CHAPTER IX - The
Trail of Death
"There's
sure some sort of hoodoo on these Antarctic expeditions, Wilson," said the
city editor of The Daily Record to the star rewrite man. He glanced through the
hastily typed report that had come through on the wireless set erected on the
thirty-sixth story of the Record Building. "Tommy Travers gone, eh? And
James Dodd, too! There'll be woe and wailing along the Great White Way to-night
when this news gets out. They say that half the chorus girls in town considered
themselves engaged to Tommy. Nice fellow, too! Always did like him!"
"Queer,
that curtain of fog that seems to lie on the actual site of the south
pole," he continued, glancing over the report again. "So Storm thinks
that Tommy crashed in it, and that it's a million to one against their ever
finding his remains. What's this about beetles? Shells of enormous prehistoric
beetles found by Tommy and Dodd! That'll make good copy, Wilson. Let's play
that up. Hand it to Jones, and tell him to scare up a catching headline or
two."
He
beckoned to the boy who was hurrying toward his desk, a flimsy in his hand,
glanced through it, and tossed it toward Wilson.
"What
do they think this is, April Fool's Day?" he asked. "I'm surprised
that the International Press should fall for such stuff as that!"
"Why,
to-morrow is the first of April!" exclaimed Wilson, tossing back the cable
dispatch with a contemptuous laugh.
"Well,
it won't do the I. P. much good to play those tricks on their
subscribers," said the city editor testily. "I'm surprised, to say
the least. I guess their Adelaide correspondent has gone off his head or
something. Using poor Travers's name, too! Of course that fellow didn't know he
was dead, but still..."
That
was how The Daily Record missed being the first to give out certain information
that was to stagger the world. The dispatch, which had evidently outrun an
earlier one, was as follows:
ADELAIDE, South Australia, March 31. - Further
telegraphic communications arriving almost continuously from Settler's Station,
signed by Thomas Travers, member of Travers Antarctic Expedition, who claims to
have penetrated earth's interior at south pole and to have come out near
Victoria Desert. Travers states that swarm of prehistoric beetles, estimated at
two trillion, and as large as men, with shells impenetrable by rifle bullets,
now besieging Settler's Station, where he and Dodd and Haidia, woman of
subterranean race whom they brought away, are shut up in telegraph office.
Bram, former member of Greystoke Expedition, said to be in charge of swarm,
with intention of obliterating human race. Every living thing at Settler's Station
destroyed, and swarm moving south.
It was a small-town paper a
hundred miles from New York that took a chance on publishing this report from
the International Press, in spite of frantic efforts on the parts of the head
office to recall it after it had been transmitted. This paper published the
account as an April Fool's Day joke, though later it took to itself the credit
for having believed it. But by the time April Fool's Day dawned all the world
knew that the account was, if anything, an under-estimate of the fearful things
that were happening "down under."
It
was known now that the swarm of monsters had originated in the Great Victoria
Desert, one of the worst stretches of desolation in the world, situated in the
south-east corner of Western Australia. Their numbers were incalculable.
Wimbush, the aviator, who was attempting to cross the continent from east to
west, reported afterward that he had flown for four days, skirting the edge of
the swarm, and that the whole of that time they were moving in the same
direction, a thick cloud that left a trail of dense darkness on earth beneath
them, like the path of an eclipse. Wimbush escaped them only because he had a
ceiling of twenty thousand feet, to which apparently the beetles could not
soar.
And
this swarm was only about one-fourth of the whole number of the monsters. This
was the swarm that was moving westward, and subsequently totally destroyed all
living things in Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Perth, and all the coastal cities of
Western Australia.
Ships
were found drifting in the Indian Ocean, totally destitute of crews and
passengers; not even their skeletons were found, and it was estimated that the
voracious monsters had carried them away bodily, devoured them in the air, and
dropped the remains into the water.
All
the world knows now how the sea elephant herd on Kerguelen Island was totally
destroyed, and of the giant shells that were found lying everywhere on the
deserted beaches, in positions that showed the monsters had in the end devoured
one another.
Mauritius
was the most westerly point reached by a fraction of the swarm. A little over
twenty thousand of the beetles reached that lovely island, by count of the
shells afterward, and all the world knows now of the desperate and successful
fight that the inhabitants waged against them. Men and women, boys and girls,
blacks and whites, finding that the devils were invulnerable against rifle
fire, sallied forth boldly with knives and choppers, and laid down a life for a
life.
