The Island of Fu-Manchu (30 page)

The fact dawned upon me that whether I looked to right or left it was the same, and that when I looked upward I could see no sky, only a sort of mist out of which glowed the light of a brazen sun, or so one might at first have assumed. A moment’s consideration convinced me of my error. The sun should not be directly above, nor, looking harder,
was
this the sun!

I turned in bewilderment to my guide. He was lighting a cigar and smiling with quiet amusement.

“In heaven’s name where am I, and where does the light come from?”

“You are in the interior of a volcano, Mr. Kerrigan. The light comes from a Ferris Globe. The Doctor may have shown you the one in the laboratory.’’

“Yes, he did. But this is not artificial light—this is sunlight.”

Perrywell nodded, staring at the glowing end of his cigar thoughtfully for a moment.

“I suppose in a way, it is,” he conceded. “Speaking un-scientifically, the Ferris Globe absorbs energy from the sun and redistributes it as required. It’s a revolutionary system, of course, and in use nowhere in the world but here. Yes—” he saw me staring upward—“it’s very deceptive. You see at one point the roof is higher than the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral; and now—” he grasped my arm and turned me about, pointing—“do you notice a red buoy floating out there, roughly halfway across?”

I looked, and out on the surface of this vast subterranean lake presently picked up the object to which he referred.

“That marks the deepest spot. We haven’t been able to plumb it, yet.”

“What!”

“It’s true, Mr. Kerrigan. That’s put there for navigational purposes. The sea off this coast is very deep, you know. So what occurred in some past age was this: the sea broke in—we use the opening it made, as our water-gate—and, quite simply, put out the volcano.”

“But such a thing—”

“Would make a lot of steam? I agree that it would. It was the steam that made this huge cavern, and that buoy marks the very centre of what used to be the crater.”

I said nothing; I could think of nothing to say.

“The potentialities of such a base as this it would be difficult to exaggerate. The use that has been made of it under the driving genius of the Doctor surprises even those who work on the spot. In addition to the private lift by which no doubt you came down, I completed here, less than two years ago, the deepest hoist in the world, or the deepest known to me. There is no difficulty about shipping stuff to the works and no questions are asked. It’s brought down here in sections if necessary. As you see, labour is cheap.”

I looked at the coloured gangs working.

“Surely, where so many men are employed, secrecy is impossible?”

“Not at all, Mr. Kerrigan—just a question of organization. You won’t find happier coolies anywhere, as you can see for yourself. Once these fellows are brought below-ground they
stay
below.”

“What do you mean? Like pit ponies?”

“That is, until we are done with them. Then they are shipped across to Tortuga, with plenty of money and a blank spot in the memory.”

I wanted to say to him, I wanted to shout at him: “You, too, have a blank spot in your memory! You, too, are living in a delusion! Your fine intellect is enslaved to a madman who one day will destroy the world, unless some miracle intervenes!” But, looking at this comfortably stout person as he puffed away at his cigar, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, I remained silent, for words would have been of no avail.

“Only the heads of departments come up and down,” he added. “Those who load the hoist at the top have no idea where it goes to. Oh! organization can accomplish miracles, Mr. Kerrigan.”

“I agree with you,” I replied, and spoke with sincerity.

“The working staff of the sisal corporation have nothing to do with the Si-Fan, you see; they are just ordinary labourers who have no idea that there is a below-ground. If one becomes inquisitive—well, we bring him down, here and let him see for himself! And now, my instructions are to introduce you to Dr. Heron.”

“Is he—”

“What Allington calls a conscript?” laughed Perrywell. “Yes, as a matter of fact, he is. He vised to be chief technician to the German navy. His success attracted the Doctor’s attention. I can assure you that, in the twelve years that he has been employed here and elsewhere, he has evolved something which nullifies the power of every navy afloat.”

We walked along the busy dock bathed in synthetic sunshine, beside the unknown depths of what must have been one of the largest volcanoes in the world. I talked to a talented and worthy engineer whose brains had been commandeered by Dr. Fu-Manchu. In Europe, battles greater than any known in history were being waged, whilst here, in this community of accumulated genius, a superman quietly planned, in his own words, “to tip the scale.”

