DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (23 page)

Ham asked of Pompman, “What makes you think this was a piece of a comet?”

Startell Pompman cleared his throat like a toad croaking.

“I study the stars. I constructed a horoscopic chart of the comet. What it told me suggested that a great calamity would befall the earth when it passed. I waited for said calamity, but it never eventuated.”

Startell Pompman had all attention upon him. He seemed to greatly enjoy having an attentive audience for a change.

“I had not taken into consideration the possibility that a cometary fragment might have fallen to earth to work its evil ways three years after the fact,” he amended. “For I was looking out for a purely celestial influence.”

Renny turned to Doc and demanded, “Doc, what do you make of this bloated line of bushwa?”

“A cock-and-locoweed yarn, I call it,” Monk snorted.

Doc Savage was thoughtful for a moment. “To this day no one knows what constitutes the essential matter which comprises the seemingly fiery comets which pass by the earth periodically. There are many theories. It may be that some comets are crystalline or possess a mineral nature. Meteors, after all, are most often rock or metal. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that a cometary core possessing an uncanny affinity for water has fallen to earth.”

“Since ancient times, comets have a reputation for leaving disaster in their wake,” Ham mused.

“Spoken by a man who understands the mechanics of the heavens,” exclaimed Pompman, replacing his rimless glasses upon the predatory bridge of his nose. “Perhaps you know the derivation of the very word, ‘disaster.’ Originally, it meant the unfavorable aspect of a heavenly body. Sadly, such portents of severe events have been all but forgotten nowadays.”

“How much of what you believe to be true, did you learn through spying?” asked Doc of the rotund astrologer.

“Ahem. A portion, I will admit. The rest is educated conjecture, arrived at using the time-honored methods of Solar Psychology.”

No one made a comment on that line of thinking. Bewilderment crossed the faces of the amphibian passengers.

That was all.

Up ahead, Doc Savage batted the throttles to wring more horsepower out of the great air-slashing engines.

In the navigation compartment, Renny leaned over to Doc and breathed, “What do you think of the Chans’ stories?”

“It is imperative,” said Doc Savage, “that we locate Wah Chan’s war junk and confiscate the Buddha of Ice, so-called.”

THEY RECEIVED A break.

As breaks went, it was decidedly mixed. And its repercussions proved to be unfortunate indeed.

By this time Monk Mayfair had been spelling Renny in the navigation cubicle. Monk was a fair navigator when he put his mind to it, and he evinced a desire to sit as far away from windy Startell Pompman as humanly possible, the latter having lapsed into a discourse on the planet Mars as it pertained to human events.

“Mars was the Roman deity of war,” the astrologer was declaiming to no one in particular. “We are now in a period where the earth lies under the influence of Mars. Wars are abounding. Africa. Spain. China. Mark my words, red war will run riot for years yet to come. That is the awful power of Mars.”

“That is the power of hot air,” the hairy chemist muttered.

“To that canard,” harrumphed Startell Pompman, “I will fall back on the famous aphorism reliably attributed to no less than that financial titan, J. Pierpont Morgan. To wit: ‘Millionaires don’t use astrology, billionaires do!’ And it is my sincere conviction that I will one day be numbered among the latter legion of the elect.”

After that, the corpulent capitalist fell into a fuming funk.

Doc and Monk spotted the speeding boat about the same time. Where Doc Savage was normally not demonstrative, preferring to observe and study before reacting, Monk bellowed out a sharp yell.

“Y-e-e-o-w!
Lookit!”

He leveled a hairy arm that could bend horseshoes.

The others could not see it, so they demanded that Monk explain his outburst.

“There’s a Japanese destroyer steaming as fast as it can go,” Monk exclaimed. “And it’s being chased by a fat Chinese junk.”

“Rot,” said Ham, frowning. “Impossible!”

“Take a look, shyster.”

Ham was seated the farthest forward, so he stuck his immaculately groomed head into the cockpit. The dapper lawyer had brought along a pair of binoculars taken from a seat pocket.

They were approaching the tableau, so Ham got a good look.

It was exactly as Monk reported it to be.

The Japanese destroyer was flying south, throwing up a trail of salt spray that, even from this height, told that all her boilers were involved in the effort.

