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“Are the sentries posted?” queried
Hauptmann Kranmer.
“Yes,” replied Diels, “I saw to their placement
myself. Have you assessed the
damage to the ship?”
“Yes,” said Kranmer, “I am afraid we are not going anywhere
unless we find another source of
hydrogen. That bitch did a damned
good job of disabling the ship.
However, I have sent a coded message to
“That is unfortunate,” replied
Diels. “According to my
calculations we are not far from the entrance to the Lost World, but it appears
we will have to go on foot.”
“You are sure of that?” said
Kranmer. “I thought most
of the records of the last expedition were lost.”
“Not all,” said Diels.
“Remember that most of the expedition returned
safely. Only that traitor Steiner
and that fool Klein did not return.
We were able to gather enough information from the lower ranking members
of the expedition to put together a pretty good idea of where it
is.”
“So what is your plan?” asked
Kranmer.
“I would like to take a number of men and enough supplies for two weeks
and try to locate the hidden valley that leads to the Lost
World. Then we can follow that
up once we have restored the Ludendorff’s ability to fly.
John Grey left Larra’s side while she was still
sleeping. Their nightly sexual
activity compounded with Larra’s recent harsh treatment at the hands
the Germans of had taken quite a bit out of
her. Even the healing powers
of the mystical spring could not completely restore her to full health without
rest. Grey wanted to check out
what activity the Germans might be up to.
He did not want them getting up to anything that he did not know
about.
He moved easily through the treetops, duplicating the speed of an
ape. He was a natural acrobat
and possessed of great strength and
endurance. Soon he was high in
a tree overlooking the German camp.
As he expected the huge Zeppelin was still
there. He had no doubt that Larra
had done a good job of disabling it.
She was quite good at that sort of thing, as he had come to learn
in her first visit to the Lost World.
The Germans were moving about quite busily in their
camp. From what he could see
it looked as if they might be getting ready to move off
somewhere. He moved a little
farther out on the limb he was perched on, the better to see exactly what
was happening. At that precise
moment there was a rifle shot. The
bullet missed Grey even though it had been fired by a German who was high
in the treetops only a hundred yards
away. The slug was deflected
by a fortuitously placed branch; otherwise it would have struck Grey in the
head. But as fortune would have
it, the slug did not miss completely.
Instead, it tore into the limb that supported
Grey. With a loud snap the branch
broke, plunging Grey into the depths
below.
Instinctively Grey’s arms stretched out snatching for a branch that
would halt his fall, but unfortunately, the only limbs close by were too
slender to support his weight. They
tore loose as he fell and he dropped uncontrolled into the lower branches
of the tree. It was these lower
branches that saved his life, but not before he had fallen over fifty
feet. His momentum was so great
that he tore through the lower foliage and kept on dropping until he hit
the ground. The impact knocked
the wind out of him and left him momentarily
dazed. Alerted by the shot and
the noise of Grey crashing through the branches of the tree, a score of German
soldiers ran toward him. Grey
staggered to his feet, only to be met by a rifle butt to the
head. He went down and stayed
down. Within a few seconds his
arms had been handcuffed behind his back and his legs immobilized with leg
irons.
Kranmer and Diels stared in amazement as Grey was dragged before
them. They had posted sentries
high in the trees just in case Larra’s mysterious rescuer showed up
again, but not a for a moment had they supposed it would be a clean shaven
white man wearing only a pair of khaki shorts.
“What have we here?” Diels
exclaimed. “Some sort of
white savage it appears.”
He stood directly in front of Grey.
“Who are you?” he
demanded.
Grey made no reply. Without any
warning, Diels punched the apeman in the
stomach.
Grey hardly flinched. Diels shook
his hand. It had been like hitting
a wall. “Dammit!” the
German cried. Using his other
hand, he slapped Grey hard across the face.
Again, there was no reaction from Grey.
Infuriated, Diels slapped Grey’s head back and
forth. “Tell me what I want
to know,” he demanded.
Grey still made no sound, and Diels prepared to beat him
again. But this time Kranmer,
stayed his arm. “You are
wasting your time, Herr Diels,” he
said. “You don’t even
know if this man understands you. I
suggest you take him with you on your
expedition. A couple of days
of marching through the jungle in chains might take some of the resistance
out of him. Meanwhile, if you
beat him too much he won’t be able to walk.”
“You have a good idea, Hauptmann,” responded
Diels. “Arrange his ankle
chains so that he can walk properly and clamp a collar around his neck so
he won’t try and run off.”
Grey’s guards did as they were
ordered. An hour later Diel’s
expedition was under way. Diels
was in the lead and Grey was fourth in line, led by a length of chain held
by one of Diel’s men. Within
a short time the thirty-man column disappeared into the
forest.
Larra was getting antsy. Grey
had been gone too long. She was
used to his absences from their previous
acquaintance. He came and went
as he chose. However, he had
never left her without food or water
before. There was a little bit
of fruit left over from the day before.
Larra ate that. She had
expected Grey to return as he always had.
