"064 (B063) - The Submarine Mystery (1938-06) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Outside, a rifle crashed, and the bullet hit a window, but only made a small pit and some spider web cracks. Prince Albert had evidently changed his mind about not firing off guns.
"You see," Monk told China.
A gas grenade rolled under the car and exploded with a rotten-egg smell. Several others followed. The men then ran around seizing up gas masks and gas suits where they had been laid aside.
Doc's car was gas proof, so there were no ill effects inside. The bronze man got the motor started, meshed gears, and the car jumped forward. Three foes, fleeing its path, fell off the drydock runway into the water, which was below. Doc backed and turned around.
A hand grenade, high-explosive, let go on top of the car. The car top dented like a tin can that had been kicked, and the concussion did agonizing things to the ears of those inside the automobile. But there were no serious effects.
Doc said, "Bump coming up!"
The car hit the door. It was doing about twenty, enough to shock them. The machine, being armor-plated, weighed a few tons, and would have demolished an ordinary door.
This one was not ordinary. The car bounced back from the door, and the portal looked almost as intact as before.
Doc hit it again. He was not gentle. The crash was terrific, and the breath was knocked out of all. The door still held.
Men were around the car now, shooting at the windows, the windshield, and the tires. Four men got on the front fenders and tried to get the hood open. The hood, however, was armor-plate that locked with a key.
Doc Savage jerked a lever on the dashboard, and chemical cylinders under the car poured out a cloud of black smoke mixed with anaesthetic gas. The gas would not have effect, because all the attackers now wore masks, but the smoke would hamper them.
The car hit the door a third time. And again, it was unsuccessful.
"That door," Doc Savage remarked, "cannot hold up all night."
"Neither," Ham croaked, "can we."
Doc backed up to give the door the hardest smash yet, and there was a rattling and clanking in the vicinity of the rear axle. The back of the car lifted off the concrete boathouse floor. The wheels merely spun.
A moment later, the car was hanging in the air by the rear axle. Doc knew, then, that some one had managed to attach the hook of a lifting crane to the axle, but it was too late for the knowledge to help much.
They dangled there, like, a turkey hung up for picking, while their attackers waited until the chemical smoke was all gone, then got stepladders and electric drills and bored holes through the top of the car.
Through the holes in the top, the men poured gasoline. They used funnels. Monk tried to block the entry of the gasoline, but gave that up when they rammed an ice pick through the hole and damaged his hand.
When Prince Albert, yelling in a tone that left no doubt about his meaning business, said blowtorches would be used to fire the inside of the car, Doc Savage and the others came out.
The bronze man was at once knocked unconscious.
Chapter X. RAIDERS
DOC SAVAGE recovered consciousness, and decided he felt like a man who had taken a bath, and overdone the job. He felt as though he had been soaked too long and scrubbed too hard.
After he sat up and examined himself, he decided the first impression had been right: He certainly appeared to have received a thorough laundering.
The bronze man wore nothing but a pair of underwear shorts which he had never seen before. His usually healthy-looking bronze skin was rough, raw—and scrubbed.
Glancing around, he perceived that Monk and Ham sat regarding him. Both wore long white gowns which were nothing more or less than old-fashioned nighties.
"I guess," Ham offered, "that they did not dope us as heavily as they did you. We've been awake about two days."
"How long?"
"Two days," Ham said.
"How many days since they got us out of the car?" Doc demanded.
Ham shook his head. "I don't know. Monk doesn't, either. They knocked you out, then took all your clothes off. They took our clothes, too. Then they gave us a scrubbing with soap and water and brushes—"
"I still think they used wire brushes to scrub with," Monk interrupted complainingly.
"Then," Ham continued, "they forced us to drink something that laid us all out."
"Mickey Finns," Monk explained.
Ham sighed. "I don't know how many times they scrubbed us when we were senseless. They were sure making certain we didn't have any more chemicals hidden on our persons."
Doc Savage nodded, and felt gingerly of his jaw. There was a general ache all through his teeth.
Monk said, "They took a chisel and a hammer and sounded out your teeth to make sure one of 'em wasn't a shell containing chemicals. If you've got a toothache, you know now what caused it."
Doc Savage got up rather painfully, took the blanket off the bunk, and hung it on a coat rack which was screwed fast to one steel bulkhead. He watched the blanket. When it swung from side to side, he knew the motion he had been feeling was not the result of his being dizzy.
"We are in the submarine," he announced.
Monk and Ham nodded.
"And we're at sea," Doc added.
"We're at sea, all right," Monk agreed. "And for how long, we don't know."
Doc asked, "Have they told you anything?"
Ham answered that. "They've told us plenty, none of it printable."
"I told you," Monk said, "that they can sure cuss in that old-time English they speak."
Ham put in, "That's a very funny thing, too. I thought at first they were acting, when they talked that way. Putting on. But I've concluded that is actually their normal speech."
"Figure that one out, if you can," Monk said.
DOC SAVAGE navigated around the steel-walled submarine compartment several times, and got his sea legs, after which he discovered that he had been provided with a white flannel nightie such as Monk and Ham wore. He put this on.
Doc Savage went over and whacked the door with a fist, rattled the fastenings. After he had been engaged in doing this for a few minutes, the door suddenly snapped open a crack.
Doc gave it a great yank, but it would open no more than a crack because it had been equipped with a chain on the outside. A man outside chucked a small tear gas bomb through the crack, then yanked the door shut and fastened it again.
Doc, Monk and Ham sat down and babied their streaming eyes.