Robyn Hogan

Grot! I was all grot, inside and out, when I woke. My head ached, particularly across my forehead, my mouth and teeth were steeped in sludge and I felt sick. I hurt all over, stank like a rabbit burrow and was cold. My fingers fiddled with the lamp switch. Nothing happened.

“Damn and blast!” I muttered into the darkness. I must have passed out with the light on. And there was no response to my words; the others had to be sleeping. I knew they were still there by the animal like murmurs surrounding me.

I lay stiff and quiet, letting self-loathing wallow over and through me. Gradually, though, my thoughts settled into niggling fragments. Eyes wide open, I explored them in the blackness.

Jacques knew what had made us sick and gasping. ‘Foul air barrier’, he had said. Did he know how to deal with it? “Please God,” I prayed softly, “wherever you are, let Jacques be rational again.” Tears began running down my face and into my ears and I almost gave myself up to wholesale howling. With big, gulping breaths I forced my mind back to the issues.

The thick stalagmite. The one in the poorer flowstone area. There was something puzzling about its formation. Picturing it, I stared hard at my mental reconstruction. It was really a column! At one with the stalactite above. A broken column! In this windless, undiscovered tomb of a cavern, a solid block of leached limestone had been broken, a stick removed. The little glistening nose on the roof end and the fresh puddle forming on the stalagmite were beginnings, new deposits after the break.

But there was something more teasing at my mind. In the corner of my eye I had noticed a gold colour. In all the sparkling silver and white there was a curl of gold. I felt sure. The whole area was so fantastic I was unlikely to imagine extra details.

I had to look. The thought that the awful gas, or whatever it was, might spread, worried me but I needed a proper look. And I hoped Fox had some life left in his lamp.

“Wake up, Fox. Wake up.” He moaned. “Switch your light on.”

I could hear him fumbling then the wretched blackness split open.

“I’m sick. I feel dreadful.”

“Same here. We’ll be better once we move.” I stood up. “C’mon. My light’s had it. We have to move together, using yours.”

“It’ll probably go on the blink soon, too,” he grumbled, not moving.

“Are you two okay?”

I ignored Alex’s husky words and crouched beside Fox, my jeans, stiff with dirt, crackling softly. “I think that one of the formations has been broken.” My tone was fierce, willing my hunch to be the truth.

“Big deal.” He closed his eyes and turned off the lamp. Then he knocked me as he suddenly moved to sit up, the light came on again. “Sorry,” he muttered, an automatic response because his next words surged with interest, excitement. He added, rapidly, “I know which one you mean. And — if it’s been broken — someone’s been here before.”

Quickly we crossed the cavern.

“Broken. Definitely. But when?”

“It could be centuries ago. Maybe Aborigines used these caves in the dreamtime. I doubt if someone was here last week. Unless,” I looked up quickly, “Jacques was.”

“Yeah. Depends how fast those blobs are made. I think they might have taken quite a while. What happened to the broken off bit? There’s nothing like it lying around.”

“Jacques?”

“Maybe. But I doubt. He’s irrational but not a secret hoarder. At least, I don’t think he is. I mean, if he broke it off, where is it now?”

I remembered the other puzzle. “Fox, can you shine the light more to the right?”

“Why?” He directed light further over but I couldn’t find what I was looking for. I tried to think of where I had been standing the first time and stamped my foot crossly. It’s always damn difficult searching for something when another person has control of the light. And Fox was swishing it round so I felt sick, my queasy stomach turning, my head buzzing. I closed my eyes, nearly toppled over, and opened them again, hoping I wasn’t going to faint.

“That it?” Fox demanded sharply.

Gold and blue twinkled on a dry, dusty ledge well over towards the main flows. But at an angle. Stepping carefully, we selected a pathway to the spot.

“Wakadoo! Jewellery!” We spoke together, surprise and awe making us whisper.

It tinkled, jangled softly, as I draped it across my fingers.

“A bracelet.” I spoke slowly, my voice full of wonder and admiration. “And that’s Wedgewood.” I felt as if I was smiling all over as I pointed to the medallions slotted along, holding together, half a dozen gold chains. “The same stuff as Mum’s special cake plate. You know, the blue one with the raised white pictures.”

“Yeah.” He took an end so the bracelet was spread in full across our two hands, the lamplight concentrated on our find. “Zodiac signs. Little white star signs set on blue china.”

“Lion. That one’s the lion. Leo. And a ram. What’s that one?”

“Dunno. Aquarius, maybe.”

We ran our fingertips over the beautiful little moulded pictures. Our filthy nails hid each briefly as we explored.

“It has the same feel as Mum’s plate, too. Sort of grainy — different to the usual plate finish. And the chains. They must be gold. Different patterns. Oh! It’s so pretty.”

“Catch seems sound enough.” Fox slipped the ornament off my hand and fastened it. The circlet, as dainty as a flower, hung from his index finger. He jiggled his hand the chains, separated at intervals by the Wedgewood pieces, tinkled sweetly. “Doubt if it was left here accidentally.”

“No. But it proves people have been here before us.” I suddenly felt very well, energetic. “White people. Recently.”

“Or one person has been.” Fox withdrew into his thinking face, tossing the bracelet up and down in his hand.

“It’s twenty past five,” I said, angling my watch to catch the light from Fox’s lamp. “Is that time day or night?”

He stood still, frowning. “Must be morning,” he replied, slowly, “the third morning.”

We stood silent, looking at each other, aghast, weighing up, in our individual ways, the problem anew.

“We’ll be found,” I declared. “Others have been here before us. Mum and Dad will read your map and find us.” I finished on a high, choked note and swallowed hard. “Let’s show this to Alex. Get his opinion.”

