‘Well, it has,’ said Dominic, ‘and we're cut off.’ He stared at Mr Risley-Newsome, waiting for his pronouncement.
‘We will have to go back,’ the teacher said finally.
‘Go back?’ whispered Miss Pruitt, moving closer to him so that Dominic and Velma couldn't overhear. ‘Of course we can't go back.’
The two children pretended to be fascinated by a seagull being blown across the sky by the icy wind like a scrap of white paper. They were, in fact, listening intently to the teachers' hushed but heated conversation.
‘Now, by my reckoning,’ Miss Pruitt told Mr Risley-Newsome, ‘if we are nearly at the path, we must be directly below the church.’
‘No, no, according to my calculations –’ began Mr Risley-Newsome.
‘Yes we are,’ said Miss Pruitt bluntly. ‘We must be in the little cove the vicar mentioned. You may not have recalled what the vicar said, but I did. She told us that the cove has two sharp headlands jutting out on either side. Look.’ She pointed ahead and then behind her. ‘There they are. The vicar said the cliffs curve out like the horns of a bull, just like the ones here and she also said the beach is cut off when the tide is in. And that is exactly what has happened. We're cut off.’
‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Mr Risley-Newsome.
‘Oh, dear, indeed,’ repeated Miss Pruitt. ‘What a fine mess you have got us into.’
‘I never knew your teacher could be like that,’ whispered Velma to Dominic. ‘She's really angry with him, isn't she?’
‘I've never seen her like that either,’ Dominic replied. ‘Even when I spilt paint all over her, she didn't blow her top.’
‘Spilt paint on her?’ repeated Velma. ‘How did you spill paint on her?’
‘It's a long story,’ Dominic told her. ‘I'll tell you all about it when we get back to the youth hostel.’
‘If we get back,’ said Velma, with a worried look on her face.
The teachers were still arguing.
‘How was I to know that we would be delayed by a silly boy hurting his ankle,’ Mr Risley-Newsome told Miss Pruitt defensively, pulling a face like a sulking child.
‘Mr Risley-Newsome,’ said Miss Pruitt, controlling her fury, ‘you have told me, endlessly in fact, how well-qualified, knowledgeable and experienced you are, how you have planned everything down to the last detail and how safety conscious you are. You may recall I mentioned the fact that this was a particularly dangerous stretch of beach and there were fast-rising tides, but you assured me –’
‘Miss Pruitt,’ Mr Risley-Newsome began, holding up his hand as if stopping traffic, ‘this is neither the time nor the place –’
‘Don't Miss Pruitt me! Let me finish. Against my better judgement, I agreed to an excursion along what I told you was a notorious stretch of coast, and look where you have got us all – stranded on a deserted beach with the tide coming in. So, Mr Risley-Newsome, what do you suggest we do now?’
‘I… I… I… shall have to think,’ he replied.
‘Well, think quickly, because by the looks of it we haven't much time.’
‘I'll go ahead,’ he told her, ‘and reconnoitre and see if there is a way up the cliffs.’ Without waiting for a reply he scurried off.
The rain had stopped and a watery sun appeared from behind an ominously black cloud.
‘Children,’ said Miss Pruitt, turning to face the group, ‘just stop a moment and gather round.’ Surrounded by the cluster of wet and shivering children, she smiled bravely. ‘We have come across a small problem.’ Dominic could tell she was trying to keep up the appearance of calm confidence. ‘The path we were to take up to the youth hostel is rather too far for us –’
‘No, miss,’ interrupted Dominic, ‘we're cut –’
‘Dominic!’ she exclaimed, giving him a knowing look.
He realized by her expression that she did not want any of the pupils to know the truth. Perhaps she thought it would panic them.
‘As I said, the path is too far, so Mr Risley-Newsome is exploring other means of getting us off the beach and back home. There's nothing to worry about. So, let's keep moving, shall we?’
She selected two more pupils to help Nathan, and the children continued their laborious trek across the wet and windy beach, following in the deep footprints of Mr Risley-Newsome.
‘What were you going to say?’ Gerald asked Dominic, running up to walk beside him.
‘When?’
‘Just now.’
‘Nothing.’
‘You were. You were going to say that we were cut off by the sea, weren't you?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ said Dominic. ‘Miss Pruitt doesn't want people to know.’
