Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (39 page)

“Let me see that, Ham,” requested Doc Savage.

The bronze man accepted the reddish band, and examined it closely. His musical but tuneless trilling seeped out as he turned the band around in his metallic fingers.

“What is it?” muttered the skipper.

“Orichalcum,” said Doc.

FROM the expressions on the men’s faces, no one seemed to know what that was. So the bronze man told them.

“In ancient times,” explained Doc, “the Greeks and other such people spoke of a rare metal by that name. Some historians claimed it was an alloy of gold and copper, others of gold and brass or perhaps bronze. There is also the possibility that orichalcum was an entirely different metal not known to the modern world, whose mines were long ago exhausted. No examples were previously believed to have survived. This trove seems to be an exception.”

Monk Mayfair snapped his blunt fingers. As a chemist, he understood metallurgy.

“I remember readin’ about that stuff!” he boasted. “The Greeks claimed it had been a valuable metal back in the days of Atlantis.”

“Atlantis!” breathed Ham. Understanding dawned in the dapper lawyer’s dark eyes. “If I remember my study of Plato, he asserted that the legendary temple of Poseidon in Atlantis had walls of orichalcum, which was second only to gold in rarity and value.”

“There is no such place!” snapped the Skipper.

“The contrary,” corrected Doc Savage. “In recent years, my men and I have discovered fragmentary survivals of the sunken continent in these very waters. Once it was a great underwater pyramid housing a vault containing many now-lost scientific secrets, from which I was able to concoct the pills we use to subsist underwater without needing to respire. On other occasions, we found only empty ruins, and other things of which I will not speak.”

Seaman Tucker looked down at his soaking feet standing on the coal-black reef and asked, “Are we standing on a piece of Atlantis?”

“Probably an outpost of the mainland,” said Doc. “I would not be at all surprised if the hundreds of islands that constitute the Bahamas chain are not remnants of the sunken continent. That watch tower operated as a practical solar lighthouse, much like the ancient Pharos of Alexandria in Egypt, but also served to protect the cellar chambers that are now flooded by the storm surge. The horns protruding from the tower’s summit, along with its cyclops eye, no doubt meant much the same in that era as it does now—keep away. The stone hands built into the reef itself conceivably symbolized the fate of any mariner who brought his vessel too close to Satan’s Spine. Death by drowning.”

The talkative pirate continued, “It was a storehouse for the red gold, as well as other stuff, including crystal statues that tricked your eyes, and dangerous things like the horned rocks that sucked the juice out of a man. Diamond thought that this was a combination treasure trove and storehouse for weapons. Either that or the life-draining stones were meant to protect the rare ingots from pirates like me. Too bad,” he mused. “If we succeeded in pulling out all that ruddy gold, we would be set up for life.”

Ham scolded, “And now you are bound for Leavenworth Prison.”

The pirate did not seem too distressed by that. He said frankly, “After what I just went through, I’m grateful to be alive.”

That comment caused Seaman Tucker to say, “I wish I could say the same for my friends.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ham.

“We all got swept out over the rail,” said Tuck dejectedly. “It looks like I’m the only one who survived.”

While this unpleasant thought was sinking in, there was a commotion several rods away, and all heads turned in time to see the conning tower of the missing submarine breach the still-disturbed sea, spilling cascades of sea water.

“Well, maybe I spoke too soon,” muttered Seaman Tucker dispiritedly.

Chapter LIII

LOST LIGAN

THE SUBMARINE COMMANDER introduced himself as Captain Fritz Zammer.

That was only one jolt in the succession of shocks that followed the surprise appearance of the submersible.

When the undersea boat finished surfacing, the forward hatch was undogged and the sub’s skipper emerged, along with a contingent of armed sailors.

By that time Doc Savage had already recognized the vessel as a United States Navy submarine. This, of course, had been a tremendous relief to all concerned.

Captain Zammer hailed from Pennsylvania Dutch country, hence his Germanic name. But he was a loyal American, through and through.

The submariner went through a rapid explanation of his presence in this remote arm of the Caribbean Sea.

