Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (9 page)

BEFORE THE SCHOONER
Orion
departed Port Blair, Doc Savage spent his last thirty dollars buying crates of .45 caliber ammunition from a native general store.

As he lugged them up the gangplank balanced on one shoulder, Captain Savage asked, “Expecting another world war?”

Doc shook his head. “A Thompson Annihilator gun fires 1,500 rounds per minute. These will not last long.”

“You have unbounded confidence in that contraption. In my time sailing the Seven Seas, I have found that one well-placed shot usually settles a matter.”

“It was either more ammunition, or a radio.”

“If the latter item,” the captain said gruffly, “you would have wasted your money. For I have in storage a wireless telegraph set in need of repair—although I doubt it will be of much practical use. I seem to recall you have some mechanical knowledge. You might put it to use, if you have a mind to.”

Doc suppressed a grin. He had been hoping for exactly that answer.

After laying the last heavy crate in the storage, Doc returned topside.

“Spectacular day,” he remarked. “Shame to see it go.”

“Other days lie ahead,” returned the captain. “We must be off.”

The Mayan crew began making preparations to depart.

They went out with the evening tide to conserve the gasoline supply. The trade winds were easy to catch and they were soon heading south at a fair clip: Six knots. The winds were brisk and lively.

As the Nicobar Islands fell behind them, and they pushed southeast through the Bay of Bengal in the direction of the Indian Ocean, Doc, at the wheel, asked a question he had been holding in reserve until they were at sea.

“Captain, a thought troubles me.”

“Out with it, Mister Savage.”

“A dozen years gone is a long time to expect a man to remain among the living.”

“It is. I will admit to that.”

“Yet you hold out hope for Old Stormy.”

Captain Savage drew in a studied breath. “Stormalong Savage ranged the entire world in his day. He has been shipwrecked once, marooned on twice that number of occasions, and left for dead three times that I can attest. I have seen him sail into the teeth of Nor’easters, tropical cyclones and typhoons, driving his ship and crew along with him like a general possessed and dead certain of his destiny. A man of that stature does not perish easily.”

“Surely you understand that Grandfather is mortal.”

“Hercules was said to be mortal,” Savage said stiffly. “Yet imperishable in his own way.”

“A man must die when his time comes.”

“I will speak openly to you, since no ears can eavesdrop on my words. When I was young and crewing on the
Courser,
I thought my dear father was made of metal more than flesh and blood. I believed with all of my might that Old Stormy could not be killed by man or machine. I came to think of him as a modern Titan.”

“A young boy can be excused for thinking such thoughts,” said Doc, reflecting that he wished he had enjoyed the luxury of such a strong connection with his own father.

“True. But now that I am older than he was then, I still feel the identical way about him. Envisioning him as deceased—at present that lies beyond my imaginative powers.”

Doc considered his response. A door seemed to have opened in the conversation, a door that had never gaped open between them. A thousand questions rose in his mind. There was no end to them.

Instead, he said only, “I fervently hope that your judgment proves sound.”

“I wish you had met him,” said Captain Savage.

“Your faith in your father is showing signs of cracking, sir.”

Captain Savage turned, metallic eyes challenging. “What do you mean by that remark, Mister Savage?”

“You said ‘had.’ As if you have foreclosed on the possibility.”

“So I did, so I did.”

“A slip of the tongue, Captain?”

“My faith in my father remains unshakable.”

There was an awkward pause, as if the father expected the son to offer something in the same vein.

But Doc Savage knew not what to say. So he remained silent.

“We will know soon enough,” Captain Savage said gravely. “Carry on.”

“Aye.”

Doc set his eyes on the course ahead. The setting of the tropical sun made a flamboyant splash in the Bay of Bengal, setting it ablaze with a hot liquid light that glared and spread and soon enough died.

When his watch ended, instead of going to his berth, Doc took the faulty wireless telegraph instrument into the machine cubicle and began tinkering with it. He soon had it in good working order.

