Survivor: The Autobiography

by Lewis, Jon E.

  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 circumstances. 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 ship could get us off these seas, even if it arrived in time. We are completely in God’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. God 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 – Saturday, 30 July – the wind shifted 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 God, 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 Hitchcock, a Cape Codder who gave us tremendous assistance 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 hell have I done?’

  He had scored these words on the plaque along with another quote: ‘Let’s get bloody rowing.’ It was a phrase we used often in the days preceding our departure from Cape Cod.

  ‘Let’s get bloody 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 shore,

  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 altitude 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 d
eliver our heavier and more cumbersome 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 assembled, 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 grass. This was the duralumin container; it measured 7 feet 6 inches in length, and was made at the École Pratique at Bagnères-de-Bigorre to Lépineux’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. Lévi 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 Spéléologique 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 assistants, 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 masses of rock break off from the walls and pile up in dangerous heaps on the balconies and smaller overhangs. Lépineux, 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 accumulated 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 Lépineux 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-Engrâce in the valley.

  Attention was before long concentrated upon the shake-hole, where Queffelec shouted to his assistants and then asked in a tremendous voice: ‘Anyone for the lift?’ ‘Shan’t be long!’ I called back, knowing to whom his question was directed. Then, while the rest of the party moved towards the chasm, I disappeared into a stone hut where the provisions were stored. Henri Périllous, our cook, was busied about many things; he was the least talkative, but one of the hardest working members of our crew. Throughout our stay at Pierre Saint-Martin this frail, retiring youth of eighteen, ever willing and ever smiling, fulfilled a crushing task. He was always on duty, cooking at all hours of the day and night, or carrying pails of water from a distant stream. In fact, Henry Périllous had often to go down to the winch in the middle of the night with food for hungry workers who could not leave their job.

  ‘Henri,’ I said, ‘I’m going down in half an hour’; and the good fellow at once lit another stove9 and prepared me an excellent lunch. (It was unlikely that I should have another hot meal for a week!) I had even to refuse a second course; there was too much of it, and I was going to need all my resources of mind and body for my journey down the shaft.

  It was 10 a.m. by the time I reached the shake-hole.

  Before going down on a rope-ladder, I stopped for a word with Queffelec and to cast an eye over the winding-gear. Its strength reassured me; but not being an engineer I understood little of its complicated mechanism. Queffelec drew me aside, and, lowering his normally loud voice, pointed to the new steel cable on its drum: ‘It’s not as good as last year’s,’ he said. ‘It’s quite safe, of course, but the strands are not so tightly wound. I warn you, you’ll spin round like a top.’ This was confirmed by the physicist, Labeyrie, who joined us at that moment. Well, if the technicians said so, I was in for an uncomfortable time. But why worry in advance? I put on a bold front and reached the bottom of the shake-hole, feeling like a gladiator in the arena. Other members of the team were waiting there to harness me and help me through the narrow entry to the shaft. This year I had given much thought to my wardrobe. A good deal of snow had fallen during the winter; the spring had been wet; and we anticipated that the cascade, which begins 722 feet below the surface, would be particularly heavy. Accordingly, I wore woollen underclothing and two suits of overalls, the first rubberized and the outer one of stout canvas. Finally I unfolded a large square of highly elastic sheet-rubber, in the centre of which I had cut a hole about the size of my fist. I passed my head through this hole, and was thus arrayed in a kind of poncho which covered me down to the waist and fitted close to my neck without strangling me.

  The general effect, it seemed, was rather odd: the thing resembled a large white waterproof table napkin, and made me look like an outsize baby about to eat its porridge! As in 1953, it was Bidegain who helped me on with the heavy parachute harness; I was no more than a puppet in those powerful hands, which lifted me clean off the ground to make sure that the breast-strap was properly adj
usted and would cause me no discomfort. Delteil busied himself with my helmet, inside which he adjusted the earphones. He inspected my breast-lamp, and carefully fastened the mouthpiece on each side of my neck. ‘That’s important,’ he remarked; ‘otherwise you can’t make yourself heard properly. I know, because I’ve got a huge Adam’s apple!’

  And now Pierre Louis, attentive and methodical as ever, was waiting for me at the entrance to the shaft. With ritual precision he attached me to the end of the cable by means of a climber’s snap-hook. Henceforward I was linked to the winding-gear and its attendants who waited only for a signal to lower me.

  I have already explained that the opening which gives immediate access to the shaft is so narrow and inconveniently placed that you have to be something of an acrobat to get in at all. Although one cannot go down Pierre Saint-Martin without luggage, the kitbags which everyone carried slung from each of the suspension straps were too bulky to pass the opening in that position. One had therefore to slip through oneself, and then wait on a narrow ledge 13 feet down until the two bags were lowered on the end of a rope.

  I had just entered and reached –13 when the sky above me was darkened. I was surprised, and looked up. I could scarcely believe my eyes. There was a perfectly colossal sack being pushed through the hole. In due course it landed at my side.

  ‘Lévi,’ I called up, ‘I told you not to overload me; how do you expect me to clean up the shaft with all this tied round me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he replied, ‘but you’ll have to forgive me. You know the chasm as well as I do, and you know how I go to work. One must be prepared for anything; you may be alone down there for several days, and that bag contains only your minimum requirements of tackle, food, and bedding.’