by Winston Lyon
In a moment he looked up again, “Sonar contact increasing. It’s a small craft. Now at seven-five-hundred range and closing.”
“What?” asked the Penguin with a hint of alarm.
“Small craft?”
“Closing incredibly fast, sir,” Bluebeard announced. “Range now down to…seven thousand.”
“There shouldn’t be a small craft so close to the open sea,” the Riddler said.
“It’s moving too fast to be any ordinary small craft,” Catwoman said.
The submarine command room grew silent.
The Joker spoke the thought in everyone’s mind.
“IT’S THE BATBOAT!”
The Penguin’s cigarette holder jutted up at a challenging angle. “Paugh! Drat that cockleshell!”
“Drat Batman and Robin!” cried the Riddler. “Will they never leave us alone?”
The Penguin snapped out orders. “Bear down on the diving planes, Catwoman! Man the torpedo tubes, Joker! Mr. Riddler, get into the missile room and fire a surface-to-surface underwater homing missile.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the prompt reply from the other Supercriminals.
They hurried to their tasks.
Robin cried, “Missile ahoy!”
Ahead of the Batboat, a missile broke the surface and shot upward.
Batman held the wheel while Robin grabbed the Batbinoculars and studied the missile arcing above them. “Looks like a homing device in the nose cone,” he announced calmly.
“Get ready for evasive action,” Batman ordered.
He swung the wheel hard over. The amazing Batboat swung about as though yanked by a string.
The missile reached the height of its short arc and came right for the Batboat on a new course.
“No use, Batman,” Robin announced. “The missile is tracking us!”
“Take the helm!” Batman commanded.
He exchanged places with Robin in the cockpit. Robin hurled the Batboat into one screaming zigzag after another, flinging up deep foamy waves. Meanwhile, Batman calmly worked out figures on a sheet of paper.
The missile hung doggedly to the trail of the twisting, turning Batboat The distance between steadily narrowed.
Batman said, “I’ve got the answer, Robin.”
“What?” Robin asked, keeping a wary eye on the missile that was closing in on them.
“That class of missile receives on a wave length of one-six-four-point-one. I’ll use the Batradio to send a quick jamming signal.”
“It better be quick, Batman. The missile is only ten yards behind us!”
Batman moved to the radio console, turned several dials to the indicated wavelength, and flicked the switch. “There. I think that ought to do the trick…”
The missile kept moving toward them for an instant, and then, as the radio signals scrambled in its metal brain, it lost forward momentum and nosed down.
It plunged into the water, erupting in a towering geyser.
The deafening thunderclap of the explosion washed over Batman and Robin in the cockpit.
“Holy Bikini,” Robin said. “That was close!”
“We’re not out of danger yet, Robin,” Batman said. He pointed ahead. “Look there!”
“Torpedo wakes!” Robin shouted. “DEAD AHEAD!”
“No time for evasive action, Robin. I’ll fire Batcharges in front of the torpedoes!”
Batman leaped to the Batcharge launcher, swung it about, and pressed the firing button.
In quick succession the Batlauncher fired off a series of little Batcharges.
PLUP! PLUP! PLUP!
At the same moment Robin swung the wheel and the Batboat heeled over. The Batwings came out and flapped once or twice to send the boat skimming faster over the waves.
KERBLAMMI
There was a monster waterspout and a tremendous explosion as the Batcharges set off the torpedoes that bad been zeroing in on the Batboat. A ton of water landed heavily on the Batboat, almost sending it down beneath the surface of the water. The detonation of the explosion rolled in peal after peal.
Then the Batboat righted itself, shook off the water on its decks as a dog might shake its ears when jumping from the water to the land.
Robin, at the controls, was thoroughly drenched. He indicated the glowing light on the instrument panel of the boat.
“Sonar contact,” he said. “They’re diving, Batman! Engines are being switched to silent.”