On
the second day after their appearance, the main swarm, a trillion and a half
strong, reached the line of the transcontinental railway, and moved eastward
into South Australia, traveling, it was estimated, at the rate of two hundred
miles an hour. By the next morning they were in Adelaide, a city of nearly a
quarter of a million people. By nightfall every living thing in Adelaide and
the suburbs had been eaten, except for a few who succeeded in hiding in
walled-up cellars, or in the surrounding marshes.
That
night the swarm was on the borders of New South Wales and Victoria, and moving
in two divisions toward Melbourne and Sydney.
The
northern half, it was quickly seen, was flying "wild," with no
particular objective, moving in a solid cohort two hundred miles in length, and
devouring game, stock, and humans indiscriminately. It was the southern
division, numbering perhaps a trillion, that was under command of Bram, and
aimed at destroying Melbourne as Adelaide had been destroyed.
Bram,
with his eight beetle steeds, was by this time known and execrated throughout
the world. He was pictured as Anti-Christ, and the fulfilment of the prophecies
of the Rock of Revelations.
And
all this while - nor, rather, until the telegraph wires were cut—broken, it was
discovered later, by perching beetles - Thomas Travers was sending out messages
from his post at Settler's Station.
Soon
it was known that prodigious creatures were following in the wake of the
devastating horde. Mantises, fifteen feet in height, winged things like
pterodactyls, longer than bombing airplanes, followed, preying on the
stragglers. But the main bodies never halted, and the inroads that the
destroyers made on their numbers were insignificant.
Before
the swarm reached Adelaide the Commonwealth Government had taken action. Troops
had been called out, and all the available airplanes in the country had been
ordered to assemble at Broken Hill, New South Wales, a strategic point
commanding the approaches to Sydney and Melbourne. Something like four hundred
airplanes were assembled, with several batteries of anti-aircraft guns that had
been used in the Great War. Every amateur aviator in Australia was on the spot,
with machines ranging from tiny Moths to Handley-Pages - anything that could
fly.
Nocturnal
though the beetles had been, they no longer feared the light of the sun. In
fact, it was ascertained later that they were blind. An opacity had formed over
the crystalline lens of the eye. Blind, they were no less formidable than with
their sight. They existed only to devour, and their numbers made them
irresistible, no matter which way they turned.
As
soon as the vanguard of the dark cloud was sighted from Broken Hill, the
airplanes went aloft. Four hundred planes, each armed with machine guns, dashed
into the serried hosts, drumming out volleys of lead. In a long line, extending
nearly to the limits of the beetle formation, thus giving each aviator all the
room he needed, the planes gave battle.
The
first terror that fell upon the airmen was the discovery that, even at close range,
the machine gun bullets failed to penetrate the shells. The force of the impact
whirled the beetles around, drove them together in bunches, sent them groping
with weaving tentacles through the air - but that was all. On the main body of
the invaders no impression was made whatever.
The
second terror was the realization that the swarm, driven down here and there
from an altitude of several hundred feet, merely resumed their progress on the
ground, in a succession of gigantic leaps. Within a few minutes, instead of
presenting an inflexible barrier, the line of airplanes was badly broken, each
plane surrounded by swarms of the monsters.
Then
Bram was seen. And that was the third terror, the sight of the famous beetle
steeds, four pairs abreast, with Bram reclining like a Roman emperor upon the
surface of the shells. It is true, Bram had no inclination to risk his own life
in battle. At the first sight of the aviators he dodged into the thick of the
swarm, where no bullet could reach him. Bram managed to transmit an order, and
the beetles drew together.
Some
thought afterward that it was by thought transference he effected this
maneuver, for instantly the beetles, which had hitherto flown in loose order,
became a solid wall, a thousand feet in height, closing in on the planes. The
propellers struck them and snapped short, and as the planes went weaving down,
the hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits and began their abominable meal.
Not
a single plane came back. Planes and skeletons, and here and there a shell of a
dead beetle, itself completely devoured, were all that was found afterward.
The
gunners stayed at their posts till the last moment, firing round after round of
shell and shrapnel, with insignificant results. Their skeletons were found not
twenty paces from their guns - where the Gunners' Monument now stands.
Half
an hour after the flight had first been sighted the news was being radioed to
Sydney, Melbourne, and all other Australian cities, advising instant flight to
sea as the only chance of safety. That radio message was cut short - and men
listened and shuddered. After that came the crowding aboard all craft in the
harbors, the tragedies of the Eustis, the All Australia, the Sepphoris, sunk at
their moorings. The innumerable sea tragedies. The horde of fugitives that
landed in New Zealand. The reign of terror when the mob got out of hand, the
burning of Melbourne, the sack of Sydney.
And
south and eastward, like a resistless flood, the beetle swarm came pouring.
Well had Bram boasted that he would make the earth a desert!
