Eruption at Krakatoa

by Katrina Charman

  “Get belowdeck!” the captain ordered the two remaining men in his crew.

  The men exchanged a look, one opening his mouth as though about to protest, but the captain barked out his final order: “NOW!” The men hurried out of the cabin, disappearing into the swell of ash and water as they headed out across the deck to get below.

  For a moment Melati considered going after them, but she had no energy left to attempt to fly away from the wave, and she couldn’t see how she would be any safer belowdeck. The wave was going to hit them no matter what they did. However fast the steamer sailed, it would never be fast enough to outrun the tsunami.

  She would stay until it was over, she decided. The captain caught Melati’s eye and gave her a grim smile. “Better find something to hold on to, little bird,” he told her before grabbing a coiled rope from a corner and wrapping it around his waist a few times, then lashing it around the wheel’s pedestal. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  Melati frantically searched the cabin for something to cling to, but in the end she chose to sit on the captain’s shoulder. There was nowhere else, and she decided that she had no other choice but to be brave like the captain and face the impending doom head-on.

  The captain spun the wheel again and again in an attempt to turn the steamer. As the ship responded, it turned so that the waves began hitting it side-on. The force of the waves caused the steamer to rock back and forth with such intensity that Melati felt she was going to be sick. She dug her claws into the captain’s shoulder, sure that she must be hurting him, but if she was, he showed no sign of it. Despite the continual barrage of waves against the side, the steamer somehow managed to remain upright.

  As the steamer continued to turn, Melati chanced a peep out the side window to look behind them. The wave was gaining on them. Fast. Still, the captain kept turning the wheel, until they had spun almost all the way around and were facing in the opposite direction—back toward the shore and Sumatra. Melati suddenly realized what the man was attempting to do. He aimed to outrun Nature herself.

  Melati felt as if her heart was going to beat out of her chest at any moment, her fear was so intense. It was utter madness to think that the steamer had any chance of surviving a collision with the mammoth wave. The boat thrashed back and forth, up and down with the tossing waves. Melati clung to the captain with all her might, trying not to be thrown to the floor.

  With a tremendous shove, the wave smacked into the back of the steamer and they suddenly gained speed. But the rush of water that Melati had been expecting didn’t come. She felt the boat begin to shift downward. Instead of being consumed by the tsunami, the boat had somehow managed to stay afloat and was now being steadily lifted, higher and higher into the sky, riding the crest of the immense wave like a dolphin.

  Melati opened her eyes wide in shock. The boat continued to tip forward as they rose up and up, and Melati found herself wedged into the corner of the window as the boat became almost vertical. The captain howled and hollered and cursed at the ocean as they reached the very pinnacle of the wave.

  Then the boat leveled itself and soared atop the wave and across the ocean as though it were a bird in flight. As the wave passed beneath them, the steamer began to lower slowly back to the usual surface level of the ocean, eventually settling and puttering along as though everything were absolutely normal and they hadn’t just escaped death in the most terrifying, impossible way.

  Melati sat breathless, her wings splayed out as she tried to keep herself from sliding to the floor in a puddle of feathers. The captain stared out the window at the back of the wave that they had somehow sailed right over, and then he laughed, a booming sound that shook Melati from her state of shock and had her squawking right along with him. It was nothing short of miraculous. She shook her head, trying to wake herself up from whatever dream or nightmare she had been having, because surely such a thing was not possible.

  But the proof was still out there, racing along across the ocean, growing with every second.

  Melati felt her heart stop. The wave was still going. The tsunami wasn’t ebbing away as waves usually do. It was getting bigger, and faster.

  And it was heading directly for the coast of Sumatra and Ketimbang.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Raja

  August 26, 1883

  Ketimbang

  As night fell, the village became shrouded in ash. Raja weaved his way in and out, trying to avoid the obstacles both on the ground and in the sky, as the sand and stones continued to fall. The only light came from the flashes of lightning that slashed across the sky, almost in tandem with the explosions from Krakatoa, which came every few minutes now, and the dull orange glow from the island itself.