DAWN broke over the schooner
Orion
as she passed into the northeast reaches of the vast Indian Ocean. The waters of this quarter of ocean were a cool blue to the eye and the scent of it cleaner and fresher than any encountered since the long Pacific crossing. No doubt the seasonal trade winds had something to do with that.

Doc inhaled the sultry air at intervals, marking the scent combinations and committing them to memory, with the exact hue of the sea as a visual reference. Neither were absolutes, he knew. Weather and other meteorological factors could influence changes. But as the
Orion
cut across the face of the ocean, Doc became increasingly confident that he could chart a reverse course blindfolded and make port safely.

He wondered what had become of his father in the intervening years. In his own youth, he had seemed a forward thinker. Open to new ideas. Now, he appeared to be stuck in the Nineteenth Century, if not clinging to it.

Doc wondered, not for the first time, if the whole idea of training him for his life’s work had not been his mother’s after all. Had she been the visionary, and his father only the economic engine for that vision?

Doc reflected upon his father’s life. Trained as a civil engineer, he also studied law, medicine and other disciplines, as if attempting to fit three lifetimes into the delimited span of one ordinary existence.

Clark Savage, Senior, had known war. Many of them. He had attempted to enlist in the U.S. Cavalry when only eleven, but Old Stormy had put a stop to that. Later, the son got his way. He had fought Indians in the Southwest, then returned to civilian life. Called back into service during the Spanish-American War, he had distinguished himself as a Rough Rider, hoisting the first United States flag to fly over captured Havana.

A man of many parts, boasting multiple careers packed into a comparatively short life. Bridges, lighthouses and railways bearing his stamp still stood from the Red Sea to Patagonia. It was difficult to accept that one man could have done so much. But the records did not lie.

It was never spoken aloud, but the elder Savage was said to have performed diplomatic services for President Roosevelt. It was always assumed that he did espionage work. This was never discussed openly.

There was also the undeniable fact that the father had relinquished his parental duties to a host of surrogates, leaving the son to learn a difficult emotional self-sufficiency while mastering manly skills ranging from hunting and trapping to going without sleep for days at a time.

It was, Doc reflected, an amazing youth and early manhood. An Apache taught him how to survive in a desert. A Zulu warrior how to track through jungle. He wintered with Eskimos and ate whale blubber and seal, as they did. A summer working roundup on a Wyoming cattle ranch was not enough for the cowboy in him, but the skills developed for the man would last a lifetime.

Was it all worth it?

Time would tell. The future, as his father had said, was a blank slate. All that mattered now was finding the
Courser,
and picking up whatever strange sea trail it might provide.

One important thing had changed. Where before, Doc Savage had held out no hope that Stormalong Savage still survived, now he felt an inner thrill, almost a supernatural presentiment that Old Stormy had managed to cheat the Grim Reaper one more time.

If so, what stories would he tell…?

Chapter XI

SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, the Indian Ocean stretches for leagues without landmark or interruption. There are no islands to be found on any marine chart, no rocks or reefs, and no possessions. Only the vast blue equatorial waters and the vaster azure sky above.

The January sun beat down on the heads of the
Orion
crew. Tropical trade winds cut the heat to a balmy seventy-five degrees, but when they paused, the temperature shot up to nearly ninety.

The trades blow from the northeast between January and March. Once they caught a good one, the schooner had blowing wind to her back all the way from Great Nicobar Island. She made good time. Trailing fishing lines from the stern brought them plentiful supply of edible fish, mainly yellowfin and skipjack tuna, as well as the odd grouper and dorado.

Once, they caught a squirming cuttlefish, but only Doc Savage seemed to enjoy chewing its rubbery tentacles. They salted what they could not consume, and laid it in the larder for later.

Such boats as they encountered were deep-sea fishing vessels, and the odd copra sloop. A group of Japanese tuna boats were the only ones traveling together. Few would be expected to speak English.

As they passed these, Doc got on the wireless telegraph instrument and hailed each vessel, asking if the
Courser
had been sighted along this course.

