The Seabees
The sea off the west coast of San Luz was alive with ships. Rick counted
up to twenty-five and then gave up. Some of the ships were moving, and
he was sure he had counted the same one three times. He identified
cruisers, destroyers, one aircraft carrier with a squadron of
helicopters aboard, and landing ships of several kinds.
One huge landing ship was nosed right up to the shore, and
from it rolled tons of heavy equipment. From an attack
transport, the equipment's operators, a U. S. Naval Construction
Battalion--Seabees--were disembarking by the hundreds.
Scotty asked, "How many different kinds of flags can you see? I've
counted six so far. U. S., British, Dutch, Venezuelan, Colombian, and
Panamanian."
"It's an international job, all right," Rick agreed. "And when the UN
observers arrive tonight you can run up a few more flags, too."
"Reminds me of the amphibious exercises we used to have in the
Marines," Scotty commented to Rick.
Nearby, Hartson Brant and the other scientists were deep in conversation
with a group of civilians and Navy officers. The officers were the
engineers, from the Naval Construction Battalion. Last night had been
spent in working with them on the details of the problem. It would be
their job to drive the big hole down into the earth below El Viejo,
working against time to intercept the rising magma.
Scientists had arrived, too, and they were taking over much of the
detail of keeping track of the magma. Each scientist had his own special
field of interest, but all were anxious to have the data from tracings.
There were geophysicists, including volcanologists and seismologists;
mineralogists and more geologists.
"Nothing much left for us to do," Rick said, a little sadly.
"Except watch," Scotty corrected. "That's enough! Great crumbling
craters, what do you want? A mystery every day?"
Rick had to grin. "I guess this is enough. But one thing I want to do is
go over to the volcanic pipe and see how Guevara and Connel are making
out."
"You will have an escort," a voice said from behind them. They turned to
greet Ricardo Montoya. "Now that we can turn our attention to that pair,
I think we should have a talk with them. To make the talk easier, we
will put bars between us."
"You're going to arrest them?" Rick asked.
"Of course! What did you think?"
"Right now?"
"If you want to come along, join me. Now is as good a time as any. If we
can find them, of course."
The boys joined Montoya in the front seat of a military vehicle. The
back was loaded with his men. Montoya at once steered for the trail to
the volcanic pipe. It was only a thousand yards to the north from the
point selected for the big hole. Even around the site of the hole there
were diamond seekers, and it was hard to find a piece of ground that had
not been tried with a shovel.
As they got closer to the diamond field the numbers of treasure hunters
increased until, as Scotty remarked, they were thicker than fleas at a
mutt show. Montoya had to lean on the horn continually, and even then
the San Luzians paid little attention.
Finally the group got out and walked. It was easier to move on foot
through the frantically digging mob. Strangely, there was little noise.
Each individual seemed intent on his own little hole. But the digging
was futile. There was no yellow ground under the flying shovels.
Then the group did reach yellow ground, and met rifles in the hands of
Guevara's peons. Evidently Guevara had put a ring of men around the
volcanic pipe and planned to hold it by force of arms.
Rick looked at Montoya. What would he do now?
The young officer looked haughtily at the nearest peons and demanded in
Spanish, "Do you know me?"
One of them nodded respectfully. "_Si_, Senor Capitan Montoya."
"Good. You will stand aside. I am inspecting Senor Guevara's mine." He
stalked through as though there was not the slightest question that the
peons would allow it. The boys and the police officers followed on his
heels.
A shelter had been erected on one side of the volcanic pipe. Only blue
ground showed, and there was a power scoop digging out more. Watching
the shovel were Guevara and Brad Connel.
Montoya walked up to the pair before they were even aware of his
presence.
"Good afternoon, senores," he greeted them courteously.
Guevara snapped, "What are you doing here, Montoya?"
"Arresting you, senor," Montoya replied calmly.
Connel looked worried, but Guevara gestured toward the ring of men with
rifles. "Don't be a fool. We outnumber you five to one. You haven't a
chance."
Captain Montoya smiled affably. "But, senor, it is you who haven't a
chance. Consider, senor. The honor of the Montoyas requires that I take
you to my uncle, eh? Well, I allow the chance that perhaps I will not
survive to take you to my uncle, but I can assure you that you will
become a lifeless body on the instant a rifle is raised. Surely you do
not doubt me, senor?"
Guevara looked at the officer, looked at the capable hand on the cocked
gun in the holster. Then he looked into the fierce Montoya eyes, and his
swarthy face turned pale.
"Not even a Montoya would throw his life away for so small a thing," he
said harshly.
The captain smiled gently. "Call my bluff, senor."
Rick had no doubt whatever that Montoya was not bluffing. Apparently
Guevara was convinced, too. But he tried once more. "How do you expect
to get us out of here?"
