Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (38 page)

Doc Savage realized that he could not cling to the stone for much longer, despite his nearly inhuman physical strength. To enter the water was out of the question. The bronze man could not remain submerged for very long without oxygen pills to sustain him, and even with only his head out of the water, he would have been at the mercy of the tossing surge, carried off in who knew what direction.

With that grim understanding in mind, he prepared himself to inevitably perish.

A remarkable thing, however, then transpired. The power of the driving wind pushed one stone into another, and these were soon knocking against a third, larger outcropping.

This towering rock stood higher than the others, and all together the knocking and grinding rocks formed a kind of rough windbreak.

Alone of the frantic survivors clinging to the stones, Doc Savage recognized what was transpiring. His position was such that if he let go, the bronze man might be plucked away by the awesome tempest. But if he could creep around, Doc could jam himself into the crevice between stones, which had formed a makeshift shelter against the relentless power of the storm.

Creeping around was out of the question. To attempt to move would have meant certain death.

Doc Savage still had his folding grappling hook and line. Groping into a shirt pocket for this contrivance, he got it loose. He did not pull it completely free, because the bronze man could not chance releasing the anchoring stone to which he clung.

Instead, Doc ducked down and took the grapnel in his strong teeth and, using his agile tongue, managed to open up one of the folding steel tines.

During an upbringing that was strenuous, and often bizarre, Doc had been trained to extricate himself from various dangerous situations. He learned to tie knots with his bare toes, and untie them, too. Similar exercises involving tongue and teeth were also practiced until he could do astounding things with parts of his body ordinarily not considered powerful.

Doc worked the grappling hook around his mouth until he got a second tine opened. It was difficult, cumbersome work, but he succeeded in not dropping the precious tool.

He elected not risk opening the third hook; two would have to suffice.

Doc then craned his head around, trying to get the hook into the wind.

This maneuver was not easy, but there was no safe way to take the hook in hand and throw it. Not without releasing his handholds, which were all that kept him from being yanked into the tempest.

When Doc maneuvered the grapnel in the correct position for what he had in mind, the bronze man gave his head a sideways toss and released the device in his teeth.

The wind carried the frail thing away, as Doc knew it would. But it also carried the trailing, rapidly uncoiling silken line attached to it.

Here is where deft reflexes came into play. As the loop of line uncoiled, Doc snapped out with his teeth, and clamped on the whipping line.

There would be no opportunity for a second chance, nor was it necessary. His very life at stake, Doc Savage succeeded in one desperate bite.

Under other circumstances, the picture would have been absurd, ridiculous, even comical. The gale was pulling at the hook as if it were a small kite straining against the wind, the quivering silk line stretched straight as a reed. The thing was anchored to Doc’s mouth, which was all that kept it from blowing away into the wailing eternity of sound and wind and agitated surf.

Doc then shook his head back-and-forth like a mastiff, trying to pluck the hook out of the teeth of the wind, but not accomplishing very much.

Finally, by dint of strenuous effort, he worked the thing around, maneuvering it until, abruptly, it fell out of the storm.

Where the grappling hook had come down was impossible to say with certainty, but Doc Savage was confident that it landed among the grinding boulders.

No man can accomplish two tasks simultaneously with equal ability, nor was Doc Savage so superhuman, despite his great fund of skills. All the effort he put into manipulating the grapnel and line had taken his attention off his iron grip. His fingers were starting to loosen, and that, combined with the whipping water, was inexorably defeating his herculean efforts to hold on.

ABRUPTLY, Doc was forced to let go. Knowing that one hand would not be sufficient to stay anchored, he released the other simultaneously.

The spray-soaked line still in his teeth, the bronze man recognized the risk. There was an excellent chance that the grappling hook had found solid anchorage. Once the line went taut, the force of the hurricane propelling him out to sea could tear his teeth out of his mouth.

Doc’s mighty arm swept up, found the line, and clamped hard. Simultaneously, he opened his mouth.

