Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (32 page)

Failing to comprehend the nature of the structure, Doc Savage backed away several paces, and stood listening. No sounds associated with human activity came to his ears. Nor any smells.

It was plain that Diamond, his gang and their prisoners, had somehow entered the imposing structure. This was the only explanation for the absence of human odors that had inexplicably vanished.

Doc considered bringing his flashlight into play, but for all he knew, the building had windows or loopholes and he might be observed from within. Even semi-visible, he did not want to draw sniping fire. There was little cover here. Only rocks, some quite sizable.

So the bronze man withdrew and awaited the dawn.

As he lurked unseen, the ocean breeze picked up, and a new sound began to lift above the thin cries of agitated bats.

IT WAS a low moaning. Doc listened to it very carefully. Knowing that there was a tropical storm in the general vicinity, he had initially wondered if this was the first wailing of hurricane winds.

Although the moving air suggested an approaching storm, the moaning was not the wind. Rather, the wind was producing the moaning in some way.

As Doc listened, the sound took on an unsettling quality. A chorus of ghosts lamenting the loss of their corporeal existence might produce such a dirge. But the images that ran through the bronze man’s mind were of cartoon ghosts moaning, and he did not believe in manifestations of the supernatural, anyway.

The wind continued to pick up, and the moaning changed its tune. With a growing alarm, Doc began to suspect that the distant hurricane was moving in this general direction and was somehow producing this weird noise.

For the moaning grew and grew and became a low whining, and the low whining ascended on the musical scale until it swelled into a steady, insistent and extremely terrible wailing sound.

The relentless noises soon began to get under his skin, and preyed upon his ordinarily iron nerves. No matter how strong the mind of a man might be, there is something about persistent, unsettling noises that could get to one. The way the wailing went on and on—combined with the terrible darkness and all the unknowns that were surrounding Doc Savage—began steadily to work at his steely self-possession.

It would not be so bad if the wind died down here and there, causing the incessant caterwauling to pause. But there were no pauses, just the insistent noise of a creature with endless capacity for vocal expression that never once stopped to take a breath. The thing that wailed did so relentlessly and with greater and greater volume.

While Doc Savage stood watch, the tropical sun crept above the horizon line, igniting searing patches on the ocean. As it did so, the solar rays threw into sharp relief the great harrowingly loud thing before him.

By some quirk of fate—or perhaps design of man—the solar orb rose directly behind the great howling structure. While Doc watched, it painted the structure as a great black silhouette.

No details could be discerned. Nothing of its substance could be made out. The suggestion that this was a man-made tower began to resolve before the bronze man’s watchful eyes.

Soon, the blazing sun struck fire against a pair of outthrust curved longhorns on either side of the thing’s tapering top. They reminded Doc of the small horned stone that contained the debilitating power to draw the mineral iron out of a man. But that was not the most unsettling thing.

As the sun rose behind the wailing form, a solitary eye began to burn high in the towering summit. In the beginning, it was a tiny point of hot light. As the sun mounted, the burning eye grew in scope and intensity until Doc Savage felt as if he was being scrutinized by a great horned cyclops whose gaze was mustering up sufficient wrath to burn him to hot ashes on the very spot where he stood.

The eye was cut into the form of a crude quarter moon, its horns pointing upward. Exactly like the small black stone of evil influence.

Without warning, the interminable whining died. The air became eerily still. Then, a new sound impinged upon the bronze man’s hearing. It was coming, not from the ominous tower, but in the direction of the
Northern Star
.

Chapter XL

SINISTER SHAPE SURFACING

THEY FINALLY FOUND the missing acetylene torch in a storage locker upon which some humorist had etched a familiar cartoon, along with the words “Kilroy Was Here!” Or rather, Seaman Jury Goines found it.

As one of the ship’s oilers, Goines knew more about the nooks and crannies of the
Northern Star
than anyone other than her skipper, who incidentally had been released from his bunk after Monk Mayfair had taken a hacksaw to his handcuffs.

