Dolphin Island (16 page)

“Hadn’t you
heard
?” said one. “
Flying Fish
is upside down, and all the other boats are in the middle of the island, parked in
the trees.”

As Tessie absorbed this report—slightly, but only slightly, exaggerated—she felt more
helpless than she had ever been since that time Matron had ticked her off as a raw
probationer. She could only hope that everyone would keep healthy until communications
were restored.

But by evening she had attended to one injured foot that looked gangrenous; and then
the Professor, pale and shaky, came to see her.

“Tessie,” he said, “you’d better take my temperature. I think I’ve got a fever.”

Before midnight, she was sure that it was pneumonia.

The news that Professor Kazan was seriously ill, and that there was no way of treating
him adequately, caused more dismay than all the damage wrought by the hurricane. And
it hit no one harder than Johnny.

Though he had never stopped to think about it, the island had become the home he had
never known, and the Professor a replacement for the father he could scarcely remember.
Here he had felt the security which he had longed for and unconsciously striven to
find. Now that security was threatened because no one could get a message across a
hundred miles of sea—in this age when moons and planets talked to one another.

Only a hundred miles! Why, he himself had traveled a greater distance, when he first
came to the island….

And with that memory, he suddenly knew, beyond all doubt or argument, exactly what
he had to do. Dolphins had brought him as far as Dolphin Island; now they could carry
him the rest of the way to the mainland.

He was sure that Susie and Sputnik, taking turns in pulling the surfboard, could get
him across that hundred miles of water in less than twelve hours. This would be the
pay-off for all the days they had spent together, hunting and exploring along the
edge of the reef. With the two dolphins beside him, he felt absolutely safe in the
sea; they knew all his wishes, even without the use of the communicator.

Johnny looked back at some of the trips they had made together. With Susie towing
Mick’s large board, and Sputnik towing Johnny on a smaller one, they had once crossed
to the adjacent reef on Wreck Island, which was about ten miles away. The journey
had taken just over an hour—and the dolphins had not been hurrying.

But how could he convince anyone that this was not a crazy, suicidal stunt? Only Mick
would understand. The other islanders would certainly stop him if they had any idea
what he was planning. Well, he would have to get away before they knew.

Mick’s reaction was just what he had expected. He took the plan perfectly seriously,
but was not at all happy about it.

“I’m sure it can be done,” he said. “But you can’t go by yourself.”

Johnny shook his head.

“I’ve thought of that,” he answered. For the first time in his life, he felt glad
that he was small. “Remember those races we’ve had? How many have
you
won? You’re too big—you’d only slow us down.”

That was perfectly true, and Mick could not deny it. Even the more powerful Susie
could not tow him as fast as Sputnik could tow Johnny.

Defeated on this point, Mick tried a new argument.

“It’s over twenty-four hours since we’ve been cut off from the mainland. Before long,
someone’s bound to fly over to see what’s happened, since they’ve had no word from
us. You may risk your neck for nothing.”

“That’s true,” admitted Johnny. “But whose neck is more important—mine or Professor
Kazan’s? If we keep on waiting, it may be too late. Besides, they’ll be pretty busy
on the mainland after that storm. It may be a week before they work around to us.”

“Tell you what,” said Mick. “We’ll get organized, and if there’s no sign of help and
the Professor’s still bad by the time you’re ready to go, then we’ll talk it over
again.”

“You won’t speak to anyone?” said Johnny anxiously.

“Of course not. By the way, where
are
Susie and Sputnik? Are you sure you can find them?”

“Yes—they were around the jetty earlier this morning, looking for us. They’ll come
quickly enough when I push the HELP! button.”

Mick began to count items off on his fingers.

“You’ll want a flask of water—one of those flat plastic ones—some concentrated food,
a compass, your usual diving gear—I can’t think of anything else. Oh, a flashlight—you
won’t be able to do the whole trip in the daytime.”

