Chapter 3 Mount Sere'Ama
"Deliver the film canister to you and you return the admiral?" Lee Crane, standing high above Reading as he sat, leaned forward and shook his head. "Nothing doing, Reading. Admiral Nelson would be the first one to agree with me, that the film is more important than any one man, even my own friend."
"You two sound alike, as if he coached you to say this to me. However, since he is not here, he couldn't have."
"Where is he?" Lee pointed at Reading. "Tell me and I'll let you live."
"Capt. Crane, I'll remind you you're outnumbered here, almost two to one."
"What turned you sour, Reading, against all England stands for?"
"Wherever there's money, Capt. Crane. Can your government pay more—I'd be willing to dicker."
"We don't have any need to deal with the likes of you, Reading," Lee fairly spat out.
"Tell that to your CIA, Crane. I've dealt with them before." Reading, saying this, laughed.
Lee then reached under his jacket and behind his back. Out came a 9 mm pistol. He thumbed the safety off. He looked at Reading in some triumph as he held the gun on him, but the owner of the house looked comfortable, amused even.
"Tell your men to put down their guns. I can shoot you before they shoot me."
Reading threw up a hand—rather casually—signifying to his men that they could do as Capt. Crane ordered. Then he clasped his fingers together before his lips and asked, "What now, Captain?"
"I want to find the admiral as quickly as possible and get off this enchanting island. No troublemaker is going to stand in my way."
"Heartily determined, Captain, just like Nelson was." He praised Crane with suddenly upraised hands.
Sharkey, handing a gun to 'Ski, looked at his determined skipper, who seemed poised to leap at Reading. He caught the captain's words. Eye to eye again with the carefully groomed traitor behind the desk, Lee smiled and said, "Damn right I am."
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Finally, they reached it. The cave-place. Another hollow room in the lava tube system, except that here there was a difference from the room more than a mile below. Here, the room had a view—and what a view! A gigantic piece of scenery unfolded before the admiral's eyes as he stood looking out of a man-sized gap in the rock wall, a world of rainforest, waterfalls, and rocks, all of it lorded over by a giant emptiness of human sound. High up in the mountain, he and Ty stood in a niche, open to the sky, but whether carved by man or nature, Nelson could only guess. Any one of thousands of Ty's forebears could have stood there as they did, gazing out onto the huge, green forests below. A quiet land, except for bizarre birds and countless, slithering creatures.
"You brought me up here just to sample the view?" he asked, rather angrily. "Why couldn't we have stayed below, or in that hut? With four of you, there was little chance I could have gotten away."
"The view … sample?"
The admiral gestured outside. "Out there. Look. Don't you see it? The same empty forest we traveled through in getting here."
"This is where Mr. Reading tell me to bring you. I have. There is taro to eat and kava in a clay jar." The admiral looked around, following Ty's pointing finger. "You can eat and drink, but not go." Ty turned to depart.
"Are you leaving?"
"My men below cave-walk stay and guard you. It's too far to jump down."
"I can see it's a long way down, but how do you know I won't try it, Ty?" Nelson laughed a bit. "I may be just reckless enough."
"Recklas?"
"I mean to say, ah, crazy enough to try jumping."
"About a mile to the ground. Trees grow on the hill. You fall and Mr. Reading will spit words at me."
"Run along, Ty, if that's all you've got to say. Wait, what about water?"
"You'll find it, as I have. It's quiet here. I come here to rest, too, Admiral Nelson."
"Who says I'll be resting, Ty? You have done Reading's bidding. It's growing dark. Best go now."
Ty looked around one last time, making sure that the taro and kava were there. Sitting against a wall, there was a water jar. Nelson would find that out when he began exploring. A man had to do something with his time. That's why Ty didn't tell him about it.
Ty had left, taking the torch with him. Nelson could now barely see the walls of the cave, but the slowly declining sun revealed the sweep of rainforest outside. Down the way they had come, it was as dark as the inside of a whale's belly. But out there the green ferns and dark trees, and the farther blue, white-capped sea, were still bright enough to make out. Almost blindingly so, after the long walk through the lava tube.
Hungry and listless, Nelson looked into the supply situation. Tearing out a wooden plug from a clay jar, he found the poi, made from taro. This was hardly like Hawaiian poi, which he liked. In fact, only cabbage soup, fed to World War II POWs, would have been a worse prisoner meal. He found the water jug pretty fast and took a swig to wash his mouth out of the bitter, leafy taste. After that, he rested a bit, then got up to explore—as Ty knew he would.