A
hundred miles of poisoned carcasses of sheep, extended outside Sydney's
suburbs, gave the first promise of success. Long mounds of beetle shells
testified to the results; moreover, the beetles that fed on the carcasses of
their fellows, were in turn poisoned and died. But this was only a drop in the
bucket. What counted was that the swift advance was slowing down. As if
exhausted by their efforts, or else satiated with food, the beetles were doing
what the soldiers did.
They
were digging in!
Twenty-four
miles from Sydney, eighteen outside Melbourne, the advance was stayed.
Volunteers
who went out from those cities reported that the beetles seemed to be resting
in long trenches that they had excavated, so that only their shells appeared
above ground. Trees were covered with clinging beetles, every wall, every house
was invisible beneath the beetle armor.
Australia
had a respite. Perhaps only for a night or day, but still time to draw breath,
time to consider, time for the shiploads of fugitives to get farther from the
continent that had become a shambles.
And
then the cry went up, not only from Australia, but from all the world,
"Get Travers!"
CHAPTER X - At
Bay
Bram
put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, a shrill whistle, yet audible to
Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia. Instantly three pairs of beetles appeared out of the
throng. Their tentacles went out, and the two men and the girl found themselves
hoisted separately upon the backs of the pairs. Next moment they were flying
side by side, high in the air above the surrounding swarm.
They
could see one another, but it was impossible for them to make their voices
heard above the rasping of the beetles' legs. Hours went by, while the moon
crossed the sky and dipped toward the horizon. Tommy knew that the moon would
set about the hour of dawn. And the stars were already beginning to pale when
he saw a line of telegraph poles, then two lines of shining metals, then a
small settlement of stone and brick houses.
Tommy
was not familiar with the geography of Australia, but he knew this must be the
transcontinental line.
Whirling
onward, the cloud of beetles suddenly swooped downward. For a moment Tommy
could see the frightened occupants of the settlement crowding into the single street,
then he shuddered with sick horror as he saw them obliterated by the swarm.
There
was no struggle, no attempt at flight or resistance. One moment those forty-odd
men were there - the next minute they existed no longer. There was nothing but
a swarm of beetles, walking about like men with shells upon their backs.
And
now Tommy saw evidences of Bram's devilish control of the swarm. For out of the
cloud dropped what seemed to be a phalanx of beetle guards, the military police
of beetledom, and, lashing fiercely with their tentacles, they drove back all
the swarm that sought to join their companions in their ghoulish feast. There
was just so much food and no more; the rest must seek theirs further.
But
even beetles, it may be presumed, are not entirely under discipline at all
times. The pair of beetles that bore Tommy, suddenly swooped apart, ten or a
dozen feet from the ground, and dashed into the thick of the struggling,
frenzied mass, flinging their rider to earth.
Tommy
struck the soft sand, sat up, half dazed, saw his shell lying a few feet away
from him, and retrieved it just as a couple of the monsters came swooping down
at him.
He
looked about him. Not far away stood Dodd and Haidia, with their shells on
their backs. They recognized Tommy and ran toward him.
Not
more than twenty yards away stood the railroad station, with several crates of
goods on the platform. Next to it was a substantial house of stone, with the
front door open.
Tommy
pointed to it, and Dodd understood and shouted something that was lost in the
furious buzz of the beetles' wings as they devoured their prey. The three raced
for the entrance, gained it unmolested, and closed the door.
There
was a key in the door, and it was light enough for them to see a chain, which
Dodd pulled into position. There was only one story, and there were three
rooms, apparently, with the kitchen. Tommy rushed to the kitchen door, locked
it, too, and, with almost super-human efforts, dragged the large iron stove
against it. He rushed to the window, but it was a mere loophole, not large
enough to admit a child. Nevertheless, he stood the heavy table on end so that
it covered it. Then he ran back.
Dodd
had already barricaded the window of the larger room, which was a bed-sitting
room, with a heavy wardrobe, and the wooden bedstead, jamming the two pieces
sidewise against the wall, so that they could not be forced apart without being
demolished. He was now busy in the smaller room, which seemed to be the
station-master's office, dragging an iron safe across the floor. But the window
was criss-crossed with iron bars, and it was evident that the safe, which was
locked, contained at times considerable money, for the window could hardly have
been forced save by a charge of nitro-glycerine or dynamite. However, it was
against the door that Dodd placed the safe, and he stood back, panting.
"Good,"
said Haidia. "That will hold them."
The
two men looked at her doubtfully. Did Haidia know what she was talking about?
