by Andrew Garve
“According to your great-grandfather,” said Anstey after a moment, “there ought to be two passages leading out of here. I wonder where they are.” He stuffed the wallet back into the loose pocket of his overall. “Anyway, we can soon see where the stream goes.” He started his familiar exploratory prowl, following the little rivulet away to the left. Presently Quilter heard him give a sharp exclamation and went quickly to see what he had found.
“It looks as though there’s been a fall,” said Anstey, indicating with his torch. There was, indeed, no visible opening. Instead, there was a mound of stone and rubble, into the interstices of which the stream disappeared without fuss.
“Well, there’s certainly no way through there,” said Quilter. “I wonder when it happened.” Anstey was looking thoughtfully at the choke of debris.
“It may not extend very far into the passage, of course. It looks as though we’ll have to do a bit of excavating.”
“What—now?” Quilter was aghast.
“No, no, not now,” said Anstey with a laugh. “We’ll be quite tired enough when we get back as it is, and besides, we’ve no tools. Still, I should like to know what happens to that stream if it’s at all possible. “He turned away regretfully and directed his torch once again at the sloping rock face. “Now where’s this other exit?”
Quilter brought his own light to bear and together they swept the surface. “Hold on, I think I see something,” cried Anstey after a moment. “Look—that dark patch.” He started to clamber up the face, which offered quite good footholds, and almost at once he gave a shout of triumph. “It’s a bit narrow,” he called, “but this is it all right.”
Quilter joined him on a little platform about ten feet up. There was a hole, certainly, a hole large enough at the entrance for a man to kneel in, but it rapidly funnelled until it was no more than eighteen inches in diameter.
“If you ask me,” said Quilter, “we’ve had it.”
Anstey was already investigating. “I don’t see why. After all, your great-grandfather must have got through or he couldn’t have drawn the plan.”
Quilter made a wry face. “I’m beginning to get rather tired of my great-grandfather. Anyway, men were smaller in those days.”
“I’ve negotiated tighter places.” Anstey’s tone was matter-of-fact, with no trace of boastfulness.
“Have you really? It’s no bigger than a drain pipe.”
“You’d be surprised what a small space the human body can be squeezed into. It’s on record that seven potholers once passed through a pipe only nine and a half inches wide …”—he grinned—“… sideways, of course.”
“Pretty horrible to get stuck.”
“That doesn’t seem to happen in practice. You can-always wriggle out somehow. Still, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I suppose.” He emerged from the entrance. “Let’s have some grub and then we’ll see how fresh we are.”
“Good idea,” Quilter agreed, and followed Anstey down the face with relief. He hadn’t realised in the excitement of their progress how hungry he’d become or how much energy he’d used up. He felt anything but fresh, and found himself envying his companion’s tireless vigour.
They spread the sacks on a flattish boulder for a seat and set to on the sandwiches. It was quite the strangest picnic that Quilter had ever had, but he found that the eerie surroundings gave an added zest to the meal. The air was cool and clean, the murmur of the stream a pleasant accompaniment. What a story he would have to tell Julie!
Anstey was still gazing up at the pipe as he munched and it was evident from his manner that he would leave it unexplored only with the greatest reluctance. “I imagine,” he said thoughtfully, “that once upon a time the stream must have run through that passage.”
Quilter looked at him in astonishment.
“Oh, it could have done, you know—a few hundred thousand years ago. In fact there’s no other way the passage could have been made. The original level of the floor must have been up there and the water must have carved the rock away and eventually found a new channel lower down. You have to take the long view at this game.”
“Not a thing I was ever very good at, I’m afraid,” said Quilter. “I like quick results.” He poured some coffee from a vacuum flask. “I wonder where we are exactly. We must have come a hell of a long way.”
Anstey nodded. “I’ll do a survey on the way back, if we’re not too worn out, and then we’ll know.”
“A survey, eh? Isn’t that rather difficult?”
