Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) by Kenneth Robeson & Lester Dent & Will Murray

Author:Kenneth Robeson & Lester Dent & Will Murray [Robeson, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action and Adventure
Publisher: Altus Press
Published: 2014-01-09T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVIII

HORROR IN THE HOLD

THE HOUR WAS now very late, and a brittle half moon rode high in the night sky. A chill laced the ocean breezes as the Stormalong beat further southward.

Doc Savage stood at the controls, the listener device headphones clapped to his ears. From time to time, a light rain speckled the roof of the bridge, but it didn’t amount to very much. The skies remained as clear as a black velvet curtain dusted with diamonds.

From time to time, the bronze man steered the boat off course as if probing for underwater noises.

His silence, as well as the fact that he kept returning to course, indicated that he detected nothing of the sort.

Sidling up to him, Ham Brooks said quietly, “You are worried about submarines, aren’t you?”

Doc replied, “For the last year or so, there have been unconfirmed reports of foreign submarine activity in the Caribbean. Rumors of refueling bases and resupply depots. None of these have ever been confirmed, however.”

“I have read the same reports,” said Ham. “They appeared in reliable periodicals.”

“Reliable magazines have proven to be in error in the past.”

Below, Long Tom and Pat were taking turns shining torches down an ingenious window that was built into the bottom of the Stormalong’s keel.

This portal of glasslike composition material was big enough to offer an excellent view of the waters beneath the cruising yacht. It had many useful applications. Not the least of which was that it afforded the ability to examine the ocean floor in the type of shallow depths toward which they were headed.

Another value was the ability to make out various underwater life-forms, and of course any submarine that might have been passing beneath them. Despite the narrowness of the window, the portal, combined with the moving lights, showed any disturbances such as would be made by the wake of any silently cruising submersible.

After several hours of observation, Pat Savage remarked, “I don’t see anything—not fish nor fowl.”

Long Tom blinked. “Fowl? Underwater?”

Pat winkled her entrancingly pert nose. “Something sure smells foul when we all see a merman cavorting in the pale moonlight.”

Long Tom had no reply to that. He was still examining the mental image of the catapulting creature that had shot out of the water and dived back in.

“What happens if we do spy such a creature?” Pat asked. “What do we do about it?”

“Bait our hooks?” Long Tom grumbled.

Pat regarded the puny electrical wizard dubiously, “With what, pray tell?”

“If I know Doc Savage,” Long Tom said carefully, “he will go after it with his bare hands.” He pointed back in the direction of a projecting pipe—a tall round tube of a hatch which had been dogged shut.

Pat had noticed it before, but had not investigated. Now she wondered, “What is that?”

“Diving well. You open it up so you can enter the water quietly and unseen.”

Curious, Pat moved over to investigate. It looked like an ordinary hatch that might have been found on a submarine or similar vessel. It was rather small.

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