04 Volcano Adventure

by Willard Price

  ‘What happened to Dr Dan?’ cried Omo as he hauled the limp form of the doctor into the boat. The others climbed in and they set out for the ship.

  ‘He went drunk,’ said Hal. ‘Then he lost his air.’

  In a few moments the doctor was on the ship’s deck and was being manipulated to get the sea water out of him. After this was done, he lay unconscious for a good five minutes.

  ‘He’ll come out of it,’ Hal said. ‘His pulse is all right.’

  At last the doctor’s eyes fluttered open and he looked lazily about. He pressed his hand against his temple. So he lay for several minutes, resting. Then he smiled at Hal, a rather bitter smile.

  ‘Well, my boy, you see I didn’t get the bends after all.’

  The bends?’ said Hal. ‘I said you might get drunkenness of the deeps.’

  ‘Oh, is that something different?’

  ‘Quite different.’

  ‘Very well, then, I didn’t get your drunkenness of the deeps.’

  Evidently the doctor remembered nothing of what had happened during the last dreadful half hour.

  ‘That was an interesting village,’ he said. So he did remember the village.

  ‘And an interesting shark,’ put in Roger.

  Dr Dan looked up at him inquiringly. ‘There were no sharks, Roger. Perhaps you mistook some shadows for sharks.’

  ‘There were sharks, Dr Dan,’ Hal said. ‘And you had a run-in with them. But you didn’t know about it. You were drunk.’

  Dr Dan looked at him a long time without answering. Then he sat up and began to unstrap the fins from his feet.

  ‘Hal,’ he said slowly, ‘I don’t know what your game is. Whatever it is. I don’t like it. I thought you were a good sort. It seems I made a mistake.’

  Roger came to his brother’s defence. ‘There really was a shark, Dr Dan.’

  ‘I saw it, too,’ Omo said.

  Dr Dan looked up with a bitter smile. ‘So you are all in the plot against me. That amounts to mutiny, doesn’t it? Well, you won’t get away with it. I may have to put up with you until we reach Hawaii - then what a pleasure it will be to get rid of you and your ship.’

  Chapter 12

  The eruption of Tin Can

  The news came crackling over the air:

  ‘Eruption at Niuafou.’

  The Lively Lady trimmed her sails for Niuafou.

  ‘Sailors call it Tin Can Island,’ Captain Ike told the boys.

  ‘Because the people get their food in tin cans?’ guessed Roger.

  ‘As a matter of fact, the people live on coconuts and fish. No, there’s a stranger reason than that for calling it Tin Can Island. Ships carrying mail don’t bother to go inshore. Natives swim out to get the mail. The ship’s carpenter seals up all the mail in large biscuit this. When these are thrown overboard they float because of the air in them and the swimmers push them ashore. Now they sometimes come out in a canoe because a shark got one of their swimmers.’

  ‘I think I have some stamps from Tin Can Island in my stamp collection,’ said Roger.

  ‘Yes, stamp collectors are pretty keen to get them.

  They’d better get them while they can. Some day that old volcano is going to blow Tin Can Island right off the map.’

  It was only two hundred miles from Jack-in-the-Box to Tin Can, less than a day’s run for the Lively Lady.

  The first thing to be seen was a pillar of smoke. Gradually the island beneath it came into view.

  ‘I’ve been looking it up in my geology manual,’ Dr Dan told Captain Ike, as the boys listened in. ‘This island is really one big volcano. It stands on the bottom of the ocean six thousand feet down. That means that the volcano is more than a mile high, but only the rim of the crater projects above the surface. Inside the crater is a lake three miles wide. There’s supposed to be a break in the rim - if we can find it, we can sail into the lake. Let’s try it.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound too good to me,’ said Captain Ike doubtfully. ‘Don’t like the idea of sailing my ship straight into an exploding crater.’

  ‘The lake isn’t exploding. The eruption is coming from vents in the rim.’

  ‘But the lake could blow up any time couldn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it could. We have to take that chance. We’re here to study this thing, and how are we going to study it unless we get close to it?’

