Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (10 page)

Doc trained his binoculars on the upheaving swells. All he perceived was leaping blue water, which flung off white spume.

By now, the solar disk had touched the Indian Ocean’s horizon line and fiery blood seemed to spill in lurid gouts. They made discernment difficult.

A half hour came and went. Then an hour. Captain Savage paced like a two-legged tiger.

“So far, so good,” said Doc. He was back at the wheel, feet planted like tree trunks.

When nearly two hours had passed, Captain Savage folded up his spyglass and called for all sails to be raised.

“Resume course, Mister Savage.”

“Aye, sir.”

The
Orion
was soon under weigh. Night had fallen. They ran without running lights. The chances of encountering—never mind colliding with—another vessel were beyond remote.

Above, the moon was a slender crescent, its ghostly light wan and weak.

“Unlikely we will spy the
Courser
in this infernal blight,” complained Captain Savage.

“I would like the watch tonight.”

“Very well, Mister Savage. It is yours to have.”

“Thank you, sir.”

DOC SAVAGE took the evening watch after his supper. He rushed through the meal because he was eating alone. His father had the wheel, appearing reluctant to leave the deck for any reason.

Doc brought him a cold meat plate, which was silently accepted.

The atmosphere on deck was electric. Even the taciturn Mayans seemed more alert than usual.

Doc commented, “We seem to have avoided those Dyaks.”

“Or not. They could be sweeping around us even now, with the fell intention of surrounding the schooner.”

Doc sniffed the air.

“What do Dyaks smell like?” he asked suddenly.

“What does that have to do with our present situation?” asked the captain.

“People of Asia have remarked that Europeans smell of meat. The Mayans smell of corn. I am thinking, in this darkness, I might detect a boat filled with some eighty Dyaks by their distinctive personal odors.”

“You would have to possess the nose of a bloodhound to scent them more than a few yards.”

“You are forgetting my training, father,” Doc said gently.

“So I am,” returned the elder Savage. “Sea Dyaks consume fish at sea, pig and yams and chicken when on land.”

Doc inhaled slowly, then released the captured breath.

At length, he reported, “I smell no unfamiliar people.”

“Very good, First Mate Savage. Keep your eyes peeled sharp and your canny nostrils flared all the length of your watch. Our lives may depend upon it.”

The captain sat down on a coil of line distributed on the quarterdeck and ate methodically. He had locked the helm, there being no need to alter course, even slightly, from their present heading. By night, with the trades steadily blowing, the
Orion
practically ran herself.

Doc Savage patrolled the length and breadth of the schooner as the night marched on. His eyes, amazingly acute, were nevertheless limited by the smothering darkness. The air had cooled, but only to about seventy degrees.

At each turn about the boat, Doc tasted the air and listened intently.

The sound of Dyak paddles was something with which he had already acquainted himself. They didn’t creak like Western oars in metal oarlocks would, but they had their own distinctive rustle and gurgle.

No such sound reached his ears. Still, Doc refused to relax.

Midnight came and went without incident. The Mayans withdrew to their communal bunks in the forecastle below. All became quiet on deck.

A playful wind made the mainsail ripple and pop. Other than that and the running of the waves, a delightful quiet had descended.

Doc enjoyed the peacefulness of it all. During his upbringing, he had been handed off from one expert or scientist to another. Money had changed hands. His safety had been paramount. He was rarely left alone. Sometimes he ached for solitude. The war had been worse in that respect. So these quiet moments were like wine to him.

A flick resembling an insect shooting by his ear made Doc drop suddenly to the deck.

He waited, head cocked. No other sound came. His eyes searched, saw nothing. His ears captured a faint buzz.

An insect, to be sure. But the flicking sound past his ears was identical to that of a blowpipe dart whisking by. Doc had expected any attack on the
Orion
would have begun with the soft whisper of Dyak darts.

Doc climbed to his feet and resumed his stance at the wheel.

The way ahead was darker than the inside of an octopus, blacker than its ink. But the open ocean felt as safe as a green meadow. It was so large and spacious that no danger of collision was likely.

