DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (24 page)

Crewmen surged in to investigate the violent display. They clustered around, clearly unsure of how to deal with the unexpected menace.

A figure larger than the others stormed up and gestured wildly with his arms. Someone found a coal shovel and plunged this implement into the heliotrope smoke, as if desperate to dislodge the hissing, spark-spitting fury before it could further detonate.

He came out a moment later, overcome by fumes and pawing at his eyes.

“Tear gas is mixed in,” explained Doc.

The crew did not give up. Others came in, carrying various implements. Pry bars. More shovels. One individual even brought a huge monkey wrench, although what conceivable use it might be put to was doubtful.

It took them considerable effort, but at last they got the sparking, snarling, smoking nuisance over to the stern rail. With a final push with the crowbars, they heaved it over the side where it struck the sea with a great splash.

That should have been the end of it. It wasn’t. No sooner had the device disappeared into the brine than there came another wild eruption, greater than the first.

It was as if contact with seawater had produced an even more violent reaction than impact on the poop deck had occasioned.

The crew of the Red Dragon junk began falling to, maneuvering the junk, fleeing as far from the devil of a device as possible. Clearly, they feared that they might be sunk.

But nothing of the sort happened. Great motors in the stern churned and began throwing spray everywhere.

Lurching forward, the junk got clear of the thing which was showing signs of settling down at last.

“It was a valiant effort,” declared Startell Pompman ponderously. “Alas, it was also a failure. It must have been so written in the stars.”

“I’ll show you stars,” snapped Renny, sticking one great globe of a fist under the plump plutocrat’s predatory nose.

“No need for fisticuffs, my good fellow,” Pompman said nervously. “You are among friends.”

“Then keep your trap shut tight,” invited Renny.

Startell Pompman settled in his seat and offered no further comments. His mouth was an unsatisfied line.

“Where to now?” Monk asked Doc.

Doc Savage vouchsafed no reply. Instead he sent the big amphibian thundering back in the direction of Shanghai, motors a-howl.

But when they reached the portion of the South China Sea where they should change course for the city, the big bronze man continued flying south.

He offered no explanation of his intentions to his aides. This was understood to be characteristic of his personality. When the bronze man was ready to reveal his plans, he would do so. Not before.

Night began falling.

THE TIME WAS two days later.

A colorful individual stood under the furled sail of the great saffron-hued junk with the scarlet dragons splashed on its bows and five batting-reinforced sails.

He was a big man. Six feet would have caught him at about the eyes. And he had a build that was made for trouble, lean of flanks, a lot of weight crowded into arms and shoulders. Attired in a riotous costume that was equal parts Manchu caftan and Mongol padded tunic, he cut a fabulous figure. His feet were stuffed into sheepskin buskins of a type favored in the cold reaches of northern China. His face was a rude block of brass, weathered by harsh climates. Scars marched across it like tracks across a map of the Gobi.

He was called Wah Chan. This was not his original name. No one knew what that was, not even the crew of the junk which now lay anchored in a river inland of the rugged edge of the China coast, hidden deep from the prying eyes of the Japanese Navy.

Wah Chan strode the teak deck of his ship, supervising the lowering of the contraption that had formerly been stationed at the bow of his ungainly-looking craft.

It resembled nothing so much as a cross between a great pot-bellied stove and a Chinese lion. In fact it was exactly the former, both items converted for the containing of a thing that, whenever he contemplated it, made Generalissimo Wah Chan shudder inwardly.

“Be careful with those lines,” he barked at his coolies as they wrestled with the block-and-tackle arrangement that dropped the cast-iron monstrosity into a waiting hold. “One mishap and we’ll all be turned into human prunes.”

He spoke rough Mandarin. The sinewy Orientals pulled and strained at their ropes while the ungainly black thing was carefully lowered into the hold.

Once its wheels touched the matting below, it was lashed into place and otherwise secured with heavy ropes.

More crewmen came and closed up the hatch, obscuring the contraption from sight.

Only then did Wah Chan exhale a long, gusty sigh of relief.

“Some day the devil inside that thing is going to break loose, and when it does—” he growled.

