“Go carefully,” Lascelle warned. “We’ll find him, but no sense getting all of us buried in the process.”
Despite his words, Dixon must have been following close behind; as they neared the dark maw of the mine mouth and slowed, Kate heard him say, “Lanterns—Henry and you others, go and fetch as many as you can find. All the rest of the men, form up in single file. We’re going to need to clear a path to get Frobisher and Amy out once we’ve found them. We’re going to form a line to move the rubble—all the larger rocks and timbers—out of the mine. Fanshawe, Hopkins—take charge.”
In an agony of impatience, Kate waited just inside the mine mouth, kept at bay by the dense darkness—then the first of the lighted lanterns was handed to Lascelle and Hillsythe. Expressions grim, they held the lanterns high, directing the beams into the settling murk.
Kate felt her heart constrict. She would have given anything to see Caleb walking out—even staggering out with Amy in his arms—but there was no sign of either of them. Yet other than the still-wafting dust and the heavy coating already deposited over every surface, the first section of the tunnel—the ten or so yards before the opening to the second tunnel—appeared undamaged.
“Caleb!” she called. “Amy?”
The only sounds to reach their straining ears were the murmurs of the rock and earth still settling.
Dixon joined them. He played the light from his lantern over the beams holding up the tunnel roof, then shifted his attention to scanning the tunnel walls, then the rough floor.
Kate felt Lascelle’s restraining hand on her arm, but as she could sense the tension in him, and in Hillsythe and even Dixon—a straining against the impulse to rush forward and find their friend—she forced herself to draw in a slightly deeper breath and wait for Dixon’s assessment.
Several rocks had bounced out of the second tunnel. Dixon’s light remained on them for several seconds, then he pronounced, “This stretch looks solid. Nothing’s even shifted. I’d say we’re as safe as we’ve ever been in this section.”
Immediately the words left his mouth, they—Kate, Lascelle, and Hillsythe—were moving forward. Others followed, but in an orderly way. Fear and trepidation over what they would find held them all silent.
Dixon quietly called, “Jed?”
“Aye?”
“Take some of the others and a couple of lanterns and assess the rest of the first tunnel. Check the joints where the side bracing meets the roof beams. If all’s still tight, there’ll be no reason to fear further collapse along there.”
Jed called to several others.
After skirting several rocks, Kate and her company reached the opening of the second tunnel. Again, she had to wait, her heart in her mouth, while the men played the lantern beams over the scene.
There, the dust still hung heavy in the air.
And there was a lot more damage.
The debris reached to where they stood, rocks and rubble littering the previously reasonably clear floor. To their left, the diamond-studded rock face gleamed, fractured diamonds winking as they caught the light.
With every yard farther down the second tunnel, the density of rubble increased. About a quarter of the way down, shards of snapped timbers started appearing among the loose rocks. The men were directing their lantern beams along the roof, trying to gauge how far up the tunnel the failure reached; for at least half the upper level’s length, the roof appeared to be sound.
The sullen mutterings of disturbed rock and earth were fading, to be replaced by an eerie silence.
Everyone behind them seemed to be holding their breaths.
Dixon pushed up alongside them. He stared at what the lanterns revealed. Then he barked out a seemingly incredulous laugh. “It looks like we’ve lost the last third of the upper level—the very best we could have hoped for. The roof’s down to there, but it looks to have held—and held well—from that point on.” He directed his own lantern at what was facing them—a cascade of jumbled rocks and a tangle of heavy structural beams flung like spillikins by the force of the implosion and now wedged diagonally across the tunnel. The blockage was much closer than where he’d placed the collapse. “All that has been pushed forward,” he said. “It’ll be loose, but if we move carefully and progressively, we should be able to safely dig it out again. Caleb and Amy...”
Dixon’s voice trailed away.
But while the men had been looking at the tunnel’s roof, Kate had been desperately searching the floor. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the dim light cast by the edge of the lanterns’ beams and made hazy and diffused by the dust clogging the air.