  After a while, Raja caught Budi’s scent on the wind. It was difficult to follow because there were so many other overwhelming scents the closer he got to the village. But the one that was the clearest, so strong that it was second only to the foul smell of gases and dust on the air, was fear. Human and animal alike. It didn’t matter which. They intermingled into a stench so fierce that Raja had to force himself to focus on Budi’s scent, which was weakening by the minute.

  Raja almost smiled to himself, wondering how a giant rhino like Budi could wander through town seemingly unnoticed, but then the humans were preoccupied with other things, such as staying alive. They continued to evacuate the town, many heading up the hill to where Raja had just come from. The waves were moving ever closer to the village, the sea disturbed as it churned and boiled and the beach nowhere to be seen beneath it. Each explosion seemed to send the water into a heightened frenzy. With every flash of lightning, Raja got another view of the devastation the eruption was already wreaking on the village.

  Boats were thrown around in the harbor—those that were still tethered. They crashed and cracked together until they slowly disappeared beneath the waves. The tide rose and fell impossibly high, then impossibly low, then back up again. In one flash, Raja saw that it had receded so far out that he could see nothing but the wreckage of boats it had devoured lying helplessly in the sand. In the next flash, the tide was back again, fiercer than ever. It had reached many of the humans’ wooden huts already, and with each ebb and flow it came closer. But the most curious thing was that despite everything, there was little wind, and no storm.

  More and more humans were following the trail of evacuees who headed up the hill, choosing to take a better-known path rather than attempt to make their way high up into the mountain, Rajabasa. Some, though, seemed to be as stubborn as Raja had been, remaining in the village, not wanting to leave behind their homes or the few possessions they had.

  “Budi!” Raja cried out, hoping his friend might be somewhere close by. He couldn’t understand why Budi had come this way and not gone up the mountainside with the others. Raja sniffed the ground again and caught a whiff of something different, but familiar.

  Pangolin.

  “Dewi?”

  Raja followed the scent. It became stronger with each step, until he was sure he would be upon them at any moment. Raja thought that if it weren’t for all the dust and the darkness, he would probably have spotted them a long time ago. Despite his ridiculous boasts of being able to remain concealed in the jungle, a rhino as large as Budi was not usually that difficult to spot.

  Raja moved on. Then his head hit something hard and rough with quite an unpleasant smell.

  “Budi!” Raja cried, crinkling his nose in disgust as he realized what he had walked into.

  Budi turned his head. “Raja! You left the jungle.” Budi looked around. “Where are the others? The tigers? I tried to convince them to come with us, but they refused to leave you.”

  “They are safe,” Raja said, “or at least as safe as can be, I hope. They are following the other animals up the mountain. I saw your footprints and followed them into the village. What are you doing here?”

  “Melati,” Dewi, beside Budi, answered in a small trembling voice. “I thought she might
have come here to check on the human girl, but there is no sign of her. I begged Budi to help me search for her. I hope she didn’t go back to Krakatoa.”

  “Melati will be fine,” Raja reassured her. “I am sure of it. Besides, she is a bird, she is free to fly wherever she pleases. She is probably far away from here, napping in the branches of a palm tree.”

  “Which is exactly what I already said,” Budi replied.

  Dewi’s head dropped. “I’m sorry, Budi. I just needed to be sure.”

  There was a rush of water and suddenly they found themselves standing knee-deep in murky, debris-covered ocean. Raja reached out to grab hold of Dewi with his paw as the water pulled back again, almost dragging her out with it.

  “It’s coming closer inland,” Raja said. “We need to get up the mountain and on higher ground.”

  Budi nodded. But before they could move, the tide came again, this time knocking Dewi over and sending Raja floating away. Raja held out his claws, desperately scrabbling to try to catch hold of something before he was swept out to sea. Around him, entire buildings, wooden planks, roofs, and trees were taken along for the ride. Behind him, Raja could see Budi still standing where he had left, looking slightly alarmed but not moving as the water rushed around him.

