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ERB'S EMBRYONIC JOURNEY:
THE TRIMESTERS OF CASPAK

INTRO AND CONTENTS PAGE
Part Nineteen
by
Woodrow Edgar Nichols, Jr.
(Dedicated to George McWhorter)

OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS
(Chapter 1 concluded)

We left our expedition around a campfire trying to find some joy in song after witnessing one of the most terrifying sights they had ever seen. Some thought it was a banshee, some what looked like a human being with wings, and most some kind of flying zombie. We pick them up a few minutes later:

“A huge fire blazed in the opening of their rocky shelter that the prowling carnivora might be kept as bay; and always one man stood on guard, watchfully alert against a sudden rush by some maddened beast of the jungle. Beyond the fire, yellow-green spots of flame appeared, moved restlessly about, disappeared and reappeared, accompanied by a hideous chorus of screams and growls and roars as the hungry meat-eaters hunting through the night were attracted by the light or the scent of possible prey.
“But such sights and sounds as these the five men had become callous. They sang or talked as unconcernedly as they might have done in the barroom of some publichouse at home.
“Sinclair was standing guard. The others were listening to Brady’s description of traffic congestion at the Rush Street bridge during the rush hour at night. The fire crackled cheerily. The owners of the yellow-green eyes raised their frightful chorus to the heavens. Conditions seemed again to have returned to normal. And then, as though the hand of Death had reached out and touched them all, the five men tensed into sudden rigidity.” (OTA/1.)

I emailed R.E. Prindle about South Clark Street, which was mentioned in the last installment. He told me it was the center of crime and prostitution and that the brothel that was the model for The Girl from Farriss’s was located in that area, actually fronting South Clark Street. The original was called Harris’s. According to Prindle, “South Clark Street was the heart of the Levee, the crime and prostitution capitol in Chicago if not history itself.” (Id.) As for the joke, Prindle suggests, “The joke would be that Caspak was more violent than the Levee and hence no place for an Irishman of which breed the Levee was populated. ERB disliked the Irish with some intensity.” (Id.) Prindle makes this case in his series of articles on ERB which are always so intriguing. They can be perused at ERBzine.com. He theorizes that ERB was tormented as a young lad by an Irish bully named John, who Prindle states with some authority was a seminal force in the development of ERB’s personality.

If you have read any of my articles on the Barsoomian Mythos, you will know that I also theorized about ERB having extra-marital affairs with women during this period and likely in this area, who may have been the models, inter alios, for Thuvia, Maid of Mars, or La of Opar.

The male imagination can run wild.

I googled Rush Street Bridge and learned that it was a swing bridge as well as the busiest bridge in the world, leading customers into and out the Levee. According to the maps, Rush Street was four streets east of Clark Street. Wikipedia states that the Levee consisted of twenty square blocks in which there were 500 saloons, 500 brothels, 56 pool rooms, 15 gambling halls, and countless peep shows, cocaine parlors, and bawdy theaters, at one time overseen by the notorious saloon keeper, Mike “Hinky Dink” Kenna.

The district was effectively closed down by reformers in 1912, the year that A Princess of Mars and Tarzan were first published. In the years to come, the Levee would be the influence of many of ERB’s works. A perfect environment for the King of Pulp Fiction. 

We must assume that Brady led a colorful life, however, it is never explained how an Englishman got a job with the Chicago Police traffic squad before ending up on an English tug boat. As we shall soon see, he began to tell a story about a murder in Brighton before Bradley cut him off, so likely he had been a policeman in England at one time and perhaps the war drew him to work as a crew member of the tug boat. Oh, well, we will never know for sure. Now, back to the story:

