Part 12 (1/2)

'There's been some fish following us all day. When we throw some paper over the side they dart out to it and then back to the stern. We rowed all day and then the seas gradually built up. At 10.00 GMT it was getting dark and the seas were very large by this time. We decided to put over the sea anchor. The first time for over a month or more I can't really remember. The night was spent in the two sleeping positions. Very uncomfortable and not a great deal of sleep. I got soaked all down my legs and behind. The water rushed in under the canopy into my boots and down my trouser leg. This only happened once, but it was enough.

'We used water bags inflated as pillows and to put next to us where something would be sticking into us. I slept next to the pumps, but was very lucky. I only had to get up four times to pump out. I only hope the sea anchor holds the night.'

On 29 July we emerged only once from beneath the canvas canopy, and that was to check the sea anchor. To have lost it at that point would have been a disaster. For nothing could have stopped us being blown West with the wind, and we could easily have lost fifty miles.

We spent the day huddled together in the stern in a s.p.a.ce measuring no more than five feet by four feet. John felt very sick and tried to sleep as much as possible.

The waves were like mountains and bigger than any we had seen up till then. Their tops were sliced flat by the wind, and they came towards us frighteningly fast and with a noise like a plane on full throttle. We learned to judge by their speed and sound which waves were going to pa.s.s under us, which would break into the boat and which would hit us smack on.

The constant battering of hundreds of pounds of falling water on the canvas canopy finally proved too much for the metal frame. It collapsed and introduced yet another form of personal discomfort. We tried to prop the edges up with two stout poles from our emergency kit. Every half minute or so the wind would lift the canvas. The poles would dislodge and the whole soggy mess would come tumbling down on our heads. We were driven almost to the point of hysteria.

Again I think it is worthwhile quoting from our logs to explain the full misery of that day. Nothing I can add now would so completely capture the events and feelings we experienced.

Wrote John: 'The sea anchor seems to hold well I believe because it does not have a rigid ring at the mouth, but can ”breathe” like a parachute.

'As night draws on we think of Samuelson and Harbo and how they rowed into a great easterly wind for two days and then lay exhausted at sea anchor an exact parallel to our present circ.u.mstances. On the third night they were overturned. We believe English Rose III to be more seaworthy.

'Tonight we lie and wait nothing could save us if we get into difficulties. No s.h.i.+p could get us off these seas, even if it arrived in time. We are completely in G.o.d's hands, at the mercy of the weather. All night the wind screams louder and louder and the sound of the sea becomes louder. We talked of many things, the night train to Scotland, the things we had done. And slowly we were overtaken by an enormous feeling of humility and the desire to return and try to live a better life.'

I noted a similar conclusion in my own log.

'We stayed in our beds all day. You really start thinking of the good things in your life. A lot of humble pie can easily be eaten in a situation like this. There's only one word for it nightmare.

'We often think of Johnstone and where he is. How fortunate for him he has a cabin. If both boats make this I'll shake his hand. If he's having it the same as us, as he must, he's having it rough. We ate very little. No hot meals. We would have had to move everything to cook. The best way round this is to sleep. The sticks that kept the canopy up kept falling down. The wind would lift it a little and it would come down and hit us on the head about five times a minute. It would drive you to the point of getting angry which I did. About 18.00 I got up to check the sea anchor. Okay. Pump out. I looked at the waves. They were huge. The biggest we've had so far. This must surely be the effect of the hurricane. It was almost white everywhere I looked.

'At 3.00 hours we were wakened by the storm. The wind howled and the waves crashed against the stern and bow. Whack! It would hit the boat but ”Rosie” took it all. What a boat this is, wonderful. The dorymen certainly knew what they were talking about.

'I pumped out very few times. Awful.

'You could hear the waves roar like an engine coming towards you, crash into you, then roar off into the night. Then the next one. Only one thing for it. Sleep then prayer. G.o.d comes close to you out here.

'You have three feet on each side of you. Then death.

'I have never been so frightened before as I am here. I pray tomorrow that it will change. During the night I get fantastic pains in the knees. It came from them being bent for so long.

'We are now both sleeping on the side which is away from the wind so that the side nearest the wind is higher and helps stop the water coming over the side.

'My feet are numb. This must be the effect of the cold and the canopy resting on top of them. This canopy is continually wet now, laying on top of me. I can't get away from it.'