‘We're cut off, aren't we?’ said Gerald. ‘We can't go any further.’
‘Yes,’ replied Dominic. ‘We're cut off.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don't know,’ said Dominic, ‘but there is no way we can get to the footpath. There's the whole of the North Sea between us and the way up the cliff.’
‘Couldn't we swim for it?’ suggested Gerald weakly.
‘You should see the sea,’ said Dominic. ‘And what about Nathan?’
Gerald thought for a moment before replying. ‘We could leave him,’ he said simply.
Dominic stared at the dark looming cliffs towering upwards, then at the mounds of brown slimy mud at their base, then at the oily grey ocean crashing on the beach and getting ever closer. The tide was coming in at an alarming rate, rattling the pebbles, sweeping over the sand. Small crabs were appearing out of cracks in the rocks, tiny fish darted in the pools like slivers of glass, starfish emerged from beneath pebbles, all aware that the tide was coming in, and coming in fast.
So absorbed were they in their conversation that neither of the two boys had noticed Darren creeping up behind them and eavesdropping. On hearing the dreadful news he high-tailed it back to Nathan, who was limping slowly down the beach, supported by two boys.
There was suddenly a dreadful strangulated wailing from the invalid, who collapsed on to the sand as if he had been shot. Cradling his sprained ankle, Nathan threw back his head and made again the sound of a frightened animal caught in a snare. His shouts echoed off the cliffs.
‘We're going to drown!’ he cried. ‘We're going to drown!’
The pupils all started to chatter excitedly among themselves.
‘We're cut off!’ screamed Nathan. ‘We can't get off the beach. We're all going to drown!’
‘Stop that at once, Nathan Thomas!’ Miss Pruitt shouted down the beach. ‘There is no question of anyone drowning, so get that silly idea out of your head immediately! And if you open your mouth and make that dreadful noise again, I will give you something to scream about. Now, listen to me everyone. Gather round again, please. We do have a slight problem but really nothing to get in a state about. I want you all to move right back up the beach and shelter in that large cave under the cliffs. Keep well away from the mud and don't go right into the cave, just remain in the entrance out of the wind and rain. Come on, everyone, quickly and sensibly. Darren, you and Sean help Nathan.’
By this time, Mr Risley-Newsome had returned and was standing like a totem pole staring vacantly at the sea. His long pale face was the picture of fear. He looked frozen to the spot.
Having made sure the children were out of the cold and rain, Miss Pruitt took Mr Risley-Newsome's arm and led him a little way down the beach, out of earshot. ‘Mr Risley-Newsome,’ she said.
‘Yes, Miss Pruitt,’ he said pathetically.
‘I take it there is no way we can get off the beach?’
‘We are indeed cut off,’ he replied. ‘There is just no way ahead of us and the cliffs are too steep and covered in thick mud. I can see the footpath, but there is no way we can get to it. I just don't know what to do.’
Fifteen
The Truth About Mr Risley-Newsome
Miss Pruitt stared at the figure before her. Gone was all the blustering and boasti
ng, the shouting and swaggering. Mr Risley-Newsome looked quite pathetic – wet, bedraggled, white-faced – she almost felt sorry for him.
If she noticed Dominic standing a little way off, watching her with eyes like saucers and listening to every word, she didn't say anything. She was too concerned with trying to find a way to get out of the predicament that they were all in.
‘Right,’ she said to Mr Risley-Newsome, taking a deep breath. ‘I will tell you what to do. You will go and get help, while I stay here to look after the children.’
Dominic thought she sounded like Mr Merriman speaking to a disobedient pupil. The tables had certainly turned.
‘Get help?’ protested Mr Risley-Newsome, with a surprised expression on his face.
He looks like a small boy who has just had his lollipop snatched from his hand, Dominic thought.
‘That is what you wanted to do in the first place, wasn't it?’
‘Yes, but that was when I thought there was a way off the beach.’
‘I am aware of that,’ she told him tartly. ‘I suggest you climb up the cliff and summon assistance.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Climb up the cliff.’
‘That's not possible,’ he replied, pulling a horrified face.