The
sun had risen. A long shaft shot into the room. Outside the beetles were still
buzzing as they turned over the vestiges of their prey. There were as yet no
signs of attack. Suddenly Tommy grasped Dodd's arm.
"Look!"
he shouted, pointing to a corner which had been in gloom a moment before.
There
was a table there, and on it a telegraphic instrument. Telegraphy had been one
of Tommy's hobbies in boyhood. In a moment he was busy at the table.
Dot-dash-dot-dash!
Then suddenly outside a furious hum, and the impact of beetle bodies against
the front door.
Tommy
got up, grinning. That was the first, interrupted message from Tommy that was
received.
Through
the barred window the three could see the furious efforts of the beetles to
force an entrance. But the very tensile strength of the beetle-shells, which
rendered them impervious to bullets, required a laminate construction which
rendered them powerless against brick or stone.
Desperately
the swarm dashed itself against the walls, until the ground outside was piled
high with stunned beetles. Not the faintest impression was made on the
defenses.
"Watch
them, Jim," said Tom. "I'll go see if the rear's secure."
That
thought of his seemed to have been anticipated by the beetles, for as Tommy
reached the kitchen the swarm came dashing against door and window, always
recoiling. Tommy came back, grinning all over his face.
"You
were right, Haidia," he said. "We've held them all right, and the
tables are turned on Bram. Also I got a message through, I think," he
added to Dodd.
Dash–dot–dash-dot
from the instrument. Tommy ran to the table again. Dash-dot went back. For five
minutes Tommy labored, while the beetles hammered now on one door, now on
another, now on the windows. Then Tommy got up.
"It
was some station down the line," he said. "I've told them, and
they're sending a man up here to replace the telegraphist, also a couple of
cops. They think I'm crazy. I told them again. That's the best I could
do."
"Dodd!
Travers! For the last time - let's talk!"
The
cloud of beetles seemed to have thinned, for the sun was shining into the room.
Bram's voice was perfectly audible, though he himself was invisible; probably
he thought it likely that the defenders had obtained firearms.
"Nothing
to say to you, Bram," called Dodd. "We've finished our discussion on
the monotremes."
"I
want you fellows to stand in with me," came Bram's plaintive tones.
"It's so lonesome all by one's self, Dodd."
"Ah,
you're beginning to find that out, are you?" Dodd could not resist
answering. "You'll be lonelier yet before you're through."
"Dodd,
I didn't bring that swarm up here. I swear it. I've been trying to control them
from the beginning. I saw what was coming. I believe I can avert this horror,
drive them into the sea or something like that. Don't make me desperate, Dodd.
"And
listen, old man. About those monotremes - sensible men don't quarrel over
things like that. Why can't we agree to differ?"
"Ah,
now you're talking, Bram," Dodd answered. "Only you're too late.
After what's happened here to-day, we'll have no truck with you. That's
final."
"Damn
you," shrieked Bram. "I'll batter down this house. I'll -"
"You'll
do nothing, Bram, because you can't," Dodd answered. "Travers has
wired full information about your devil-horde, and likewise about you, and all
Australia will be prepared to give you a warm reception when you arrive."
"I
tell you I'm invincible," Bram screamed. "In three days Australia
will be a ruin, a depopulated desert. In a week, all southern Asia, in three
weeks Europe, in two months America."
"You've
been taking too many of those pellets, Bram," Dodd answered. "Stand
back now! Stand back, wherever you are, or I'll open the door and throw the
slops over you."
Bram's
screech rose high above the droning of the wings. In another moment the
interior of the room had grown as black as night. The rattle of the beetle
shells against the four walls of the house was like the clattering of stage
thunder.
All
through the darkness Dodd could hear the unhurried clicking of the key.
At
last the rattling ceased. The sun shone in again. The ground all around the
house was packed with fallen beetles, six feet high, a writhing mass that
creaked and clattered as it strove to disengage itself.
Bram's
voice once more: "I'm leaving a guard, Dodd. They'll get you if you try to
leave. But they won't eat you. I'm going to have you three sliced into little
pieces, the Thousand Deaths of the Chinese. The beetles will eat the parts that
are sliced away - and you'll live to watch them. I'll be back with a stick or
two of dynamite to-morrow."
"Yeah,
but listen, Bram," Dodd sang out. "Listen, you old marsupial tiger.
When those pipe dreams clear away, I'm going to build a gallows of
beetle-shells reaching to the moon, to hang you on!"
Bram's
screech of madness died away. The strident rasping of the beetles' legs began
again. For hours the three heard it; it was not until nightfall that it died
away.
Bram
had made good his threat, for all around the house, extending as far as they
could see, was the host of beetle-guards. To venture out, even with their
shells about them, was clearly a hazardous undertaking. There was neither food
nor water in the place.