“Above the nocturnal diapason of the teeming jungle sounded a dismal flapping of wings and over head, through the thick night, a shadowy form passed across the diffused light of the flaring camp-fire. Sinclair raised his rifle and fired. An eerie wail floated down from above and the apparition, whatever it might have been, was swallowed by the darkness. For several seconds the listening men heard the sound of those dismally flapping wings lessening in the distance until they could no longer be heard.
“Bradley was the first to speak. ‘Shouldn’t have fired, Sinclair,’ he said; ‘can’t waste ammunition.’ But there was no note of censure in his tone. It was as though he understood the nervous reaction that had compelled the other’s act.
“‘I couldn’t help it, sir,’ said Sinclair. ‘Lord, it would take an iron man to keep from shootin’ at that awful thing. Do you believe in ghosts, sir?’
“‘No,’ replied Bradley. ‘No such things.’
“‘I don’t know about that,’ said Brady. ‘There was a woman murdered over on the prairie near Brighton – her throat was cut from ear to ear, and –’ 
“‘Shut up,’ snapped Bradley.
“‘My gran’daddy used to live down Coppington wy,’ said Tippet. ‘They were a hold ruined castle on a ‘ill near by, hand at midnight they used to see pale blue lights through the windows and ‘ear –’ “‘Will you close your hatch!’ demanded Bradley. ‘You fools will have yourselves scared to death in a minute. Now go to sleep.’
“But there was little sleep in the camp that night until utter exhaustion overtook the harrassed men toward morning; nor was there any return of the weird creature that had set the nerves of each of them on edge.” (OTA/1.)

Isn’t that just like human nature, telling ghost and scary stories around the fire? But like in most horror movies, they are often told as a prelude to something very horrifying to come. Bradley knew best, keeping his men his calm. After all he didn’t want them to waste ammunition.

“The following forenoon the party reached the base of the barrier cliffs and for two days marched northward in an effort to discover a break in the frowning abutment that raised its rocky face almost perpendicularly above them, yet nowhere was there the slightest indication that the cliffs were scalable. 
“Disheartened, Bradley determined to turn back toward the fort, as he already had exceeded the time decided upon by Bowen Tyler and himself for the expediton. The cliffs for many miles had been trending in a northeasterly direction, indicating to Bradley that they were approaching the northern extremity of the island. According to the best of his calculations they had made sufficient easting during the past two days to have brought them to a point almost directly north of Fort Dinosaur and as nothing could be gained by retracing their steps along the base of the cliffs he decided to strike due south through the unexplored country between them and and the fort.
“That night (September 9, 1916), they made camp a short distance from the cliffs beside one of the numerous cool springs that are to be found within Caspak, oftentimes close beside the still more numerous warm and hot springs which feed the many pools. After supper the men lay smoking and chatting among themselves. Tippet was on guard. Fewer night prowlers threatened them, and the men were commenting upon the fact that the farther north they had traveled the smaller the number of all species of animal life became, though it was still present in what would have seemed appalling plentitude in any other part of the world. The diminution in reptilian life was the most noticeable change in the fauna of northern Caspak. Here, however, were forms they had not met elsewhere several of which were of gigantic proportions.
“According to their custom all, with the exception of the man of guard, sought sleep early, nor, once disposed upon the ground for slumber, were they long in finding it. It seemed to Bradley that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was brought to his feet, wide awake, by a piercing scream which was punctuated by the sharp report of a rifle from the direction of the fire where Tippet stood guard. As he ran toward the man, Bradley heard above him the same uncanny wail that had set every nerve on edge several nights before, and the dismal flapping of huge wings. He did not need to look up at the white-shrouded figure winging slowly away into the night to know that their grim visitor had returned.
“The muscles of his arm, reacting to the sight and sound of the menacing form, carried his hand to the butt of his pistol; but after he had drawn the weapon, he immediately returned it to its holster with a shrug.
“‘What for?’ he muttered. ‘Can’t waste ammunition.’ Then he walked quickly to where Tippet lay sprawled upon his face. By this time James, Brady and Sinclair were at his heels, each with his rifle in readiness.
“‘Is he dead, sir?’ whispered James as Bradley kneeled beside the prostrate form.
“Bradley turned Tippet over on his back and pressed an ear close to the other’s heart. In a moment he raised his head. ‘Fainted,’ he announced. ‘Get water. Hurry!’ Then he loosened Tippet’s shirt at the throat and when the water was brought, threw a cupful in the man’s face. Slowly Tippet regained consciousness and sat up. At first he looked curiously into the faces of the men about him; then an expression of terror overspread his features. He shot a startled glance up into the black void above and then burying his face in his arms began to sob like a child.
“‘What’s wrong, man?’ demanded Bradley. ‘Buck up! Can’t play crybaby. Waste of energy. What happened?’
“‘Wot ‘appened, sir!’ wailed Tippet. ‘Oh, Gord, sir! Hit came back. Hit came for me, sir. Right hit did, sir; strite hat me, sir; hand with long w’ite hands it clawed for me. Oh, Gord! Hit almost caught me, sir. Hi’m has good as dead; Hi’m a marked man; that wot Hi ham. Hit was a-goin’ for to carry me horf, sir.”
“‘Stuff and nonsense,’ snapped Bradley. ‘Did you get a good look at it?’
“Tippet said that he did – a much better look than he wanted. The thing had almost clutched him, and he had looked straight into its eyes – ‘dead heyes in a dead face,’ he had described them.
“‘Wot was it after bein’, do you think?’ inquired Brady.
“‘Hit was Death,’ moaned Tippet, shuddering, and again a pall of gloom fell upon the little party.” (OTA/1.)

