by Robert Lamb
Moses had been standing by the pile and he saw the leather map fall. Their eyes met. Craig swallowed.
‘Craig,’ Moses said slowly, ‘I know you didn’t mean to take the map. I dropped it. But people can lie or steal by saying nothing just as easily as by telling a lie or taking what someone else needs.’
Craig’s throat stuck in the middle of a swallow and he couldn’t make a sound. He nodded.
‘If I punished you, then you’d remember the punishment and forget what you did. I want you to remember what you have done. Do you still want to keep the map?’ Craig shook his head and reached down to the soft leather. As Craig rose to hand the map to Moses, he was deeply sorry. He didn’t mean to steal or hurt anyone; his urge to collect things had just been too strong. It had made him forget their need of the map.
Moses was busy with some last minute check of wires. Captain Tiny was very quiet and said nothing—very unusual for him. Noah was standing looking at the plug. Only the little old man was busy. He was scribbling away in his notebook. Perhaps he is writing down the last moment of our lives, thought Craig, feeling more and more upset.
Above them stood Cindy on the balcony, feeling very alone. The whole chamber was deathly silent. Everyone sensed the danger, Cindy knew she had to give one more order. She waited, tense, for it to come.
There was a delay as Moses pushed the masts into the cracks under the plug. It seemed to take forever.
Finally the order came; Cindy took a deep breath and repeated:
“All electric fish must be joined together and led to the big mast just out of the water!’ This was to be the flash that set off the explosion.
The cave began to glow, brighter and brighter as the fish obeyed.
‘Now touch the mast!’ cried Moses.
‘NOW TOUCH THE MAST!’ cried Cindy.
Crash! came the explosion. Crash! Crash! … the sound echoed round the walls, shaking the entire cave. A blinding light came from the steel mast. The light flashed like lightning and touched off the blasting powder, bullets, and bombs.
Explosion followed explosion as flames tore up around the plug. The great golden rim shone fiercely through the smoke.
Slowly, very slowly, a crack appeared underneath it. A spray, and then a waterfall of water spurted out.
‘HOORAY!’ a giant shout went up from all the people down below. Cindy joined in. They had done it. They were bringing back the water to the other side of the earth.
But by now the waterfall had become a torrent. The cave was filling up fast.
Chapter 13
The Flooded Kingdom
As the cave filled with water, Moses, Craig, the old man, and the others climbed quickly into a boat as it began to float.
Moses shouted to Cindy still high above on the balcony, ‘Tell everyone to get in line so that we can all get out, one after the other, without any accidents. Big ships first, so they don’t crush the little ones.’
‘Get in line, everyone,’ boomed Cindy’s voice. ‘Big ships first; little ones last.’
Suddenly Cindy realized she was stuck. Everyone was leaving the cave and she would be left behind. There did not seem to be any stairs to climb down by.
‘Help!’ she shouted and everyone in the cave stared up at her immediately.
Moses and Noah looked up and tried to stop their boat. Craig grabbed the first pile of rope he could find. ‘Here, Cindy,’ he cried as he threw the end in an arching coil through the air. The rope fell short of the balcony by a few inches.
Cindy leaned over the railing but could not reach it.
‘Don’t worry, Cindy,’ Craig called as he coiled the rope again.
Moses shouted to her, ‘Tell everyone to push themselves away from the walls and mind the doors and their heads going up through these caves. We may be going pretty fast.’
Cindy called out what Moses told her, but her gigantic voice was shaking. She was terribly frightened. The rope came up towards her this time, higher and higher, till the last few feet flipped over the railing. Cindy grabbed it.
‘Wow!’ her voice exploded, crashing round the walls.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered very softly.
Craig called out, ‘Tie the rope around the railing and climb over the side. Terrified, she obeyed. Down through the darkness she swung, feeling strange to be losing her booming voice, but happy to be returning to Craig and the others. They helped her down, while Moses held the rope steady.
