My brain was occupied with these and other unproductive thoughts as we lurched and staggered along the endless corridor, back towards the comforting presence of our colleagues. We were not far from them when we heard the scream.
How can I describe it at this distance in time? I hesitate to use the term but it had such a horrific quality, as if whoever uttered it, had his soul torn from his body. The quavering echoes of this hideous intrusion had not yet died away along the corridors before scream after scream came to companion it. My legs buckled and I must assuredly have fallen had Scarsdale not got his strong hand under my elbow. I muttered some apology, trying to conceal the trembling in my limbs. I hoped Scarsdale was not disappointed in my qualities as a man of action; he had expected so much but the conditions we were meeting here were so bizarre and the occurrences so outside the range of normal experience that I feared I was making but a sorry showing. Yet he seemed to have noticed nothing, merely quickened his pace into a jog-trot and the pair of us continued to trundle the trolley along the endless tunnels.
The screams had died out now and were not repeated but there came only the low crackle of atmospherics as I jerkily called Van Damm on the radio over and over again. I heard the faint reports of a revolver then; Scarsdale heard them too. He grunted deep down in his throat.
'That sounded like Holden's voice,' he said grimly. 'The scream, I mean. The things have apparently got round by side I tunnels. I hope Van Damm has managed to hold his own. Holden was certainly in no fit state to help.'
'We shall be there in a few minutes,' I said. 'Do you think I we ought to leave the trolley and rejoin the others?'
'God, no,' said Scarsdale with an intensity I had never I heard in his voice before. 'That would be fatal. Remember, I whatever happens, to stay by the trolley. It holds the grenades and other heavy armaments. They are our only hope I if any more of these things appear.'
We had slackened our pace somewhat by now, as the weight of the trolley was beginning to tell at this speed. We shuffled together, neither speaking, my mind filled with unnameable dread as the light gradually began to lose its strength along the tunnel. We knew then that we must be nearing the spot where we had left our two companions. The radio was still emitting its sizzling static but there were no responses to the calls I continued to make every five minutes or so. Instinctively, Scarsdale and I switched on our helmet lights and with the yellow radiance burning comfortably ahead of us, completed the last stage of our journey.
I myself now had a deep loathing of the dark tunnels and I fought to keep control as I thought of the long miles of corridor along which we must pass over many days if we were to regain the sanity of the outer air. It seemed to have taken us months to penetrate this far and until we could rejoin the tractors we would stand little chance on foot against our lumbering opponents, I gave thanks for the fact that we had first encountered them in the brilliant light of space as my sanity must inevitably have tottered had they burst upon us in the inky-blackness of the outer mountains or in the twilight which now reigned about us.
Though they had apparently reached Van Damm and Holden by a circuitous route I was by no means certain in my own mind that this was so. The creatures were apparently emerging into the underground complex from the Great White Space and, unless they had incredible restraint, did not inhabit the city of Croth or the long labyrinth which separated us from the outer world, or we would surely have seen signs of them long ago.
It was true, as Scarsdale had suggested, that they might well have means of coming up behind us. But equally Holden, with his strained nerves and now the breakdown of his physical health, might have screamed during medical treatment. This did not explain Van Damm's continued silence but there was a slim chance that he might have noticed something unusual and gone off to investigate. These were the rationalisations I presented to myself as we panted down the last stretch of tunnel which separated us from our companions.
That they were not logical or sequential thoughts did not matter. I myself was partly unhinged with terror, even if only temporarily; Prescott's sudden and shocking death would have been enough for that — and my reaction to that was to feverishly assure my inner self that there could be a rational — even an ordinary explanation for anything which happened, however extraordinary it might appear to the outward eye. I had just reached this point in my rambling evaluation when Scarsdale gave a grunt and pulled at my arm. We both stopped the trolley as if at a given command and automatically stepped behind it. We had reached the point where we had left our companions. Apart from the crackle of the radio, now that the rumble of the trolley wheels had ceased, an unnatural silence pervaded the miles of tunnel that stretched about us.
Eighteen
Again, I must be perfectly precise in the words I now choose to lay the terrible facts of the Great Northern Expedition before the public. We were, as I have said, almost at the point where we had left Van'Damm and Holden. The first thing we saw in the glimmer of our helmet lamps was the glint of several small objects lying upon the hard floor of the tunnel. Both Scarsdale and I had our revolvers out by this time, of course, and as I was furthest from the tunnel wall I walked in front of the trolley and bent down to examine our find.
I picked up several used cases. I handed them to Scarsdale without a word.
'Those were the shots we heard,' said Scarsdale grimly, putting the spent shells in his pocket. 'He had time to re-load, then.'
We pushed on the remaining few yards with the trolley; there were several debouching tunnels from the main corridor at this point and we kept a sharp look-out. It was I who first noticed the sickening stench which grew stronger as we proceeded. I had a hard time to keep a firm grip on my nerves and if it had not been for Scarsdale's sturdy presence I might well have given way to flight.
He, without any outward sign of emotion, merely motioned me to stop the trolley and in his bull-like voice sent echoing shouts along the corridor. As their wandering reverberations died away along the miles of caverns, we listened in vain for any reply from Holden or Van Damm. After a few more shouts which were answered by a faint scuttering noise from somewhere far off and which caused me to tighten my grip on the butt of my revolver, Scarsdale and I heaved and shouldered the crippled trolley the final hundred feet.
We had left some stores at this point, including a stretcher, on which had reposed the blanketed form of Holden. What we first saw on the tunnel floor now was the tumbled and disarrayed blankets and then the stretcher itself, turned upside down and from it ran a trail of the slime-like excretion we had seen already in the ancient city of Croth. I felt my throat constrict with fear but before I could voice any opinion both Scarsdale and I, at almost the identical moment, sighted Holden.
To my intense relief he appeared to be all right; he had apparently fainted — perhaps with shock at the sudden drama which had caused Van Damm to fire? He was half-seated on one of the small packing crates we had stacked against the wall of the tunnel, his shoulder resting on the wall and his head sunk on to his chest as if he were too tired to hold it up any longer. Letting go the trolley 1 bounded forward and put my hand on my friend's arm to arouse him. Scarsdale's shouted warning came too late. Although it happened years ago that moment of frozen horror is with me now.