Dolphin Island

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 that 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 patiendy 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 illfated 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.

Chapter 20