Out of Time's Abyss
submarine and investigate. He had risen to carry his decision into
effect when there suddenly broke upon his ear, uttered in loud and
menacing tones, a volley of German oaths and expletives among which he
heard Englische schweinhunde repeated several times. The voice did not
come from the direction of the U-boat; but from inland. Creeping
forward Bradley reached a spot where, through the creepers hanging from
the trees, he could see a party of men coming down toward the shore.
He saw Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts and six of his men--all
armed--while marching in a little knot among them were Olson, Brady,
Sinclair, Wilson, and Whitely.
Bradley knew nothing of the disappearance of Bowen Tyler and Miss La
Rue, nor of the perfidy of the Germans in shelling the fort and
attempting to escape in the U-33; but he was in no way surprised at
what he saw before him.
The little party came slowly onward, the prisoners staggering beneath
heavy cans of oil, while Schwartz, one of the German noncommissioned
officers cursed and beat them with a stick of wood, impartially. Von
Schoenvorts walked in the rear of the column, encouraging Schwartz and
laughing at the discomfiture of the Britishers. Dietz, Heinz, and
Klatz also seemed to enjoy the entertainment immensely; but two of the
men--Plesser and Hindle--marched with eyes straight to the front and
with scowling faces.
Bradley felt his blood boil at sight of the cowardly indignities being
heaped upon his men, and in the brief span of time occupied by the
column to come abreast of where he lay hidden he made his plans,
foolhardy though he knew them. Then he drew the girl close to him.
"Stay here," he whispered. "I am going out to fight those beasts; but
I shall be killed. Do not let them see you. Do not let them take you
alive. They are more cruel, more cowardly, more bestial than the
Wieroos."
The girl pressed close to him, her face very white. "Go, if that is
right," she whispered; "but if you die, I shall die, for I cannot live
without you." He looked sharply into her eyes. "Oh!" he ejaculated.
"What an idiot I have been! Nor could I live without you, little
girl." And he drew her very close and kissed her lips. "Good-bye."
He disengaged himself from her arms and looked again in time to see
that the rear of the column had just passed him. Then he rose and
leaped quickly and silently from the jungle.
Suddenly von Schoenvorts felt an arm thrown about his neck and his
pistol jerked from its holster. He gave a cry of fright and warning,
and his men turned to see a half-naked white man holding their leader
securely from behind and aiming a pistol at them over his shoulder.
"Drop those guns!" came in short, sharp syllables and perfect German
from the lips of the newcomer. "Drop them or I'll put a bullet through
the back of von Schoenvorts' head."
The Germans hesitated for a moment, looking first toward von
Schoenvorts and then to Schwartz, who was evidently second in command,
for orders.
"It's the English pig, Bradley," shouted the latter, "and he's
alone--go and get him!"
"Go yourself," growled Plesser. Hindle moved close to the side of
Plesser and whispered something to him. The latter nodded. Suddenly
von Schoenvorts wheeled about and seized Bradley's pistol arm with both
hands, "Now!" he shouted. "Come and take him, quick!"
Schwartz and three others leaped forward; but Plesser and Hindle held
back, looking questioningly toward the English prisoners. Then Plesser
spoke. "Now is your chance, Englander," he called in low tones.
"Seize Hindle and me and take our guns from us--we will not fight hard."
Olson and Brady were not long in acting upon the suggestion. They had
seen enough of the brutal treatment von Schoenvorts accorded his men
and the especially venomous attentions he had taken great enjoyment in
according Plesser and Hindle to understand that these two might be
sincere in a desire for revenge. In another moment the two Germans
were unarmed and Olson and Brady were running to the support of
Bradley; but already it seemed too late.
Von Schoenvorts had managed to drag the Englishman around so that his
back was toward Schwartz and the other advancing Germans. Schwartz was
almost upon Bradley with gun clubbed and ready to smash down upon the
Englishman's skull. Brady and Olson were charging the Germans in the
rear with Wilson, Whitely, and Sinclair supporting them with bare
fists. It seemed that Bradley was doomed when, apparently out of
space, an arrow whizzed, striking Schwartz in the side, passing
half-way through his body to crumple him to earth. With a shriek the
man fell, and at the same time Olson and Brady saw the slim figure of a
young girl standing at the edge of the jungle coolly fitting another
arrow to her bow.
Bradley had now succeeded in wrestling his arm free from von
Schoenvorts' grip and in dropping the latter with a blow from the butt
of his pistol. The rest of the English and Germans were engaged in a
hand-to-hand encounter, Plesser and Hindle standing aside from the
melee and urging their comrades to surrender and join with the English
against the tyranny of von Schoenvorts. Heinz and Klatz, possibly
influenced by their exhortation, were putting up but a half-hearted
resistance; but Dietz, a huge, bearded, bull-necked Prussian, yelling
like a maniac, sought to exterminate the Englische schweinhunde with
his bayonet, fearing to fire his piece lest he kill some of his
comrades.
It was Olson who engaged him, and though unused to the long German
rifle and bayonet, he met the bull-rush of the Hun with the cold, cruel
precision and science of English bayonet-fighting. There was no
feinting, no retiring and no parrying that was not also an attack.