‘Mr Risley-Newsome,’ said Miss Pruitt, speaking slowly and carefully, ‘the only way out of this mess – a mess which you have got us into – is for you to climb up the cliff and get help, and the sooner the better.’
Dominic had never seen his teacher quite so forceful. She is a power to be reckoned with when she gets started, he thought.
‘But the cliffs are slippery and very steep and covered in thick mud,’ he said feebly. ‘I just wouldn't know how.’
It's about time somebody told him, thought Dominic. He'd been a pain in the neck from the start of the trip, had ‘Old Grisly-Gruesome’, telling everybody what to do, shouting at people and all the time with that sour, unpleasant face of his. Dominic had never seen him smile once, except in a sneering, sarcastic way. Dominic grinned to himself. After his gran had tackled the old woman with the chihuahua on Blackpool pier and they were walking up the promenade, she had said that the old woman's face was ‘like a smacked bottom’. Mr Risley-Newsome's face was just like that now.
‘You have been at great pains since we came to Thundercliff Bay to tell me how inappropriately dressed I am,’ Miss Pruitt continued, ‘and, of course, I do not have your extensive experience in climbing. You being fully-qualified in outdoor pursuits, orienteering, mountain rescue and survival techniques, I should think you would not find any difficulty in climbing up a cliff. You are clearly the only person capable of attempting it. Certainly I can't, and you are not suggesting a pupil should try, are you?’
‘But I haven't a rope or crampons or the correct climbing boots,’ he protested, ‘and I am rather nervous of heights.’
‘Mr Risley-Newsome,’ said Miss Pruitt sternly, ‘I am telling you to get up those cliffs and summon help. Now!’
‘Actually, I've never done any mountain climbing,’ he admitted.
‘Well, now is your chance to start. Get moving.’
‘I really don't think I can,’ he said stubbornly.
‘Do you want us all to drown?’ asked Miss Pruitt. She looked him fiercely in the eyes. ‘Well, do you?’
‘You don't imagine –’ he started.
‘It is that serious, Mr Risley-Newsome,’ she told him. ‘Now, get moving!’
‘Very well,’ he said.
Dominic watched Mr Risley-Newsome as he picked his way carefully round the rock pools until he stood at the very bottom of the cliff. Then he took a deep breath and began to climb.
All day Dominic had been dreaming about the smugglers and secret passages, galleons and treasure chests. Now, suddenly, he had a far more important thing on his mind. Miss Pruitt's words impressed on him just how serious the situation was and he began to tremble, not knowing whether it was through cold or fear. They were in real trouble, he could see that clearly now. It had never occurred to him that they might actually drown. Now there was a real possibility. Their only means of escape was blocked by deep and dangerous water, the sea was getting closer and closer and the sand disappearing with every rush of the tide. His heart pounded in his chest. Dominic could see the headlines in the papers: ‘SCHOOL PARTY WASHED OUT TO SEA’ and ‘SEASIDE TRAGEDY: CHILDREN DROWN’.
‘Come along, Dominic,’ said Miss Pruitt, walking towards him and putting an arm round his shoulder. ‘Up to the cave with the others.’
‘I'm frightened, miss,’ he said in a small voice.
‘We'll be all right,’ she replied in a tone that Dominic didn't think was all that convincing.
He joined the children crowding nervously at the mouth of the cave.
‘“Old Grisly-Gruesome” has gone for help,’ he told his friends. There was a tremble in his voice and he was still shivering. ‘It shouldn't be long before he raises the alarm.’
‘It better not be,’ said Sean, looking out at the angry grey ocean. ‘The tide's coming in pretty fast.’
‘I reckon it comes right up here,’ said Gerald, looking at his feet.
‘Do you think it will come into the cave?’ asked Velma, nervously.
‘I don't know,’ said Michael quietly, ‘but I don't like the look of it.’
‘What do you think, Dom?’ asked Sean.
Dominic peered into the cave. His eyes traced the contours in the rock, the shapes and the colours. Then he walked slowly through the entrance and into the shadowy darkness.
‘We're not supposed to go inside,’ Velma called after him. ‘Miss Pruitt said to stay on the beach.’
