Ds184 python isle doc, p.11
DS184_Python_Isle.doc, page 11
Doc landed the first blow. His knuckles crashed against Bull's flat nose so fast that the giant saw only a momentary bronze blur before his nose became a bubbling red mass.
Bull bellowed! The sound was blood-chilling.
He came on. His hairy arms swept together. Doc ducked under them, bobbing up to one side where he rained hard blows against the giant's midriff.
Breath whooshed out of Bull Pizano's bellows-like lungs. His pig eyes grew terrible.
He brought an arm back and let it fly. It caught Doc across the chest and bowled him back. The Bronze Man kept his feet, however.
The blow conceivably might have killed another man. But Doc Savage regularly subjected himself to similar punishment in order to toughen himself. Steel-like ribs and muscle padding cushioned the blow.
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78
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
VIII - The Aeromunde Trek
Ham stepped in now, his sword-cane unsheathed. There was a brownish stain on the fine blade's tip.
This was a quick-acting anesthetic.
Suddenly confronted with the glittering needle of steel, Bull Pizano reacted unexpectedly. Rage seemed to ooze out of his hulking form. He regarded the blade the way a bird is supposed to stare fixedly at a serpent.
He took a halting backward step …
… then with a groaning yowl of what might have been fear, he crashed out of the stateroom suite and down the corridor.
Just like that. One second he was the center of pandemonium. And the next, he was gone!
Ham stared at the tip of his sword-cane incredulously.
Monk -- gaining his feet -- demanded: "What happened? Why'd he run off like that?"
"Ham frightened him off," Doc pointed out.
Monk told hold of both gristle tufts which passed for his ears.
"That tailor's dummy. Scared off that monster?" he yelled. "I don't believe it. I just do not believe it!"
Ham -- who looked very much as if he too found the matter hard to accept -- recovered his composure. He made a deliberate show of calmly sheathing his sword-cane.
"Why, my good man," he purred, "of course he ran away. He recognized a superior fighter when he saw one."
Ham smiled a sneering cat-grin.
Monk looked like he wanted to so sudden violence. But he turned to Doc Savage instead.
"Why did he run, Doc?"
The Bronze Man -- closing and securing the stateroom door -- summed up his analysis of the phenomenon.
"Even the bravest of men," he stated calmly, "feel terror when faced with certain kinds of danger.
Bull Pizano ran when Ham was about to stab him. It might be that he fears knives or sharp instruments.
It is not an unreasonable phobia."
"I'll remember that next time," Ham put in soberly.
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"Now what?" Monk asked Doc. "We can't just stay here."
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79
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
VIII - The Aeromunde Trek
"No," Doc admitted quietly. "Bull Pizano and whoever may be with him are too dangerous to be permitted to roam the Aeromunde at will. We will have to track Pizano down and render him harmless without delay."
"He's probably on his way to South Africa too," Ham pointed out. "Perhaps his superior -- this
'Blackbird' fellow -- can be found there."
"Which means," Doc added, "that he may be able to provide a lead to Renny's whereabouts. Thus making subduing him all the more imperative."
"Well what're we waitin' on!" Monk yelled. "Let's go get that guy!"
The apish chemist windmilled his long arms violently to limber up. He knew that Doc had taken him out of the fight because he feared that Monk would be seriously injured.
That had stung the homely chemist's pride. He looked up to his bronze chief and was anxious to prove that he could handle the big crook.
"We will begin immediately," Doc announced.
Monk and Ham took a moment to check their supermachine pistols.
"No guns," the Bronze Man admonished. "Hydrogen."
The 2 men understood. The highly-flammable lifting gas in the dirigible was dangerous. A single spark could ignite it.
The interior of the Zeppelin -- even a craft as large as the Aeromunde -- was by no means spacious.
The greater portion of the ship -- the cigar-shaped envelope -- contained the tremendous hydrogen-filled lifting cells. The passenger and crew compartments were relegated to the smaller control gondola which hung beneath the envelope.
In other words, space was cramped. Even the corridors running throughout the passenger area were barely 2-men wide.
Thus it was that Doc, Monk, and Ham -- walking down one of these corridors -- turned a corner and nearly collided with Bull Pizano and his gang.
Bull now had his bat. And his men (he had obviously recruited several others since) displayed guns.
One raised his weapon.
"There they are" he exploded and took aim.
"Back!" Doc rapped.
His voice crashed with urgency.
"They do not understand that they can destroy this ship with a chance shot."
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Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
VIII - The Aeromunde Trek
Monk and Ham hesitated.
"Move!" Doc yelled.
His great bronze arms swept them back irresistibly.
Realizing the danger to the airship and its passengers, the three of them retreated and put on speed.
A single bullet knocked a hole in one wall. Their pursuers were hard on their heels. Fortunately, the corridors did not travel in straight lines any appreciable distance. So they were not fired upon again.
The Bronze Man led them forward toward the control room. They came to a vertical ladder which led up into the envelope itself. The shaft seemed to extend upward for miles!