“Their attack failed, Robin. Now they’re trying to take cover.” Batman put his hand on the Y-shaped Batlauncher. “This next maneuver is going to require every ounce of our skill. We must remember that those Supercriminals hold nine of the world’s most eminent men in dehydrated condition! Our task is not to sink that sub, merely drive it to the surface.”
“You can say that again, Batman,” Robin agreed grimly. “What’s the scheme?”
“Our Batsonar will locate them underwater by the interior heat from the submarine itself. As soon as we have pinpointed their position, we’ll circle them at full-thrust Batspeed.”
“Diminishing ratio of curvature,” Robin said.
“Exactly,” Batman said. He made further lightning-quick calculations on his pad. “I’ll set the launcher for…one Batcharge per second!”
“Roger!” Robin said. The light on the instrument panel changed from pink to red. “The sonar has switched from tracking engine sounds to tracking temperature. That means they’ve stopped, Batman.”
“Begin circling!”
The Batboat began traveling the outer rim of a circle at fantastic speed, moving about the outer perimeter with the pirate sub at its center. On the next circle, the curve diminished, tightening and narrowing in on the target.
Batman readied the launcher. “I’ve set the launcher for rapid fire, Robin…Here she goes!’
He pushed the button. From the Y-shaped launcher the first Batcharge sped out to plunge deep into the water.
A tremendous explosion followed!
Another Batcharge soared out and down into the water.
Another tremendous explosion!
One second later still another Batcharge fired toward the hidden target beneath the water.
Fifty fathoms deep, on the bottom of the harbor, the pirate submarine rocked to the blasts. One Batcharge exploded a hundred yards to the right. The next exploded a hundred yards to the left.
The third blasted eighty yards in front of the submarine.
A fourth detonated fifty yards behind the stem of the submarine.
In the command room all was pandemonium.
The chart table broke loose of its supports and slid crazily across the tilted deck. The Penguin barely waddled out of the way. The Joker tried to reach a handhold, failed, and started staggering back, back, back, until he crashed into the Riddler.
Bluebeard screamed. Electrical explosions began short-circuiting all the control boards. He flung the headphones away from him as though they were alive.
Lights went off. Then came on again, dimly.
Catwoman whimpered in a corner. Hecate on her shoulder stared with violent green-yellow eyes at the dimness, its fur lifted along its back in terror.
In a small cabin adjoining the command room, however, all was serene. Commander Redhead lay back at ease on his bunk, quite oblivious to the rolling and tossing of the submarine from the blasts of underwater explosions. Once or twice his monocle popped out of his eye but he replaced it and went on with his reading. Then he reached out imperturbably and rang for the steward.
There was no steward to answer.
In the command room, the pandemonium had led to total panic.
Catwoman wailed, “They’re getting closer! We’re going to die down here like rats in a trap!”
The Penguin tried to shout, “Shut up!” but the words were lost in the violent KERBOOM of a new explosion on the starboard side.
The Joker gasped, “That one couldn’t have been more than forty yards away…”
One secon
d later another KERBOOM! sounded, a bit louder, on the port side.
“M-m-make that thirty,” stuttered the Riddler.
Bluebeard had been checking out the watertight compartments of the submarine. Even his blue jowls were quite pale.
“Compartments A, B, C, and F are talking green water, Mr. Penguin,” he said.
When the Penguin tried to reply, a gush of water drenched him from a seam that opened in the roof. He clung desperately to the crazily tilted periscope base.
The Catwoman crawled over to him.
“Penguin! Penguin!” she whined. “We weren’t born for a watery grave. Do something!”
“Open umbrellas, everyone,” said the Penguin. He snapped open a colorful umbrella and held it over his top hat which was resting slightly askew on his head.
The Riddler stared at the Penguin in astonishment.
“That bird’s finally flown round the bend,” he said. “You’d better take over, Joker.”
Joker lurched across the steeply angled deck until he reached the loudspeaker.
“Now hear this!” he screamed. “BLOW ALL TANKS! SURFACE!”
Up from the bottom of Gotham City Harbor rose the battered pirate submarine.
As the submarine ascended, the conning tower broke the surface.
