Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 072 - The Yellow Cloud

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THE YELLOW CLOUD

A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson

http://www.blackmask.com

? Chapter I. THE IMPOSSIBLE YELLOW THING

? Chapter II. PROOF OF IMPOSSIBLE

? Chapter III. STRANGE LADYBIRD

? Chapter IV. MEN AFTER FILM

? Chapter V. TELEVISION MIX-UP

? Chapter VI. BIG EARS

? Chapter VII. GIRL TRAIL

? Chapter VIII. SCHOOLHOUSE LESSON

? Chapter IX. MONK, THE BEAUTIFUL

? Chapter X. PAT GUESSES WRONG

? Chapter XI. NOT SOUTH AMERICA

? Chapter XII. BACKWARD FLYING

? Chapter XIII. CRAZY HOUSE

? Chapter XIV. MADHOUSE RAID

? Chapter XV. PIT TRAP

? Chapter XVI. THE MONKHOUSE

Scanned and Proofed

by Tom Stephens

Chapter I. THE IMPOSSIBLE YELLOW THING

IT was too bad that nobody actually saw what happened to the new army X-ship on its test flight. It happened that

there were clouds that night, and anyway, the impossible thing occurred twenty thousand feet in the air.

So all the information they got was what the pilot told them over the radio. And, of course, no one could hardly believe

that. It was too incredible.

However, there was no denying plane and pilot vanished.

Also, there were the photographs which the pilot took and dropped—the picture that actually showed the thing that

had grabbed the plane, incredible as it was.

The army wasn’t fooling that night.

There had been a congressional investigation, and it had resulted in the boot being taken to certain high staff officers

until, as one old-timer put it, the seats of their pants rang like bells.

The investigation had brought out the simple and undeniable fact that the army—the United States army—was about

as well-prepared as a man with a musket. The army, the soldiers of the Stars and Stripes, might make an impressive

sight when stood in a row—if nobody noticed that they stood in about the same equipment as in 1918. Every

European soldier had a submachine gun, even the, Chinese had sub-gun companies, but the American doughboy, the

boy in khaki—what did he have?

He had a rifle—1918 style. His commanding general also possibly had a polo pony, listed in the records as a cavalry

mount.

It had peeled hides, had that congressional investigation. It had wanted to know why there were only half a dozen or

so antiaircraft guns available to protect New York City, although there were plenty of soldiers riding around on horses,

the way King Arthur rode around in the fifth century.

England had multi-barreled anti-aircraft guns capable of firing several thousand shells a minute—and England had

almost as many of those guns as the U.S.A. had soldiers.

America wasn’t going to fight England, of course, in fact, it looked as if she was figuring on England to protect her. Or

figuring on somebody. It certainly didn’t appear that she was thinking much about protecting herself.

Army, you better do something, was the word.

Europe was full of men who were trying to be Napoleon. There were even some in South America. The only thing that

impressed these burglars was the fact that you wore a pistol.

So the army wasn’t fooling. For once, actually, it wasn’t. It had even fired its publicity men, the boys who could take

two crack-pot tanks produced by a nut inventor, and send out enough pictures and ballyhoo baloney that some of the

U. S. A. really thought it had a mechanized army.

Army wasn’t fooling, and it was testing the new X-ship, the new X-ship being a plane that was actually the kind of

plane they had been saying the previous ones were. It was a supership which could outfight and outfly by fifty per

cent the best plane of any other army in the world, and this was no press-agent slop.

To test-fly the X-ship, the army had called upon the greatest engineer in the army reserve—a man who was probably

also the second greatest engineer in the world.

Colonel John Renwick was this engineer—Renny Renwick, the man with the fists, and the I’m-on-my-way-to-a-funeral

face.

The man who was associated with Doc Savage.

THE stage had been nicely set for a devil of a mystery, only nobody knew that as yet.

The X-ship was so good that the army really wanted to keep its performance a secret; so precautions had been taken.