“I am not in these waters by accident. My mission was to shadow the
Northern
Star
as she made her way to her convoy rendezvous. You see, my boat is equipped with a new-type of magnetic torpedo, and we were hoping that a lone merchant ship might catch the attention of a prowling Nazi U-boat. I’m sorry to inform you, Captain McCullum, that you were the bait in the elaborate trap. My job was to sink any enemy submarine before they could torpedo your vessel. When your radioman failed to check in with Naval H.Q. on the prearranged schedule, I was instructed to seek you out.”

Captain McCullum said brusquely, “We fell victim to pirates.”

Captain Zammer cocked a quizzical eyebrow as if to ask, “In this day and age?” But the sorry condition of the
Northern
Star
stayed his intended remark. The great liner was now nothing more than marine salvage.

McCullum said slowly, “I thought there was something fishy about my cargo and the sea route I was instructed to follow. It was all odds and ends. War metals. Foreign sailors. Other bric-a-brac.”

The sub skipper said, “The reason your boat wasn’t crammed with U.S. troops assigned to support the invasion of Europe is that the brass in Washington didn’t want to lose them if I failed to sink any sea wolf who happened upon your solitary wake.”

“In short,” McCullum said bitterly, “we were classified as expendable.”

“Fortunes of war, Captain,” returned Zammer.

Doc Savage inserted, “We have less than an hour to find shelter before the hurricane eye passes through and the wall of wind and water returns.”

Captain Zammer surveyed the bedraggled survivors and said, “Accommodations will be tight, but my vessel is all that is immediately available. We had best get to climbing aboard and securing hatches.”

The men were assembled, and escorted on board. Distributing themselves around the cramped innards of the submarine, they received another jolt.

Seaman Jury Goines numbered among the survivors. He looked as though he had been plucked off a desert isle. One of the souvenirs of his experience was a black eye that was purplish in spots.

“I got picked up out of the drink,” he said simply. “Swabbies were kind of rough about it, on account of the way I manhandled their gunnery crew. I think the only reason I was saved was that they were already rescuing their own boys, and it would look bad if they didn’t grab me, too.”

No doubt there was more to the big oiler’s story, but when Seaman Tucker worked his way aft to find a place to sit down and sulk, he instead let out a weird howl, followed by a yelp of a question.

“Am I seeing ghosts?”

Doc Savage rushed to the sound of the commotion in time to behold Seamen Donald Worth, B. Elmer Dexter and Mental Morris hopping up and down and embracing Leander Tucker, who was doing his own hopping around while simultaneously attempting to embrace the others.

“We were sure you drowned!” Don Worth was saying.

“And I thought you three were finished!” Tuck returned joyously.

Doc Savage was not one for smiling, but his mouth was doing some pleasant warping as he watched the happy reunion jig.

All hands were not happy, of course, aboard the submarine, for as Captain McCullum moved among his remaining crew, counting heads, he realized that he had lost the greater portion of his ship’s complement, in addition to the
Northern
Star
herself. He was morose. It showed on his craggy features.

But there was no time for such unpleasant thoughts, for the submarine was hastily being rigged to submerge again. Hatches were dogged, sailors manned their crash stations, and Captain Zammer gave the order to submerge. There followed a tumult of ugly noises as the hull tanks were violently flushed of compressed air and the sub floor plates dropped under their feet like an unstable elevator.

The undersea boat was swallowed by the ocean. It settled to the bottom, coming to rest in only thirteen fathoms of water. Tensely, everyone waited.

At the periscope, Captain Zammer was searching the horizon, and finally said, “Here she comes.”

A wall of water seemed to slam against the submarine’s hull, for it gave a jolt, and swayed alarmingly in several directions, at times seemingly at once.

For more than two hours, the submarine was at the mercy of the churning waves, but other than accumulating bumps and bruises from being knocked about, the crew and extra passengers came through it quite nicely.

WHEN it was safe to surface again, a hatch was popped and those at liberty to do so clambered onto the deck, where fresh air was greedily inhaled. The greasy atmosphere of a sub’s confines had a way of clogging up a man’s airways.

Doc Savage’s small party, which included Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks and their four friends, investigated the length of Satan’s Spine.

