‘Right, we’d better go, if the Count is stabilized enough to move him,’ said Bruno. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked the medic.
‘Give me another few minutes,’ said the medic. ‘They’ll send a couple of guys back to help with the stretcher. Then we can go.’
Bruno nodded and turned back to gaze across the black stillness of the lake and at the dark mouth of the far tunnel. It had been four days since he’d first seen it but he knew he’d want to return, perhaps join one of the exploring clubs and see what other secrets these honeycombed hills contained.
‘Can’t be soon enough for me,’ said J-J. ‘It gives me the creeps, being underground like this and thinking of all that weight above us.’
Bruno turned back from the lake to J-J and Sergeant Jules. ‘After this, I think we all deserve a very large drink.’
As he spoke the last word, the sharp cracking sound of a distant explosion came from the far side of the lake followed by a long, swelling rumble. A rush of dust and air blasted from the tunnel that led back to the ruined chapel to send a surge of lake water over their feet. It extinguished most of the candles they had lit.
32
‘Mon Dieu,’ said J-J, looking at Sergeant Jules. ‘They’ve booby-trapped the tunnel where we came in, where you were waiting. Thank God you came and joined us.’
‘That might not be the only bomb,’ said Bruno. ‘Follow me, quickly.’ He helped the medic to drag the Count, drenched from the wave of lake water, around the corner into the smaller cave where the candles had been stored.
‘Maybe that’s why Foucher took the chance to run, if he knew there was another bomb timed to blow and seal him in,’ said Bruno.
‘So it could seal us in, too,’ said Jules, gathering more candles from the old ammunition box and lighting them one by one. ‘How long do we have to wait before we know?’
Bruno tried to work out how long the timer would have been on the bomb. Most timers were set for five, fifteen or thirty minutes, but they weren’t always that accurate. He wondered if Ahmed and the girl had managed to get out of the tunnel before the blast. It would have taken time to get that stretcher up the stairs and across the three big stalagmites that guarded the entrance to the tunnel.
‘They probably set that timer as they came through the tunnel with the girl. They can’t have been much more than ten or fifteen minutes ahead of us, but then more time passed when the Mobiles joined us. So it was probably set for thirty minutes. But if there is a second bomb, I’ve no idea when they might have set it. If we stay here for an hour, we should be OK.’
‘If we don’t get this guy to hospital before then, he’s not going to make it,’ said the medic.
‘Tough,’ said J-J. ‘I’m not risking my skin for a bastard like that.’
‘I’m going back into the cave by the lake,’ said Albert, tapping at his walkie-talkie. ‘I can’t get a connection in here.’
‘Don’t go out just yet,’ said Bruno. ‘Just put the radio round the corner and see if you get anything.’
Albert did so, and a crackling of garbled voice and static came from the small speaker. He thumbed the button to speak and identified himself but there was no answer.
‘It’s no good, I’ll have to go out if they’re going to hear me,’ he said and began to rise to his feet. At that moment, a second, much closer blast slammed into the cave, knocking Albert to the ground, deafening them all and blowing out every candle but one.
‘Jesus, we’re sealed in,’ said the medic.
‘They know we’re in here,’ said Albert, picking himself up and trying to rub dust from his eyes. ‘They’ll get equipment in and dig us out. We’ve got water. We can last for days.’
‘This guy doesn’t have an hour. His blood pressure’s collapsed,’ said the medic.
‘Let’s see how bad the blockage is,’ said Bruno. Lighting more candles, he led the way around the rocky corner onto the beach where they’d been standing when the first blast came. He looked into the tunnel that led to the Gouffre. The first few metres were clear and then rubble began to pile higher and higher until it reached the ceiling.
‘Try the radio from here,’ he said to Albert, but there wasn’t even the sound of static.
‘There must be at least fifty metres of tunnel before the Gouffre,’ said Albert. ‘If it’s all like this, we’re in for a long wait, and who knows what damage the blast did to people inside the Gouffre.’
