Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (5 page)

“Engineering?”

“Weapons. The revolver is a thing of the past. A new weapon of war has been devised. A portable machine gun that a soldier can carry efficiently. But it is bulky and the ammunition canister rattles when toted. I have been thinking that this Annihilator submachine gun can be improved to the point that a man can carry it in a holster at his side, as conveniently as a pistol.”

Clark Savage frowned. “I had hoped for a loftier goal.”

“A great war has just concluded. Despite the proclamations that this was the War to End All Wars, there will be another one, fought with even more fearsome weapons. We must stand ready to defend the nation. Better, more efficient weapons will be the key.”

“Well put. But my comment stands. I had hoped for something loftier.”

Clouds passed before Doc’s metallic orbs. “This will occupy a few months at best. After that, we will see.”

“Yes, we will.”

THEY took their coffee on the forward deck in stoneware mugs. The father drank his black, while the son preferred it with cream and sugar.

“Don’t count on cream for much longer,” the father cautioned.

“I am thinking of giving up coffee altogether. Bad for the nerves.”

“It was a habit you picked up in France, I imagine. Stimulants were previously denied you.”

“Grandfather is certainly dead,” ventured Doc after a silence.

“Many have assumed that for years now. But nothing is certain, not where Stormalong Savage is concerned.”

“To hear that his ship still floats is remarkable. Most clippers lasted only a generation, at most.”

“They were built for speed, not to endure,” agreed the elder Savage. “The
Courser
first put to sea over fifty years ago. It is like a man living to be one hundred and thirty years in age. Not impossible, but highly improbable.”

Doc stared off into the stars. “He was seeking a new fortune. I wonder if he ever found it?”

“If so, that fortune might still be there for the taking.”

“My thought exactly.”

They sipped in silence for a time. Conversation was difficult. Father and son, yet comparative strangers. The elder Savage was not profligate with his words. The son took after him in many ways—but in his own unique fashion.

“I have many questions for you, Father. Questions that I have pondered my entire life.”

Finishing his coffee, Clark Savage, Senior, looked his son square in the eye and said, “I fear that I have few answers I care to share with you. Good night.”

With that, he walked off.

Doc Savage followed him with his gaze, thinking,
Who is this man who is my father? Why is he always a stranger to me?

Chapter V

AT HONOLULU, HAWAII, they took on supplies: Fresh vegetables, dried fruit and meat, along with other staples. And a new calendar. For they happened to make landfall on the first day of the New Year, 1920.

The
Orion
remained in port less than a half day. Doc Savage wanted to go ashore and test his land legs. He got as far as the dock area. Walking on dry land felt peculiar. His body wanted to rock with the motion of the perpetually-unsteady deck he no longer rode upon. The unsteadiness dissuaded him from exploring further.

It was as if the heaving Pacific still had him in its grip. But he knew from his studies that the balance mechanism of his inner ear had adjusted itself so well to the pitch and roll of the
Orion’s
deck that the delicate structure remained in sympathy with the phantom Pacific.

Returning to the
Orion
reluctantly, Doc conferred with his father.

“How soon do we sail?”

“Immediately.”

“The difficult part of this undertaking begins now.”

“We have sufficient supplies,” returned Savage Senior.

“That is not what I mean. I think you know that.”

“Under sail we will make a straight run to the Philippines, then turn south to Sumatra. That will be our next landfall.”

“Under fair conditions, that will cost us six days.”

“Double that. For I do not expect fair conditions. The monsoon season is not quite concluded. Once we reach the Indian Ocean, we will be propelled by the northeast trade winds every league of the way. Should be able to make up our time then.”

Sail was unfurled and once again they were back on the tide.

Honolulu and its lush green mountains fell astern like a dream island. Soon, the
Orion
was bounding along the waves. With the greater expanse of the Pacific behind them, the character of the voyage changed.

Clark Savage, Senior, set the tone at last light.

“Starting tomorrow,” he said, “you will address me as Captain, not Father. As befitting my first mate. Is that understood?”

