The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

  They both leaned out and stared across.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘There is something there, I think.’

  ‘If I could get across to it!’ Craig switched off again.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know, let me think.’

  They sat with their backs against the wall, their shoulders just touching.

  After a while Tungata murmured, ‘Craig, if we ever get out of here – the diamonds. You will be entitled to a share—’

  ‘Do shut up, Sam. I’m thinking.’ Then, after many minutes, ‘Sam, the poles, the longest pole in the ladder – do you think it would reach across to the other side?’

  They built a second fire on the ledge, and it lit the shaft with an uncertain wavering light. Once again Craig went down the rope, onto the remains of the timber ladder, and this time he examined each pole in the structure. Most of them had been axed to shorter lengths, probably to make it easier to carry them down through the tunnels and passages from the surface, but the side frames were in longer pieces. The longest of these was not much thicker than Craig’s wrist, but the bark was the peculiar pale colour that gave it the African name of ‘the elephant tusk tree’. Its common English name was ‘leadwood’, one of the toughest, most resilent woods of the veld.

  Moving along it, measuring it with the span of his arms, Craig reckoned this pole was almost sixteen feet long. He secured the end of the rope to the upper end of the pole, shouting up to the platform to explain what he was doing, and then he used his clasp-knife from the kit to cut the bark rope holding the pole into the ladderwork. There was the terrifying moment when the pole finally broke free and hung on the rope, swinging like a pendulum, and the entire structure, deprived of its king-pin, began to break up and slide down the shaft.

  Craig hauled himself up the rope and flung himself thankfully onto the platform, and when he had recovered his breath, the pole was still dangling down the shaft on the end of the rope, although the rest of the ladderwork had collapsed into the water at the bottom.

  ‘That was the easy part,’ Craig warned them grimly.

  With Tungata and himself providing the brute strength, and the two girls coiling and guiding the rope, they worked the pole up an inch at a time until the tip of it appeared above the level of the platform. They anchored it, and Craig lay on his belly and used the free end of the rope to lasso the bottom end of the pole. Now they had it secured at both ends and could begin working it up and across.

  After an hour of grunting and heaving, and coaxing, they had one end of the pole resting against the wall of the shaft opposite them, and the other end thrust back into the tunnel behind them.

  ‘We have got to lift the far end,’ Craig explained while they rested, ‘and try and get it into that crack on the far wall – if it is a crack.’

  Twice they nearly lost the pole as it rolled out of their grip and almost fell into the well below, but each time they just held it on the rope and then began the heart-breaking task all over again.

  It was after midnight by Craig’s Rolex before they at last had the tip of the pole worked up the far wall to the height of the dark mark only just visible in the beam of the lamp.

  ‘Just an inch to the right,’ Craig grunted, and they rolled it gently, felt the pole slide in their hands, and then with a small bump the tip of it lodged in the crack in the wall opposite them and both Craig and Tungata sagged onto their knees and hugged each other in weary congratulations.

  Sarah fed the fire with fresh wood and in the flare of light they reviewed their work. They now had a bridge across the shaft, rising from the platform on which they stood at a fairly steep angle, the rear end jammed solidly against the wall behind them, and the far end wedged in the narrow crack in the opposite wall.

  ‘Somebody has to cross that.’ Sally-Anne’s voice was small and unsteady.

  ‘And what happens on the other side?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘We’ll find out when we get there,’ Craig promised them.

  ‘Let me go,’ Tungata said quietly to Craig.

  ‘Have you ever done any rock climbing?’ Tungata shook his head. ‘Well, that answers that,’ Craig told him with finality. ‘Now we’ll take two hours’ rest – try to sleep.’

  However, none of them could sleep, and Craig roused them before the two hours were up. He explained to Tungata how to set himself up firmly as anchorman, sitting flat with both feet braced, the rope around his waist and up over his back and shoulder.

  ‘Don’t give me too much slack, but don’t cramp me,’ Craig explained. ‘If I fall I’ll shout “I’m off!”, then jam the rope like this and hold with everything you’ve got, okay?’