Bruno thought of the Dragon’s Teeth, the three giant stalagmites that guarded the way to the tunnel, each of them many tons in weight. They’d need to get cranes and bulldozers and mechanical diggers into the Gouffre to clear them.
‘If we’ve nothing better to do, we might see if there are other ways out, maybe through some of those holes up by the roof,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll go and check the other tunnel to see how blocked that is.’
He crossed back over the causeway, holding a candle high. With Sergeant Jules following him into the place that had so nearly been Jules’s grave, he advanced into the tunnel. Counting his steps, he managed just over a hundred metres before the rubble became impassable and they turned back. Now that the dust had settled, he sniffed, catching the faint scent of something that might have been glue, something he’d smelt often enough in his army days.
‘Plastrite, French military issue’ he said to Jules. ‘So when we’re out of here, the first job will be to find out where the hell they got hold of our own plastic explosive.’
Back at the other tunnel, Albert and J-J were lifting stones from the rock pile one by one and tossing them down. Was that the best they could do, Bruno wondered. They were four grown men, plus the medic. They were alive, healthy, and they had light, water and whatever assets they carried.
‘Can we make an inventory of what possessions we have?’ he asked them. He began emptying his own pockets, laying down gun and wallet, handkerchief, folding knife, torch and mobile phone, notebook, pen and the rubber gloves and plastic evidence bags he always carried.
Sergeant Jules and J-J had little more, but Albert had a 25-metre coil of rope, an axe, torch and helmet and his breathing apparatus strapped to his back. The medic had a commando knife and his rucksack of medical equipment. There were twenty-two candles in the ammunition box, each lasting about an hour. Bruno went round and collected the ones already lit, blew them all out but one. He then picked up those drenched in the wave from the lake and set them aside to dry.
‘From now on, we’d better ration the candles, but the rope will be useful,’ said Bruno. ‘How much air in that breathing equipment, Albert?’
‘Fifteen, twenty minutes, depending on your exertion rate.’
‘I might need that for the patient,’ said the medic. J-J snorted and Jules rolled his eyes.
‘Is your torch waterproof?’ Bruno asked Albert, thinking of the jets of water firemen used.
‘Supposed to be, but it’s probably more like water-resistant, depending on the pressure.’
‘So if we took it underwater, best wrap it in plastic,’ Bruno mused. He sealed the torch into two plastic bags and pointed to the lake.
‘At the end of the lake there’s a causeway where J-J and Jules and I crossed. It acts as a kind of dam but water falls over it and then drops. When I was last here, I used a stone and rope to measure the drop and it was twelve metres. That water has to go somewhere and my guess is it flows into the lake in the Gouffre. With the breathing equipment and the torch, we might be able to get out that way.’
‘This patient couldn’t make it,’ said the medic.
‘From what you say about getting him to hospital within the hour, he’s not likely to make it anyway,’ said Bruno. ‘This could be his only chance.’
‘What if you get stuck?’ Albert asked. ‘Isn’t it better to wait here until they can clear the tunnel and get us out? If we carry on moving stones out of the way I might get through on the radio.’
‘There’s a lot of tunnel to clear, and I smelt military-grade plastic e
xplosive back there. That stuff’s powerful and it will have brought down a lot of roof. Rather than just sit back and wait to see if we get rescued, I think this is worth a try. And if I get stuck, I’ll have the rope tied round my waist and you can pull me out.’
‘Wait,’ said the medic, and unhooked his Kevlar helmet from his belt and tossed it to Bruno. ‘You might need this.’
‘Thanks.’ Bruno put it on, fixing the familiar chinstrap. Rather than let any discussion drag on he picked up the rope and the sealed torch, asked Albert to bring the breathing equipment and headed for the causeway. He tied one end of the rope around his crotch and shoulders, and the other to Albert, then lay down, bracing against the shock of the cold water as it flowed over the stone and down into the depth below. He turned on the torch through the plastic, put his head over the rim and looked down. If there was a bottom at twelve metres, he couldn’t see it. It might just have been an outcrop of rock his stone had landed on before. He’d soon find out.