Captain McCullum was in no condition to move around much, but he insisted upon being helped to the bridge, where he took his customary position at the wheel. He used the ship’s interphone system to stay in communication with the others.

Boatswain Don Worth, along with Seamen B. Elmer Dexter, Morris Byron and Leander Tucker, brought forth the acetylene tank, but it was Monk Mayfair who took charge of it, lugging the cumbersome thing down to the crew quarters in the forecastle, carrying it across one sloping shoulder as if it was a sack of laundry.

Dropping the heavy tank before the steel door, the homely chemist donned protective goggles, fired up the torch and began his cutting.

“O.K., this is going to take a while,” he called through the steel door.

“When the stink gets too much,” Jury Goines put in, “I’ll spell you.”

“Gotcha,” grunted the hairy chemist, who understood better than any the clouds of noxious chemicals that would soon fill the cramped passageway, principally oxidized metals and poisonous carbon monoxide.

On the other side, the trapped crew backed away from the door and rocked impatiently in their hammocks.

Tropical night still reigned, but dawn was imminent.

While Monk worked, Donald Worth conferred with his shipmates, Jury Goines looming a safe distance away like a worried tower.

“When first light comes,” said Worth, “our top order of business will be to see if the ship can be gotten off the reef.”

Dex opined, “The stern is in a good three fathoms of water, and the bow doesn’t seem to be canted up very much. There’s a fair chance that just by reversing engines, we can back her off the reef.”

Donald Worth nodded. “We don’t dare do that until Doc Savage rescues the other part of the crew.”

“Well—if he does,” lamented Tuck.

Morris Byron commented firmly, “Doc Savage will come through, all right; that’s what makes him Doc Savage.”

There was no argument on that point. But neither was the rescue of the
Northern Star
crew a foregone conclusion. They all knew that. The situation on the weird black reef was dire and desperate.

Jury Goines spoke up at that point. “I volunteer to go over the side and check out the condition of the screws.”

Bosun Worth nodded and said, “Better check with the skipper before you do. I’m sure he’ll think it’s a smart idea, though.”

With that, Goines took his departure.

The quartet remained below deck in the event that Diamond and his gang should return unexpectedly. They were armed with whatever they could scrounge up—which wasn’t very much, the cutthroats having taken what weapons they could.

Ham Brooks had been working his way through the cargo holds, seeking any sailors who had been locked away in an odd corner, or gone into hiding undiscovered.

“I have found no stray sailors,” he told Don Worth upon his return. “But there are plenty of bodies. Navy men all. Diamond did not take prisoners when he came upon them.”

Don winced at the grim news. “That means the survivors are all trapped in the crew quarters. Monk will have them out before daybreak.”

“If that ape doesn’t singe off his fingers in the process,” said Ham acidly.

Leander Tucker laughed shortly. “You two are a caution! Always have been, always will be.”

HAVING nothing more to do, they made their way to the upper deck, slipped cautiously toward the bridge, climbed up to join the ship’s master.

Despite his numerous injuries, Captain McCullum was standing at the wheel—leaning into it, actually, relying on the thing for support—and employing a pair of field binoculars, endeavoring to see through the thick tropical darkness surrounding the ship.

Saluting, Seaman Worth reported, “No stray sailors discovered in any spot, sir.”

“Thank you, Bosun,” replied the Captain in a voice that ached with repressed pain. “I can’t see anything in this blasted ink.”

“It will be dawn soon enough,” advised Worth. “In case Diamond and his men can see this far, it might be advisable to go below.”

Captain McCullum was silent in a fierce way. At length, he said tightly, “The
Northern Star
is my ship, and this is my bridge. I will not be chased off it by a common corsair.”

Seaman Worth said nothing, but Ham Brooks spoke up.

“Captain McCullum, the enemy have rifles and we would make excellent targets in broad daylight. Also, we need to give Doc Savage time to work.”

McCullum ruminated in the darkness, but said nothing. It was clear to all that here was a very stubborn skipper. Good advice might be recognized as such, but if it went against his nautical grain, he was loathe to take it.

