04 Volcano Adventure (8 page)

Dr Dan came running up the companionway to the deck.

‘Captain! Crowd on every inch of sail. Use the auxiliary too.’

‘What’s the rush?’

‘I’ve just had a radio call from the Hydrographic Office. They report an eruption about two hundred miles south.’

Captain Ike called to Omo to loose the staysails and start the engine.

‘What course?’ he asked Dr Dan.

‘Set your course for Myojin Island.’

Captain Ike scanned his chart.

‘There’s no such place. It says here Myojin sank out of sight forty years ago.’

‘She’s just popped up again.’

Hal and Roger, who had been loafing on the deck, suddenly came to life. ‘Are we going to see a big eruption?’ inquired Roger. ‘According to the seismographs it’s so big that if it exploded in the middle of New York, there would be no New York.’ ‘Who reported it to Tokyo?’ Hal asked. ‘The captain of a fishing schooner. His ship was nearly buried under ashes. He escaped just in time.’ ‘Did they tell you anything more?’ ‘They’re sending their own exploration ship to have a look at it. Her name is the Kaiyo Maru. She’s already on the way with nine scientists and a crew of twenty-two. If we’re lucky we may catch up with her.’ ‘Did you say that the volcano is making an island?’ ‘Yes. There used to be an island there years ago, then it disappeared. Now a new island is being thrown up.’

‘Isn’t that unusual - for a submarine volcano to make an island?’

‘Not at all. Most of the islands in the Pacific were thrown up by submarine volcanoes. Even the coral islands rest on the rims of old volcanoes.’

‘And new ones are coming up all the time?’

‘Exactly. There are more than twenty islands in the Pacific now that did not exist fifty years ago. The Pacific, you know, is the most volcanic part of the globe. There are about three hundred active volcanoes in the world, and seven-eighths of them are in or around the Pacific.

Probably there are a great many volcanoes beneath the sea that we don’t know about and every now and then one of them tosses up an island. Sometimes the island doesn’t last. It may disappear again.’

‘What makes it disappear?’

‘It may be made up mostly of volcanic ash, and in that case the waves will gradually wash it away. If it is made of solid lava it is more likely to stay. But even a solid island isn’t safe if there’s a volcano under it. The terrific forces in the volcano may push the island higher, or they may shrink and let the island drop beneath the waves.’

Dr Dan picked up the binoculars and scanned the horizon ahead.

‘I see it!’ he exclaimed. ‘The column of smoke.’

Roger grinned. ‘I think you’re kidding us, Dr Dan. You said it was two hundred miles away. Nobody can see two hundred miles.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. You can see a million miles.’

‘A million miles!’

‘Of course. How about the sun and the stars? They are millions of miles away but you can see them very plainly.’

That gave Roger something to think about.

‘Now I suppose you’ll be asking me another question,’ said Dr Dan. ‘If we can see the smoke two hundred miles away, why can’t we see the Kaiyo Maru which is fifty miles or so ahead of us?’

‘Oh, I know the answer to that one,’ said Roger. The ship is too low - the curve of the earth hides it. The smoke cloud is very high.’

‘Right. At least two miles high.’

‘When do we get there?’

‘Perhaps early tomorrow morning. What speed are we making, Captain?’ ‘Seventeen knots.’

‘A wonderful little ship!’ said Dr Dan. The Lively Lady trembled as if with pleasure at this compliment. She vibrated like a harp with the pull of the wind on the sails. She flew over the waves like a flying fish.

She was no ordinary fishing schooner. She did not carry the usual gaff mainsail. She was equipped with the fastest sail in the world, the triangular Marconi. There was no foresail. Instead, between the two masts, billowed two great staysails. A big jibsail bulged over her bow. She was built for speed and had won several cup races.

They overhauled the Kaiyo Maru just before dark. The steam-driven vessel was plodding along at about ten knots. The Lively Lady skimmed past her like a bird. The boys were very proud of their swift ship.

True, if the wind failed she would stand still, while the steamer would keep plodding along. But with the right wind the sailing ship was hard to beat.

Passing close to the other ship, the boys lined the rail and waved. At the rail of the steamer stood the nine scientists and some of the crew. Compared with the Lively Lady, the steamer seemed so slow that Roger couldn’t help calling, ‘Get a horse!’