“Not really—just a bit wearing. It’s well worth the effort, though—I’d say one of the chief pleasures of potholing is plotting the data afterwards—in comfort!” He looked inquiringly at Quilter. “How do you feel now, sir?”
“Quite restored, thanks. I’d like a cigarette, though, before we move. What about you?”
“Good idea,” said Anstey. They lit up, and sat watching the smoke writhing away in the headlamp beams.
“You know,” said Quilter, “what amazes me is that that tiny hole by the Pikes should be the entrance to such an enormous place. When I think of the times I’ve sat up there, quite sure that I was on terra firma!—and actually there’s only a crust with all this emptiness underneath. Queer feeling!”
“Yes,” Anstey agreed, “that’s one of the exciting things about potholes, the tiny entrance and the huge ramifications. If ever you get a taste for speleology you should have a look at the Eastwater cavern in the Mendip. It’s one of the most formidable cave systems in the country—I believe there’s a total drop of something like 700 feet over a distance of three miles—but the original entrance is just a tiny sink hole with an insignificant brook trickling into it.”
“Fascinating!—no wonder these places take so much finding. All the same, you know, I’m surprised that a cave like this should have been lost sight of once it had been discovered.”
“Perhaps no one else knew about it except your greatgrandfather. Cave owners can be very jealous about their little kingdoms—he may have kept the secret. Even if he didn’t, local knowledge wouldn’t necessarily be handed on. It’s quite common for really well-known pots to be lost for generations. We know vaguely about dozens that we haven’t been able to find.”
“But they do come to light occasionally?”
“Oh, yes—like this one. Sometimes an old record turns up, as in your case, but more often it’s some-incident that gives them away. Perhaps a farmer loses an animal and goes searching for it and finds an unexpected hole, or a heavy storm washes away debris or there’s a landslip or something. One pot was discovered when a man was blasting rock for a cattle trough. It’s even been known for a pothole to be given away by steam rising from the vent in winter, when the air’s colder outside,”
“Really? Most interesting.” Quilter stubbed out his cigarette. “Well, do we go on?”
Anstey hesitated. “Frankly, I think you’ve done enough for a first attempt, Mr. Quilter. I wouldn’t want you to be laid up on my account. I was thinking—would you mind if I left you here for a little while and had a shot at the pipe myself? I’d be back in—well, say an hour.”
Quilter looked up at the pipe. He had little stomach for it, but he certainly wasn’t going to let Anstey know. “What do you think I am?” he said with a grin, “too old at forty? I’ll come. At least, I’ll start.”
“Are you quite sure you won’t be overdoing it? We’ve got to get back up those ladders, don’t forget.”
“I’ll come, I tell you. Lead on!”
“Very well,” said Anstey. “We’ll go just a little way in. We may as well leave the gear here—we shan’t be wanting it. If we have any trouble we’ll call it a day.”
A few moments later they were back on the little platform. “The thing about this pipe-crawling,” Anstey said, “is to go slowly, keep cool, and try to prevent your clothes from ripping on the sharp bits. It’s much simpler than it looks.”
He got down on his knees and crawled into the hole. The floor prove
d to be dry and sandy, which made the going easier. Quilter followed him in. Almost at once he had to drop flat on his stomach, his arms fully extended ahead and his legs trailing behind. The roof was too low even for caterpillar progress—the only way to move forward was to push with his toes and pull with his hands, gradually easing his body along. Progress was very slow, and after five minutes of hard struggling they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Quilter began to think of the journey back, feet first, and his fears warred with his pride. He was on the point of calling out that he’d had enough when the glow of Anstey’s head-lamp suddenly faded.
“Hello,” he called sharply. “Are you all right, Anstey?” A muffled voice came back. “Yes, I’m all right. There’s a twist in the pipe and it gets narrower. I’ll see if I can make it. Hold on!”
