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  Title: The Terror in the Navy: A Doc Savage Adventure

  Date of first publication: 1937

  Author: Kenneth Robeson [Dent, Lester Bernard] (1904-1959)

  Date first posted: July 11, 2014

  Date last updated: July 11, 2014

  Faded Page eBook #20140714

  This ebook was produced by: Alex White & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

  The Terror in the Navy

  A Doc Savage Adventure

  by

  Kenneth Robeson

  First published in DOC SAVAGE Magazine March 1937

  Contents

  1 WRECK!

  2 THE “POWER”!

  3 CAUTIOUS CROOKS

  4 THE MAN OF METAL

  5 PERSISTENT PAT

  6 THE TRAP

  7 INDIA ALLISON

  8 THE DEATH PATROL

  9 DOOMED FLIGHT

  10 ZEPHYR!

  11 SOMETHING TO SELL

  12 THE BIG DEATH

  13 CRACK-UP!

  14 CHAOS

  15 TRIAL

  16 TRICK!

  17 LOTS OF LUCK—ALL BAD

  18 TORPEDO ROOM!

  19 BURIAL AT SEA

  20 TUMULT UNDER THE SEA

  Chapter 1

  WRECK!

  The two seamen met in the darkness near the stern of the navy destroyer, under an awning. They were cautious. They stood for a long time listening, and at last they were satisfied that no one was near enough to overhear.

  One growled, “The chief’s orders are for none of us to be seen talkin’ together!”

  The other hissed, “I know it! But something’s gone wrong!”

  “What? We’ve covered every angle.”

  “That nosey Lieutenant Bowen Toy! He’s haunting me. He’s shadowing me. If he keeps it up, he may learn too much. He’s got to be killed!”

  There was no light and no sound to show that four other naval destroyers were steaming full speed in the wake of this one, guided by a radio beam transmitted from this, the leading craft.

  “What put the bug in Lieutenant Toy’s bonnet?” asked one of the two furtive seamen.

  “His brother, Captain Blackstone Toy.”

  “How much do you think Lieutenant Toy knows about—well, to-night’s business, for instance?”

  “I’ve got no idea how much he knows. All I know is that if he keeps on haunting me, he’ll learn too much!”

  The other man laughed.

  “What’re you laughing at?” the first man wanted to know.

  “I was just thinking that Lieutenant Toy will probably learn what it feels like to die.”

  “O. K. We take Toy at the first chance, then?”

  “First chance.”

  The two separated and left the vicinity.

  A moment after they had gone, a man swung down off the top of the awning under which the two men had met and secretly plotted death. He had heard every word that they had said.

  This man walked away, headed toward the lower deck.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Bowen Toy went directly to his cabin, closed the door, locked it, and took out a revolver he had been carrying in an armpit holster. He went over to the mirror and looked at himself. He was pale. He held his hands up, first one, then the other.

  “Shaking like an old woman!” he snapped. Then aloud: “I’ve got to do something!”

  Lieutenant Bowen Toy went to his bag, opened it and got out a long-bladed kris, an ugly weapon which was evidently a souvenir of a visit to China. About to close the bag, his gaze fell upon another object in it. An idea seemed to seize him. He lifted the object out.

  It was a book.

  THE ARMOR PLATE VALUE OF

  CERTAIN ALLOYS

  By Clark Savage, Jr.

  It was a thick book, full of fine print and intricate mathematical computations.

  Lieutenants Bowen Toy stowed the kris inside his belt, where it would evidently serve as reserve weapon. He did not take his attention off the book, or, rather, off the name of the author, Clark Savage, Jr.

  Abruptly, Lieutenant Toy left his cabin and walked, with his hand always on his automatic and his eyes wary, to the bridge, where he addressed the navigating officer.

  “Where can Doc Savage be found?” asked Toy.

  “Doc Savage is well known enough that a telegram addressed to him in New York City should reach him,” said the officer.

  It was dark on the bridge, except for a subdued glow from the binnacle. The navigating officer had been intrigued by something queer in Lieutenant Toy’s voice. He now thumbed a cigarette lighter aflame and held it to throw light on Toy’s features. The utter terror he saw there startled him.

  “Lieutenant!” he gasped. “What on earth is wrong?”

  Lieutenant Bowen Toy, in his nervous excitement, drew the revolver, which had been in one pocket, and held it in his hand.

  “I have just made an incredible discovery,” he gulped. “The entire United States navy is menaced! No telling how many ships will be destroyed! No telling how many men will be killed, before the thing can be stopped! I’ll give you the whole incredible story in a minute! But first, I’m going to send a radiogram and ask this Doc Savage to get started on the New York end of it!”

  He bounded off, eyes darting warily from side to side, the gun held ready for defense.

  The navigating officer stared after him and exploded, “I’ll be damned! Lieutenant Bowen Toy has gone nuts!”

