Medusa

‘Well, of course I do.’ We were crouched together in what was clearly another expansion chamber, and as I circled it with my torch I saw that all the rubble they had cleared from the fall had been piled around the walls. Petra was straining at a large chunk of rock. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’ But when we had pulled it away, and she had cleared the rubble and dust that was piled behind it, exposing another foot or so of the limestone wall, there was nothing there, the surface completely bare. Her frustration and anger was something tangible. I could feel it as she shifted her body into the gap, kneeling now and working away at the rubble, dust rising in a cloud as she scooped the loose fragments of rock up in her hands and thrust them behind her.

‘Leave it till tomorrow,’ I said.

‘No. I must know what’s here.’

‘In the morning you can come back again with the proper tools.’

‘I must know,’ she repeated, her voice urgent. ‘If there are more drawings, then I’ll have to stay here, make certain they don’t start shovelling out more of this debris. If they come here again in the morning and begin enlarging the passage through this roof fall — ’

‘Listen!’

‘What?’

‘Just stay still for a moment.’ She had been working so furiously, making such a clatter in the confined space, that I couldn’t be certain I had really heard it. ‘Listen!’ I said again and she sat back on her haunches. Dust blew up into our faces, and in the sudden silence the slap of waves breaking seemed preternaturally loud.

The wind’s getting up,’ she whispered. That’s all.’ And then, when I didn’t say anything, all my senses concentrated on listening for that sound again, she asked, ‘Did you hear something besides the wind and the sea?’

I nodded.

‘What?’

‘A voice. I thought I heard a voice.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No. Of course I’m not sure.’

We stayed frozen for a while, listening. ‘There’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Just the wind. I can feel it on my face, much stronger now.’

I could feel it, too. It was as though a door had been opened and was letting in a draught. She bent forward again, working at a rock up-ended against the side of the cave. My torch, probing the hole through the roof fall, picked out a grey sliver of what proved to be bone. But when I showed it to her she brushed it aside. ‘There are several bits of bone lying around. A sheep, or a goat maybe. Probably got trapped in here, or came seeking a dark den in which to die. It’s drawings of animals, not their bones I’m looking for.’ And when I again suggested that she leave it till it was daylight, she turned on me quite fiercely. ‘Can’t you understand? I must be sure there are no more drawings in danger of being destroyed.’

Five minutes later she was uncovering a mark on the wall that looked like discoloration. It was very faint, a faded ochre line sweeping upwards and stopping abruptly where the roof had fallen away. ‘Could be the back of some animal.’ Her voice was breathless with excitement. ‘What do you think it is, Mike? The arch of the neck perhaps? A bull? At Lascaux there’s a great bull right across the roof of the cave, and there are deer being hunted and plunging to their deaths over a cliff.’

She went on working at it, exposing more and more of the faded ochre line where it disappeared into the rubble. I was holding the torch for her and she was working so hard I could smell the warmth of her, dust clinging to her damp skin, her face a pale mask. Then I heard it again and I gripped her arm to silence her. ‘Somebody called,’ I said.

She turned, the piece of rock she had just prised loose still in her hand, her head on one side. Even her hair was covered with a grey film. ‘I don’t hear anything.’ She brushed my hand away, thrusting the chunk of stone behind her.

‘I’m going through,’ I said.

She didn’t seem to hear me, leaning forward again, brushing gently with her fingers at the section of wall she had just exposed.

I pushed her out of the way and crawled forward over the rubble, turning on my side. I was just starting to wriggle into the gap feet-first when, back up the slope of the cave, I saw a glimmer of light. It grew rapidly brighter, hardening into the beam of a torch, and a moment later Gareth Lloyd Jones was crouched beside us.

‘Where’s Soo?’ I asked him. ‘You said you’d stay with her.’

‘Waiting in the car.’ He was breathing hard. ‘I came up to tell you.’ He was kneeling now, his face close to mine as I lay with only my head and shoulders protruding from the hole. ‘How far does it go, right through to the cliff face?’ He thought I had already explored the continuation of the cave.

‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘I’m just going to find out.’

‘But you’ve been here for a quarter of an hour or more.’ Petra and I started to explain about the mark on the wall of the cave, both of us speaking at once, but he brushed our explanation aside. ‘Have you heard something? Anybody moving about?’