Groping along the cool stone, he went back down the tube a-ways and heard the sound of rushing water in an offshoot tunnel. Unlike in the main cave, which was swept of rocks, here pebbles crunched underfoot and small boulders blocked his way. He had to ease around them in the tight space, but at last he found the water wall he had been hearing for some time. The flowing water was fresher than in the clay jug Ty had left him, but it could have come from the same spring.
He let the water drop into his hand, after it had leapt from the rock, and then drank until all the seas must have gang dry. Then once more he made his way back to the opening in the face of the mountain, looking out as twilight descended on the rainforest. Shadows of massive clouds floated through the trees, making the island palms look black in swaths of mourning cloth, though in the daytime, the sky would be visible through their lance-like leaves. He couldn't see the leafy understory so far below, but he could hear an echo of the wind, a wind rising from the warm ground into the cooler night air. The echo was so deep and faraway it was only a sigh.
Nelson leaned out over the rim of the cave opening, trying to estimate how far down to the ground it was. Roughly, he decided, though unscientifically, it was a long way. Except for the wind, it was quite still right then, the in-between time before the night animals came out and after the bold day-timers had scurried into lairs and burrows.
The palms, as if fearing being consumed in raw fire from the volcano, grew a hundred yards or more from the cave opening, leaving a wide swath of open air between the mammoth rock walls and the trees. Stooping to one knee, Nelson felt along the sheer face of the rock and discovered a few thick vines growing in its crevices, providing tenuous handholds. He could use the vines as a ladder, unless and until they broke under his weight. He didn't relish hitting the rocks below. It really began to look as if he had no alternative but to stay holed up in this lava cave and hope that Ty, his jailor, came regularly with macerated taro root. With the water wall nearby, he had plenty to drink.
A storm struck up some time later—Nelson estimated it about two hours after Ty left. The sky's violence unleashed itself in slashing rain as lightning flashed across the swaying trees. Not frightening, it was eerie instead. His ears filled with the crashing, wind-beaten rain. He blinked as lightning lit the walls of the cave. With each burst, he was glad he was inside the cave, and not outside it. Ty's men were no doubt still below in the tube entrance, but he wondered if Ty was with them. There were few men so knowledgeable about these islands, he figured, than Ty. If Ty had gone away, into the forest, he'd be safe even in a storm.
Reaching for the water jug again, Nelson uncapped it and took a swig. A swig of the kava might have been justified, but since it had made him dizzy the last time he drank it, he opted to leave it alone. If he did figure out how to escape, if he had to climb down the side of the volcano, he'd need a sound head.
After a while, he got lonely, and even wished for a visit from Ty or from the guards below. Eating some of the taro, wincing at its taste, he waited out the storm. It rode fiercely in the sky for hours, and finally even Nelson's brick-solid nerves began to fray. Alone in a dark cave inside a smoking volcano, with a hellish tropical storm raging a few feet beyond, no man could preserve his courage forever. He moved further back into the dark interior of the cave, only then becoming aware of how soaked he was sitting so close to the entrance through most of the storm. The thunderous, hypnotic storm had mesmerized him into inaction.
He knew Lee Crane's finding him was nearly impossible, given that the Banks Islands were the farthest north in the Vanuatu archipelago. Lee would have had no idea where he was. He might think of Port Vila, or even of the island of Tanna, but the Banks, these small, northern islands in the Torba province, were not civilized enough for anyone but the yachties, or tourists with their own boats, to visit.
The wind had stopped, catching him napping. The rain still came down in long sheets, but no longer was it slicing venomously across the palms. So too vanished the lightning. The sky calmed and darkness deepened, leaving only mist and shadows. A dying storm in these islands was a pitiful thing—so wet, a hot, sticky kind of wet in every particle of leaf-frond, in every jot of air. The admiral found it hard to breathe. Getting up again, he approached the cave opening, looking out while balancing on his knees and knuckles. He gripped a couple of the heavy vines climbing the wall. Those vines could be his only chance. He decided to try it—but he might fall, break a limb and not rise again.
Throwing a leg over the side, he inched down the hard basaltic wall until his head was lower than the sill. Moving further down, he clung to its rough surface with his fingers, vines wrapping his arms. Trying to get a purchase on a rock, or ledge, or even in a mesh of vine, he raced against time. In a few seconds, his hold might give way. He found a twist of vine to step into, and then lowered his body carefully into the net-like pocket, reaching out at the same time for another handhold. What he didn't count on was getting his foot caught in the stirrup of the vines.
