Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (11 page)

“Shakespeare wrote about human affairs,” countered Doc. “Conan Doyle taught me to look at the world through scientific perceptions.”

“Well, here is your opportunity to vindicate that wasted portion of your youth,” returned Captain Savage sternly.

Responding to the challenge, Doc moved about the deck, examining each splintery stub in turn.

“Had any wind or man-made power done this,” offered Doc, “the masts would have necessarily toppled in such a way as to ruin deck and rails—if not the superstructure.”

“I observe the same thing that you do. Pray, continue.”

“If the masts did not fall down, they must have gone up.”

“Preposterous!”

“See for yourself, Captain. The way the splinters are grouped on each mast heel, unmistakably twisted.”

The elder Savage fingered one splintery stub, removing a tendril of wood for closer examination.

“Sails caught in a gale would not create this,” he murmured. “The canvas would be sundered before the masts began turning in their collars.”

“We have already established that,” said Doc. “Each mast was individually torn loose and carried away.”

Challenge burned in the old man’s eyes. “By what? I await your explanatory theory.”

Doc considered this for a long period.

“Occam’s Razor suggests one possibility,” he mused. “Something wrenched the masts loose and flung them in such a way so as not to damage the rest of the
Courser.
”

“Yes, yes, I comprehend your drift,” said the elder Savage impatiently. “But by what miraculous agency?”

Doc pondered this question. “Were we living in the days of Ulysses, I would have suggested a Cyclops. But it would appear that only a giant approximately the size of Alfred Bulltop Stormalong could have accomplished this easily. He was said to stand thirty feet tall.”

“Myth and legend are not acceptable to the scientific mind,” snapped Captain Savage. “You are jumping at conclusions, sir.”

“Sir, my conclusions appear sound. I see no other alternative.”

Captain Savage stared at his son with reserved incredulity.

“Next, you will be leaping from tree to tree like Tarzan of the Apes,” he grumbled.

“Or mast to mast,” said Doc, suppressing a smile. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that his father had read that book.

Realizing that his son had already demonstrated that feat, the old man made an impatient gesture that could only be interpreted as, let’s get on with it.

Doc led his father to the taffrail, beneath which a bloody blob sat in the sun, looking like a dead jellyfish engorged with plasma.

“Heads were taken here,” intoned Captain Savage after a difficult silence.

“I would judge within the last two months, perhaps less,” offered Doc, after toeing the encrimsoned matter carefully.

Savage Senior favored him with a sharp glance. “And you judge this how?”

“My medical training, sir.”

“Such as it stands,” said Savage glumly. “But I do not doubt you in this particular matter. The way of the Sea Dyak is to remove the heads as trophies and dispose of the bodies at sea. If we wish to know who perished at this ugly spot, we must locate the trophies of war. For they always carry them away.”

“Does that mean we are now in the business of hunting Dyaks?”

Captain Savage nodded solemnly. “Beginning with the
balla
operating in these reaches.” His voice was very firm, the tone akin to a vengeance vow.

They went below, Captain Savage leading. He lit his hurricane lantern to light the way, and its mellow glow made the varnish of the golden oak paneling below gleam brightly.

CAPTAIN SAVAGE went directly to the master’s cabin, which was in disarray, the bed stripped of all linen. Chests stood open and empty. He ignored these things and stood before a mirror. It was dusty, but amid the dust were pale streaks.

“My father had a habit of using his mirror to mark messages in soap,” Captain Savage told Doc. “It had the advantage being impermanent, and could therefore be erased with water.”

A word appeared to be scrawled in the glass, barely readable now.

“‘King,’” said the captain, frowning. “Without proper context, I fail to fathom the meaning.”

“I believe that second letter to be an ‘O,’ not an ‘I,’” suggested Doc. “Perhaps this is an attempt to write
bangkong.
”

“Either way, it is insufficiently informative,” snapped Savage Senior.

They exited. The other cabins were not only deserted, but appeared to have been emptied of any meaningful possessions.

“Looted, no doubt,” decided Doc.

“Looted, or carried off by the crew at landfall,” countered the captain.