“I was going to leave around midnight, then I’ll have the Moon for the first half
of the way, and I’ll hit the coast during daylight.”

“You seem to have worked it out pretty well,” said Mick with grudging admiration.
He still hoped that the attempt would be unnecessary and that something would turn
up. But if it did not, he would do all that he could to launch Johnny toward the distant
mainland.

Because both boys, like everyone else on the island, had to help with urgent repair
work, they could do little until nightfall. Even after darkness came, there were some
jobs that continued by the soft light of kerosene lanterns, and it was not until very
late in the evening that Johnny and Mick were able to complete their arrangements.

Luckily, no one saw them as they brought the little surfboard down to the harbor and
launched it among the overturned and shattered boats. Equipment and harness were all
attached. Only the dolphins were needed now—and the final, unavoidable reason for
going.

Johnny handed the communicator bracelet to Mick.

“See if you can call them,” he said. “I’m running up to the hospital. I won’t be more
than ten minutes.”

Mick took the bracelet and waded out into deeper water. The fluorescent letters were
clearly visible on the tiny keyboard, but he did not need them, for, like Johnny,
he could use the instrument blindfolded.

He sank down into the warm, liquid darkness and lay on the coral sand. For a moment
he hesitated; if he wished, there was still time to stop Johnny. Suppose he did nothing
with the communicator and then said the dolphins had never turned up? The chances
were that they wouldn’t come, anyway.

No, he could not deceive his friend, even in a good cause, even to save him from risking
his life. He could only hope that when Johnny called at the hospital he would hear
that the Professor was now out of danger.

Wondering if he would be sorry for this all his life, Mick pressed the HELP! button
and heard the faint buzzing in the darkness. He waited fifteen seconds, then pressed
it again—and again.

For his part, Johnny had no doubts. As he followed the beam of his flashlight up the
beach and along the path to the administration center, he knew that he might be setting
foot on Dolphin Island for the very last time; that, indeed, he might not live to
see another sunrise. This was a burden which few boys of his age had had to bear,
but he accepted it willingly. He did not think of himself as a hero; he was merely
doing his plain duty. He had been happy here on the island and had found a way of
life that gave him everything he needed. If he wanted to preserve that way of life,
he would now have to fight for it—and, if necessary, risk losing it.

The small hospital building, in which he himself had wakened as a sunburned castaway
a year ago, was completely silent. Curtains were drawn on all the windows except one,
from which streamed the yellow light of a kerosene lamp. Johnny could not help glancing
into the brightly illuminated room; it was the office, and Nurse Tessie was sitting
at her desk. She was writing in a large register, or diary, and she looked completely
exhausted. Several times she put her hands to her eyes, and Johnny was shaken to realize
that she had been crying. The knowledge that this huge, capable woman had been reduced
to tears was proof enough that the situation was desperate. Perhaps, he thought with
a sudden sinking of his heart, he was already too late.

It was not as bad as that, though it was bad enough. Nurse cheered up a little, putting
on her professional face when he knocked softly and entered the office. She would
probably have thrown out anyone else who bothered her at this time of night, but she
had always had a soft spot in her heart for Johnny.

“He’s very ill,” she said in a whisper. “With the right drugs, I could clear it up
in a few hours. But as it is…” She shrugged her massive shoulders helplessly, then
added, “It’s not only the Professor; I’ve two other patients who should have antitetanus
shots.”

“If we don’t get help,” whispered Johnny, “do you think he’ll pull through?”

She did not answer; her silence was enough, and Johnny waited no longer. Luckily,
she was too tired to notice that he did not say goodnight but good-by.

When Johnny got back to the beach, he found that Susie was already harnessed to the
surfboard, and Sputnik was waiting patiently beside her.

“They got here in five minutes,” said Mick. “Gave me a fright, too, when they came
up in the darkness—I wasn’t expecting them so soon.”

