Post by DocQuantum on Aug 1, 2021 7:18:51 GMT
Perry Scott: Times Past, 1940: Gold of Atlantis
by Robert M. Hyatt
Published in Feature Comics #32 (May, 1940)
Pressure 352.6 depth 2314...
Perry Scott checked the dials once more and spoke into the engine room tube: "Give her everything, O'Malley."
The giant electric motors hummed softly, carrying the sub through the black world of water at the bottom of the south Atlantic. It was a dangerous mission, this that Perry Scott had set out upon in the revolutionary submarine he had designed.
They were traversing the unknown depths far below the famed Sargasso Sea, that vast forest of kelp where ships were said to have vanished, never to return.
Bob Seebold, chief mate, entered the control room. He glanced at the panel and shook his head.
"My gosh, Perry," he said, "we're down almost three thousand feet! You think--"
"Now, Bob," grinned Perry, "remember your blood pressure. We're perfectly safe -- even if we go down four thousand."
Bob left the control room, not at all reassured, and Perry turned to the controls. A few more hours, if things went well, and they'd be at their destination -- one that nobody had ever thought existed. According to the chart, they were now in the vicinity of Timbolo, a giant volcanic peak of Atlantis. Its flat crater reared several hundred feet above the surface of the ocean. It had, Perry figured, a subterranean entrance.
Perry's thoughts traveled back to a day more than a year past. Caught in a terrific storm, he had brought his plane down on a hitherto uncharted mountain in the Atlantic. Fortunately, the landing place he had blindly selected had been flat. He had huddled inside the ship until the storm blew itself out. Then he had made an astonishing discovery. His plane had stopped at the very edge of a vast crater, a crater in the middle of the Sargasso Sea. All around it yellowish mists rose, deadly thick mists that obscured the sun most of the time.
He had brought out his glasses and studied the interior of the crater, whose walls were perpendicular. He had seen, some four thousand feet below, the ruins of a city. A CITY OF ATLANTIS! In the center of the white crumbling buildings there was a large lake.
While he meditated on this valuable find, he saw something else that made his heart race. In the courtyard of what looked like a ruined temple, he saw a gleaming shaft of gold that rose out of a bowl-shaped structure. Gold! Gold of lost Atlantis!
He had made up his mind instantly. A few months previously he had earned a small fortune by salvaging, with the aid of his electric diving rig, a rich cargo from a sunken ship. He would build a submarine; he had thought of it before -- a radical type of sub that would descend to great depths. He would enter Atlantis from the sea bottom!
The engine room bell clanged and Perry jumped.
"Perry," came Bob Seebold's voice out of the tube, "we seem to be caught in a strong current--"
Perry leaped to the control board. The speed indicator needle was crawling around the dial. He rang for slow. Then a full stop. Still the sub raced ahead.
Dutch Larkin, chief engineer, bounded into the control room. His face was chalk white.
"Great heavens, sir," he cried, "we're out of control. The engines are in reverse and look at our forward speed!"
Perry nodded coolly. "I see. I think we're caught in the drift of the tunnel I expected to find here. Keep your shirt on, Dutch. I think we'll be safe."
Larkin made a despairing sound and whirled out of the room. The whole crew would know of their plight soon. Would they go berserk? Men trapped in a runaway sub, thousands of feet below the sea, might be expected to do anything. He hoped, he prayed--
A soft jar shook the ship. It lurched, rolled to one side, then settled back. The speed indicator said zero. They had stopped!
Perry snapped the periscope beam open and whistled softly as the view flashed across the chart before him. The sub floated on the lake Perry had seen from the crater top!
He spoke into the annunciator system that had outlets over the entire craft:
"All hands on deck... we're on the surface!"
The men needed no goading. Madly they scrambled up the ladder and out the conning tower entrance. They gave a wild yell as they saw the blessed sunshine. Perry thought this was the time to tell them something.
"Fellows," he said, standing on the steel deck, "we're here. We've had a scare, but everything's all right now. You're free to do what you will. I think you may find gold around these ruins. It's yours if you find it. All I want is a camera record that this city of Atlantis exists. Well, let's start looking!"
They moored the sub at shore. Perry got his camera equipment off, and the men scattered out to explore.
There was no sign of life, no growing thing to be seen. It was a dead world. A dead world within a dead volcano. Whence had come, and where had gone the people who had built this once beautiful city? It was a question for science to answer. Perry's job was to make a photographic record of everything.
Gates, the radio man, already had his powerful portable set up near the temple ruins and was trying to contact the outside world. He was having little success, due, he said, to the metallic elements in the crater walls. He kept trying, however, and toward evening received faint signals. His message was simply this:
"Perry Scott expedition calling Florida Coast Guard from Atlantis. Attention Coast Guard. In bad situation. Sub anchored in bottom of volcano. May be unable to get out. Send planes with cable and tackle. Position, center of Sargasso Sea. Be careful, bad landing."
