II
The next two hours passed swiftly. Once the decision was made, weall became so involved in the details of preparation as to have no moretime for reflection, either upon the nature of what we should find onthe island of Yat, or the possible personal consequences of ourexpedition.
First Stimson briefed us on the geography of our objective. Yat was avolcanic island, one of a group strung across the shallow sea east ofBorneo and north of Celebese. It was almost circular, with a diameter ofabout seven miles, and was entirely covered by a dense tropical forest.The principal feature of the island was an extinct volcanic crater,rising to an altitude of 2,000 feet, at the east end of the island. Thecrater measured about two miles across, and perhaps a third of its areawas filled with water from a narrow channel leading to the sea. Photostaken before the closure of Yat by the Indonesians showed a typicalMalay isle: cocoanut and mango plantations, with forests of gum andmahogany climbing and filling most of the crater. The entrance channelwas narrow and quite deep and the interior lake constituted an ideallysheltered anchorage. On the east coast the land rose steeply in a seriesof mossy cliffs over which waterfalls poured, while to the west, awayfrom the volcano, plantations stretched inland from the coral beaches.
As we studied the pictures and charts, Stimson briefed us on the courseof action.
"Your first objective is to find out what they're doing in that crater.Are they building some new weapon, or training an army, or what. You'llhave Geiger counters and a krypton analyser of course, although theanalyser is no guarantee in detecting fissionable material production.Then we want to know what their plans are, particularly in the next fewdays or weeks. Finally, just who is involved in it? Is New Buddhismentirely Asiatic, as they claim, or has Russia cut herself in too?"
"You will be landed on the west coast of the island just after sunset.The east, with its cliff and entrance channel is undoubtedly too wellguarded, but on the west side, with four miles of flat country, they maydepend on defense in depth, so that you'll have a better chance ofgetting past the beach. The plane will come in low, make a landing justoff the breakers and drop you off in rubber swim suits. It will thentaxi to the north of the island and make a fairly long stop, to divertattention, since it will certainly be picked up by radar. Your job willbe to swim ashore, bury the rubber suits, and make your way east to thecrater. If you reach the rim, see what you can, and report by radio atany hour. If you don't make it to the top, observe as much as possibleon the island, make your reports, and rendezvous with the plane at yourlanding point at 2400 the next day. If you miss that time, a plane willbe back daily at the same time for four days. After that, we will assumethat you have been caught."
We were driven to the harbor in the same disreputable taxicab which hadbrought us to the consulate a few hours before. Time was a little pastthree in the afternoon as the seaplane roared down a lane in the swarmof junks, tramp freighters and warships of the Indonesian state. Wehoped that we were not too well observed; there was no way of knowinguntil we arrived on Yat, and the learning might not be too pleasant.
The flight northeast from New Macassar was uneventful. We passed over ablue tropical sea, dotted with island jewels. For a time the low coastof the great island of Celebes made a blue haze on the eastern horizon,and then we had the ocean to ourselves. At dusk there were still twohundred miles between us and Yat, a flight of about forty minutes.Pulling down the shades, lest the cabin lights reveal us to a chanceIndonesian patrol, we busied ourselves with packing the portable radioequipment and putting on our watertight clothing.
The last fifty miles were made on the deck--in fact, once or twice thehull actually touched a wave-top. The pilot extinguished the cabinlights and we peered ahead for a first glimpse of our objective. The skywas clear, but the moon would not rise until nine, so that the onlyindication we had that Yat was at hand was a slight deepening in thetropic night ahead and to the right, which the pilot said marked MountKosan, the ancient crater. But no sooner had we gotten this vaguelyorienting information, than the flaps were lowered, the plane slowed tounder 100 miles per hour, and we touched the water. The co-pilot openedthe side door, and we crouched together peering out. The plane taxiedover a choppy cross sea toward the shadow of the island, while wesquinted through the salt spray. Presently the engines dropped to idle,and the rumble of surf became audible.
"Practically dead calm tonight," said the co-pilot reassuringly. "Windusually dies out at sunset. You won't have any trouble getting through.Just watch your step when you're ashore."
"That's always good advice for sailors," remarked Baker.
As the plane lost headway, the white line of surf and the silhouettes ofcocoa palms took shape. Evidently the plantations came right to thewater's edge at this point, a circumstance for which we were allthankful. I was just turning to Martin with some remark about this whenthe pilot called softly and urgently. "We're as close as we can driftsafely. Jump, and good luck."