What exactly did he mean and in what direction did he propose to tip it?

We entered a small, neat office, where an elderly German whose high, bald forehead was almost as striking as that of Fu-Manchu himself, stood up to greet us. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles; a short, bristling, grey moustache lent him some resemblance to pictures I had seen of the former Kaiser. Unlike Perrywell who, most grotesquely as I thought, wore a Harris tweed suit and displayed a thick gold watch chain across his ample waistcoat, Dr. Heron wore blue overalls.

“Companion Heron—this is Mr. Bart Kerrigan.”

“I am pleased here to see you, Mr. Kerrigan. Always I am pleased when an opportunity comes my playthings to show off. So rare are opportunities, and always the artist for recognition craves. Eh? Is it not so?”

“I’m coming too,” said Perrywell. “It’s a long time since I was on board a Shark.”

Here, in this strange world, England and Germany were not at war.

“Always I am pleased to show you. Companion Perrywell,” the German replied, “although I know the subject to be beyond your understanding quite.”

He winked at me with heavy Teutonic humour, then led the way down a stair at the back of his office, I found myself on an iron platform which projected out to the open conning-tower of one of those odd craft which I had sighted on the surface of the lake. From the moment that I climbed down the ladder to the interior I plunged into the heart of a dream; for what I saw and what I heard did not seem sanely to add up. I had expected heavy petrol fumes, but of such there was no trace.

“But of course not!” said Dr. Heron. “Why, if you please? Because we use no petrol.”

“Then what is the motive power?”

“Ah!” he sighed, and shook his head. “A lot I may brag, Mr. Kerrigan, a national characteristic this may be; but always we come back to the genius of Sven Ericksen. Power is generated in the Ericksen room, which takes the place of the engine room in any other submersible craft. I will show you and shall also explain, for at least the credit to me is for this adaptation to under-water vessels.”

We went along a tiny alley-way—there was no more than room for Perrywell to pass—and into a room which certainly could not have accommodated more than two men. There were fixed revolving chairs or stools before a glittering switchboard, upon which were levers, dials, lamps and indicators of a more complicated character than anything I had ever seen.

“A protective headdress is worn,” Dr. Heron explained, “by the Ericksen operators; otherwise exposure to the waves created would shorten life speedily. Now, here is the main control. If I am ordered by the officer in the turret to proceed, this lever I depress. It creates before the bows of my ship a new chemical condition.”

“Call it steam,” suggested Perrywell.

“Very well. Instantaneously it reduces a large number of cubic feet of water to vapour.”

“I should expect a tremendous explosion,” I said.

“You get one—you get one!” said Dr. Heron. “But what do I do with this tremendous explosion! I use it as the tremendous explosion is used in the Diesel engine. Through the Heron tube”—he turned to Perrywell: “these at least, my own invention are—I transfer that power from the bows to the stern. Here it becomes motive, and because as it is created I withdraw it, what happens?”

I shook my head blankly.

“I have before me a continuously renewing partial vacuum. I have behind me a driving power that even without the vacuum would give me great velocity. By means of these two together I have an underwater speed, Mr. Kerrigan, which no submarine engineer has ever to dream of dared.”

I suppose I bore a puzzled expression, for:

“Sounds like mumbo-jumbo,” said Perrywell. “But of this I can assure you—these things really
go.”

“But what power do you use to empty your tanks?”

“Ballast tank? No ballast tanks I carry.”

“No ballast tanks?”

“I am weighted so that I sink like a thousand tons of lead. I sink deep, deep, many fathoms deep. But three Swainsten dials, one forward, one amidships, one aft, I operate from Here—see.” He indicated-sections of the switchboard which seemed to be insulated from the others.

“This, forward, to lift my bows—gently or suddenly as I move the indicator. This, aft, my stern the same. This, the centre control, and I rise up, up, on an even keel.”

“Where are the torpedo tubes?”

Perrywell laughed gruffly.

“The Doctor’s ships come out of Alice in Wonderland,” he said; “they carry no torpedoes.”

“No torpedoes? Then of what use are they in war?”

Again the German shook his head anxiously.

