Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (6 page)

Having exhausted all possibilities, Doc Savage went to the bow and cast his mind back to the evening before. There was nothing in his father’s manner to suggest any trouble. Not with the crew, nor the boat. No, he was certain his father had communicated nothing unusual.

Of course, the old man was so reticent that it was often difficult to plumb what was going through his brain. He was a man who had grown accustomed to keeping his own counsel. Especially after he had been widowed.

Mastering his quaking emotions, Doc observed the crew. They were going about their business as if nothing untoward had happened. That was suspicious. Surely, they understood that the captain was no longer on board.

Or was he…?

DOC considered and discarded many possibilities. Had his father gone overboard in the night? No, a splash or cries for help would surely have reached his ears.

Of course, if he had been waylaid, and tossed over the rail while unconscious, that would be a different matter.

The coffee countenances of the Mayan Indians remained unreadable. But nothing in their manner, or the way they went about their routine, suggested outward concern or guilt.

Slowly, a theory began forming in Doc’s brain.

He decided to test it.

Pretending to be searching among the coils of manila rope and deck clutter for clues, Doc sidled up to a Mayan who was giving the deck a scrub.

Doc made a show of walking in circles, looking puzzled. On one turn around that part of the deck, he slipped, knocked the unprepared crewman against the rail.

The man sprawled awkwardly. Doc helped him topple overboard with a canvas-covered toe.

The splash that came was quite distinct, satisfying Doc that he would have heard any similar commotion even down in the machine-shop cubicle.

The Mayans began making a commotion. Their cries were impossible to translate, but Doc imagined that they were the Mayan equivalent of “Man Overboard.”

Withdrawing to a spot behind the broad deckhouse, Doc Savage waited.

His patience was rewarded by the thud of booted feet coming up the companionway.

The silvery head of his father popped into view, cold golden eyes looking startled. Harsh words rippled from his lips as he yanked on his black captain’s cap.

The Mayan crew began shouting and gesturing to the stern, where one of their own was bobbing like a black-haired cork in the turbid wake of the
Orion.

Orders were rapped out. The lifeboat was stripped of its canvas weather sheeting and swung out on davits. Captain Savage took command of it.

Climbing aboard, Doc Savage said calmly, “It was all that I could think to do to flush you out.”

“You shoved a man overboard?” Captain Savage roared.

“I had a clumsy moment.”

Crew lowered the lifeboat and the dory smashed into the Pacific, which was living up to its name that day.

Unshipping the oars, they rowed toward the splashing man. He could swim well enough, for he began doing a breaststroke in their direction.

When they met, boat and man, Doc Savage assisted him into the boat. It was Chicahua.

“Please convey my apologies,” said Doc, indicating the wet Mayan.

Captain Savage did so. Or appeared to do so. Doc couldn’t make out the lingo, even after hearing it for more than a week.

Captain Savage directed his full attention to his son.

“I have a mind to—”

Doc interrupted him more calmly than he felt.

“Where were you hiding, Captain?”

“Who said I was hiding?” the other returned.

“I searched every nook and crevice. From the lazaret to the fo’c’sle. You were nowhere to be found.”

“We are sailing into unsettled waters. I wanted to test your mettle.”

“And?”

“You have very unorthodox methods,” Captain Savage said grudgingly. “I expected you to concentrate your search so that you uncovered my hiding place.”

“Why go to all that trouble when flushing you out of hiding was so much more satisfactory?” countered Doc.

The old man fumed in silence as they rowed back to the
Orion,
which had struck sail and was lying dead in the water.

As the boat was hoisted back to the stern deck, Captain Savage observed, “You have cost us valuable time.”

“Which we can make up, if the winds favor us,” pointed out Doc. And there was a twinkle in one golden eye.

THE winds favored them. By afternoon, they were making a brisk ten knots.

Her canvas cracking in the wind, the
Orion
leaped and crested the placid waves. She seemed energized by the chance to race with the wind.

Doc Savage went about his work more content than he had been so far in the voyage. His father had tried to teach him a lesson, and Doc had returned the favor.

