Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (8 page)

The lush island of Sumatra drew his attention often. Here, the smell of rubber plants overpowered other wind-borne odors. The Dutch controlled the area. Their rubber plantations dotted the landscape. But these were not visible. Only the great green mountains running along a north-south line.

Captain Savage drew near and started a conversation. “That river yonder leads to Belawan, one of the principal ports in these waters. Your grandfather knew it well. Up in those mountains far inland lies a plateau ringed by smoking volcanoes. On this plateau live a strange people. The Karo-Bataks. Ever hear of them?”

“No,” admitted Doc.

“The Karo-Bataks were a seafaring people once,” related the elder Savage. “An inland sea once existed where forests now flourish. This unnamed and now-lost body of water was the center of their lives. One day, long ago, an earthen dam or wall broke, sending the sea of the Karo-Bataks spilling into the ocean. The exposed seabed gave rise to vegetation, but failed to collect sufficient rain water to replenish the sea, so the Karo-Bataks were forced to become rice farmers and hunters.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” said Doc.

“The Karo-Bataks,” continued Savage, “possessed a written language resembling ancient Phoenician and were as skillful at chess as the most sophisticated European. In the generations since they lost their inland sea, they built villages which they called ‘islands’ in their languages. In these villages, they erected homes built along the lines of ships, with thatched roofs that curve fore and aft like ships. In fact, they call them ‘ships,’ even though they are built on stilts. It has been many generations since their sea ran away from them, and they know nothing of real ships or islands, but these concepts survive in how they have organized their communal lives.”

Doc Savage waited for the point of the story. There was always a point, he knew.

“Sounds picturesque,” prompted Doc. “Even idyllic.”

“When your grandfather discovered these people,” Savage offered, “they had fallen into the foul pit of demon-worship. The men lived idle lives, while the women did all the work. Their greatest challenge was to travel from village to village, to visit their many wives, who gave them money to waste on gambling.”

“Far from ideal,” conceded Doc. “But I fail to see your point.”

“I will pass on to you the advice your grandfather gave me when I was about your age. ‘Build yourself a boat, and once you have found it, never lose your sea.’”

Doc Savage considered this for some time, his thoughtful eyes on the green peaks which concealed the plateau of the lost seafarers.

“I have been thinking that I would rather like to have my own airplane,” said Doc.

“You cannot live on an aeroplane,” reminded the elder Savage.

“Or perhaps a submarine.”

Captain Savage walked off without comment.

THE STRAIT OF MALACCA had a rank smell. Doc tasted it at intervals. It smelled of treachery and bloodshed, as fit its reputation. This was a haven for Malay pirates. The night watch was doubled.

Days came and went and the sailing was fine. It was common for native boats to sidle up alongside and look over the
Orion
and its unusual crew.

Once, a dugout canoe scooted by and a gruff voice called over.

“Ari ni penatai nuan?”
Where are you from?

Doc looked to his father.

“He is speaking the language of the Dyaks,” Captain Savage returned. “He wants to know whence we hail.” The captain replied in the man’s own language. “The schooner
Orion.
Out of San Francisco, U.S.A.”

“Kini ka nuan?”
Where are you bound?

“Andaman Sea.”

“No port?”

“We make landfall where we will,” said Savage Senior. “And you?”

The man smiled broadly, displaying teeth that were nearly black.
“Belelang.”
Wandering about.

“You have very fine heads, Men-with-Eyes-of-Gold.” And the Dyak canoe captain laughed as he urged his rowers onward.

“Headhunters?” asked Doc, after his father had translated the exchange.

“Or humorists. It is difficult to tell.”

Whichever they were, they did not return. That day.

Chapter IX

THEY MADE LANDFALL at Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union, which sprawled south of India and west of Burma. It had been an infamous penal colony going back generations, and remained so to this day. There was no sign of that storied institution, however.

As they approached its palm-frond-tossed shore, they had sighted the so-called Nicobar pigeon, whose metallic green plumage suggested anything but a common pigeon.

