eeled through the shattered quarsteel of the first door and swam slowly around the newly flooded compartment. At once it was joined by five other lithe, sleek shapes which, with placid, liquid eyes, inspected the compartment minutely. They came in a group right up to the next door that barred their way and, with no visible emotion, stared through the quarsteel pane at the humans who stared at them. And then they gracefully turned and slid to the battered torpoon.

“Back!” Ken shouted, “You men!” He shook them, shoved them roughly back toward the fourth, and last, compartment. Weakly, like automatons they shuffled into it. The torpooner said bruskly to Sallorsen:

“Carry those tins of food back. Hurry! Is there anything stored in here we’ll need? Sallorsen! Captain! Is there anything--”

The captain looked at him dully; then, understanding, a cackle came from his throat. “Don’t need anything. This is the end. Last compartment. Finish!”

“Snap out of it!” Ken cried. “Come on, Sallorsen--there’s a chance yet. Is there anything we’ll need in here?”

“Sea-suits--in those lockers.”

Ken Torrance swung around and rapidly opened the lockers. Pulling out the bulky suits, he cried:

“You carry that food back. Then come and help me.”

But of the corner of his eye, as he worked, he could see the ominous preparations beyond in the flooded compartment--the sealmen raising the torpoon, guiding it back to the far end; leveling it out. Ken was sure the door could not stand more than two or three blows at the most. Two or three minutes, that meant--but all the sea-suits had to go back into the fourth compartment!