DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (29 page)

As Doc took in the unnerving and unexpected sight, the gun coughed anew.

Having no choice in the matter, the bronze man vaulted the port rail and threw himself into the water ahead of the screaming shell.

THE SWIM BACK back to the
Cuttlefish
was a living agony. So great was Doc Savage’s thirst, that he had to fight the strong urge to swallow brine. While not always fatal, this would have injured his system, leading to greater dehydration, and crippled him for the trying battle ahead.

In his weakened state, Doc sank a time or two and seemed unable to draw upon his reserves of strength. Too, his ability to hold his breath for extended periods was no longer in evidence. Once, he seemed to struggle to stay underwater.

Sewn into the waistband of his swimming trunks was a packet of tablets, protected by oilcloth. Doc retrieved this and swallowed two of the pills. They were concentrated tablets of chemical. When mixed with saliva, they released oxygen into the system, permitting breathing without the need for lung respiration.

Finally, Doc made it to the hull, but lacked the physical strength to ascend it. He had regained possession of his silk line and grappling hook, but using it was out of the question.

Doc called up, “Monk! Renny! Lend a hand!”

Not long after, several heads looked down over the starboard rail, spotted Doc’s head bobbing at the waterline.

“Doc!” howled Monk.

“The crying thirst stopped,” Renny grunted. “Was that you?”

Doc nodded. “Throw a line. Stand ready to haul me aboard.”

Monk and Renny blinked in unison, scarcely believing their ears. It was a rare day when Doc Savage required help. Obviously, the bronze man was severely dehydrated.

They found a coil of Manila line, fashioned a noose big enough around for the task and dropped it. It splashed beside Doc, who took it up and dropped it over his head. When it was snug under both arms, he drew the knot tight and signaled.

Together, Monk and Renny yanked the bronze man’s splendidly muscled body up in measured jerks. It was tough work, due to Doc’s dead weight, but they succeeded.

Helping their bronze chief over the rail, they stood on the warped planking.

“What happened?” demanded Monk.

Doc related the story in short sentences.

“That Jap gunboat just hove up,” Renny thumped. “We’re in for it now!”

Another shell had burst on the war junk, this time reducing the high poop structure to kindling.

Renny rumbled, “Just a matter of time before they sink that old scow.”

“The Buddha has been sealed in its watertight container,” Doc said quickly. “But it’s unlikely to survive a pounding.”

“If that ark sinks—” Monk muttered.

“—say goodbye to the world,” Renny finished.

Ham Brooks came up then, his face several shades paler and drier that it had been a half hour ago. For some reason, the leaching effect of the Buddha had sucked all the color from his handsome features. Even his eyes appeared dry. He kept squeezing them as if to moisten his parched eyeballs.

“Doc!” he yelled. “Some of the crew of the other ship slipped up to our stern in a dink. They’re trying to board us!”

Doc leaned over the rail in the direction of the stern. He spotted one of the flat-bottomed boats that had been stored on the Red Dragon junk’s deck. The little shell was bumping against the hull, filled to the gunwales with scrawny amber men.

“As if we don’t have enough trouble,” Monk grumbled. “What now, Doc?”

“Fight them off. Don’t use your supermachine pistols unless absolutely necessary. Otherwise you will draw fire from that patrol boat. I will go below and attempt to raise the Japanese gunboat captain by radio.”

“Then we’d better get cracking,” Renny boomed, making mauls of his gargantuan hands. Mightier fists had not existed since the days of John Henry, the famous railroad steel driver.

As they surged after, Doc’s men encountered Washington Chandler and his two nearly identical offspring, creeping up from below, looking haggard and bewildered.

“What has happened?” he demanded.

“Your mutiny boys are stagin’ a comeback,” Monk growled. “We gotta beat ’em off the stern before they take over this tub!”

“Rush them!” Chandler snapped. He had in one horny hand a club the size of a baseball bat, of wood so hard and heavy it resembled iron.

Together, they raced back toward the stern. Just in time to witness heads lifting over the poop deck, vicious as ferrets.

Renny was the first to reach the scene. The narrow-eyed crew of the Red Dragon junk swarmed over the spot like flies. Grunting explosively, he smashed at a twisted, sallow visage with one knobby-knuckled fist. The other lost his grip, splashed into the water below.