"Righto, and thanks," came Baker's voice, and then a splash. I was next.I took a deep breath, and clutched my rubber covered bundle of radiogear. I leaped out into darkness. An instant later I was gasping for airbeside Baker. Two more splashes in quick succession and then the enginespicked up speed, the dark shape of the wing overhead moved off, and wewere alone.
* * * * *
For a moment we swam in circles, getting our bearings. Baker hadremoved his glasses for the jump, and so we depended mainly on Martinfor directions. There was really no need for worry, however, for it soonbecame apparent that a strong onshore current was bringing us in to thebreakers at a good clip. The line of phosphorescence marking theircrests was now hardly a hundred yards away.
With Martin in the lead we began to swim. Presently one of the swellspicked us up quite gently, moved us forward, and then suddenly explodedinto a foamy torrent which tossed us head over heels and left us gaspingand spitting sand on the beach.
As quickly as possible we got into the shelter of the first ranks oftrees. Here we dug a hole at the base of a great cocoanut palm andburied the rubber suits and cases of radio gear, along with a small vialof radium D. This had been provided for us, along with the Geigercounter, by the thorough Mr. Stimson as a means for locating our cachewhen we returned, if we should miss our bearings.
It was 7:45 when this chore was completed. We had an hour andtwenty-three minutes to moonrise.
Turning inland, we walked in silence through the grove for a few hundredyards, and then came upon a road. This we recognized, from our mapstudy, as the main coastal highway. We hurried across, rather elated atthe progress we were making and a little surprised at the lack of fencesor other protective devices on the island. Things seemed just too easy.
On the other side of the road we encountered a rice paddy, which madethe going a good deal more difficult. But after about ten minutes ofsloshing through this, we came to a diagonal road, or rather path whichseemed to be going our way. Thanks to this, by 8:45 we felt the groundrising underfoot and sensed a darker bulk in the shadows ahead, whichcould only be Mount Kosan itself. Here we came to our first fence, anaffair of steel posts and barbed wire, which appeared to be a guardagainst cattle, but hardly more. After inspecting one of the posts forsigns of electrification, we crawled under the bottom wire and startedup the slope.
"Are you sure we're on the right island?" asked Chamberlin. "From thesecurity measures I don't think we're going to find anything more secretthan a copra plantation."
Baker shushed him, and whispered back, "We're on the right island, butthat's the only thing that's right. This is simply too easy to be true."
"Well," said Martin, "Stimson could be all wet. Maybe they're justsculping a king sized Buddha after all."
The slope had now steepened considerably, and further conversation diedout in the effort of climbing. The volcano was heavily forested all theway up with mahogany and gum trees, and a dense undergrowth of vines andferns entangled our feet. Twice we came upon rapidly flowing str
eams.
We were perhaps two thirds of the way up when the moon appeared. Itslight didn't penetrate very far into the dense foliage, but it didenable us to make out the top of the mountain, which took the form of avine covered outcrop of lava. We altered our course slightly, and at9:50 P.M. the forest fell away and we faced a rough wall of rock sometwo hundred feet in height.
Before tackling this last obstacle, we paused for a rest and some hotcoffee from the thermos which was included in our equipment. Then, atfive minutes past ten, we started the final ascent.
The cliff proved to be more of a climb than we had anticipated, and thetime was close to eleven before we pulled ourselves up over the lastboulder and could look across the crater to the other rim.
The last few feet we negotiated with the greatest caution. Martin, Ithink, was first, and he pulled himself on his belly across to thebeginning of the inner slope. He lay quietly for a half minute, thenmuttered something under his breath which sounded vaguely like "I'll bedamned", and made way for Baker, who was next. I squeezed in beside him,and so we got a look into the crater at the same time. Baker, being avery self-contained man, made no audible comment, but I must have, forthe sight which met our eyes was certainly the last thing I had expectedto see.
The crater of Mount Kosan was filled with steel and concrete structuresof gargantuan size, and of the most amazing shapes I had ever seen. Isay amazing, but I do not mean in the sense of unfamiliar, on thecontrary these incredible objects had the commonest shapes. Had it notbeen for trees and normal buildings to give the scene a scale, I wouldhave sworn that we were looking into a picnic grounds a hundred feetacross instead of a two mile diameter plain ringed by mountains 2,000feet high. The buildings seen in the aerial photo occupied only a smallpart of the crater--all of the other structures must have been concealedby clouds.
