04 Volcano Adventure

by Willard Price

  From the bag that Hal carried, Dr Dan produced various instruments, a thermometer, a pyroscope, a small spectroscope. He began to take readings and jot down the results in his notebook. He captured some of the rising gas in a test tube and put it away for later study.

  He spoke again, but although the boys could see his lips move they could not hear a word. Dr Dan signalled to the boys to follow him and set off along the edge of the crater.

  Hal, looking back, saw a strange sight. The three Japanese had lined up in a row and were bowing deeply to the smoking crater.

  Hal had read about this - the way the Japanese worship their volcanoes. Their religion, Shinto, makes every volcano a shrine or holy place. The god of the volcano must be treated with deep respect or he will become angry and destroy the villages in the country below.

  The god is a terrible god and nothing pleases him so much as human sacrifice. In the old days human victims were thrown into his hungry mouth. Anyone selected to be given to the god was supposed to regard it as an

  honour.

  Nowadays no one is thrown to the god, but many persons still give themselves to him of their own free will. In this way they think they are performing a holy act, and at the same time they are escaping their own troubles. The man who has lost his job may jump into a volcano. The woman whose children misbehave may end her life in the crater. The young lovers whose parents will not let them marry may leap together into the flames. The student who has failed in his examination may choose to

  die here.

  In Europe and America such an escape from duty would be considered cowardly. The Japanese do not think of it in that way and every year hundreds of disappointed people go to the arms of the fire god in any of the fifty-eight active volcanoes of Japan.

  Hal looked back again. Toguri and Machida were wandering off along the edge of the pit. But Kobo still stood where he had been, gazing into the crater. Then he sat down on a rock and buried his head in his hand.

  Hal wanted to go back to him. But what could he do? Perhaps there was nothing wrong. If there was, Kobo’s Japanese friends could look after him. Dr Dan was already fifty feet ahead and signalling impatiently for Hal to come along. Hal hurried to catch up.

  It was an exciting walk along the crater’s edge. One side of your body was chilled by the fog, the other side baked by the fire-breathing monster. The ground was very hot underfoot. Hal found himself walking on the edges of his shoes to avoid the heat.

  Here and there steam spurted up between the rocks. If you didn’t watch where you were stepping and one of these steam jets shot up inside your trousers it was like being boiled alive.

  The falling stones had been cold far down the mountainside. Here they were hot, and if one fell on your shoulder and stayed there for a moment it burned the cloth. Every boy likes to throw stones down a precipice. When Roger picked up a pebble to throw into the volcano he dropped it with a howl and sucked a burned hand.

  The doctor was making a topographical survey of the crater’s edge. Every hump and hollow, every fissure and steam jet, was carefully examined. Figures and facts went down in the notebook.

  The noise was ear-splitting. Compared with that uproar, a steel mill would be as quiet as a cemetery. The fire god was gritting and grinding his teeth, then spitting them out in sky-rockets that flamed up through the gloom to great height, changed as they fell from white-hot to red-hot, and slapped down on the rocks. There they lay, pasty plops of liquid rock slowly congealing into a sort of dough, still glaring red, and sending out a terrific heat.

  The doctor rushed over to one and took a reading with his electric pyrometer. He showed the reading to the boys, 1,100 degrees Centigrade.

  Dr Dan shook his head gravely and pointed up. They understood his warning. These falling puddings were dangerous. They must keep watch above and not get struck by one of them. It was easy to imagine what would happen. One touch of this blazing lava, eleven times as hot as boiling, would set your clothes afire and you would go up in flame like a Roman candle.

  But it was hard to watch both the sky and the ground at the same time. Roger got cross-eyed trying to do it. He wished he were a bird which can look in one direction with one eye and in the opposite direction with the other.

  Suddenly the fog blew away and the sun lit up the dreary waste of grey ash and black lava and made a rainbow in the rising steam. The last ribbons of fog went up like writhing ghosts.