Watching a flock of the gray-headed, white-tailed birds fly by, Doc remarked, “They are believed to be unique among birds, although perhaps related to some extinct species, such as the dodo.”

“What is that, Mister Savage?” asked his father, who was conning the port ahead.

“Caloenas nicobarica.
The Nicobar pigeon.”

Captain Savage grunted wordlessly.

“What does Nicobar mean, I wonder?” said Doc, shifting his gaze to the port in the splendidly blue Andaman Sea.

“It is based upon a Tamil word, I understand. It means ‘Naked Man.’”

“Strange name for an archipelago,” said Doc.

“These are strange waters,” admitted Savage Senior. “It is thought that the name Andaman derives from the Sanskrit, and is a corruption of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god. Why this would be so eludes me. Britain holds sway here. Before that, the Danes controlled this sector.”

“We should see about purchasing a wireless telegraph while we are resupplying,” suggested Doc.

The elder Savage frowned. “Useless for our purposes. The
Courser
carried no such instrument,” he said finally.

“But other ships do, and if we are to locate her in the vast Indian Ocean, the power to communicate with other vessels may prove invaluable.”

Captain Savage gave the matter further thought.

“We will see what we can learn about her last position before splurging on dubious mechanisms,” he allowed.

By which Doc understood that he had succeeded in moving his father’s mental machinery in a more positive direction. A large victory in principle, but possibly a major one in practice.

The Mayans were tying the springlines to the dock bollards when a representative from the British government came up the dock. He wore tropical whites and a pith helmet, which he doffed upon approach.

“Good day, gentlemen. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Talbot Friday, His Majesty’s Port Officer for this jurisdiction. We were not expecting you. I regret to inform you that the Governor is not available to receive you. He is upriver, on a pressing matter.”

“Captain Clark Savage, Senior. Good to make your acquaintance. We are in search of the dismasted clipper reported floating in the vicinity.”

Doc thought:
That is my father—getting down to brass tacks.

Doc put out his hand. “Clark Savage, Junior, late of France and No Man’s Land.”

For the occasion, Doc had changed into the only fresh clothes he possessed—his military uniform.

“Good to have you. Come, we’ll have tea and I will tell you all you need to know.”

OVER English afternoon tea, they exchanged news of the world.

Doc took the lead. Younger and more personable than his father, his participation in the Great War had impressed the official, who soon dropped his British stiffness.

“The
Courser
was a marvel in her day,” Friday said with reserved respect, and a trace of admiration. “Weatherly, yet constructed for speed.”

“The finest kind,” said Captain Savage approvingly.

“What was her last position?” asked Doc.

“Southwest of here. In beastly empty waters. It was a wonder that we’ve had any sightings of her at all. These are trackless seas, if you know what I mean. Trackless and treacherous.”

“How can that be?” asked the elder Savage.

“Pirates, you know.”

“Malays?”

“Malays and Dyaks. Mainly Dyaks. They seem to like to take an occasional run down into those lower reaches.”

“What could they possibly want there?” wondered Captain Savage.

Friday shrugged elaborately. “No one seems to know. But those waters are haunted—troubled and taboo. No one goes there. Positively no one. Or if they do, they scarcely ever return.”

Doc interjected, “From the last reported positions of the
Courser,
where might she have been?”

“Drifting north by northwest. That would plot her deep down into the Indian Ocean, where dry land is scarce indeed.”

“Surely there are islands?” asked Captain Savage.

“Isles perhaps, and curious fogs.”

“Fogs?”

“Perpetual pea soups, I am told. Not that I have ever been down in those vasty parts. We have enough of a job of work watching over these scattered islands.”

Friday took out a map and two stickpins, pressing the latter into the blue grid.

Captain Savage leaned forward and his eyes sharpened.

“If I know my trade winds, that would suggest she is being blown from this area.” He placed a sun-bronzed hand on the expanse of the Indian Ocean west of Sumatra.

“Hardly narrows it down, you know,” offered Friday.

“Sir, up until these reports, I have had no inkling if the
Courser
lay marooned at the northern pole or sunk in the deeps of the South China Sea.”

