Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

He repeated his activities each night. The underwater creatures gradually grew accustomed to him, permitting him to approach ever more closely, permitting him to accompany them farther and farther from Port Chicago. It was clear to Marston that they communicated with one another, mainly by means of subtle gestures made with their broad, webbed, clawed hands. Marston inferred that they had a language as sophisticated and complex as any spoken by land-dwellers.

Now that he was affiliated with the Port Chicago base Marston had discontinued all contacts with his former associates in Berkeley. He did not worry about running into Aurelia Blenheim at the grocery as he now relied entirely on a diet of creatures he encountered during his nocturnal explorations of the Bay’s waters.

He maintained a relationship with Lieutenant Keeler and though him with Captain Kinne, furnishing reports and recommendations as required of him. He resented every meeting he had to attend, every conversation he had to conduct; in fact, he found himself living for his submarine excursions and suffering through each hour he spent walking on land, breathing with his gradually atrophying lungs instead of his gills.

On Friday, July 14, Keeler demanded that Marston attend a meeting with Captain Kinne. Also present were two high-ranking officers, one from the Navy and the other from the Army, the latter with Army Air Force insignia on his uniform blouse, and the commanders of the Negro stevedoring gangs.

Captain Kinne’s WAVE secretary, Jaspers, ushered Marston into the commanding officer’s area. When the meeting participants were assembled they were joined by a pair of armed shore patrolmen and the doors were securely locked.

“The bomb will arrive in forty-eight hours,” the Army officer announced. A major general’s paired silver stars glittered on his uniform shoulders. “We will deliver it to the loading pier, then we need a sign-off from the Navy and our job is finished.”

“And ours begins,” the naval officer took over. His uniform sleeves bore the broad gold stripes of a rear admiral. “Captain Kinne, are your men ready to get the bomb stowed in Quinalt Victory Monday evening? ONI insists that we do the loading at night, but it must be finished in time to catch the late tide out of the Golden Gate.” The admiral cast a sharp look at Marston. “Dr. Marston has provided all the information we’ll need to get Quinalt Victory safely out of the Bay and on her way by midnight?”

The utterance was worded as a statement but spoken as a question.

“We have everything, sir,” Keeler furnished.

“All right. Let’s go over the complete plan again,” The admiral growled. “There must be no slip-ups, I can’t emphasise that too much.”

They spent the rest of the day going over the details of unloading the special bomb from its railroad car and loading it into the hold of the Quinalt Victory without a hitch. A squad of white-jacketed mess-men served coffee and rolls at mid-morning and a full meal at noon. No one left the meeting for any reason. Marston was able to pass up the coffee and rolls but by lunchtime he was forced to consume a few sips of beverage and half a sandwich. This disgusted him.

When the meeting ended he drove into Port Chicago. He had seen the town fleetingly each day but today for the first time he parked his Cord and walked through the streets. He found a motion picture theatre and purchased a ticket. They were running a long program, the dramatic film Lifeboat with Tallulah Bankhead and Canada Lee, the lightweight Bathing Beauty with Esther Williams, a newsreel and a chapter of “Crash” Corrigan’s old serial, Undersea Kingdom.

Once inside he settled into a seat and unlaced his shoes, finding a modicum of relief for his aching feet. He leaned back and studied the neon-ringed clock mounted high on one wall of the auditorium. Most of the patrons were servicemen in uniform, whiling away their off-duty hours. None of them were coloured, of course. Negroes were excluded from the theatre and from the town’s plain restaurants. They had to find their own entertainment, or make it.

Marston ignored the images on the screen and closed his eyes. Images of undersea life swam through his mind, the peace and serenity of the submarine world contrasting with the pain and violence that dominated the world of the land-dwellers.

After a while he opened his eyes and glanced at the illuminated clock-face. Even in the long July evening, darkness would have fallen by now.

He drove back to the naval base, showed his pass to the gate-guard, and parked as near to the water’s edge as he could. He carefully locked the Cord and walked to the base of the pier. A special guard had been placed there, and even Marston’s special pass could not gain him access to the pier.