Doc stiffened. “Yes. You make yourself very plain. But why?”

“Discipline must be maintained. For the good of all.”

“Have it your way. Need I salute?”

“No. Superfluous ceremony is unnecessary. Economy is what is needed now. Economy, and discipline.”

“If my mother were here, I wonder what she would say?”

Captain Savage replied nothing. He went about the business of bossing his taciturn crew.

DOC SAVAGE spent what free time he could scrounge during the first week of the crossing in his cabin, reassembling the Colt pistol and the Tommy gun. There was a small machine shop below, for repairs. Doc obtained permission to work with the tools therein.

He began fashioning a weapon from blocks of steel and other metal forms. It was slow going, but the work occupied his spare time.

Once his father looked in on the work in progress and grunted something noncommittal.

“You disapprove?” challenged Doc.

“After that last slaughter, the world could do with fewer weapons.”

“The world needs better weapons to prevent future slaughters. And war is sometimes glorious. After all, we won.”

“This war. What about future wars? Can any nation, no matter how powerful, win them all?”

Doc Savage offered no answer to that. It was a sobering thought.

He resumed his work. For his idea to pan out, he would need to simplify the firing mechanism of the Annihilator gun in order to miniaturize it. Doing so required adopting a caliber substantially smaller than a .45. Doc hoped that a .38 would do. But he was beginning to wonder if .22 caliber shells were his only practical recourse. Not much stopping power in a .22 slug. Yet a rain of them would do the job if the rate-of-fire could be stepped up.…

THAT night, Doc took First and Middle watches.

Most of the crew slept below. One or two came out on deck and stood at the stern, as if dreaming of their homeland. They never smiled, never seemed happy. Their faces might have been hewn of some mineral that combined the softness of flesh with the strength of stone.

Doc wondered how his father had prevailed upon them to crew his ship.

Attempting to draw any of them into conversation proved futile. They appeared to know no English. Worse, they shunned it. It was all he could do to get them to say their names. Ikan. Kish. Ichik. Chicahua. They were easily remembered.

Doc turned in at dawn but slept only three hours. He had been given the cabin in which his mother had birthed him. The thought made him restless. As little as he knew about his father, his mother was an even greater mystery. Sometimes, if he relaxed, he could almost recall her face. But that might have been a trick of the mind. He had been so young when she died, it was as if he had never had any mother at all….

Skipping breakfast, Doc went topside and began the routine of exercises that was the first item of discipline that his father had instilled in him when he had barely learned to walk. Long ago, this ceased to be a choice Doc made. He just naturally went about his routine.

Stripped to the waist, his bronze muscles gleaming, he attracted the attention of the Mayans, who always watched, but never spoke. It was evident even on their impassive faces that Doc’s system of exercising his body was beyond their comprehension. In their primitive world, life was hard, work strenuous. The muscles were naturally exercised in the course of daily life.

Captain Savage came over and watched his son. A satisfied expression seemed to fall over his rugged face.

“Imagine you had a hard time keeping this up in the army,” he observed.

“I made do,” allowed Doc.

“Good. You always had excellent habits.”

Captain Savage strolled off.

After a while, Doc completed the last part of his physical regimen and joined the crew in their shipboard work. They acknowledged him with glances and nods, then all but ignored him.

Observing one pointless attempt at conversation, Captain Savage drew his son aside and said, “I do not wish them to know English. It would ruin their value to me.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In Central America. Hidalgo, to be exact. The Mayan empire vanished many generations ago, no one knows how or why. But pockets of descendants survive. I am cultivating these men. They know many secrets. Perhaps from them it will be possible to discover the mysteries of that vanished race of men and the empire that history barely records.”

“As you wish, Father.”

“As I command.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Chapter VI

THE  RUN  TO the Philippines was uneventful. The weather was splendid, prevailing winds favorable. Without fail, the sun shone every day. Contrary to expectations, it grew so predictable that Captain Savage began grumbling that he could stand a little rain as a change of pace.

