Chapter V: Fighting Back

Hines sat at a telephone in Portland, and things began to move. He called Boston, and long, lean, greyhound-like ships with many funnels slipped their moorings and slid smoothly out to sea. Three cruisers raised steam and went after them. And there was vast activity in the Navy yard, and presently an old harbor-defense monitor went staggering gamely after the more modern ships.

He called New York, and trains were shunted swiftly here and there, and there were shouted orders and the rattling of accouterments and much profanity; then flatcars with squat, ungainly-wheeled shapes upon them rolled out of the city bound northward. They traveled at the speed of the fastest express trains, and passenger flyers were sidetracked to let them pass.

Hines called here and there, and everywhere there were swift and deadly preparations for action. At Newport, two battalions of Marines entrained with an astounding celerity. At other scattered cities other fighting men and fighting machines made ready. Three howitzer batteries were bumping at top speed over the rails to Maine. Two twelve-inch guns with railroad mountings formed a racing special train with cars of shells and their gun crews.

All the preparations were Hines's doing, and he explained his orders as he gave them in the manner of a man who does not expect to survive their carrying out. Metinic Island was no more than six miles from an accessible part of the mainland. Artillery will range that distance easily. Within two hours after Hines's return from the reconnaissance flight in which three bombing planes were lost, artillery officers had reached the future firing-point by plane and were marking out gun-emplacements and swearing at the inadequacy of the local maps.

Hines's plan was to mass artillery in such quantity and with such a supply of ammunition that Preston's headquarters could be smothered under a rain of explosives. One field gun to ten yards of target can keep that target under an adequate barrage fire. No man can live in the open under such a hail of death. But in addition there would be the warships. Four super-dreadnaughts, three cruisers, and a monitor would pound the island. Three hours before dawn there would be over twenty guns of twelve and fourteen-inch caliber trained upon the island, and upward of thirty eight-inch rifles to assist. Nothing should be able to live on the surface or beneath it, however deep the dugouts Preston might have prepared. Hines was grimly calculating that within three minutes of the opening of fire every square foot of earth upon the island should have been plowed up by explosives. And Kathryn was there. She must be.

It looked perfect, however, from the standpoint of destruction. The resources of one regional department of the Army would be at hand before dawn. The Navy would have its ships at hand with shotted guns. The air would be alive with flying craft. A signal; a blast of cannon-fire; a terrific, long-continued battering, and Metinic Island should disappear forever.

* * * * *

It did look perfect. Too perfect, considering that Preston knew what to expect now. Schaaf paced nervously back and forth as Hines gave his orders.

"He has something up his sleefe, Hines," he said irritably. "He has taken plenty from der cuffs, but he has something more."

Hines relaxed deliberately, with an effort.

"What has he got?'

"He has four-centimeter wafes," said Schaaf desperately. "They explain nearly eferything. It was calculated a year and a half ago that der death-ray of der imaginatif nofelists is theoretically impossible. But if a man makes Hertzian wafes of four centimeters frequency, he has der world by der tail. All der armies haff been trying to make them, because it can be proofed by mathematics that in der path of a beam of four-centimeter wafes der air will be a conductor der same as metal. Breston has them. He has sent a beam of them straight up to der Heaviside Layer. And his short wafes that make der air opaque, they trafel along der four-centimeter beam until they hit der Layer. There they spread out. So much is simple. Der bomber that was destroyed when we went to look simply difed through a beam of four-centimeter wafes that was carrying four thousand kilowatts of Breston's prifate short short wafes up to der Heaviside Layer. It is no wonder it crashed!

"Der thing that destroyed der other bombers is just as simple. A beam of der same conducting wafes, with darkness in it so they could see to aim it, and high-frequency current shot into it at der critical moment. A plane in a beam of those four-centimeter wafes is just like a plane touching a power-transmission line. If der frequency is high enough, there is no need of a ground wire to electrocute efery man on board. Der whole plane starts sparking, it bursts into flame and der bombs explode. That is what he has used!"

"I wonder," said Hines drearily, "if he can use it on the artillery?"

Schaaf shrugged. He resumed his impatient pacing up and down the room.

"But he has something else up der sleefe. I know he has something else up der sleefe. It is too easy! Much too easy!"

The clocks announced seven o'clock. Eight. Nine o'clock. Reports began to come in. Artillery units had arrived, were digging in. A battery of field 'guns was ready to fire.

Nine thirty: Two guns of a howitzer section were ready to fire. One naval gun on a railroad mounting was in position.

Ten: All the howitzers were ready to fire. The cruisers were in position and the battleships were coming up. Destroyers had ventured into the dense mass of darkness that hung about the island. The darkness was nearly a circle, six miles across. One of the destroyers came scuttling out with flames pouring from it. It reached the clear air and was aflame from end to end. It floated, a lurid torch, while its crew was taken off. It blew up and sank at eleven ten precisely.

At eleven thirty the basket-mast of a battle cruiser glowed red, halfway up its height, and its separate steel rods bent and buckled, and then cooled off again, leaving the fighting-top careened crazily over at right angles and far out over the ship's side.

"Breston is trying to fight," said Schaaf shortly. "He is swinging der beam of four-centimeter wafes around and shooting all der juice he can supply into it. It happened to hit der fighting-mast. The beam is infisible now. Since he cannot see what he is aiming at, he does not want anybody else to see der beam. It is infisible death, that beam."

* * * * *

Hines smiled queerly. He picked up a telephone and spoke almost softly into it.

"All ready for me?... Very well. It's understood that zero hour is 3 A.M. if the darkness is not cut before then. If it is cut, bolometer readings are to be taken and action judged by their indications. All ships and guns are to stand by in any event until the island is occupied. Very well. Good luck!"

He stood up and held out his hand to Schaaf.

"I'm going to the island, Schaaf. Good-by."

Schaaf scowled at him.

"Of all der double-barreled, triple-distilled idiots I efer saw," he said bitterly, "you are der worst! Hines, you are a _verdammt_ fool! You are going to der island--"

Hines shrugged.

"It's a form of suicide," he said evenly. "I know it. But that devil has got Kathryn there. I've arranged for him to be blown off the earth. She'll be blown up with him. We were to have been married this morning. So I--well, I'm going to be there, too."

Schaaf swore explosively in guttural German.

"That is not what I am talking about!" he snapped. "That is lunacy, yes! But der magnificent imbecility is that you think I am going to let Breston's short-wafe outfit be blown to bits without getting a look at it! There is a place reserfed for me in der boat that is going to der island. Try and keep me out of it!"

Hines looked steadily at Schaaf for nearly half a minute. Then he smiled.

"You're a damned liar, Schaaf. You're going because--"

"Shut up!" snapped Schaaf again. He drew himself up to his full six feet and something of whiskered blondness. "Hines, I am a damned liar, yes! And you are a damned fool! So that makes two of us going out to be fery unpleasantly bumped off, and if you try to talk silly sentiment I will poke you in der eye. Come on!"