The Lord must have heard our prayers, for early the next morning Sat.u.r.day, 30 July the wind s.h.i.+fted to the North-west. We hauled in the sea anchor, and with the waves decreasing by the minute, we were soon racing eastwards with John on the oars.

But the sea had not finished with us yet. As the afternoon dragged past the wind swung round to the South, and by early evening we were in the grip of another storm, having had no chance to dry out and still reeling from tiredness and exposure.

The seas rapidly climbed to enormous proportions and life became a constant nightmare once more. For John the suffering was even more intense. He had developed a rash from knees to hips, and his neck was circled with salt water sores. the only thing in our first-aid kit which gave him any relief at all was foot powder and we were already down to our last tin.

During the night it began to rain and the winds grew even fiercer. Dawn found us weakening rapidly and almost crying from lack of sleep. We were weary now to be finished, but home seemed so far away. There was a growing desperation in both of us to put an end to it but that we were unable to do.

For four days we had been soaked to the skin. The salt water worked its way into our sores and John's rash, and every movement meant further pain and misery.

Again the wind veered round to the West, but the storm continued without a let-up, and we saw nature performing tricks which defy logic. Great mountains, covered in icing sugar, marched endlessly towards the East, and we, thank G.o.d, were dragged along with them.

It is difficult to say which was worst, being on or off watch. The choice: to crouch soaking wet under a pile of streaming canvas or sit in the open wrapped in a dripping blanket. John looked exhausted with dark, sunken eyes, and I dreaded to think how I must look.

So we crashed on and on. Nothing mattered but to keep on going. 'Rosie' seemed like a thing alive. We hung precariously for long moments, balancing on the crest of a wave, surfing eastward with a speed that was terrifying yet wonderful. The dory took a terrible battering but seemed to be indestructible. This fight against nature was going the whole distance, with only one round to the elements. A small hand-painted plaque was ripped from our stern.

It had been fastened there by George Hitchc.o.c.k, a Cape Codder who gave us tremendous a.s.sistance in preparing for the crossing.

It was while I was out with George, taking lessons in rowing, that it suddenly dawned on me just what we were attempting. I turned to him and said, 'Three thousand miles. What the h.e.l.l have I done?'

He had scored these words on the plaque along with another quote: 'Let's get b.l.o.o.d.y rowing.' It was a phrase we used often in the days preceding our departure from Cape Cod.

'Let's get b.l.o.o.d.y rowing,' we said, 'and get on with the job.'

I missed that tiny plaque, that and a nine-year-old letter from my mother and the last letter from Maureen were very comforting in moments of strain. Also the verse which the dorymen put on one of the watertight compartment doors: When at last I sight the sh.o.r.e, And the fearful breakers roar, Fear not, He will pilot me.

This I believed in.

Under the Ground French speleologist. In 1952 Casteret led the exploration of the deepest known chasm on land, the Pierre Saint-Martin pothole in the Pyrenees, during the descent of which Marcel Loubens lost his life. Two years later, Casteret returned to Pierre Saint-Martin to recover Loubens's body and continue exploration of the abyss.

I reached Pierre Saint-Martin on 3 August 1954, a whole day in advance of my companions. Two Spanish carabiniers stood near the entry to the pothole. These men were wrapped in heavy cloaks, for the weather was grey and cold as it so often was throughout that dreary summer. They had been on guard for several days, taking turns of duty with four others under the command of a lieutenant.

At the bottom of the shake-hole (a depression about 30 feet deep giving access to the narrow opening of the shaft itself) I could see the wooden cross upon which, in 1952, we had painted these words: 'In the depths of this chasm lies Marcel Loubens, fallen on the battlefield of speleology.'

Wind, rain, snow and sun had obliterated much of the inscription, and I noticed that the first line 'In the depths of this chasm lies . . .' had completely vanished. The coincidence struck me, and I chose to regard it as a favourable omen of our purpose: Loubens would rest no more in that vast, cruel abyss; we would succeed in bringing up his body, and give it Christian burial at long last in the cemetery of his native village. We had given his parents a solemn promise to that effect in 1952.

4 August The sun rose in a cloudless sky; and while the last of our party hurried up from the valley to the camp, pitched at an alt.i.tude of 5,800 feet, the drone of approaching aircraft could be heard. As in 1953, the Air Force and Parachute Regiment at Pau had kindly agreed to deliver our heavier and more c.u.mbersome gear by parachute.