I remember reading Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series when I was on my reading binge last year and he always had a good time with the superstitions of sailors, of which ERB deals with in such a humorous way. Once a sailor gets the feeling that he’s a gonner, it’s almost impossible to convince him otherwise. In this case, Tippet has a good foretaste of his death, but it won’t be at the hands of the Wieroos.

“The following day Tippet walked as one in a trance. He never spoke except in reply to a direct question, which more often than not had to be repeated before it could attract his attention. He insisted that he was already a dead man, for if the thing didn’t come for him during the day he would never live through another night of agonized apprehension, waiting for the frightful end that he was positive was in store for him. ‘I’ll see to that,’ he said, and they all knew that Tippet meant to take his own life before darkness set in.
“Bradley tried to reason with him, in his short, crisp way, but soon saw the futility of it; nor could he take the man’s weapons from him without subjecting him to almost certain death from any of the numberless dangers that beset their way.
“The entire party was moody and glum. There was none of the bantering that had marked their intercourse before, even in the face of blighting hardships and hideous danger. This was a new menace that threatened them, something that they couldn’t explain; and so, naturally, it aroused within them superstitious fear which Tippet’s attitude only tended to augment. To add further to their gloom, their way led through a dense forest, where, on account of the underbrush, it was difficult to make even a mile an hour. Constant watchfulness was required to avoid the many snakes of various degrees of repulsiveness and enormity that infested the wood; and the only ray of hope they had to cling to was that the forest would, like the majority of Caspakian forests, prove to be of no considerable extent.
“Bradley was in the lead when he came suddenly upon a grotesque creature of Titanic proportions. Crouching among the trees, which here commenced to thin out slightly, Bradley saw what appeared to be an enormous dragon devouring the carcass of a mammoth. From the frightful jaws to the tip of its long tail it was fully forty feet in length. Its body was covered with plates of thick skin which bore a striking resemblance to armor-plate. The creature saw Bradley almost at the same instant that he saw it and reared up on its enormous hind legs until its head towered a full twenty-five feet above the ground. From the cavernous jaws issued a hissing sound of volume equal to the escaping steam from the safety-valves of half a dozen locomotives, and then the creature came for the man.
“‘Scatter!’ shouted Bradley to those behind him; and all but Tippet heeded the warning. The man stood as though dazed, and when Bradley saw the other’s danger, he too stopped and wheeling about sent a bullet into the massive body forcing its way through the trees toward him. The shot struck the creature in the belly where there was no protecting armor, eliciting a new note which rose in a shrill whistle and ended in a wail. It was then that Tippet appeared to come out of his trance, for with a cry of terror he turned and fled to the left. Bradley, seeing that he had as good an opportunity as the others to escape, now turned his attention to extricating himself; and as the woods seemed dense on the right, he ran in that direction, hoping that the close-set boles would prevent pursuit on the part of the great reptile. The dragon paid no further attention to him, however, for Tippet’s sudden break for liberty had attracted its attention; and after Tippet it went, bowling over small trees, uprooting underbrush and leaving a wake behind it like that of a small tornado.
“Bradley, the moment he had discovered the thing was pursuing Tippet, had followed it. He was afraid to fire for fear of hitting the man, and so it was that he came upon them at the very moment that the monster lunged its great weight forward upon the doomed man. The sharp, three-toed talons of the forelimbs seized poor Tippet, and Bradley saw the unfortunate fellow lifted high above the ground as the creature again reared up on its hind legs, immediately transferring Tippet’s body to its gaping jaws, which closed with sickening, crunching sound as Tippet’s bones cracked beneath the great teeth.
“Bradley half raised his rifle to fire again and then lowered it with a shake of his head. Tippet was beyond succor – why waste a bullet that Caspak would never replace? If he could now escape the further notice of the monster it would be a wiser act than to throw his life away in futile revenge. He saw that the reptile was not looking in his direction, and so he slipped noiselessly behind the bole of a large tree and thence quietly faded away in the direction he believed the others to have taken. At what he considered a safe distance he halted and looked back. Half hidden by the intervening trees he still could see the huge head and the massive jaws from which protruded the limp legs of the dead man. Then, as though struck by the hammer of Thor, the creature collapsed and crumpled to the ground. Bradley’s single bullet, penetrating the body through the soft skin of the belly, had slain the Titan.” (OTA/1.)

