Under Arctic Ice

As if, knowing and therefore dreading what he would see, the attendant took the newspaper held outstretched to him and followed the pointing finger to a featured column. He scanned it:

Deadline Passed for Missing Submarine

Point Barrow, Aug. 17 (AP): Planes sent out to search for the missing polar submarine Peary have returned without clue to the mystery of is disappearance. The close search that has been conducted through the last two weeks, involving great risks to the pilots, has been fruitless, and authorities now hold out small hope for Captain Sallorsen, his crew and the several scientists who accompanied the daring expedition.

If the Peary, as is generally thought, is trapped beneath the ice floes or embedded in the deep silt of the polar sea-floor, her margin of safety has passed the deadline, it was pointed out to-day by her designers. Through special rectifiers aboard, her store of air can be kept capable of sustaining life for a theoretical period of thirty-one days. And exactly thirty-one days have now elapsed since last the Peary's radio was heard from a position 72° 47' N, 162° 22' W, some twelve hundred miles from the North Pole itself.

In official circles, hope was practically abandoned for the missing submarine, though attempts will continue to be made to locate her....

"I'm sorry, Mr. Torrance," said the attendant nervously. "This paper should--"

"Should never have reached me, eh? Through some slip of the people who censor my reading matter here, I read what I wasn't supposed to--that's what you mean?"

"It was thought better, Mr. Torrance, by the doctors, and--"

"Good God! Thought better! Through their sagacity, these doctors have probably condemned the men on this submarine to death! I haven't heard a word about the expedition; didn't even know the Peary was up there, much less missing!"

"Well, Mr. Torrance," the attendant stammered, more and more unsettled, "the doctors thought that--that any news about it would--well, upset you."

The young man laughed bitterly;

"Bring on my old 'trouble,' I suppose. The doctors have been considerate, but I won't concern them any more. I'm through. I'm leaving for the north--right now. There's a bare chance I might still be in time."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Torrance, but you can't."

"Can't?"

The attendant had retreated to the door. His eyes were nervous, his face pale.

"It's orders, Mr. Torrance. You've been under observation treatment, and the doctors left strict orders that you must stay."

The young man throbbed with dangerous anger. His hands clenched and unclenched. He burst out, in a last attempt at reason:

"But don't you see, I've got to get to the Peary! It's the last hope for those men! The position she was last heard from is right where I--"

"You can't leave, Mr. Torrance! I'm sorry, but I'll have to call a guard!"

For a minute their eyes held. With an effort, the young man said more calmly:

"I see. I see. I'm a prisoner. All right, leave me."

The attendant was more than willing. The young man heard the door's lock click. And then he lowered his head and pressed his hands hard into his face.

But a second later he was looking up again, at the single wide window which gave out on the lonely landscape over which sometimes came drifting the distant cry of a train's whistle.

* * * * *

Two months before, Kenneth Torrance had returned to the whaling submarine Narwhal, of which he was first torpooner, with a confused story of men who were half-seals that lived in mounds under the Arctic ice,[1] who had captured him and--he found--had also captured the second torpooner, Chanley Beddoes. In breaking free from their mound-prison, Beddoes had killed one of the sealmen and had been himself slain minutes later by a killer whale, one of the fierce scavengers of the sea which the sealmen trapped for food even as the Narwhal sought them for oil. Ken Torrance alone came back.