04 Volcano Adventure (7 page)

Then came Thunder Hell. This was a noisy one. It growled, grumbled, hissed and screamed. Sometimes in the past it had overflowed to bury people and houses under a scalding flood. To prevent it from doing this again, the Japanese had brought in two gods to watch it. On one side of it stood a statue of the Fire God, and on the other, the Wind God.

White Pond Hell was a vivid blue pool six hundred feet deep, continually bubbling with what Dr Dan said was natrium chloride.

A statue of a great dragon stood guard over Gold Dragon Hell. As if this were not enough to keep the waters under control, statues of Buddhist saints had been placed around the pool. The caretaker of the pool took the boys into his house where they saw his wife cooking by steam straight out of the earth.

The snouts of alligators and crocodiles poked up out of Devil’s Hell. The great reptiles were kept in this hot water to speed their growth. When they reached full size they would be shot and their skins used to make shoes and jackets.

In Sea Hell picnickers had let down a basket of eggs to boil them in the bubbling water.

Most curious of all was a boiling waterfall. Bathers stood under it with pained expressions on their faces and let the scalding water beat upon their shoulders and backs. This was believed to be a cure for rheumatism.

Not only humans liked the hot water, but animals as well. The boys were constantly tripping over snakes and toads that lived along the edges of the lakes, and monkeys swarmed on nearby Monkey Mountain. These monkeys were smart. They would come down to the bay, dive in, and catch fish in their hands. One had been taught to operate a small train that ran around a circular track. Dr Dan and the boys took a ride behind the monkey motorman.

It was nearly dark. ‘How about spending the night ashore?’ Dr Dan proposed. ‘Captain Ike and Omo will take care of the ship. Here’s an inn that looks attractive. Kobo, what does it say on that sign?’

The sign was in Japanese. ‘It says the name of this place is The-Inn-by-the-Well-by-the-Cedar-Tree.’

Here they spent the night. The rooms were clean, the food good, and the chief attraction was the great tiled bath full of crystal-clear hot water welling up out of the earth and continually running over.

The next day they went to the crater of Aso - a long distance, so the trip had to be made by train. Then a stiff clamber up through lava boulders. At last they stood looking down into a boiling pot half a mile wide.

Hundreds of feet down were thunderous tumbling pools of sulphurous mud sending up geysers of fire. They were like red clutching fingers that barely reached those who stood peering over the edge. Some of the rising clouds were of snow-white steam, others were pitch-black smoke.

The gases were stifling. Everyone got out his handkerchief and tied it across his nose to keep out the stench of brimstone. An icy wind pulled and pushed as if determined to throw them in. Their backs ached with cold while the cooking heat struck them in the face. The doctor made his usual observations and records and the boys helped him whenever they could.

They were glad to get down from the biting cold of this mile-high mountain to a tea house on the slope, where they drank hot tea and ate curious little cakes filled with sweet bean paste.

Again the Lively Lady put to sea, and again she put in to a Japanese port, this time to visit the monster volcano called Sakura-jima.

‘Sakura means cherry,’ said Dr Dan, ‘and jima means island. Cherry is all right - it describes the colour of the red-hot lava - but island is all wrong. It used to be an island until 1914 when a terrific eruption threw up so much lava that the sea was filled between the volcano and the mainland and the island was turned into a peninsula. The city on the mainland was shaken to bits and one village near the volcano was buried under 150 feet of lava. Ninety-five thousand people lost their homes.’

‘Is that the only time she erupted?’ Hal asked.

‘By no means. Old Cherry has blown up twenty-seven times in the past five centuries.’

‘Well, I hope she’s all done now.’

‘I’m afraid not. They say she’s getting ready to stage a new act. Let’s go up and see for ourselves.’

The way led at first through orange groves and vegetable gardens. Everything was growing lushly in the soil kept warm by the fires underneath. Farther up the trees and fields disappeared and there was nothing but savage black rocks. Every once in a while the shaking of the mountain would dislodge a rock and it would come tumbling down, a great danger to climbers.

At last they reached the dropping-off place and looked down into their fourth crater. Old Cherry deserved her name - the waves and fountains of liquid lava were cherry-red. They looked very angry and it was easy to believe that they were planning mischief.