Wah Chan did not finish the thought. Instead, he fished a cigarette out of his shirt and stuck it between his wind-raw lips.

Rasping a match alight, Wah Chan applied sulfurous flame to the tip. He smoked furiously, grizzled brows knitting in thought.

Sunset was painting the anchored junk in hues normally associated with Arizona deserts—a weird mixture of purple, gold and scarlet that a superstitious person might dub satanic. Tidal water lapped at the gently rocking junk with steady intent.

Wah Chan had grown rich as the leader of the red-beard bandits who had roamed and pillaged the wilds of China in the days before the Japanese came. He had amassed in that interval considerable wealth. He could have retired, but in his own eyes, he was still a young man.

When the Japanese came, looting and killing, Wah Chan took offense at the encroaching upon his preserves. He reorganized his fighting men into an army of liberation. It felt good to do so. The bandit business had grown stale by that time. Only the taking of treasure still appealed to him.

It was wealth sufficient to send his two children to the United States to be educated. That felt good, too.

But the life of a soldier of fortune—as Wah Chan preferred to proclaim himself—left no room to raise children. He was sorry when they had returned to Shanghai.

Wah Chan wondered where they were now. He had lost touch with them in all the excitement that attended the arrival of the monk who called himself Tang.

Sea breezes stirred the moth-holed sails, making the dragons pop and snap as if imbued with wavering life. For centuries, the junks of China were decorated with colorful flags designed to appease a cloud-dwelling dragon said by superstitious sailors to inhabit the skies. Wah Chan had improved upon that custom by daubing a scarlet dragon on the prominent parts of his vessels—dragons by repute favoring red above all other hues.

Years of evading capture by the National Chinese Army had sharpened Wah Chan’s ears. He heard the soft catlike padding of bare feet steal up behind him.

Grasping his sword, Wah Chan whirled smartly. His dark, windy eyes narrowed at the one who had stolen up behind him.

“Is it a wise fox who does not creep up on the den of another fox,” he muttered.

The individual who approached came to a complete stop, which sent the maroon folds of his robes trembling.

This was a man who possessed the emaciated physique of an Oriental to a degree that was breathtaking. He was not tall, but he seemed tall, so lean were his limbs. Only a thin coating of parchment-like flesh protected his muscles from the elements. The veins and cords of his wrists, his throat, and even his ankles stood out alarmingly.

Had an ancient mummy come to life to walk the Earth anew, he would have looked much like the monk, Tang.

Technically, Tang had been defrocked long ago. But he still wore the robes of his erstwhile trade.

There was nothing holy-looking about his face. It was sharp, pinched and devilish in his cast. His eyes were malevolent slits the hue of anthracite. His mouth gaped, a shapeless vent stuck with teeth that were snaggled and black as charcoal. Cheeks were lean and stringy. The ears at either side of his head seemed to come to canine points. The entire effect was unlovely. He looked like some grotesque, incredibly withered Oriental devil-eared turtle.

Tang made speech with a raspy voice that bespoke of perpetually parched vocal cords.

“The Buddha of Ice has been safely stored below?” he asked.

“Do you see it here?” Wah Chan returned. He was in league with this villainous monk. But that did not mean he liked him. They held enemies in common and these considerations had drawn them in close association.

Tang croaked out, “I see that you are troubled, Generalissimo.”

“Three Japanese warships have felt our wrath.”

“The wrath of the Buddha of Ice, you mean.”

“You keep talking as if that crystal devil was imbued with evil spirits,” grunted Wah Chan.

“I believe that it is,” Tang intoned.

Wah Chan said nothing to that. He had his share of superstition carved into his soul. But he did not understand the Buddha—only its spell upon men. This was devastating to behold.

“Three Jap warships bested, and Tokyo is sending more destroyers and cruisers,” said Wah Chan. “We cannot fight them all.”

The withered monk said slowly, “It is high time we took the fight to the cities under thrall.”

Wah Chan raised a weathered fist. “What are you suggesting? That we slide into a Japanese-controlled harbor and unleash the Buddha? It will kill a whole lot of innocent Chinese, as well as sons of Nippon.”

“It is the price that must be paid to liberate China,” intoned Tang. “Otherwise, it will become a vassal state of the Japanese silkworms who have infiltrated the north.”

