sleeve in her agitation.
'Rod was forced to do it. He had no option.'
'You have proof of this?' Hurry asked drily, and Terry fell silent, staring at him dumbly.
What proof was there?
The cage checked and slowed as it approached 65 level. The lights were still burning, but the workings were deserted. They lugged the dinghy out onto the station.
They could hear the dull waterfall roar of the flood on the level below them. The displacement of huge volumes of water disturbed the air so that a strong cool breeze was blowing up the shaft.
'Big King and I will go down the emergency ladder. You will lower the dinghy to us afterwards,' Rod told Dimitri.
'Make sure all the equipment is tied into it.'
'Right Dimitri nodded.
All was in readiness. The men who had come down with them in the cage were waiting expectantly. Rod could find no reason for further delay.
He felt something cold and heavy settle in his guts.
'Come on, Big King.' And he went to the steel ladder.
'Good luck, Rod.' Dimitri's voice floated down to him, but Rod saved his breath for that cold dark climb downwards.
All the lights had fused on 66 level, and in the beam of his lamp the water below him was black and agitated. It poured into the mouth of the shaft, bending the mesh barrier inwards. The mesh acted as a gigantic sieve, straining the floating rubbish from the flood. Amongst the timber and planking, the sodden sacking and unrecognizable objects, Rod made out the water-logged corpses of the dead pressed against the wire.
He climbed down and gingerly lowered himself into the water. Instantly it dragged at his lower body, shocking in its power. It was waist-deep here, but he found that by bracing his body against the steel ladder he could maintain his footing.
Big King climbed down beside him, and Rod had to raise his voice above the hissing thunder of water.
'All right?'
'Yes. Let them send down the boat.' Rod flashed his lamp up the shaft, and within minutes the dinghy was swaying slowly down to them.
They reached up and guided it right side up to the surface of the water, before untying the rope.
The dinghy was sucked firmly against the wire mesh, and Rod checked its contents quickly. All was secure.
'Right.' Rod tied a bight of the nylon rope around his waist, and climbed up the wire mesh barrier until he could reach the roof of the tunnel. Behind him Big King was paying out the nylon line.
Rod leaned out until he could get his hands on the compressed air pipes that ran along the roof of the tunnel.
The pipes were as thick as a man's wrist, bolted securely into the hanging wall of the drive; they would support a man's weight with ease.
Rod settled his grip firmly on the piping and then kicked his feet free from the barrier. He hung above the rushing waters, his feet just brushing the surface.
Hand over hand, swinging forward with feet dangling, he started up the tunnel. The nylon rope hung down behind him like a long white tail. It was 300 feet to where the water boiled from the drive into the main haulage, and Rod's shoulder muscles were shrieking in protest before he reached it. It seemed that his arms were being wrenched from their sockets, for the weight of the nylon rope that was dragging in the water was fast becoming intolerable.
There was a back eddy in the angle formed by the drive and the haulage.
Here the flood swirled in a vortex, and if Rod lowered himself slowly into it. The water buffeted him, but again he was able to cower against the side wall of the haulage and hold his footing. Quickly he began tying the rope onto the rawlbolts that were driven into the sidewall to consolidate the rock. Within minutes he had established a secure base from which to operate, and when he flashed his lamp back down the haulage he saw Big King following him along the compressed air piping.
Big King dropped into the waist-deep water beside Rod, and they gripped the nylon rope and rested their burning arm muscles.
'Ready?' asked Rod'at last, and Big King nodded.
They laid hold of the rope that led back to the dinghy and hauled upon it. For a moment nothing happened, the other end might just as well have been anchored to a mountain.
'Together!' grunted Rod, and they recovered a foot of rope.
'Again!' And they drew the dinghy inch by inch up the haulage against the rush of water.
Their hands were bleeding when they at last pulled the laden dinghy up to their own position and anchored it to the rawlbolts beside them. It bounced and bobbed with the water drumming against its underside.
Neither Rod nor Big King could talk. They hung exhausted on the body lines with the water ripping at their skin and gasped for breath.
At last Rod looked up at Big King, and in the lamp light he saw his own doubts reflected in Big King's eyes. The drop-blast matt was 1,000 feet up the drive. The strength and speed of the water in the drive was almost double what it was in the haulage. Could they ever fight their way against such primeval forces as these that were now unleashed about them?
'I will go next,' Big King said, and Rod nodded his agreement.
The huge Bantu drew himself up the rope until he could reach the compressed air pipe. His skin in the lamplight glistened like that of a porpoise. Hand over hand he disappeared into the gaping black maw of the drive. His lamp threw deformed and monstrous shadows upon the walls of rock.
When Big King's lamp flashed the signal to him, Rod climbed up to the pipe and followed him into the drive.
Three hundred feet later he found Big King had established another base. But here they were exposed to the full force of the flood, and they were pulled so violently against the body lines that the harsh nylon smeared the skin from their bodies. Together they dragged the dinghy up to them and anchored it.
Rod was sobbing softly as he held his torn hands to his chest and wondered if he could do it again.
'Ready?' Big King asked beside him, and Rod nodded.
He reached up and placed the raw flesh of his palms onto the metal piping, and felt the tears of pain flood his eyes.
He blinked them back and dragged himself forward.
Vaguely he realized that should he fall, he was a dead man. The flood would sweep him away, dragging him along the jagged side walls of the drive, ripping his flesh from the bone, and finally hurling him against the mesh surrounding the shaft to crush the life from his body.
He went on until he knew he could go no farther. Then he selected a rawlbolt in the side wall and looped the rope through it. And they repeated the whole heart-breaking procedure. Twice as he strained against the dinghy rope Rod saw his vision explode into stars and pinwheels. Each time he dragged himself back from the brink of unconsciousness by sheer force of will.
The example that Big King was setting was the inspiration which kept Rod from failing. Big King worked without change of expression, but his eyes were bloodshot with exertion. Only once Rod heard him grunt like a gut-shot lion, and there was bright blood on the rope where he touched it.
Rod knew he could not give in while Big King held on.
Reality dissolved slowly into a dark roaring nightmare of pain, wherein muscles and bone were loaded beyond all endurance, and yet continued to function. It seemed that for all time Rod had hung on arms that were leadened and slow with exhaustion. He was inching his way along the compressed air pipe for yet another advance up the drive.
Sweat running into his eyes was bluffing his vision, so at first he did not credit what he saw ahead of him in the darkness.
He shook his head to clear his eyes, and then squinted along the beam of his lamp. A heavy timber structure was hanging drunkenly from the roof of the drive. The bolts that held it were resisting the efforts of the water to tear it loose.
Rod realized abruptly that this was what remained of the frame which had held the ventilation doors. The doors were gone, ripped away, but the frame was still in position.
He knew that just beyond the ventilation doors the drop blast matt began. They had reached it!
New strength flowed into his body and he swung forward along the pipe.
The timber frame made a fine anchor point and Rod secured the rope to it, and flashed back the signal to Big King. He hung in the loop of rope and rested awhile, then he forced himself to take an interest in his surroundings. He played the beam over the distorted timber frame and saw instantly why the blasting circuit had been broken.
In the lamp light the distinctive green plastic-coated blasting cable hung in festoons from the roof of the drive; clearly it had become entangled in the ventilation doors and been severed when they were ripped away. The loose end of the cable dangled to the surface of the racing water.
Rod fastened his eyes on it, drawing comfort and strength from the knowledge that they would not have to continue their agonized journey