The test was being held from a deserted sand-dune island on the North Carolina coast, and the one bridge leading to

the island was watched; while a motorboat floated around and around the island loaded with army officers dressed like

local fishermen.

It was to be a night hop.

The new X-ship was there, sitting on the hard sand beach, a creation of camouflaged metal that looked as stocky as a

bulldog and as vicious as a yellow hornet.

The snouts of nine machine guns poked out of various streamlined ports, her innards were full of racks for bombs, and

there was a high-powered aërial camera and a gigantic photo-flash contraption, so that the plane could take a night

picture of many square miles of enemy territory.

Everything was ready except Test Pilot Colonel John Renny Renwick. He hadn’t shown up.

Around about stood generals and majors and lieutenants and sergeants.

No small amount of interest centered on the army’s new electrical "listener" for locating airplanes flying high. Four of

these stood on the sand. The gadgets were very efficient—but most every other army in the world had them as

efficient.

The idea of tonight’s test was: The new X-ship had a silenced motor, a special propeller, and it was hoped it could fly

so silently at an altitude of twenty thousand feet that no electrical listener could spot it. This night’s test would tell.

The army radio men had their outfits set up, too. A bang-up, new two-way radio telephone was part of the equipment

of the X-ship, and they were going to test that.

The men at the electrical "listeners" gave a start

"Sir, there’s a plane coming," one reported.

The plane came down with a brisk whistle of wind past wings, stuck out two whiskers of light from its wing floodlights,

and came to rest on the beach. The occupants—three men—alighted.

"Colonel Renwick!" someone said.

Colonel Renny Renwick had a voice that sounded something like the roof of a mine coming down must sound to a

miner.

"Holy cow!" he said. "Sorry if we’re a little late. I wanted to pick up two friends of mine."

"Two friends?"

"Sure."

"To witness testing of the X-ship, you mean?"

"Yep."

The army officers looked at each other and must have said mentally, "Oh, damn, what’ll we do about this?" The test of

the X-ship was supposed to be very, very secret, and not for outsiders to see.

"We—ah—that is—"

"Sure, I know." Renny Renwick rumbled. "But it will be all right for these two guys to watch. They’re in the army, too.

They’re Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair and Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks."

"Oh!"

"Yes," Renny said. "The two are Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks."

That made it different. Very different.

"Did Monk bring his pig?" an officer asked.

That got a burst of laughter.

"And did Ham fetch his chimpanzee?" inquired a second officer.

This caused another laugh.

The army officer was referring to Habeas Corpus, a pet pig that belonged to Monk, and Chemistry, a pet chimpanzee

that was Ham’s property. The pig, Habeas Corpus, had ears large enough to be wings, long legs, and an inquisitive

snout. The chimp, Chemistry, was a runt animal that was astounding for the reason that he bore an incredible, personal

likeness to Monk. It was this likeness which had first caused Ham to collect Chemistry. Each animal had been carefully

trained by his owner, and they were a continual source of trouble.

Presence of Monk and Ham was all right with the army men. Almost everybody in the service had heard of Monk

Mayfair and Ham Brooks—Monk, who was a famous industrial chemist, and Ham, who was also famous, or infamous,

depending on the point of view, as a lawyer.

Monk and Ham were Doc Savage aids, too.

PREPARATIONS, to test-fly the X-plane proceeded, but there was no particular excitement, for as yet nothing out of

the ordinary had happened. The out-of-the ordinary was still to come.

Monk and Ham got into a quarrel, of course. But that caused no surprise, for it was what everyone expected.

Monk Mayfair had a ludicrously wide mouth, a nose that did not have the same shape with which it had started life,

and the kind of hair that the brush salesman rubs when he says, "Lady, this is exactly what you need to scrub that

back porch." Monk was constructed along the lines of—well, no one ever had to look at Monk and wonder where he

got that nickname.