If he had known that every man on that ship would be drowned before another day passed he would not have felt like joking. The Japanese at the steamer’s rail grinned back and

shouted admiring comments on the appearance of the Lively Lady and its speed. Then their ship was left behind and the growing darkness slowly blotted it out.

‘We’ll be the first to get there!’ exulted Roger.

There was little sleeping done that night. Every hour or so the boys came on deck to look ahead to the pillar of cloud and fire.

As they drew nearer it seemed to grow larger and taller. It threw out arms and the top was shaped like a head, so that you could imagine it was a great giant breathing fire and fumes and getting ready to pounce upon the little sailing ship. The Lively Lady seemed very much alone now in this great black sea with the evil giant as high as the sky looming over it.

Roger was no longer sure that he wanted to get there first. He wished now that the Lively Lady had slowed down so that they might have had the other ship for company.

Blinding flashes of lightning ripped through the cloud and shot down into the sea. Suppose one of them should strike the Lively Lady! Thunder came in sudden smacks and whacks as if a dozen giants were clapping their hands. Along with this come-and-go thunder, caused by electrical discharges in the cloud, there was the steady thunder of the submarine volcano itself as it sent millions of tons of boiling lava and white-hot rocks spurting up into the sky.

‘How deep is that volcano under the sea?’ Roger asked Dr Dan.

‘We don’t know yet. From the way it’s behaving, I’d guess it to be perhaps three hundred feet down.’

‘So all that hot stuff has to shoot up through water three hundred feet deep?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why doesn’t the water put out the fire?’ Roger grinned to himself. Now he thought he had asked one the doctor couldn’t answer.

‘That’s a good question,’ Dr Dan said. ‘Ordinarily water does put out fire. And it doesn’t take three hundred feet of water either. Just a spray of water may put out the fire in a burning house. But that’s because the fire isn’t very hot. It’s hot enough to burn wood, yes, but not hot enough to turn metal into liquid. The heat in the earth is at least ten times as great. It turns solid rock into liquid. When that blazing liquid shoots up through the water it changes every drop of water it touches into steam. So you see, instead of the water cooling the fire, the fire boils the water. Most of that great cloud is steam.’

A zigzag dagger of lightning split the sky and struck the water within a few hundred yards of the Lively Lady.

‘I think we’re close enough,’ suggested Captain Ike. ‘How about heaving to until daylight?’ Dr Dan agreed.

The Lively Lady came up into the wind. The staysails and jib were lowered and the mainsail flapped idly.

It was a terrible two hours until daylight, the roaring and gigantic bubbling of the submarine volcano and the crash of thunder in the towering cloud made sleep impossible. The flashes of lightning in the cloud were like sudden fireworks. For an instant they lit up the sea for

miles. Then the sea went black again. But the two-mile-high column always glowed with the light given off by the streams of white-hot lava shooting up into it.

The Lively Lady was no longer moving forward, but she was not lying still.’ She hopped and leaped like a frightened deer. Every explosion of the volcano sent tidal waves rushing over the sea. They picked up the ship and tossed it into the air, then let it fall deep into a trough. They collided with the ocean’s own waves and sent up great jets of spray.

Crash! The Worst explosion yet shook the sea.

‘I’m afraid that will start a big roller,’ said Dr Dan. ‘Better lash yourselves to the rail or the rigging.’

They made themselves fast and waited. Several minutes passed.

‘Guess it was a false alarm,’ said Hal.

‘Don’t be too sure. It takes a little time for it to get here.’

‘Look!’ cried Roger. ‘What’s that coming?’

It was like a moving wall. It towered black against the column of fire. It seemed as high as the masts. It was bending over the ship.

The men curled themselves into balls to withstand the shock. The wall of water broke over them. Hal’s lashings were torn apart and he was swept across the deck to the rail. There he clung desperately. The ship lay over on her beam ends. Would she completely turn turtle?

She would not. The brave little ship righted herself and the water drained away from her deck.

‘Boy, was that hot!’ cried Roger, when he could get his breath. ‘I feel like a boiled eel.’

He got no answer through the dark from his brother. He called anxiously.

‘Hal, are you there?’

Hal, who had been bruised when flung against the gunwales, replied rather weakly, ‘Yes, I’m here. But I came near leaving you for good.’