Doc soon relaxed. His thoughts drifted back to his storied father. Had the loss of his young wife, only weeks after Doc had been born, congealed his emotions? Clark Savage, Senior, had never remarried. It was all a poignant and unfathomable mystery….

BY the radium dial of his wristwatch, Doc noted the time to be four-fourteen in the morning. Not that there was any morning to be seen. The crescent moon was very high up and seemed very far away.

Overhead, the stars were splendid, a necklace of diamonds stretched across the night sky. The cool illumination trickling down from them was not brilliant. More on the order of a leakage from some other realm. A half light that tricked and fooled the eye into thinking there was more apparent light than existed.

So it was that Doc Savage was very surprised when he came upon the hulk looming in his path.

There was moonglade, of course. Sparkles, glimmerings and diamond points of dancing moonlight all around. This display aided in the discovery.

The hulk reared up ahead, slightly to starboard, looking like the Flying Dutchman ship of legendry. Her hull was black, the streak running its entire length, white.

Doc spun the wheel hard to port and locked it. Then he found a hurricane lantern, lit it, and set the wick low.

Taking it to the bow, he lifted the glowing lantern.

The mellow shine was fair. Good enough to reveal portions of the ship. She floated high in the swells, rocking like a drunken sailor.

His heart pounding high in his throat, Doc raised the wick, producing more light. But the throw of illumination proved insufficient to make out details.

Doc scrounged up a battery flashlight. It was a risky thing to do, but he used it.

The concentrated light played along a handsome hull. He lifted the beam, discovered no sails, no masts—although the latter might be missed in the murk.

Finding the rail once more, Doc raced the beam along until he came to the stern.

There, in distinct ivory letters, was the name of the vessel:

COURSER

Chapter XII

STRIKING THE SHIP’S bell was out of the question, so Doc slipped below and knocked sharply on the captain’s cabin door.

A querulous voice responded. “What is it?”

“Ship sighted, sir.”

“Name of vessel, if any?”

“It is the
Courser,
Captain.”

The old man shot out of bed so fast that Doc was taken aback by the speed with which the door opened to reveal snapping golden eyes.

Captain Savage looked at him as if half incredulous.

“You are certain of this, Mister Savage?”

“The name is plain on her stern, sir.”

Captain Savage seemed to stagger a moment. Doc almost reached out to steady him, but refrained out of respect for the old man’s nautical dignity.

“Await me at the wheel, Mister Savage. I will join you directly.”

“Aye, sir.”

A short time later, Captain Savage was striding toward the bow, fully dressed and as awake and alert as if he had been on duty all of the evening. His pewter hair was combed smooth against his fine skull, attesting to the fact that he had neglected to don his captain’s cap.

Doc passed the flashlight into his hand, saying, “You can make out her name with this.”

“Chancy, with a Dyak war party in the vicinity.”

Doc lifted the hurricane lantern. Its more diffuse light painted the surrounding sea, brought out the other ship with a stark clarity.

The majestic old clipper could be discerned far to port now, leaping and crashing in the rollers, rocking aimlessly from side to side. A moon-silvered derelict of the sea.

Carefully, Captain Savage clicked the flash beam on and chased it over the long sweeping lines of the other vessel. The expression crossing his sun-seamed features depicted the pain of a sailorman recognizing a crippled ship.

The light lingered on her figurehead—a plunging war horse, armored and wild, forelegs lifted in defiance.

After only a few seconds, he doused the light and said hoarsely, “I do not need to see her name, Mister Savage. I know that fine old ship as I know the back of my own hand. She is the
Courser.
Prepare to bring us alongside her.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

The crew was summoned from their sleep, and Captain Savage took the wheel, executing a sharp turn calculated to backtrack toward the
Courser.

They warped in close and drew alongside the heaving opposite deck. Cork fenders were set upon the starboard rails. The Mayans employed boat hooks to keep the hulls apart until the
Orion
settled down.

Using the K’iche tongue, Captain Savage ordered, “Strike sails.”

