Лестер Дент - Death in Silver

McCoy wailed fearfully and seemed on the point of bursting into tears.

"What was that?" he screamed.

Rapid Pace picked himself up, sneered at McCoy, then squinted at the window panels. These were black due to the murky solution in the water without. But the ocean current had swept some of the sepia cloud away, and he could make out objects a few feet from the Helldiver hull.

"Look!" Pace barked. "That other submarine has fastened itself to our hull in some manner!"

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Doc Savage started the Helldiver motors. The sub began to move, but it was an erratic motion. The resistance of the other vessel clinging to their hull — and the other craft did not dislodge — was sufficient to prevent them steering a straight course.

Manipulating valves, Doc caused the Helldiver's ballast tanks to blow. They lifted a few feet … then their rise stopped and they watched the depth gauge sink back until they jarred on the sandy ocean floor again. The Helldiver — an extremely heavy craft — did not have enough surplus buoyancy to lift the other submarine with its ballast tanks fully filled.

"Hell!" yelled Monk. "This beats anything I ever heard of! What's holdin' that iron fish to us?"

"That is the mystery," Doc said grimly. "And what puzzles me even more is how did it find us in the black water?"

There was quiet in the Helldiver now except for the clicking of a gyro-compass and the microscopic ticking of chronometers. They strained their ears. Hugh McCoy had changed color, not getting pale but blue as if he were being slowly smothered.

Glub! The sound was wet. Glub, glub! It repeated twice again.

"Bubbles from an escape hatch on the other sub!" Doc rapped. "They are sending divers outside!"

The bronze giant lashed a glance at the depth indicators. They read slightly below 70 feet. The depth was not excessive for diving work.

Doc ran to a locker which held diving equipment — flexible, mail-armored suits and some of the transparent hoods which vaguely resembled goldfish bowls. The locker held more than half-a-dozen outfits. Doc hauled them out.

"Put them on!" he rapped.

Monk and Ham sprang to obey. They knew how the suits operated, having used them before. Rapid Pace joined them.

Hugh McCoy stood back, his exquisitely profiled face even more purple.

Monk picked up one of the suits and ran toward McCoy, intending to force the handsome man to put it on.

McCoy suddenly clawed at a pocket. He bad a gun half out when Monk, lunging, wrenched the weapon from his fingers.

"What-in-blazes were you gonna do with that?" Monk yelled.

"I d-don't know," McCoy stuttered. "F-fight those devils, I guess. I don't want to go outside. I hate the water. I've never been in a diving suit. Why, we're s-70 feet down!"

Monk jammed McCoy's gun in his own pocket. "Yes! And we'll be down here permanently unless we do something about it!"

Trembling, McCoy allowed himself to be helped into the diving suit and received instructions on its operation.

Rapid Pace — his chest puffed with his new-found courage — said, "I'm not scared! I feel like a daredevil, positively. Damned if I understand it!"

The Helldiver was not silent now. The men were breathing noisily from the exertion of getting into the suits; the suits themselves made clinkings against the metal parts of the submarine.

But there was other sound — a hideous sound. It was a series of resounding blows against the steel hull of the submarine. These came from forward and from immediately overhead.

"They've found our hatches and are trying to get them open to let the water in," Monk growled.

Then the homely chemist pulled the transparent helmet over his head, switched on the tiny 2-way radio, and added, "Let's get goin'! We gotta put a stop to that!"

Doc Savage led the way aft. He opened an oval hatch which gave into a steel cubicle hardly more than six feet square. In the top of this was another hatch.

Doc closed the bulkhead through which they had come. He turned a lever. Machinery whined . The hatch overhead lifted and water came in … by strings at first … then with a smashing rush that jostled them about!

The bronze man let compressed air from the back tanks into his suit to compensate his buoyancy to approximately that of the surrounding sea. Then he leaped, floated upward, grasped the hatch edge, and clambered out.

The others followed him — McCoy first, then Pace, and finally Monk and Ham.

Each man drew a sharp, long-bladed knife. These were holstered to the diving suit belts. Under water, knives were the most effective weapons.

It was lighter than they had expected outside. For one thing, the current had swept away the black cloud. And the silver men were carrying powerful portable torches!

Doc headed for the group about the main conning tower hatch. They were vague at first like figures seen in a fog. Then they took on distinctness. There were 4 of them.

They wore self-contained diving suits — paraphernalia which did not require air hoses, oxygen being supplied by tanks worn on a back harness. Their helmets were not transparent but of metal with round grilled windows.

The diving equipment was of the sort which could be purchased at any supply house.

The silver men — there was not the slightest doubt but that they were Silver Death's-Heads — were working with wrenches and bars. A cutting torch made a lurid spot of light and spewed bubbles through the water.

Doc ran toward them, leaning far forward. Probably the thump of his lead shoes on the sub hull warned the group about the conning tower hatch. They straightened. The one with the torch sidled ahead, waving the grisly flame before him.

It was a hideous weapon, that torch! It burned under water by grace of pure oxygen supplied from a portable tank. And it could slice through hard steel with no more difficulty than a finger is drawn through mud!

Monk lunged along at Doc's elbow. The pleasantly ugly chemist retained some of his apish aspect in a diving suit.

"We'll flank the man with the torch," Doc said into the radio.

The bronze man went to the right. Monk took the left.

The diver with the torch made a few erratic passes, then began to retreat. He had respect for the knives Doc and Monk carried. The body of his suit was of rubber and canvas composition, by no means proof against sharp steel.

Suddenly the silver men broke and fled. Resistance of the water made their movements grotesquely slow as they took flying leaps off the hull of the Helldiver , then churned for their own craft which was attached slightly forward.

Following, Doc and Monk had a chance to observe how the other submarine managed to cling so tightly to the Helldiver .

Attached to the hull of the smaller U-boat was a succession of circular objects which might have been washtubs. It was these which were in contact with Doc's submarine.

" Electromagnets!" Monk yelled through the intercommunicating radio. "But what-in-blazes are electromagnets doing on their tub?"

The answer to that did not come until later after unpleasant things had happened.

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The submarine of the silver men — while small in proportion to the Helldiver, — was larger than it had first seemed when viewed through the lookout screen from within the Helldiver .