“If we scuttle the Japanese Navy, we cut off their supply lines and so keep reinforcements from being landed. That task has barely begun.” The tone Generalissimo Wah Chan used suggested finality.

Tang made an unhappy mouth. Shadows hid his dark teeth, making him appear toothless. “That will not drive the enemy from our land. Only the Buddha’s power can do that. We must not contain the Buddha. He thirsts for Japanese the way a spider thirsts for many fat flies.”

Wah Chan shook his craggy head. “I’m not ready to shift tactics.”

Tang fell silent. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. When he did speak, it was to change the subject.

“The British Navy will leave us alone as long as we harry only the Japanese.”

Wah Chan grunted. “True. So?”

Tang murmured, “I am remembering that airplane the color of brass. It was not British. It possessed no markings.”

“I’ve been thinking of that myself,” Wah Chan muttered.

“I know you have. I have been ruminating on it, also. I do not think it belonged to the Japanese, despite the fact that it dropped a queer aerial bomb upon us.”

Wah Chan grunted. “That was not like any bomb I ever saw. It didn’t do any damage.”

“We were fortunate to rid ourselves of it, regardless, Wah Chan,” intoned Tang.

Wah Chan blew out a careful stream of cigarette smoke, as if releasing his suspicions to the open air. “One man flies planes that color,” he said. “Not brass, but bronze.”

Interest flickered across Tang’s seamed tortoise-like features. “Yes?”

“Ever hear of
Chun-tzu Ch’ing-t’ong—
the Personage of Bronze?”

“No,” allowed Tang.

“No, I wouldn’t think you had, being shut up in monasteries like you have, then exiled to the Gobi Desert. But he is a Yankee legend known as Doc Savage. By reputation, a man who takes an interest in other people’s troubles.”

“An enlightened soldier for hire, like yourself?”

Wah Chan shook his head heavily, “Not like me. Doc Savage does not go in for battle for its own sake—or for profit. Sometimes he fights other people’s wars for them. Some new species of altruist, they say.”

“Are you suggesting that this foreign devil has entered the cause of China?” croaked out Tang.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Or could this
Ch’ing-t’ong te Nanjen
be on the side of the Nipponese?” pressed Tang.

Wah Chan slowly blew out another long plume of malodorous tobacco smoke, black eyes reflective.

“Doc Savage would never take the side of a conqueror,” he decided at last.

“But the bronze one attacked us, did he not?”

“It’s too soon to say what that was all about,” Wah Chan said. “But maybe Doc Savage will present himself again, and the truth will reveal itself.”

“Let us hope, Wah Chan, that the truth does not reveal itself in unpleasant ways.”

“How I hooked up with you, I don’t rightly understand,” admitted Wah Chan wearily.

“The Buddha of Ice brought us together to make common cause. It was ordained that we do so. Once we have defeated the Japanese, we will ask the Buddha what it wants us to do next.”

Wah Chan spat, “After this is over, you can have that vile thing. I will be done with it.”

Tang’s eyes narrowed like those of a hungry cat. “But will the Buddha be done with Wah Chan?” he purred.

With that, Tang slithered down below, there to hold congress with the Buddha in the fat black stove surmounted by a grotesque Chinese lion’s head with goggling eyes, whose ferocious mouth yawned open in a frozen howl.

Wah Chan shuddered again. Once, weeks before, he had eavesdropped and heard the wizened old monk talking to the Fu Dog in that parched voice of his, pausing often to listen, and having a regular conversation. It made spiders march up and down the Generalissimo’s spine to hear it all.

Sometimes he did wonder if the Buddha of Ice were alive in some way. Tang insisted that it did not merely suck the moisture from a man, but his very soul, too. It was a disagreeable thought.

But what else could explain the fact that the Buddha of Ice was growing with each use? That its size had almost doubled since they had begun to harry the Japanese Navy?

Crushing his cigarette beneath one boot heel, Wah Chan decided to turn in for the night. With a final command to his night guard arrayed about the stern mast, he disappeared below deck.

Only the monotonous
lap-lap-lap
of tidal water against the stout hull lingered in the night air.