Lester Dent
The Fantastic Island
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Ryerson Johnson & Lester Dent
The Fantastic Island
Doc Savage Magazine #34 December/1935
I — Shipwreck To Order
The disappearance of William Harper Littlejohn attracted no public attention whatever. The reason for this was simple. The public never learned about it.
William Harper Littlejohn was a very famous man. It was impossible that if 10 average men on the street should be stopped and asked who 'William Harper Littlejohn' was, they would not have had the slightest idea. But in his field, William Harper Littlejohn was tops. His field was archaeology and geology. Wherever men are interested in such things, he was known.
William Harper Littlejohn's disappearance was simple. He had chartered a ship and was taking an archaeological expedition to the Galapagos Islands below the Equator in the Pacific Ocean. The Galapagos are said to be the World's strangest islands. William Harper Littlejohn simply disappeared. The ship vanished also. As well as the whole expedition!
It could not have been that their radio merely failed. There were 3 radio transmitters on the expedition ship. No, there was some other reason. It was strange.
Just how strange it was, no one had any idea at the beginning of the thing.
William Harper Littlejohn happened to be one of the 5 men associated with that remarkable Man of Mystery — Doc Savage. Word of his disappearance reached Doc Savage at his New York Headquarters . Doc Savage acted promptly.
Two of Doc Savage's aides — he had 5 of them altogether — were on a vacation cruise in the yacht Seven Seas , which chanced to be off the coast of Panama in the Pacific. Also aboard the yacht was Patricia Savage — a remarkable young woman — whose relationship to Doc Savage was that of cousin. Pat had gone along for the trip, she claimed. But it was to be suspected that she was also looking for excitement!
If she was looking for excitement, she was certainly destined to find it!
Doc Savage — Man of Bronze , individual of mystery, mental wizard, and physical marvel to quote the newspapers — sent a radiogram to the yacht Seven Seas headed for the Galapagos to look for William Harper Littlejohn — who was better known as 'Johnny' — and his expedition.
The Seven Seas was now about to slam headlong into more trouble than those aboard would ever have believed possible.
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The Seven Seas was riding a radio beam radiated — by special courtesy on the part of the powerful United States Naval radio station — from the Panama Canal Zone. This beam simplified navigation, and they were riding it straight for the Galapagos.
Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks stood on the dripping deck of the Seven Seas and stared into an immensity of black sky and blacker water. Occasionally he scowled anxiously upward at the radio rigging. Water slapped and phosphoresced around the bow.
Right now, the yacht was rolling in a huge ground swell, rolling alarmingly. Rivets strained and bulkheads creaked. There was at least half a gale blowing. It made noises in the rigging like the sighs of dying men.
Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks was commonly called 'Ham'. It was a nickname which he did not like. He now frowned darkly and made his way to the pitching bridge.
"This is dangerous!" he snapped. "We may run onto a reef any minute."
"Don't I know it!" a surprisingly child-like voice retorted from the semidarkness of the bridge. "This ground swell is bad. Mighty bad! When it piles up like this, it means the water is getting shallow."
Ham snapped, "But I thought you said … "
"Something screwy," piped the child-like voice. "According to your log, we're supposed to have more than a hundred miles between us and the nearest land."
A young woman joined them on the bridge. She was a very striking young woman to look at, having