The water was gushing loudly and coming through faster. Millions of fish were moving about, splashing with happiness. At the end of the boat, where Cindy found herself and the others, was the old man still writing in his book, waving his feather for an idea, then tapping and scratching it down. Cindy wondered how long that long white beard had been growing. Had he been a boy playing down in these caves?
But there was no time to wonder for they were sliding through the water towards the great door to the War Chamber.
‘Hold your boats back,’ called Moses. ‘Hold on to the walls till the War Chamber fills up or we’ll get crushed in the corkscrew shells!’ But his voice was drowned in the far-echoing cave. Fires and the candles on the ledges were pinched out by the rising water.
They were almost in total darkness as they approached the threshold of the War Chamber. Everyone strained to hold on to the wall or to some rope tied across the door, but finally it snapped. In a rush they felt themselves slipping forward through the black water.
Suddenly in the dark they were falling and turning. Turning. This was it. The twist of the War Chamber. Oh, thought Craig, this twist is far worse in the dark than it was just looking down on it. He held on tightly to the rudder of the broken boat as they swooped down.
Then, just as suddenly, they felt themselves rising upwards, still twisting around. They could see three lights ahead. Craig supposed they were the lights from the three chambers of Peace, Art, and Plenty. But the boat was twisting so much they couldn’t tell which was which, or where to steer. Steering in any case was impossible, as Craig discovered when the rudder snapped off on a rock.
‘What shall we do?’ shouted Craig. ‘The rudder’s broken.’ The lights spinning round made him dizzy.
‘We’ll make for the middle light. It must be the Peace Chamber!” cried Moses. ‘I’ll throw the anchor around the door and we’ll pull ourselves through.’
Moses held a rope with the anchor and Noah lifted it in the dark as they took it to the side and waited. It seemed an age to Craig, who heard the thumping of many boats, hitting together in the whirlpool.
‘Now!’ shouted Moses. Craig watched the anchor like a strange bird, heavy and jagged, reach out beyond the boat with a tangled rope trailing behind. Suddenly the boat jerked. The rope whipped with a loud ‘crack’ and became taut. They were anchored to the doorway of the Peace Chamber and Moses and Noah were pulling the boat through the hole. The water was so high now and the entrance was so low, Craig was sure they wouldn’t make it but would whirl round and round this corkscrew forever, until they were crushed at the top. But …
Swoop—a wave of circling water pulled them down and many cracking ships and broken masts slid under the door and into the pale blue cave of Peace.
‘I hope the others made it under there,’ spluttered Cindy, her mouth full of water.
There were thousands of ships in the Peace Chamber. Great humps of boats jammed next to one another flowed along with the rising water. Pale blue lights from the water mingled with candle flames as everyone tried to see their way towards the door to the Chamber of Questions at the far end.
Boats had to steer round the statues’ heads sticking up above the water to avoid being ripped open. A raft with a bamboo cabin and a square-rigged sail got stuck between two statues. In the distance a giant ship rose above the rest and scraped the ceiling of the cave with a loud, Sssccc.
Next to their small boat, Craig saw a group of galley cooks hanging out of the portholes of a steamer. They were singing happily and bangin
g pots together. They looked very funny.
The black forms of statues’ heads in the lighted pool looked ominous to Craig, but Cindy laughed as she pointed to their narrow squeeze between two beards behind them.
Just then Cindy thought of something not funny at all but horrible. ‘The door to the Entry Chamber is bolted!’ she cried out. ‘And we’ll be drowned if we don’t open it before the water rises to the roof of the cave.’
But no one heard her.
She cried again, and Moses heard and became alarmed. Hundreds of heads turned in the dim light to see where this small cry had come from. The faces above the candles looked terrified. ‘What shall we do?’ Cindy cried again. This time she was much more terrified for she had called the first time, believing, as she often did that what worried her would not worry others, or that it had already been taken care of. But in Moses’ wise old face she saw fear, like a terrible mask.
‘Pass the word along to those in front,’ he shouted quickly. ‘Tell them to hurry to open the door if they can.’