‘Tie up again,’ warned Dr Dan. ‘There’s more to come.’

The following waves were smaller but just as hot. They scalded the skin and made the men choke and gasp for breath.

Then something solid struck Roger in the face. He grabbed it. It-lay limp in his hands.

‘Now they’re throwing fishes at us,’ he called.

‘Yes,’ answered Dr Dan. ‘I’ve had several of them. Hang on to them. We’ll cook them for breakfast.’

‘But why are they coming aboard?’

‘They’re paralysed by the heat. It makes them float to the surface. This would be a wonderful place for a fleet of fishing schooners just now. They could get thousands of tons of fish with no trouble at all. Do you hear the birds?’

The air was full of the scream of gulls and terns as they wheeled about over the dark waters.

‘They’ve come to pick up the fish. But it’s a dangerous place for birds, too. I think they are going to be sorry that they were so greedy.’

The sky was turning from black to blue. As the dawn came a strange scene was revealed to the men on the Lively Lady. The giant of steam, gas, smoke and flying lava towered to the sky. It was made up of rolling billows and puffy pillows like a thunder cloud, but whoever saw a thunder cloud standing on the water and rising two miles high? Its hair was braided with snaky shafts of lightning and thunder rolled down its sides.

The sea was not made of waves as the sea should be. It was humping and jumping, sending up hills of water with sharp peaks. Steam drifted from the peaks. The whole sea was bubbling with the escape of gases-from beneath. Geysers of gas and steam shot up here and there.

Not far away a big whirlpool swept round and round. A wall of water circled it and at its centre was a deep hole. If a ship as small as the Lively Lady got caught in that whirl it would go straight down to Davy Jones’ Locker.

‘I never saw so many fish in my life,’ exclaimed Roger. On every side were the upturned white bellies of fish that had given up their fight for life in the scalding water. Most of them were small, a foot or two in length.

‘The small ones feel it first,’ said Dr Dan. ‘The big fellows can stand it a while longer. There’s one now.’

A great shark that must have been twenty feet long raced through the water gulping down dozens of fish. Presently the boys sighted another shark, and then another. Their huge jaws opened and their teeth as big as spearheads crunched a dozen fish, at a time. Blood stained the water, attracting more sharks.

‘I hope we don’t get dumped into that sea,’ said Hal fervently. ‘I’m willing to let the sharks have It all to themselves.’

But the sharks were not left to enjoy their breakfast alone. Thousands of birds sought to seize the fish before the sharks could get them. Petrels, terns, gannets, gulls, kittiwakes, wheeled and screamed and boldly plucked their breakfast, even from the open jaws of sharks. They were all wildly excited.

Very calm by contrast was a great albatross with a wing span of seven feet that glided smoothly down, plucked up a fish in its great curved beak, and soared up again without bothering to flap its wings. The smaller birds scattered quickly out of its way. ‘And what’s that big black one?’ Roger asked. ‘A man-of-war bird,’ said Dr Dan. ‘Isn’t he a whopper? He must be ten feet across. See what he’s doing!’

The man-of-war bird did not bother to go to the sea for his breakfast. He snatched it from the beaks of the smaller birds. He went around like a tax collector demanding payment from every bird that came near him with a fish in its mouth. The gulls scolded and the petrels whined, but it did no good.

One saucy tern hung on to its fish tightly when the man-of-war tried to tear it from its beak. The big bird had an answer for that one and calmly gulped down both the fish and the tern.

The man-of-war had another strange trick. He seized a gannet that had already swallowed its fish and squeezed the smaller bird so hard that the fish popped out. Then he made a swift lunge and caught the fish before it reached the water. Then with a flirt of his tail he pursued a petrel. But it

was a thin petrel and the big bird evidently decided that it contained no fish; he turned away and chased a plump kittiwake, caught and squeezed it, and got another fish.

‘How mean can you get!’ said Roger.

The sun came up like a red ball of fire in the smoky sky. Dr Dan was using his binoculars.

‘The Kaiyo Maru!’ he said.

Within an hour the Japanese ship had arrived. She did not draw close to the Lively Lady, for the tossing sea might have crashed the two ships together. But there were friendly waves and shouts between the two vessels, then the Kaiyo Maru steamed closer to the eruption.