  The volcano men stopped to look at the view. Thousands of feet below lay Japanese villages under thatched roofs, rice paddies like squares on a checkerboard, Shinto temples and pagodas on small hilltops, sparkling streams. Beyond the valleys rose ranges of mountains, blue in the distance. Far to the south was the perfect cone of Fuji. Away to the west gleamed the Japan Sea.

  Splat! A blazing pudding of lava fell within ten feet of them. This was no time to be looking at the view and they went on warily, watching the sky and the ragged ground underfoot.

  The gases made the eyes run with tears and irritated the nose and throat. Sometimes the fumes were suffocating and you just had to stop breathing for a moment and wait for the changeable wind to bring a gust of fresh air.

  Then the breeze carried the gases away and pushed the column of smoke and fire to one side so that they could see down into the crater for the first time. The sight was terrible - and Hal, happening to glance at Dr Dan, saw that his face had changed.

  He was no longer the cool scientist. His jaw was tight, his eyes were staring, as he looked into that awful pit. A terrible fear seemed to be stamped on his face, but still it was not quite like fear. It was a blank expression, a frozen look.

  Hal wondered if the man had lost his senses. He was afraid he might step off into space, and put a hand on his arm. He found the body as rigid as a marble statue.

  The doctor did not look at him, did not seem to know that he existed. He did not move a muscle.

  Hal tried to shake him, but he seemed to have turned into stone. The cheekbones stood out, the neck muscles were tight, the hands were clenched.

  So he stood for two long minutes.

  Then a little colour crept back into the pale cheeks, the arm that Hal was holding relaxed, and the doctor’s eyes moved. He glanced at the hand that gripped his arm and then at Hal and smiled doubtfully, as if wondering why Hal was holding on to him. Hal released his. hold. The doctor pointed to a lava fountain at the bottom of the pit and once more he was the calm and interested man of science. He evidently had no memory whatever of those two terrible minutes.

  Asama means Without Bottom, and for centuries the Japanese believed that the volcano had no bottom. But during recent years the bottom has been steadily rising and could now be plainly seen about six hundred feet down.

  There, fountains of white-hot lava shot up into the air. Some rose as high as the crater’s edge, then fell back. Others kept on climbing thousands of feet into the sky and fell on the mountaintop, with great danger to the volcanologists.

  Below the fountains was a boiling white lake of liquid stone. It churned and rolled like the rapids of a great river. Pockets of gas exploded and burst into flame. Huge rocks were hurled up against the sides of the crater and fell back only to be hurled up again. Small stones by the thousand leaped up half a mile into the sky as if shot from a gun. Everywhere steam spurted out of cracks like smoke from the nostrils of a dragon. The din was terrific. The boys put their hands over their ears.

  But the doctor did not seem to mind. He focused his pyrometer on the crater floor. Its temperature was 2,500 degrees Centigrade. He made notes. Then he pointed to a patch of yellow and orange on the inside slope of the crater about fifty feet down. The noise slackened for a moment and he was able to say,

  ‘I’m going down to take a look at that.’

  He unslung the coil of line that he carried on his shoulder. Although small, light rope, it was nylon and very strong. He looped one end of the rope around him under his arms and gave the rest of the coil to the boys.
r />   ‘Just let me down easily,’ he said.

  He stepped over the edge and down the steep slope, the hot ashes sliding under his feet. The boys paid out the line. When he slipped they braced themselves and checked his fall.

  He reached the colourful deposit of minerals and studied it with his spectroscope. The boys held the line taut. Hal couldn’t help thinking, what would happen if a blob of sizzling lava should fall on the line and burn it in two?

  The doctor looked up and signalled that he was ready to come back. He scrambled up through the sliding ashes while the boys hauled in on the line.

  When he stood beside them again they were breathless from exertion and excitement, but he seemed quite unaffected by his descent into a blazing volcano.

  It was about a mile around the crater’s edge and finally they came near the spot from which they had started. They looked for the three Japanese but the smoke from the volcano now drifting around them cut down visibility.

  Suddenly, through the smoke two figures came running after them. They recognized Toguri and Machida. Both were greatly excited.