‘But hurry—it may be too late already!’ The blue lights no longer looked friendly but frightening as they sped by. Cindy wished she could slow their speed arid yet the whole mad navy of thousands of boats still flowed along. Everyone was quiet for a moment as if waiting for something to happen.
Then the noise came in many languages from thousands of throats and lips, from beards and between teeth. They passed the word to one another along the chamber, each man to the man ahead, so loudly that Cindy feared no one could hear the real message.
‘Do you think we’ll make it in time, Moses?’
‘I hope so for everyone, Cindy.’ He looked ahead as they neared the end of the heads of statues. He looked straight up. They were approaching the ceiling again in this chamber as they had in the War Chamber.
Far ahead there was a great noise of crashing boats and shouting men. Many torches flashed. Everyone strained their eyes to see the great door to the Entry Chamber.
The top of the door was visible now, above the water. Since it was curved, it looked like an Indian’s bow with the water like the string, but rising higher and higher.
There it was! Dull bronze and metal-green in the torchlight. Hundreds of figures were pushing at the great bolt straining to lift it. The boats were packed solid and Craig felt their own boat scrape against the one ahead as they bumped.
‘What shall we do? Old man, how did the door get bolted? All the water must have come down through the hole.’
‘It did indeed, my son.’ Craig could see the old man’s white hair reflecting on the polished ceiling, just inches above.
‘But then how …?’
‘Ah. How? It was made to fall back in place when all the water came in. That’s how the old king planned it, or his Chief Adviser from whom I have the honour to be descended.’
‘Then you are to blame …?’
‘Ah. Who knows who is to blame for acts of Fate … If it is decided that it must be so then it must …’ But just then their boat jerked forward and the great green-brass doors burst open. A great ‘HOORAY’ went up from all the crowd as boats and men flowed forward.
They passed between the doors with the metal fastenings large and bright under the torches. The strange carvings of king’s processions in tiny dark lines appeared in the flickering light. Points of spears far below the surface were magnified by the bright water.
There, at the end of the Entry Chamber, was a crush of boats and fish like the pile in the Great Chamber. Packed like sardines, everyone waited for the water to push them up.
‘Craig, aren’t you worried? We may be crushed in the hole. Not everyone can be on top of this pile as it goes up.’ Cindy was shaking with fright. ‘What shall we do?’ she cried when Craig made no answer.
‘I don’t know, Cindy. I’m as worried as you.’ And they both looked up at Moses, who just shook his head.
‘Just keep your heads and push away from the walls so you don’t get crushed. The water’s coming up fast, so it should only take a few minutes in the hole to reach the surface. Keep your arms over your heads and get air whenever you can.’ They could already feel the crush of bodies and wood begin.
Craig pushed away from the walls feeling the slimy seaweed slip between his fingers. He felt ropes fall tangled over his head, but he pulled them off quickly. They were rising along the wall now.
Faster and faster they were rising in the hole. Patches of candlelight between bodies showed only ships, ropes, and frightened faces. Here a leg, there a boot, somewhere a fish’s fin, all rose fast in the splashing water. Boats slipped under their feet so it was impossible to tell what they were standing on, or if they were standing at all.
‘Hold your breath if we get caught for a few seconds,’ shouted Moses from somewhere above them, over the loud rumble of movement.
Higher and higher the water rose, boats and fish were packed tight, crushing the sides of many ships together. But they were still all right. The walls moved by in the dark. The candle went out. Craig and Cindy could see nothing. They could only feel bodies on all sides.
‘It’s like the Underground.’ Moses laughed, trying to cheer them up. But his voice sounded strange, as if his mouth were out of shape. Craig and Cindy could take only very small breaths, they were so squeezed.
There was an enormous noise of scraping, shouting, cracking, and splashing in the dark. From one direction there came a cry in French, Russian, or Chinese; from below came Aztec, Zulu, or Portuguese. But most of the words they shouted or grunted were unprintable because of course they were not in English. It was like the Tower of Babel as these layers of fish, men, and boats, all noisy in the dark, pressed up the hole.