The doctor went to work with his instruments, and by now Hal and Roger were able to be of real help to him.

‘Let’s go around the crater,’ suggested Dr Dan. ‘There won’t be time for us all to make the complete circuit. Suppose we split up - two will go one way and two the other and we’ll meet at the far side. Roger will go with me.’

The doctor and Roger struck off while Hal and Kobo went in the opposite direction. There was no path along the edge of the crater and the way was very rough. The lava here had been exploded by gases into glassy fragments as sharp as needles and pins, and when Hal stumbled and fell he came up with his hands full of slivers.

‘Not the nicest place in the world to go for a walk!’ he said as he picked the sharp points from his hands.

‘Not the nicest place to go for a walk,’ repeated Kobo, practising his English.

At every step they crushed through a bed of black lava glass a foot deep. Their socks were soon cut to ribbons and their legs bled. The blades of glassy rock were as sharp as razors.

‘Obsidian,’ Hal said. Tn ancient times before iron was discovered people used to make knives out of this stuff.’ Hal stopped to jot down in his notebook items that he knew the doctor would want to have. He stood still only a moment, but the scorching heat from below came up through the soles of his boots and made him move on in a hurry.

They clambered over ridges twenty feet high that looked like great waves of the ocean suddenly turned to stone. They were panting and puffing now, and sweating at every pore.

‘I think we stop little time now, rest,’ suggested Kobo, and sat down heavily on a rock. He leaped up at once for the rock was as hot as a stove. They stumbled on along the crater’s edge.

Hal suddenly stopped. He was looking down the steep slope into the crater. About thirty feet down gleamed some peculiar blue stones.

‘That’s something the doctor will want,’ said Hal, ‘a sample of that rock.’

‘But you cannot,’ objected Kobo. ‘It is too - up and down.’

‘You mean too steep? Oh, I don’t think so - if I take it slowly.’

‘But we have no rope.’

‘I think I can manage without one.’

He turned his back on the crater and lay down on his stomach, his feet over the edge. Then he eased himself gradually down the slope, using his hands and feet as brakes. Fortunately the volcanic glass had given way to a sort of gravel that was not so hard on the hands.

He was to learn in a moment, however, that even gravel can be dangerous. Stones that he dislodged with his fingers or feet tumbled down the slope, and kept on tumbling until they splashed into the fiery red lake far below.

Hal had nearly reached his goal when he was suddenly terrified by a new sensation. The whole gravel bed on which he lay had started to slip. If this was a real landslide it would carry him straight to his death in the lake of fire.

He tried to keep his nerve. He knew that if he scrambled upwards he would only make the slide move faster.

He lay perfectly still while his body slipped inch by inch and the stones tumbled past him.

Then the slipping stopped. He did not move. What to do now? If he tried to climb he would start the landslide.

He could do nothing but stay where he was. Even that was dangerous, for his weight might start the gravel moving. He was in a pretty fix. Looking up, he saw that Kobo was starting down towards him.

‘Stay where you are,’ he cried. ‘You’ll only make it worse. Go and get Dr Dan.’

He knew as he said it that it was a foolish suggestion. It would take an hour to fetch Dr Dan and this was a matter of minutes. At any second the slide might begin.

‘No time get doctor,’ called Kobo, and kept on coming.

‘Go back,’ demanded Hal. ‘You can’t do a thing. No use two of us getting bopped off.’

He found himself thinking a crazy thought: if Kobo was ‘bopped off’ then all the time he had spent teaching the boy English would be wasted.

Kobo was creeping lower. The idiot - he would start everything going and they would both slide down.

But Kobo stopped on a solid flat rock about ten feet above his friend. He called down to Hal.

Take off your…’ His English failed him. He slapped his legs. Take off - the word, I do not know.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘These,’ he slapped his legs again. ‘Take off.’

‘You mean my trousers?’

‘Ah, yes - trousers! Take off. Do same like me.’ He undid his own trousers and began to slip them off.

He’d gone plumb crazy, thought Hal. Gone clean out of his head.