This is why I have called Bradley’s point of view the “Educated” one. He seems to understand Caspak intuitively and thus makes an excellent leader in this hostile land. I said before that ERB gruesomely described Tippet’s death. Wasn’t I right? And this was decades before Jurassic Park.

“A few minutes later, Bradley found the others of the party. The four returned cautiously to the spot where the creature lay and after convincing themselves that it was quite dead, came close to it. It was an arduous and gruesome job extricating Tippet’s mangled remains from the powerful jaws, the men working for the most part silently.
“‘It was the work of the banshees all right,’ muttered Brady. ‘It warned poor Tippet, it did.’
“‘Hit killed him, that’s wot hit did, hand hit’ll kill some more of us,’ said James, his lower lip trembling.
“‘If it was a ghost,’ interjected Sinclair, ‘and I don’t say as it was; but if it was, why, it could take on any form it wanted to. It might have turned itself into this thing, which ain’t no natural thing at all, just to get poor Tippet. It if had been a lion or something else humanlike it wouldn’t look so strange; but this here thing ain’t humanlike. There ain’t no such thing an’ never was.”
“‘Bullets don’t kill ghosts,’ said Bradley, ‘so this couldn’t have been a ghost. Furthermore, there are no such things. I’ve been trying to place this creature. Just succeeded. It’s a tyrannosaurus. Saw picture of skeleton in magazine. There’s one in New York Natural History Museum. Seems to me it said it was found in place called Hell Creek somewhere in western North America. Supposed to have lived about six million years ago.’
“‘Hell Creek’s in Montana,’ said Sinclair. ‘I used to punch cows in Wyoming, an’ I’ve heard of Hell Creek. Do you s’pose that there thing’s six million years old?’ His tone was skeptical.
“‘No,’ replied Bradley; ‘but it would indicate that the island of Caprona has stood almost without change for more than six million years.’
“The conversation and Bradley’s assurance that the creature was not of supernatural origin helped to raise a trifle the spirits of the men; and then came another diversion in the form of ravenous meat-eaters attracted to the spot by the uncanny sense of smell which had apprised them of the presence of flesh, killed and ready for the eating.
“It was a constant battle while they dug a grave and consigned all that was mortal of John Tippet to his last, lonely resting-place. Nor would they leave then; but remained to fashion a rude headstone from a crumbling out-cropping of sandstone and to gather a mass of the gorgeous flowers growing in such great profusion around them and heap the new-made grave with bright blooms. Upon the headstone Sinclair scratched in rude characters the words: HERE LIES JOHN TIPPET
ENGLISHMAN
KILLED BY TYRANNOSAURUS
10 SEPT. A.D. 1916
R.I.P and Bradley repeated a short prayer before they left their comrade forever.” (OTA/1.)