It was a good feeling. All his life, Doc had been his father’s son. These last two years away at war, and now back feeling as if he could lick the world, made him feel more like his own man than the son of Clark Savage, Senior.

“They hung a nickname on me in France,” Doc said over dinner, which had been chilled by a thick, frosty silence.

Savage Senior looked up from his fish stew.

“What’s wrong with Clark?”

“Nothing is wrong with it! That’s your name.”

The old man grunted. “So what did they call you?”

“Doc.”

“Gunmen and gamblers are called Doc. Ever hear of a rounder named Doc Holiday?”

“Maybe Doc Savage will replace him in the history books. Some day.”

The captain’s frost-rimed eyebrows shot up. “You mean to tell me that you’re keeping that name?”

“Why shouldn’t I? It suits me.”

“Not so much now that you cannot return to medical school, eh?”

“I have not ruled out completing my studies some day, Father,” Doc returned patiently.

Captain Savage spooned fish stew into his mouth for over a minute before he uttered, “I wonder what your mother would have thought, having a son grow up to be known as Doc.”

Doc Savage became very quiet. He had often wondered that very same thing.

Chapter VII

CLEAR SAILING ENDED when they entered the Philippine Sea. A blow sprang up and began to worry the rippling sails. The Mayans got busy tending the unruly canvas.

Doc Savage stood at the wheel. More and more, that duty fell to him. He was good at it. He had practically started life at this station. One of his earliest adult responsibilities had been steering the
Orion
when he was only eight years old. He had to stand on a crate in order see over the deckhouse roof.

Captain Savage was conning the waters ahead with his old spyglass.

“I am thinking that we might steer south to Borneo and go around this soup,” he remarked at last.

“We’ll have to run down Makassar Strait to the Java Sea, and then on up to Karimata Strait,” said Doc. “That will cost us several days.”

“A bad blow would have us at her mercy. These are no waters to fool with.”

“You are the captain.”

“Steer a course south by southwest, Mister Savage. Lively.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Doc spun the ship’s wheel, watching the compass card respond to the sudden alteration of course. The schooner heeled sharply, carving a new wake to the south.

“These are bad waters we are sailing into,” the elder Savage said after a time.

“Pirates?”

“Pirates, and far worse.”

Doc Savage asked, “What can be worse than pirates?”

“Headhunters!”

Doc said sharply, “In this day and age? I understood that the British had suppressed that practice a generation ago.”

“Nothing so deeply rooted stays suppressed forever.”

Doc Savage said nothing. He searched his mind for what he knew of headhunting in this region of Asia. Borneo came to mind. There had been a long custom of headhunting in Borneo. It was an important part of the Dyak way of life. Christian missionaries had all but obliterated the grisly rite.

“From now on, we sail with pistols on our hips,” Captain Savage told him.

“I will have to reassemble mine.”

“Belay that Tommy gun. It’s too wild-shooting a contraption to be cutting loose with on a ship. You could riddle the sails to rags or sieve holes in the hull, if you lost control of the weapon.”

“Aye, sir.” A quiver of disappointment touched Doc’s sun-bronzed face. He had come to appreciate the destructive qualities of the Thompson Annihilator submachine gun at close quarters. But his father had an excellent point. The weapon disgorged bullets in punishing streams.

The passage along the southern coast of Borneo was on the starboard side. Choppy waters told that storms were brewing in these waters. But nothing sprang up that pushed them off course, or inhibited their headway.

Most shipping consisted of the striped-sailed Malay
proas
of the region. Most flew the yellow Sarawak flags with their red and black crosses. They skimmed along briskly, often passing the schooner.

“Pick up any Malay in your travels?” asked Captain Savage.

“Some,” Doc said modestly. In truth, he was fluent.

“Good. Malay is the common tongue in these parts. Serve you well to keep your command of it very sharp indeed.”

“Ya, Kapten.”

The
Orion
ghosted along, dwarfed by the high-decked Chinese junks that choked these waters. Other boats—a continual flow of them—passed in either direction. These ranged from lateen–rigged sailing vessels to modern merchant craft, making their way from port to port in greater Indonesia.