The three ascended. It was a long climb through the inspection shaft, one of the several which led up to the ridge catwalks. They gained this. Below, the giant drum-shaped hydrogen cells lay on either side.
"Aft," Doc breathed.
They worked aft.
"I don't like this retreatin'," Monk muttered.
They passed several other vertical shafts as well as many inspection tunnels leading into the envelope's radial girders which resembled ribs and gave the craft its shape. This network of passages enabled the ship's riggers to repair gas leaks or tears in the ship's fabric. The hydrogen ballonets might have been the organs of a cavernous monster whose gullet they were negotiating.
This caused Monk to mutter: "Now I know how Jonah felt."
Cre-e-ek! Crumf!
Ham nearly jumped at the grinding noise. Then he recognized that it was the sound of elevators and steering rudders responding to control wheels forward. The sound meant that they were near the tail.
They reached the sternmost inspection shaft at about the same time Bull Pizano topped the catwalk where they had earlier emerged. Big Bull seemed to be having difficulty with the narrow catwalk.
"Maybe he's afraid of heights too," Monk observed before he followed Doc and Ham down the tubular-runged ladder.
This ended in a compartment in back of the keel catwalk. There was a hatch in the floor, nothing else.
"Dead end," Monk said, small-voiced.
"No," Doc returned. "This hatch leads to one of the motor gondolas."
He "dogged" the hatch open. Below, the Atlantic glistened blue in the Sun. But that was not what drew their attention.
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81
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
VIII - The Aeromunde Trek
Directly under them, the motor gondola hung suspended from the airship's keel by struts. It was a pod of an affair, large enough to hold several men. A ladder connected the open hatch and the gondola.
But it was a hairy climb in mid-air.
The huge propeller spun wickedly at the gondola's ramp -- two on each side and one just ahead of the tail assembly. (They were at the latter engine now.)
They paused to listen.
"I think I hear them," Ham said.
Doc nodded grimly. "They are not far behind."
"We can maybe hold them off from that gondola," Monk suggested hopefully.
"Perhaps," Doc stated. "First, let us confuse the issue somewhat."
He reached into his many-pocketed vest and extracted a metal egg on which a timer was affixed. He set the timer and pitched the egg under the vertical shaft down which Bull Pizano and his gang were climbing.
The grenade let go and a black devil of smoke filled the compartment, obscuring them. It was harmless -- being merely a smokescreen -- so gas masks were unnecessary.
The Bronze Man said: "Follow me."
He reached out to direct his men by touch. They went along not certain where they were being led.
But utterly confident in their Leader.
Above, Bull Pizano yelled profanity when the black pall rose up the shaft around him. Cautiously, he and his men (there were 6 in all) descended the long loader. When they touched the compartment floor, they milled around in confusion, beating their hands against the sepia smoke to clear it.
It only seemed to help because the open hatch was actually sucking the stuff from the ship. They discovered this when a man narrowly missed falling through the hatch to his death.
Bull got down on his knees and peered out. Zeppelins are not fast things. So there was no appreciable slipstream as would have been the case with a heavier-than-air aircraft.
"What's down there?" a man asked.
"I dunno," Bull growled. "But I t'ink dey went down there. I can see a hatch on dat motor egg."
By this time, most of the smoke had cleared and they could see one another.
"We go down?" a gunman inquired. He didn't look pleased with the notion.
And neither did Bull Pizano. He looked about a little wildly and happened to notice that the struts holding the motor gondola were bolted to the floor on which they stood.
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82
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
VIII - The Aeromunde Trek
"I got me an idea," Bull announced proudly after a long pause. "We went past some tools up dere.
Go find some monkey wrenches."
A man returned toting a pair of the cumbersome tools not long after.
"Let's get dis bronze guy outta our hair once an' for all," Bull said pleasurably.
They fell to working on the supporting bolts. Bull did most of the work. First one, then another worked loose.
Vibrations from the unbalanced motor pod shook the airship. The struts groaned under the shifting weight. A gas line broke. Fuel pooled stinkingly at their feet. A third bolt came free.
The remaining strut gave a scream like a frightened animal and buckled. The gondola hung by virtue of that tortured strut, its propeller shuddering crazily.
"It's working!" a man enthused.
Bull went to work on the final bolt. It was tough going because stress froze the bolt. But he managed it with some excruciating groaning of his own.
Abruptly, the floor stopped shaking.
The motor gondola fell several miles into the wide Atlantic. They were too high to hear it splash.
But they saw the end clearly.
The gondola dwindled to a black dot which turned into a brief white flower and sank beneath the waves.
"Dat," Bull Pizano said, puffing out his not inconsiderable chest, "finishes dat bronze mug an' his pals."
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83
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
IX - Zep Brawl
IX -- Zep Brawl
A hush fell over the assemblage of rogues. Scraps of black smudge from the spent grenade still hung in the air or were sucked out through the open hatchway.