Ham Brooks had been selected "The Best Dressed Man in New York" five times running. He was the Beau Brummell of

the decade, a tailor’s dream, and a never-ending pain in Monk’s neck—if one listened only to what Monk said. Ham

Brooks had a thin waist, broad shoulders, an orator’s wide and rubbery mouth, a voice that made radio announcers

hide their faces in envy. He always carried an innocent-looking black cane which contained a sword that he frequently

had occasion to use.

Ham got out of the plane and shook his cane under Monk’s nose.

"You get funny with me," he yelled, "and I’ll amputate those flaps that you call ears."

Monk put his fists on his hips, put an evil look in one eye.

"There ain’t nothin’ funny about it!" he said. "At ten o’clock tonight, I’m going to break your left leg. At eleven, I’m

going to break your right leg. Every hour thereafter, I’m going to break one of your bones, until I run out of bones."

"I didn’t do it!" Ham shouted.

"You didn’t?"

"No!"

"The heck you didn’t!" Monk shoved his face close to Ham’s, and snarled, "I can see the devil all over your face!"

"It’s the first time," Ham said, "that I ever knew my face was a mirror."

One of the army officers asked Renny, "What’s wrong with them now?"

Renny explained, "Somebody took a picture of Monk and sent it to a magazine labeled as an African baboon dressed

in man’s clothing. The magazine published the picture, claiming it didn’t notice the difference. Monk figures Ham sent

the picture."

"I see," said the officer.

"Monk saw, too," Renny said, "assorted red."

Renny Renwick had a long jaw and a thin mouth that was always indescribably sad when things were going well. It

was doubtful if he could have put either one of his fists in a quart pail.

He got in the X-ship.

"This won’t take long," he said. "Watch out for the sand, boys."

The army men got back away from the funnel of sand which the propeller slip stream scooped up, and the plane buzzed

off down the beach.

Colonel Renny Renwick was wrong about it not taking long. It was going to take long, long, very long.

THE X-ship went up through the night sky with a bawl and a moan.

"She’s sweet," an army man said. "A sweet job."

Monk and Ham had their noses jammed together. They separated them now, and walked over to the radio receiving

outfit, which had a loud-speaker so that those interested could gather around and hear.

"This dangerous for Renny?" Monk asked.

"He’ll be all right," an army man said.

"Don’t wings come off them things sometimes when they test?"

"Well, sometimes," the army man admitted.

"That’s what I thought," Monk said.

He sat down by the radio. Ham sat down, also, but out of reach of Monk’s long arms. Both indulged in deep silence,

apparently thinking of future violent remarks to make to each other.

It was a nice night, except for the clouds. A little chilly, perhaps. The wind—there was always wind in these sand

dunes—pushed fine sand around and made faint whispering sounds, and waves crawled up on the beach and burst

with sighs like long, fat white hogs.

Renny’s voice came from the loudspeaker.

Altitude twelve thousand," Renny’s voice said. "Getting into clouds."

Holy pups!" an army man said. "Look at that rate of climb!"

The wind whispered, the waves sighed, and the loudspeaker went on droning. It told of thousand after thousand feet

of climb, of air speed, of engine temperature, or other things.

Suddenly, the voice changed.

Holy cow!" it exploded.

Monk and Ham jerked up straight, stared at the radio loud-speaker.

It must have been three minutes before the radio made another sound. Then:

Listen, down there," it said. " I haven’t made a dive, I haven’t made any sharp turns, and I haven’t put a strain

on myself in any way. So I can’t be delirious and seeing things."

Monk leaned over and grabbed the microphone.

"What the blazes is wrong, Renny?" he asked.

This Monk?"

Yes; it’s Monk."

Renny’s voice said,

" All right, Monk; listen to me. I’m going to tell you about this cloud. I’ll describe the cloud. It’s about a

quarter of a mile long, and probably half that wide. It’s about two hundred feet deep, or maybe deeper in

some places and less in others, because you know how clouds are shaped."

Renny’s voice had somehow changed. It was full of ripping excitement. It had the frenzy of a buzz saw

that had gone to work on a pine knot.