Wouldn’t you know it, another British tug boat crew member who had a history of working in America, this time as a cowpuncher, like Billings, nevertheless. Who would have thunk it?

“For three days the party marched due south through forests and meadowland and great parklike areas where countless herbivorous animals grazed – deer and antelope and bos and the little ecca, the smallest species of Caspakian horse, about the size of a rabbit. There were other horses too; but all were small, the largest being not above eight hands in height. Preying continually upon the herbivora were the meat-eaters, large and small – wolves, hyaenadons, panthers, lions, tigers, and bear as well as several large and ferocious species of reptilian life.
“On September twelfth the party scaled a line of sandstone cliffs which crossed their route toward the south; but they crossed them only after an encounter with the tribe that inhabited the numerous caves which pitted the face of the escarpment. That night they camped upon a rocky plateau which was sparsely wooded with jarrah, and here once again they were visited by the weird, nocturnal apparition that had already filled them with a nameless terror.
“As on the night of September ninth the first warning came from the sentinel standing guard over his sleeping companions. A terror-stricken cry punctuated by the crack of a rifle brought Bradley, Sinclair and Brady to their feet in time to see James, which clubbed rifle, battling with a white-robed figure that hovered on widespread wings on a level with the Englishman’s head. As they ran, shouting, forward, it was obvious to them that the weird and terrible apparation was attempting to seize James; but when it saw the others coming to his rescue, it desisted, flapping rapidly upward and away, its long, ragged wings giving forth the peculiarly dismal notes which always characterized the sound of its flying.
“Bradley fired at the vanishing menacer of their peace and safety; but whether he scored a hit or not, none could tell, though, following the shot, there was wafted back to them the same piercing wail that had on other occasions frozen their marrow.
“Then they turned toward James, who lay face downward upon the ground, trembling as with ague. For a time he could not even speak, but at last he regained sufficient composure to tell them how the thing must have swooped silently upon him from above and behind as the first premonition of danger he had received was when the long, clawlike fingers had clutched him beneath either arm. In the melee his rifle had been discharged and he had broken away at the same instant and turned to defend himself with the butt. The rest they had seen.
“From that instant James was an absolutely broken man. He maintained with shaking lips that his doom was sealed, that the thing had marked him for its own, and that he was as good as dead, nor could any amount of argument or raillery convince him to the contrary. He had seen Tippet marked and claimed, and now he had been marked. Nor were his constant reiterations of this belief without effect upon the rest of the party. Even Bradley felt depressed, though for the sake of the others he managed to hide it beneath a show of confidence he was far from feeling.
“And on the following day William James was killed by a saber-tooth tiger – September 13, 1916. Beneath a jarrah tree on the stony plateau on the northern edge of the Sto-lu country in the land that Time forgot, he lies in a lonely grave marked by rough headstone.” (OTA/1.)

I have no idea of whether it was just a coincidence or planned irony that ERB chose the name “William James” for this victim of superstition. William James, the brother of the author Henry James, was a famous American psychologist at the turn of the Twentieth Century when the profession was still young. His 1901-1902 Gifford Lectures, given at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, were later published in 1902 as The Varieties of Religious Experience, a classic in the field, and a darn good read even nowadays. It deals with the effects, inter alia, of superstition upon the human psyche. Now that I think about it, I don’t believe it was a coincidence at all.