Johnny stroked the two wetly gleaming bodies, and the dolphins rubbed affectionately
against him. He wondered where and how they had ridden out the storm, for he could
not imagine any creature surviving in the seas that must have raged around the island.
There was a cut behind Sputnik’s dorsal fin that had not been there before, but otherwise
neither dolphin seemed any the worse for its experience.

Water flask, compass, flashlight, sealed food container, flippers, face mask, snorkel,
communicator—Johnny checked them all. Then he said, “Thanks for everything, Mick—I’ll
be back soon.”

“I still wish I could go with you,” Mick answered huskily.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” said Johnny, though he no longer felt quite so sure.
“Sputnik and Susie will look after me, won’t you?” He could think of no more to say,
so he climbed onto the board, called “Let’s go,” and waved to the disconsolate Mick
as Susie pulled him out to sea.

He had made it just in time, for he could see lanterns moving down the beach. As he
slipped away into the night, he felt sorry that he had left Mick to face the music.

Perhaps from this very beach, a century and a half ago, Mary Watson had set off in
her ill-fated bid for rescue, floating in that tiny iron box with her baby and dying
servant. How strange it was that in this age of spaceships and atomic energy and colonies
on the planets, he should be doing almost the same thing, from the same island!

Yet perhaps it was not so strange, after all. If he had never heard of her example,
he might not have been inspired to repeat it. And if he succeeded, she would not have
died in vain, on that lonely reef forty miles to the north.

Johnny was content to let the dolphins do all the navigating until he was well clear
of the reef. Their wonderful sonar system, filling the dark sea with echoes beyond
his hearing, told them exactly where they were. It revealed to them all the obstacles
and all the larger fish for a hundred feet around. Millions of years before men invented
radar, dolphins (as well as bats) had perfected it in almost every detail. True, they
used sound waves and not radio waves, but the principle was the same.

The sea was choppy, but not too rough. Sometimes spray would break over him, and occasionally
the board would nose down into a wave, but most of the time he skimmed comfortably
across the surface. It was difficult to judge his speed in the darkness. When he switched
on his flashlight, the water seemed to be racing past him at a tremendous rate, but
he knew that it could not be much more than ten miles an hour.

Johnny looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had already passed, and when he glanced
back, there was no sign of the island. He had expected to see a few lights, but even
these were gone. Already he was miles from land, racing through the night on a mission
that would have terrified him only a year ago. Yet he was unafraid—or at least he
could control his fears, for he knew that he was with friends who would protect him
from harm.

It was time he set his course. Navigation was no problem. If he traveled even approximately
west, he was bound to hit somewhere on the thousands of miles of Australian coastline,
sooner or later. When he glanced at his compass, he saw, to his surprise, that there
was no need to make any change of direction. Susie was already on course, heading
due west.

It was the clearest and most direct proof of her intelligence that he had ever received.
Mick’s “HELP!” signal had been enough. There was no need to point to the one direction
in which help could be found; she already knew it, as she probably knew every inch
of the Queensland coastline.

But was she traveling as swiftly as she could? Johnny wondered whether to leave that
to her, or whether to impress upon her the urgency of the mission. Finally he decided
that it would do no harm to press the FAST button.

He felt the board jerk slightly when he did so, but he could not tell whether there
had been any appreciable increase in speed. The hint should be sufficient. He was
sure now that Susie knew exactly what she was doing and was operating at her best
cruising speed. If he insisted that she go faster, she would only tire herself.

The night was very dark, for the Moon had not yet risen, and low clouds left behind
by the storm hid almost all the stars. Even the usual phosphorescence of the sea was
absent; perhaps the luminous creatures of the deep were still recovering from the
impact of the hurricane and would not shine again until they had got over their shock.
Johnny would have welcomed their gentle radiance, for there were moments when he felt
scared by this headlong race through pitch-black darkness. Suppose a huge wave—or
even a rock—was rearing up invisibly ahead of him as he skimmed along with his nose
only three inches from the water? Despite his faith in Susie, these fears crept up
on him from time to time, and he had to fight them down.