Chapter 4 Seaview
Nelson ate some poi and drank some more water. Hoping his men would soon find the cave entrance, he settled back again. Then tragedy struck. The walls of the corridor beyond collapsed as the earth shook again. Hundreds of tons of rocks fell and blocked the way he and Ty had come up there. Rushing to the place, with the air full of dust, both men tried to pull away the rocks, but with the density of the rock fall, they realized that it was useless to hope for a rescue soon through the mammoth jumble. Returning to the feeble light of the opening, they sat down again for a breather, neither one up to the task yet of climbing out of the cave the way Nelson had earlier.
"We'll have to climb down," he said, breathlessly. He sucked on a cut finger, cut as he was trying to heave rocks out of the pile.
"Too much wind," said Ty. "The earth shakes. We'd fall."
Nelson cleared his airway of dust with another swig of water. "We can't stay here—indefinitely," he said, though he had to agree with Ty that with the volcano shaking, and the driving wind, it would be harder to maintain tight holds on the slippery vines of the wall, all of them wet with rain.
"No need," Ty said, assertively. "Your men go. No find you. Mr. Reading come then. He take us off this island."
"Whose helicopter do you think they were using, Ty?"
Nelson didn't care whether Ty understood him or not, disgusted with the young fellow and his blind devotion to an international criminal. For hours after that, they sat in a kind of stunned silence. The admiral brooded on the slim chances of Lee's finding the cave entrance down below, of even seeing the newly relit torch through the palms, and of chancing a walk up a lava tube in an eruption.
He stopped thinking for a moment, not an easy thing for him to do. Hearing loud, but garbled voices on the other side of the wall of fallen rocks, he said, "I don't believe it. They're out there. I must give Lee a raise. He deserves one."
Jumping up, he went over to the rocks and shouted back. He heard what could have been an echo, but if it was, it was an echo with Lee's voice.
"Admiral!"
"Lee! Lee, can you hear me?" He waited for another response. When the skipper's voice answered back, Nelson said, "We're trapped behind this wall of rock. I don't even know how I'm hearing you. Can you dig us out?"
Lee, hearing the admiral, almost caved in with relief. Turning to Sharkey, he began to marshal help with the rock wall. Kowalski was there, and one other Seaview man, Garrity. That's all that could fit in the helicopter, piloted by Kowalski, the only one with helicopter flight training. With the aid of these men, he and Sharkey started yanking out rocks with their bare fingertips and throwing them aside. The earth would not stay still, however. Three times, it shook every man off his feet, including the admiral and Ty on the other side of the wall, pitching rocks, too. More rocks fell, and both skipper and admiral, one on each side of the wall, feared a massive cave-in. Nelson yelled in a quiet moment for Lee to back off. To get away while he still could.
Lee heard the admiral and academically debated it, still tossing rocks aside even as he himself fell first one way and then another in the continuing tremors. He was not giving up.
"Lee!" the admiral yelled. "Don't jeopardize your life and the lives of the others. Get out now while you can," he finished, knowing Lee wasn't likely to go. Admiral Nelson had only just interviewed and hired on young Ensign Garrity, but if he was of the caliber Nelson thought he was, he'd keep on throwing rocks around, too, just like the rest of the Seaview men.
But it was proving futile. As many rocks as they hauled out of the pile and threw aside, that many fell again from the ceiling with the next shake. Even Lee, bleeding—like the other three—from several scratches, began to see that he had to make a retreat, and soon.
"Admiral!" he called. "I'm going out now, but I'll be back. I promise you, I'll be back."
"Save yourselves, Lee." The admiral had to yell over the clamor of falling rocks and roaring earth. "Just don't worry about us." He paused and swallowed some of the dust in his throat. "This part of the cave is very strong, it seems."
Lee didn't answer, and the admiral assumed the captain and the other men from Seaview were already in the long walk down to the entrance of the lava tube. Relieved as he might have been now that his friends would be relatively safe on the ground, he was burdened by the idea that he might not see any of them again. He felt especially sorry in regards to his younger friend, Lee Crane. More than that of a protégé to mentor, their relationship hinged on their mutual interests in opening up brand new fields of study and endeavor. Restless men, they both enjoyed the time spent on the Seaview exploring new undersea realms. Without constant challenges, they might have been quite bored with their existences. Meeting the challenges together had bonded them into a single unit, making each stronger than one man alone.
He hoped Lee would go for the helicopter. In wind, which caused the trees surrounding the mountain to sway, and with flying debris, the 'copter might not have been of much use. But, if the cave collapsed around himself and Ty, no 'live' rescue would be necessary. Lee could escape the current eruption, then return to the island of Vanua Lava at any time in the future—saving what might be left.
Trying not to think of dying, he turned to Ty, who sat brushing off dust and sweat from his hot face. In his European clothes, he was shaking with a tremor to match that of the earth.
"We're going to be here a while, Ty. No getting out this time, I'm afraid." Nelson laughed. Shakily. "You've done everything Mr. Reading asked of you."
Ty's eyes were glazed. He sat on the cave floor amid all of the rock debris and sipped again at the jug of kava. Nelson reached for it and Ty gave to him. After a long swig, he returned it to its native owner.