Suddenly he understood Kobo’s plan. Yes, it might work. Very carefully he moved his hands down to his belt. He loosened the belt and the waistband. The stones started moving and he lay still. When they stopped he began inching off his trousers. He took his time about it. Better go slow with this than fast with the avalanche.

At last they were off. He tossed them up to Kobo. He did this as lightly as he could, yet it started a slipping of gravel. Hal slid three inches nearer the hungry fire - then the movement stopped.

Kobo fastened the two pairs of trousers together with his belt. Then he lay flat on the rock and threw Hal one end of the crude lifeline. Hal caught it.

But would Kobo be able to draw him up? Hal was much larger and heavier than the Japanese.

Hal did not expect much. Probably Kobo could not lift him. Or the trousers would split, or pull apart. Then he would start sliding and wouldn’t stop until he plopped into a bath twenty times as hot as boiling water. And with his trousers off! Well, he wouldn’t suffer long.

The heat, the noise, the danger - they made odd notions race through his brain. He didn’t want to die with his trousers off. He had heard an old soldier say, ‘l want to die with my boots on.’ That was the way he would like to die, too, if he had to die - in full uniform, fighting a glorious fight. But to pass out by slipping and sliding half-dressed into a pot hole - that was no way to die. That was something to make anybody laugh. He could laugh at it himself, and he did. Kobo was astonished to see him laughing.

Another fancy struck him: if he turned up at the pearly gates without his trousers would St Peter let him in?

All this fled through his half-dizzy mind in a moment. Then he heard Kobo calling:

‘You big boy. I no can bring up unless you help. I count to three. Then you come like everything and I pull like so. Are you ready?’

‘Ready!’ replied Hal. His daydreams were gone now and he tensed himself for the big effort.

‘Ichi!’ began Kobo. Hal knew that ichi meant one. In his excitement Kobo had forgotten his English and was counting in his own language.

WzV Hal gathered up all his strength. ‘SAN!’ yelled Kobo, and pulled.

Hal leaped upwards at the same instant. The stones flew out from under his feet. There was a muttering growl and the whole gravel bed upon which he had been lying began to slide. A ripping sound told him that the trousers were coming apart at the seams.

But by now he had his hands over the edge of the solid rock occupied by Kobo.

There he dangled as everything went out from under him. Every stone that slid started another stone sliding. The landslide spread left and right until it seemed that the whole slope was roaring downwards. It thundered like the hooves of a thousand wild horses and clouds of dust rose from it.

The avalanche crashed down into the lava lake making a sound like heavy surf on an ocean beach.

Helped by Kobo, Hal scrambled up on to the rock. Then they turned and climbed on firmer ground to the edge of the crater. Here they looked back on a terrifying sight as the avalanche carried billions upon billions of tons of rock down into a blazing lake so hot that it would almost immediately turn the hard rock into flowing liquid.

Half dazed by their experience they trudged on along the edge of the crater until they met Dr Dan and Roger. As soon as they saw them these two gentlemen began to laugh.

Hal thought, they wouldn’t laugh if they knew what we have been through. Then his mind cleared a bit and he realized that something was missing. They had forgotten to put on their trousers. Kobo was still carrying them in his hand. He began to untie them from each other.

The doctor was no longer amused. He could see by the bedraggled and weary appearance of the two boys that something pretty bad had happened. They were bruised and battered and covered with dust.

‘We heard an avalanche,’ Dr Dan said. ‘Were you mixed up in it?’

‘We certainly were,’ said Hal. ‘And I’d be at the bottom right now if it hadn’t been for Kobo. Kobo and two pairs of trousers.’

He and Kobo pulled on their badly ripped trousers.

Dr Dan was looking at them thoughtfully. Then he turned and started down the mountain with Roger. For a while they walked in silence, each too full of his own thoughts to speak. Then Dr Dan said:

‘Well, Roger, I think Kobo has paid for his lessons.’

‘I’ll say he has!’ agreed Roger.

Again the Lively Lady sailed, this time due south. Japan was left behind.

Left behind also was Kobo who had returned to his school for another examination. Hal anxiously wondered what the result would be. He was to get word later that Kobo had passed with flying colours.