  He hung one of the lanterns over his shoulder with a strip of canvas as a sling and then, with both the girls sitting on the end of the pole to hold it firmly, Craig straddled it and began working out along it with both feet dangling into the void. The loop of rope hung behind him as Tungata fed it out.

  Within a few feet Craig found that the upward angle was too steep, and he had to lie flat along the pole with his ankles hooked over it, and push himself upwards with his legs. He moved quickly out of the firelight, and the black emptiness below him was mesmeric and compelling. He did not look down. The pole flexed under the weight of each of his movements and he heard the far tip of it grating against the rock above him, but at last his fingertips touched the cold limestone of the shaft wall.

  He groped anxiously for the crack, and felt a little lift of his spirits as his fingers made out the shape of it. It ran vertically up the shaft, the outside lips about three inches apart, just enough to accommodate the end of the pole, then it narrowed quickly as it went deeper.

  ‘It’s a crack all right!’ he called back. ‘And I’m going to have a shot at it.’

  ‘Be careful, Craig.’

  ‘Christ!’ he thought. ‘What a stupid bloody thing to say.’

  He reached up to a comfortable stretch of his left arm and thrust his hand, with the fingers folded into a loose fist, as deeply as it would go into the crack. Then he bunched his fist, and as it changed shape it swelled and jammed firmly in the crack and he could put his weight on it.

  He pulled himself into a sitting position on the pole bridge, drew one knee up to his chest and with his free hand reached down and locked the clip on his artificial ankle. The ankle was now rigid.

  He took a full breath, and said softly, ‘Okay, here we go.’

  He reached up with his free hand, pushed it into the crack and made another ‘jam hold’ with his right fist. He used the strength of both arms to pull himself up onto his knees, balancing on the pole.

  He relaxed the lower hand and it slipped easily out of the crack. He reached up as high as he could and thrust it into the crack and expanded his fist again. He pulled himself upright, and he was standing on the pole facing the wall.

  He stepped up with his artificial foot, turning it so the toe went into the crack as deeply as the instep and then when he straightened his leg the toe twisted and bit into both sides of the rock crack. He stepped up, leaving the pole below him.

  ‘Good old tin toes,’ he grunted. His good leg and foot could not have borne the weight, not without specialized climbing boots to protect and strengthen them.

  He reached up and took a jam hold with each hand, and lifted himself by the strength of his arms alone. As soon as the weight came off his leg, he twisted the foot, slipped it out of the crack and pulled up his knee to make another toe-hold eighteen inches higher. Suspended alternately on his arms and then on his one leg, he pushed upwards, and the rope slithered up after him.

  He was now right out of the firelight and into the darkness. He had only his sense of touch to guide him, and the dark drop seemed to suck at his heels, as he hung out backwards from the sheer wall. He was counting each step upwards, reckoning each at eighteen inches, and he had gone up forty feet when the crack started to widen. He had to reach deeper into it each time to make a jam, and in
consequence each of his steps became shorter and placed more strain on his arms and leg.

  Forced contact with the stone had abraded the skin off his knuckles, making every successive hold more agonizing, and the unaccustomed exercise was cramping the muscles on the inside of his thigh and groin into knots of fire.

  He couldn’t go on much longer. He had to rest. He found himself pulling in against the wall, pressing himself to it, touching the cold limestone with his forehead like a worshipper. To lie against the wall is to die, that is the first law of the rock climber. It is the attitude of defeat and despair. Craig knew it, and yet he could do nothing to prevent it.

  He found he was sobbing. He took one fist out of the crack, and flapped it with loose fingers, forcing blood back into it, and then he held it to his mouth and licked the broken skin. He changed hands, whimpering as fresh blood flowed back into the cramped hand.

  ‘Pupho, why have you stopped?’ The rope was no longer paying out. They were anxious.

