Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (36 page)

“We’re goners!” Leander Tucker screeched.

“Keep your head!” Don Worth called out.

SUDDENLY, it seemed as if the entire world was coming apart. The screaming wind was plugging their ears, blocking all sound. Sand and grit came into their eyes, noses and mouths as the
Northern Star
was pushed inexorably onto the horrible black spit of basalt.

There was no place safe to flee. Airborne articles were smashing into the bridge, shattering the glass. To remain on deck was to dare the hurricane to pluck them off its open surface and fling them about.

To go below was very tempting, but the way the liner was being pushed onto land meant that it could—and very well would—simply tip over. With catastrophic consequences to all aboard.

B. Elmer Dexter gave voice to the harsh reality they faced. “O.K., boys, brace yourselves. This is it!”

Unexpectedly, a storm surge—a virtual wall of water—seemingly came out of nowhere, and dashed itself onto the stern, flooding the afterdeck irresistibly.

Helpless, the paralyzed quartet were carried over the side.

The wind-driven water swept the length of Satan’s Spine, completely immersing it. This flood dashed itself against the basalt tower that wailed and wailed and wailed like a stricken thing realizing that its doom was upon it.

The force of the water was tremendous. The forbidding black tower could not withstand it. It broke, crumbling as if made of dried mud.

Vile grayish-green water carried the remains out to sea. And in the hole that had been its base, additional seawater poured down as if into a great natural sink.

The endless wailing simply ceased. But it would not have mattered. The sound would have been smothered by the deafening roar that overwhelmed the Caribbean Sea anyway. For the hurricane had arrived at full strength, obliterating all in its path, an almighty fury against which nothing natural or man-made could stand.

Chapter XLVII

MUTINY

A HOT ARGUMENT broke out over which captive sailor would dare the gloomy treasure chamber next.

Despite the threat of guns and the difficulty of their position so far below Satan’s Spine, none of the
Northern Star
crew was eager to brave the dark enclosure beyond the basalt-walled central chamber.

This stubbornness caused Diamond the pirate to become red-faced with fury.

“No shirking of duty! I will shoot any slackers!”

“We ain’t your crew!” retorted a mariner bitterly. “And we’re sick and tired of being pushed around by the grubby likes of you!”

By flash-ray light, Diamond swung on the speaker, the gold hoop in his left ear jumping about.

“Just for that backtalk, you’re going in next.”

“Like hell I am!” snapped the sailor.

Diamond lifted his automatic and pointed it squarely at the sailor’s unprotected chest.

“Take your turn,” he growled, “or take a bullet where it will hurt the most.”

The sailor seemed to waver. There was a hard gleam in his eye. A gleam of defiance. Enemy soldiers around the globe knew that light. It was a distinctly American brand of defiance.

Diamond was not accustomed to being challenged. Carefully, his finger constricted on the trigger of the automatic. Before he could fire, another sailor stepped in front of the defiant one.

“You want to plug my mate,” he snarled, “you’ll have to shoot through me.”

“I don’t countenance mutiny!” Diamond barked.

“We ain’t your damned crew,” several men chorused at once. They had had enough. Bloodshed seemed inevitable. The seaman standing in front of the threatened sailor stuck out his chest and gave every indication of a willingness to block the bullet meant for his shipmate.

During this tense drama, no one suspected that the giant form of Doc Savage had slipped unawares into the empty chamber beyond. For he was untraceable to the ordinary eye.

So when a reddish-gold ingot of unknown metal came sailing out of the dark aperture to strike the automatic in Diamond’s hard fist, all who were not blindfolded were stupefied.

Diamond not the least of them. The ingot was very heavy; it did damage. The shock to his finger bones caused Diamond to let out a yell of baffled rage. The gun fell.

Turning, his amber eyes sought the horned aperture.

“Who the hell is in there? You come out now—this instant!”

No one replied, nor did anyone emerge. There was a small rattling noise, however.

Wildly, Diamond searched the group of captives with his eyes, counting fast. He knew the number of his men, as well as that of his prisoners. All were accounted for.

His eyes grew slightly narrower, like those of an alley cat’s.

