His breath caught in his throat, and he felt the blood pounding in his cheeks. Only an hour or two away was safety for himself and help for the Professor. His long sleigh ride across the ocean was nearly over.
Thirty minutes later, a bigger wave gave him a better view of the coast ahead. And then he knew that the sea had not yet finished playing with him; his worst ordeal was still to come.
Chapter 21
The hurricane had passed two days ago, but the sea still remembered it. As he neared the coast, Johnny could make out individual trees and houses, and the faint blue humps of the inland hills. He also saw and heard the tremendous waves ahead. Their thunder filled the air; all along the coast, from north to south, white-capped mountains were moving against the land. The great waves were breaking a thousand feet out, as they hit the shelving beach. Like a man tripping and falling, they gained speed as they toppled, and when they finally crashed, they left behind them smoking clouds of spray. Johnny looked in vain for a break somewhere along those moving, thundering walls of water. But as far as he could see-and when he stood up on the board, he could see for miles-the whole coastline was the same. He might waste hours hunting along it for sheltered bays or river mouths where he could make a safe landfall. It would be best to go straight through, and to do it quickly before he lost his nerve.
He had with him the tool for the job, but he had never used it. The hard, flat coral so close to shore made surf-riding impossible at Dolphin Island; there was no gentle underwater slope up which the breakers could come rolling into land. But Mick had often talked enthusiastically to him about the technique of "catching a wave," and it did not sound too difficult. You waited out where the waves were beginning to break, then paddled like mad when you saw one coming up behind you. Then all you had to do was to hang onto the board and pray that you wouldn't get dumped. The wave would do the rest.
Yes, it sounded simple enough-but could he manage it? He remembered that silly joke: "Can you play the violin?"
"I don't know-I've never tried." Failure here could have much more serious consequences than a few sour notes.
Half a mile from land, he gave Susie the signal to halt and unbuckled her harness. Then, very reluctantly, he cut the traces away from the board; it would not do to have them whipping around him when he went barreling through the surf. He had put a lot of work into that harness, and hated to throw it away. But he remembered Professor Kazan's remark: "Equipment can always be replaced." It was a source of danger now, and it would have to go.
The two dolphins still swam beside him as he paddled toward the shore, kicking the board along with his flippered feet, but there was nothing they could do to help him now. Johnny wondered if, superb swimmers though they were, they could even help themselves in the boiling maelstrom ahead. Dolphins were often stranded on beaches such as this, and he did not want Susie and Sputnik to run that risk.
This looked a good place to go in: the breakers were running parallel to the beach without any confusing cross-patterns of reflected waves. And there were people here, watching the surf from the tops of some low sand dunes. Perhaps they had seen him already; in any case, they would be able to help him to get ashore.
He stood up on the board and waved vigorously-no easy feat on such an unstable platform. Yes, they'd seen him; those distant figures had suddenly become agitated, and several were pointing in his direction.
Then Johnny noticed something that did not make him at all happy. Up there on the dunes were at least a dozen surfboards, some resting on trailers, some stuck upright in the sand. All those boards on land-and not a single one in the sea! Johnny knew, for Mick had told him often enough, that the Australians were the best swimmers and surfers in the world. There they were, waiting hopefully with all their gear, but they knew better than to try anything in this sea. It was not an encouraging sight for someone about to attempt his first shoot.
He paddled slowly forward, and the roaring ahead grew steadily louder. Until now, the waves that swept past him had been smooth and unbroken, but now their crests were flecked with white. Only a hundred yards in front of him they would start to topple and fall thundering toward the beach, but here he was still in the safe no man's land between the breakers and the sea. Somewhere a fathom or two beneath him, the advancing waves, which had marched unhindered across a thousand miles of the open Pacific, first felt the tag and drag of the land. After that, they had only seconds left to live before they crashed in tumultuous ruin upon the beach.
For a long time, Johnny rose and fell at the outer edge of the white water, studying the behavior of the waves, noting where they began to break, feeling their power without yielding to it. Once or twice he almost launched himself forward, but instinct or caution held him back. He knew- his eyes and ears told him plainly enough-that once he was committed, there would be no second chance.
The people on the beach were becoming more and more excited. Some of them were waving him back, and this struck him as very stupid. Where did they expect him to go? Then he realized that they were trying to help-they were warning him against waves that he should not attempt to catch. Once, when he almost started paddling, the distant watchers waved him frantically onward, but he lost his nerve at the last second. When he saw the wave that he had missed go creaming smoothly up the beach, he knew that he should have taken their advice. They were the experts; they understood this coast. Next time, he would do what they suggested.
He kept the board aimed accurately toward the land while he looked back over his shoulder at the incoming waves. Here was one that was already beginning to break as it humped out of the sea; whitecaps of foam had formed all along its crest. Johnny glanced quickly at the shore and caught a glimpse of dancing figures wildly waving him onward. This was it.
