THE TERROR IN THE NAVY (Doc Savage, 1937)
This April 1937 adventure is pretty good, your basic middle range Doc Savage story. It has some epic scenes of destruction, a lot of nice interaction between the regulars (including Pat, who gets to shoot down a balloon full of crooks from her own airplane), and a cute glimpse of Doc being tempted by a heartbreaker and having to fight his natural impulses. Unfortunately, I thought the ending was a bit of a letdown and
the villain(s) were not impressive. SPOILERS AGAIN.....
Now, if you're a Doc Savage fan and have read your share of the bronze man's books, then you know the basic formula calls for a lot of hoaxes and misled perceptions. The hulking scaly monster turns out to be a guy in a rubber suit, the strange flaming dragon in the sky is actually a heatseeking missile and so on. In Doc's universe, there is a reasonable explanation for anything seemingly supernatural and you can count on our hero to figure it out. (Except for UP FROM EARTH'S CENTER but that's the joker in the deck.)
I like this Scooby Doo sort of philosophy well enough, but there are times when the hoax revealed at the end is less believable than the weird phenomena it explains. In this book, when we learn what the mysterious Thing is that has been sinking a dozen US battleships and dragging planes down out of the sky, my reaction was, "Oh, come ON! You
mean that's all?" Just speaking personally, I would have been happier if the mastermind had actually discovered some sort of supermagnetic ray that could whirl destroyers around. Look at REPEL.... a great Doc Savage story.
Be that as it may, for most of the book, the US Navy is facing some inexplicable force which is sinking four or five battleships a night. An embittered inventor called August Atlanta Braun claims his new device is behind all the destruction, but he's willing to sell his destructo gadget for a hundred million dollars. If the US armed forces don't feel like paying that much, well it is 1937 and Germany might be interested.....
The Navy promptly summons Doc Savage to save the nation (again) but in fact the man of bronze is already up to his corded neck in the case, having been drawn in by a typical plea for help from someone who was killed before he could reach Doc personally. (Just once, I would like to see somebody get to Doc in time, deliver the message about whatever diremenace is on the loose, and then get away safely.)
All five aides climb aboard for this case, but unfortunately every time two are rescued, another two get captured. At one point, Doc yanks open a tiny cabin on a submarine and "not only Monk came tumbling out but also Ham, Renny, Johnny, Long Tom and Pat" as well as another man and woman tangled up in the case. Did the villains jam them in there
with a broomstick or something?
For one of the first times in the series, Doc's stoic emotionless facade starts to slip a bit. A shady lady (who might be a spy or a double agent, I forget) named India Allison is all over him. Now, as you might expect, India would qualify for Playmate of the Year if there had been such a thing in 1937 (even Johnny gets warmed up when he looks at
her, and he "felt younger than he had in years"). But what really gets Doc uneasy is that she is such a clingy type. She latches onto his arm with both hands every time she sees him and simply will not let go. For once, the bronze man gets flustered and starts paying a bit too much attention to just how gorgeous this doll really is. Maybe it's why it seems to take him so long to get anywhere on this case. (He sure seems meek and distracted when negotiating with Braun over the megagizmo.)
Pat gets a bit catty over this and she almost starts a brawl with India. Not only does Pat not warm up to most women in the stories, she definitely tries to keep them at a distance from her cousin and his friends; she's as much of a fourteen year old as they are.
It's a treat to see the creative gadgets in use again. None of the other Kenneth Robesons had Lester Dent's flair for coming up with wild gizmos that seemed plausible and useful, yet at the same time were startling. (Come to think of it, maybe Joel Hodgson could create some new Doc devices; his Invention Exchanges on MST3K sure had the same playful ingenuity.)
My favorite gadget this time is shown as Doc finds himself jumping out of a plane which has had its wings fall off, only to find his parachute has been slashed. Drat! Doc struggles out of his coat and yanks open a small filmy parachute of "fabrikoid", stronger and thinner than silk, which he was wearing over his shirt It works but just barely; the bronze man hits the water harder than he would like and floats on the surface, "not entirely knocked out but also not enthusiastic about immediate activity."
Here is a trick Dent uses to make Doc's gadgets more believable. They seldom work perfectly, sometimes they don't really do the trick well enough to be reliable as conventional methods. By pointing out their shortcomings, he makes them much more credible than if they were miraculously perfect.
We should also note that Chemistry is not five feet tall in this story, but instead comes up to about Monk's knees. Now, Lester Dent was The Man when it comes to writing Doc Savage and he could describe the pet as he saw fit. But I sort of like the way Harold A. Davis had Chemistry as a two-fisted crimefighting ape who could pass for Monk if dressed in appropriate clothes. The slight undertones of screwball comedy in these stories always appealed me as nice breaks in all the destruction and mayhem (a good example in this book, Doc is sitting under a canvas in a submarine to eavesdrop on some crooks and one of them sits down on his lap without realizing it).