Sails were brought down.

“Grapples to hand.”

Grappling hooks and lines of Italian marlin were brought from storage lockers, made ready, and the crew began throwing them with practiced skill.

Soon, the two vessels were lashed together rather perilously. The mighty clipper ship dwarfed the tossing schooner.

The
Courser
rode over a dozen feet higher than the
Orion.
It was impossible to see the deck from their inferior vantage point. But from a distance, it had appeared deserted.

“Who will go first?” asked Doc.

Captain Savage hesitated. For the first time, Doc detected a trace of fear, as if his father didn’t wish to discover the worst the foundering old clipper had to offer.

Finally, he asked heavily, “Are you requesting the privilege, Mister Savage?”

“I am, sir.”

“Then be about it.”

Doc clambered up the ratlines, going up like a spider monkey climbing a tangle of vine. From the crow’s nest, he flung a grappling hook and snagged the mahogany rail. Fastening the loose end snug around the mast, he went across, hand over hand, making it look easy.

Reaching the rail, the bronze giant dropped quietly onto the deck, his canvas shoes muffling his landing.

It was moist and the aged teakwood under his feet felt spongy in spots, like balsa wood that had been left out in a tropical rain.

Doc moved along the deck, using his flashlight carefully, not letting the beam rove too much. There was still the danger of Dyak boats hereabouts.

Doc found the main mast and examined where it stood splintered. His trilling issued slowly from his parted lips. Astonishment was the flavor of the sound. Only a great force could have accomplished such destruction, he realized.

The other masts were likewise sundered. Curiously, the direction of these other breaks was haphazard. The splintering ran in different directions, as if beset by opposing forces.

Going to the rail, Doc called down to the
Orion.

“All masts sheared close to the deck. No gale did this.”

His father shouted up, “Cannon shell?”

“No. Not to my eyes.”

“Then what, Mister Savage?”

Doc hesitated. “I cannot venture a guess.”

“Resume your duty, sir.”

Doc returned to his investigation. He went below and moved among the cabins crowded together near the main stateroom. They were deserted.

No one had slept here in a very long time, he saw.

There were splashes of blood. A dying half-starved rat. Cobwebs. Vermin. Cockroaches and copra-bugs.

Returning to deck, Doc went to the taffrail in the clipper’s stern and found a mass of jellied blood at its base. It was concentrated in one spot. The area looked like a rude chopping block and the thoughts his imagination painted of the fate of the crew were not pleasant, although they were exceedingly vivid.

Doc returned to the
Orion
to report.

“Not a soul on board, Captain,” he said after shinnying down the main mast.

“You are certain of this?”

“Absolutely.”

Captain Savage hesitated. “At first light, I will see for myself.”

“We are twice as conspicuous by dawn light,” Doc cautioned.

“What I wish to see, I wish to see under honest sunlight,” said the captain carefully.

THEY boarded with the dawn, tossing grappling hooks upward to snag the weather-beaten rail, and climbing trailing lines until they could drop over onto the great deck.

The Mayan crew remained with the
Orion,
on guard, their revolvers and machetes handy.

Captain Savage examined the sprung masts first and the pain evident on his sun- and wind-burned features was acute.

“You are correct, Mister Savage. No gale did this horrific damage. Nor shell, either. It would be impossible to aim artillery so accurately that only the masts were taken away, and the rails to survive undamaged as they have.”

“It is difficult to guess what might have contained the force to snap all three masts in identical ways,” offered Doc.

“I agree. But your eyes tell you the same tale that my eyes do. So there you have it.”

Doc scrutinized a clump of spidery, rotting ratline that lay athwart the port rail. It had come loose during the uprooting of the masts, obviously.

“There must be an explanation,” he said firmly.

Captain Savage directed his piercing gaze on his son. “As I recall, you were a great reader of Sherlock Holmes in your youth. Have you any theories of a deductive nature?”

“As I recall, you disapproved of my taste in authors.”

“I have always been partial to Shakespeare, as you are well aware.”