The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 83

He heard her hr e again. "Good girlP he applauded th silently. "Good brave girl!" For a moment her gear jammed in the aperture, but he reached forward and freed it, then eased her towards him.

She was through. Thank you, G.o.d, she was through.

Now up! They were accelerating, pressure squeaking in his ears. He prodded her sharply in the ribs, and heard the rush of bubbles as she released the expanding oxygen from her lungs.

PeT "Clever girl." He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.

The ascent took so long that he began to fear he had lost his way, and taken a false branch of the tunnel, and then suddenly they broke out through the surface and he pumped for air.

Gasping, he reached across and switched on her lamp.

"You're not good," he panted. "You are simply b.l.o.o.d.y marvelous!" He towed her to the foot of the ladder and began stripping off her oxygen gear.

"Get up the ladder, out of the water," he grunted. "Here, strap my leg to the rung. I'll be back soonest." He did not waste time on the difficult task of donning the gear while treading water, instead he tucked the canisters under his arm.

He had no stone to weight himself down so he depressed the valve and emptied the oxygen bag. The set was now negatively buoyant starting to pull him under.

He could not use oxygen so he would have to free-dive again. He hung onto a rung of the ladder work while he pumped his lungs with air, and then duck-dived.

At the wall he slid backwards through the opening and pulled the empty set after him. With the bag deflated, it came through readily enough. At the entrance to the grand gallery, he opened the tap of the oxygen cylinder. Gas hissed into the bag, swelling it, and immediately it was buoyant again. It drew Craig rapidly up to the surface of the pool.

Sarah was perched on the edge of the slab, but she had the canvas bags packed and ready.

"Come on!" Craig gasped.

Tupho, I cannot."

"Get your little black a.r.s.e down here! he rasped hoa.r.s.ely.

"Here, take the bags, I will stay."

Craig reached up and caught her ankle. He yanked her off the slab, and she splashed into the water and clung to him.

"Do you know what the Shana will do to you?" Roughly he pulled the yoke of the set over her head, and there was another burst of machine-gun fire above them, the ricochets wailing off the upper walls of the gallery.

Craig pressed the mask over her face.

"BreathePhe ordered. She sucked air through the mask.

"Do you see how easy it is?" She nodded.

"Here, hold the mask on your face with both hands.

Breathe slowly and easily. I will carry you lie still. Do not move!" She nodded again. He strapped the canvas bags to his waist and picked up the weight stone. He began hyperventilating.

From above them came the packing report of a grenade launcher something clattered down the gallery and the entire cavern was lit by the fierce blue glare of a phosphorus flare.

With a rock tucked under one arm, and Sarah under the other, Craig ducked below the surface. Halfway down he felt Sarah try to breathe and immediately he knew they were in trouble. She took water, and began choking and wheezing into her mask. Her body convulsed against him, and she began writhing. and struggling. He held her with difficulty; she was surprisingly strong and her hard slim body twisted in his ms.

They reached the entrance to the shaft, and as Craig let the weight fall, their buoyancy altered drastically. Sarah whirled on top of him, and drove her elbow into his face.

The blow stunned him and for a moment he relaxed his grip. She broke away from him, starting to rise rapidly, kicking and windmilling.

He reached up and just managed to grip her ankle.

Anchoring himself on the sill of the entrance, he hauled her down again and in the lamp glow saw that she had torn the mask off her face.

It was snaking wildly about her head on its hose.

He dragged her bodily towards the wall, and she clawed at him and kicked him in the lower belly, but he raised his knees to protect his groin and swung her bodily around.

Holding her from behind, he dragged her to the hole, and she fought him with the maniacal strength of terror and panic. He got her halfway through the wall before the hose caught in a crack in the rock, anchoring them.

While he struggled to free it, Sarah began to weaken, her movements became spasmodic and uncoordinated. She was drowning.

Craig got both his hands on the hose, and a foothold on the rock of the wall. He pulled with all the strength of his arms and his body and the hose ripped out of the oxygen bag. The gas escaped through the rent in a roar of silver bubbles, but Sarah was free.

He pulled her out of the hole and started pedalling upwards, his one leg only just pushing them against the weight of the purged oxygen set and the drag of the canvas food-bags at his waist.

Craig's struggles to subdue Sarah had burned up his own oxygen reserves. His lungs were on fire, and his chest spasmed violently. He kept on pedalling. Sarah was quiescent in his arms, and he felt that despite all his efforts they were no longer moving, that they were hanging in the black depths, both of them drowning slowly. Gradually the urge to breathe pa.s.sed, and it all ceased to be worth further effort. It was much easier just to relax and let it happen.

Slowly he became aware of a mild pain. Through his indifference he wondered vaguely about that, but it was only when his head broke surface that he realized that someone had him by the hair.

Even in his half-drowned state, he realized that Sally Anne must have seen the lamp glow below the surface and recognized their predicament. She had dived down to them, seized Craig by the hair and dragged him up to the surface.

As he struggled for breath, he realized also that he still had his grip on Sarah's arm. The black girl was floating face-down on the surface beside him.

"Help mePhe choked on his own breath. "Get her out! Between them, they stripped the damaged oxygen set off her and lifted the unconscious girl onto the first rung of the ladder work above the water, where Sally-Anne cradled her face-down over her lap. Sarah hung there likea drowned black kitten.

Craig put his finger into her mouth, making sure that her tongue was clear, and then pressed the finger down into her throat to trigger the retching reflex. Sarah spewed up a mixture of water and vomit, and began to make small uncoordinated twitching movements.

Hanging in the water beside her, Craig splashed the vomit off her lips and then covered her mouth with his own, forcing his breath down into her lungs while Sally Anne cradled the limp body as best she could on the awkward perch.

"She's breathing again." Craig lifted his mouth off Sarah's. He felt sick and dizzy and weak from his own near-drowning.

"The diving set is b.u.g.g.e.red," he whispered, "the hose is torn out." He groped or6bnd for it, but it had sunk into the shaft.

(Sam," he whispered. "I've got to go back for Sam." enough. You'll kill "Darling, you can't you've done e yourself."

"Sam," he repeated. "Got to get Sam." Clumsily he untied the straps of the canvas food-bags and hung them beside his leg on the ladder. He clung to the ladder, breathing as deeply as his aching lungs would allow. Sarah was coughing and wheezing, but trying to sit up. Sally-Anne lifted her and held her on her lap likea child.

"Craig, darling, come back safely," she pleaded.

"Too right," he agreed, allowing himself the indulgence Of another half-dozen breaths of air, before he pushed himself off the ladder and the cold waters closed around his head again.

The underwater section of the grand gallery, even down as deep as the mouth of the shaft, was lit by the phosphorus flares, and as Craig ascended, so the intensity of the light increased to a crackling electric blue like the glare of brute arc-lamps.

As he broke through the surface of the pool, he found that the upper gallery was filled with the swirling smoke of the burning flares.