XIX
June, 1908 28°20'N, 177°22'W
0912 Hours
Ziolkowski wasted little time burying Lieutenant Anthony and what remained of the two marines killed before him. No one on the island was particularly religious and no one protested when Ziolkowski limited the service to a doffed hat and a succinct, "He was all right, for a tiente. Ain't that right, Enderfall?"
"Aye, Top."
He glanced around. "Where the hell's the slopeheads?"
"Over with Hart at the warehouse."
"Goddamn heathens. But why ain't Hart here? He was a lieutenant himself, once."
"But he was Army, Top."
Crossing the dunes, he spotted some of the Japanese and Chinese carrying great swatches of material that looked similar to pongee. The segments flapped over their heads, making them look like farmers fighting off locusts. Hart stood amidst them, twirling the air with his arm and shouting commands. The rest of the Orientals were cross-legged on the sand, sewing.
"Hart!"
The civilian looked at him apprehensively. "Sergeant Ziolkowski. I'm sorry I couldn't attend your service. But time is short. Last time aloft I had a tear. I put the fishermen to work repairing it. It's not much different from working on a sail."
Ziolkowski looked up, saw gulls gliding overhead. The fishermen were not sewing silk, but varnished muslin. "Your balloon."
The sewers paused and raised their heads.
"You were a lieutenant once. You ain't anymore. Don't take my men--and every man on this island is my man now--without coming to me first."
All the fury rushing to Hart's head evaporated when Ziolkowski abruptly turned and walked away. It had been a necessary reprimand. But while Hart had said nothing to him about the wireless set he was building, the sergeant saw the sense of a reconnaissance balloon. As it stood now, the creatures could sneak up on the island in broad daylight, emerging at any moment at a place of their choosing. Looking down from a great height, an observer would be able to spot their dark shadows approach under the clear water surrounding Midway.
1137 Hours
If a rammed ship could feel, it would feel like Lieber the day after the exploding gasoline blew him a dozen yards backwards. Every joint seemed wrenched, every muscle was sore. Doing his best to ignore the pain, he joined the other marines making improvements in the compound defenses. By late morning, they had crisscrossed several layers of mast timbers over the roof of the bunker. They had high hopes it would be proof against the creatures.
Ziolkowski came over and watched Lieber closely. In a sympathetic tone, he said, "You're dragging. Why don't you go check up on Depoy? We haven't heard from him all morning. If he's gone to sleep, kick him in the head for me."
Depoy had been sent out to relieve Kitrell at daybreak. Muscle-sprained and exhausted, it took Lieber awhile to reach the northern post. If he found Depoy snoozing behind a dune, he was quite ready to obey the Top's injunction to give him a kick in the head.
But there was no sign of the man. Keeping a wary eye on the ocean, Lieber made several trips up and down the beach near the outpost.
He spotted the rifle propped against a piece of driftwood. The sand around it was churned up. But so was half the sand on the island, what with the creatures and now-extinct donkeys having raced back and forth endless times.
"Depoy!"
No response.
"Turtleback!" he shouted again, employing the nickname Depoy so despised. If anything would get a rise out of the man, that would. But all was still.
Dragging himself back to the compound, Lieber asked the others if any of them had seen him. No one had.
He went to Ziolkowski and reported one more casualty. Then he staggered into the meager shade offered by some scraggly bushes, flopped down like a blanket, and fell fast asleep.
1320 Hours
In spite of the terror that had popped and sizzled at the back of his mind, Hart had never been so filled with a sense of useful occupation as he was now.
Construction of a primitive wireless was not too difficult. He was able to adapt materials from the warehouse and telegraph station. A transmitting coil, key, coherer, and relay were available. The set would be powered using Planté batteries. Once those ran down after about a week, they could use a bicycle dynamo similar to the direct current dynamo invented by the Germans and used by the British in South Africa. Affixed to a bicycle frame directly in front of a "cyclist," the dynamo was connected by a belt to an aluminum disk that took the place of the front wheel--with a ratio of transmission designed to produce sparks four millimeters long in the induction coils and generating sixteen volts of electricity. The cyclist could send power directly to the wireless, or attach it to a portable accumulator battery; comprised of eight cells enclosed in an ebonite box, the battery could supply sixteen volts for five hours before recharging became necessary. Not much, but if the antenna and reflector could be raised several hundred feet in the air, the wireless might have a respectable range.
Hart had become fascinated with balloons after seeing them tested at Fort Myers. It was there that he learned the basics of construction. When he boarded the company ship bound for Midway, he brought with him five thousand yards of cheap muslin, three large wood retorts, a twenty-gallon copper kettle, eighty gallons of pure linseed oil, some heavy wicker, and the sundry odds and ends that would be needed to make the finishing touches on the balloon. The entire homemade kit put him out three hundred dollars. Which meant he arrived on the island broke--but rich in time.
And patience. An absolute necessity for what he had in mind. First, the muslin had to be varnished with the rubbery residue of heated linseed oil--three applications, all of which had to be brushed on thoroughly and evenly to avoid future leakage.
Then the cloth had to be cut into gores. The pattern of the gores formed a sine, so that, when sewn together, the balloon shape formed naturally.
All stitching was double, with particular care not to pucker the seams. Then the seams and stitches were varnished.
Next came the most tedious chore: making the net. A fair amount of computation was involved to make certain the net was the proper size. Made of cotton and seine twine, which was soft and elastic, Hart had to begin at the bottom of the equator and work outward, the mesh becoming smaller at the mouth.
After this, the clapper valve was easy. All Hart needed was a couple of barrel heads, planed and sanded. He cut out their centers, fixed brass hinges on the clappers, lined the inside of each with leather, and attached them to the envelope.