Hardly a nautical mile to her stern, a Chinese junk of traditional construction was in hot pursuit. It was of a five-masted type sometimes called a treasure junk.

From the turmoil of the latter’s wake, it was clear that the junk did not depend upon sail power alone.

“Whatever they got on that ark,” Monk observed, “the Japs are petrified by it.”

“Do you blame them, you hairy mistake?” snapped Ham.

Monk grabbed the binoculars from Ham’s manicured hands and trained them on the foredeck of the junk.

“Doc,” the apish chemist reported, “I see some kind of a contraption on the bow deck. It’s pointed forward.”

“Describe it.”

“Can’t make it out. It’s squat and fat like a pot-bellied stove. Looks like it might be made out of cast iron.”

Doc took the binoculars from the apish Monk’s hands. He spent a minute scrutinizing the device in the bow of the junk.

If he understood its nature, the bronze man did not divulge his conclusions. Handing the binoculars back to Monk, he said, “We will drop down and take a closer look.”

Swinging the amphibian around, for they were about to pass over the junk, Doc dropped the plane in abrupt stages.

Engines moaned and changed key. Wind in the wings and what few struts the streamlined craft boasted whined and sang.

First, Doc Savage overflew the vessel. He slanted in from the west and banked the craft violently so that those sitting on the starboard side could see the junk clearly.

The first thing they noticed was the hull. It was painted a bilious shade of mustard. There was a weird design done in glaring scarlet on the high bows, which all recognized as the head of a Chinese dragon. It had eyes of some glittering substance that resembled mother-of-pearl, which were as large as meat platters.

Also discernible was an unfurled mainsail of straw-like matting with a splotchy smear of scarlet pigment, which undoubtedly was meant to represent the coiling anatomy of another dragon of the same species.

“The junk of the Red Dragon,” Mark Chan exclaimed.

“Our father’s junk!” Mary Chan gasped. “It is him!”

But the bronze man’s golden eyes were on the squat black thing crouching in the bow.

Seen more clearly, it resembled a cast-iron stove set on wheeled casters, so that it could be rolled about freely. Brass handholds studded the thing to control its movements. It bore some resemblance to the grotesque lion-like statues called by some “Fu Dogs,” which guard Oriental temples from Canton to Manhattan’s Chinatown.

The howling maw of the squat thing seemed to consist of louvers operated by a long white handle that was being manipulated by a man hunkered down directly behind the globular device.

It was taller than the operator by two feet or more. The latter seemed to throw the lever up, forcing the louvers to yawn open, then drop after a moment or two.

Only when the louvers were shut did he poke his head out from behind, evidently in order to study the stern of the Japanese destroyer.

Then he repeated the operation, taking extreme care to crouch behind the stove-like apparatus before he grasped the lever anew.

That much they saw, and no more, as they flung past the junk.

Suddenly wrenching the plane around, Doc Savage asked for water.

“I feel thirsty too,” mumbled Monk, thick-tongued.

There was scramble for the canteens. Everyone drank, including Startell Pompman, who thus far had escaped any dry-mouthed affliction.

“My word!” he said upon drinking his fill. “That slaked me!”

“The Buddha is on the war junk,” Mark Chan announced.

Doc Savage nodded. “They have it encased in a device designed to baffle its influence, except when a lever is thrown. They are attempting to bring the destroyer to heel by directing the Buddha’s power at the fleeing vessel.”

It seemed to be working. The destroyer began losing speed. Perhaps that was due to the crew succumbing to thirst and dehydration. Possibly the Buddha’s influence was affecting the fuel-oil in the engines.

No effort was being made to fire upon the pursuing junk. This suggested that the crew had become incapacitated and unable to perform their duties.

The destroyer began laboring. As they passed over the vessel, they could see that the decks were a vortex of activity.

The next thing that happened confirmed Doc’s earlier suspicions.

All at once, men in crisp black sailor suits began dropping off the destroyer.

“Look at that!” exploded Monk. “They’re abandoning ship!”

What started with a few dead men hopping over the sides turned into a rout. No boats were lowered. The Japanese sailors just jumped into the choppy waters.