“Possibly,” admitted Doc, looking about.

Having made a cursory investigation and finding nothing of interest, Captain Savage went to a spot where the mainmast was anchored below the decking. He carried with him a brass key.

“Where did you get that?” asked Doc, curiously.

“From my pocket. Your grandfather gave me this long ago.”

Doc watched with impassive interest as the elder Savage inserted the brass key into what appeared to be a knothole in the surviving butt of the missing main mast.

A click resulted and, when the captain withdrew the key, a block of wood came with it. The block proved to be hollow, one side of which was a hinged lid.

Setting this on a chart table, Captain Savage opened the terminal lid. It was cunningly wrought, obviously of Oriental construction, but the box opened to his manipulations.

Out came a curl of parchment. Captain Savage unrolled this item and laid it out on the scarred table.

“A map,” said Doc.

“Yes,” Savage Senior growled. “But practically useless now. See for yourself.”

If it were a map, the important section had been obliterated. The lower portion of the chart was a dark smear of ink. Salt water had destroyed its writing so that now it was unreadable.

But the top half of the map had been drawn in a differently-colored ink, one which had withstood the ravages of salt water.

This took the form of a drawing. It appeared to show a knoll or hill whose top had been eroded into the semblance of a human skull. Above this bald knob floated what appeared to be two seagulls soaring on outstretched wings.

“A landmark,” said Doc.

“Aye. A landmark such as I have never heard tell of in all my years at sea. Looks like a headland, judging from the circling seagulls.”

Doc looked closely. “Those don’t look like gulls.”

“Of course those are seagulls. Look at their relationship in size to the fearsome hill.”

Doc remained unconvinced. The drawing was crude, but the details were interesting. The bird’s beaks were unusually long and pointed, like those of storks.

“The top is very rugged, more akin to a mountain peak,” Doc suggested.

“If this is a mountain,” the elder Savage insisted, “then those are the largest seagulls known to man. They would put an albatross to shame.”

Doc ran a sensitive fingertip over the drawing, like a blind man reading Braille dots. “I wonder if those birds are vultures. Look at their heads—bald with predatory beaks.”

“Buzzards are not common in this part of the world.”

“Can we assume this map relates to the Indian Ocean?” asked Doc.

“We must, until proof otherwise presents itself.”

Doc was forced to agree. But still… those birds resembled carrion birds of prey.

“This map may be a clue to the last landfall of the
Courser,
” Captain Savage insisted. “We must proceed on that assumption.”

“No argument there,” agreed Doc. “But where might it lie?”

“Sumatra, perhaps. Or Java. These are the largest land masses hereabouts.”

“If so, wouldn’t we know of such a natural formation? It would be famous the world over.”

“Perhaps you are correct. We can safely rule out India to the north and Australia to the southwest.”

“Could be an island,” suggested Doc.

“There are no islands known to possess such a landmark. No. More than likely this is a rock formation of a wild, unknown country. ‘Death’s Head.’ We will call it that for now.”

Carefully rolling up the map, Captain Savage mounted the companion to the bright morning sun, Doc following.

After the close darkness of the hold, the climbing tropical sun dazzled their eyes.

They blinked the piercing rays out of their sun-sensitive retinas.

Doc’s alert eyes went to the rail. He failed to see the grappling hooks by which they had first boarded the old clipper ship.

Rushing to the spot, he looked down to where the
Orion
should be.

His musical trilling piped up, wild and excited, tinged with fury.

“Sir, the ship!”

Captain Savage arrived at the rail, puzzled of countenance.

“What is it?” Then he saw the awful truth.

Bright blue water squirmed and danced where the schooner should be.

The
Orion
had vanished!

“My ship!” croaked the captain, his tone disbelieving. “Gone!”

Chapter XIII

ON CLOSER INSPECTION, a series of scarlet bulls-eye rings wavered on the spot where the schooner
Orion
should have bobbed in the swells. Sunlight on the water made the tableau difficult to make out, but when they spotted them, their meaning was unmistakable.

“Bodies dropped overboard, one by one,” Captain Savage judged, stern features darkening.