Long seconds passed while he eased his foot out. When he had, he gripped the wall with only his hands, wrapping them in the vine, then eased down again until he found a protruding rock or another net of vine, and so on. He might have been on that cave-face for hours, for when he was finally on the ground, his hands bleeding and his feet and ankles sore, the sun was just rising. Tropical mists obscured it even then, but in a while it would be baking the rain off the leaves and fronds, making these mists vanish as if they never were.
Thirsty and breathing harshly from his exertions, he wished he had found a way to bring the water along, but the jug had no strap and he had had nothing to carry water in. He didn't know this island, or a place where he could find a spring. He didn't even know how he'd get off Vanua Lava, now that he was free of the cave.
Fighting down the urge to lie down in the lush forest, and get some much-needed rest, he began to move away from the volcano mountain. He could hear it rumbling inside, and the ground was warm even through his shoes. Steam shot out of vents in his way. One casually burned the back of his hand. As he turned towards it with a painful grimace, he was thrown off his feet. The earth roared and then for several seconds, it convulsed, and with it, trees large and small began to weave and bend. Flying debris hit him. The volcano was blowing and the force of it sent a huge wind roaring down into the forest, snapping off fronds and limbs and hurling them through the air.
The volcano, Mount Sere'Ama, dormant but alive, now had blown.
Nelson, climbing to his feet, turned and saw the high top of the volcano mountain glowing orange and spewing fire—lava bombs and pyroclastic ash—whole acres away from the erupting crater. The burning ash, spattering from the center, started to fall around him. He ducked and tried to run, but another earth tremor flung him aside into some boulders, crushing his left arm against his chest. Hurled back the other way, he slipped again, this time to his knees. Grabbing the bole of a small palm, he pulled himself up by it. Lurching from tree to tree, he made his way forward, hoping he was heading toward the beach, where with luck he could find a boat and paddle it out into the safer surf.
A small fleck of burning ash scorched his neck. As he paused to throw up a hand to tap out the smoldering cloth of his shirt, another earth vibration tossed him off his feet. This time he ripped open the back of one hand on the prickly leaves of a pandanus plant. Sucking on the painful scratch, he looked wildly ahead, still seeking some sign of the beach. The earth roared again, that peculiar snarling noise just before another tremor. Pitching himself forward, he hugged the ground as it shuddered beneath him.
Getting his feet under him, he began to run. If he could outrun the tremors, he might not spend so much time on the ground, he haphazardly thought, though outrunning continuing shakes of the earth took as much effort as escaping last night from the cave high up on Mount Sere'Ama. Pitched off his feet more times than he could count, he made it to the edge of a tiny hut village, deserted. Cooking fires still smoked and there were shells of kava sitting about. The drinkers had abandoned them to fly off into the woods. He could follow the matted leaves and fronds, and catch up with the ni-Vanuatu as they made their way to the beach—and to the kohekohe canoes.
Then all became still. An enveloping quiet descended with only slight shudders. A deathlike stillness clung to the air even as ragged pieces of the forest fluttered to the ground. A Gulf Coast hurricane might have ravaged through here, from the amount of debris, Nelson thought. Slowly sinking to the earth at the base of a mighty kauri tree, he turned a weary eye upon the village and spotted some jugs sitting together by one of the fires. Kava or water, he was about to drink to fill his seared throat and wet his parched lips. He struggled over. The first jug he uncapped turned out to have water in it, and he drank gratefully.
"Nelson!" he suddenly heard a voice call. "Nelson … !"
He turned a quick look in the direction of the call and spotted the huge native, Ty, coming out of the forest on his right.
"Ty," breathed the admiral. He dropped the water jug and backed up a few steps. Turning to run, he saw another man standing on his left, and then another a few feet away from him. A fourth man—the last of his guards—stood near Ty. His four ways of escape blocked, he dropped his arms to his side and looked at the ground, feeling so tired that he could have fallen there and then to the wet earth.
Ty helped him to sit down, but then called out sharply for something. A minute passed, and then looking at his wrists, he saw Ty was looping a cut vine—one of his men had cut it—around them, knotting the ends together.
He gazed up. Hadn't he been through enough with the quaking earth and the fiery bursts of lava? Was he now to be tied up like a dog?
Angrily, he twisted in the vine, but only made his wrists redder. "Ty," he said, "let me go. All I want to do is get to the beach—and get away from this island."