A native outrigger canoe drew alongside them and its dark-visaged crew watched with interest, as they paddled along Indian-style.

“Malays?” asked Doc.

“Sea Dyaks.”

“Pirates?”

“Or worse,” said Captain Savage. “They send out scout boats to observe and report back on coastwise traffic.”

“They seem very interested in us,” Doc observed.

The Dyak crew stared and some pointed at the working crew on the
Orion’s
deck.

Talk volleyed back and forth, barely distinguishable.

“They appear to be puzzled by your Mayans,” Doc suggested.

“And intimidated, too, I should hope,” shot back the elder Savage.

“Is that another reason you picked them?”

“Pirates and other seafaring brigands depend upon sizing up ships and their crews,” said Captain Savage carefully, never taking his eyes off the Dyak oarsmen. “Through experience, they come to comprehend how a crew will respond to an attack, based upon their nationality. A Japanese crew will fight—or not—differently from a British one, or a crew consisting of Hindus.”

Doc nodded. “They cannot place your Indians in their lexicon.”

“Which will make them chary of the unknown risks involved.”

“Now they are interested in us,” Doc pointed out.

“No. In our eyes. I hear the Dyak word for ‘gold’  passing from lip to lip.”

“Probably new to their experience, too,” said Doc.

“Among the Dyaks, there dwells a type of shaman or panjandrum known as a
manang.
When a Dyak is trained to become a
manang,
the ritual includes a pretend splitting open of the skull with an axe, followed by the placing of gold over the eyes. These allow the brain to perceive the absolute, and their eyes to see spirits.”

“They believe that we are white
manangs?”
suggested Doc.

“That, or they are so backward they may think our eyes are made of true gold.”

Doc went to the rail, and fixed his penetrating flake-gold orbs on the Dyak who seemed to command the outrigger.

The Dyak captain met his gaze with a steady frank stare of his own. But the longer Doc stared, the more the other fidgeted.

Finally, the Dyaks all averted their eyes.

After a time, the outrigger fell back, unable to keep pace with the swift schooner.

“Well done, Mister Savage,” said the captain. “Carry on.”

MUCH to their surprise, the expected gale failed to materialize. To the contrary, the winds died and the schooner began to lose headway.

Before an hour was out, they were all but becalmed. The sails slackened, drooping like forlorn ghosts.

Doc spun the ship’s wheel to no good effect. The compass swam and wavered lazily.

“Looks like we’ll have to wait for a fresh breeze,” he said.

“Won’t be long, I’ll wager.”

The crew fell to standing guard at every corner of the deck. Machete handles thrust up from their belts. Revolvers hung from Western-style cartridge belts.

As they watched, other craft swept by, propelled by oars and husky dark men whose broad backs bent rhythmically to propel them.

Some hailed them. Others just stared. Dusk approached and the sun began its inevitable descent into the sea.

As night fell, they wallowed in the Java Sea, utterly becalmed now. Rigging hung and swayed idly with the rocking of the boat.

Seeing an opportunity, Doc Savage stripped to his underwear and threw a line overboard. Hand over hand, he shinnied down this off the port rail and into the chop. He entered the water like a human knife, making practically no noise.

Under cover of darkness, Doc swam about, enjoying the warm feel of the water on his bare skin. He had learned to swim at an age before he could talk in complete sentences. Years later, his father had sent him to the South Seas where he lived among the pearl divers of Paumoto. There, he had learned to live in the water almost as naturally as a porpoise. The ability to hold his breath for long periods while swimming beneath the waves was taught to him. It was one of the more enjoyable periods of his young life. Not many of those youthful sojourns had been wholly pleasant. Doc could recall many a time when his father or one of his tutors tested him, by placing him in difficult or dangerous situations.

If necessary, Doc could dive and remain under water for nearly twenty minutes. If he properly charged his lungs with oxygen beforehand, that is. There was a trick to it: Filling the lungs with so much oxygen that they became saturated with it. One only had to be careful not to dive so deep that one’s charge of air ran out before the surface could be reached.