  The officer was blissfully unaware that imminent events would convince him that he himself, if anybody, was losing his mind.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Bowen Toy went to the radio room, seized a blank and wrote:

  DOC SAVAGE

  NEW YORK

  HAVE DISCOVERED AMAZING AND TERRIBLE THING ABOUT TO HAPPEN STOP GO TO APARTMENT OF MY BROTHER CAPTAIN BLACKSTONE TOY IN PARKVIEW HOTEL AND GET NOTES HIDDEN IN PICTURE OF MYSELF

  LIEUT BOWEN TOY

  “Send this to a commercial station,” Toy directed, handing the operator the message. “And get that message out instantly!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lieutenant Toy stepped out of the radio shack and walked warily toward the bridge.

  Then, with stunning suddenness, he was flying headlong down the deck. He hit a stanchion, glanced off that, fell and turned over and over. There followed a moment of brittle silence.

  The ship had been traveling at about thirty knots a moment before. Now it was at a standstill.

  Bells began ringing. There was a loud report amidships, followed by a shrill hissing. This meant a steam line had been broken. The destroyer rolled heavily as a wave hit it, and there was a grinding from underneath the hull.

  Lieutenant Toy gained his feet, scrambled across the sloping deck, hauled himself up a companionway and reached the navigating bridge.

  The navigating officer’s face was pale and terrible. The helmsman was propped against his wheel, mouth open, eyes weird
. Both men looked as if they had just seen a horned devil.

  “What’d we hit!” Toy shouted.

  The navigating officer made feeble, stabbing gestures at the helmsman.

  “Tell what—what happened—again!” he croaked.

  The helmsman blinked. When he spoke, it was in a tone that sounded, somehow, as if he did not believe himself.

  “Something—something—pulled the ship through the sea!” he mumbled. “It just took hold of us and pulled us into whatever we hit!”

  Chapter 2

  THE “POWER”!

  Navy men are well trained, and it was natural that some one should immediately take a sounding. The cry of the one who had dropped the lead overboard came from forward.

  “By the mark, two!” the voice yelled. “Solid rock!”

  Lieutenant Toy gulped, “Only two fathoms of water under the stern, and a rock bottom! That’s impossible! Our course was ten miles offshore!”

  The steersman gasped, “I tell you, a thing had this ship!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped the navigating officer.

  The steersman said, sullenly, “I could feel the pull of the thing! It was drawing the ship through the water! I fought it. I put the wheel hard over half a dozen times, but the vessel simply wouldn’t respond. I tell you, there was a thing!”

  Lieutenant Toy heard that, and his eyes came wide and seemed about to pop out of his head. “It struck this destroyer first!” he shrieked. “It’s real! It can destroy ships!” A moment of terrible silence followed.

  “Those men—the two sailors I overheard talking under the awning—they know about it!” Toy howled. “Grab them before they can get away! Get them! Quick, I’ll point them out and tell——”

  The rest of his howl was lost in a terrific crash alongside. There was a rending and grinding noise. There was that peculiar, uncanny screech made by steel plates being ripped apart. Men shouted wildly.

  Lieutenant Toy grabbed a brass stanchion, and a ghastly expression came over his face.

  “The other boats are hitting!” he gasped.

  A second crash came, followed shortly by a third. A scraping rumble stopped Toy’s forthcoming groan. It came from farther away. The last destroyer had piled on the rock.

  Rockets, parachute flares, began going up, and their light illuminated a confused scene. Five sleek gray war craft with their bellies torn out on hard rock. They rolled as big, greasy swells nudged them about, and there was an almost steady grinding of steel hull plates on stone.

  Officers on the boats’ bridges megaphoned profanely at each other. They blamed the lead destroyer for what had happened.

  * * *

  The confusion became more orderly. Rockets got answers from shore, obviously not more than half a mile distant. The radio apparatus was used to secure radio compass bearings, and from this it was ascertained that the five war craft were piled up on a long, narrow reef which had deep water on each side.

  Within fifteen minutes, one destroyer slid off the reef and sank. One sailor was drowned. The others got away in lifeboats.

  It became evident that the big swell was going to jar the other unlucky vessels around until they also slid off the reef and sank. And it was not going to be long before this happened.

  Other navy boats and two passenger steamers were heading for the scene of the holocaust at full speed, but they stood little chance of arriving on time.

  Officers on the wrecked destroyers gave hurried orders. Lifeboats were launched, and the destroyers abandoned.

  Lieutenant Bowen Toy was ignored in the excitement. No one had time to ask him questions. He moved about, doing his share, but all the time he kept a sharp watch, and his gun convenient.

  When he got into a lifeboat, Lieutenant Toy sat in the bow, where no one was at his back. The lifeboat lunged into the surf breaking over the reef.

  It was one of the two lifeboats which were unfortunate enough to be overturned in the surf.

  Lieutenant Toy was a strong swimmer. The shore was not more than half a mile distant. The remaining lifeboats were full. Toy swam.

  Flares had burned out by now, and the darkness was rather dense. Along the shore, automobile lights and regulation marine flares were making a prominent display.