He repeated the message, then shut off the sending apparatus, switched on the receiver. "Hope they hear us," he said laconically.
Perry, just returned from several hours of "shooting," grinned. "So do I," he said. "If they don't, well--"
"You don't think our tub will pull us out?" Gates queried.
"Doubtful," Perry replied. Indeed, he was convinced that the sub would never take them back through that tunnel with its terrific current. If the Coast Guard was unable to find them, they were lost. They could never scale the towering walls of the crater. The problem was, would the Coast Guard be able to find them? Would they be able to land their planes if they did?
That night, the crew slept on board the sub. So far, they had found no gold, but their spirits were high. They had explored only about a third of the city. In the morning they were off again. Perry set out to continue his pictorial recording of Atlantis. Gates got busy at his radio.
At noon, the entire crew returned for lunch. The sun was directly overhead, lighting up the crater like the inside of a bright cup. Perry was glad none of the men had started worrying about how they would get back to civilization. It would be bad if they did.
Gates' radio arc sputtered and hissed and he cut it off to listen. Suddenly he shouted for quiet.
"They're here!" he cried. "They're overhead, but they can't see us yet." He began sending out their position madly. A wild yell halted him, brought the men whirling around in confusion. A strange sight met their eyes. Above them, emerging slowly from the cup-like formation Perry had seen from the crater top, was a huge golden thing. Fully a foot in diameter, it towered upward a good ten feet, swaying slowly back and forth, and emitting, from enormous jaws, a loud hissing sound.
"Sea snake!" yelled one of the men. "My gosh, I'm gettin' outa here!" He ran, stumbled, and fell in a heap on the rough stones. Several others piled on top of him. All was wild confusion.
"Listen!" shouted Perry. "It won't hurt you. It's the thing I saw from above. In the sun it looks like gold. Some kind of anaconda, I'd say. Watch it."
The serpent apparently was disinterested in the tableau below it. Its gaze was directed upward, from whence came the increasing roar of several planes. The Coast Guard. They were landing!
"Well," said Perry, "I guess it only comes out when it hears something above. A sort of guard for the old city." He trained his movie camera on the snake and began cranking.
"At least," he grinned, "we'll take back a swell picture record of gold from Atlantis!"
by Robert M. Hyatt
Published in Feature Comics #32 (May, 1940)
Pressure 352.6 depth 2314...
Perry Scott checked the dials once more and spoke into the engine room tube: "Give her everything, O'Malley."
The giant electric motors hummed softly, carrying the sub through the black world of water at the bottom of the south Atlantic. It was a dangerous mission, this that Perry Scott had set out upon in the revolutionary submarine he had designed.
They were traversing the unknown depths far below the famed Sargasso Sea, that vast forest of kelp where ships were said to have vanished, never to return.
Bob Seebold, chief mate, entered the control room. He glanced at the panel and shook his head.
"My gosh, Perry," he said, "we're down almost three thousand feet! You think--"
"Now, Bob," grinned Perry, "remember your blood pressure. We're perfectly safe -- even if we go down four thousand."
Bob left the control room, not at all reassured, and Perry turned to the controls. A few more hours, if things went well, and they'd be at their destination -- one that nobody had ever thought existed. According to the chart, they were now in the vicinity of Timbolo, a giant volcanic peak of Atlantis. Its flat crater reared several hundred feet above the surface of the ocean. It had, Perry figured, a subterranean entrance.
Perry's thoughts traveled back to a day more than a year past. Caught in a terrific storm, he had brought his plane down on a hitherto uncharted mountain in the Atlantic. Fortunately, the landing place he had blindly selected had been flat. He had huddled inside the ship until the storm blew itself out. Then he had made an astonishing discovery. His plane had stopped at the very edge of a vast crater, a crater in the middle of the Sargasso Sea. All around it yellowish mists rose, deadly thick mists that obscured the sun most of the time.
He had brought out his glasses and studied the interior of the crater, whose walls were perpendicular. He had seen, some four thousand feet below, the ruins of a city. A CITY OF ATLANTIS! In the center of the white crumbling buildings there was a large lake.
While he meditated on this valuable find, he saw something else that made his heart race. In the courtyard of what looked like a ruined temple, he saw a gleaming shaft of gold that rose out of a bowl-shaped structure. Gold! Gold of lost Atlantis!
He had made up his mind instantly. A few months previously he had earned a small fortune by salvaging, with the aid of his electric diving rig, a rich cargo from a sunken ship. He would build a submarine; he had thought of it before -- a radical type of sub that would descend to great depths. He would enter Atlantis from the sea bottom!
