The Caves of Night by John Christopher

Author:John Christopher [Christopher, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1968-03-31T21:00:00+00:00

7

They found Heather lifting Peter up. He had not been buried by the rock, but had been thrown down near the edge of the water. She looked up incredulously into the light.

“He’s all right!”

Peter himself said, “I guess I pulled the wrong string. Quite a surprise packet. I’m afraid I didn’t get you your flower, honeybunch.”

She leaned over him, recovered from her first relief. “Are you sure there’s nothing broken?”

“Only my nerve.”

Henry said, “I’m glad you’re all right, Peter.” His voice was coldly incisive. “But that was a damn stupid thing to do.”

“You didn’t tell him not to,” Heather protested.

“I hardly thought I needed. I told you all several times that the tunnel wall was unsafe. If it was risky to speak above a whisper, what do you think the weight of a six-footer was likely to do?”

Peter said, “You’re quite right. I ought to have known better.”

“Anyway,” Heather said, “nothing serious has happened. Everything’s all right.”

“Is it?”

The light from the headlamp covered the place where the mouth of the tunnel had been. There was none there now. The collapsed wall lay in a heap of shattered rock against which the river waters broke in angry black foam. Here and there a patch of gypsum blossom winked up in the light.

They all stared for a moment in silence.

Albrecht said, “You have not shovels here among your equipment, Henry?”

“It wouldn’t do much good if I had. We should want a couple of bulldozers to cope with that. And there’s the river to consider.”

Peter said grimly, “I’ve torn it properly, haven’t I?”

“How long shall we have to wait,” Heather asked, “to be rescued? I’ve got some chocolate with me.”

Henry said slowly, “No one is going to rescue us along that route.”

“Why not? They’ll know something’s happened when we don’t get back for tea. They will have spades and everything. If you get enough people digging away at it, I don’t see why you couldn’t clear it.”

None of the others spoke.

Heather said impatiently, “Well, why not? Even if we have to spend a couple of days in here, we can manage. We shan’t die of thirst.”

“No,” Henry said, “we shan’t do that.”

His light shone on the broken stone and the water swirling against it.

Albrecht asked quietly, “How long?”

“It’s impossible to say—but you can count it in hours, and not many, either.”

“How long till what?” Heather asked.

Peter said, in a dry voice, “The river’s blocked by the fall. You can see that the level’s rising already. It will spread out over the floor of this cave. Gradually it will fill it. That’s what they’re talking about, darling.”

She stared in awakening horror at the water.

“You mean—we’ll drown?”

Peter said desperately, “If we really had a go at the tunnel—even if we didn’t clear a way through for ourselves, we might make a channel for the river.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Henry said, “but without any proper tools, I don’t think our chances would be very good. We would waste time and exhaust ourselves to no purpose.”

Heather said,

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