He forgot everything else as he dog-paddled with all his strength, urging the board up to the greatest speed that he could manage. It seemed to respond very sluggishly, so that he was barely crawling along the water. He dared not look back, but he knew that the wave was rising swiftly behind him, for he could hear its roar growing closer and louder every second.
Then it gripped the board, and his furious paddling became as useless as it was unnecessary. He was in the power of an irresistible force, so overwhelming that his puny efforts could neither help nor hinder it. He could only accept it.
His first sensation, when the wave had taken him, was one of surprising calm; the board felt almost as steady as if moving on rails. And though this was surely an illusion, it even seemed to have become quiet, as if he had left the noise and tumult behind. The only sound of which he was really conscious was the seething hiss of the foam as it boiled around him, frothing over his head so that he was completely blinded. He was like a bareback rider on a runaway horse, unable to see anything because its mane was streaming in his face.
The board had been well designed, and Johnny had a good sense of balance; his instincts kept him poised on the wave. Automatically, he moved backward or forward by fractions of an inch, to adjust his trim and to keep the board level, and presently he found that he could see again. The line of foam had retreated amidships; his head and shoulders were clear of the whistling, blinding spray, and only the wind was blowing in his face.
As well it might be, for he was surely moving at thirty or forty miles an hour. Not even Susie or Sputnik-not even Snowy-could match the speed at which he was traveling now. He was balanced on the crest of a wave so enormous that he would not have believed it possible; it made him giddy to look down into the trough beneath.
The beach was scarcely a hundred yards away, and the wave was beginning to curl over, only a few seconds before its final collapse. This, Johnny knew, was the moment of greatest danger. If the wave fell upon him now, it would pound him to pulp against the sea bed.
Beneath him, he felt the board beginning to seesaw-to tilt nose down in that sickening plunge that would end everything. The wave he was riding was deadlier than any monster of the sea-and immeasurably more powerful.
Unless he checked this forward lurch, he would slide down the curving cliff of water, while the unsupported overhang of the wave grew larger and larger, until at last it came crashing down upon him.
With infinite care, he eased his weight back along the board, and the nose slowly lifted. But he dared not move too far back, for he knew that if he did so he would slide off the shoulders of this wave and be left for the one behind to pulverize. He had to keep in exact, precarious balance, on the very peak of this mountain of. foam and fury.
The mountain was beginning to sink beneath him, and he sank with it, still holding the board level as it flattened into a hill. Then it was only a mound of moving foam, all its strength stolen from it by the braking action of the beach. Through the now aimless swirl of foam, the board still darted forward, coasting like an arrow under its own momentum. Then there came a sudden jolt, a long snaky slither-and Johnny found himself looking not at moving water but at motionless sand.
At almost the same instant he was grabbed by firm hands and hoisted to his feet. There were voices all around him, but he was still deafened by the roar of the sea and heard only a few scattered phrases like, "Crazy young fool-lucky to be alive-not one of our kids."
"I'm all right," he muttered, shaking himself free.
Then he turned back, wondering if he could see any sign of Sputnik and Susie beyond the breakers. But he forgot all about them in that shattering moment of truth.
For the first time, as he stared at the mountainous waves storming and smoking toward him, he saw what he had ridden through. This was something that no man could hope to do twice; he was indeed lucky to be alive.
Then his legs turned to water as the reaction hit him, and he was thankful to sit down, clutching with both hands at the firm, welcoming Australian soil.
Chapter 22
"You can go in now," said Nurse Tessie. "But only five minutes, remember. He's not very strong yet, and he hasn't quite got over his last visitor."
Johnny knew all about that. Two days before, Mrs. Kazan had descended upon the island "like a troop of Cossacks," as someone had said with only slight exaggeration. She had made a vigorous attempt to whisk the Professor back to Moscow for treatment, and it had taken all of Tessie's determination and the Professor's wiliness to frustrate her. Even then they might have been defeated, but, luckily, the doctor who flew over from the mainland every day had given strict orders that his patient must not be moved for at least a week. So Mrs. Kazan had left for Sydney, to see what Australia could offer in the way of culture-which was now a very great deal. She would be back, she promised, in exactly one week.
Johnny tiptoed into the sickroom. At first he could hardly see Professor Kazan, who was lying in bed entirely surrounded by books, quite unaware that he had company. It was at least a minute before the Professor noticed his visitor, then he hurriedly put down the book he was reading and extended his hand in welcome.
"I'm so pleased to see you, Johnny; thank you for everything. You took a very big risk."
Johnny made no attempt to deny it. The risk had been far greater than he had dreamed when he had set out from Dolphin Island a week ago. Perhaps if he had known. But he had done it, and that was all that mattered.
"I'm glad I went," he answered simply.
"So am I," said the Professor. "Nurse says the Red Cross 'copter was just in time."