  ‘You come,’ Toguri called. ‘You come - quick - see.’ They turned and ran back into the smoke, Dr Dan and the boys following them. They stopped beside something blue that lay in a heap on the ground.

  Chapter 4

  The discouraged student

  It was a coat. The blue coat of a school uniform. Hal picked it up. He guessed at once what had happened.

  ‘Was Kobo in trouble?’ he asked Toguri. ‘He seemed very unhappy.’

  ‘Kobo take English examination,’ said Toguri. ‘He fail

  - no good.’

  Hal wondered how anybody could pass an English examination with such a teacher as Toguri.

  They all went to the edge of the crater and looked down. It was impossible to see anything, the smoke was in the way.

  ‘We go,’ Toguri said. ‘We go - tell his mother.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Dr Dan. ‘He may still be alive. I’ll go down and see.’

  The Japanese stared in disbelief.

  ‘Go in crater?’ exclaimed Toguri. ‘No can do.’

  ‘He may not have fallen all the way down. Perhaps he landed on a ledge.’ Dr Dan uncoiled his line and began to knot the end about him.

  Hal looked again into the pit. The sun was well up now and already very hot, but still it did not penetrate that pall of smoke. The thought of going blindly into that crater made Hal sweat. But if Kobo was down

  there, it was Hal’s fault - or so he felt. He blamed himself because he had not gone back to Kobo when he saw that something was wrong.

  ‘Give me that rope,’ he said to Dr Dan. ‘It’s my turn to go down.’

  The doctor protested. But when he saw that Hal was determined, he looped the rope about his chest.

  Hal wiped the sweat from his face. The heat from the crater with the heat from the sun made him a little sick. The gases from below smothered him.

  ‘Here we go!’ he said. ‘Hold tight!’

  He backed gingerly over the rim. At once he began to slip in the ashes, but the others braced themselves against the pull of the rope and held him up.

  He raised his eyes for the last time to the faces of his brother, the doctor, and the two Japanese, all at the rope. Would he ever see them again - these four?

  Four? There-seemed to be five. He counted again. The gases made his eyes smart and the smoke made it hard to see. But there were certainly five. Four at the rope, and one standing behind them looking over their shoulders, an expression of great curiosity on his face. The fifth man said in halting English,

  ‘What you do?’

  The four turned to face him. They were so startled that they almost dropped Hal into the crater. Hal scrambled up to safe ground.

  ‘Kobo!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re all right!’

  Kobo looked blank.

  ‘You had us worried,’ Dr Dan said. ‘We thought you were down there.’

  ‘Very sorry,’ Kobo struggled in English, and then explained in rapid Japanese to Toguri. Toguri passed on his explanation.

  ‘He say too hot here so he go back there - sit - think. He pretty sad.’

  ‘Why does it hit him so hard?’ Hal wanted to know. ‘In our country lots of boys fail and it doesn’t worry them too much. They just try again.’

  ‘Ah, you no understand,’ said Toguri, and he went on to tell Kobo’s story. Kobo’s father had died in the war. His mother and sister were working very hard to put Kobo through school. The least he could do was to succeed in his studies. When he failed he was very much ashamed. He had let his mother and sister down. All the neighbours would have contempt for him. He couldn’t bear to go home. He didn’t know what to do.

  Hal looked into the face of the young student. Something there appealed to him very strongly. This was a fine boy. He loved his mother and sister and felt deeply disgraced because he had not been able to do his part. He looked bright enough - he would probably pick up English very quickly if he were with people who spoke it well.

  Hal took the doctor and Roger aside.

  ‘Listen,’ he said: 1 have an idea. How long are we going to be in Japan?’

  ‘About a week,’ said Dr Dan.

  ‘That’s not very long. But still I think it might be enough. He’s eager to learn.’

  ‘What do you have on your mind?’

  ‘If we can take Kobo along with us and talk English with him sixteen hours a day every day, I believe we could teach him more in a week than Toguri could in a year. Then if the school could give him another chance at the examination, he ought to be able to pass it.’