  Captain Ike grumbled and chewed on the stem of his pipe. The boys had gone up to the crow’s-nest to get a better look at the strange crater-island.

  Captain Ike lowered his voice. ‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you, Dan Adams. If you know what’s good for you, don’t get yourself into tight spots. It makes your nerves go haywire.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ exploded Dr Dan. ‘The boys have been filling your ears with wild stories. I must say I’m disappointed in those boys. They are tricky and under-handed, and the older one seems to have some idea of discrediting me so that I will be fired and he will get my job.’

  ‘Now be reasonable, Doc. How could he get your job knowing so little about volcanoes?’

  ‘That’s just the point,’ said Dr Dan. ‘He doesn’t know so little. He’s seen quite a number of volcanoes by this time and he’s been studying every book I have on board. I hate to give him credit for it but he has a sharp mind-he learns fast.’

  ‘So you’re afraid of him,’ Captain Ike taunted. ‘A boy not yet out of his teens!’

  Dr Dan bristled. ‘I’m not afraid of anybody. But I don’t trust him, nor his brother, nor that Omo.’ ‘Do you trust me?’

  Dr Dan shifted uneasily. ‘You talk like the rest of them.’

  Captain Ike chuckled. ‘Put your mind at rest,’ he said. ‘Nobody wants to do you in. You’ve got the boys all wrong. I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you they saved your life when you went balmy during that dive.’

  Dr Dan’s cheeks paled and his eyes fixed upon Captain Ike grew hard and bright. ‘That’s their story,’ he said. ‘You weren’t down there to see for yourself, were you? Yet you take the word of a couple of schoolboys against mine.’

  Captain Ike could see that the doctor was getting dangerously angry.

  ‘Skip it.’ he said. ‘Forget it. Where did you say that channel was?’

  ‘Somewhere on this side. Probably over there at that low point.’

  The doctor’s guess proved to be correct. As they came closer, they could see the pass into the lake. It was a very narrow pass, not more than thirty feet wide, but the Lively Lady easily slipped through. Then the little ship found herself, for the first time in her life, actually inside a volcano.

  All around rose the crater wall. In most places it was about six hundred feet high but on the northern side reached almost a thousand.

  The boys had seen something like it before. It reminded them of Crater Lake in Oregon. There, too, a crater was filled with water, but it was a dead crater.

  This was a live one. Only a few jets of steam rose from the lake itself. But on the western shore a row of small craters like chimneys sent up clouds of smoke and steam. They were the children of the great crater. Dr Dan counted them.

  ‘Thirty craters in action,’ he said.

  That part of the rim was very savage and terrible. But the rest of the circular island was beautiful. It was heavily wooded with mangoes, coconuts, ironwood, pandanus, and other tropical trees and shrubs. Peeping from the trees were native villages. The boys counted nine of them.

  ‘It gets me,’ said Captain Ike. ‘All these people -living on the edge of a volcano.’

  ‘Thirteen hundred people live here,’ Dr Dan answered. ‘There have been five bad eruptions in the last century -still they hang on. Not that I blame them much.’ He looked about at the beautiful groves of trees and the cosy villages on top of the crater wall. ‘A nice place to live - so long as it doesn’t blow up.’

  Only one man on board had been here before. That was the brown young sailor, Omo, who had been born in the South S
eas and lived there all his life. He had once visited Tin Can in a trading schooner.

  He pointed to a village perched on the highest point or the north rim. ‘That’s the village of Angaha,’ he said. ‘The high chief of that village rules the whole island. Once some of his people rebelled and went to the south rim and built their own village. They refused to pay taxes to the high chief. Their headman declared he would rather have his village destroyed by the gods than pay taxes to the high chief. He had hardly said these words before the ground opened up under his own house and hot lava began to spurt out. It killed him and burned his house and flowed out through the village. It burned every house to the ground and killed sixty people.’

  ‘And that was blamed on the gods,’ Hal said.

  ‘Yes. The gods get blamed for everything bad and thanked for everything good that happens. You see, the people don’t understand the scientific reasons for these things. For instance, when there’s an earthquake, they think it’s caused by their god Maui. He is supposed to be sleeping far down in the earth and when he rolls over, that makes an earthquake.’