“That’s a change. Coming from you.”

“He wants to help. Fox. And he hasn’t been enchanted by the flowstone.”

“Enchanted? Bullcrabs!”

“I think,” and I used the words reluctantly, “He’s thinking clearer than we are.”

But Alex was not well. He must have used his last strengths worrying about us. We could not rouse him. And his breathing had a rattling, moist sound to it; a bluish tinge flicked round his nostrils and lips.

“We can’t wait to be found, Fox. We have to get out.” My own breathing was shallow, my heart pounding. Indeed, I could feel pulses throbbing in my neck and a sweat breaking out. Just from looking at Alex.

“Yeah.”

“Last night, just before I slept, Jacques said something about a,” I hesitated, seeking his exact words, “a foul air barrier.” It must be a usual thing. Maybe we just have to pass through it. Maybe it indicates a way out.”

“Jacques is mad.”

“Yes, I know.” I looked at Fox, pleading, “but he does know about caving. And he sounded okay last night.” Fox stood silent and I became impatient. “We could at least try to find out about it,” I snapped.

“Yeah.” He continued to just stand, nodding, and I felt like slapping him until I realised he was thinking in his deep, quiet way. “Old Jacques,” he said, when I was about at screaming point, “seems to respond to his name. Said over and over, softly, coaxing. As if it reassures him. Sets him in time and place.” He looked up and, though his face was fairly shadowed, I knew he had reached a conclusion. “We’ll talk to him gently, calmly, using his name a lot.”

I nodded agreement.

“And don’t go getting shirty if he doesn’t co-operate first up,” Fox cautioned.

He passed the bracelet back to me and I stuffed it into my hip pocket.

We found him sitting, in his folded up fashion, on the heap of rubble. The wall through which we had crawled and Alex had become stuck, was now a spill, like truck-delivered garden topsoil. And looked far less stable.

I stretched a hand out to Fox. “Don’t go too close. It doesn’t look safe.”

“We’ll have to get him off.”

Jacques seemed unaware of our approach; made no movement even when the light first flushed out his presence. I silently prayed for him to be sane; praying a desperate wish. But I let Fox do the talking.

“Hi! Hi, Jacques!”

The figure wriggled a little, soil slipping round him, and I bit back a gasp of fear.

“We need to talk, Jacques. Need your advice. Come and get a drink and we’ll have a yarn.”

In slow motion he lifted his head. His face, ages old, looked wretched.

“They’ll get us. They’ve taken the maps. We’ll be next.” He spoke quietly, rationally. Gone was the usual note of agitation which crept in when he mention ‘they’. He sounded resigned, defeated.

“Maybe Jacques. Maybe. Come and get a drink,” Fox coaxed patiently.

Wearily Jacques slid down the dirt slope, causing it to spill out further. We two stepped back quickly, nervously, and went to our supply corner. Alex did not stir as we rummaged nearby for food and drink. Our supplies were almost finished. I slid one juice pack into position for Alex and handed the other to Jacques, willing Fox not to comment. After all, there was still a little water left for us.

Jacques attacked the drink, tearing at the box with his teeth and I wondered again if he had been starving himself; whether there was a stash of supplies, hidden and ignored, somewhere in the darkness. Fox waited until Jacques, sucking noisily, drank. Then he talked, using the man’s name with monotonous frequency.

“Jacques. About this foul air. How does it work, Jacques?”

“CO₂”

We were both a bit slow to understand, to realise what he had said. Even so, the information wasn’t a lot of help.

“Carbon dioxide,” Fox murmured, “that’s the stuff people breathe out, isn’t it?” he frowned at me.

“Beats me. I failed Science. But I think so.”

Jacques drew close to us, whispering energetically. “They put the gas in our way. So they can hold us here. But Old Jacques has a trick or two up his sleeve.” He grinned in a harsh, forced way and nodded, sagely. “Brought matches, didn’t we?”

What was the connection? Why don’t I listen to useful things at school? By the frown twisting Fox’s forehead I knew he had regrets too. But I doubted if he would show his ignorance. I know I’m dumb so there’s not much point in trying to conceal it.

“How do matches help with foul air?” I spoke slowly, clearly, so as not to distract Jacques from the main point. “I mean, do they eat it up or something?”

“Won’t burn,” he snapped.

That made us think deeply, watching Jacques finish swilling the last of the juice. Fox eventually said, “Then we can tell where the foul air is before we suffer the effects.”

“Doesn’t get us through it, though,” I quipped.

Jacques had moved away, but remained within the light circle, and was doing his head pressing, arm stretching antics. He was often saner, more sensible, after them and I hoped his exercises would work again this time.

They did.

“The barrier can move. What you ran into before could have shifted by now.”

“But it must be somewhere.” I was becoming cross.

“Yeah,” Fox agreed calmly before turning back to Jacques. “People have been in here before us —”

“They have?” Jacques interrupted, animated, excited. His mood swings were becoming more alarming. “How do you know?”

“We found a piece of woman’s jewellery, a bracelet.” AS Fox spoke I pulled the ornament out of my pocket, swinging it for all to see.

“Probably stolen. Bushrangers most like.” He wandered away, his interest and excitement gone.

“It must be some time ago,” Fox projected his voice, trying to re-involve Jacques. “They broke a column and there is quite a bit of new deposit on the ends.”

That worked. Our leader was back, eyes bright. “Is the way out marked?” he snapped, face close on Fox’s.

“I don’t know. How would it be marked?”

But, even as he asked, the answer dawned for both of us.

“Broken bits of flowstone!”

I whirled off to investigate, stuffing the bracelet back in my hip pocket. Fox, practical Fox, dropped down and, scrounging in the supplies stack, picked up the box of matches, before catching up with me.