We thought that over for a moment.
'You mean,' said Phyllis, 'the purpose was to catch and collect people, like well, as if they were sort of shrimping for us?'
'Something of the kind. Clearly the primary intention was capture though whether as a means to something, or as an end in itself, one cannot say, of course.'
We digested that thought. I could have wished that Phyllis had dropped on some analogy other than shrimping. Presently Bocker went on:
'Ordinary rifle-fire doesn't appear to trouble either the "sea-tanks" or these millibrachiate things unless there are vulnerable spots that were not found. Explosive cannon-shells can, however, fracture the covering. The manner in which it then disintegrates suggests that it is already under very strong stress, and not very far from breaking-point. We may deduce from that that in the April Island affair there was either a lucky shot, or a grenade was used. What we saw last night certainly explains the natives' talk of whales and jellyfish. These "sea-tanks" might easily, at a distance, be taken for whales. And regarding the "jellyfish" they weren't so far out the things must almost without doubt be closely related to the coelenterates.
'As to the "sea-tanks" the contents seem to have been simply gelatinous masses confined under immense pressure but it is hard to credit that this can really be so. Apart from any other consideration it would seem that there must be a mechanism of some kind to propel those immensely heavy hulls. I went to look at their trails this morning. Some of the cobblestones have been ground down and some cracked into flakes by the weight, but I couldn't find any track-marks, or anything to show that the things dragged themselves along by grabs as I thought might be the case. I think we are stumped there for the present.
'Intelligence of a kind there undoubtedly is, though it appears not to be very high, or else not very well co-ordinated. All the same, it was good enough to lead them from the waterfront to the Square which was the best place for them to operate.'
'I've seen army tanks carry away house-corners in much the same way as they did,' I observed.
'That is one possible indication of poor co-ordination,' Bocker replied, somewhat crushingly. 'Now have we any observations to add to those I have made?' He looked round inquiringly.
Ted said, hesitantly:
'Well, I did have the impression that these jellyfish things were not all quite the same type. The later ones had a rather shorter range, and they didn't contract so quickly, either. One on the other side of the Square lay there for quite twenty seconds with the tentacles curling and twisting about before it started to pull in at all.'
Bocker turned to him.
'You're suggesting that the cilia were actually searching?'
'I'd not go as far as that. But, anyway, I got a picture of it on the hand-camera, so we'll be able to study it.'
'Yes. It's to be hoped we shall get quite a lot from those films. Anything else? Did anyone notice whether the shots appeared to have any effect at all on these tentacular forms?'
'As far as I could see, either the shooting was rotten, or the bullets went through without bothering them,' Ted told him.
'H'm,' said Bocker, and lapsed into reflection for a while.
Presently I became aware of Phyllis muttering.
'What?' I inquired.
'I was just saying "millibrachiate tentacular coelenterates",' she explained.
'Oh,' I said.
'The recorder kept on going to the end,' Ted observed to me, 'but I don't know that we shall get a lot from that. It's a pity we didn't have more of a plan. We ought to have had a mike fixed for you to give a running commentary.'
'I'm sure that's what EBC will say, too,' I agreed, 'but as it happened I was rather busy at the time. What I want to do now is to make a rather fuller and less hurried recording than this morning's version, but I'm damned if I can face Smithtown yet. Never under heaven was there such a concentrated pong.'
We continued to sit where we were, each of us mostly occupied with his own thoughts. It was quite a long time later that Bocker said reflectively:
'You know, I think that if I believed in God I should now be a very frightened man. Luckily, however, I am rather old-fashioned, so I don't, thank God.'
Phyllis's eyebrows rose.
'Why?' she said. 'I mean, why would you be frightened?'
'Because I should be a superstitious man and superstitious men are always frightened when they are out of their depth with something new. I should be tempted to think that God proposed to teach me a lesson. That He was saying: "H'm. You think you're so clever. Little gods yourselves with all your atom-splitting and microbe-conquering. You think you rule the world, and possibly heaven, too. Very well, you conceited little mites, there's a lot about life and nature that you don't know. I'll just show you one or two new things and see how your conceit stands up to them. I have had to do it before."'
'However, as you don't believe that ?' prompted Phyllis.
'I don't know. There have been lords of the earth before us. Some of them in a sounder position, too There was a great variety of dinosaur types which should have given them a broad chance of survival. All the human eggs, on the other hand, are pretty nearly in one basket.'
Nobody made any further comment. The four of us continued to sit on, looking out across a blandly innocent azure sea
Among the other papers I bought at London Airport was the current number of The Beholder. Though it is, I am aware, not without its merits and even well thought of in some circles, it leaves me with an abiding sense that it is more given to expressing its first prejudices than its second thoughts. Perhaps if it were to go to press a day later . . . However, the discovery in this issue of a leader entitled doctor bocker rides again, did nothing to alter my impression. The text ran something after this fashion:
'Neither the courage of Dr Alastair Bocker in going forth to meet a submarine dragon, nor his perspicacity in correctly deducing where the monster might be met, can be questioned.
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The gruesome and fantastically repulsive scenes to which the EBC treated us in our homes last Tuesday evening make it more to be wondered at that any of the party should have survived than that four of its members should have lost their lives. Dr Bocker himself is to be congratulated on his escape at the cost merely of a sprained ankle when his sock and shoe were wrenched off, and another member of the party on her even narrower escape.
'Nevertheless, horrible though this affair was, and valuable as some of the Doctor's observations may prove in suggesting counter-measures, it would be a mistake for him to assume that he has now been granted an unlimited licence to readopt his former role as the world's premier Fat Boy.
'We are alarmed, reasonably alarmed, at the damaging blows that attacks from beneath the sea have dealt to world trade, but we are confident that scientific research will before long find a means to restore to us the freedom of the seas. We are also distressed by the calamities that have fallen upon the inhabitants of certain islands, and we protest a disgust at its form which increases our sympathy for those who have experienced it. We do not, however, have any intention of responding to Dr Bocker's latest attempt to set our editorial flesh creeping; neither, we imagine, have our readers; nor, we hope, have any of the more thoughtful part of the population of this long-suffering island.
'It is our inclination to attribute his suggestion that we should proceed forthwith to embattle virtually the entire western coastline of the United Kingdom to the effect of recent unnerving experiences upon a temperament which has never shunned the sensational, rather than to the conclusions of mature consideration.