Part 2

“Of course it will,” Baldy and I assured him. We sat him down on the sand. It was a lonely stretch, with the waves rolling up in long rhythmic lines of white and the open sea a deep purple with leaden clouds overhead and a wan moon trying to break through.

“Now then, make yourself comfortable,” I told Porky as we stretched him out on the sand. “We’ll be right here by you all the time.”

That didn’t seem to comfort him much. “I sure hope this thing works,” he said.

With the fate of the war at stake, I sure hoped so myself; but I wasn’t going to express any doubts about it. Baldy and I sat down and lighted up our pipes.

“Just keep your mind on the nearest submarine Commander,” I said. “And then jump into him and go to work. Then--withdraw. You’ll be back here with us instantaneously and we’ll start you right off again, it’s a cinch,” I assured him.

“I sure hope so,” he agreed.

“Nazi submarine Commander,” Baldy put in with sudden thought. “There might be a U. S. sub out there, Porky. Now listen--don’t you get this thing mixed--”

“It’s just plain suicide--that’s what it is,” Lisbeth murmured resentfully. But Baldy and I silenced her.

And then Porky went to work. He was stretched on the sand with head and shoulders propped up by his elbows behind him. We all held our breaths. For a minute or two Porky just stared moodily out at the purple sea. Concentrating. Lisbeth was sitting beside him; she seemed afraid to look at him.

“I won’t let him do it,” she muttered.

“Shut up,” Baldy growled. “You’ll break the spell.”

Then suddenly Porky gave a twitch. His body stiffened, then went limp. There was a little thud as his head and shoulders fell back onto the sand. Lisbeth gave a suppressed cry. Baldy and I exhaled; and then went back to puffing at our pipes. You’ve got to have poise in a thing like that; take it in stride, so to speak.

“Well, he’s at work,” Baldy murmured at last. “Pretty soon we ought to be getting results.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ll bet those Nazi sailors on the sub are getting kind of surprised, just about now.”

I could picture it. A startled wonderment spreading around the sub at the queer actions of the Commander. Or maybe the whole thing was exploding just about now.

More time passed. On the sand beside us Porky’s body lay inert. You could hardly tell that he wasn’t dead. I could feel Lisbeth’s gaze roving Baldy and me as though we were a couple of murderers. Then all of a sudden Lisbeth gave a sharp, startled cry.

“Oh, my heavens! Look! Look there!”

We all saw it at once. Out in front of us, half a mile out maybe, the purple sea suddenly heaved up. There was a great cascade of water out of which a monstrous dark green shape rose towering two or three hundred feet into the air. The Green Giant! There he was. How can I describe him? I can’t. Not adequately, because he was too awesome, too weird, too incredible--but there he was. A great green man-shape.

* * * * *

The pallid moonlight shone on him--a green giant who must have been five or six hundred feet tall. He was wading waist deep in the water--wading, not at us, thank heavens, but parallel to the beach, toward Sandy Hook by the entrance to New York Harbor. The moonlight shone on his glistening torso--green scales and a slimy sea-look as though algae and barnacles might be clustered on it. A Green Giant almost in human form. Anyway, I remember that he had a browny chest that bulged out over the ocean surface; wide thick shoulders and monstrous arms that dangled down into the water as he strode forward, with a line of white waves churning at his waist. I saw his face plainly. You couldn’t call it human, but that was its general idea. He was breathing through his mouth now with a snort that was a gruesome rumbling roar; but I could see that he had gills or some such apparatus in the sides of his neck.

For a minute maybe Baldy and I and Lisbeth must have just sat there stricken, numb, with the body of Porky beside us. And then suddenly an immense amount of amazing things began to happen all more or less simultaneously. In the town behind us the air-raid siren began wailing. Then searchlights from several spots on shore sprang like great waving silver swords in the sky. Then, far out to sea there was the drone of planes.

An air raid! New York City being raided by Nazi planes! The Green Giant had nothing to do with the first alarm here on shore. It was planes coming in from the ocean. We heard them; and in a few seconds we saw them--four of them, flying low; Nazi planes--the moonlight disclosed it. Who am I to try to picture exactly what happened next? It was quite a chaos. All I can remember is that one of the planes swerved low pretty close over the Green Giant. I imagine that Nazi pilot was sort of startled--can you blame him? Anyway, suddenly the giant let out a bellow of anger; his hand reached up a hundred feet or so over his head and grabbed the plane--seized it, crunched it maybe and then flung it away. The plane was a long finger of yellow-red flames as it fell hissing into the sea.

I recall I heard Baldy mutter: “Ah--good work! Very neat!”

Good work! That tipped me off. I admit that in all the chaos the main fact had not yet occurred to me. You’ve guessed it. Porky! By some mischance for Hitler, quite evidently Der Fuehrer had selected this particular night for his threatened bombing of New York. Here were his bombing planes--four of them. And there was Porky, in the person of that astonishing green giant, going to work on them. Those Nazi pilots evidently got rattled. They gave up their ideas of heading up the bay and for a moment were circling here like a flock of confused birds. They were too far away now for Porky to clutch at them, so he stooped. One of his hands came up out of the sea with a monstrous dripping boulder. He flung it, and another plane crashed.