"It might be over," Nelson said, listening. "I hope for Lee's sake and the others' it is."
Taking a seat on the ground, he lifted the water jug and drank the last of it down. With the cave-in, they couldn't even reach the other tunnel with the water wall now. Well, Ty had his kava and so he wouldn't miss the water.
In a few long hours, it began to darken again, the night coming on. No sound came from the forest beyond. No animal screech, or bird call. No more wind. As silent as a stillborn's cradle. Ty had fallen into a kava-induced sleep and lay half against the wall. Nelson stretched out his left leg to join his right and looked outside again. His gaze saw only huge dark shadows of palms so tantalizingly near, but more than thirty or forty yards away. Then he heard it.
The whirring. It was a noise that began to fill the air, then overfill it, coming on stronger and stronger. Nelson struggled to stand, his legs almost numb after he had sat so long in the cave next to Ty. It was the whirring of helicopter blades. In the dark, Lee—or rather Kowalski—was approaching. How could they hope to rescue men inside a cave on this shadowy night? Nelson leaned out over the edge of the cave, seeing a bold light nearing him, and reeled back inside, suddenly dizzy. "Lee, no," he breathed.
Perhaps the whirring blades were only imaginary. He knew men could imagine anything in certain dire situations. Yet, wasn't the noise growing with every second? He saw it. Light. Poised between the trees and the cave face. There was room, room to slip between it and the palms. But how could the men inside be rescued? Rope? No, too far to swing out to grab it. Landing in the forest was impossible, owing to the rank ferns and vines and fallen limbs, but the craft couldn't hover there all night. Lee had to have a plan!
"Ty! Ty!" the admiral yelled, stepping over and slapping Ty in his slumber. A bold action that almost cost the admiral a broken arm. Ty let him go slowly, rising and gazing around, hearing the sound now, too. Still locked in a kava daze, he swayed a bit, though the tremoring of the mountain had all but ended hours ago.
"The helicopter, Ty! It's out there," said Nelson. He followed Ty's shadow as it moved about, its arms rising and lowering in exercise after such a long sleep. "Do you know how we might get to it?"
Ty shook his head and went to see for himself, bathed in the 'copter's light. He appeared relieved, his shoulders lighter of the burden he'd been carrying ever since Mr. Reading had bid him come to this cave with the admiral.
"Drop rope," he said.
"We'd have to jump for it. Probably a few yards. Remember how wide the blades are."
"Blades?" Ty asked, challenged again by Nelson's words.
Nelson made a whirligig with his right index finger, knowing Ty could only see him a little from the outside light. "Blades. Helicopter."
"Rope. Still only way."
Kowalski must have concurred, though he couldn't hear their discussion. He neared the opening of the cave where its two prisoners stood and a dark form called out. It was Lee.
"Lee!" called the admiral. "Get back, before you're both killed!"
Lee, for an answer, leaned way out of the helicopter hatchway, holding onto the sill above him. He threw a bundle towards the figures he could just dimly make out in the cave opening. The rope fell short, falling into the void of the mountain growth. The helicopter whirred away.
Nelson's shoulders slumped. He had tried to catch it, flailing out, and so had Ty. Both men, not getting in each other's way, had made the grab of his life, but the rope, like many a dream of either man, fell and vanished.
The 'copter returned, its bright night-beam shining on the cave wall. Nelson shielded his eyes and looked out again. Lee was farther away this time, but shouting something at him. He was gesturing, too. At the wall below the opening. Had the rope hung up there? It seemed it had.
The next few minutes were hairy. Ty, stronger and leaner, lowered himself through the opening and down into the brush several feet below. Catching the rope on his foot in this blinding dark, he yelled out and Nelson helped pull him back in. That night, it was a long climb down to the ground again, the second time for Nelson in two nights. And then, they faced a long walk in the brush to the helicopter, sitting on its landing spot. A not so patient Lee Crane stood waiting for them. If it hadn't been so dark or the forest so overgrown, he might have gone after them again on foot.
"I don't think the men are up to it, Skipper," whispered Sharkey, just in time, in his ear.
"I agree," said Lee, "though I wish the admiral would hurry!"
"Me, too. This place gives me the creeps! Ah, here they come now!"
It took two relays to ferry the whole party off Vanua Lava to a nearby island with a petrol dump holding enough fuel to get them back to Mr. Reading's house. Both Nelson and Lee Crane would make sure he answered for his crimes, if his political contacts didn't get to him first.
In after years, Ty found himself a wife, had several children—he had to build a bigger hut each time one was born—and never forgot about the man—a strange, older man by the name of Nelson—who had taught him about courage.
That satellite? Piece of cake to retrieve the film canister with a few underwater cutting devices. Getting Admiral Nelson's nerves back in order took a bit longer. After a week though he no longer jumped at the sound of a dropped spoon or fork in the mess, though once a warning klaxon went off and he yelled, "Hit the deck!"
Actions around the Control Room didn't always follow words. Once the men finished staring, they went back to their duties. Lee, who had been shadowing the admiral for days, watching for signs of stress just like this, noted this aberrant behavior in him and couldn't help but think, "Seaview as usual."
The End.