First came the smallest rowboats and the dinghys, balancing their bottoms on the decks of still bigger boats below. Small sailboats came next, with the yachts and the yawls. Next came the schooners, the tugboats, the trawlers. Then came the tankers and the great ocean liners. Who could tell what order they were in when everything was pitch black and the noise was deafening? Everything was pressing and scraping against the walls so the water and air became warmer, and the metal boats, masts, and railings became quite hot.
Craig felt an oar against his tummy and an oarlock around his arm, fish scales against his cheek, and, for a moment, a fish tail in his mouth. The pressure grew, the speed was faster, the dark darker, the air hotter, and Craig felt as if he would burst. How long would this take? It seemed a year since they were at the bottom. Why did it take so long?
Cindy shuddered, remembering these walls and how long it had taken to come down. This was the end of her, she was sure of it, as she held on tight to Moses’ arm and Craig’s hair.
Craig felt the octopus slip its arms or legs (he never had found out which was which) around him just at the moment he saw a patch of light, or really a sliver of light, between Moses’ and Noah’s tummies.
‘Light,’ he cried, but his squeezed face just shouted, ‘Hi.’
Cindy wondered what he was saying ‘hello’ for at a time like this and tried to ask him. Craig finally loosened his face enough to whisper again, ‘Light.’
‘Light?’ Cindy whispered, without enough breath to speak normally.
‘HOORAY,’ another great shout went up from all those on top as they came into the light.
The walls became lighter and lighter as rocks gained colour and cracks zigzagged before their eyes up to the high rock cliffs above. Craig could see the tiny waterfall again, bright against the dark ledges. It was so peaceful as it trickled over the edge of the hole, unaware that in a few minutes or seconds it would be swamped.
The tiny stream splashed a few drops in Craig’s face as he looked up. But they were already pouring out of the hole.
They had no sooner come out of the hole and flowed up the mud hill a few hundred yards when they all stopped. The boats were motionless and fish were still. Water seeped and bubbled out of the hole and piles of boats and wrecks and silver fish scales filled t
he valley floor.
After being under the earth for so long, light seemed to explode before their eyes. They all squinted and could see only slits of the dark red mud. Dark shadows fell away over one hill under the great cliffs. Gradually they began to see.
Water spread up the valley as sailors on the hills kissed the ground before it disappeared under the sea. It was a moment of calm before the rise up the muddy cliffs. The peaceful cliffs were magnificent in the late afternoon sun. Pink clouds lit the sky above. Strings of seaweed hung sadly, quietly over the edge.
Suddenly fish were swimming, boats were floating, Captain Tiny was bobbing up and down in his life buoy surrounded by his penguins’ heads. They all pushed him on top of a ship which surfaced next to them. Craig wondered if the captain would ever become an admiral, by making life so impossible for everyone that they promoted him in order to get rid of him. Or perhaps he would become famous for his discovery of these extraordinary penguins who could run his ships for him. He might even come to like them.
But many great stacks of boats stood, like strange totem poles, waiting for the water. Many men were unpiling their boats and pushing them up the sides of hills. The hills and the great valley were fast disappearing as the water rose.
Soaking wet and dripping, Cindy saw that the cliffs and weeds, once so horrible, now looked friendly. She took long deep breaths of the fresh air as if to clean out the cold and fears from inside her. She breathed so deeply she felt faint and had to sit down. She felt happy. No more dreams, she ordered herself. Just sleep. Why she hadn’t slept all last night.
On one end of their boat sat Mrs Mermaid with her husband and ten children, each one smaller than the next. They were all dangling their tails over the side. Mrs Mermaid was combing her long hair with her silver comb. When she finished she pushed it into her hair to hold it and called, ‘Into the water, everyone,’ and, with a row of splashes, they all dived in.
‘Oh, no, are they leaving?’ Cindy asked as she saw the green and silver tails disappear.