  ‘He’s rolling over now,’ said Hal, as a violent shiver ran through the lake, making the Lively Lady dance. Landslides of rock and ash slid down the crater walls and splashed into the lake. Screams could be heard from the shore and Captain Ike, who was using the binoculars, reported, ‘That tumbled down several houses. The people are running around like frightened ants.’

  ‘I’m afraid they’re in for a bad time,’ Dr Dan said. ‘Thirty craters all going at once can make a lot of trouble.’

  Ashes and cinders were raining down upon the deck. Now and then a larger chunk arrived. Hal picked one up - it was not very hot and it was extremely light.

  ‘It’s pumice,’ he said. ‘Just like that big rock we found on Mt Asama.’

  He tossed it into the water and it floated. Patches of pumice like little yellow islands bounced up and down on the ripples.

  Another object struck the deck with a loud thud. Roger went to pick it up.

  ‘Don’t,’warned Hal. ‘It’s hot!’

  ‘But the one you picked up wasn’t hot.’

  ‘I know, but it was pumice, full of air holes. That’s one of the blocks - I’ve been reading about them. And that’s a bomb,’ he added as something burst with a loud report only ten feet above their heads and the fragments fell about them.

  ‘Well, what’s the difference between a block and a bomb?’

  ‘A block is a piece of solid rock. A bomb is a block that is hollow inside and filled with gas. The gas explodes and blows the rock to bits.’

  The god Maui rolled over again in his sleep. Avalanches thundered down into the lake. In the village of Angaha a stone church on the heights suddenly swayed, then dissolved, and fell flat. Showers of bombs were exploding over the houses, setting many of them on fire. The people were in a panic. Where could they go to escape the thirty monsters?

  They ought to be evacuated,’ said Dr Dan. ‘But it would take a bigger ship than ours to carry them off. We’d better send for help.’

  He went below and dispatched a message summoning any ships within call to come at once to remove the inhabitants of Tin Can Island.

  He got only one response. It was from a steamer by the name of Matua. Its captain reported that his ship’s position was nearly two hundred miles from Tin Can and he could not promise to arrive before morning.

  Blasts of fire shot up from the craters. At the same instant another violent earthquake shook the island and a great section of the ridge broke away and fell into the lake.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Captain Ike. ‘Like it or not. I’m taking the Lady out of this hell-hole.’ He gave orders to Omo and the ship was smartly brought about and headed for the pass.

  An unhappy surprise awaited the little ship. She arrived at the rim only to find that there was no pass. The earthquakes had tumbled millions of tons of rock down into the thirty-foot channel, filling it completely from one side to the other. Where there had been clear water there was now a wall of rock twenty feet high.

  Chapter 13

  The ship in the volcano

  ‘Now you’ve done it,’ stormed Captain Ike, venting his anger on Dr Dan. ‘Got us trapped in a live volcano. What’ll you do about that?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ admitted Dr Dan. ‘We probably can’t do anything until morning. Then perhaps we can land and cross the island and escape on the Matua.’

  ‘And leave the Lively Lady here?’ exclaimed Captain Ike. ‘Not on your life! I’m not going to abandon this ship to be burned and sunk. If she stays, I stay. You got her in here - you’d better stir your volcanic brains to get her out of here because I’m not leaving until she does.’

  The Lively Lady put about and sailed to the side of the lake farthest away from the thirty craters. Even here the shower of ashes, cinders, blocks and bombs was continuous and dangerous.

  Terrified natives on top of the ridge signalled to the ship, but there was nothing the Lively Lady could do for them. Conversation was impossible at such a distance and the cliff was too steep at this point for anyone to climb up or down.

  Every moment more houses burst into flame. Their thatch roofs and basket-like walls made them burn as easily as paper.

  The sails of the Lively Lady were tight-furled and hoses were kept busy sprinkling her down and putting out the small fires that repeatedly burst forth in spite of all that could be done.