Renny drove his other fist into a wiry belly so hard he could feel his knuckles grate on the ridged backbone.

Others scrambled over. Their torsos were bare, and each wore a gaudy sash of silk into which was thrust an astounding array of weapons. Four of them had three foreign pistols apiece, while the fourth had only two, but made up for it with a short, wide sword that resembled an ordinary corn knife. All had knives with long, needle-like blades. Once their hands were freed of climbing purposes, they began producing the latter from their sashes.

The stern overflowed with junk-men. Excited, crackling, unintelligible yells were everywhere.

Immediately, the aft deck became a storm of activity.

Monk and Ham picked out foes, began whittling them down. Monk grasped heads, two at a time, and endeavored to wrench them off shoulders. He almost succeeded with one. The other he flung back into the water, that being the surest way to settle him.

For his part, Ham sent his sword cane leaping ahead of him like a dancing blade of platinum. He used it to stab and prick at sword-wielding Chinese. They wielded heavier blades, and a few brandished stabbing daggers, but Ham had but to scratch a wrist or cheek and his foe quickly dropped his weapon clattering, and followed it down. The sticky anesthetic at the blade tip ensured that result.

Seeing how successful Ham’s strategy was, Monk bounded into a clot of boarders, batted blades from hands, then gathered them up in his burly arms, and presented the squirming, complaining bundle to the dapper lawyer. Ham obliged him by jabbing his blade into frantic waving arms and legs, until the hairy chemist found himself holding a pile of slack sailors, whereupon Monk dropped them unceremoniously onto the wood planking and went in search of a fresh batch of victims.

Howling, Wah Chan waded in. His club lifted. A parchment-skinned head broke under the club with a sound like a rotten cantaloupe.

A rifle stock whistled through the air. The Generalissimo hurled himself backward just ahead of it. But the walnut butt flashed again, caught his wrist, knocking the club high into the air and to one side.

Wah Chan was soon enveloped by a frenzied vortex that seemed to consist of screeching, snapping pigtails. Mark Chan plunged into the melee. Fist blows made a flurry of smacking sounds. Foes fell. Most failed to rise again.

MORE Chinese came, a snarling cloud of them. The attack of thirst followed by the short swim had not deconditioned them as much as might have been expected. They showed great nerve and agility.

Many wielded the traditional skull-splitting hatchets favored by Tong assassins. They came on, whirling their weapon wildly.

Two Orientals landed before Renny, bristling with steel. One spat a crimson stream of betel juice into the big-fisted engineer’s face, then clucked something to his companion.

“You rats!” Renny complained. “Fight fair!”

While Renny pawed the red fluid from his eyes, matched blades sought his vitals.

Came a
swish!
A thump. The half-blind engineer suddenly stumbled over something that rolled away. He wondered if it was one of his own detached fists.

Renny gaped. The body of another invader sagged over and struck the deck with a dull sound. The thing he had stumbled over was its head—jowls sagging, eyes rigid, like marbles stuck into pursy brown sacs.

“That’s that!” hissed Mary Chan. “Wah Chan’s junk-hands keep their swords sharp—and Dad taught me the art of the short blades. No hatchet-man can withstand it.”

More startled than he would have believed possible, Renny seized a length of twisted fibre line, snubbed it about a crude cleat, trailed the end to the starboard rail. He used the line to sweep a flood of invaders off their bare feet, then made certain they stayed down by rapping them on jaws and close-cropped skulls with his massive fists.

A semi-naked tawny body hurled at him, seemingly out of nowhere, preceded by an arc of madly slashing steel. Blinded by the spray of betel juice that had been dripping into his eyes, Renny bounded backward, close to the deckhouse. His assailant struck, missed, and lost his thin blade as it dug into the tough wood and broke. The fellow gave vent to a howl that had the piercing quality of a steam calliope.

Renny hit him in the throat with his fist, paralyzing the yell into a gurgle, caught him as he fell, then bore down on a second snarling Celestial with the body held before him as a shield. The newcomer lost his balance and fell.

Renny dropped his senseless burden, pounced on the fallen man, kicked the sword away from his clutch, and pitched him over the rail. He heard the body crash, screaming, into the side of the hull as it tumbled toward the heaving water.