After a wait of several hours, however, she began to
worry. Grey was not
invulnerable. He had saved her
life on three separate occasions, but he was still just a man, albeit a man
who was so well adapted to living in the rainforest that he was almost a
part of it. However, it was possible
that he had done something foolish or had an
accident.
Larra decided to look for him. The
problem was that she did not know where to
search. Grey could be
anywhere. The best plan was to
look near the German camp on the possibility that he might be
there. Unfortunately, she had
been unconscious when Grey had rescued her from the camp and had no idea
where it was. She did have a
plan though.
She started climbing toward the top of the
tree. Although not nearly as
adept as Grey, she was fit enough to make her way to the top without
difficulty. She remembered that
she had disabled the Zeppelin and that it had been moored nearby when Diels
was torturing her. If she was
close to the airship she should be able to see it from the top
branches.
Sure enough, there it was. She
could see the long shiny cigar-shaped hull hovering just over the trees about
two miles away. For Grey it would
have been easily reachable through the
treetops. For her it meant trudging
through the rainforest.
“Well,” she thought, “I better get
going.”
She descended to the bottom of the tree as quickly as she
could. She had no food, no water,
and no survival gear. She
didn’t even have a gun or a knife.
“I better not run into anything dangerous,” she
muttered. “I wouldn’t
have much of a chance.”
She made her way toward the Ludendorff, trying to keep her bearings in the
dark of the rainforest floor.
“Wish I had a compass,” she
thought. “If I get a few
feet off line I’ll miss the camp by miles.”
Fortunately, the deep shade kept the rainforest floor relatively clear of
undergrowth. It was fairly easy
going. However, there was always
the danger of running into some wild animal, or even bumping up against a
poisonous plant. She had to be
careful of where she was going.
It took her all of two hours to make it to the German
camp. Fortunately, she did not
lose her way. She was able to
use the angle of the sun’s rays as they penetrated from above to keep
her direction. It was not
particularly accurate, but it was better than nothing, and it served to bring
her to the edge of the camp in due time.
Larra could hear voices as she got
closer. The Germans were making
no effort to conceal their location.
She slowed. She did not
want to get caught again. If
the Germans had posted sentries she might be spotted and recaptured before
she even knew that she was under
observation. It was important
to be especially careful. Too
often in the past she had blundered straight into a trap due to a lack of
caution. That had cost her quite
a bit of pain and humiliation. She
did not want the experience repeated.
She edged closer to the camp, this time keeping to the more heavily wooded
sections of the forest. Eventually,
she got down on her belly and wormed her way toward the
camp. Then she lay hidden in
the foliage and simply watched the camp for a couple of
hours.
It was a good thing that she did.
During that time the Germans changed their
sentries. Larra saw that if she
had been less careful she would almost certainly have been
discovered. There were four sentries
posted high in the treetops. They
were pretty well invisible from the ground, but could see everything below
them. These were the guards that
Larra would have to be most careful to avoid.
By now, she was being victimized by a number of annoying
insects. She determined that
none of them were dangerous, but they inflicted a number of painful
bites. She couldn’t move,
however. To do so would have
meant giving herself away. So,
she just put up with the inconvenience and
waited.
Eventually, the sun
set. Darkness descended
and Larra made her move.
She slipped into the camp without
difficulty. Larra could move
with absolute silence when she chose, and she chose
now. Keeping low and in the shadows,
she moved from tent to tent.
Sentries had been posted about the camp, but she was able to avoid
them without much difficulty.
Larra was in search of two things.
Information and
weapons. She wanted to
find out if the Germans knew anything about Grey and she needed weapons so
that she could survive in the rainforest.
She found the weapons she needed first.
They were neatly stacked in a tent that was completely unguarded;
a lapse in security that she found
remarkable. She selected a Wermacht
issue Mauser rifle, a P38 pistol, and as much
ammunition as she could comfortably
carry. She also picked up a canteen
and some emergency rations. Thus
equipped she stole out of the tent.
Now for the
information.
She found a suitable source near the edge of the
camp. A sentry was dozing on
duty. It was a simple matter
for Larra to put him into a deeper sleep with a submission hold and then
drag the unconscious German into the
forest.
She did not haul the man very far.
She just wanted him out of earshot of the camp, just in case he made
too much noise when he woke up. And
he did wake up quite soon.
Larra slapped the German awake. He
opened his eyes to find the razor edge of a knife pressed against his
throat. “Now,” said
Larra, in perfect German, “listen
carefully. I am only going to
say this once. I am going to
ask you some questions and you are going to give me some
answers. If you hesitate in your
answers or I suspect for an instant that you are lying I will cut off part
of your anatomy. Do you
understand?”
Too dazed and frightened to answer the German gulped and then
nodded.
The German talked quite readily.
Larra learned all she wanted to know. The German answered her questions
one after the other. Eventually
Larra knew the entire story of what had happened to
Grey. She determined that the
next day she would take the route the Germans had
taken. First of all, however,
she securely bound the German she had taken
prisoner. She did not gag
him, however, she wanted him to be able to call
his comrades so that they could rescue him from his
predicament.
“I’m getting soft,” thought
Larra. “Probably should
have killed him.” She headed
off into the forest in the general direction the German expedition had
taken.
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