“Like rodents deserting a sinking ship,” rumbled Renny.

From their high vantage, it was more like black ants fleeing an anthill that was being flooded by rain. But the result was the same.

Within an amazingly short span of time, the destroyer’s crew was floundering in the water. Some ducked their heads wildly, as if trying to drink up the South China Sea. The consequences were not pleasant. Swallowing salt water never is.

They did not have long to enjoy their misery.

THE Red Dragon junk was soon upon them.

It slowed. The unwieldy cast-iron contraption was wheeled to port and pointed toward the meandering Japanese destroyer.

The effect was to cause the splashing seamen to splash about even more frantically. Soon they began to weaken. One by one, they slipped from sight, disappearing beneath the wrinkled surface of the sea.

This operation was repeated on the starboard side.

Others were run down by the junk’s dragon-headed prow.

It took little more than three minutes, but in the wake of the Red Dragon junk, bodies floated in the South China Sea. Lead-colored sharks began to appear. The water churned, foaming white, then turned scarlet.

“Done for!” Renny boomed. “Every man jack of them.”

“How horrible,” gasped Mary Chan, looking away in horror.

Mark Chan said nothing for a very long time. All the color had drained from his ivory features. His narrow eyes were sick.

“My father hated the Japanese,” he croaked out at last.

They had precious little time to soak in the gruesome events that had transpired below. The destroyer, unmanned, began to swerve crazily and, in the manner of unattended vessels on the high seas, began to carve foam circles aimlessly.

That alone told that no member of the crew had remained on board.

Doc Savage seemed undecided what to do next. He watched the ocean tableau with intent golden eyes.

Their situation was difficult at best. They could hardly land unannounced and attempt to communicate with the junk. Nor did they wish to encourage the dire fate that had befallen this latest ill-fated gunboat.

“Monk, see if you can raise them by radio,” Doc requested.

The homely chemist gave it his best, but every frequency was filled with a blur of Chinese singsong talk.

“I can’t tell who I’m talkin’ to,” he complained to Doc.

“Never mind,” said the bronze man, who spoke all dialects of Chinese and grasped the problem entirely.

It was evident that they were pegged as an enemy by the crew of the Red Dragon junk. To attempt another pass would be to court disaster, for the crew of the raking ship was again jockeying the big iron device on its caster wheels, as if preparing to repel another pass.

The amphibian was equipped with dual controls. Monk sat in the co-pilot’s bucket.

Doc directed, “Take the wheel, Monk.”

Then he pitched to the rear of the aircraft, where numbered equipment cases were suspended in cargo netting, so that their volatile contents could better withstand the rigors of aerial flight.

Doc rummaged through these items. Clearly he was seeking a particular case. Finding it, he heaved open the lid and took out a thing that resembled an aerial bomb.

It was a long teardrop of a thing, constructed of aluminum, but painted black, with stabilizing fins. Affixed to the tail was a parachute of modest size. Doc unwound the bundled shrouds and prepared to deploy the device.

When he had the projectile ready to go, the bronze man rushed back to the controls.

“Monk, bring us around,” he ordered. “Try to pass directly over the junk’s stern.”

The hairy chemist obligingly sent the amphibian into a sideslip, while Doc Savage yanked the pilot’s-side window open. Slipstream came rushing in, cold and bracing. It disturbed Doc’s fine bronze hair a little.

As Monk glided the big bird over the water, Doc rapped out, “Reduce airspeed. Now!”

Monk complied, cranking down the flaps and fishtailing the rudder to lose momentum.

The amphibian raced for the junk’s broad stern.

Doc dangled the bomb-shaped device out the window. He mentally calculated altitude, airspeed, other factors, then let drop.

The parachute opened up of its own accord. It was not packed, thus there was no need for further action.

Doc’s aim was excellent. The bomb drifted downward, swinging by its shrouds.

When it struck the poop deck, it erupted in a fabulous shower of whirling red sparks and lavender smoke. The display was amazingly pyrotechnic. It was not an explosion so much as a paroxysm of fumes and fireworks.

Before the smoke obscured it, the bomb appeared to be spinning in place like a firecracker which had been split in two and then set alight.