Two days along, and the answers had all been in the negative.

“We should be on the correct course to overtake her,” said Doc, poring over a large marine chart in the captain’s cabin below deck.

“I have no doubt but that we are,” said Captain Savage firmly. “Do not forget that a clipper ship bobbing along without masts will not be visible any great distance. For it is a proud suit of sails that make her prominent against the deep.”

“True.”

Captain Savage leaned in to scrutinize the chart more closely. He seemed to be reading it with something more than his eyes and brain, as if the chart were some arcane tool of the divinatory arts.

Tracing a brassy finger southward, he murmured, “The counterclockwise gyre dominating this area might carry her to approximately this spot.”

The finger came to rest on a blank blue spot southwest of Sumatra.

“Set course for this position, Mister Savage.”

Doc read the longitude and latitude, committing them to memory.

Climbing back to deck, Doc unlocked the wheel. He steered by instinct as much as by his compass heading. He was coming to know these waters in a way he could not express.

They were sailing close to the wind, sails set for that purpose.

The seas were by now running high, and the black schooner knifed through the swells and rollers, her rails coming close to going under a time or two, but never dunking. Her weatherly properties showed plainly.

Captain Savage stood in the plunging bow with a sextant and stopwatch, checking their position. He seemed satisfied with their course. Spyglass in hand, he worked his way forward to the bowsprit.

Savage Senior conned the way ahead, giving port and starboard their fair share of attention. His manner was growing intense, in the quietly contained and self-possessed way that had been his for so long as Doc had known him.

Half a day farther south, with the sun baking the deck planking and the Mayans going about their business as if they were impervious to heat and humidity, Captain Savage showed his first sign of excitement.

“Hard to port!” he cried.

Doc spun the wheel smartly. The
Orion
responded, her prow digging into the heaving waves. Curving and heeling, sails fluttering like wings, she made a smooth course alteration.

Captain Savage had his spyglass up again, leaning into it as if barely restraining himself from leaping in the direction of his forward vision.

“Dead ahead!” he called back

“What have you sighted, sir?”

“Something that suggests a profusion of feathers. Sea Dyaks wear headdresses decorated with rhinoceros hornbill tail-feathers, which symbolize their war deity, Singalang Burong. Mark my words. A
bangkong
lurks ahead.”

In the lurching seas, it was difficult to discern very much. Wave crests concealed the ever-shifting troughs.

Doc held the wheel steady. The sun was beginning to sink toward the water, as if it had become too heavy.

“We are going to lose the light,” warned Doc.

Captain Savage turned his gaze to the west, as if noticing the sun’s position for the first time. He began speaking in K’iche, issuing curt orders.

Doc still had gleaned nothing much of the Mayan tongue, but from the snappy actions of the crew, he knew the command must be: Put on more sail!

Fresh canvas was hauled up. The sails filled. Briskly, the
Orion
lunged ahead.

They foamed along, running close hauled, canvas cracking and tugging at her stays.

Doc held the wheel like Atlas holding up the world. The rudder might have been fixed in place by bolts, so straight a course did he steer. The compass card did not deviate one point.

Suddenly, Captain Savage cried, “Sheer off! Sheer off!”

Doc turned the spokes with easy grace. The helm spun like a great wagon wheel.

“What is it?” he called ahead.

“A damned
balla.
”

Doc said, “Dyaks?”

The elder Savage came rushing back. “A dozen
bangkongs.
Take in all sails before they spy our canvas. Lively now!”

Locking the wheel, Doc leaped to the downhaul lines. Responding to similar unintelligible orders, the Mayans likewise fell to.

Snapping canvas came down smartly. The
Orion
slowed, began wallowing in the swells.

At the stern now, Captain Savage trained his spyglass across the waves.

Doc stood alongside him. He had his binoculars in hand.

“See them?” asked Doc quietly.

Captain Savage shook his head. “No longer.”

“That is a good sign.”

“They run lower than we do. Easy for them to sneak up upon us under cover of darkness, undetected until it is too late.”