The sensation of being carried off was a wrenching one, and for a fragment of a second Doc was certain that he was lost. There was no time to think beyond that awful realization.

Then his metallic fists were sliding down a slippery line, clutching at the small knots and finger loops that were affixed along its length for emergencies so dire that his tremendous physical strength was insufficient.

Now the bronze giant found himself to be a human kite in the air, clothes flapping and flopping like some kind of animated flag. He was literally buoyant in the air, entirely at the mercy of the storm.

But not without resources. Twisting and turning against the line, Doc kicked and squirmed, until he presented a smaller profile against the gale force winds.

Suddenly, the punishing wind no longer had him and he fell, splashing in the water, but still being dragged along by the wailing weather.

Gripping the thin line for dear life, Doc Savage pulled strenuously, hauling himself along until he reached the bundle of grinding rock, finding sufficient shelter that he could crawl in between two great basalt stones and wedge himself into the miserably cold cup he discovered there.

Here, he found several men who had thrown themselves in, their eyes completely shut, wet hands clapped over their ears to keep out the terrible noise.

There was nothing for Doc Savage to do but hunker down and do the same, knowing that the storm in its terrible immensity might yet rage another hour or longer before finally subsiding.

Chapter LII

ORICHALCUM

WHEN CALM RETURNED, it was in stages.

The horrible unending howling began to abate, slowly dying off like the whining of lost dogs. The wind likewise dropped off by degrees.

Despite this gradual transition, when at last peace came, it seemed somehow abrupt. Even the quality of daylight improved.

Doc Savage stood up, soaked to the skin, his clothing plastered against his great frame. He still wore the cellophane hood, which he had replaced after finding shelter. It had been necessary to lift it from time to time, to let in fresh air.

Looking about, Doc studied the huddled sailors and erstwhile pirates. One of the latter had died where he cowered. The look on his pale face was one of abject horror. Had fright killed him? Had he suffered a heart attack or similar medical calamity? After a brief examination, even Doc Savage could not say for certain.

Making the rounds of the survivors, the bronze giant met with a genuine surprise.

For among the shivering men was the familiar face of Leander Tucker. The young man was considerably shaken by his experience and looked it. The paleness of his roundish features rivaled that of a freshly-laundered sheet.

“Tuck,” said Doc, shaking him gently.

Seaman Tucker nevertheless jumped, and stood up abruptly. His hair was plastered to his round skull like a wet mop.

“Doc!” he blurted out. “You’re alive, too?”

“Where are your other friends?” asked the bronze man.

Tucker told a rapid tale of standing off the mysterious submarine only to be swept overboard by the roaring hurricane.

“W-we all went overboard,” he said miserably. “I found myself in the drink, and I was pushed and pushed and pushed along like a helpless hunk of jetsam until I struck a big stone. After that, I held on for dear life.”

Doc asked gently, “You did not see the others after that?”

Tuck shook his head, and it was difficult to tell if the moisture leaking out of his squeezed-shut eyes was from his soaking, or the product of emotional distress.

“Likely they drowned,” said Doc softly.

“I have been thinking that very thought,” admitted Tuck. “Oh, what will I tell their folks?”

Neither man said anything for a long time.

Doc Savage looked up, climbed the highest hump of stone, and surveyed his surroundings.

The sea was still roiled, although it was calming down. Debris lay on the swells in all directions. Palm fronds, ragged bark and other detritus choked the waters.

A seagull sailed into view, cocking its narrow head about, and made a dive for some morsel floating on the water.

The long black finger of Satan’s Spine was beginning to show through the surf, gleaming like wet obsidian.

The converted liner
Northern
Star
could also be descried, and Doc Savage was more than taken aback upon discovering that he was looking down her great smokestacks. For the liner had been knocked over and was lying on her port side. Here and there, hull plates had popped. One smokestack had broken loose and lay detached and flattened.

Of the mysterious submarine, there was no sign.