“I understand it had been a good ten years since there was word of her,” the official said sympathetically.

“Longer.”

Friday took a sip of steaming tea. “Surprised she floats, unmanned after all this time,” he remarked.

“The reports say the masts were sheared off,” offered Doc.

“Right. Rather remarkable. Suggests a frightful blow.”

Captain Savage retorted, “I would question if any blow could dismast a stoutly-constructed ship such as the
Courser.
”

“No ship is invincible, or storm-proof,” Friday said pleasantly. “We all recognize that, I trust.”

“Aye. But I practically grew up under her foresail. Her masts are stout. A blow sufficient to snap them as cleanly as reported should have sent her below.”

Friday smiled crookedly. “I shall not weigh in against your superior knowledge, but facts are facts. She was seen here and again there by two different ships’ crews. Both reported that the clipper floated along, entirely seaworthy as to her hull integrity, but utterly shorn of her masts, spars and rigging.”

“Perhaps a pirate crew looted her, and stole away with her timber,” suggested Doc Savage.

“Doubtful,” said Captain Savage, shaking his silver-streaked head.

“I am inclined to agree with your father,” disclosed Friday. “Such freebooters as prowl the Indian Ocean have no use for masts of clipper magnitude. Nor would the wood be of much value. Else, the ship would have been picked over, reduced to a skeleton, and no longer be afloat.”

“Was there any report of her condition?” asked Captain Savage.

“I have the wireless communiqués here,” said Talbot Friday.

He produced two Manila envelopes and emptied them. The reports went around the table.

Reading them, Captain Savage’s seamed features gathered and smoothed, seeming to alter his appearance of age and maturity. It was as if he were gaining and losing entire decades with each facial alteration.

Doc Savage read with an impassive countenance.

AFTER a moment, his trilling issued forth. A sharp elbow in his ribs brought this social faux pas to his attention. He got control of it.

“This report speaks of a large splash of blood at the taffrail,” said Doc.

Friday nodded. “Yes. Unpleasant point.”

Captain Savage took the report and read silently.

“Could mean anything,” he said curtly.

“It could,” allowed Friday. “But where Dyak pirates have boarded shipping, they often take the crew to a central point and remove their, ah, heads. A taffrail is rather like a chopping block to them.”

Doc commented, “This report suggests that the bloodstains, while not fresh, were not old either.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Dried blood quickly turns brown,” replied Doc, drawing upon his medical knowledge. “But even dry, monsoon rains would wash any such stain away over a period of months, if not weeks.”

“Sound point. So you are suggesting that the crew were beheaded comparatively recently?”

Captain Savage interrupted. “Let us not go too finely into theories, gentlemen. It is only a supposition.”

“Blood is blood,” said Friday. “And there was quite a lot of it.”

“Confound it, I do not wish to be jumping at conclusions when there are facts yet to be ascertained!”

And the coarse grain of Captain Savage’s voice was such that the room fell silent.

Pouring himself another dollop of tea to freshen his cup, the official went on in a quiet and respectful tone of voice.

“I imagine that you will want to sail with the dawn.”

“Sooner,” snapped the captain of the
Orion.

“Really? After all this journeying, surely a sound bed in a solid hotel room would be more to your liking.”

“It would,” said Captain Savage. “But every hour may count.”

“Perfectly understandable, if not commendable. Yet I fear, if you hope to effect a rescue, that is sheer fantasy. Surely you grasp the facts of life as they present themselves.”

“Sir,” Captain Savage returned, his voice cold and shaking, “the
Courser
may have been reduced to salvage and her decks awash with blood, but my father, Stormalong Savage, will not be declared dead until I have seen his cold clay cadaver with my very own eyes.”

“Jolly good!” Talbot Friday lifted his cup. “Let’s all drink to a swift family reunion and a happy conclusion.”

But the official was the only one to raise his china cup.

Doc Savage and his father read the maritime reports over and over, sifting for clues and gleanings, golden eyes fixed. They were of one mind and one will now.

Chapter X