It had taken her mind several seconds to realize what she was looking at, but finally...
A head and shoulders, thickly coated with dust, were just discernible in the shadows beneath and behind the first angled beam. And alongside lay a tangle of fine pale hair and a thin outflung arm.
As if Dixon’s words released them from some invisible leash, Lascelle and Hillsythe started forward, but Kate gripped Lascelle’s arm. “There!” She pointed. “Caleb!” Her heart twisted in her chest. Her voice gained strength. “He’s there. With Amy.”
She scrambled forward as fast as she could. She was lighter than the men—and possibly more desperate. She reached the tangle of beams first, ducked, and peered beneath the first beam.
Her eyes widened as she realized what had happened.
She held up a hand, palm outward. “Wait.” She rapidly surveyed the cave-like space in which Caleb and Amy were lying. Three of the heavier beams—the one she was crouched beneath and two others—had wedged against the left side of the tunnel, the beams’ ends roughly halfway up the rock face, with their other ends sunk into and held in place by the densely packed rubble crammed into the space between those ends and the opposite wall. A dozen or more smaller timbers, split and snapped, had fallen in a haphazard way on top of the larger beams, and a jumble of large rocks and smaller ones had fallen on top of them.
Kate turned to Lascelle. “Give me a lantern.” She grabbed the one he held out, and her heart thudding wildly, she shone the lantern into the cave, centering the beam on the two bodies lying side by side. Caleb’s arm was around Amy, her cheek pressed into his shoulder. Neither was moving, but Kate thought both their backs were still rising and falling. “Caleb?”
No response.
But Amy stirred, then whimpered.
Kate thrust the lantern at Lascelle and dropped to her knees; heedless of the jab of rocks through her skirts, she crawled and wriggled and squeezed her way under the thick beam, pushing rocks out until she was inside the cramped space.
There was only just enough space for her hard up against the wall near Amy’s head.
Lascelle filled the gap where Kate had been. He shone the lantern in and softly swore.
Both Amy and Caleb had fallen on loose rocks—some small, some fist-sized or bigger. Other rocks had later fallen on top of them. What damage might have been done was impossible to guess.
Kate stretched across and stroked Caleb’s dusty head. “I can’t see any wounds.”
“Check his pulse,” Lascelle rasped.
Kate tried to reach the wrist of the arm tucked protectively around Amy, but in the cramped space, she couldn’t tug it free. She tried for Caleb’s neck and huffed in defeat. “I can’t reach.” Not without pressing her weight down on Amy.
She shifted her attention to the little girl. Brushing aside Amy’s fine hair, Kate felt for a pulse at the base of Amy’s slender throat and found it tripping, surprisingly strongly.
Then Amy whimpered and shifted her outflung arm, drawing it in.
“Hush, sweetheart.” Kate leaned over the child. “We’re going to get you out.”
She picked up a rock that was pinning Amy’s legs; she was about to toss it farther down the cave when La
scelle said sharply, “No!”
When she looked at him, he beckoned. “Hand the rocks out. You don’t want to risk anything shifting.” With a grim glance, he indicated the haphazard tangle that was holding a ton of rubble suspended over Caleb’s back.
Kate looked, swallowed, and nodded. She and Amy were under the looming mass, too.
As quickly as she could, she freed Amy’s torso, arms, and legs of rubble.
The little girl whimpered several times.
“Before we move her,” Lascelle said, accepting the final rock, “see if you can rouse her and ask if she can move her fingers and toes.”
Despite the near-overwhelming urgency to get to Caleb, Kate bent her head close to Amy’s and spent the next minute coaxing the little girl into full awareness. When Amy’s big blue eyes were finally staying open, Kate asked, “Tell me where it hurts, sweetheart.”
Amy’s lower lip trembled, but she clearly tried to assess... “Scrapes,” she said. “I’ve scraped my knees.”