There was worse than chaos out in front of us now. A lot of our own planes were coming, interceptors that went like wasps after the two remaining Nazis. One of Hitler’s prides seemed to be shot down; and Porky accounted for the other one--that green giant leaped into the air with a marvelous standing high jump, grabbed the Nazi plane with both hands and tore it into bits. But now a new element entered into the thing. Hitler evidently had a few subs around here. One of them obviously let loose a couple of torpedos at the giant. Distinctly I saw two explosions at the giant’s waistline--torpedos that must have gone right into him and exploded inside. Anyway, he doubled up with a bellowing roar of pain that rattled our ear-drums and then he went down, sinking with a cataclysmic rush of white waves over him.

I recall my fleeting thought that this would be just the proper time for Porky to withdraw. And he did. As the green giant fell and disappeared, the body of Porky here on the sand gave a convulsive shudder and in another instant Porky was sitting up, blinking, with a hand rubbing his forehead, and the other hand shoving away Lisbeth who was clutching at him.

“W-well,” Porky said. “Here you are. What happened?”

“Plenty,” I said. “A very great deal. But you did fine, Porky.”

* * * * *

Baldy was on his feet, holding off Lisbeth who was struggling to get at Porky. “Say, listen, you lug,” Baldy demanded, “where in the devil did you ever pick up that giant? It happened to work out all right, but--”

“Why--I dunno,” Porky said. “He was just lying around down there--”

“On his way in from Atlantis maybe?” Baldy was sarcastic.

“I dunno. I was concentrating on a sub Commander--how bestial they are--you know, that sort of stuff--and all of a sudden I sort of slid into that giant.” Porky shuddered. “It was--horrible. But--when I saw those Nazi planes, I did my best.”

“You did wonderful,” I agreed.

“You saved New York from maybe a nasty air raid. Now listen, the U-boat Commanders are still out there. All we have to do--”

“If we had any sense we’d be getting out of here before we get into _real_ trouble,” Lisbeth observed suddenly.

I could see that she had something there. This section of the beach was no longer lonely. Spectators were beginning to mill around; and there were Coast Guards, with searchlights darting at us, and planes roaring overhead.

“Come on, let’s duck,” I agreed. “We’ll come back tomorrow night when things have quieted down a bit.”

Baldy and I planned it enthusiastically all the way back to the city. Barring the sudden advent of green giants and such, the thing obviously was absolutely simple. We four could tour all the coasts. And then maybe arrange to get abroad. I figured three months--if Porky could hold out--would wind up the war.

That next day, Baldy and I made charts in regular military fashion, outlining our exact plan of campaign. We didn’t see Porky or Lisbeth that afternoon, or evening. They had wanted to have dinner together again, but had promised faithfully to report at my study by eleven p.m. They came, right on the dot. And they were both beaming.

“Well,” I said. “Here you are. That’s fine. And you look in good shape for a swell night’s work, Porky.”

“Yes, sir,” Porky agreed. “I’m all right. But you see, sir--there’s--er--something we want to tell you.”

That “sir” sounded sort of queer, but I admit I didn’t get the idea.

“He loves me and I love him and so it’s all settled,” Lisbeth said.

I saw that Baldy looked startled. What I looked like I don’t know. “What’s all settled?” I demanded.

“Us--er--we’re engaged,” Porky stammered. “That is--”

“It absolutely is,” Lisbeth beamed. “He loves me and I love him. Definitely.”

To say that I was nonplussed would be putting it mildly. But I have always prided myself on having a true sense of values. What’s the problem of a daughter compared to the problem of winning the war? Nothing. Nothing at all.

“Well, we’ll talk about that later,” I decided firmly. “Right now we’ve got a war on our hands. Come on, let’s get going.”

But Porky didn’t look at all as thought he were ready to start. “Well,” he said, “that’s another thing I--er--have to tell you.” He looked very pleased. “I haven’t got it any more. I’ve lost it.”

Baldy came to life. “What’s _that_ mean?” he demanded. “What in the devil haven’t you got any more? What have you lost?”

“My--my gift--that’s what you called it,” Porky said. “It’s gone. Vanished. I can’t do it any more. I tried--honest I did--but it’s gone.”

Lisbeth made an expressive gesture like one who wants to indicate that a fairy has just flown out the window.

“He tried,” she said. “He really did.”

“I’m no coward,” Porky added. “Didn’t I do fine last night? But it’s gone--I’m quite normal now.” He said that last with a very evident relish.

“Because now your soul and heart and ego and such are all tied up with Lisbeth,” Baldy said sarcastically.

“That’s it,” Lisbeth retorted. “And you don’t need to be sarcastic about it. He and I figured it all out--why would his ego want to roam abroad when it’s in my keeping--forever?” She and Porky were holding onto each other’s hands and gazing with that dying calf look. “He belongs to me now,” Lisbeth added. “His ego doesn’t want to go adventuring. Besides, if it did, I wouldn’t let it.”

And there you are. I’m sorry about not being personally able to win the war, but you can see, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 1943 issue of _Science Fiction Stories_.]