There was also the matter that McCullum would have to explain how his vessel had been commandeered in wartime and run up on a reef by a band of ragtag pirates.

And so they waited in the darkness. From time to time, Captain McCullum lifted his field glasses to his eyes, accomplishing exactly nothing.

It was a tough wait, and first light seemed as if it would never arrive.

Well before the glimmering solar rays began creeping along the ink-black sea, a noise disturbed the waters to the stern.

Even shut up in the Captain’s bridge, the disturbance reached their ears. There, they had been listening for any sound, any indication of activity on the black reef which they could barely make out.

“What was that?” muttered B. Elmer Dexter uncertainly.

“Quiet!” snapped the Captain.

All fell silent. The sounds continued. Rushing, watery noises, as of a sea disturbance.

Ham Brooks, who had adventured all over the globe in the company of Doc Savage, murmured, “That sounds like—”

“A submarine surfacing,” hissed McCullum.

They had been facing forward, in the direction of the evil-looking reef called Satan’s Spine. Abruptly, they turned around and attempted to discern the source of the unpleasant noises all sailors dread.

These were not so much splashings as they suggested a violent churning, along with an accompanying noise reminiscent of a small waterfall cascading.

Captain McCullum turned and said, “Bosun Worth, muster your men and man the stern deck gun. Prepare to deal with possible enemy submersible. Mr. Brooks, apprise Mr. Mayfair of the situation.”

Saluting sharply, Worth said, “Aye-aye, Cap’n. Come on, men. Shake a leg.”

WHILE Ham sought Monk below deck, Donald Worth and his three companions pounded down the stairs, and raced aft, taking control of the Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun mounted on the stern deck.

Swiftly, they had the deck gun turned around and ready to open fire. Mental Byron served as the loader. The others stood ready to catch the hot shells as they came rattling out of the mechanism, asbestos gloves on their hands.

In the darkness, they could not see the raider, but the ugly noises of a submersible coming to the surface were unmistakable.

They understood that should the submarine unleash a torpedo at the stern, they would be the first to die. But without a direct order from Captain McCullum, they could not open fire. And so they waited, silent and intense, their eyes open wide, but no light showed them anything.

The minutes crept past like dying snakes crawling to their graves. The humidity of the night brought perspiration beads popping out on their exposed skins. It was not a very pleasant feeling.

Came the first red rays of dawn. As natural light filtered out, they searched the graying waters with their eyes.

At first, the submarine showed as a dead-looking hulk lying out there less than one nautical mile, its sharp nose pointed in their direction. That meant it was in a position to unleash its deadly tin fish directly at their stern.

In the crawling gray light, they could not make out details. It was just a great dark shape lying ominously nearby. Nationality unknown.

As they waited for additional sunlight, Seaman Worth suddenly remembered the silent dog whistle in his pocket.

Taking it out, he gave a long blast that no one could hear. The young bosun followed this signal with three shorter blasts of varying lengths. Followed by three additional ones.

The two blasts of three notes spelled out a simple message. The only question was: Would Doc Savage hear them?

Chapter XLI

MYSTERY ON SATAN’S SPINE

DOC SAVAGE WAS considering the advisability of climbing the ominous horned tower when the first long blast of the silent dog whistle struck his hearing.

The bronze man habitually carried a silken line at the end of which was affixed a folding steel grappling hook small enough to fit in a pocket. If he could snag the hook on the burning quarter-moon orifice high in the tower, it was possible to climb the line, thereby gaining access to the tower’s interior.

But the long blast stayed him.

Listening, Doc made out the series of three shorter whistles. They were in Morse code, and signified the same letter repeated three times. S.S.S., which was the wartime equivalent of the international distress call, S.O.S.

There followed another S, after a pause, but this second series spelled out an entirely different message. S-U-B.

Submarine!

Now Doc Savage found himself teetering on the horns of a dilemma. Go forward and brave the tower, seeking Diamond and his prisoners, or to return to the
Northern Star
and investigate the sighting of an unknown submersible.