Dominic wasn't listening. It was as if he was in some sort of trance. He ran his fingers along the slimy walls, kicked the sand underfoot, picked up a piece of dried seaweed and stared this way and that as if he was looking for something or someone. His eyes moved up to the dripping roof. He gazed for what seemed, to his puzzled friends who were watching, to be a long, long time. Then he began nodding, whispering something to himself and finally he gave a great gasp. Running out of the cave, Dominic pushed his way roughly through the pupils and arrived at Miss Pruitt's side. She was watching anxiously the sluggish progress of Mr Risley-Newsome up the muddy cliff face.
‘Come on! Come on!’ she was saying to herself. ‘Do get a move on, Mr Risley-Newsome.’
‘Miss! Miss!’ Dominic cried excitedly.
‘Not now, Dominic, please,’ replied Miss Pruitt, her thoughts and eyes focused on the climbing figure.
‘But, miss, it's important.’
Miss Pruitt was not listening. ‘Mr Risley-Newsome!’ she shouted. ‘Can you speed up, please. The tide is coming in very fast.’
‘Miss!’ persisted Dominic. ‘Will you listen, please?’
‘Dominic, not now! I have enough on my mind at the moment.’ She stared again at Mr Risley-Newsome, who was taking slow but steady steps up the cliff face, squelching noisily and heavily in the mud. ‘Mr Risley-Newsome!’ she shouted again. ‘You must hurry.’
‘I'm going as fast as I can!’ came a peevish voice from the cliff.
Dominic was feeling indignant. For so much of his time in school he seemed to be in trouble – always in Mr Merriman's room for one thing or another, for breaking things, causing accidents, getting into all sorts of scrapes. Now, for once in his life, he knew he could be the one who could really help.
‘Will you listen!’ he shouted at Miss Pruitt angrily, prodding her arm.
‘Dominic!’ the teacher replied. ‘Don't you dare speak to me like that!’
‘But I know a way out, miss!’ he cried. ‘I know a way off the beach.’
‘If only you did,’ she replied.
‘I do. I really do.’ He pulled at the teacher's sleeve. ‘Come with me, miss.’ He tried to lead her to the cave entrance. ‘It's in here, in the cave.’
‘No, it's much better that we stay out of the cave. It might fill with water at high t
ide. We don't want to be trapped in there. We'll wait until Mr Risley-Newsome gets help.’
Almost as if on cue, Mr Risley-Newsome's voice could be heard. ‘Help! Help!’ he cried. ‘I'm stuck. I'm stuck in the mud. I can't move.’
Miss Pruitt rushed down the beach and looked up to see Mr Risley-Newsome clinging to the cliff face like a barnacle, his legs half submerged in the mud.
‘Help! Help!’ he cried. ‘I'm stuck!’
‘Oh, for goodness' sake,’ she said under her breath. ‘Stay there and don't move!’ Miss Pruitt shouted back. ‘If you start moving you'll sink deeper.’
‘Miss!’ cried Dominic. He pronounced the next sentence slowly and emphatically. ‘I know a way out.’
The teacher looked down at the boy staring up at her and sighed. ‘This is not a time for one of your stories, Dominic,’ she said softly.
‘I know a way out!’ he repeated slowly. ‘I really, really do.’
Miss Pruitt listened to his story. Dominic, in a frantically garbled account, told her about Daisy getting lost and how he had searched for her and discovered the slab of rock and the flight of stone steps leading down to the beach. He told her about the eerie chamber, the overhanging ledge and the cave below and how he had left the rope tied to a tree trunk at the entrance to the tunnel.
‘Is this true, Dominic?’ she said. ‘It sounds to me like one of your weird and wonderful stories.’
‘It is true, miss,’ he said.
‘Dominic,’ she sighed, ‘even if your story were true, one cave looks just like another.’
‘No, no, miss, I'm positive. It must be the cave. We're just below the church, right? We could see the footpath ahead of us and that's very nearly below the copse of trees in front of the church, isn't it? Well, this is the only cave on this stretch of beach, so I must be right. Anyway, I recognize it. I just know it is the same cave. If I can climb up on to the ledge, I can go on ahead and find the rope and we'll all be able to get off the beach through the tunnel. Miss, you've got to let me try.’
‘Help! Help!’ came the plaintive cry of Mr Risley-Newsome, still struggling in the mud.
Dominic's Discovery Page 12