The sea horror

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales May, March 1929. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

It is only now, when we know all the story, that we see at last how narrow was our escape, that we understand at last the power and the dread of that dark horror that rose to whelm an unsuspecting world. From the first sailing of the Clinton expedition to that last flaming hour of tremendous combat when the destiny of a planet was settled forever, we can follow the thing now, and can recognize what vast and unseen forces they were that wove around our world the net of a terrible doom. For it is only now, when the horror has passed over us, that we can understand that horror from its beginning.

It is with Clinton himself that the beginning lies, and with the expedition which bore his name. Dr. Herbert Clinton, holder of the chair of marine zoology at the University of London, was generally conceded to be the foremost expert on deep-sea life in all the British Isles. For a score of years, indeed, his fame had risen steadily as a result of his additions to scientific knowledge. He had been the one to prove first the connection between the absence of ultra-violet rays and the strange phosphorescence of certain forms of bathic life. He had, in his famous Indian Ocean trawlings, established the significance of the quantities of foraminiferal ooze found on the scarps of that sea's bottom. And he it was who had annihilated for all time the long-disputed Kempner-Stoll theory by his brilliant new classification of ascidian forms.

Even to the general public the slender, gray-haired scientist with the keen gray eyes was a well-known figure, for it was his famous investigations into the forms of deep-sea creatures which had made possible the building of the new K-type submarines. These submarines, which had now been adopted by practically all nations, were built upon a new pressure-resistance principle evolved by Dr. Clinton from his investigations, and could venture to depths and pressures impossible to the under-sea boats of war and post-war types. Some of them, indeed, had descended to depths of a mile and more without experiencing injury, and it was Clinton's contention that they were in reality capable of depths of three miles and more. To many, at first, that contention seemed only a somewhat boastful exaggeration on his part, but when the announcement of the Clinton expedition made it known that one of these submarines was to be used by that enterprise, the scientist's sincerity was conceded.

It was early in December that the expedition was first announced, by Clinton himself, from the University of London offices. He had long desired, he stated, to investigate the peculiar forms of deep-sea life to be found in the great Nelsen Deeps. These deeps, lying in the Atlantic almost half-way between Ireland and Newfoundland, had been but little explored by oceanographers, due to their great extent and depth, the latter averaging somewhat more than three miles. Trawls used over these great deeps could accomplish but little, but they had brought up some curious variations of common bathic forms, and in one case had brought up an extraordinary portion of a skeleton, or reticulation of bones, that was quite unlike that of any deep-sea form known to zoologists. It was Clinton's hope, therefore, that a more thorough exploration of these great deeps might reveal forms as yet unknown to science, and for such an exploration he planned to use, he announced, one of the new K-type submarines which he himself had helped to design, and one of which had been specially equipped and placed at his disposal by a grateful Admiralty Board.

The submarine provided, the K-16, had a cruising radius which made a mother-ship unnecessary, and was large enough to contain all of the necessary trawling apparatus, storage-tanks and laboratories, as well as the expedition's personnel. The members of the latter, it was announced, would be drawn almost entirely from the university's own scientific faculty, including besides Dr. Clinton, Dr. Randall Lewis, an expert on ichthyological and conchological forms; Professor Ernest Stevens, a young instructor of biology and friend of Clinton's; two laboratory technicians from the university's laboratories; and a half-dozen assistants, such as photographers, experienced trawlers, and the like.

It was Clinton's plan to proceed from London directly toward the northern boundary of the Nelsen Deeps, at an approximate latitude of 57° north, and from there work his way down to their lower boundary six hundred miles to the south, making free use of the submarine's trawls, and descending for detailed investigations at any promising spot; since, as he stated, his calculations showed the submarine to be easily capable of reaching the three-mile depth. Besides its regulation torpedo tubes and deck-guns, the K-16 had been equipped with powerful under-sea searchlights capable of dispelling the darkness of the lower depths, while small port-holes of immensely thick reinforced glass had been set in the sides of its control room, as in all the new-type submarines, making a survey of the surrounding waters possible. Communication with the expedition's headquarters at London was assured by its powerful radio apparatus. It was Clinton's hope, therefore, that by making use of all this equipment an extensive and yet thorough exploration of the great deeps could be carried out in a comparatively short time.

Late in April, therefore, the long, glistening steel submarine swept down the Thames and out to the open sea, with the members of the expedition and two or three of its naval crew grouped on its low-railed deck. At the last moment the expedition's limited personnel had been limited still further by the loss of Ernest Stevens, the young biology instructor who was to have been of it. Young Stevens, on the day before that of sailing, had had the misfortune to twist his ankle badly as he ran down the steps of one of the university buildings, and as the crowded submarine was obviously no place for a disabled man, he was forced to watch it sail without him, contenting himself, during the following days, by following the expedition's progress through the radio reports received from it by the university station.