"Simplicity itself. You will walk to my truck, arm in arm with Senor
Connel. That is all. Of course if you should be so unfortunate as to
have a peon lift his rifle, you would never reach the truck alive. But
perhaps you are lucky. Shall we try, senor?"
Guevara hesitated, then shrugged. "Very well."
Connel spoke for the first time. He demanded hoarsely, "Are you going to
let him get away with this when our men have all the rifles?"
Guevara smiled wryly. "You do not know the Montoyas, Brad. Call his
bluff yourself--only not if you wish to live."
The ex-lieutenant governor walked slowly toward the ring of men. After a
moment Connel joined him. Montoya stepped behind them as though taking a
stroll through the Calor public gardens. The ring opened and let them
through. Rick breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't been quite as
confident as Ricardo Montoya appeared to be.
Guevara paused. "May I make an announcement?" he asked.
"Certainly, senor."
Guevara called, "_Amigos!_" Montoya translated the Spanish for the boys.
"You know what you have been guarding. Now I must leave. What is left
is yours. Work as fast as you can and find many diamonds. May good
fortune be yours!"
The ring broke as the peons rushed to grab shovels. Guevara led the way
to the truck.
It was all so easy, Rick thought later, if you were an aristocratic
Montoya with a code of honor that permitted no yielding, even unto
death. No one else he had ever met could have carried it off quite so
superbly.
So fast had the Seabees swung into operation that work on the big hole
already was in progress when Montoya dropped the boys off. Pneumatic
drills hammered into the congealed lava, cutting holes in which charges
would be placed. As the boys watched, explosive was thrust into the
holes, a warning was yelled through a portable loud-speaker, and the
charge fired. Tons of rock were loosened.
Even before the dust had begun to settle, huge machines were lifting the
rock out, or dragging big chunks, and dumping them down the
mountainside. Bulldozers kept the rock moving, keeping the entrance
clear. Within minutes the hole was empty of rock and the pneumatic
drills were hammering again. The cycle was repeated.
The Seabees joked as they worked, and warned each other against shoving
a hole right through into hot lava, but the pace never slowed for an
instant.
Hour after hour the big hole deepened until the Seabees ran into noxious
gases. Then they donned gas masks and continued. Deeper and deeper the
hole was driven, until the temperature at the hole's end was over a
hundred degrees. The Seabees merely shortened working time and operated
in relays so efficiently that no time was lost.
Rick and Scotty got back to the hole as often as they could, but there
was much doing elsewhere. The Hot Springs Hotel swarmed with scientists
and observers, and there were heated conferences and late evaluation
sessions. The Spindrift scientists were always in demand, and their
faces grew gaunt as the days passed.
The hole gave its own location because of the shock waves it sent
through the earth to the recorders, and even Rick's untrained eye could
see the traces slowly closing with the magma front.
Earthquakes increased in frequency until Rick and Scotty felt as though
the ground never ceased shuddering.
The air became noisy with planes as the Military Air Transport Command
began ferrying in troops. Flight after flight of huge transports roared
in for a landing at the Calor airport, discharged the soldiers, and took
off again at once.
And still the diamond hunt continued.
Then, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Hartson Brant called a halt.
"The magma's moving up through the dike," he reported. "It's now or
never. Captain Montoya, we will ask the troops to clear the area.
Commander Jameson, withdraw all men and equipment except those necessary
for the final packing. Dr. Cantrell, please be ready to place the
charge at dawn tomorrow."
The final phase of the operation swung into action. The troops gathered
at Redondo and marched shoulder to shoulder southward along the mountain
slopes. They herded the diamond seekers before them, sometimes with
enough roughness to overcome protests, but mostly with little
difficulty. They herded the population entirely around El Viejo, and
established a perimeter from Calor northward, with the population
confined to a narrow segment of the island along the seaward side.
Loud-speaker trucks roamed along the perimeter, reassuring the people.
Military disaster units cooked huge quantities of food and prepared
thousands of gallons of coffee and reconstituted milk. American soldiers
played with cute little San Luzian kids and--after the diamond seekers
became convinced they had never had a chance to find diamonds--the whole
affair became one big picnic.
But it was a picnic with overtones of fear.
Rick and Scotty watched the placement of the nuclear explosive--a simple
steel can, from the outside--in the big hole. They watched the remaining
handful of Seabees load tons of rock in after it. Only the wires
connecting the device to a radio firing unit on the beach gave evidence
that an explosion equal to ten thousand tons of TNT was about to take
place.
Rick asked, "Won't all those rocks keep the volcano from erupting?"
Hartson Brant smiled. "Rick, compared with the force of the volcano,
that atomic device is like a firecracker compared with a hurricane. But
even to the nuclear explosion those rocks won't mean much. They're just
to confine it a little."
The night passed. San Souci was empty of people. The Seabees were back
aboard ship. The scientific instruments were in place. Only a small
group of scientists remained, their helicopter standing by. They checked
out the radio firing unit, threw switches according to their check list,
then announced:
"We're ready!"