“Again, it is Ericksen. I have no periscope, but I have a complete view of the sea for miles around which reaches me from a float or several floats and is thrown upon the control screen in the conning tower. It is possible that the Doctor has shown you the improved television which we have?”

“He has not demonstrated it to me,” I replied, “but some time ago in London I came in contact with it.”

“Good, good—the same thing, or an adaptation of my own. These floats or buoys, of which I shall presently show you several models, are operated from the firing-turret. They remain in contact by means of a cable operating over a drum of a material so light and yet so strong—a preparation of the Doctor’s—that half a mile of such cable weighs only twelve pounds; yet the float can be towed back upon it.”

“But what are the objects of these floats?”

“They are motor-driven and radio-steered. Each carries an Ericksen projector.”

“Ericksen again,” murmured Perrywell.

“True—too true. The range of such a projector is limited. Some day, no doubt, it will be increased: the Doctor is carrying out experiments; but at present it is limited. When the float is in range of its target, the operator—we carry no gunnery officers—directs the wave—”

He paused, drew a deep breath, and extended his palms. “There is no substance, Mr. Kerrigan, no form of armour plating, however thick, which is not destroyed by it as if through a paper bag one push one’s finger. From here, our base, we control every movement the United States could make. A fleet of one hundred Sharks—we have more than one hundred—could destroy the whole shipping of the Caribbean in a week.”

“What is your speed?” I asked.

“It increases as I dive. At twenty fathoms it is forty knots.”

“What!”

“On the surface as you see me now, it is only fifteen. But I have no occasion on the surface to remain. My motive power, my armament, I draw from the elements through which I pass. I require only material provisions for my crew; and I carry six.”

“
A
lthough you belong to a wiser and more imaginative race,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “as I have already observed you are curiously English in your outlook. The German hordes overrun Europe. But other governments of the world, including the Government of the United States, continue to treat with them as with equals. I use the methods of those German hordes, but more subtly and more effectively. Quality rather than quantity distinguished the master. Yet, because I hold no diplomatic portfolio, I, Fu-Manchu, am a criminal.”

He drew himself up to his great height, a grotesque figure in that prosaic office deep in the heart of an extinct volcano. I anticipated an outburst. But as he stood, those glistening eyes grew filmed, introspective. He dropped down again into the chair from which he had risen, and reflectively took a pinch of snuff.

“Yes, you possess a good, but not a first-rate intelligence,” he went on, musingly, his voice now low. ‘You have trained powers of observation. You possess that Celtic fire which, transmuted, sometimes produces genius. You are a man who honours his word; I recognize one when I meet him, since I honour my own. I could take other steps, but I trust my judgement. The world is in the balance. I hold in my hand that decimal of a gramme which shall determine which way the scale tips. I am going to send you as my nuncio to Sir Denis Nayland Smith and the American authorities. Neither he nor Washington has communicated with me.”

Only one thought entered my mind at that moment: Smith has escaped—Smith was free! Thank God for this knowledge! Smith was free!

“You will say that my services are at the disposal of the Allied governments and of the Government of the United States. You will tell him what you know of my facilities; and you will make it your business to bring him back with you entrusted by his own Government, by that of the United States, or by both, with plenipotentiary powers to negotiate—not with a criminal, but with one who holds the destiny of the world in his hands. I have said that I am prepared to accept your word; but Sir Denis, being bound by no such obligation, might forcibly detain you. Therefore, I shall take steps to limit the time of your absence. You will have seventy-two hours in which to return. It is a painless operation: I shall operate personally. You may decline this commission if you wish. It is now six o’clock. I give you one hour. Report to me here at seven.”

Faced by this ghastly prospect, every hissing syllable of Fu-Manchu’s ultimatum repeating itself over and over again in my brain, I wandered along the busy quays of that subterranean dockyard. No one paid the slightest attention to my presence. I walked straight ahead—aimlessly—hopelessly—thinking. For me it was the end: I should never see Ardatha again; for that Nayland Smith should compromise with Dr. Fu-Manchu was a thing unthinkable. Yet, whatever became of me, heaven be thanked. Smith was free! The fight went on!