Although Monk and Renny had indeed vanished during the night, it was night only by their watches. The sun hung well above the horizon — where it had lingered for some days. It was wan, almost lost in a pale, nasty haze.
Ice which had piled up on deck abruptly slid off with a grinding roar.
Doc went outside. He carried powerful binoculars. But once more, a search through them disclosed nothing.
However, the sub now surged across a comparatively open lead in the ice pack. This was what Doc had been hoping for.
"Stand by to put out the seaplane!" he ordered. The crew crowded the deck. They were surly. The air of sinister trouble still hung about them. But they obeyed Doc's orders with alacrity. Some of them had seen what had happened to Captain McCluskey. They had told the others.
A deck plate was lifted. A folding boom was jacked into position.
Out came an all-metal, collapsible seaplane. Doc himself got the tiny hornet of a craft ready for the air.
Captain McCluskey came on deck while the work was under way. Doc Savage rested his golden eyes intently upon the walrus of a man.
McCluskey scowled for a second or two. Then he grinned sheepishly.
"Ye won't have any more trouble from me, matey," he mumbled. Then he winced and moved his hands.
Each paw was bundled in bandages until it resembled the foot of a man with the gout.
Doc drew his three remaining companions aside.
"Keep your hands on your guns," he warned them. "I don't think McCluskey will make more trouble immediately. But watch his crew!"
It seemed a miracle when the cockpit of the diminutive seaplane held Doc's mighty bronze form. The little radial engine was fitted with a starter. Doc turned it over. The cold made it stubborn. It fired at last.
The exhaust stacks smoked for a while. Then they lipped blue flame. The engine was warm.
The plane floats left a ribbon of foam as they scudded across the open lead in the ice pack. Doc backed the control stick. The ship vaulted off the water.
He banked in circle after circle, each one wider than the last.
The pale haze hadn't looked so thick from the surface. But it hampered vision amazingly from the air. The gloom was increasing, too.
No sign of Monk or Renny could he discern.
He flew back at last and alighted beside the submarine. The frozen rigidity of his bronze face told Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny the worst.
"Monk and Renny are — finished," Long Tom said thickly.
"Monk — how I'm gonna miss that guy!" Ham mumbled. He was near tears.
The crew hoisted the seaplane aboard, collapsed it, and stowed it under the deck plates.
TWO HOURS later, walrus-like Captain McCluskey was pointing with a thick arm.
"Rust my anchor — look!" he boomed. "Two points off the starboard bow!"
Doc Savage, coming up from below, was a bronze flash. He thought Monk and Renny might have been sighted. There was always the possibility they had been washed overboard, and had reached one of the many icebergs.
This, however, was only a herd of walrus asleep on an enormous pan of ice.
"We need fresh meat," explained Captain McCluskey. "It's unusual to sight 'em this far north. I'm goin' after some of the critters. Want to go along, matey?"
Doc nodded. He advised Ham, Johnny, and Long Tom to go also. It would get their minds off the loss of Monk and Renny.
Several of the crew were also going, big Dynamite Smith included in them. Doc made sure a number of the surly faction amid the crew, the suspected plotters, were among the hunters. There seemed nothing to be lost in deserting the sub for a time.
Two folding kayaks — long and narrow boats with a covering of sealskin — were set up. They also assembled a umiak, overgrown brother of the kayak.
Doc went below. He was gone about ten minutes. During that time, he was alone below decks, every one being outside to witness the departure of the hunters.
Doc came up, bearing a sizable bundle. This was done in waterproof silk.
"What's that, matey?" Captain McCluskey wanted to know.
Big bronze Doc Savage seemed not to hear the query.
They put off.
The edge of the iceberg, near where the walrus herd slept, arose almost vertically. It was too sheer for a landing. The hunters decided to stalk the animals from the berg. They paddled directly to the floe, alighted, and drew the folding boats well out of the cold water.
Captain McCluskey and the rest of the Helldiver crew led the stalk. Doc, with his strange bundle, kept warily in the rear. Ham, Long Tom, and Johnny trod his heels.
The bitter cold bothered them at first, but became less noticeable in a few minutes. They wore regulation Eskimo garb — moccasins reaching to their knees, and lined with reindeer skin, bearskin trousers, shirts of auk skins with the feathers inside, and shirts of sealskin, with a hood which covered their heads.
The surface of the ice pack was rough. Progress became laborious. The need for silence made it harder. Their speed was hardly half a mile an hour.
Captain McCluskey and his men drew a little ahead.
Suddenly they whirled. They aimed rifles at Doc and his friends.
"Kill the swabs!" shrieked Captain McCluskey.
DOC HAD been alert. He was not taken off guard. Hardly had the Helldiver men started their show of hostilities when a mighty bronze arm rushed Johnny, Long Tom, and Ham to cover behind an ice hummock.
The move was executed so quickly they were sheltered before the first rifle volley spattered out noisily.
Bullets dug into the ice hummock, showering Doc and his friends with fragments of ice. The pieces tinkled down the hard flanks of the ice mound with a sound like tiny bells.
"Retreat!" Doc commanded his friends. "We're between the gang and their boats. We'll try to keep them from reaching the craft."
They were extremely thankful for the rugged surface of the iceberg, now that the situation had changed.
Doc found a small crevice in the ice. Into this he lowered his bundle. With a single rap of his tempered fist, he shattered enough brittle ice to conceal the bundle.
Captain McCluskey's booming voice reached them.
"The deck swipes!" thundered the walrus. "Put the lot of 'em in Davy Jones's locker!"
"They don't seem to be trying to beat us back to the boats!" Doc said in a tight voice of wonder.
A storm of lead scored the ice all about. The Helldiver gang had caught sight of them.
Ham whirled. He secured a glimpse of a fur-swathed head.
His rifle jarred. A man slouched out from behind an ice spike and lay down as though tired. Steam curled up from the scarlet pool that gathered around his feebly squirming body.
"I haven't lost my shooting eye!" Ham said with grim mirth. "Did you see who I winged?"
"Dynamite Smith, the oiler," Doc retorted. "Let's veer over to the right here. It looks like better footing."
There ensued a frightful couple of minutes before they reached the spot Doc had indicated. The more frantic the effort they put forth, the more they slithered around on the terrifically rough and slippery ice.
"Seas have been breaking over this berg recently," Doc explained. "That's why it's so infernally slick."
Bullets gouged ice around them like hard-driven, invisible picks. Ricocheting, the lead squalled like unseen wild cats.
Doc, Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny finally reached the smooth footing which Doc had indicated. This was a great crack which had opened in the berg, filled with water, then frozen. They glided down it.
"We're gonna beat 'em to the boats, anyhow!" said the bony Johnny. He had taken off his glasses with the magnifying lens on the left side. His breath steam had been fogging the spectacles. Johnny really did not have much need of glasses on his good right eye, anyway.