Quilter stopped to rest for a moment, but curiosity and dislike of being left alone in this place spurred him on. He reached the bend, and his body curved like a bow as he squeezed round on his side. The bend straightened, the pipe flattened, the rock pressed down, the walls closed in. At every point, now, the canvas of his overalls touched, and as he moved, his helmet scraped along the roof so that he had to lower his head almost to the sand. He could see nothing but Anstey’s boots. This was madness! The thought that one of them might get stuck returned in full force. He should never have come!
“Anstey,” he cried, “how the devil are we going to get out of this?”
“It’s all right,” Anstey’s voice came back cheerfully, “the pipe begins to widen out here. Take it easy—we’ve almost made it.”
After a few more feet the roof lifted and the intolerable sense of pressure eased. Anstey was moving faster now. Very soon Quilter emerged behind him into a low dry cave, ten feet high and thirty or forty wide.
Anstey gave him a slightly anxious look, “All right, Mr. Quilter?”
Quilter took a deep breath and wiped his forehead. “Yes, I’m fine. My word, that ought to be good for the waistline.”
“It was a bit tight,” Anstey admitted. “I expect there’s more sand than there used to be.” He flashed his torch around. “Well, we seem to have reached the end of this particular road.”
There was, indeed, no outlet from the cave—if the stream had ever run through here, the exit had long ago become closed. The place felt quite cosy after the vast sonorous caverns they had passed through earlier. They seemed to have moved out of the limestone now—the texture of the rock walls was quite different here, much sandier, and of a bright red colour.
“I say—look!” called Anstey suddenly, as the beam of his torch probed the walls. Just below eye level some initials had been carved deep in the soft sandstone. “J. R.Q.” he read out, and smiled. “Your great-grandfather must have been quite a chap.”
“In my considered view,” said Quilter, “his great-grandson is quite a chap too! I think I’ll add my own initials.” He took a knife from his pocket and hacked a rough “L.T.Q.” underneath. Anstey, who didn’t normally approve of cave defacement, watched him tolerantly. “You’ve done damn well, sir. I congratulate you.”
They rested for ten minutes and then began the return journey. Now that all the difficulties were known Quilter no longer felt any apprehension. They moved slowly, for Anstey had begun his survey of the route. In the pipe he used the length of his outstretched body as a standard of measurement; pushing a notebook ahead of him along the sand and occasionally making an entry. Where the pipe twisted he took compass bearings. For the long tunnels he produced a surveyor’s tape and where there were gradients to record he enlisted Quilter’s help to take angles of sight. In the big chambers he took a straight line across the floor, leaving the more detailed survey for later. From time to time he checked the depth with his aneroid. He was completely engrossed, and Quilter almost forgot his tiredness in the interest of the work.
The climb out of the Cascade Chamber was exhausting, but without incident. At the top of the precipice Anstey looked at Quilter as though for instructions. “What about the ladders? I’d like to come back and trace that stream, in which case we should leave everything.”
“Of course we’ll come back,” said Quilter.
It was almost more than he could do to drag himself up the second ladder. His feet felt like lead, his arms as though they would slip from their sockets. When they finally scrambled out into the warm air it was nearly eight o’clock—they had been underground for nearly nine hours. They looked it, too, for both men were plastered with clay and sand and their hands and faces were filthy.
“You’ll spend the night at the cottage, of course,” said Quilter as he put the lid back on the hole and climbed in behind the wheel of the station wagon. “We’ll have a couple of stiff whiskies and a bath and then I’ll open some tins.” He let in the clutch and the car began to bump down the track. “Well, that was certainly a great experience!”
Chapter Five
Quilter’s recipe for recovery proved an excellent one. The whisky revived them, the hot water soothed their aches, and Quilter’s scratch meal was quite a triumph. When, at nine-thirty, he joined Anstey in me garden for a last cigarette before bed, he felt relaxed and at peace.
“So you think my pothole’s a good one?” he said, sinking into a deck chair with a sigh of content.
“By English standards it’s superb. Not as deep as some, of course, but it’s got everything. It’ll be a sensation when people get to know about it.”
“You think so?”