  ‘Craig, don’t give up, darling. Don’t give up.’ Sally-Anne had sensed his despair. There was that something in her voice that gave him new strength.

  Gradually he pushed himself outwards, hanging back from the wall, coming into balance again, his weight on the leg, and he reached up, one hand at a time, left and right, hold hard, pull up the leg, step up – and again, and then the whole hellish torturous thing again, and yet again. Another ten feet, twenty feet – he was counting in the darkness.

  Reach up with the right hand and – and – nothing. Open space.

  Frantically he groped for the crack – nothing. Then his hand struck rock out to one side, the crack had opened wide into a deep V-shaped niche, wide enough for a man to force his whole body into it.

  ‘Thank you, God, oh thank you, thank you—’ Craig dragged himself up into it, wedging his hips and shoulders, and hugging his damaged hands to his chest.

  ‘Craig!’ Tungata’s shout rang up the shaft.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Craig called back. ‘I’ve found a niche. I’m resting. Give me five.’

  He knew he couldn’t wait too long, or his hands would stiffen and become useless. He kept flexing them as he rested.

  ‘Okay!’ he called down. ‘Going up again.’

  He pushed himself upwards with the palms of his hands on each side of the cleft, facing outwards into the total darkness of the shaft.

  Swiftly the cleft opened, and became a wide, deep chimney so that he could no longer reach across it with his arms. He had to turn sideways, wedge his shoulders on one side of it, and walk up the other side with his feet, wriggling his shoulders and pushing up with his palms on the stone under him a few inches at a time. It went quickly, until abruptly the chimney ended. It closed to a crack so narrow that reaching upwards he could not even fit his finger into it.

  He reached around the top of the chimney out onto the wall of the shaft. He groped as high as he could reach and there was no hold or irregularity in the smooth limestone above him.

  ‘End of the road!’ he whispered, and suddenly every muscle in his body began to shriek in silent spasms of pain, and he felt crushed under a load of weariness. He did not have the energy for that long dangerous retreat back down the chimney, and he did not have the strength to keep himself wedged awkwardly in the rocky cleft.

  Then abruptly a bat squeaked shrilly above him. It was so close and clear that he almost relaxed his grip with shock. He caught himself, and though his legs juddered under the strain, he worked his way sideways to the outermost edge of the chimney. The bat squeaked again, and was answered by a hundred others. It must be dawn already, the bats were returning to their roosts somewhere up there.

  Craig balanced himself, so that he had his outside hand free. He groped for the lantern on its strip of canvas around his neck, and held it out into the open shaft. Then he twisted his head, and wriggled even further outwards until he was holding with only the point of one shoulder, and his head was protruding around the sharp corner of the chimney into the open shaft.

  He switched on the lantern. Instantly there was a hubbub of alarmed bats – their terrified shrills and the flutter of their wings – and three feet above Craig’s head, impossibly out of reach, there was a window in the rock wall, from which the sounds reverberated as though from the brass throat of a trumpet. He reached for it, but his fingers were twelve inches short of the sill.

  As he yearned upwards, so the yellow glow of the lantern faded away. For some seconds the filaments still burned redly in their tiny glass ampoule and then they too died, and the darkness rushed back to engulf Craig, and he retreated into the chimney.

  In frustration he hurled the useless lantern from him, and it clattered against the rock as it fell, each rattle becoming fainter until seconds later there was a distant splash as it hit the water far below.

  ‘Craig!’

  ‘Okay, I dropped the light.’

  He heard the bitterness and despondency in his own voice, but in darkness he tried once more to reach the window above him. His fingernails scratched futilely on the stone, and he gave up and began slipping back down the chimney. In the V-shaped niche where the crack and chimney met, he wedged himself again.

  ‘What is happening, Craig?’

  ‘It doesn’t go,’ he called down. ‘There is no way out. We are finished, unless—’ he broke off.

  ‘What is it? Unless what?’

  ‘Unless one of the girls will come up and help me.’

  There was silence in the darkness below him.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Tungata broke the silence.