Monk said, "Say, what’s the idea of tellin’ me about a cloud."

Because," Renny’s voice said, " this cloud is yellow."

Eh? It’s—"

Yellow."

Say, big-fists," Monk said, "who you kidding?"

The cloud," Renny said, " is as yellow as a pond frog."

Monk muttered, "I don’t think your joke is so funny."

The yellow cloud," Renny said, " is chasing me!"

THAT was about all of that. Or, at least, the end of it must have come while Monk and Ham and the army men were

standing around with say-is-this-something-you’re-supposed-to-laugh-at expressions on their faces.

It is not incredibly unusual for an eagle or a buzzard to chase a plane, and an owl might conceivably be up that

high—twenty thousand feet—at this time of night; and the owl might have been in a disposition where it wanted to

chase a plane. Another plane might conceivably have chased this plane. But a cloud? Oh, no! Out of the question.

Somebody was crazy.

Renny’s voice said,

" I’m gonna take a picture of the cloud."

They saw him take the picture. That is, the brief, terrifically strong photo-flash device with which the

X-plane was equipped, made such a surge of light that it penetrated, even through the thick layer of

clouds, sufficiently that those on the beach saw its momentary glow.

A minute passed.

Renny’s voice was now more tense.

I’m going to drop the picture film by parachute!" it said.

Monk yelled, "Hey, Renny! What—"

The voice from the sky got wild.

The cloud is going to catch me!" Renny yelled.

That was all.

Chapter II. PROOF OF IMPOSSIBLE

IT must have been five minutes before those on the beach sand realized it was going to be all. At least, it took them

that long to come to life. Then Monk reared up howling.

"Blazes!" he yelled. "Why didn’t we think?"

Monk meant the plane in which they had come. He legged for the craft. The plane was larger than the X-ship, and a

different type; but it could climb to twenty thousand feet.

Ham dived into the plane after Monk. Although they squabbled at all other times, they seemed to coordinate perfectly,

once they had something urgent to do. Up went the plane, moaning hungrily for the stars.

An hour later, the plane bumped on the beach again, and Monk and Ham stepped out, trailed by their two strange

pets, the pig and the chimp.

"Nothing."

The army men stared. "But—"

"I know," Monk said. "You ain’t telling us how nuts it is. Cloud strata extends to thirteen thousand feet. Over that, it’s

as clear as crystal all the way to the moon. But no Renny, no plane."

"And no yellow cloud?" a captain asked.

Monk glared at him.

"Listen!" Monk snarled. "Renny isn’t crazy, but just the same there ain’t yellow clouds—and if they were yellow, they

would chase planes."

The captain said, "Come over here."

"Eh?"

"I want you to hear something," the captain explained.

The captain led Monk and Ham to one of the electrical "listeners" for locating air raiders. The device sat on a truck,

resembled a magnified, old-time phonograph with ten-foot horns sticking out in every direction. The operators rode

saddles and had telephone headsets strapped to their ears.

The captain said to one of the operators, "You were listening to the X-ship?"

"Yes," the operator said. "That is, we listened until—"

"Until what?" the captain prompted.

"Well, there was a kind of shriek, as if something huge had rushed through the air up there," the listener-operator said.

"Then there was a crash."

"What kind of a crash?"

"A crunchy one. Kind of tinny."

"Exactly what was that crash like?" the captain asked.

The operator thought for a moment.

"Like a plane would sound if it were being smashed into a lump by something big," he said.

Monk got a bluish pale.

"Was that all?" he asked.

"I should think it was enough," the operator said.

MONK and Ham went over and leaned against the wing of their plane. They did not say anything, because there did

not seem to be much they could say.

The wind was mounting, pushing the big white waves up higher on the beach, and the waves were sighing like bigger

hogs as they broke.

"It’s impossible," Ham said.

"Sure," Monk agreed.

They walked over to the army man in command of the whole project of test-flying the X-ship.

Monk said, "Look here, sir; it is probable that gas from the motor made Renny delirious, then unconscious, in which

case he probably crashed the ship. I suggest a search for the wrecked plane."