“Everybody point their guns into that hole,” he growled. “When I say shoot, you shoot. Get me?”

Numerous cold steel muzzles swiveled in the direction of the ominous portal.

“Whoever you are,” Diamond demanded, “you have less than five seconds to step out into the light. If not, you will be riddled by every gun under my command.”

A silence followed.

Next, another object came sailing out.

One gunman, understandably nervous, fired wildly at it. Miracle of miracles, his slug struck the thing, causing it to carom off one curved basalt wall, to land in their midst.

They looked down. And to their horror, they discovered that the object was the very thing that they believed had been thrown back in—the iron-leaching double-horned stone that had previously overcome three Merchant Marines.

Almost immediately, they began feeling its effects.

THERE was a mad scramble to grab hold of the dangerous artifact, but the first man to touch it collapsed at once. So did the second.

Men were already feeling weak, and their senses started to swim.

Amber eyes narrowing with sharp comprehension, Diamond snapped out an order.

“Retreat! Get topside! We’ll come back when we figure something out!”

This had a pronounced effect on all the assembled mariners, seamen and corsairs alike.

A condition of general pandemonium resulted. Blindfolded sailors yanked off their vision-hampering rags, while the panicked pirates stumbled for the bottom of the ramp.

Inevitably, there were violent collisions and, amid the rout, Merchant Marine fists commenced colliding with pirate jaws. There was not much shooting. Two wild slugs found lodgment in various portions of fast-dodging anatomy. One Merchant Marine had a chunk of his shoulder shot off. A pirate who happened to get in the way of a stray round was struck in the hipbone and turned around twice before he landed flat on his back. His screaming made it sound like a mortal wound, which it wasn’t.

In this confusion, it was difficult to execute an orderly retreat. Several knots of men entangled with one another. More knuckles struck, a gun went off, but the barrel was being shoved upward, so the slug struck the ceiling dome and only brought down brittle chips of basalt.

Men were stumbling, falling, sinking to the floor, unable to mount the ramp.

No one escaped, for the inexorable force coming from the sinister-looking stone could not be resisted by mere mortals.

Out of the horned doorway emerged Doc Savage, still virtually invisible, only a pair of pale yellow floating eyes marking the spot where he stood.

Stepping over to the horned rock he had pitched out, the bronze giant stooped, and heaved the thing back into the dark chamber. Apparently, the force exerted had no effect upon him, a condition no doubt explained by the plastic suit that enveloped his great form, blocking him both from the unnatural influence that had overcome all others, as well as from their sight.

Silently, invisibly, Doc Savage moved among the Diamond followers, taking their weapons, removing ammunition magazines and, for good measure, jacking loose any rounds remaining in chambers.

Above his head, the wailing and whining produced by the hurricane winds against the tower filled the chamber like an approaching freight train, blowing its mournful whistle.

A terrible cracking like a cannonade of thunder pierced the incessant roar. Then, suddenly and ominously, the roaring stopped dead.

A weird moaning replaced it. This sounded like the effect produced by blowing into a conch shell, only magnified a thousand times. It was the sound produced by the tempest against the exposed base of the suddenly shattered tower, But only Doc Savage realized this initially.

When the first rill of water arrived, it was like a liquid snake slipping down the circular ramp. Not very large, it forked like a serpent. Two tendrils crept about like the tentacles of a questing octopus, but the pseudopod of water swiftly expanded.

Above his head Doc Savage heard a new sound that reminded him of a rushing, angry waterfall. In that sickening moment, the bronze giant understood that all of the stricken men who were trapped here below ground were about to drown like shipboard rats, himself included.

Chapter XLVIII

FURY

MONK MAYFAIR DID his best to ignore the howling wind as he worked the sealed door in the forecastle of the
Northern Star
. Behind that door, elements of the Merchant Marine crew were calling out for him to hurry.

It was tough work, cutting them free. It took time.

“Keep your shirts on!” growled Monk. “This ain’t easy!”

The homely chemist was on his second trick at the stubborn door, Ham Brooks having done his share in the absence of Jury Goines until the searing heat and dangerous vapors having forced him to halt and seek breathable air—which was in short supply below decks.