“I count only three rings,” said Doc.

“One of my Mayans may live yet,” snapped Savage, his harsh gaze raking the surrounding ocean.

Of the
Orion,
there was no sign. Only trackless rollers, laced with sea foam.

Doc moved to the opposite rail.

“’Ware darts!” his father called after him.

It was an unnecessary warning, but it may have saved Doc Savage’s life nonetheless. He reached the rail, leaned over, and spied a
bangkong
lurking directly below!

Under the rattan awning, a sinister array of blowpipes were trained upward in anticipation of his arrival. Puffing sounds came, expelling fletched missiles.

Doc retreated ahead of the soft whispers of death flicking by. One hand, moving with amazing reflexive skill, snapped out and grasped a passing dart by its feathered tail.

Doc had his automatic in hand. Cocking it, he called out, “Dyaks below!”

They met in the center of the deck, put their silver and bronze heads together.

“We dare not approach the port rail lest they pepper us with impunity via their poisoned darts,” said Doc Savage, lifting the one he had captured. It was a very long splinter of bamboo, shaved tip heavy with a pasty substance.

Captain Savage frowned. “We cannot remain here. The devils are certain to attempt a boarding.”

Doc looked about. Far away, he could see the tops of two masts, and a glimpse of canvas. The
Orion.
She was being carried away by the trade winds, making remarkable time.

“I can overhaul her,” assured Doc.

“Impossible!”

“Have you forgotten that I sailed on the
Titanic,
and survived in the water without benefit of a lifeboat?”

“I have not, sir! And I will not lose you to a similar disaster.”

“What are our chances marooned on this hulk if I don’t try?” countered Doc.

The old man looked uncertain. The pressure of the moment paralyzed him. Without his ship, he seemed helpless.

Doc took command. “Create a diversion.”

“Who is master here?” Savage roared in frustration.

“This is Stormalong’s ship, not ours,” Doc advised.

Captain Savage accepted Doc’s .45 automatic and looked at his fists filled with steel.

“Distract them,” instructed Doc. “Let me do the rest.”

He leaped to the starboard rail and went over, clambering down using his metal-hard fingers to go from hull plank to hull plank, using the loose seams for handholds.

Reaching the surface, Doc charged his lungs with air and slipped beneath the waves.

The sound of repeating gunshots reached his ears before the warmish waters of the Indian Ocean swallowed him.

The quickest and safest way to the outrigger was under the
Courser’s
keel. Doc propelled himself in that direction, releasing air bubbles one at a time.

He reached the other side and came up on the starboard gunwale of the warrior-packed
bangkong.

All Dyak eyes were aimed upward at the deck of the
Courser.

Doc looked up, too.

Two sun-burned fists popped in and out, firing downward. The muzzles flared tiny barking tongues.

A Dyak took a direct hit and screamed. Another lost his ironwood pipe. A third hefted a long spear, but lost his balance while throwing it over tattooed shoulder in preparation for launching. He landed in the brine, losing his weapon.

Doc Savage came up on their blind side, still holding the single Dyak dart he had captured in mid-air.

Reaching up, he began sticking the nearest warriors with the vicious needle of death.

They jumped up, howled wordlessly, immediately succumbing to their own native poison. During the commotion, Doc Savage yanked hard on their gunwale.

The result was consternation and confusion redoubled.

The longboat spilled warriors, their feathered headdresses toppling. Doc used his fist to crack a few heads, wreck jaws and render a portion of his foes insensate. Those who did not fall into the drink created tangles of limbs in the crowded dugout.

A few warriors wielded monstrously-long blowpipes, capped with detachable iron spear points. They scrambled to get these into stabbing position. Blowpipes at close quarters are not efficient weapons. Nor can they be brought to bear on an unstable platform with reliable accuracy.

Doc kept rocking the outrigger. Feet kicked at him. Doc seized ankles, yanked warriors into the water, smashing their skulls with knuckles of iron.

Long and short swords came out. Oblong rattan shields were raised. Doc emerged from the water and picked up a sturdy blowpipe as long as he was tall.