‘I’m going to climb over the lip here and then you let me down with the rope,’ he said to Albert, slipping off his boots. ‘When I reach somewhere I can stand, give the rope to J-J and then you come down with the breathing equipment. I’ll need you down there to pull me out if required.’
He rolled over the lip, holding on with one hand, the torch in the other, and he told Albert to let him down slowly.
‘You’re mad,’ said Albert, but with Jules and J-J helping him hold the rope, the fire chief began letting Bruno down, a few centimetres at a time.
Bruno turned his head to one side to avoid the rush of water, but told himself it wasn’t much stronger than the powerful showers at the rugby club. He felt the water filling his clothes and adding to his weight. Under his stockinged feet the rock felt very smooth. There would be no handholds to help him climb back up.
‘Twelve metres,’ shouted Albert from above, his voice almost drowned out by the waterfall.
‘Keep going,’ Bruno shouted back. ‘There’s another couple of metres of rope wrapped around me.’
Suddenly his foot touched something flat. He tested it and it took his weight. He explored with his other foot and found he was on a flat ledge, maybe a metre wide, with a smoothly rounded lip that had been worn away by countless centuries of water. But he could stand and turn and the light showed him the froth of the waterfall at his feet, falling into a pool perhaps ten metres wide and not much more than two metres across. To his left the wall of rock was smooth and unbroken. To his right, in the direction of the Gouffre, was a tunnel though which he could see the water flow. He put his hand in; the current was insistent, rather than strong. He could probably swim against it on the return journey. With Albert pulling him, he was sure he could.
He looked up and pointed his torch, and through the mist rising from the falling water he saw Albert’s bullet-shaped head poking over the rim.
‘It’s fine, there’s a ledge. Come on down,’ he shouted, and beckoned Albert to join him. He steadied the rope as the burly fire chief let himself down hand over hand.
‘Putain, that plastic rope gets slippery when it’s wet,’ said Albert as he let go of the rope and studied his raw palms. ‘I had to take my gloves off, I had no grip.’
Bruno helped him off with the breathing apparatus and strapped it onto his back. Albert took off his goggles, unhooked the breathing mask from where it hung around his neck and checked the connections before handing them to Bruno.
‘Let me check something first,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m going to turn off the torch because people in the Gouffre should have the lights on and we may be able to see a glow.’
‘The bomb could have killed the lights,’ said Albert.
‘Let’s try it anyway.’ Bruno switched off the light.
The blackness was not quite total. A faint glow came from above them, over the lip of the waterfall where a single candle barely illuminated the cave. He saw the silhouettes of the heads of J-J and Jules as they looked down at them. Bruno could not be sure, but he thought he felt as much as saw a glimmering deep in the water.
‘What’s happened?’ shouted J-J, dimmed by the water.
‘It’s OK,’ Bruno called. ‘Just checking the light.’ And he turned it back on. ‘Let go of the rope so we can use it down here.’
It snaked down and Bruno tied the loose end of the rope around Albert’s crotch and shoulders and showed him how to lie on the ledge, his feet braced on the wall beside the tunnel. It might be a problem to throw the rope back up to Jules and J-J but he’d cross that bridge if he came to it.
‘That gives me twenty metres of rope to explore that tunnel, and if there’s light in the Gouffre, I should see it by then,’ he said. ‘If I jerk the rope three times, that means pull me out, OK?’
‘Good luck,’ said Albert, and they shook hands. Bruno sat on the ledge, fixed his face mask, tasted the sharpness of the oxygen and let himself slip into the water. Head first, or rather helmet first, he tucked the torch tight against his chest. With the other arm ahead of him to feel for obstacles, he let the current take him through the dark mouth of the tunnel and into the underground river.
Once past the mouth of the tunnel where the turbulence meant that all he could see were air bubbles, he began to make out the loom of walls and roof through the murky water. He lowered his feet but could feel no bottom. To account for such depth, there must be more water coming into this river than just the flow from the waterfall. He raised his hand and was sure he felt air above the surface. He turned onto his back and knew he was floating and could see the smooth stone of the tunnel roof passing above him at something like walking pace. It meant he might even be able to navigate this passage without the breathing equipment. That might give the Count a fighting chance of survival, him with the face mask and Bruno alongside. He could breathe the air in the space above.