"We'll
just have to hold out," said Dodd, breaking one of the long periods of
silence.
Tommy
did not answer; he did not hear him, for he was busy at the key. Suddenly he
leaped to his feet.
"God,
Jimmy," he cried, "that devil's making good his threat! The swarm's
in South Australia, destroying every living thing, wiping out whole towns and
villages! And they - they believe me now!"
He
sank into a chair. For the first time the strain of the awful past seemed to
grip him. Haidia came to his side.
"The
beetles are finish," she said in her soft voice.
"How
d'you know, Haidia?" demanded Dodd.
"The
beetles are finish," Haidia repeated quietly, and that was all that Dodd
could get out of her. But again the key began to click, and Tommy staggered to
the table. Dot-dash-dash-dot. Presently he looked up once more.
"The
swarm's halfway to Adelaide," he said. "They want to know if I can
help them. Help them!" He burst into hysterical laughter.
Toward
evening he came back after an hour at the key. "Line must be broken,"
he said. "I'm getting nothing."
In
the moonlight they could see the huge compound eyes of the beetle guards
glittering like enormous diamonds outside. They had not been conscious of
thirst during the day, but now, with the coming of the cool night their desire
for water became paramount.
"Tommy,
there must be water in the station," said Dodd. "I'm going to get a
pitcher from the kitchen and risk it, Tommy. Take care of Haidia if -" he
added.
But
Haidia laid her hand upon his arm. "Do not go, Jimmydodd," she said.
"We can be thirsty to-night, and to-morrow the beetles will be
finish."
"How
d'you know?" asked Dodd again. But now he realized that Haidia had never
learned the significance of an interrogation. She only repeated her statement,
and again the two men had to remain content.
The
long night passed. Outside the many facets of the beetle eyes. Inside the two
men, desperate with anxiety, not for themselves, but for the fate of the world,
snatching a few moments' sleep from time to time, then looking up to see those
glaring eyes from the silent watchers.
Then
dawn came stealing over the desert, and the two shook themselves free from
sleep. And now the eyes were gone.
But
there was immense activity among the beetles. They were scurrying to and fro,
and, as they watched, Dodd and Tommy began to see some significance in their
movements.
"Why,
they're digging trenches!" Tommy shouted. "That's horrible, Jimmy!
Are they intending to conduct sapping operations against us like engineers, or
what?"
Dodd
did not reply, and Tommy hardly expected any answer. As the two men, now joined
by Haidia, watched, they saw that the beetles were actually digging themselves
into the sand.
Within
the space of an hour, by the time the first shafts of sunlight began to stream
into the room, there was to be seen only the massive, rounded shells of the
monsters as they squatted in the sand.
"Now
you may fetch water," said Haidia, smiling at her lover. "No, you do
not need the shells," she added. "The beetles are finish. It is as
the wise men of my people told me."
Wondering,
hesitating, Tommy and Dodd unlocked the front door. They stood upon the threshold
ready to bolt back again. But there was no stirring among the beetle hosts.
Growing
bolder, they advanced a few steps; then, shamed by Haidia's courage, they
followed her, still cautiously to the station.
Dodd
shouted as he saw a water-tank, and a receptacle above it with a water-cock.
They let Haidia drink, then followed suit, and for a few moments, as they
appeased their thirst, the beetles were forgotten.
Then
they turned back. There had been no movement in that line of shells that
glinted in the morning sunlight.
"Come,
I shall show you," said Haidia confidently, advancing toward the trench.
Dodd
would have stopped her, but the girl moved forward quickly, eluded him with a
graceful, mirthful gesture, and stooped down over the trench.
She
rose up, raising in her arms an empty beetle-shell!
Dodd,
who had reached the trench before Tommy, turned round and yelled to him
excitedly. Tommy ran forward - and then he understood.
The shells were empty. The swarm,
whose life cycle Bram had admitted he did not understand, had just moulted!
It
had moulted because the bodies, gorged with food, had grown too large for the
shells. In time, if left alone, the monsters would grow larger shells, become
invincible again. But just now they were defenseless as new-born babes - and
knew it.
Deep
underneath the empty shells they had burrowed into the ground. Everywhere at
the bottom of the deep trenches were the naked, bestial creatures, waving
helpless tentacles and squirming over one another as they strove to find
shelter and security.
A
sudden madness came over Tommy and Dodd. "Dynamite - there must be
dynamite!" Dodd shouted, as he ran back to the station.
"Something
better than dynamite," shouted Tommy, holding up one of a score of drums
of petrol!
