Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Antarctica

But it was the fourth photograph that caught his breath in his throat and demolished the black ops theory once and for all. Although it was black and white, and very grainy compared to modern photographic methods, the image was clear enough. It was a coastline Banks couldn’t identify, but taken from such a height that there could be no doubt, especially after a quick glance through the rest of the photographs in his hands that showed more pictures taken from a great height. The saucer had made a flight. More than that, it had made it into orbit.

He turned the last photograph over. There was a black swastika stamped in ink on it, and a date. It matched the date he’d seen circled in red on the oberst’s wall calendar — the 4th of January, 1942.

Now that he’d seen the pilots standing in the pentagrams, Banks knew he needed to finish the Carnacki journal. It was too important to be ignored, indeed might be the pivotal key required for understanding the whole matter. He went back to the stove, and back to the journal, trying to quell the growing dissatisfaction in his gut.

He took up again exactly where he’d left off.

Now that the darkness had washed away, and I could no longer feel any presence, every part of me wanted to step out of the circles and head up and out into warmer air, and a place where there was a large glass of good scotch waiting for me. But I knew Churchill’s mind. He would want to know more of the nature of this new thing I had found, and how it could be pressed to become an advantage in his favor. And to do that, I would have to face the thing again.

I stood still and lit a fresh pipe. The taste of tobacco did much to remind me that I wasn’t lost down here in the dark, that I was here of my own free will. I was here to learn.

The gray fug of smoke wafted away through the corridors of the vessel. My valves lit up enough of the corridors in front and behind of me to show that there was no sign of the wall of darkness. I knew, of course, that the thing had not simply departed, for it is my experience that once an entity of the Outer Darkness arrives on this plane, they settle, and they are slow to leave.

I was proved right minutes later when the darkness gathered again in the forward corridor. As if it was aware of my presence now, it crept much more slowly than before. And as it was aware of me, so too, I was aware of it. It was less menacing this time, now that I knew it was there.

As before, the blackness gathered around the edges of my defensive circles, testing the boundaries of the valves; first the yellow one then the green flared and dimmed, flared and dimmed. Once again, cold seeped into my lower limbs and damp air washed against me.

I knew what was coming next. This time, when the darkness sent out its dark probe to my mind, I grabbed hold of it and followed it back to the source, a mental projection trick that let me glimpse, however briefly, some of the thing’s innate nature and intent. Fragments of what passed for its thoughts came to me, like images in my mind.

It was old, old and cold, and lost. It had slept for aeons in a deep place in the sea, undisturbed by storm or ice, lying, slumbering in the weed and stone, having been imprisoned even before the sea washed over it for the first time. Men had caught it, men wearing animal furs and wielding stone axes, wooden shields, and long-forgotten ways of dealing with visitors from the Outer Darkness.

And so, it had slept, and dreamed for the longest time. And then, after an age of cold, dank, dark, an iron thing came swimming in the waters above, breaking ancient bonds that the German submariners never even knew existed, allowing the darkness to surge and flow and fill them up.

I felt those poor German lads die, as if I had been the dark thing in the dark, and sudden, unbidden tears filled my eyes, and guilt hit me, hard. That broke my concentration, and alerted the dark to my presence.

It pushed against me hard, the shock almost sending me reeling outside the circles. The green valve flared and I thought I saw, for an instant, an even darker mass of blackness in the shadows, an amorphous, shifting, thing that spoke a word in a language that I did not know but guessed the intent. There was only one thing this darkness wanted.

Home.

I spoke the Gaelic words again, and as before the blackness faded away, retreating down the corridors to wherever it was hiding itself in the bowels. This time, I did not delay. I stepped out of the circles, left the pentacle on the deck, and made my way quickly up the turret ladder, out to the boat shed above, then, almost running, down the gangway and into the foreman’s office, where I headed straight for the scotch.

Churchill was sipping at a glass of his own and puffing on another cigar. He raised an eyebrow and smiled thinly.

“I gather from your rather startled demeanor that you have had some success?”

I downed a couple of fingers and waited until it hit my stomach and spread its heat before answering.

“I had some failure, and some of what you might regard as success. Although I am not convinced that success is the proper word for what I have experienced.”

He sat me down and joined me in another drink. He tried to ply me with another of his, frankly, enormous cigars, but I preferred the pipe. I puffed hard at it as I spoke, and he listened to my tale, without even the slightest hint of incredulity. He went quiet and thought for a few seconds before he spoke softly.

“So this thing in the dark that you saw? You believe it is what killed the Hun crew?”

“I believe so,” I replied. “In fact, I am sure of it.”

“I would like to see it for myself,” he said.

I protested long and hard at that, but his final answer was what persuaded me.

“I will not ask my men to do something I would not do myself,” he said, and by Jove, I think he meant it.

I went back with him as far as the deck of the submarine, but he bade me stand outside.

“As you did yourself, I will face this thing alone, in the same way as the men will have to face it to perform the task I must set for them.”

I warned him to step over the circles into the inside of the pentacle, and not to break the protection once he was inside, no matter what might happen. I also gave him the last two words of the Gaelic chant, as a last resort should they be needed.

“Wish me luck, old chap,” he said as he turned away. “I have faced many battles, but I do believe this short walk might be among the hardest things I shall be called to do for my country.”

I agreed with him on that, but he went anyway. He was still chewing down hard on that infernal cigar as he climbed up and over, into the turret and down into the bowels of the sub.

I stood there for long minutes, straining to hear, waiting for a cry for help and ready to go to his aid if needed. For the longest time, there was no sound save my own breathing and the slight hiss of burning tobacco in my pipe. Then, as if from a great distance, I heard it, a voice raised in a shout, the old Gaelic phrase repeated twice. It sounded as if the second time contained more than a trace of fear.

Dhumna Ort! Dhumna Ort!

I had started climbing up the turret when I heard scrambling sounds above me, and had to retreat as Churchill descended out of the sub with some haste. He did not stop to acknowledge me, but marched, almost running, away along the deck and down the gangway. By the time I reached the foreman’s office, he was already making impressive headway down the scotch, gulping it down unceremoniously straight from the neck of the decanter.