  Dr Dan thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘You’re a good lad, Hal, and I think your plan might work. It all depends on whether the exam can be repeated. Let’s ask the teacher. Toguri-san, could you step over here for a moment?’

  Toguri, when told of the plan, was delighted. Yes, he was sure that the school would allow Kobo another examination. ‘School know I am very bad English teacher,’ he said humbly. 7 know I very bad English teacher. But school no can afford good English teacher. Englishman or American cost too much. We do best we can. One week with you - I think Kobo pass examination.’

  ‘How about Machida?’ Hal asked.

  ‘Oh, Machida science student. He no study English.’

  They went back to Kobo and Toguri told him of Hal’s plan. Kobo could not believe it. Why should strangers and foreigners do this for him? He stood looking at Hal and his thanks were in his eyes but he could not think of the right words. Two large tears ran down his cheeks. He smiled through his tears and managed to say:

  ‘I very thank.’

  ‘He go home with me,’ said Toguri, ‘tell his mother -then come meet you in Tokyo. Yes?’

  It was so agreed.

  ‘Now that that’s settled,’ said Dr Dan, ‘let’s get out of here. I don’t trust this volcano. It’s been too quiet for the last half-hour. I think it’s getting ready to give us a bath of hot lava!’

  They started down the mountain, but by a different route, because Dr Dan wanted to visit the place where lava had buried forty-eight villages.

  As they went, the volcano god began to roar again as if angry that these six juicy morsels of food were escaping him. The doctor stopped every once in a while to plunge the spike of his thermometer into a bed of hot ashes. The top layer was only uncomfortably warm, but three inches below the surface the bed was twice boiling hot.

  ‘We could fry eggs here,’ said the doctor, ‘if we had any to fry.’

  Which reminded them that they were hungry again and they stopped to consume the rest of the chocolate bars, rice, and fish. While having their lunch they did not sit down, nor even stand, but kept dancing about so that their feet would not be burned.

  Then the doctor hurried them on. The growls of Asama were growing louder.

  Chapter 5

  The strong man

  Although down hill, it was hard going. The heat beat down from the
sun and up from the ground. It was necessary to climb over large blocks of lava. Most of them were solid and probably weighed many tons, but Roger was astonished when he bumped against one as big as a horse and it moved. It seemed to be riddled with small holes like a honeycomb.

  A mischievous idea came into Roger’s head. He liked to play tricks upon his older brother who was so much stronger and wiser than he.

  They stopped to rest for a moment. Roger said,

  ‘Hal, are you all right?’

  Hal stared. ‘What do you mean - all right?’

  ‘Aren’t you sick or something?’

  ‘Of course not. Why?’

  ‘Well, you just look so pale and weak. I’m afraid this trip has been too much for your delicate constitution. You look tired out.’

  ‘Me tired? You’re crazy. If anybody gets tired it will be you, you little shrimp. We’ll probably have to carry you home on a stretcher.’

  ‘Well,’ said Roger, ‘we can easily find out who’s tired.

  How big a rock can you pick up and throw down the hill?’

  Hal looked about him. He selected a lava block as big as his head. He got his hands under it, hoisted it with some difficulty, and threw it down the slope.

  There,’ he said. ‘If you can lift anything half as big as that I’ll crown you king of the May.’

  ‘I think I’ll try this one,’ Roger said, and put his arms around the block as big as a horse.

  Hal was much amused. ‘Don’t make me laugh, kid. You couldn’t even budge that, let alone lift it.’

  Roger braced his back, tensed his sturdy young muscles and straightened up with the great block in his arms. Then he threw it down the mountainside.

  Hal was speechless. He stared at Roger, then at Dr Dan who was laughing.

  ‘Impossible,’ muttered Hal. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘A very good demonstration, Roger,’ Dr Dan said, still laughing. ‘Let’s go down and take a look at that boulder.’

  When they reached it, Dr Dan put his hand on it and rocked it back and forth as easily as if he had been rocking a cradle. It was as light as if it had been made of paper instead of stone.