Kate nodded. “All right. Now can you wiggle your toes?”
Amy looked at her as if she was strange. “Yes, but why?”
Relief swept Kate, and she managed a smile. “Never mind. How about your fingers?”
“They’re all right.” Amy drew in the arm that had earlier been outflung, braced herself on her elbow, and wriggled beneath the weight of Caleb’s arm. “He’s heavy.” She glanced at Caleb, at the side of his face she could see. “He came to find me. He rescued me when the roof came down.” Her little voice lowered to a hushed whisper. “Is he all right?”
“I hope so, sweetheart, but I need to get you out so I can get close enough to him to see where he’s hurt.” Kate glanced at Caleb. “It might just be his head.”
“I ’member a piece of wood falling on him,” Amy said, “and then we fell.” She looked around, then pointed at a strut lying in the rubble beneath the large beam. “That one, I think it was.” She’d used her other hand to point and now held up the bedraggled piece of dusty ribbon she was clutching to show Kate. “But I got my ribbon, see?”
Kate managed a smile. “Yes, darling. I see. Now you hold on to that while we get you out so that Annie and Harriet can see to your scrapes, and the rest of us can get Captain Caleb out.”
Lascelle, Hillsythe, and others had been busy clearing rocks and timbers out of the way and sending them back and ultimately out of the mine via lines of eager helpers. Luckily, Mary and Gemma had realized that there were lots of diamond-bearing rocks among the rubble, and the women and the older girls had set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the second tunnel to monitor the rocks taken out. Kate had been dimly aware of the whispered conference between Hillsythe and Dixon and had registered the arrangements to divert all diamond-bearing rocks to the stockpile still safely ensconced in the alcove in the depths of the first tunnel.
She’d also registered the implication of Dixon’s comment regarding the stockpile—“I was worried that we might lose even that in the collapse, but the gods smiled on us, at least on that front”—but decided she couldn’t think about that now.
Given she’d managed to wriggle her way into the cave, then once the rubble blocking the way was further reduced, Amy would get out easily enough. Kate worked with the little girl to get her up from her prone position to a crouch. She sympathized over Amy’s badly skinned knees and scraped elbows and shins, then, once the men had cleared as much of the choking rubble as possible, she helped the little girl crawl out under the beam, into Lascelle’s waiting hands.
He stood, lifting Amy, and turned. “Amy’s free!”
A loud cheer went up. Distantly, Kate realized just how many of the captives had packed into the tunnels and were working to free the trapped pair.
But the instant Amy had left her hands, her attention had locked on Caleb.
Now the little girl was out of the way, Kate scooted around and half lay down, bending her head so she could look into his face. “Caleb?”
Was that a flicker of movement in his features? She couldn’t be sure.
She eased her fingers under the curve of his jaw and down the strong column of his throat, reaching, hoping... It felt as if her whole world—her mind, her wits, her senses—came to a careening halt and just stopped. And waited...
Then beneath her fingertips, she felt the heat—and the heavy thudding beat.
For an instant, she closed her eyes, letting the solid repetitive thud of his heartbeat seep deep and reassure her, then she drew in a long, calming breath and opened her eyes.
The world crashed in again.
Looking up and out of the confining cave, she met Lascelle’s eyes.
There was no expression on his handsome features, but he exuded a sense of suspended emotion.
She smiled. “He’s very much alive.”
Lascelle humphed, but he couldn’t stop the smile that bloomed and wreathed his face. “He’s always had the luck of the devil.” He turned and called the news back—and a huge, even louder cheer rocked the tunnel.
“Not so loud,” Dixon called.
Everyone hushed and waited, but there were no telltale creaks and groans. The hillside, it seemed, had done all the collapsing it was going to do, at least for the time being.