* * * * *
Directly below our perch the rim dropped vertically into deepshadows, as the moonlight reached but half the crater. A thousand yardswest of us, where the light first touched the floor, we could make outseveral clumps of brush or small trees, among which was set arectangular concrete surface measuring perhaps four hundred feet square,and resting on hundred foot steel columns. Near this, and partlysupported by the side of the mountain was what appeared to be a greattable, of roughly the same area, but standing on trussed columns theheight of a thirty story building. In front of this was a chair, if bychair you understand me to mean a boxlike building twenty stories high,with a braced back rising as far again. A half mile along the rim was aneven larger structure whose dimensions could only be measured infractions of miles, which resembled nothing more than a vast shed builtagainst the cliff.
Next my attention was attracted to a number of objects lying upon theplatform immediately west of us. One of these appeared to be a steelbowl-like container some thirty feet deep and a hundred in diameter,like the storage tanks used in oil fields. Nearby was an open tankmeasuring perhaps fifty feet in each dimension, and beside this were themost startling of all--several hundred foot pieces of built-upstructural steel resembling knife, fork and spoon.
In retrospect, the deduction from this evidence was obvious, but as westared down at this spectacle, a sort of numbness took hold of ourminds. As a later comparison of impressions verified, none of us cameremotely near guessing the truth in those incredible seconds. For whatseemed like minutes we just stared, and then the spell was broken. Walthad squeezed in beside me, where he gave vent to a low whistle ofamazement. Baker shushed him, and then shifted to a better position, inso doing knocking a rock from the ledge. This started a small avalanchewhich went clattering down the cliff with a sound, to our hypersensitiveears, like thunder. We all froze in our places, abruptly aware that themoon illuminated us like actors in a spotlight. For a good minute wewaited tense, and then gradually relaxed. Baker started to say somethingwhen without warning the ground beneath us shook, starting a score ofrockslides. We recoiled from the edge and braced for a strongerearthquake shock. Then suddenly Baker uttered a hoarse cry. He waspointing--pointing down into the blackness at our feet where our eyeshad as yet been unable to penetrate. Something was there, something vastand dim and shapeless like a half inflated airship. Then a part of itwas detached and came up almost to our level. It moved too rapidly forany detail to be seen--our only impression was of a vast white columnlarge as the Washington monument which swung up into the moonlight andthen was withdrawn. At the same time the ground quivered anew, startingfresh slides.
We blinked stupidly for several seconds, and then became conscious forthe first time of the sound. It was like a vast cavernous wheeze atfirst, and then a series of distinct wet thuds followed by a prolongedgurgling rumble. If these descriptive phrases sound strange and awkward,let me give assurance that they are as nothing to the eerie quality ofthe noises themselves. We lay glued to our rocky perch, hardly daring tobreathe, until the last windy sigh had died away.
Baker found his voice first. "Good God, it's something alive!"
Chamberlin tried to reason. "It can't be--why, it's two hundred feethigh--it's just a gas bag, like Stimson said. It's--"
He stopped. The thing had moved again, more rapidly and with purpose.The great column rose, then pressed down into the ground and pushed themain bulk up out of the shadows. There was a moment of confusion whileour senses tried to grasp shape and scale at the same time, and then itall came into focus as the thing arose into the light. At one instant wewere sane humans, trying to make out a great billowy form wallowing inthe darkness below. In the next instant we were madmen, staring into ahuman face a hundred feet wide, that peered back at us from the level ofthe cliff top! For a second we were all still--we four, and that titanicplacid oriental face hanging before us in the moonlight. Then the greateyes blinked sleepily and the thing started to move toward us.
I cannot recall in detail what happened. I remember someone screamed, ananimal cry of pure terror. It may have been me, although Baker claims tobe the guilty one. In any case the four of us arose as one and plungedheadfirst off our rock into the tangle of brush at the top of the cliff.I think that only the vines saved us from certain death in that firstmad instant. I know that we were wrestling with them for what seemedlike an eternity. They wrapped around my legs, tangled in my arms. Theywere like clutching hands, holding me back in a nightmare-like struggle,while the thing in the crater came closer. Then abruptly I realized thatthey _were_ hands, human hands seizing us, pulling us back from thecliff and then skillfully tieing us up.
It was all over in a moment. The madness was ended. We were once morerational humans, tied hand and foot, and propped against the rocky ledgein front of a dozen yellow-robed men. For a time we just breathedheavily--ourselves and our brown skinned captors alike. Then one of thelatter spoke.
"You can stand now, yes?"
Baker struggled to his feet in reply. The rest of us did likewise, aidednot unkindly, by the yellow-robed men. Baker found his voice.
"Thank you," he said. In the brightening moonlight we looked morecarefully at our captors. They were of small stature, evidentlyJapanese, and, by their costume, all priests.
Baker laughed briefly and glanced at the rest of us. "It would appear,"he said dryly, "that we have been taken."