“Undoubtedly. In fact, I’d like to bring some of my club members over before the rush. Could I do that?”
“Naturally, my dear fellow—I’d be delighted. Any time you like. After all, it’s really a place for experts. I can’t imagine the general public taking much interest—not with those precipices. It’s rather a pity—I might have made a fortune charging half a crown a time!”
“It would certainly be worth half a crown of any tourist’s money if you could get them down there.”
“I suppose you don’t really approve of commercialising these places?”
Anstey laughed. “Oh we don’t mind—there are plenty to go round. I don’t like to see them pillaged, of course.”
“How do you mean—pillaged?”
“Well, people crack off the stalagmite growths and take them home. Sometimes caves are completely ruined. In Ireland in the Hungry Forties I believe people stripped quite a number and sold the stuff as ornaments. But some of these places are so incredibly spectacular that it would be a shame not to let visitors in. Electric light can work miracles down below, you know—you get the most stupendous effects. There’s a magnificent hole at Padirac in the Dordogne with two lifts and boats on an underground river. It’s breathtakingly lovely—quite unforgettable.”
“Padirac? I must make a note of that. I expect you get around quite a lot?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve explored a bit in the Pyrenees and Italy, and in Ireland. It’s completely gripping, you know—you simply can’t stop. And the tougher the hole, the more eager you get.”
“How does this one compare in difficulty with some of the others you’ve explored?”
“I’d say it was pretty straightforward on the whole. Of course, those drops are rather sensational and they need care, but we were never really uncomfortable, let alone in any danger. There are some shocking places, you know—pots that you can’t get into without getting soaked through and where there’s always a hell of a draught. Going down a ladder under a big waterfall is about the worst thing I know. Still, don’t misunderstand me—I’m not saying to-day’s trip was all that easy.”
“No, let’s not call it easy,” said Quilter, who was still enjoying the feeling that he had acquitted himself pretty well. He chuckled. “Did you ever see that entry in the Visitors’ Book over at Scawfell? Someone wrote: ‘Ascended the Pillar Rock in three hours and found the rocks very easy.’ Someone else wrote underneath: ‘Descended the Pillar Rock in three seconds and found the rocks very hard.’ ”
They sat silently for a while in the sultry air, watching little tongues of lightning playing over the sea. Presently Quilter said, “Are you seriously planning to excavate that passage?”
“I don’t see why not. It should be a fairly simple operation.”
“Is that part of the potholer’s routine—digging?”
“Yes, it often has to be done. A really hard-bitten potholer will never give up until he’s absolutely certain that it’s impossible to go any farther. Sometimes digging isn’t enough, of course—you may get held up by an obstruction of rock, and then you have to use explosive. Still, in this case it’s all small stuff and pretty loose.”
“What tools shall we need?”
Anstey considered. “It’s really a question of what we can carry. I should think we might manage a crowbar, a pick and a shovel between us.”
Quilter nodded. “I think I can supply those. When shall we go—to-morrow?”
“That’s up to you, sir.”
“I’d like to—I find this physical exertion a most pleasant relief from routine worries. I happen to be free just now, too—and I’d prefer to get the exploration over before my wife returns.”
“That’s something I don’t have to worry about,” Anstey said with a smile.
“Well, you’re wise to make the most of your freedom. How long do you think it’ll take us to clear the block?”
“That’s hard to say. You can sometimes spend a whole day on a job like that and get nowhere. Still, we should have plenty of time—we shall get down much more quickly now the ladders are fixed and we know the route.”
“And this time there’ll be no pipe to squeeze through, thank goodness—though even that doesn’t seem so bad in retrospect.” Quilter drew reminiscently on his cigarette. “In fact, you know, one of the things that has surprised me most about the place is how much less frightening it is than I’d expected. Of course, it’s majestic and awe-inspiring, there’s no doubt about that, but when I’m there I don’t feel as though I’m in a gloomy, terrifying place. Actually, it’s remarkably comfortable.”