Ty grunted something in Bislama, the pidgin English and French spoke by the ni-Vanuatuans. Nelson had only the remotest facility with the language, and did not catch what Ty said. Perhaps it was to tell him, the admiral, that Ty couldn't trust him after his escape today.
If that were so, then Nelson felt he could understand. He wouldn't have trusted himself, either.
Ty helped him up again and after signaling to his men to follow, started out of the village. The direction they took was not toward—presumably—the beach. Instead, the men of Vanuatu were returning to the erupting mountain, which all had just fled. The admiral protested, pulling back as Ty fixed a hand on his arm.
"Ty, are you mad?" he asked urgently. "We can't go back that way. The volcano's erupting!"
Ty said nothing, but tugged on his captive. Nelson pushed him away with his bound hands. Ty didn't move for a few seconds, looking bewildered, but then making up his mind, he took his captive's arm again.
"Aren't you aware of what's been happening?" asked Nelson, pulling back once more and desperately trying to reason with Ty. The big man only shook his head, not understanding the admiral's words—or pretending not to.
Exasperated, Nelson raised his voice. "You understand me, Ty! You understand!" He looked askance at Ty. "Why do you want to go back there? To die?"
Again, the native shook his head, saying, "Mr. Reading say go to mountain. Strong magic there. He need it. So I take you."
"What—and sacrifice me to some fire mountain god?"
"Sacri … fice?"
"Ty, your Mr. Reading is mad. He's trying to steal something, take what doesn't belong to him. A lot of people could get hurt by him."
"He no steal. He no hurt people. He say go to Sere'Ama! We go!"
Nelson couldn't fault him for his loyalty, but he had to make Ty see reason. "If we go back, then you'll die along with me and so will your men. Is that what you want, Ty?"
As if to answer the question, the mountain began spewing forth again, the earth rocking under their feet. The admiral, lurching to one side, righted himself against a boulder and lifted his hands. "Untie me, and let's head for the beach. It's our only chance, Ty!"
When Ty looked dumbfounded at the swaying trees—a hot Vulcan wind blowing—the admiral yelled, "Ty, are you listening! We have to move now!"
"No, to the cave. So, we die. It's what Mr. Reading say do. He say go."
"Why—why is what he says so important, Ty?"
"Important?" Ty deliberated a moment, looking at each of his men in turn, as if siphoning the meaning of the word in their scared young faces. "Ah, yes. He save me—dying. Bad sick. Mother, too. Mr. Reading bring drink—heal me. Both live."
"You owe him your life?" Ty nodded. The admiral blew out a heavy sigh. "Then why are you throwing it away?"
"I promise."
"Promised Reading to keep me on Vanua Lava, right?"
"I promise you not get away. Yes, I promise him. He say, go mountain."
"Then you're a fool, Ty."
"No more talk! Time we go back to Sere'Ama." Ty laid his hand on the admiral's arm again, and this time he didn't mean to let him go.
"Ty, for the love of God—"
Seeing talk was useless, Nelson pushed again at Ty, miraculously breaking away. He, for one, was determined to live. With the earth trembling underfoot, he dived into the forest again, trying to outrun Ty to the beach. There, in sight of boats and villagers fleeing the island, he hoped Ty would come to his senses and realize they too had to flee. Striking through the large fronds of ferns, he heard the crashing of Ty and his men behind him. With little sleep in the past twenty-four hours, with his hands bound, and with the fact that the natives were considerably younger than he, the admiral knew he'd shortly be caught. He intended, nonetheless, to make a beeline for the beach—even though he could only guess its location—and lead them as far in that direction as he could.
Ty laid a hand on his shoulder in less than a minute. Nelson whirled and jabbed Ty with his balled hands in the stomach, doubling the man over. A two-handed chop to the back of his neck and Ty fell. Quickly rising, however, he dove for the admiral's legs and dragged him down. The two men rolled over and over in the thick undergrowth, as Ty's three men watched, each of them uncertain whether to join Ty or not.
Nelson and Ty stood, and in a lightning second, Nelson slapped Ty with his doubled hands, sending Ty reeling into the brush. The others decided that here they must enter the fight. Rushing forward to lock arms with the admiral, Ty's three followers met blows for their trouble. Then Ty got a hold on the back of his arms, pulling him off. At that, all five men, including Ty and the admiral, who was writhing to get loose, came to a halt. Ty looked up into the sky. He heard the sound of the helicopter. Knowing where it would land—the only landing spot on the island—he jerked on Nelson's arm and rushed him forward through the deep brush. This time Nelson was glad to obey Ty. Even if it was Reading himself coming to pick them up, he'd be glad to see the island far below him again. In the rearview mirror, so to speak.
