The Sentence Is Death

I can’t believe it. But I look at him and see that he is yellow, that he’s crying like a baby. I swear at him and I crawl back towards the contortion. And there he is. Charlie. Standing up. I can’t see his head. Just his feet and his legs coming out of the bottom of the tube and I guess that his cow’s tail or something has got caught and he hasn’t got any purchase. He needs to pull himself up to release it. And I could help him but then water starts jetting through and it’s black in the light of my head torch and all the walls are shuddering and I think if I wait another second I’m going to die here and I turn round and crawl away as fast as I can, leaving Charlie to stand there and drown.

That’s what happened, love. I’m not saying we could have saved him, but we could have tried. Maybe we could have got him out before the main surge hit. But we didn’t. We made it to the crack and waited there while the water rushed out underneath us. Then we followed it to the exit. We were both soaked and we were exhausted. We were covered in cuts, I suppose from the falling rocks. We were lucky to be alive but we didn’t feel that way. We were disgusted with what we’d done, both of us. Me as much as him.

I’m not going to pretend that I was any better than Richard, but I want you to know that it was him who said what we were going to do once we got out. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer. I always heard he had a reputation for telling the truth but that wasn’t what he did this time, not when it would have stayed with him for the rest of his life. And think what it would have done for his career!!! Not the Blunt Razor. The Blubbing Loser. He made up the story about Charlie getting lost in Spaghetti Junction. We pretended we’d gone back in looking for him. In fact, we went straight up to Chris’s place at Ing Lane Farm and got him to call out cave rescue.

That’s half the story. My hand has already got cramp, sitting here, writing. I need to finish this and move on. So I’ll be brief.

I never really spoke to Richard again after that. Of course we were both at the inquest and you saw us together once or twice. But I couldn’t look him in the eye. I was disgusted with him. He made me sick. But I was also disgusted with myself. If the two of us had gone straight back together, I think we could have got Charlie out. But we left it too late. I never went caving again after that. You know that. Now you know why.