"Excellent idea."

An intensive search began for wreckage of the X-ship.

Monk and Ham joined the search. They had little to say, and there was grim tightness around their mouths. For once,

there was none of their perpetual squabbling.

They had been closely associated with the missing Renny Renwick for a long time. On several occasions they had

saved his life, and there had been instances when he had saved theirs. In fact, they were bound together about as

closely as it is possible for men to be cemented, for they were all members of one of the most unusual little

groups—only six men belonged—that ever had been assembled. A group, incidentally, which had no name, except

that they were known as Doc Savage and his men. The group did not need a name to be feared in the far corners of the

earth.

The group had no name, but mere whispered rumor of its presence in a neighborhood brought terror to wrongdoers,

men outside the law.

For Doc Savage and his little group were engaged in one of the most unusual of careers, that of righting wrongs and

punishing evildoers, frequently in the far ends of the world. It was not an occupation—often they did not profit

financially. But money was a minor motivation, Doc Savage having a secret source of fabulous wealth somewhere in

the Central American mountains.

Furthermore, each of Doc Savage’s five assistants was master of a profession, and capable of making an excellent

income from it.

Excitement—that was what bound them together. A love of excitement and action. That, and the thrill that continually

came from association with an individual as unusual as Doc Savage, amazing man of mystery, sometimes called the

"Man of Bronze."

Monk and Ham, liking Renny as they did, were terribly concerned over his fate.

"He might have got out of the plane with the parachute," Monk muttered.

"Sure," Ham said hopefully.

The sun came up and the wind went down, and the waves did not roll up on the beach as violently; and Negro

fishermen rowed out through the island channels, chanting as they strained their backs over the long oars.

Now that it was light, Monk and Ham took off in their plane and looked for X-ship wreckage or a parachute.

They found the parachute, a small one, not a man-sized parachute. It was dangling from a tree, and on the end of the

shrouds was a little canvas bag. It was the kind of parachute used to drop things from planes.

In the little canvas bag attached to the parachute were the photographic films that Renny’s voice had mentioned while

the impossible was happening the night before. It did not take long to rush the films to a dark room and develop them.

But it did take a long time for Monk and Ham to get over the shock of what the photographs showed.

They had not, really, believed there was a yellow cloud.

"UH!" Monk said, rather as if he had been hit hard in the stomach with a fist. He sat down. He looked at Ham, and after

a minute Ham backed away from the picture as if it might have fangs.

They had been brought up in this logical-minded world which is growing more scientific each year, and which has an

explanation for almost everything except what causes colds and seasickness and what makes people live. This was

impossible. A yellow cloud chasing an airplane—there wasn’t such a thing.

The picture showed evidence to the contrary. It appeared that Renny had rolled the plane over and pointed the

airplane camera upward to get the picture.

There were stars visible behind the cloud.

There was every indication that the cloud was what Renny’s voice had described—length a quarter of a mile, width

half that, depth two hundred feet in places, more or less in others. They could not tell about the yellow hue, for this

was not color film. But it was unusual. It was a solid cloud. It seemed to have body to it.

"Whew!" Monk said. The homely chemist got up and examined the cloud, then bit his lips as if trying to get stiffness

out of them.

"The cloud," he added, "does not seem to have eyes, mouth, arms, or wings. It’s just a cloud."

Ham gripped his sword cane and looked up.

"Listen," he said. "You don’t believe there was a yellow cloud?"

"I don’t know what to believe," Monk said.

They still did not know what to believe late that afternoon when they climbed wearily into their plane, gunned the

motor, and vaulted off for the north. Both men were silent, almost stupefied. It was hard to accept that no trace had

been found of Renny or the X-ship. Land ships had scanned half the State of North Carolina, and the navy had done

the same with the adjacent ocean. No success at all.

Monk and Ham landed at the airport across the Potomac from Washington. They needed fuel. Monk got back into the

plane scowling.