The earth shook again. Debris-laden wind blew. The ground roared and trees fell. One tree fell directly in their path. Patiently, Ty helped him over it. When the earth shook again and the admiral fell on his back, Ty bent and cut his bonds with a knife at his waist. Wrists bleeding, he followed Ty, each man, all five of them, on their own now to get to the helicopter landing spot.
There was a loud shriek behind Nelson. He whirled and saw a tree burying one of the men who had come with Ty. As the other three stopped to help him out, if they could, Ty forced the admiral on. Cut and bruised all over, the two men made it to the helicopter. Its propeller blade whirred away over the roaring earth and Sere'Ama's singing lava flows.
Nelson saw Lee Crane directing a few of Seaview's men to go in search of them. The admiral tried to shout, but Ty struck him and fell with him. Nelson fought Ty, trying to get up and rush over before Lee and Sharkey got off in their search, but Ty exerted all of his considerable strength to hold him down, clamping a hand over his mouth. When they were gone, Ty took his hand away—slowly—and the admiral cried, "Ty, what did you do that for? They were looking for us!"
"No. For you. Not Mr. Reading. Your men. That tall man."
"They're our only hope off this fire island!"
"We go to Sere'Ama, like Mr. Reading say."
"I'm going to get off this island, whether you're coming with me or not!"
Ty struck him again, dazing the admiral just enough to take the protest out of him. He could still walk. Ty helped him along—back towards the spewing volcano. This time, they went by another way and didn't see Ty's men, who may have made it to the beach. When they reached the opening of the old lava tube, Ty located a torch still burning, inside out of the wind. Carrying it in one hand, with the other he pushed Nelson up the long walkway leading to the cave room overlooking the forest.
Again Nelson stopped moving and tried reasoning with the determined native. Ty listened long enough to shake his head and become even firmer with his captive. He gave Nelson a push. Hitting the wall, the admiral turned slowly and led the way, Ty following with a huge scowl on his features.
In the large, hollowed out room that had been Nelson's prison before, Ty pushed him down to sit. Sitting himself and taking one of the jugs, unstoppering it, Ty drank and drank. The kava jug, the admiral noted, knowing that Ty was so uncertain of what to do here that he was going to let the kava do his thinking for him from then on. Nelson reached for the water jug and took a swig of that. He turned his head towards the opening of the cave and looked out.
The dark outside at midday was immense. Black sooty clouds hung in the air. In this old tube, new lava might flow from Mount Sere'Ama. The two men could be roasted to death where they sat. Lava flowed down through a volcano and cut this tube long ages ago, just as it had furrowed the ground outside. The admiral, with his mathematical instincts, tried to tot up their chances of surviving a 'live' lava tube during this current eruption. He got lost in the probabilities and gave up trying. The wind rose again and the mountain shook.
Suddenly, it grew quiet. There were no bird sounds, no wind or blowing debris. All was still. Ty's eyes looked bedeviled in both the torch and the wan daylight. He could have been mad with kava or with a native's fear of nature, to him mostly an unknown. Nelson sat back against the hard basalt wall and ran a hand over his lower face. He wondered how long it would take Lee and the others from the Seaview to find him. The cave entrance down below was very well hidden by brush. No, it didn't seem likely they'd be found, especially if Lee didn't have a clue they were there. Laying his head back, he slept some. Even in his sleep, though, he monitored the eruption.
"A clue," the admiral murmured in his sleep. Somehow, Lee had known to come to this island, instead of to one of the eighty or so others in the chain. Reading must have talked because he didn't want murder as well as piracy added to his crimes. Then if he had talked to Lee about Vanua Lava, he must also have told Seaview's captain about Mount Sere'Ama, and where Ty had taken the admiral on Reading's orders.
In that case, it wouldn't be long at all before Lee came up the walkway. Nelson would have to find a way to restrain Ty, should he try to defend his prisoner in this cave room. That would come later. Right now, he grabbed up Ty's pandanus leaf torch, which had gone out, then pulled out his cigarette lighter and lit it. He stuck it out of the entrance and lodged it in some vines to keep it upright. Maybe, Lee would see it. Maybe not.