  To his relief, Dewi had somehow managed to climb up onto Budi’s back and was clinging to his front horn for dear life. Raja was swept past a row of tall palm trees that had so far survived the flood. A couple of humans had shinned their way up the trunks. They clung to them as the trees swayed with the rush of water. Raja turned his body in the water, using his paws to propel himself closer to the nearest tree. As he swept past it, he reached out and caught the trunk with his sharp claws, digging them in. The water moved on without him, and as it began to go back out in the opposite direction, Raja hauled his soaking-wet body up and out of the water with as much strength as he could muster, until he was halfway up the tree, just like the humans, and above sea level.

  He watched and waited until the water had all but drained away, then leaped down from the tree in one swift jump and raced back over to Budi.

  “We need to go before the water returns,” he told them.

  Budi didn’t need to be told twice. They followed a muddy path that led up to the base of Mount Rajabasa. Another wave hit the village behind him, and Raja turned to see more buildings being washed away. As the sea subsided, it left nothing but wreckage behind. There was a small cry, and Raja’s ears pricked up, thinking it was one of the tiger cubs.

  “Wait!” Raja called out to Budi, ignoring Budi’s protests as he ran back along the path. He had to go only a little way before he found a small bundle sitting in the mud, sodden and crying out for its mother. But it wasn’t a tiger cub, it was a human boy.

  “Where is your mother?” Raja growled at the small boy, a little more fiercely than he had intended. The little boy stopped crying for a second as his eyes widened in shock at seeing a huge tiger looming over him. Then he began crying all the louder.

  Raja looked around helplessly for any sign of the boy’s mother or any human who might be able to help better than he could, but there was no one in sight.

  “You need to go up the mountain,” Raja growled at the boy, a little more quietly this time, even though he knew the boy couldn’t understand him.

  The boy just stared back at Raja, his body heaving with sobs. He reached out with his small hand and tentatively stroked Raja’s fur.

  “Raja!” Budi called out from a little way up the mountain. “The water is coming again.”

  Raja didn’t have time to think. The boy was so small he would be washed out to sea with the tide. Even if he was a human, he was just a cub, and Raja protected all cubs no matter which type of animal they were.

  He quickly grabbed the back of the boy’s sodden tunic and lifted him from the ground as gently as he could. The boy stopped crying in surprise, and as Raja began running, the boy swung back and forth, giggling.

  Raja reached Budi and Dewi. He ignored their questions about what he was doing with a human cub and followed the tracks the humans had left. Even with the boy in his jaws, it didn’t take him long to catch up to the back of the human pack. As he set the boy carefully down on the ground, a woman screamed and rushed toward him, carrying a large stick, which she waved angrily at Raja.

  She hurtled toward Raja, ignoring the cries from the other humans calling for her to stay back. Raja shrank back a little, memories of the human who had burned him flooding into his head. He tried to stay calm and docile, to show her that he meant her no harm, but the adrenaline pulsing through his body urged him to fight to protect himself. But as she neared, the little boy moved to stand in front of Raja protectively. He held up his hands, shouting something back at the woman. The woman paused, and the boy smiled at her, pointing first down the mountain and then at Raja. The woman stared at Raja, her eyes narrowing. She slowly lowered her stick to the ground, then knelt down and wept as the boy ran into her arms. She kissed the boy all over, then looked back at Raja, her face stained with the tracks of her tears.

  She gave Raja a small smile and a nod, then grabbed her son by the hand and hurried back to the other humans.

  “You saved him,” Budi said, with a hint of both pride and surprise in his voice.

  Raja let out a sigh of relief and shrugged. “Maybe not all humans are bad,” he admitted.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Budi

  August 27, 1883

  5:00 AM

  Ketimbang

  It was early in the morning, Budi guessed, but it was hard to tell for sure because the sun, having been obscured by the dark clouds, had never returned. Budi felt as though it must be the end of the world, and no matter how far they traveled or how long, they would never be safe again. He climbed wearily onward, up the path, which was little more than trampled dirt from where the humans had gone before them. Dewi, utterly overwhelmed by having almost been washed out to sea, had clambered onto Budi’s back with a little help from Raja.