  The next thing heard of Lieutenant Bowen Toy was when a man—he happened to be the helmsman of the leading destroyer—came rushing madly to his superior officer, who stood on the beach swearing at what had happened.

  “I felt it again!” the helmsman shrieked. “I felt it, I tell you! It was something you couldn’t see and couldn’t touch, but it pulled you!”

  The man’s superior officer sprang upon the gibbering helmsman, grabbed his arms and held him tightly, shouting at other sailors, “Help hold this man! He’s gone off his nut!”

  The helmsman screeched, “I’m not mad, I tell you! It got Toy! It grabbed Lieutenant Toy and pulled him under! I felt it!”

  “You what?”

  “I felt it’s pull!” screamed the helmsman. “It drew Toy under! It was something you couldn’t see! Oh, I know you don’t believe me!”

  Nor did they believe him, even after they found Lieutenant Bowen Toy. But his story sounded a little more credible after they found Lieutenant Toy.

  Toy had been drowned.

  * * *

  Of course, there was a hullabaloo along the beach, and a great crowd of landlubbers came to see the wrecked warships and look at the wet, excited, dazed sailors. Newspaper reporters arrived and began to ask the sailors questions about what had happened, and to snort unbelievingly at the answers they got.

  But long before anything about the disaster was put in print, two men in navy uniforms—uniforms of common seamen—made their way ashore and skulked to a telephone.

  They were the same two to whose furtive conversation Lieutenant Toy had eavesdropped.

  They called a long-distance number in New York.

  “Chief?” one asked.

  “Yes,” said a dry voice.

  “Lieutenant Toy sent a message to Doc Savage,” said one of the sailors. “We weren’t able to stop the message or even get a look at it.”

  “This message went to whom?” the voice asked.

  “Doc Savage. Ever hear of him?”

  The “Chief” swore.

  “I’ve heard entirely too much about him! How was this message sent?”

  “Radio. It’ll reach New York as a regular commercial message.”

  “Thanks,” said the distant speaker. “We’ve got to do things fast.”

  He hung up.

  Chapter 3

  CAUTIOUS CROOKS

  The man in New York did not replace the telephone on its stand after hanging up. He held the instrument close to his chest and thought deeply.

  It was night, and the man was in bed.

  He reached over and touched a tiny jack-switch concealed under the telephone stand. This apparently connected the telephone with a private wire. The man jiggled the hook.

  “Yeah, chief?” said a sleepy voice.

  “We have received what is sometimes called a bad break,” said the man in bed.

  “Yeah?”

  “You have the file of information which we gathered about Doc Savage?”

  “Yeah,” said the sleepy voice, not so sleepy now. “But I still don’t see why we went to the trouble of finding out so much about Doc Savage.”

  “Doc Savage is logically the one man we have most to fear,” reminded the man in bed. “In short, we learned everything we could about him because he might menace our plans. I thought it would be a wise move. Now I know.”

  “You mean that Doc Savage has an inkling of what we’re going to do?”

  “Lieutenant Toy sent a radiogram to Doc Savage before he—ah—before Toy met a mysterious fate, as the newspapers will put it. That is the bad break I mentioned. We’ve got to stop that message before it reaches Doc Savage.”

  “Was it a radiogram?”

  “Yes.”

>   “Leave it to me!” said the man on the other end of the wire, and listened until he heard his chief hang up. Then the fellow put the receiver on the hook and began to remove his pajamas.

  He was a long, snaky man with an almost animal growth of black hair on his chest and up and down his back. It is a popular theory that eyes have to be small to be mean. This man’s eyes were big—and mean.

  When he had dressed, he glanced about the close and rather untidy room, took two nasty-looking flat pistols in holsters off a wall hook, fastened them under his coat, and walked to the door. He passed into another close and untidy room, in which six men lay on cots.

  One of the men on the cots opened an eye and said, “What a conscience you must have! Don’t it ever let you sleep?”

  “Get dressed!” The snaky, hairy man shook the others. “Get dressed, you Davids—we’re gonna sally forth after a Goliath!”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, they were tying shoestrings and ties and yawning, as their car moved through downtown Manhattan. The snaky, hairy man was talking, explaining. When he finished, one of the others addressed him by what seemed to be his nickname.

  “Fuzzy,” said the man, “this Doc Savage is big-time poison.”

  “Keep your shirt on,” said the hairy “Fuzzy.” “We’ll do this so Savage will never know a thing about it.”

  The driver stopped the sedan, and they all looked out. They saw a giant office building which hurled itself upward until it was lost against the cloudy night sky.

  Fuzzy pointed a limber, hairy finger almost straight up into the night.

  “Top floor,” he said. “Eighty-six stories up. Sort of an eagle’s nest.”

  They got out and went into the giant building—it was admittedly the most imposing in New York City. An elevator let them out two flights below Doc Savage’s floor, and they climbed stairs, so as not to be seen.

  On the last flight of steps, Fuzzy waved the others back.

  “Kind of erase yourselves,” he directed. “Let me look the ground over.”