Below, the blue water looked almost brittle. It gurgled suddenly. But there was surprisingly little oil slickening the waves.
After a full minute, there was no sign that the huge engine pod had been precipitated into the water.
The oily patch of water in which the Aeromunde's stern gondola had been swallowed soon fell behind the dirigible's gigantic tail.
The silence was intruded upon by one of Bull Pizano's gang.
"Whew!" he croaked. I can't believe it. We did it. We actually did it! We got rid of Doc Savage! "
Despite the glee in his voice, it held a note of awe. Great was the average criminal's fear of the
Man of Bronze.
The other crooks continued to stare down the hatch, a little goggle-eyed. No doubt the more superstitious among them half expected to see the invincible Doc Savage rise up like an avenger from the briny deep to strike them all dead. But this did come to pass.
Finally, Bull Pizano broke the spell.
"Hell! He wuz overrated, dat's all," he proclaimed raucously. "C'mon youse guys! We got t'ings to do."
"Like what?" one man wanted to know.
He was one of the survivors of Bull's first mob. He appeared a little more intelligent than the others and evidently had the big bat-wielding thug's ear.
Bull led them up the shaft to the ridge catwalk.
"We gotta clue Blackbird in on dis," he explained as they picked their cautious way forward.
The catwalk beneath their feet made sounds like a banjo being plucked. The huge goldbeater skin ballonets hung on either side like monstrous puffballs imprisoned in the webs of Brobdingnagian spiders. To slip from the catwalk would mean either suffocation in a ruptured gas cell or a fall through the thin envelope and into the sea. It was not a heartening thought.
"Foist t'ing we do," Bull continued, "is take over dis overgrown wiener."
"Yeah. The sooner the better," Bull's lieutenant added. "When they find out that Doc Savage is missing, there'll be hell to pay. We can't afford to land in Lond now."
"Say! Dat's right!" Bull ejaculated.
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84
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
IX - Zep Brawl
They had descended into the passenger compartments by now. The others followed with their guns held openly in blissful ignorance of the calamity their weapons could wreak.
Bull's pig eyes were narrow with thought.
"We gotta fly dis gas bag to Cape Town ourselves," he decided. "Blackboid can give us a hand landin'."
Grimly, they filed out into the main corridors with Bull leading. They encountered a few passengers. These shrank against the thin walls to let them pass.
In the big airship's lounge, they encountered the first resistance.
They burst into the lounge and their formidable appearances -- not to mention the drawn guns --
nearly started a riot. Women screamed! Men moved in front of their loved ones.
A pair of ship's officers turned toward the commotion. Their eyes grew wide with terror at the sight of the potentially explosive weapons.
"Hey!" one screamed. "You can't…"
"We can," Bull Pizano cut in, deep-voiced. "And we're takin' over."
He demonstrated his intentions by knocking unconscious the officer who had spoken with a quick blow to the head.
The other officer -- undaunted -- took up the plea.
"Wait!" he implored. "Don't shoot! Whatever you do, don't fire those guns! One spark and this craft will become an inferno! "
This news brought more screams from the terrified passengers. 2 women feinted.
"What's he sayin?" Bull asked of his lieutenant.
The other
"That's right! Remember -- when we boarded -- they took our matches. The hydrogen gas in those big bags upstairs could go up at the slightest spark! Then blooie! We're kaput!"
"Yeah?" Bull said. "Well den, if alla youse knows what's good fer ya, youse won't make no funny moves or blooie! Like he sez.
No one moved after that.
"Some of youse guys stay here an' mind da store," Bull ordered. "The resta ya folla me."
They drove on toward the control compartment.
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85
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
IX - Zep Brawl
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The control room was at the nose of the passenger area which was a long, boat-shaped substructure affixed to the keel of Aeromunde. Entry was through a plywood sliding door. The plywood was for lightness -- a necessity in lighter-than-air craft. There were 2 other guards.
The guards stiffened when big Bull Pizano and his men put in an appearance with expressions of grim purpose on their evil faces. Bull was especially hideous with his chewed ear and newly-mashed nose.
he guards were unarmed except for their short hardwood batons (which were something of a cross between a police billy-club and a belaying pin). They brought these up defensively.
Bull Pizano's long baseball bat made short work of the guards and their batons. When he burst into the cramped control room, the bat was glistening redly and there was a crack in the thick end.
The captain of the Aeromunde was a grizzled, dignified old gentleman who took his job and duties very seriously. His name was Adler.
Captain Adler took one look at Bull Pizano hulking in the open portal, the bloody bat, and Bull's dark blob of a face and demanded: "What is the meaning of this outrage?"
Bull cocked a thumb at his big jersey-striped chest.
"I'm takin' over. Steer this t'ing fer Cape Town or I start bustin' heads."
The airship captain was about to protest when Bull's men pushed their way in with guns glinting.
The captain -- his mien now noticeably paler -- subsided.