Three Junkers machines made several journeys to drop some fifty loads. They fulfilled their task with incomparable skill; for in spite of strong winds and the slope on which we were a.s.sembled, the multi-coloured parachutes came down literally into our arms. A single tourist plane carrying a press photographer, together with an observation-aircraft circled overhead throughout the morning. The whole business, in fact, looked like an aerial display staged for the benefit of all shepherds, sightseers, speleologists, French and Spanish police. The most important and most fragile load came down in twin parachutes joined together, and landed gently on the gra.s.s. This was the duralumin container; it measured 7 feet 6 inches in length, and was made at the ecole Pratique at Bagneres-de-Bigorre to Lepineux's design.

Later in the day a convoy of mules brought up the remainder of our gear, which we stored near the shepherd's hut. For the fifth successive year the hum of activity caused by our arrival had disturbed the solitude and silence of the Pyrenees.

Tents sprang up like mushrooms; packing cases that lay where they had fallen from the air were now collected by members of the team, and by a crowd of trippers who lent a willing hand but who were obliged to beat a hasty retreat on the approach of bad weather. Mist rose stealthily from the valley and enshrouded everything. Torrential rain driven by an icy wind brought the day to a miserable close; reminding us that we were indeed high up on the western Pyrenees, where the Atlantic gales provide an annual rainfall of something like ninety-six inches. Levi had warned us in the circular letter before the expedition: 'Waterproof clothing will of course be no less essential in the surface camp than at the bottom of the chasm.'

5 and 6 August These were days of preparation, during which everyone worked hard at all kinds of jobs; laying telephone lines; erecting the heavy winding-gear at the mouth of the shaft; repairing tackle which had been damaged in transit; packing materials and foodstuffs for use underground. Last, but not least, our cooks got busy laying out their kitchen.

There were twenty members of the team. Most of us had not met for twelve months; for the Groupe Speleologique de la Pierre Saint-Martin, which includes men from all over France and Belgium, makes a point of foregathering only once a year, on the occasion of its summer campaign.

6 August The Spanish lieutenant climbed up from his little camp 220 yards from the pothole. His manner was quite formal; he simply wanted a full list of the party. Then, to our absolute amazement he gave us official notice that the Spaniards would take no part in the expedition, and that we must confine ourselves to recovering Loubens's body there must be no further attempt to explore the chasm.

By nightfall, Queffelec, with his a.s.sistants, Rossini, Isola, Accoce and Laisse, had got the winch into position. Pierre Louis, our official engineer, set a pulley-jack at the entry to the great vertical shaft. All was now ready, and the descent could begin.

I had again volunteered to go down first, both as a matter of principle and also to clear the cornices of fallen stone. This particular chasm, is still in process of formation; from year to year ma.s.ses of rock break off from the walls and pile up in dangerous heaps on the balconies and smaller overhangs. Lepineux, however, had determined to lighten my task by cleaning the first platform, 257 feet down. He reached it without mishap, and set to work with an American army shovel, conversing with us over the telephone. Meanwhile I was at the receiving end, not far from the winch; I took note of all he said, and I must say it surprised me. Considering he had himself cleared this same balcony, which inclined sharply downwards, he was amazed by the amount of debris that had acc.u.mulated since 1953. He spent a good two hours throwing down lumps of rock; and I could hear his gasps of astonishment as he realized the extent to which the interior of the chasm had disintegrated.

You see, nothing can fall into the shaft from outside; the entrance is far too narrow, and opens like a dormer window in a vertical wall of rock. All this debris with which Lepineux had to deal came from inside, through 'chimneys' and smaller flues crammed with stones. These were gradually dislodged by the trickling water and erosion, and fell into the shaft.

As darkness fell it grew cold, a keen wind blew, and a dismal fog lay heavy on the mountain. 'Real Pierre Saint-Martin weather,' as someone had remarked as we returned to camp for the night. A small, solitary tent drowned in mist, and shaken by angry squalls, is not an enchanting or invigorating place.

Alone, rolled up in my sleeping-bag, I could still hear within me those subterranean avalanches hurtling downward, smashed to fragments at terrifying depths. I saw myself tomorrow, within a few short hours, hanging from a thread in that huge shaft which a Parisian journalist has so aptly described as 'the Eiffel Tower poised on the towers of Notre-Dame'.

7 August A bright, sunny day. I could hear sheep-bells in the neighbouring fold; there were voices too, one of them Etchebarre's. That worthy gendarme was busy sending radio messages by shortwave to Saint-Engrace in the valley.