Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (17 page)

“Yes,” added Ham. “Pat has been blaming you for what Gloomy Starr did to her.”

“Even though you saved her life,” added Monk.

Upon consideration, Doc decided not to go below.

Taking the wheel of the
Stormalong,
he thrust the throttles ahead, executing a smart maneuver that cut a deep wake across the wrinkled face of the Atlantic, taking the yacht away from the drifting lifeboat.

“No sign of anything unusual?” he prompted.

“None,” said Ham. “However, if the rascals got away, they did so very thoroughly and completely.”

The
Stormalong
was running along a brilliant track of moonlight. There was a fair breeze, and it wasn’t too cold, despite the lateness of the season.

They followed along in the wake of the steamer. Doc Savage was intent, concentrating on the headset earphones of the listener device, whose receiver was installed in the bridge for convenience.

Positioned along opposite rails, Monk and Ham had their binoculars clapped to their eyes, scouring the dark horizon in all directions, seeking any hint of a periscope, or other sign of a lurking vessel.

“Except for the steamer,” Monk remarked at one point, “there ain’t nobody around.”

“If there is,” Ham said tightly, “we are sitting ducks.”

“Ducks,” Monk growled, brandishing his superfirer, “don’t shoot back.”

At that point, Pat Savage decided to poke her bronze-haired head out of the lower deck.

“Did someone say something about shooting?” she inquired brightly.

“Figure of speech,” grunted Monk.

Pat pretended to notice Doc Savage for the first time, and said cautiously, “Oh, hello, cousin. How goes it?”

Headset clamped tightly to his ears, the big bronze man did not respond. It may have been the intensity of his concentration, or it may simply be that he did not wish to respond. Pat Savage had many times disobeyed him. Her antics had been growing tiresome of late.

Pat shrugged and said casually, “Anything for me to do? I’d like to be useful.”

Ham suggested, “Find a flashlight and scour some light around. Periscopes are hard to see at night.”

Pat frowned. “Do you think there is a sub lurking nearby?”

“We cannot be sure. But we need to protect the steamer.”

“In that case,” Pat said, “I’ll go below and point it out the portholes there so I can get a better look.”

Pat returned below, and after that, light blazed from various portals in the lower hull and to port as she moved about the cabin below, searching with her powerful flash ray for any sign of activity on the ocean surface.

Pat was very diligent about this. The flashlight moved about constantly.

“Speaking of sitting ducks,” Monk said to Ham, “she’s makin’ us into a pretty fair target.”

Hearing this, Doc Savage commented, “It is better this way. We will attract any first torpedo launched, which will warn the
Matador
crew.”

The bronze giant sounded very matter-of-fact about it, but there was an undertone in his voice, a kind of steely edge, that made them all feel chilled up and down their spines.

Ham inquired, “Doc, if there was a sub, that device will detect the sound of its engines. Correct?”

“Only at a reasonable distance. Do not forget, some modern submersibles are rigged to run silently via electric motors.”

That made Monk and Ham redouble their efforts with their binoculars.

It was getting to be a long night, when from below Pat Savage let out something that sounded like a yelp. It had a choked off quality, but when she got her vocal cords back in working order, she let out a piercing scream.

Monk lunged for the below deck, howling, “What is it?”

Pat came charging up, face twisted in a kind a horror. She said, “I saw a head in the water!”

“A head?” gulped Monk.

“Yes! It was hideous!”

Pat went to the starboard rail and pointed in the direction she had seen the head. Her flashlight was gripped in one hand and she sprayed illumination about liberally.

Doc Savage turned the boat in that direction, asking, “What did the head look like, Pat?”

“Inhuman.” Pat shuddered the length of her bare arms.

“Was it a severed head?” demanded Ham Brooks, training his binoculars on the patch of illumination that was now in their direct path.

Pat seemed to struggle to put her words together. “It—it was shaped like a human head, but the details were anything but. The eyes looked like silver dollars with bullet holes in the center. It was more like the face of a frog or a fish or—I don’t know what it was!” she said at last, plainly rattled.

