03 Underwater Adventure (19 page)

Presently one of the giant combers rushed in to hurl three more colossal rocks against the face of the cliff.

But where did they come from? There had been no such boulders in the bay. They must come from the open sea. Then he remembered the labyrinth of rocks near the wreck of the Santa Cruz.

Terrific forces were at work in those depths, violent undertows and upwellings that rolled the rocks towards shore until they came into water shallow enough for the combers to get a grip on them and carry them to the cliff.

He had a moment’s dread that the same thing would happen to the wreck of the Santa Cruz. It might be torn loose, broken to bits, and all its treasures scattered. But he realized that this was not likely to happen. The wreck was so deeply buried in sand that the typhoons of three hundred years had failed to budge it.

Roger, lying beside him, his face stung with shafts of spray, was staring fixedly out to sea. Hal followed his gaze and saw something that made his heart sink. It came surging towards the bay in the grip of a giant comber. The Santa Cruz had been ripped from the sea bottom after all and was being carried to destruction.

No, it was not the Santa Cruz. It was black like one of the great boulders, but it was not a boulder. Then Roger screamed into his ear. ‘The submarine!’ It was the submarine. The angry upwelling sea had thrown it up in spite of all its efforts to stay deep and safe. The god of the sea was about to deliver the three criminals to a terrible justice. The submarine looked like a black bubble, so lightly was it carried in the claws of the great wave.

In through the mouth of the bay it was swept and over the scene of the scientist’s tragic death. The comber seemed to lift it with mighty arms as the shallows forced the wave higher. The black bubble spun dizzily round and round. The terror of the three men inside of it must be beyond all imagining.

Then it struck. It shook the precipice and parts of the rock face fell away. The black thing exploded like a bomb. Steel fragments flew in all directions, some barely missing the faces of the two horror-stricken boys who looked down over the edge of the cliff. The bodies of men were seen indistinctly through the spray as they were tossed in high arcs and fell back into the boiling sea.

Then came the tremendous backwash with a sound like a profound sigh as if the sea was deeply satisfied with what it had done.

Skink, who had thought it smart to make Nature do his dirty work for him, whether by serpent, scorpion, stonefish or giant clam, who had contrived Blake’s death without laying a hand on him, who had left two victims bound and gagged at the mercy of the typhoon while he and his pals sought safety in the arms of the ocean -Skink had now been outsmarted by Nature herself.

Hal could not be happy about it. His head ached and he noticed that his brother’s face was as green as turtle soup. Another earthquake shook the island and parts of the precipice fell away. The boys warily retreated to a safer position.

The great combers were fewer now and less violent. The wind was no longer a solid wall. It had begun to flutter and veer, as if uncertain what to do next.

For an hour it grew more and more nervous, then suddenly shot away, leaving a dead calm behind it.

It could be heard in the distance, scurrying off in search of new lands to lay waste. The waters still dashed below but they no longer had push and purpose.

The spray cleared and the island could be seen in all its bleak desolation. It had been chewed down to a third of its former size. If the typhoon had continued a day longer the island must have disappeared completely.

Remaining were two hills and a low stretch covered with a dozen feet of water through which projected hundreds of broken stumps. Nowhere was there one whole tree. Boulders as big as cottages lined the windward shore.

By afternoon the waves had gone down and the water that flooded the lowlands was subsiding. And there, coming across the island, was a boat!

It was the dinghy of the Lively Lady and there were two figures in it. Hal and Roger shouted for joy and waved and got an answering signal.

It was a wonderful reunion as the dinghy pulled through between two tree stumps and beached on the slope of the hill.

‘And how’s the Lively Lady?’ Hal asked.

‘Pretty well smashed up,’ Captain Ike answered, ‘but she can be fixed.’

‘Our sea serpent and electric ray and moray and the rest - are they safe?’

‘They should be all right. When the blow started I filled the tanks to the brim, then sealed them shut so there would be no sloshing. I don’t suppose the specimens in those tanks got as much of a beating as we got outside.’

It must have been pretty rough, going up that grade.’ Hal laughed at the sight of the schooner perched on top of the hill sixty feet above the lagoon. ‘Just like the Ark of Mount Ararat,’ he said.

The birds had all been blown away, but now one appeared in the distance. ‘A big one,’ Roger said. ‘It must be a frigate bird.’

Captain Ike squinted hard. ‘Better than that,’ he said. ‘It’s a helicopter from the naval base.’

The plane circled the schooner on the hilltop, then crossed to the other hill and settled within a few feet of the marooned sailors. The pilot called down:

‘Any passengers for Truk? Or do you like it here?’

They climbed up in a hurry as if afraid he would change his mind. The plane winged away to the north.

‘We wondered how you were coming through the blow,’ the pilot shouted over the roar of the engine. Thought we’d better come and see if there was anything left of you. But weren’t there two more? Where are they?’

Hal told the story of Dr Blake and Skink, and told it again to the commanding officer at the base. Then came hot food, plenty of it, and clean sheets, and hard-earned sleep.

The rest of the story is quickly told.

With equipment borrowed from the naval base, the ‘Ark’ was brought down from its Ararat, towed to Truk and there reconditioned.

The cache of treasure on the island was discovered under a mat of brush and debris, and the operations of salvaging the cargo of the Santa Cruz continued until it had all been transferred to the Lively Lady, carried to Truk, and there loaded on a cargo vessel bound for San Francisco. On the same ship, in specially built tanks, went the valuable specimens of deep-sea life.

The map of many island groups had been suddenly changed. The typhoon had wiped out dozens of small islands, and volcanic disturbances had thrown up islands where none had existed before. Several active volcanoes had poked their noses out of the sea and were spouting ashes and white-hot lava.

Earthquakes continued to be reported throughout the western Pacific, and volcanoes in Japan, Hawaii, the Philippines and Indonesia blazed into activity.

A volcanologist from the American Museum of Natural History, hearing that the Oceanographic Institute no longer needed the services of the Lively Lady, flew to Truk. He boarded the schooner.

‘It’s a fine ship.’ he told Hal and Captain Ike. ‘Just what we need. I want to visit some of these brand-new islands that are exploding to the surface - and the volcanoes. This whole end of the Pacific seems to be blowing up. Something very unusual is happening; we want to find out what. How about it - is your ship available?’

Captain Ike squinted about at Hal, Roger and Omo. They looked very unhappy. Captain Ike knew what that meant.

‘I suppose so,’ he said slowly, ‘though we’d be mighty sorry to part with her.’

‘Part with her!’ exclaimed the visitor. ‘Nothing was farther from my thought. I’ve had the finest reports about you from the Institute. I want every one of you to come with me. I couldn’t ask for better assistants.’

Everyone brightened as if by magic. Hal spoke for them. ‘That sounds good to us.’

The scientist raised a warning hand. ‘Don’t decide too quickly. It’s dangerous business - going down at the end of a rope into an erupting crater.’

‘If it’s all right with you,’ Hal said, looking about at his companions who were nodding in vigorous agreement, ‘it’s all right with us.’