  ‘No good. You are too heavy. I couldn’t hold you.’

  Silence again, and then Sally-Anne said, ‘Tell me what to do.’

  ‘Tie on to the end of the rope. Use a bowline knot.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘All right, come out across the pole. I’ll be holding you.’

  Peering down he could see her silhouetted against the glow of the fire, as she worked her way across. He took up the slack in the rope carefully, ready to jam it if she fell.

  ‘I’m across.’

  ‘Can you find the crack?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m going to pull you up. You must help me by pushing with your toes in the crack.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Go!’

  He felt her full weight come on the rope, and it bit into his shoulder.

  ‘Push up!’ he ordered, and as he felt the load lighten, he grabbed the slack.

  ‘Push!’ She came up another four inches.

  ‘Push!’ It seemed to go on and on, and then she screamed and the rope burned out in a hard, heavy run across his shoulder. He was almost jerked out of his niche.

  He fought it, jamming hard, feeling the skin smear off his palms on the harsh nylon until he stopped it. Sally-Anne was still screaming, and the rope pendulumed back and forth as she swung sideways along the wall.

  ‘Shut up!’ he roared at her. ‘Get a hold of yourself.’

  She stopped screaming, and gradually her swings became shorter.

  ‘I lost my footing.’ Her voice was almost a sob.

  ‘Can you find the crack again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, tell me when you are ready.’

  ‘Ready!’

  ‘Push up!’

  He thought it would never end, and then he felt her hand touch his leg.

  ‘You made it,’ he whispered. ‘You marvellous bloody female.’

  He made a space for her in the chimney below him and he helped her into it. He showed her how to wedge herself securely, and then he held her shoulder, squeezing hard.

  ‘I can’t go any further.’ Her first words after she recovered.

  ‘That was the worst, the rest is easy.’

  He wouldn’t tell her about the window – not yet.

  ‘Listen to the bats,’ he cheered her instead. ‘The surface must be close, very close. Think of that first glimpse of sunlight, that first brea
th of sweet dry air.’

  ‘I’m ready to go on,’ she said at last, and he led her up the chimney.

  As soon as it was wide enough to cross over, he made her climb ahead of him so that he could place her feet with his hands, and help her to push upwards when the chimney became too wide for her to be able to exert her full strength.

  ‘Craig. Craig! It’s closed. It has pinched in. It’s a dead end.’

  Her panic was just below the surface and he could feel she was shaking as she choked down her sobs.

  ‘Stop it,’ he snapped. ‘Just one more effort. Just one, I promise you.’

  He waited for her to quieten, then he went on, ‘There is a window in the wall just above your head, just around the corner of the chimney. Only a foot or two—’

  ‘I won’t be able to reach it.’

  ‘Yes! Yes, you will. I’m going to make a bridge for you with my body. You will stand on my stomach, you’ll reach it easily. Do you hear me? Sally-Anne, answer me.’

  ‘No.’ Very small and faint. ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘Then none of us are going anywhere,’ he said sharply.

  ‘It’s the only way out. You do it or we rot here. Do you hear me?’

  He worked up close beneath her, so that her sagging buttocks were pressed into his belly. Then he braced with all his strength, pressing with both legs into one side of the chimney and with his shoulders into the other, forming a human bridge beneath her.

  ‘Slowly let go,’ he whispered. ‘Sit on my stomach.’

  ‘Craig, I’m too heavy.’

  ‘Do it, damn you. Do it!’

  Her weight came onto him, and the pain was too much to bear. His sinews and muscles were tearing, his vision filled with flashing lights.

  ‘Now straighten up,’ he blurted.

  She came up onto her knees; her knee-caps bit into his flesh like crucifixion nails.

  ‘Stand!’ he groaned. ‘Quickly!’

  She tottered on the unsteady platform of his body as she came upright.

  ‘Reach up! High as you can!’

  ‘Craig, there is a hole up here!’

  ‘Can you get into it?’