Not far away, the Batboat swung into a spumy turn.
“Heave to, Robin,” Batman said calmly. “Ready to board.”
“Ready, Batman.”
Batman hurled the Batarang and the rope whistled across to the conning tower of the surfaced submarine and pulled twangingly taut, just as the deck of the submarine emerged from the water.
A moment later the Joker came up the hatchway.
His chalk-white face froze as he saw Batman and Robin swinging across on the rope.
“Pirates! To arms!” he called.
Batman careened into him. He was propelled back out of the hatchway and onto the submarine deck.
The Riddler’s head came up through the hatchway. His eyes widened in shock.
“Prepare to repel boarders!” he cried as Robin headed toward him.
Robin crashed into him and the Riddler did a back somersault out of the hatchway.
Up popped the Penguin.
“Strike your colors, Penguin,” commanded Batman sternly.
“Faugh!” replied the Penguin. His assurance had returned now that the submarine was on the surface. “We have not yet begun to fight!”
He pointed his umbrella at Batman. A boxing glove shot forth on an extension spring to land with stunning power on Batman’s jaw.
The Caped Crusader was driven sharply off the deck and into the water.
“Up and at ’em, me hearties!” cried the Penguin.
Bluebeard and the other members of the pirate crew now swarmed onto the deck. Robin, fighting furiously, held them at bay, his powerful fists slamming at ducking heads. He was knocked down but caught Bluebeard on upraised feet and sent him spinning over his head.
The Penguin ran over to join the fray on short bowed legs. He raised his umbrella handle and brought it down with sickening force on Robin’s head.
Stars exploded inside Robin’s skull. He felt as though his head had been split wide open. Dazedly, he grabbed the Penguin’s corpulent waist and held on.
Suddenly the Penguin slipped out of his grasp. Robin glanced up, fighting off unconsciousness.
Batman lifted the plump figure of the Penguin as though he were a child. The muscles in Batman’s arms bulged. As easily and swiftly as though tossing a beach ball, he flung the Penguin out and away from the submarine to crash heavily into the water.
“Are you all right, Robin?” Batman asked, bending solicitously over his young comrade.
“I’m fine. A little dizzy, that’s all.”
Satisfied, Batman turned to fight off the charge of the pirate crewmen. He stood protectively above the dazed Robin as he did battle with the hoodlums.
Robin heard the grunts of pain and a wheezing gasp as the breath was knocked out of someone’s body. A heavy figure fell near him on the steel deck and lay without moving.
The Riddler and the Joker plunged back into the fight. Batman whirled into blinding motion. His swinging arm knocked the Riddler to one side. His left hand grabbed the Joker by the neck, dragged him around, and swung him in a wide arc. The Joker collided with two of his own men and knocked them off the deck. A pirate, stirring feebly on the deck, tried to draw a pistol. Batman slapped it out of his hand, and dealt the pirate a short sharp blow to the back of the neck.
The pirate sank into blissful unconsciousness.
Batman looked about him. As far as he could see, all the crew of the pirate submarine were disposed of. They were lying around like so many discarded sea bags.
The Riddler was groaning nearby. The Joker was shaking his head and trying to uncross his eyes. The Penguin floundered helplessly in the water some yards distant.
Robin managed a weak grin. “They shouldn’t have made you angry, Batman,” he said. “You wiped the deck with the lot of them.”
“All except one,” Batman said. “Catwoman.”
“Pssssssss!”
A hissing sound came from the conning tower, where the Catwoman had emerged to look out on the debacle.
Batman said coldly, “Hold out your wrists, Catwoman. I have a pair of Batcuffs waiting for you. Come like a lady.”
“You’ll never get me, Batman. Never!”
Catwoman darted back into the hatch and slammed it. Before she could lock the tower, Batman was there to wrench it open.
Catwoman fled down the ladder. On the bottom rung of the ladder she tripped and sprawled headlong.
Batman swung nimbly ahead of her, cutting off her path. She started to go up the ladder again. Then she stopped. Robin was grinning down at her from the open hatchway.