“Southward from his grave marched three grim and silent men. To the best of Bradley’s reckoning they were some twenty-five miles north of Fort Dinosaur, and that they might reach the fort on the following day, they plodded on until darkness overtook them. With comparative safety fifteen miles away, they made camp at last; but there was no singing now and no joking. In the bottom of his heart each prayed that they might come safely through just this night, for they knew that during the morrow they would make the final stretch, yet the nerves of each were taut with strained anticipation of what gruesome thing might flap down upon them from the black sky, marking another for its own. Who would be the next?
“As was their custom, they took turns at guard, each man doing two hours and then arousing the next. Brady had gone on from eight to ten, followed by Sinclair from ten to twelve, then Bradley had been awakened. Brady would stand the last guard from two to four, as they had determined to start the moment that it became light enough to insure comparative safety upon the trail.
“The snapping of a twig aroused Brady out of a dead sleep, and as he opened his eyes, he saw that it was broad daylight and that at twenty paces from him stood a huge lion. As the man sprang to his feet, his rifle ready in his hand, Sinclair awoke and took in the scene in a single swift glance. The fire was out and Bradley was nowhere in sight. For a long moment the lion and the men eyed one another. The latter had no mind to fire if the beast minded its own affairs – they were only too glad to let it go its way if it would; but the lion was of a different mind.
“Suddenly the long tail snapped stiffly erect, and as though it had been attached to two trigger fingers the two rifles spoke in unison, for both men knew this signal only too well – the immediate forerunner of a deadly charge. As the brute’s head had been raised, his spine had not been visible; and so they did what they had learned by long experience was best to do. Each covered a front leg, and as the tail snapped aloft, fired. With a hideous roar the mighty flesh-eater lurched forward to the ground with both front legs broken. It was an easy accomplishment in the instant before the beast charged – after, it would have been well-nigh an impossible feat. Brady stepped close in and finished him with a shot in the base of the brain lest his terrific roarings should attract his mate or others of their kind.
“Then the two men turned and looked at one another. ‘Where is Lieutenant Bradley?’ asked Sinclair. They walked to the fire. Only a few smoking embers remained. A few feet away lay Bradley’s rifle. There was no evidence of a struggle. The two men circled about the camp twice and on the last lap Brady stooped and picked up an object which had lain about ten yards beyond the fire – it was Bradley’s cap. Again the two looked questioningly at one another, and then, simultaneously, both pairs of eyes swung upward and searched the sky. A moment later Brady was examining the ground about the spot where Bradley’s cap had lain. It was one of those little barren, sandy stretches that they had found only upon this stony plateau. Brady’s own footsteps showed as plainly as black ink upon white paper; but his was the only foot that had marred the smooth, windswept surface – there was no sign that Bradley had crossed the spot upon the surface of the ground, and yet his cap lay well toward the center of it.
“Breakfastless and with shaken nerves the two survivors plunged madly into the long day’s march. Both were strong, courageous, resourceful men; but each had reached the limit of human nerve endurance and each felt that he would rather die than spend another night in the hideous open of that frightful land. Vivid in the mind of each was a picture of Bradley’s end, for though neither had witnessed the tragedy, both could imagine almost precisely what had occurred. They did not discuss it – they did not even mention it – yet all day long the thing was uppermost in the mind of each and mingled with it a similar picture with himself as victim should they fail to make Fort Dinosaur before dark.” (OTA/1.)

I think I finally have the reason ERB chose the third person for this book. He could not have pulled off the unknown terror effect without it. For not knowing what really happened allows the imagination to make it worse. ERB wants to give his readers the creeps, and I believe he has done a pretty fine job of it.