Doc Savage went about the routine of the schooner and devoted himself to his private work whenever possible. He was making slow progress. The problem of caliber remained a stubborn one. He really preferred a .38 load. But more and more, the .22 made increasing sense. In addition to the obvious fact that one could fit more .22 shells in an ammunition clip than any higher caliber, a greatly reduced firing chamber called for a compact round. This appeared to be the inescapable logic of the problem.

To take his mind off the matter, he removed the heavy stock, replacing it with a lanyard for greater portability. A lesser man required the butt stock in order to steady the devastating weapon while in operation, but Doc Savage’s massive arms could control it easily. This despite the muzzle’s stubborn tendency to climb off target of its own accord.

One night, Doc worked through the entire evening. He had the forenoon watch that day. Unsatisfied with the ammunition capacity of the standard twenty-round clip, he began fashioning a drum magazine for the Annihilator. It was easily machined, and when he had it formed, Doc had doubled the sturdy submachine gun’s ability to emit rounds without reloading. All that remained was to test-fire it.

When he was finished, the bronze giant climbed back on deck and went in search of his father. There was no sign of him.

Returning below, Doc knocked on the captain’s cabin. There was no response. Placing an ear to the panel, Doc listened. His acute hearing could detect a man’s respiration through any reasonable thickness of wood. But no such sounds came to his sensitive eardrums.

Throwing open the door, Doc found the bed unmade. That in itself was alarming. His father had instilled in him very regular habits; making his bed upon rising was one of them.

Going from nook to nook, Doc sought the missing man. He employed his keen sense of smell, but it ultimately proved useless. His father’s personal cologne permeated the schooner interior.

He was nowhere to be found. Doc even checked the crew quarters up in the forecastle, but the tight arrangement of bunks wedged into the bow area held no cubicle fit for a man.

Returning to the main cabin, Doc retraced his search, with an eye to what may have been overlooked.

Behind a bulkhead stood the gasoline engine, seated on a platform. An access door permitted inspection, but Doc did not possess the key. So Doc picked the padlock with a small tool—another useful although disreputable skill he had picked up during his unusual schooling.

Opening the hatch, Doc was assailed by the stink of gasoline. A quick examination showed conclusively that the gloomy, malodorous hold harbored only mechanism, no person.

Shutting the hatch, Doc relocked the thing, metallic features grim.

In desperation, Doc picked the lock of a steamer trunk that he knew was too small to contain his father, even if he were a skilled contortionist.

Inside, he discovered several complicated devices. A set of hydrophones, such as were used for submarine detection. A much more elaborate apparatus that Doc finally determined was a photophone—a device for transmitting sound via a beam of light—which had never come into general use. There were other, even more arcane devices, including, Doc was puzzled to discover, a wireless telegraph instrument in dire need of repair.

Mouth set, Doc relocked the trunk.

Climbing back on deck, Doc called out. “Captain! Captain!
Father!”

No answer came. Only the rushing of water along the sleek hull.

Doc accosted the first man he came upon. Chicahua the boatswain, whose name meant “Strong.”

“Captain. Savvy?”

The man shrugged, returned to coiling line.

Doc grabbed another.

“Have you seen the captain?”

The Mayan just stared, uncomprehending as a block of wood. Only his obsidian eyes betrayed awareness.

Doc flung him away, called out, “Father! Where are you?”

But no reply came.

A hasty search of the below-decks area brought the same result as before. It was maddening. The impulse to repeat the search came and went. Several times, Doc fought it. He knew that he had exhausted every possibility.

Back on deck, he brought a pair of field glasses to his eyes and began scanning the surrounding ocean.

Crinkling blue waves, shimmering with sunlight, were all he spotted.

A telescope was next employed. This gave better range and sharpness. But nowhere did he spy any sign of Captain Savage.

The dory sat upside down on its chocks. Doc stripped the canvas covering, exposed the dry hull. It had not been put off.