“You’re trapped, Catwoman!” Batman said.
“So it would appear,” she answered bitterly.
Her mask had fallen partly off her beautiful features.
She reached up and with a defiant gesture took it off.
Robin, watching from above, was the first to speak.
“Holy heartbreak,” he breathed. “Miss Kitka!”
CHAPTER 14
Batman stood like a statue, frozen out of all feeling. Through his mind moved a parade of ghost images: the afternoon at the press conference when he had first seen Miss Kitka, the afternoon at Bruce Wayne’s home when she first called with the riddle clues (how it all made sense, now!), then the fabulous, unforgettable evening with Miss Kitka, gypsy violins playing, the two of them dancing, dining together, and seated in the back of the hansom cab in that romantic ride through the park. He seemed to feel again the softness of Miss Kitka’s lips, to see the lissome loveliness of her figure in negligee.
The violins played—and suddenly struck a new and terrible screeching discord inside his brain as the horror of it struck with full force.
Miss Kitka—the Catwoman!
The dream was over. It had become a nightmare. None of these painful emotions were reflected in Batman’s stony face. He said, “Snap on the Batcuffs, Robin. We’ll take Miss Kitka, alias the Catwoman, to prison along with the others.”
Robin said softly, “I’m sorry, Batman.”
“It’s just one of those things in the life of every crime fighter,” Batman answered. “It means nothing. Snap on the Batcuffs!”
He turned abruptly and went to the radio console near the chart table in the command room. He flicked a switch and picked up the hand microphone.
“Batman to Coast Guard,” he said crisply. “There’s a drifting submarine two miles east of Sandy Nose Lightship. It’s filled with human flotsam. Come take it in tow.”
He turned off the radio. At that moment his eyes fell on the nine different-colored tubes of dust perched precariously on the edge of the chart table.
“Robin,” he said tensely. “Come here and look…”
Robin turned from where he had jus
t snapped unbreakable Batcuffs on Catwoman. He crossed to the chart table and looked at the vials.
“Holy almost!” he breathed. “Do you think this is what we’ve been looking for?”
“Yes, Robin. Before you, in these vials, is the hope of the entire world. To think that the merest slip might have dislodged them and…”
There was an interruption.
From the cabin adjoining the command. room appeared the irate figure of Commander Redhead.
“I say,” he demanded. “Steward! The service on this yacht has gone to pot. Where’s my tea?”
Then Commander Redhead saw Catwoman, manacled.
He fixed his monocle into one eye for a closer look. “Eh? My dear, what are you doing in that simply outlandish getup? And why are you wearing manacles? Is there some skullduggery afoot?”
“Commander,” purred Catwoman, “These two masked desperadoes are trying to take over your yacht.”
“They are? Indeed! Well, we’ll soon put a stop to that, shan’t we?”
Indignantly Commander Redhead advanced toward Batman and Robin. As he did, Catwoman stuck out her foot to trip him.
Commander Redhead uttered a surprised exclamation, stumbled forward, and smashed heavily into the chart table.
“LOOK OUT!” Batman yelled.
Too late! Nine different-colored vials of dust slipped off the edge of the table and shattered with a terrible shivering sound of tinkling and breaking glass!
In the command room a long and agonized silence followed.
Commander Redhead tightened his monocle to look at the vials now lying on the floor, broken, with half of the contents of each spilled.
“My word!” he said. “What’s…?”
Commander Redhead’s nostrils quivered. He drew in a long shaky breath. His eyes watered.
“Don’t,” cried Robin.
Commander Redhead sneezed!
The blast of his breath swirled the varicolored dust from the tubes into a hopelessly mixed-up mess. The dust from each vial mingled inextricably with that of the others!
Commander Redhead’s lips quivered with relief. “God bless me,” he said fervently.
Catwoman laughed, a silky laugh of sinister triumph.
Batman and Robin stared down in horror at the calamity that had occurred beneath their very eyes.
“Holy jumble,” Robin said finally. “Where’s the hope of the world now, Batman?”