Stationing themselves on either side of the boat, Monk and Ham used their own flashlights. They had their supermachine pistols out, stood ready to bring them to bear.

They saw nothing unusual. Just moonglade on the heaving Atlantic. The cool night air plucked at them, brought out goose bumps along the arms—although the skin prickling hadn’t been there a few minutes before. Perhaps it was the vivid description Pat had gasped out that brought about the alteration in their exposed flesh.

After a few minutes, there came a splash. All heads turned, flashlights darting this way and that.

Then they saw it.

Something like a fishy tail flashed into the water, shaking itself.

“What was that?” Pat demanded.

“Fish,” Monk said nonchalantly.

“Are you sure?”

“I know a fish tail when I see it,” Monk retorted. “That was a fish I saw. A big one, but a fish’s tail for sure. Might be a swordfish.”

Doc Savage caused them all to freeze in their tracks at his next words.

“That was no ordinary fish.”

They waited for him to elaborate.

“What was it then?” Ham asked when the bronze man offered no more.

“That,” said Doc, “remains to be seen. The tail was very large, but it did not resemble anything known to live in these waters.”

“What do you suppose it was?” Ham asked tensely.

The bronze man declined to reply. It was a habit he had, when he did not wish to answer a question—or had no answer to give. Doc maintained his grim silence as he piloted the big oceangoing cruiser around in careful circles.

Finding nothing untoward, Doc Savage placed the sleek
Stormalong
on a heading that took it back into the wake of the steamer
Matador.

“Guess it’s gone,” Monk said, “whatever the heck it was.”

“Any guesses?” Ham asked no one in particular.

Monk muttered, “First Pat spies a floatin’ head, then we spot a fishtail that doesn’t belong in these waters.” He scratched his rusty head in puzzlement. “Say, Pat, that head you saw. Did it look like a girl’s head?”

Pat shook her head firmly. “It was so ugly I couldn’t tell what it was. Instead of hair, it looked like it had kelp or seaweed growing out of its scalp. Why do you ask?”

“Maybe it was a mermaid,” Monk said thoughtfully.

“No such creature exists!” Ham retorted unkindly. “The very idea is a pure fantasy.”

“I dunno,” Monk muttered. “Sailors the world over have been reportin’ silkies and nixies and the like for centuries. Maybe there’s somethin’ to it.”

Long Tom, who had been a silent participant up to this point, said, “Didn’t that stubborn blonde, Honoria Hale, say something about the U-Men while we were giving her the third degree?”

“She did,” said Doc Savage. “However, it is unclear what the remark meant, for she had no time to complete it before we were besieged in our cabin. But she seemed troubled about these individuals, whoever they were.”

“Doggone it!” squeaked Monk. “Do you suppose she was tryin’ to warn about mermen livin’ underwater?”

“Nonsense!” snapped Ham. “Utter rot!”

A little more time passed. They were making fair progress. Doc had no trouble pacing behind the steamer. In fact, Doc had to keep the
Stormalong
throttled back so she didn’t overhaul the vessel. The cruiser was very fleet and nimble. It had been designed by Doc Savage himself, and was undoubtedly a decade ahead of its time.

It was rather deep into the night when Doc Savage again placed the locator headset over his ears, seemed to become interested in sounds the hydrophones were picking up.

“What’s up, Doc?” Long Tom asked.

Doc Savage waved an admonishing hand, requesting silence.

Suddenly, something shot out of the water just ahead.

Not everyone saw it clearly, but Doc Savage had the best view.

The thing looked to be over seven feet in length, an iridescent green, and nearly human.

The head was a mass of seaweed. Long scale-covered arms projected forward like someone diving into the sea, except this fantastic form had jumped
out
of the sea.

Wriggling in its wake was a great silvery-red tail, like that of a deep-sea swordfish, but also remindful of the fluked tail of a mermaid under the circumstances.

The creature—if that was what it was—described a high wave-clearing arc long enough to be seen, then it dropped back into the water, making a very respectable splash.

In that fleeting moment, they thought they spied a great reddish dorsal fin running along its curving back. The resemblance to a shark fin was marked.