Kate looked back at Caleb. Crouched low over him—even with Amy gone, the beams above restricted her to that position—she twisted and looked back along his length. Rocks lay scattered over his back, hips, and legs. She couldn’t see his feet and didn’t think she had space enough to reach them; the cave angled downward to meet the floor, and another beam had hit the ground horizontally just beyond where his boots would be. She still couldn’t see any wound, although there might be some beneath the rocks. At least there was no blood anywhere she could see.
She heard the men lifting rocks and rubble away, clearing the tunnel ahead of the cave.
Then Lascelle returned to look into the cramped space. “Even were he hale and hearty, getting him out of there wouldn’t be easy. We’re going to have to clear enough of the rock to get at least this first beam up and away before seeing if we can pull him out.” His gaze rose to the weight of rubble suspended over her head. “That’s going to take time.”
When he returned his gaze to her face, she nodded. “I’ll stay with him.”
Lascelle regarded her, but to both her relief and his credit, he didn’t argue. “Call if you want to get out.”
With that, he rose and turned to the other men. Kate heard him confirm that she was remaining where she was. Rather than invite argument, he immediately started discussing with Hillsythe and Dixon how best to approach what she understood was a tricky task.
She left them to it.
Wriggling around, she managed to get into a half-sitting, half-lying position that allowed her to, very gently, send her fingers probing beneath Caleb’s thick hair, dislodging the layer of dust coating it.
Within seconds, she found a lump the size of a goose egg above and behind his right ear.
She was carefully checking for any broken skin when he stirred. Her gaze locking on his face, what she could see of it, she froze.
He coughed, then grimaced—horrendously. “Head hurts,” he grumbled, as if she should have known.
She drew her hand away and dipped her head closer to his. “Caleb?”
His lids fluttered, then rose. He blinked at her, then focused. “Amy?”
“She’s all right. We’ve already got her out. Just skinned knees and scraped shins and elbows.” She felt like she was babbling, but as she looked into the bright blue of his entirely lucid gaze, relief flooded her in such a massive wave she nearly slumped. “Thank God!” Gently, she touched his jaw. “Are you all right?”
He snorted. “Depends on your definition.” He splayed his hands on the rock floor and tensed as if to push himself up
.
“No.” She pushed down on his shoulder. “You can’t get up yet.”
Lying as he was, his view of their position was severely restricted, but he looked at her, then tipped his head this way and that, trying to get some idea... “Ah. I see.” He eased down to the floor again.
Lascelle must have heard their voices. He returned to crouch at the opening and look in.
Kate beamed. “He’s awake.”
Lascelle grunted. He had to tip his head to meet Caleb’s gaze. “What’s the damage?”
Caleb grimaced. He tested this muscle, then that, and eventually replied, “I can feel everything all too well, including the weight—whatever it is—on my feet. But everything appears to be functioning.”
“Good. In that case, just lie there and let us lift this”—Lascelle nodded at the roof of their prison—“off.”
“Can you send someone so I can hand out the rocks and rubble from in here—so he can move?” Kate asked.
Lascelle squinted down Caleb’s back at the rocks and small pieces of timber scattered over him. “I’ll get one of the older boys in here with a basket.”
“Meanwhile,” Caleb said, “send Dixon over. If I have to stay quietly trapped, at least let me know what result we achieved.”
Lascelle grunted and rose.
Caleb watched him vanish. He glanced at Kate and thought of how, when he’d regained consciousness, it had felt so right to find her beside him. He shifted his right hand, found hers, and gripped it.
A minute later, Dixon crouched in front of the angled beam. Caleb was relieved to see the engineer smiling.
“It went better than expected, truth be told,” Dixon said in reply to his query. “As far as I can see, the lower level’s completely blocked off. In the upper level, we’ve lost about a third of the working rock face.” Dixon glanced over his shoulder. “And we can stretch out the clearing up for all of tomorrow, at least.”
In his mind, Caleb ran through what losing a third of the working rock face would mean. Delay enough or...?
Dixon shifted. “I need to get back to overseeing the removal of the rubble above you. Just rest. You’ve done your part. Now let us do ours.”