Five months earlier, the entire command turned out for the maiden voyage. Coal gas was allowed to cool some in the retorts, then piped through the feed valve. It was one of the rare occasions when Hart did not mind the presence of his fellow Americans. In fact, after closing off the valve, he gave a brief thank-you speech and doffed his cap before releasing the first anchor line.
One thing he did not dare, and that was to cut loose entirely from the ground. The winds of Midway tended to come up sharply--one had only to watch the birds to see it. Once caught in an air current, that would be all she wrote for one Hamilton Hart, lost at sea while acting the fool in the air. Thus, two lines hung down from the car. The first was used once he'd reached the desired height. It dangled just above the island. When it touched the ground it took the weight off the balloon, preventing it from descending before the aeronaut wanted to. The other line was secured to a winch, giving him several hundred feet of play, but keeping him safely above the atoll. Hart might dream of the horizon, but he had no intention of going there.
How tiny Midway seemed from on high! Tinier still, the men. What did God see when he looked down? Men on foot, or inconspicuous specks?
Gooneys flew close to inspect this new bird, their wings shuddering ever so slightly as they paused in mid-air. While watching Hart fight off a wave of nausea, they seemed to say: There. You mock us on land. But up here, who's the fool? And then they arced away with indescribable grace and ease.
Over the period of a month Hart ascended four times. The car was big enough only for one man, but he politely offered others the opportunity to go aloft. A few of them voiced interest, including Lieutenant Anthony. But on his fourth trip an incautious frigate bird zipped into the balloon and got tangled in the netting. In its frantic attempt to escape it tore a hole in the varnished muslin. Hart was able to descend without mishap, but the incident put everyone else off.
Which meant no one else had the slightest idea how to operate the balloon. He had to train someone quickly.
Later in the day, Hart rose from the half-completed wireless set and checked on the men repairing the balloon's envelope, which had been damaged by high winds last time up. The Japanese, dressed only in their loincloths, their skin gleaming with sweat, looked like exotic human mushrooms in the late afternoon glow.
"Mr. Hot," said Ace, "we about finished. You work the telegraph tomorrow. Who goin' to fly the balloon?"
Hart looked Ace up and down--not a long process. "Best to have someone on the small side. The weight of the antenna and reflector will put a drag on her."
"You don't think it will...." Ace shaped his hand into a dying bird and made a fluttering falling motion.
"I don't think so."
"I'm small."
"You're very brave. It's what we call a captive balloon. If anything goes wrong, we can haul you down quickly."
"Mr. Hot, if anything goes wrong, it will be down here."
Hart could not help but laugh.
1931 Hours
News of Depoy's disappearance brought morale to its lowest. He could not have deserted. There was no place to run. Somehow, the creatures had sneaked up on him in broad daylight and taken him off before he could fire a shot. He'd probably fallen asleep at his post. Yet the effective silence of the deed filled them with cold dread.
But the main bunker was finished. There would have been room in it for thirty men, had there been thirty men left. In their own grisly fashion, the creatures had solved the problem of space for them.
To Ziolkowski's thinking, the completed bunker did not absolve them from the need to put up a fight. Cower? U.S. Marines? Only when there were no stones left to throw. They had to prevent the creatures from rampaging willy-nilly over the island. There were too many vulnerables. The warehouse, with its supply of water casks and tinned food. The distillery, which supplied them with fresh water. Their sea tug, the Iroquois--although stepped-up on the beach with broken pressure valves, she symbolized hope. It seemed the only way to protect them all was to make sure the marines remained the center of attention.
The lookouts were dispatched before dark. The sergeant added unnecessary admonition: "Don't leave your holes. I don't care if you've got the biggest load of shit since Creation hod up in you. Stay in, stay awake."
No one asked questions.
Lieber was roused from a sandy bed as the last light faded. He would spend another night with kitchen utensils in his mouth. He would not be relieved until sunrise.
"You've slept all day," Ziolkowski explained. "That's more than anyone else has gotten. I'm leaving one of the lamps with you. Maybe that will help you all stay awake."
No one could wake up Hart. No one knew if he'd fallen asleep or had passed out. He lay at the far end of the bunker, in the middle of an unconscious huddle of Orientals. Ace had fallen back in a Pietà-like pose, his mouth hanging open, a stupendous snore erupting at regular intervals. Lieber experienced an irrational moment of jealousy. He had begun to think of Ace as his personal manservant, though everything Ace did for him was strictly voluntary. Now the civilian had come along and absconded with him.
Well... to hell with it. The little Jap was a nuisance, all in all. Always running up from behind, trying to rescue one thing or another. He'd saved Lieutenant Anthony, only to have Anthony die moments later. Maybe Ace was bad luck in disguise.
Staring at the battle lantern hour after hour, Lieber's eyes met on the flame; it seemed to waver and die. Then someone kicked him and he realized he had nodded off. This happened two more times.
"Why can't I keep my eyes open?" he berated himself. "Think of what's at stake!"
He had begun to view the duel between men and monsters as a great Entscheidungsschlacht--a decisive battle between ultimate creatures. The Cataclysm of the Ages was at hand. If he didn't watch out, he would sleep right through it.
Early that morning he was alerted to a terrible sensation in his mouth. He waved an arm. Someone shook Ziolkowski awake.
"They're coming?"
Lieber shrugged. There was no sense in what he was receiving. No attempt at code. What the hell was Kitrell up to?
What he was experiencing was a scream transferred directly to his tongue. After it had passed, and the fork and spoon regained their former metallic blandness, Lieber sensed the truth:
He had tasted death.