It was all a rush to avoid an opposed landing, opposed by air and underwater no less. The U-Boat had a number of inflatable skiffs that would be of dubious usage for equipment, especially with the infestation of short-necked saurian “sharks”; something like giant penguin filling the role of a sea lion and developing a blow tube fin on its back. These things kept their distance from the U-Boat.

Bing-Ham supposed that they had a sound wave feedback ability, like whale kind, sensitive to metal. The Crew Boat held 12 men. Four oars and a rudder required a mate and four sailors. The aluminum boat itself had been stowed in aft hatch, this itself a wonder of Teutonic logistics to Richard.

That left seven men for selection. This would be up to Richard as the terrestrial officer. All but the First Officer, now Captain, and a few crew were on deck. A deck gun had been cranked up out of a hatch, a 40 millimeter weapon with round sights designed for shooting things in flight. Three men manned that.

The Second Mate and the four most dauntless sailors stood at attention. They were each armed with a stamped steel 9 mm pistol in a belt case, which he thought was a neat wonder, but too weak to hurt the Phoenix. Each had an 8 mm Mauser carbine with a belt box of ammunition and bayonet. The Mate had one of the very interesting revolver carbines slung over his shoulder and a straight naval cutlass at his hip.

“Seven then,” he said.

Donetz affirmed this with a grave nod.

“Levsky and Suvarov, of course.”

Svetlana was giving him a sulking look, and so he passed over her in the selection.

“Myself, Color Sergeant Major, LaFano, Pope… Bing-Ham.”

“O’Neal, I am sorry. You distinguished yourself. But have suffered a wound of sorts. Besides someone my Mum can stomach listening to must survive, if I do not return.”

He noted the deep flows of three glacier steams feeding into this massive lake, knowing there would be certain lesser creeks and inlets hidden form view.

He nodded to the mate and Sergeant and the men began boarding the boat, armed to the teeth.

He then looked to Pullman, “Sir, do you have reporting capsules?”

Pullman grinned, “In the absolute, Captain,” and motioning to the reporter whose name Richard had never bothered with, for which he felt rude. This man brought forward a harness, like a grenadier would have with his long handled stick bombs strapped to it. Only this contraption, now put on and buckled by the newspaper man over his service jacket, had four gray metal tubes of ribbed steel. The reporter briefed him as he buckled:

“Each tube has ten pages of parchment, more survivable than paper, with a pen. The end unscrews and is air tight. The button inside the cap activates a wireless “sonar” ping developed by the German U-Boaters. What issues into this lake does reach the sea. Though we would rather greet your safe return, Sir. It is my honor. Your are buckled in.”

The boat was ready to make way. Richard took the man’s hand, looked him in his watery green eyes, under that fop of thinning hair, “The honor is mine, Sir. You are?”

“Bradly Kennan, Sir, investigative journalist with the Baltimore Daily Raven.”

Richard patted the man on the shoulder, saluted the slight crew, tipped his cap to the Czarina Svetlana, who was nearly in tears, and then took his way down expertly, clearly remembering his one arm, with boot and hand down the ladder, his revolver and sword riding easy on his hips and the four news capsules feeling like a bit of armored kit from some bygone age.

Helped down to the boat deck by Levsky, who handed him a nautical kraut spyglass, Richard felt the cold misty lake and the weird creatures swimming within. He looked overboard to see down through the azure clear water as the saurian sea lions swam down and away, some hundreds of feet, looking up at them with strange intent.

The men began to pull on those four oars and propel them at a gainful pace. A few hundred yards and they would be ashore. He saw LaFono, with the Furgeson Crank gun strapped to his back, knowing that any mishap would plunge his footman and the valuable equipment to the bottom.

He looked to the shoreline all about, over the 180 degrees not blocked by the surprisingly large U-Boat, and noted that the trees were not all ever green. No oaks or maples were there, but alder. The cedar with its hanging fronds and red skin-like bark were the predominant plant. The water cold water of the rivers hit the warming water of the lake and turned to a mild mist at the shore line, which lapped on mossy rocks of black, the stone predominantly volcanic. The 180 degrees west and north soared the towering cliffs of the inside of a shattered mountain, making for their expedition a grim backdrop. The only egress would appear to be the tunnel through that black wall.

Bing-Ham caught his inner note ad whispered, between the pull and dip of the oars, the only sound here about, “This is, I suspect, a volcanic caldera. Expect increasingly arctic conditions and a change from cedar to pine as elevation increases.”

A great sloth was seen drinking from one of the glacial rivers, the nearest one, the mouth of which was perhaps 30 paces across.

Bing-Ham noted, “I will make the maps, Sir. I have an exact topographical mind. Your impressions will be duly captioned,” as he tapped a leather case on his chest. The man also wore a tomahawk, a Bowie knife and a bone scalping knife.

‘No gun?’ thought Richard.

“No, Sir, I do not favor the gun. I will fashion a spear, and a bow, the sinew for which rides in this, my medicine bag.”

The man tapped a pouch on his hip as he pointed with his chin to a flight of real parrots, actual parrots, not the massive devil birds, but green, orange and blue decked birds with wingspans exceeding that of any eagle.

The shore was only 100 yards off as he glanced back to see the U-Boat growing small in the distance. Most of the crew was inside, the gunners and officers there, O’Neal waving to him from the deck, such a loyal man.

He could see her there and turned his spyglass, wanting to get one more look at that pretty face of deep serious calm.

She smiled, knowingly, so he thought, ‘See you soon, Milady.’

‘Yes,’ he felt her in his mind as she smiled and the broad shoulders of her maid interceded.

A touch on his shoulder brought him around with his spy glass, Levsky pointing to a distant peak between a gap in the forest caused by the river whose mouth they approached on the north side. Spying southeast he could see, with that magnification where the pass opened into a valley surrounded by hump-backed peaks to east and west. The valley was backed by a bald dome of a barren peak, and icy eminence that towered far above the perpetual cloud line that ringed this valley from the rising mist.

There, he could plainly see two of the great birds circling far and away, perhaps 20 miles distance as the Phoenix flies.

The boat ground to a stop on a bed of round, glassy river rock. He leaped out first onto the mossy shore, as he closed the spyglass, his ankles holding in his medical boots. He turned and ordered, “Stow and cover the boat between those two great cedars, Men, then after me up the river to the fiend’s den!”

‘Caution, my Gaslight Knight,’ her mind warned into his, and he smiled, not permitting his operational focus to be diverted by his weird and wonderful gift from those terrible birds.

‘Besides, Bing-Ham might be privy to our correspondence.’

“Not at all, Sir,” said Bing-Ham, sticking behind him like a shadow. “If you please, Sir, I should take the trace lead and check the way.”

“Of Course, Bing-Ham to scout.”

He then paused, “Levsky and crew, rear guard.”

The Russian officer and the German mate saluted him and waited for the scout to make ten paces while the men stowed the boat, then Richard lead off with his tiny force.

The Color Sergeant assured him, “Well done sir. A strong rear it is. Pope, LaFono be ready with the Crank.”

LaFano complained, “Fawking Hell, Boss, my back is bent to broke.”

Richard halted, “You are right. Sergeant, assign the heavy ordinance to the German crew. I dare say they will make better use of it.”

And the expeditionary shuffle was on, the final dispositions made at the pace in time where the green forest swallowed them and took away the view of their iron whale.

‘We Jonahs, Lord, please bless our way.’