There was not much to see, except a small coral octopus, which was crawling along in search of food. It had assumed the coal-seam color of its immediate surroundings, giving it a devil aspect appropriate to Satan’s Spine.

They came to what amounted to a jagged cellar hole at the far end where the watchtower had once loomed so ominously, a survival of an ancient, forgotten race of men. The broken hole was choked with water and debris. Doc Savage studied this quite a bit before pronouncing the vertical lava tube which had been fashioned into a corkscrew ramp as hopelessly sealed.

Monk was saying, “Maybe we can come back with diving suits and root around in there.”

Doc Savage shook his head. “Too dangerous. The air hoses that would be necessary to keep a diver supplied with oxygen would too easily become entangled or completely severed negotiating the curving ramp. Also, the waters in the treasure room were turning to ice when I last saw it, as a result of a weird crystal idol that was extreme cold. I suspect that the ice will be permanent.”

Monk was stubborn, or perhaps avarice motivated his next words.

“It would be a shame to let all that rare gold go to waste,” he muttered. “If it
is
gold.”

Ham Brooks said sharply, “You just want to get your greedy hands on that stuff for yourself.”

“Heck,” grunted Monk, “I went through enough hell to earn my fair share of it. Didn’t I? What’s stoppin’ us? It’s legal salvage, ain’t it?”

Ham Brooks, who had studied maritime law, corrected the irate chemist.

“The legal term is ligan—which means salvageable goods to be found at the sea bottom. I imagine that this submerged treasure house qualifies.”

Doc Savage was saying, “No doubt there are some amazing things to be found in the waters below. Including the secret of turning molten magma into useful forms such as ramps and towers. But we know from past experience that the Atlantean people, whoever they were, were of a very high intellectual order, and mastered sciences which are still undiscovered in the 20th Century.”

That thought was long sinking into their brains. In silence, they contemplated the strange twists of fate that had cast Satan’s Spine into the ocean when Atlantis foundered and sank beneath the waves, only to throw it up again many centuries later, to be discovered by a wicked modern-day freebooter, and all the deadly consequences that followed.

His face slack at the thought of the unsalvageable gold, Monk Mayfair grunted, “Well, I guess we’re headed back to New York City, after all.”

Doc Savage told him, “If you still want to go to England for that chemical job, there are plenty of Liberty ships and other vessels crossing the Atlantic every week.”

Monk turned his empty trouser pockets inside out and said, “Yeah. Guess I had better catch the next boat.” A funny expression crossed his homely features. Snapping his forefinger and thumb together, he produced a pop of a report.

“I just thought of something!” he shouted.

“What is that?” asked Ham seriously.

“We never did find out what happened to that Davey Lee gal. Maybe I should look her up.”

Doc Savage said, “By now she is safe in her actual home in Richmond, Virginia.”

Monk looked flabbergasted. “How do you know that?”

“Before we left New York, I had my cousin Patricia undertake a search for Davey Lee. Pat found her safe and sound in a woman’s hotel, drugged but unharmed, and put her on a train heading south, where she should stay out of mischief. She was an aspiring actress who fell in with bad company, nothing more. Her only role was to keep Monk off the
Northern Star,
lest he gum up Diamond’s plans.”

Ham remarked, “Instead, his efforts backfired by bringing Doc Savage into the matter. After all his plans and precautions to sail unsuspected, Diamond’s own fears did him in.”

Monk looked intrigued. “Richmond, did you say?”

Doc eyed him seriously.

“I thought you were going to seek out the next boat bound for London?” reminded the bronze man.

“What’s the rush?” grinned Monk. “You said boats are leavin’ every week. I can catch one the same as another.”

Ham scowled. “It’s that girl you want to catch, not any boat.”

“I’m hopin’ to catch both, but one at a time,” said Monk, smacking his lips. “Say, do you think Davey Lee would go to London with me? I could use an assistant over there.”

“You are forgetting,” reminded Ham, “that all her batting-of-the-eye fascination with your homeliness was merely an act Miss Lee put on because she was paid to do so.”

The apish chemist pondered that a moment and remarked, “I always find that the longer a gal takes to get to know me, the more I grow on her.”