There was a long, awkward silence. Then Professor Kazan went on, in a lighter tone.
"How did you like the Queenslanders?"
"Oh, they're wonderful people-though it was a long time before they'd believe I came from Dolphin Island."
"I'm not surprised," said the Professor dryly. "And what did you do while you were over there?"
"Well, I can't remember how many television and radio broadcasts I had to make-I got rather fed up with them. But the best part was the surf-riding; when the sea was calmer, they took me out and really showed me all the tricks. I'm now," he added with pride, "an Honorary Life Member of the Queensland Surf Club."
"That's fine," answered the Professor, a little absently. It was obvious to Johnny that he had something on his mind, and presently he brought it out.
"Now, Johnny," he said, "I've had time to do a lot of thinking these last few days while I've been lying here. And I've come to a good many decisions."
That sounded faintly ominous, and Johnny wondered what was coming next.
"In particular," continued the Professor, "I've been worrying about your future. You're seventeen now, and it's time you looked ahead."
"You know that I want to stay here, Professor," said Johnny in some alarm. "All my friends are on the island."
"Yes, I know that. But there's the important matter of your education; OSCAR can take you only part of the way. If you want to do anything useful, you'll have to specialize and develop whatever talents you have. Don't you agree?"
"I suppose so," Johnny answered, without enthusiasm. Where was all this leading? he wondered.
"What I'm suggesting," said the Professor, "is that we get you into the University of Queensland next semester. Don't look so upset-it's not the other side of the world. Brisbane's only an hour from here, and you can get back any week end. But you can't spend all your life skin-diving around the reef!"
Johnny decided that he would be quite willing to try, but in his heart he knew that the Professor was right.
"You have skills and enthusiasms we need badly," said Professor Kazan. "What you still lack is discipline and knowledge-and you'll get both at the University. Then you'll be able to play a big part in the plans I have for the future."
"What plans?" asked Johnny, a little more hopefully.
"I think you know most of them. They all add up to this-mutual aid between men and dolphins, to the advantage of both. In the last few months we've found some of the things we can do together, but that's only a feeble beginning. Fish-herding, pearl-diving, rescue operations, beach patrols, wreck surveys, water sports-oh, there are hundreds of ways that dolphins can help us! And there are much bigger things."
For a moment, he was tempted to mention that sunken spaceship, lost back in the Stone Age. But he and Keith had decided to say nothing about that until they had more definite information; it was the Professor's ace in the hole, not to be played until the right moment. One day, when he felt that it was time to increase his budget, he was going to try that piece of dolphin mythology on the Space Administration and wait for the dollars to roll in.
Johnny's voice interrupted his reverie.
"What about the killer whales, Professor?"
"That's a long-term problem, and there's no simple answer to it at the moment. Electrical conditioning is only one of the tools we'll have to use, when we've decided on the best policy. But I think I know the final solution."
He pointed to the low table at the other side of the room.
"Bring over that globe, Johnny."
Johnny carried across the twelve-inch globe of the Earth, and the Professor spun it on its axis.
"Look here," he said. "I've been thinking about Reservations-Dolphins Only, Out of Bounds to Killer Whales. The Mediterranean and the Red Sea are the obvious places to start. It would take only about a hundred miles of fencing to seal them off from the oceans and to make them quite safe."
"Fencing?" asked Johnny incredulously.
The Professor was enjoying himself. Despite Nurse's warning, he looked quite capable of going on for hours.
"Oh, I don't mean wire-netting or any solid barrier. But when we know enough Orcan to talk to killer whales, we can use underwater sound projectors to shepherd them around and keep them out of places where we don't want them to go. A few speakers in the Straits of Gibraltar, a few in the Gulf of Aden-that will make two seas safe for dolphins. And later, perhaps we can fence off the Pacific from the Atlantic, and give one ocean to the dolphins and the other to the killer whales. See, it's not far from Cape Horn to the Antarctic, the Bering Strait's easy, and only the gap south of Australia will be hard
to close. The whaling industry's been talking about this sort of operation for years, and sooner or later it's going to be done."
He smiled at the rather dazed look on Johnny's face, and came back to earth.
"If you think that half my ideas are crazy, you're quite right. But we don't know which half, and that's what we've got to find out. Now do you understand why I want you to go to college? It's for my own selfish reasons, as well as your own good."
Before Johnny could do more than nod in reply, the door opened.
"I said five minutes, and you've had ten," grumbled Nurse Tessie. "Out you go. And here's your milk, Professor."
Professor Kazan said something in Russian which conveyed, quite clearly, the impression that he didn't like milk. But he was already drinking it by the time that Johnny, in a very thoughtful mood, had left the room.
He walked down to the beach, along the narrow path that wound through the forest. Most of the fallen trees had been cleared away, and already the hurricane seemed like a nightmare that could never really have happened.
Arthur C Clarke - Dolphin Island Page 14