After the tail disappeared, the swells returned to their normal heaving rhythm. Despite their alert watchfulness and the penetrating glare of their searchlights and flashlights, the fin-backed thing did not show itself again.

Long Tom broke the silence that held them all spellbound.

“I don’t believe in mermaids,” he said peevishly.

Pat Savage retorted archly, “I got a good look at that thing. That was no mermaid. That was a mer
man.
”

Chapter XVII

THE MEN UNDER THE SEA

THE BRITISH STEAMSHIP
MATADOR
reached the port city of Hamilton in Bermuda without further complications.

The
Matador
pulled in around daybreak, with the cruiser
Stormalong,
piloted by Doc Savage, trailing not far behind her.

A delegation of customs officials and other high dignitaries were there to meet the two vessels.

Doc Savage was commended for his efforts, but was told that he would be required to submit to a formal interrogation. Evidently, the British authorities had changed their minds about giving the bronze man his liberty until the sinking of the
Caribbulla
was solved.

The bronze man consented to this without outward objection.

Doc’s three men and Pat Savage went along. Official cars conveyed them to a government building situated amid the white roofs of downtown Hamilton. The streets were quiet, the hour being early.

There, Doc Savage met privately with several high British officials.

Sympathy was expressed for the loss of the liner
Caribbulla,
and the bronze man was questioned closely about all that he had witnessed on the high seas.

Doc Savage freely admitted to having seen no signs of any submarine activity.

“It is my conclusion,” he stated, “that certain persons of foreign extraction who had booked passage on the
Caribbulla
had come to suspect that they were being watched, and took matters into their own hands.”

“By blowing up the entire boat?” one official blurted out, aghast.

“So it would appear,” Doc replied calmly.

“Rather extreme, would you not say?”

“I would,” admitted Doc.

“What do you think these rotters were about, that in order to escape they would sink a passenger ship and manage to vanish in mid-ocean?”

“A reasonable person,” returned Doc thoughtfully, “would assume they had a boat or a submarine, which they radioed, and managed to make rendezvous with.”

“But you say there were no signs of a submersible?”

“My vessel is equipped with sensitive listening devices, and I detected no sound consistent with Diesel or electric engines belonging to an underwater vessel.”

“Do you have any inkling of their scheme?”

“Only that it is of the highest importance to them and that they will stop at nothing to bring it to fruition—or to eliminate anyone in their path,” advised Doc.

“But you do not know the particulars?” pressed one official.

“No.”

Another asked, “Have you any reason to suspect that these people are working against British interests?”

“I have no data one way or the other. But they were headed south—how far south is open to speculation.”

They conferred until noon with the bronze man patiently fielding question after question, seeming to talk freely, but in fact volunteering no usable information beyond the gravity of the situation as it had already developed.

Doc Savage thought it prudent not to mention the sighting of the merman—or whatever the oceanic gargoyle was.

At length, the official stood up and said, “Thank you for your cooperation in this unpleasant matter. You are free to depart Hamilton at any time.”

Doc Savage stood up and thanked everyone, saying, “Since we do not have a definite destination in mind, we may stay in port some while before we depart.”

“Be careful to apprise us of any developments which may affect British interests,” reminded the chief official. He was very grave in his tone.

“Yes,” added another. “Concealing information of vital interest to the Crown during wartime would be very inadvisable. Very.”

With that not-so-veiled threat hanging in the air, the bronze man left the building.

DOC SAVAGE collected his men in the waiting area, and said, “Let us repair to our boat.”

Puzzled, Ham asked, “We are not being detained?”

“Our services are very much appreciated, so we have been let go with a warning.”

“They have some nerve warning us,” grumbled Long Tom.

“Nonetheless,” said of the bronze man quietly, “it would be best if we took possession of the
Stormalong
immediately.”

The official car was waiting to take them where they wished to go. They rode in silence back to the waterfront. By this time, news of Doc Savage’s arrival in Bermuda had reached the fourth estate. There was a crowd of reporters ready and eager to interview the notoriously publicity-averse bronze man.