The sound mingled with a thudding rush along the deck. Renny turned, grunted, “Holy cow!”

The towering white-haired Chinese sailor who served as the helmsman of the junk of the Red Dragon loomed before him. Breath wheezed through a flat nose that had been smeared across an unlovely physiognomy. Fat lips twisted into a strange grin. He clucked out a threat of some sort.

Renny closed with him. And quickly received one of the really big surprises of his life. Handling the wiry seamen had been child’s play. Not many of them had weighed more a hundred and twenty pounds, many of them less. They were catlike bags of skin and bones.

The colossal Chinese was different. Muscles of tempered steel lay under the coat of leathery brown skin.

Renny ducked, launched his gangling frame forward like a battering ram. His head, turtled between his shoulders, landed in the giant’s paunch. The other rocked back, but kept his feet. Grasping hands reached out for the astonished engineer.

The big fellow’s arms closed inexorably, crushed the air from Renny’s protesting lungs. He had the strength of Samson. The pressure of his bear-like hug was prodigious, bone-crushing. Renny’s ears began to ring, and through that sound he could hear his own sturdy ribs crackling in protest.

A numbing pain shot through the big engineer’s back, and his legs suddenly felt like lead casks.

Faintly, as from infinite distance, Renny heard the stuttering crash of gunfire, and nearer, from a spot toward the bows, frenzied movement. Then everything was lost in the struggle.

It was not a nice fight. The big monster drew his head down. Renny jerked his head back, heard the betel-reddened teeth snap viciously where his jugular had been.

After that, Renny lost no time in twisting a fat ear, which stunk of sweat and perfume. He hung on, beating a furious tattoo with fists, elbows, and knees. They went down in a struggling knot, rolled wildly about on deck.

Renny got a fist free, drove it repeatedly into his opponent’s bulging paunch. With each blow, his opponent collapsed a bit, deflating like a balloon. When he judged the time right, Renny bounced to his big feet, caught his foe by the slack of his pants and ran his snowy head against the ornate superstructure. That did the job.

When the great bulk stopped wriggling, Renny pitched it over side, straining slightly with the effort. The dunking quickly revived the giant, but he was out of the fight for good.

Renny whirled, staggering weakly, eyes swimming under a film of crimson.

The first thing he noticed was the Japanese gunboat. It had drawn near. Seeing the commotion, it had turned its attention away from the junk of the Red Dragon, whose superstructure was a shambles, in any event.

The rail of the gunboat became a line of ugly red tongues that licked at them repeatedly. Submachine guns!

“Holy cow!” Renny bellowed to the others. “Flatten!”

Wah Chan grabbed at Mark Chan and pulled him down, positioning his own body to absorb mortal lead.

Monk and Ham reverted to their wartime training. They sought immediate shelter, unlimbered their supermachine pistols and hosed the gunboat deck with mercy bullets, seeking to silence the chattering weapon. But the range proved too great to accomplish much.

Eyes anxious, Renny searched the vicinity for Mary Chan.

She was in the act of kicking a Chinese sailor who had her by her hair. Two others were intent upon the hapless junk-man’s rescue.

Renny started in. Then came a stuttering blur of sound. Two of the Chinese boarders on the stern pirouetted about and went overboard, shapeless bundles of arms and legs.

“Holy cow!” he blurted. “It’s a young war!”

Another stream of rapid-firer reports erupted over his head, louder and more sharply staccato. The high, ornate poop was suddenly outlined like an electric flasher sign by the winking scarlet spears of gunfire. Wood chips and splinters became a biting cloud around them.

Two more Celestials melted, torn apart by submachine-gun lead.

Then Renny flattened as a dozen machine-gun bullets stung his shoulders in lightning-like succession, ripping through his shirt. They felt like hot needles. Renny no longer wore his chain mail undergarment due to the very real risk of falling overboard and drowning due to its unwieldiness.

There was no other place to go. The big engineer groped for the fibre line he had used earlier. He yanked it along, found Mary Chan, and seized her by the delicate waist.

They went over side in quick order. Their combined weight proved too much for the line. It parted with snarling
snap!

RENNY’S ungainly frame landed on the gunwale of the flat-bottomed boat. The keel-less craft flipped over as smoothly as though it were on hinges.