Stationed at the passageway behind him, keeping his dark eyes averted from the acetylene glare, Ham guarded the approach, armed with only his supermachine pistol. Neither man knew what was going on topside, or for that matter on the forbidding finger of reef called Satan’s Spine. But they did know and understand that if Diamond and his crew were to return, they were in a tough spot.

Safety goggles reflecting the hot blue torch flame, the homely chemist worked as fast as he dared, but it was necessary to pause and retreat in order to gulp down fresh air. The passageway was choked with a chemical stink that, combined with the intense heat, made breathing difficult.

Above them, the increasing roar of the wind made the entire ship rattle and sound as if they were caught in the eye of the hurricane.

There was no such luck, of course. This was just the outer skirts of the monster. The calm eye was no doubt far away.

Sounding anxious, Ham called over to Monk, “The hurricane is upon us!”

“I got two ears, don’t I?” snapped Monk.

Ham fell silent. It was sheer nervousness that had caused him to state the obvious. The dapper attorney knew what they were in for once the fury of the gale matched the caterwauling of the wind.

Monk suddenly snapped off his cutting torch and flung away his goggles.

“That did it!” he exulted.

Grabbing up a crowbar that he had leaned against the bulkhead, Monk used it to pry open the hot, smoking door. Molten metal dripped onto the floor.

“Watch out for hot foots!” Monk warned.

Sailors poured out, coughing and batting acrid fumes out of their eyes, spoiling for a fight.

“Where are those damn pirates?” one demanded fiercely.

“Yeah,” seconded another, “we got scores to settle with them. Blood scores.”

Monk told them, “They all piled off the ship, but we can go hunting for ’em.”

That idea was greeted with great and unbounded joy, as eager mariners scattered in every direction to seek out any available weapon.

This enthusiasm proved to be short-lived, for the ship gave a great shudder. Then came a grinding of hull plates that made all aboard fear that the
Northern Star
was being twisted by something so stupendously large that the old liner was but a toy in its immense grip.

“The ship is coming apart!” howled a man.

“The hurricane has arrived,” Ham told them. “Do not go topside! You are certain to be swept overboard.”

Not everyone heard that, and those who did were too filled with fury to give heed.

Three sailors pounded up the companionway and blundered into the teeth of the wind. Two lucky sailors stopped dead, as if hitting an invisible wall, while the third was literally plucked off his feet and hurled over the port rail. His scream of surprise so impressed the others that they retreated to below decks, visibly chastened.

Even Monk Mayfair, normally fearless in the face of danger, suddenly developed a large measure of caution.

The newly liberated sailors stayed below decks as the ship began to grind and groan and move under the force of a raw power that had nothing to do with its engines and screws.

Faced with this elemental fury, the more seasoned mariners dropped to their knees and started to pray.

Chapter XVIX

SATAN SLEW SEVEN

DOC SAVAGE MOVED among the stricken sailors of the
Northern Star
. His speed was astonishing, combining as it did a fierce haste along with the precision of fixed intention.

As water began pouring down the ramp in pulsing waves, the bronze giant took up two sailors, one under each arm, and pulled them back into the connecting tunnel leading to the gloomy chamber beyond.

He made several trips, and each time Doc deposited two men, he inserted a simple lozenge into their mouths, massaging their throats so that they swallowed. The men were not unconscious, but they were very weak and many coughed as the pills worked themselves down their windpipes.

Doc’s supply of these pills was limited. But he managed to provide for all of the
Northern Star
crew, as well as a handful of confused pirates.

Once he was done with this, the floor of the combined chambers was awash with a dirty mixture of brine and stunned sea life. Purple jellyfish and coral octopus predominated. The fishy stew was soon up to his ankles, and began lifting even higher.

By now, the entire ramp was a gigantic conduit for the sweeping floodwaters. This fast-moving torrent had a quality of the inexorable about it. Mixed in were chunks of broken basalt and obsidian, which confirmed what Doc Savage had suspected. That the horned tower above had been broken asunder by the irresistible force of Mother Nature.