Grimly, Doc Savage jumped down into the rock-sheltered pit where the storm-chastened men were gathering their thoughts and their battered self-possession. Their eyes were unnaturally round, as if they were still grappling with the realization that they had cheated death.

“We survived…” one man said dazedly.

“It is not yet over,” Doc Savage told them. “This is merely a temporary respite. There is no telling how large the eye of the hurricane is, but if we do not find better shelter, we are going to be in for considerable pounding once the eye passes beyond this area.”

No one needed to have that explained to him twice.

THE MEN hastened to clamber up, and began trudging toward the
Northern Star
, there being no other shelter within sight.

Glancing west, Doc looked toward Satan Cay, and realized that it had been virtually leveled—not that there was much to it other than a great deal of beach sand and a few solitary scrub plants.

They reached the
Northern Star
just as men were squirming out of her deck hatches and companionways, awkwardly seeking a way to climb down the upended deck, which was lying at right angles to the submerged foot of the forbidding black reef.

Predictably, Monk Mayfair, with his long arms and tremendous upper torso strength, managed to climb down a flung manila painter. He landed on his bowed legs with a splash.

When he saw Doc Savage leading the survivors, the hairy chemist broke out into a great simian grin. Lifting one ridiculously long arm, he waved vigorously and called out, “Doc! You made it.”

Others tumbled down behind him, and the survivors of the now derelict
Northern Star
began congregating and swapping tall tales of their horrific experiences. Soon, they were vying for bragging rights to declare which element of the crew had had the worst of it.

It turned out that the ship’s hull had preserved the lives of everyone who had remained on board. Captain McCullum, who had been trapped on the toppled bridge, had to be extricated, for he was in no condition to climb down under his own power. This was accomplished with various ropes, a Jacob’s ladder, and a great deal of American ingenuity.

They congregated by the overturned bow, whose anchor chain had been snapped. There was no sign of the anchor.

The Skipper had some choice words for the condition of his vessel, and the general situation. All of it was salty, and none of it was printable. But after Captain McCullum managed to unburden himself of his ire, he was in better fettle.

Turning to Doc Savage, he demanded, “Where is that twice-damned pirate?”

“Swept out to sea,” replied Doc. “Whatever his true name was, Diamond could not possibly have survived.”

Hearing this, one of the defeated pirate survivors offered, “His real name was Jack Morgan, if you want to know the truth. Jack Diamant Morgan, to be exact. He claimed to be a descendant of Sir Henry Morgan, the famous buccaneer of the Spanish Main.”

Doc Savage nodded. “So he boasted, although Diamond included many other privateers among his supposed ancestry.”

“Jack had big ideas,” the other admitted. “Called himself Diamond after his middle name and took to wearing a diamond earring like the old-time freebooters. But look what it earned him. Davy Jones’ cold company.”

Captain McCullum strode up to the confessing corsair, and despite his injuries, managed to knock the man flat with one roundhouse blow.

“What was this hijacking all about?” he demanded of the man.

The rogue in question had managed to hit the back of his head against solid basalt and was out cold. The frustrated skipper went tearing about the survivors, seeking another pirate, and soon caught one.

This one was not so talkative, but soon unburdened himself. He had sailed under the name of Bill Hatch, but admitted that his real name was Roland Rowe, a former U.S. Navy petty officer third class who had been cashiered for drunkenness.

“Well, it’s like this, there was a seaquake last winter, and this damn reef was pushed to the surface, along with that watchtower or lighthouse of a thing with horns. Diamond found it, got inside, and barely escaped with his life. The stuff he found inside was worth a fortune.”

“What stuff?” demanded Monk.

The brigand lifted his right hand, displaying a reddish-gold band. “This stuff, for starters.”

Ham Brooks walked up and took the ring off the man’s finger, examining it carefully.

“This is not gold,” he sniffed.

“This is
better
than gold,” the pirate insisted.

“It must be an exceedingly rare metal to count as more valuable than gold,” insisted Ham.