  So far the great crater in which lay the lake had appeared to be dead, except for a few spurts of steam here and there. But now it began to show signs of fiery life. Three small islands in the lake, each with its own little crater, began to grumble and smoke.

  They were little craters in comparison with the chief crater three miles wide, but Hal estimated that even the smallest of them was a thousand feet across. Soon the three island craters were bellowing like bulls and throwing up blazing volleys of blocks and bombs. The bombs exploded like cannon.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Roger said, ‘and you’d think it was a naval battle.’

  ‘But you’d better not close your eyes,’ said Hal, ‘or you’ll get a whack on the head.’

  It was necessary to keep constant watch above to avoid the falling rocks. They could be seen long before they arrived. It was fairly easy to step out of their way at the last moment and let them whang into the deck.

  Easy, unless they came a dozen or more close together and you couldn’t get out of the way of one without getting into the way of another.

  As night came on they glowed in the darkness and looked like fireballs dropping out of the sky. Hundreds of the bombs exploded in mid-air, flinging red-hot slivers

  in all directions. It was like a grand display of fireworks.

  ‘Remember the fireworks we saw at the New York State Fair?’ Roger said. ‘It cost them two million dollars. And we get this for nothing.’

  Hal laughed. ‘Just born lucky, I guess,’ and he jumped to dodge another block.

  ‘You fellows had better get below,’ said Captain Ike

  briskly as he passed with a bucket of water to put out a

  fire.

  The boys seized the deck hose and helped him. When the blaze was out Hal said:

  ‘You need us up here. Besides, we wouldn’t want to miss the fun.’

  Captain Ike growled. ‘What fools you young-uns can be! So this is fun! When you get as old as me and have a ship to look after you won’t think it’s fun to get caught in a blowing-up volcano.’

  ‘Guess you’re right,’ said Hal and began industriously hosing off the heavy load of ashes that lay on the deck.

  Roger seized a shovel and went about looking for heavy chunks. While he searched, he kept the shovel over his head like a steel helmet - blocks whanged down upon it and bounded away. When he found blocks, bombs, pumice stones, or pasty-blobs of hot lava, he shovelled them off into the water. Where he saw fire starting he called his brother, and Hal came running with th
e hose.

  So they kept working feverishly for two hours to save the ship. Then they breathed more easily as the three island craters quietened and the shower of fire ceased. They began to hope that the eruption was dying down.

  But old Tin Can was only drawing in his breath and getting ready to burst out with a new performance. The god of the underworld had failed to wipe out these human ants with one trick, so he would try another.

  With a deafening roar the cliff above their heads split open and a jet of flame shot out. With it came strange greenish clouds that rolled and tumbled and then sank towards the ship.

  ‘Gas,’ said Dr Dan. | wonder what kinds.’

  He began sniffing as eagerly as if he were smelling a fragrant rose. The gases had a very bad smell.

  ‘Sulphur dioxide, ammonia, azote…’ Dr Dan named them off. ‘But the worst are the ones you can’t see or smell - carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.’

  Everyone began to cough and choke. Soon they were gasping like fish out of water. It seemed to Hal as if a heavy blanket had been laid over his nose and mouth. He was suffocating.

  At the same time a drowsy laziness was stealing through him. All he wanted to do was to lie down and sleep. It no longer seemed important to save the ship or to save himself. Nothing mattered any more.

  He roused himself fiercely. He knew what was happening - the carbon gases were getting them down. But how could they escape them?

  ‘Let’s sail out into the lake,’ he suggested. ‘Perhaps it won’t be so bad out there.’

  There’s no wind,’ objected Captain Ike. ‘But I can use the engine/

  ‘Don’t do that!’ yelled Dr Dan, but he was too late. Omo, who was as quick as a cat, had already jumped to

  the motor and pressed the starter. At once there was a deafening explosion and a blaze of flame and Omo was thrown ten feet across the deck. The motor conked out.

  ‘Lucky that was just a small pocket of gas,’ said Dr Dan. ‘If it had been a big one it would have taken all of us and the ship too. Some of these gases are highly explosive. We can’t use the motor.’