Bayonet-fighting today is not a pretty thing to see--it is not an
artistic fencing-match in which men give and take--it is slaughter
inevitable and quickly over.
Dietz lunged once madly at Olson's throat. A short point, with just a
twist of the bayonet to the left sent the sharp blade over the
Englishman's left shoulder. Instantly he stepped close in, dropped his
rifle through his hands and grasped it with both hands close below the
muzzle and with a short, sharp jab sent his blade up beneath Dietz's
chin to the brain. So quickly was the thing done and so quick the
withdrawal that Olson had wheeled to take on another adversary before
the German's corpse had toppled to the ground.
But there were no more adversaries to take on. Heinz and Klatz had
thrown down their rifles and with hands above their heads were crying
"Kamerad! Kamerad!" at the tops of their voices. Von Schoenvorts
still lay where he had fallen. Plesser and Hindle were explaining to
Bradley that they were glad of the outcome of the fight, as they could
no longer endure the brutality of the U-boat commander.
The remainder of the men were looking at the girl who now advanced
slowly, her bow ready, when Bradley turned toward her and held out his
hand.
"Co-Tan," he said, "unstring your bow--these are my friends, and
yours." And to the Englishmen: "This is Co-Tan. You who saw her save
me from Schwartz know a part of what I owe her."
The rough men gathered about the girl, and when she spoke to them in
broken English, with a smile upon her lips enhancing the charm of her
irresistible accent, each and every one of them promptly fell in love
with her and constituted himself henceforth her guardian and her slave.
A moment later the attention of each was called to Plesser by a volley
of invective. They turned in time to see the man running toward von
Schoenvorts who was just rising from the ground. Plesser carried a
rifle with bayonet fixed, that he had snatched from the side of Dietz's
corpse. Von Schoenvorts' face was livid with fear, his jaws working as
though he would call for help; but no sound came from his blue lips.
"You struck me," shrieked Plesser. "Once, twice, three times, you
struck me, pig. You murdered Schwerke--you drove him insane by your
cruelty until he took his own life. You are only one of your
kind--they are all like you from the Kaiser down. I wish that you were
the Kaiser. Thus would I do!" And he lunged his bayonet through von
Schoenvorts' chest. Then he let his rifle fall with the dying man and
wheeled toward Bradley. "Here I am," he said. "Do with me as you
like. All my life I have been kicked and cuffed by such as that, and
yet always have I gone out when they commanded, singing, to give up my
life if need be to keep them in power. Only lately have I come to know
what a fool I have been. But now I am no longer a fool, and besides, I
am avenged and Schwerke is avenged, so you can kill me if you wish.
Here I am."
"If I was after bein' the king," said Olson, "I'd pin the V.C. on your
noble chist; but bein' only an Irishman with a Swede name, for which
God forgive me, the bist I can do is shake your hand."
"You will not be punished," said Bradley. "There are four of you
left--if you four want to come along and work with us, we will take
you; but you will come as prisoners."
"It suits me," said Plesser. "Now that the captain-lieutenant is dead
you need not fear us. All our lives we have known nothing but to obey
his class. If I had not killed him, I suppose I would be fool enough
to obey him again; but he is dead. Now we will obey you--we must obey
some one."
"And you?" Bradley turned to the other survivors of the original crew
of the U-33. Each promised obedience.
The two dead Germans were buried in a single grave, and then the party
boarded the submarine and stowed away the oil.
Here Bradley told the men what had befallen him since the night of
September 14th when he had disappeared so mysteriously from the camp
upon the plateau. Now he learned for the first time that Bowen J.
Tyler, Jr., and Miss La Rue had been missing even longer than he and
that no faintest trace of them had been discovered.
Olson told him of how the Germans had returned and waited in ambush for
them outside the fort, capturing them that they might be used to assist
in the work of refining the oil and later in manning the U-33, and
Plesser told briefly of the experiences of the German crew under von
Schoenvorts since they had escaped from Caspak months before--of how
they lost their bearings after having been shelled by ships they had
attempted to sneak farther north and how at last with provisions gone
and fuel almost exhausted they had sought and at last found, more by
accident than design, the mysterious island they had once been so glad
to leave behind.
"Now," announced Bradley, "we'll plan for the future. The boat has
fuel, provisions and water for a month, I believe you said, Plesser;
there are ten of us to man it. We have a last sad duty here--we must
search for Miss La Rue and Mr. Tyler. I say a sad duty because we know
that we shall not find them; but it is none the less our duty to comb
the shoreline, firing signal shells at intervals, that we at least may
leave at last with full knowledge that we have done all that men might
do to locate them."
None dissented from this conviction, nor was there a voice raised in
protest against the plan to at least make assurance doubly sure before
quitting Caspak forever.
And so they started, cruising slowly up the coast and firing an
occasional shot from the gun. Often the vessel was brought to a stop,
and always there were anxious eyes scanning the shore for an answering
signal. Late in the afternoon they caught sight of a number of Band-lu
warriors; but when the vessel approached the shore and the natives
realized that human beings stood upon the back of the strange monster
of the sea, they fled in terror before Bradley could come within
hailing distance.