The engine room bell clanged and Perry jumped.
"Perry," came Bob Seebold's voice out of the tube, "we seem to be caught in a strong current--"
Perry leaped to the control board. The speed indicator needle was crawling around the dial. He rang for slow. Then a full stop. Still the sub raced ahead.
Dutch Larkin, chief engineer, bounded into the control room. His face was chalk white.
"Great heavens, sir," he cried, "we're out of control. The engines are in reverse and look at our forward speed!"
Perry nodded coolly. "I see. I think we're caught in the drift of the tunnel I expected to find here. Keep your shirt on, Dutch. I think we'll be safe."
Larkin made a despairing sound and whirled out of the room. The whole crew would know of their plight soon. Would they go berserk? Men trapped in a runaway sub, thousands of feet below the sea, might be expected to do anything. He hoped, he prayed--
A soft jar shook the ship. It lurched, rolled to one side, then settled back. The speed indicator said zero. They had stopped!
Perry snapped the periscope beam open and whistled softly as the view flashed across the chart before him. The sub floated on the lake Perry had seen from the crater top!
He spoke into the annunciator system that had outlets over the entire craft:
"All hands on deck... we're on the surface!"
The men needed no goading. Madly they scrambled up the ladder and out the conning tower entrance. They gave a wild yell as they saw the blessed sunshine. Perry thought this was the time to tell them something.
"Fellows," he said, standing on the steel deck, "we're here. We've had a scare, but everything's all right now. You're free to do what you will. I think you may find gold around these ruins. It's yours if you find it. All I want is a camera record that this city of Atlantis exists. Well, let's start looking!"
They moored the sub at shore. Perry got his camera equipment off, and the men scattered out to explore.
There was no sign of life, no growing thing to be seen. It was a dead world. A dead world within a dead volcano. Whence had come, and where had gone the people who had built this once beautiful city? It was a question for science to answer. Perry's job was to make a photographic record of everything.
Gates, the radio man, already had his powerful portable set up near the temple ruins and was trying to contact the outside world. He was having little success, due, he said, to the metallic elements in the crater walls. He kept trying, however, and toward evening received faint signals. His message was simply this:
"Perry Scott expedition calling Florida Coast Guard from Atlantis. Attention Coast Guard. In bad situation. Sub anchored in bottom of volcano. May be unable to get out. Send planes with cable and tackle. Position, center of Sargasso Sea. Be careful, bad landing."
He repeated the message, then shut off the sending apparatus, switched on the receiver. "Hope they hear us," he said laconically.
Perry, just returned from several hours of "shooting," grinned. "So do I," he said. "If they don't, well--"
"You don't think our tub will pull us out?" Gates queried.
"Doubtful," Perry replied. Indeed, he was convinced that the sub would never take them back through that tunnel with its terrific current. If the Coast Guard was unable to find them, they were lost. They could never scale the towering walls of the crater. The problem was, would the Coast Guard be able to find them? Would they be able to land their planes if they did?
That night, the crew slept on board the sub. So far, they had found no gold, but their spirits were high. They had explored only about a third of the city. In the morning they were off again. Perry set out to continue his pictorial recording of Atlantis. Gates got busy at his radio.
At noon, the entire crew returned for lunch. The sun was directly overhead, lighting up the crater like the inside of a bright cup. Perry was glad none of the men had started worrying about how they would get back to civilization. It would be bad if they did.
Gates' radio arc sputtered and hissed and he cut it off to listen. Suddenly he shouted for quiet.
"They're here!" he cried. "They're overhead, but they can't see us yet." He began sending out their position madly. A wild yell halted him, brought the men whirling around in confusion. A strange sight met their eyes. Above them, emerging slowly from the cup-like formation Perry had seen from the crater top, was a huge golden thing. Fully a foot in diameter, it towered upward a good ten feet, swaying slowly back and forth, and emitting, from enormous jaws, a loud hissing sound.
"Sea snake!" yelled one of the men. "My gosh, I'm gettin' outa here!" He ran, stumbled, and fell in a heap on the rough stones. Several others piled on top of him. All was wild confusion.
"Listen!" shouted Perry. "It won't hurt you. It's the thing I saw from above. In the sun it looks like gold. Some kind of anaconda, I'd say. Watch it."
The serpent apparently was disinterested in the tableau below it. Its gaze was directed upward, from whence came the increasing roar of several planes. The Coast Guard. They were landing!
"Well," said Perry, "I guess it only comes out when it hears something above. A sort of guard for the old city." He trained his movie camera on the snake and began cranking.
"At least," he grinned, "we'll take back a swell picture record of gold from Atlantis!"