Suddenly he felt the speed of the flow increase and his feet touched bottom. The tunnel was narrowing as it shallowed but its floor was too smooth for him to get any grip with his feet. The tunnel seemed to turn in a dog-leg bend and he felt himself thud against something, a kind of projection that gave him just enough purchase to stretch out his legs and brace his feet against the far wall as the current washed over him.
There was no pocket of air above him now but there was still some slack in the rope, and he wondered if Albert could haul him back against this current and around the dog-leg turn. That was a big risk. Before he took it, he turned off his torch to see if there was any sign of a glow ahead.
There was more than a glow. It was as if his torch was beaming into a mirror in front of him, a strong ray of light shining at his face and a second light behind it. Suddenly he was not alone. Human shapes were almost upon him, heads in goggles and face masks, arms clutching at bars that seemed to be braced against the tunnel walls. A hand came slowly towards his face, a thumb up in the universal sign that it was going to be all right.
The hand then pointed at Bruno and signed that he should follow back towards the Gouffre. Bruno shook his head and pointed to the rope tied around him. Then he pointed back the way that he had come. He nodded his head vigorously to insist that this should be done his way and gave three sharp tugs on the rope.
Bruno felt his body lurch as Albert hauled with all his strength and he tried to swim to help the burly fire chief. Now there were supporting hands on his shoulders to push him along, and those strange metal bars that seemed to appear ahead of him and give purchase on the smooth walls of the tunnel.
Faster than he had come, he was hauled back to see Albert straining at the rope. His face was tight with effort and coils of rope lay festooned across his body. Albert’s eyes widened in surprise as one, two and then three strange heads appeared above the water in a blaze of spotlights, pushing Bruno up onto the ledge. He took off his breathing mask and hugged Albert in gratitude, then helped the first of the strangers onto the ledge.
‘Périgord cave rescue team, I’m Miko,’ said the stranger. ‘Miko More
au from Les Eyzies. We’re very glad to see you. Where are the others and how’s the patient? We’ve got a doctor with us.’
‘Very good to see you too, and thanks,’ said Bruno, hearing his voice high and squeaky from the oxygen. He was shivering from the cold but surging with adrenalin. ‘The others are fine and there’s a medic from the Gendarmes Mobiles with the patient. They’re all in the cave above the waterfall here.’
‘It’s a good job you came down it then, we’d probably never have looked up there. We could have missed you altogether,’ said Moreau. ‘This is Fernand, our team leader, and this is Pierre, our doctor.’
‘What are those metal rods you used to pull against the current?’ Bruno had to ask.
‘Telescopic poles, like the ones hikers use, only they’re spring-loaded so we can brace against smooth walls. How tall is that waterfall?’
‘Twelve metres.’ Bruno looked up and saw J-J’s face beaming in the spotlights.
‘That’s OK, we’ve got an expandable ladder,’ said Miko. ‘It’s attached to this rope around my ankle. You know you were almost at the Gouffre when we found you? There’s quite a reception committee and we’ve got a rope running all the way through the river, so just keep a tight hold and you’ll all be fine.’
‘Was anybody hurt in the explosion? What about the girl?’
‘A militia captain got concussed and one of his men has a broken leg. But they’re all going to be OK. The girl should be in hospital already.’
‘Just look at me a moment,’ the doctor said, waving a finger before Bruno’s eyes and checking his pulse. ‘You need warming up and a good rest. Get yourself checked by your own doc in the morning.’
Within minutes, the ladder was in place. Miko and the doctor had climbed into the cave and Fernand had put a breathing mask onto Albert and was leading him into the underground river. Sergeant Jules was the first down the ladder, and once Fernand returned, he led Jules down the river and into the Gouffre.
The Devil's Cave Page 29