  “What’s happening?” Dewi cried. “Where are we?”

  “It’s all right, Dewi. You’re safe now,” Budi reassured her, even though he didn’t really believe they were safe yet.

  “I had a terrible dream,” Dewi said with a sniffle. “That the jungle burned, and us with it.”

  Budi felt his throat close up. What he could he tell Dewi? That they no longer had a home?

  “You need to rest, Dewi,” he told her. “You are exhausted.”

  Dewi nodded, then settled back down onto Budi’s back. After a while, her quick, troubled breaths slowed as she fell back to sleep.

  Budi glanced back at his friend Raja. His head hung low and his once thick and lustrous fur now stuck to his body, matted with mud and ash, making him appear half the size he actually was. Raja’s tail dragged along the ground as he stumbled and swayed unsteadily on his paws after Budi.

  Budi paused and waited for him to catch up.

  “Raja,” he said. “Do you need to rest?”

  Raja let out a small growl and glared at Budi with fierce but weary eyes. “No. We continue on until we find the others.”

  Budi opened his mouth to say more, but Raja snarled and he thought better of it.

  The mountain became steeper with each heavy plod of Budi’s feet. The higher they went, the more fiercely the wind swept around them, almost as hot as the very sun itself, sending ash, dust, and burning cinders swirling in a hellish whirlwind. Behind him, Raja coughed and wheezed, gasping for breath as much as Budi did. Budi felt as if he were breathing in nothing but dust and that the very air itself had left them for somewhere safer.

  “We need to rest,” Budi said to Raja. “I need to rest. Dewi is not as light as she looks.”

  Raja nodded slowly and joined his friend as they sat together in silence on the filthy path. Every so often Raja’s tail would flick back and forth, and Budi sensed that the tiger was anxious to move on, but at the same time, he was afraid. Budi had never
seen Raja like this—his usual energy and determination draining out of him with every step.

  Budi peered down to the village they had left behind, although there was not much left to see now. The waves had grown bigger and all but washed everything away.

  “What’s that?” Raja managed to say. “Out in the ocean.”

  Budi narrowed his eyes, trying to see what Raja was talking about. His eyes weren’t sharp at the best of times, and now, with the air filled with smoke, he could see nothing but a large black line in the distance. The horizon, he supposed, but then he realized that he could no longer see Krakatoa.

  “It’s moving, Budi,” Raja said, his voice suddenly alert and urgent. He rose to his feet. “Look, Budi, the water, it’s coming closer.”

  Budi didn’t have to squint now; he could see it. It was so impossibly high, so vast that he could barely take in what he was actually seeing. The giant wave roared across the strait, heading right for Ketimbang and Mount Rajabasa.

  “We need to go,” Budi said.

  Raja seemed to find a final spurt of energy from within and raced ahead, glancing back at Budi every few feet and then out to the wave. “Hurry, Budi,” he urged. “HURRY! We’re not high enough. We have to move faster or we’ll all be lost.”

  Budi could hear the wave now, the sound echoing all around. The crash and deafening roar as it reached the shore and erased everything in its path.

  “Dewi!” Budi yelled above the noise. “Hold on to me. It’s going to get a bit rough.”

  Dewi woke with a start and squealed. She dug her sharp claws into Budi’s skin as Budi charged on, half-blind from the gloom, half-deaf from the uproar all around him. Ahead he could hear screams and shouts coming from the humans, and in a few minutes he and Raja had reached the back of their pack. But the giant wave had scared the humans, and instead of staying together, they now scrambled to escape it—pushing and climbing over one another, abandoning the few belongings they had salvaged, and grabbing hold of the smaller humans, dragging them along as they, too, screamed in fear.