A terrible peel, a sound like a ship’s whistle but such that it shook the sanity of those sensitive of ear, and as well those sensitive of heart, sounded outside the boat as it submerged. The blowing of ballast, the whirring of engines powered by something lighter that steam boiler, something that did not need such an acid reek of fuel as coal, and the pinging of something generated by the boat, did, he thought, save much of the crew from the dreadful call.

Standing next to Bing-Ham on the main deck, such a small thing, a hallway, really, he wondered at this machine, knowing better than to worry the Admiral and First Officer with questions, ‘Is this petroleum based power’ after all the disasters at well sites, suicides of engineers, commitment to asylums of inventors—somehow realized in defeat by kraut science?’

Bing-Ham whispered, low of tone, next to his neck, ‘Loss of The Great War was the best chance science had of developing. State Industry and capitalism are too easily infiltrated by the Phoenixian mind. As, well, the men of Theosophy have been vetted for peace of mind. Stoics are the only thinkers who have a chance before the Phoenix.”

Richard, his eyes taking in the scene of the men busy within their wondrous machine noted, as an experiment, in his mind, ‘Among men of action and clear conscience is another source of resistance?’

“Yes,” agreed Breck Bing-Ham, a much older soul that his unlined face and stout manner would suggest.

The proof that Bing-Ham could receive Richard’s thoughts was as unsettling as the terror bird’s song.

“Feelings too, Sir,” spoke the civilized Injun, “only since the attack on the airship. You have been inducted by the enemy, after a fact.”

LaFono came to him with that hard leather and brass case strapped to his back, a serious look on his face.

“Yes, Old Boy, first up the way we will be.”

O’Neal was standing by with a case of brass sticks that likewise brought a thrill to Richard, “God Bless Mister Ferguson,” recalling the old crank or crackpot tinker gunsmith who used to visit when he was a boy.

‘Might he have been driven mad by these damned conspiratorial avians?

Blackie was standing by with an Enfield service rifle, with un-fixed bayonet ready to hand.

The churning oblivion outside the shell of this steel whale sank and shuddered. A great scream, like the death knell of some gargoyle gurgled to the aft. Three, five, nine minutes, by the Color Sergeant Major’s pocket watch, then a tenth hellish minute of waiting for something to rend the steel skin and peel them out like sardines from a tin. At short last, a greater sense of buoyancy surrounded them.

Richard, now hung with sword and pistol, stepped up to the Admiral, who was ordering, “periscope up,” to an optical sailor, saluted, and declared to the Admiral, “My men and I will sally.”

Donetz saluted him and nodded for one sailor, “Quick on the hatch and low to the deck.”

The sailor donned a helmet, slung a strange looking carbine revolver with a forward pistol grip, over his shoulders to hang at his belt, and ran up the ladder. Blackie was next, then LaFono, then Richard, with the two tall men in reserve, the four short men in the lead for quick sally work.

Commands in German were being given on technical matters. Levensky and Suvarov were coordinating with the ladies in Russian. Under the stress of action, English had been abandoned by their allies for the smoother speech of their mother tongues.

The steel whale surfaced nose up and then broke water much like a flesh and blood whale might. A single scree of mind-splitting fright sounded outside and above. A more ragged call sounded mournful and forlorn near the aft. O’Neal commented, “The kraut screw must o’ chopped one of those devil ducks, Sir.”

“At the other, MEN!” he snarled as the German sailor unscrewed and popped the hatch on a three count. The fellow leapt out shadowed by a great down chopping yellow beak witch clanged against the steel deck.

The revolver spat flame into that wicked beak as one terrible eye looked down the hatch and Blackie stabbed that eye with the muzzle of his Enfield and charged with all the Bantu ferocity built up over 40,000 years in the torrid zone!

Blackie was up and out, standing shoulder to shoulder with the German sailor blazing away with his revolver, now empty of its cylinder—and they were gone, snatched away, the emerald sweep of feathers announcing their fate.

LaFono was climbing fast, Richard behind, O’Neal piling out behind him, “Blackie!” yelled Richard, as the best shovel in Maryland would not give up the fight, shoving the muzzle against that beak even as he and the dangling German were scissored in half by those razor sharp talons, legs walling one way, torso and shoulders the other,

The Color Sergeant was out on deck, “Yer Gawd Awful Crank, Sir!”

O’Neal and the Sergeant had opened the case still strapped to LaFono’s back as the Irishman grabbed the gunwhale with both hands, ducked his head between them, presenting a miniature machine of a gun on his back—Mister Furgeson’s good duck-hunting gift, which he had never thought proper for hunting Loch Raven Reservoir below Dark Hall.

The sights were up, the well oiled crank at 12 on the clock, O’Neal pressing a stick of 0.30 caliber rifled slugs in the top breach.

The devil duck of a kind that Mister Furgeson perhaps never imagined even in his worst whiskey dreams, arched high, and swooped down in a long lazy curve to have at them, rage in its great crimson eyes.

That beak was drawn across the bead before Richard’ sight—and he cranked! The weapon boomed in staccato gusto, nine spewing flames, one from each rotating barrel.

‘This was such a wonder!’ he thought at the bird, whose eyes lit on either side of the chipped beak as rounds sunk into its breast and it stalled, alighting on the fore deck, standing in an awful roost, glaring hate at them.

‘Ah, so you are the male of the pair!’ Richard thought, as the thing spread its wings for one final charge and O’Neal slammed home another brass hopper of 9 rounds—Bang-to-the-nine, in the breast and the terrible thing listed off right.

To the left he felt hate dripping from the sky and there looked. A lame bird, one of the three razor digits on its left claw missing, waddled from the water, shook off a hundred gallons or water at least, looked at him and piped, ‘!FOOD!’

O’Neal sank to his knees trembling.

Color Sergeant Major took over, loaded another hopper, and the bird, understanding, took terrible flight up and over the cedar forest that lined this glacial lake, the water warm from some volcanic source. Above into the midst, and higher still above that mist and towards forested foothills, set in chill relief by the blue white mountains, soared that monster.

“Now there, O’Neal, that’s a stout lad,” cheered the Sergeant as Levsky game through the hatch and Richard’s loyal coachman, nearing sixty years, stood on shaky legs and nodded at the vanishing thing, “Poor Blackie.”

Richard wilted a bit inside, then bristled when some furtive fins broke the water and gobbled what remained of the collier and the sailor.