"Look at these newspapers," he growled.

The headlines said:

DOC SAVAGE AID MISSING

IN ARMY PLANE TEST

Let me see that!" Ham said. He snatched the paper and read. "Well, they didn’t mention the yellow cloud

business," he said.

"The army wants the cloud business kept quiet," Monk explained.

"It’s all right with me," Ham said. "I don’t want people thinking we’re nuts."

The evening sun was red in the west, and filled the high-flying plane with a gory glow. The shadows of hills and

houses lengthened swiftly on the ground. "We should make New York in an hour and a half," Monk said.

The plane radio—it was tuned in on an army station—began to talk, saying,

" Calling Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks; calling—"

You got us," Monk said into the microphone.

The radio said,

" We have a report for you. Two planes were flying over Pennsylvania. One of them was attacked a by yellow

cloud, seized and carried away. The second plane managed to escape."

Monk chewed a fingernail and stared at the radio as if he doubted his ears. He said, "Say that again."

The radio said it again, and added, "The pilot of the plane that escaped is at Central Airport, Philadelphia."

Monk and Ham looked at each other.

"What’s the pilot’s name?" Monk asked.

Brick Palmer," the radio said.

"Thanks," Monk said.

Ham, who was flying the plane, gave the ship enough left rudder to send it toward Philadelphia. The two

men were silent for a long time. They had been trying not to accept the existence of a yellow cloud,

because it was fantastic; and now that they were confronted with the specter of the thing again, they were

without words.

They did think, though, that they might be able to learn something of the fate of Renny by questioning this

flier, Brick Palmer, who had actually seen a yellow cloud grab a plane.

"I wonder what kind of a man this Brick Palmer is?" Monk muttered.

Chapter III. STRANGE LADYBIRD

THE girl held the gun in both hands quite steadily. She had come into the airport waiting room with the weapon

concealed in her flying helmet, which she was carrying in her hands, and now she had the gun pointed at Monk and

Ham.

Monk and Ham stared at her in gap-mouthed astonishment.

Out on the tarmac somewhere a transport plane was rumbling its big motor, and in a hangar mechanics were banging

hammers against machinery. The airport was far enough outside Philadelphia so that there was no rumble of the city.

Monk started to put his hands up.

"Keep them down," the girl ordered grimly.

She was a small girl, somewhat a spriggins of a girl. From the quick way she moved, she seemed about fifteen years

old; but she was a little older than that—twentyish, maybe.

The sky winds had browned her. Nature had put red in her lips and mahogany-colored fire in her eyes. She was pretty.

Striking enough that Monk, who was a connoisseur of feminine pulchritude, would have opened his mouth and batted

both his small eyes—even if she had not been letting him look into the muzzle of a gun.

"Listen," Monk said. "We only want to see a party named Brick Palmer."

"Yes," Ham said. "We came—"

"Shut up!" the girl advised.

She stood small and tense. She had dropped her flying helmet—it was of the same brown leather as her zippered

jacket.

"Walk out of that side door," she ordered. "Act natural."

They stepped out of the side door upon the gravel of the airport parking lot. It was almost dark, and the big beacon

had been turned on and was swinging at monotonous intervals. Colored border lights made a far-flung path.

"Get in your ambulance," the girl said.

Ham stared at her. "Ambulance?"

"We came in a plane," Monk explained.

The girl did not believe that. She had picked up her helmet and covered her gun again. She lifted the helmet slightly,

showed the weapon muzzle.

"I don’t fool people!" she said grimly.

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THEYELLOWCLOUDADocSavageAdventureByKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.THEIMPOSSIBLEYELLOWTHING?ChapterII.PROOFOFIMPOSSIBLE?ChapterIII.STRANGELADYBIRD?ChapterIV.MENAFTERFILM?ChapterV.TELEVISIONMIX-UP?ChapterVI.BIGEARS?ChapterVII.GIRLTRAIL?ChapterVIII...

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Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 072 - The Yellow Cloud

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