“And so they plunged forward at reckless speed, their clothes, their hands, their faces torn by the retarding underbrush that reached forth to hinder them. Again and again they fell; but be it to their credit that the one always waited and helped the other and that into the mind of neither entered the thought or the temptation to desert his companion –they would reach the fort together if both survived, or neither would reach it.
“They encountered the usual number of savage beasts and reptiles; but they met them with a courageous recklessness born of desperation, and by virtue of the very madness of the chances they took, they came through unscathed and with the minimum of delay.
“Shortly after noon they reached the end of the plateau. Before them was a drop of two hundred feet to the valley beneath. To the left, in the distance, they could see the waters of the great inland sea that covers a considerable portion of the area of the crater island of Caprona and at a little lesser distance to the south of the cliffs they saw a thin spiral of smoke rising above the tree-tops.
“The landscape was familiar – each recognized it immediately and knew that the smoky column marked the spot where Dinosaur had stood. Was the fort still there, or did the smoke arise from the smoldering embers of the building they had helped to fashion for the housing of their party? Who could say!
“Thirty precious minutes that seemed as many hours to the impatient men were consumed in locating the precarious way from the summit to the base of the cliffs that bounded the plateau upon the south, and then once again they struck off upon the level ground toward their goal. The closer they approached the fort the greater became their apprehension that all would not be well. They pictured the barracks deserted or the small company massacred and the buildings in ashes. It was almost in a frenzy of fear that they broke through the final fringe of jungle and stood at last upon the verge of the open meadow a half-mile from Fort Dinosaur.
“‘Lord!’ ejaculated Sinclair. ‘They are still there!’ And he fell to his knees, sobbing.
“Brady trembled like a leaf as he crossed himself and gave silent thanks, for there before them stood the sturdy ramparts of Dinosaur and from inside the inclosure rose a thin spiral of smoke that marked the location of the cook-house. All was well, and their comrades were preparing the evening meal!
“Across the clearing they raced as though they had not already covered in a single day a trackless, primeval country that might easily have required two days by fresh and untired men. Within hailing distance they set up such a loud shouting that presently heads appeared above the top of the parapet and soon answering shouts were rising from within Fort Dinosaur. A moment later three men issued from the inclosure and came forward to meet the survivors and listen to the hurried story of the eleven eventful days since they had set out upon their expedition to the barrier cliffs. They heard of the deaths of Tippet and James and of the disappearance of Lieutenant Bradley, and a new terror settled upon Dinosaur.
“Olson, the Irish engineer, with Whitely and Wilson constituted the remnants of Dinosaur’s defenders, and to Brady and Sinclair they narrated the salient events that had transpired since Bradley and his party had marched away on September 4th. They told them of the infamous act of Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts and his German crew who had stolen the U-33, breaking their parole, and steaming away toward the subterranean opening through the barrier cliffs that carried the waters of the inland sea into the open Pacific beyond; and of the cowardly shelling of the fort.
“They told of the disappearance of Miss La Rue in the night of September 11th, and of the departure of Bowen Tyler in search of her, accompanied only by the Airedale, Nobs. Thus of the original party of eleven Allies and nine Germans that had constituted the company of the U-33 when she left English waters after her capture by the crew of the English tug there were but five now to be accounted for at Fort Dinosaur. Benson, Tippet, James, and one of the Germans were known to be dead. It was assumed that Bradley, Tyler and the girl had already succumbed to some of the savage denizens of Caspak, while the fate of the Germans were equally unknown, though it might readily be believed that they had made good their escape. They had had ample time to provision the ship and the refining of the crude oil they had discovered north of the fort could have insured them an ample supply to carry them back to Germany.” (OTA/1.)

Of course, there is no mention of Tom Billings because they have no idea that Bowen survived and Billings led a rescue mission to save him. Thus concludes Chapter 1. We will return to Bradley’s fate in Chapter 2. Keep the faith, for we will soon be in the land of the Wieroos.