The Polar Treasure (ds-4) by Kenneth Robeson

Author:Kenneth Robeson [Robeson, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: det_action

THE SUBMARINE rooted through growlers and pan ice. Back and forth, right and left, lunged and wallowed. Sometimes sheets of pan ice crowded up on the deck until Doc, Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny had to dive hastily down the hatch to avoid being crushed or swept overboard.

They had been searching for five hours.

No sign of Monk or Renny had they found.

A bitter wind was swooping off the distant wastes of ice-capped Greenland. It froze spray on the steel runners affixed to the hull of the under-the-ice sub. But the chemicals on the sides of the ship flushed the frigid coating away at intervals.

"The gale was worse during the night," Johnny muttered. "Poor Monk! Poor Renny!" He blinked his eyes back of his spectacle lenses.

Although Monk and Renny had indeed vanished during the night, it was night only by their watches. The sun hung well above the horizon — where it had lingered for some days. It was wan, almost lost in a pale, nasty haze.

Ice which had piled up on deck abruptly slid off with a grinding roar.

Doc went outside. He carried powerful binoculars. But once more, a search through them disclosed nothing.

However, the sub now surged across a comparatively open lead in the ice pack. This was what Doc had been hoping for.

"Stand by to put out the seaplane!" he ordered. The crew crowded the deck. They were surly. The air of sinister trouble still hung about them. But they obeyed Doc's orders with alacrity. Some of them had seen what had happened to Captain McCluskey. They had told the others.

A deck plate was lifted. A folding boom was jacked into position.

Out came an all-metal, collapsible seaplane. Doc himself got the tiny hornet of a craft ready for the air.

Captain McCluskey came on deck while the work was under way. Doc Savage rested his golden eyes intently upon the walrus of a man.

McCluskey scowled for a second or two. Then he grinned sheepishly.

"Ye won't have any more trouble from me, matey," he mumbled. Then he winced and moved his hands.

Each paw was bundled in bandages until it resembled the foot of a man with the gout.

Doc drew his three remaining companions aside.

"Keep your hands on your guns," he warned them. "I don't think McCluskey will make more trouble immediately. But watch his crew!"

It seemed a miracle when the cockpit of the diminutive seaplane held Doc's mighty bronze form. The little radial engine was fitted with a starter. Doc turned it over. The cold made it stubborn. It fired at last.

The exhaust stacks smoked for a while. Then they lipped blue flame. The engine was warm.

The plane floats left a ribbon of foam as they scudded across the open lead in the ice pack. Doc backed the control stick. The ship vaulted off the water.

He banked in circle after circle, each one wider than the last.

The pale haze hadn't looked so thick from the surface. But it hampered vision amazingly from the air. The gloom was increasing, too.

No sign of Monk or Renny could he discern.

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