Survivor: The Autobiography

by Lewis, Jon E.

  Even in my incompetence there was something that held the knife in its holster. Before I cut you off, Didi, I will try again to reach Fargues. I took the line and repeated the distress signal, again and again. Didi, I am doing all a man can do. I am dying too.

  On shore, Fargues stood in perplexed concentration. The first cordée had not been down for the full period of the plan, but the strange pattern of our signals disturbed him. His hard but sensitive hand on the rope had felt no clear signals since the episode a few minutes back when suddenly we wanted lots of rope. He had given it to us, eagerly adding another length. They must have found something tremendous down there, thought Fargues. He was eager to penetrate the mystery himself on a later dive. Yet he was uneasy about the lifelessness of the rope in the last few minutes. He frowned and fingered the rope like a pulse, and waited.

  Up from the lag of rope, four hundred feet across the friction of rocks, and through the surface, a faint vibration tickled Fargue’s finger. He reacted by standing and grumbling, half to himself, half to the cave watchers, ‘Qu’est-ce que je risque? De me faire engueuler?’ (What do I risk? Being sworn at?) With a set face he hauled the pig-iron in.

  I felt the rope tighten. I jerked my hand off the dagger and hung on. Dumas’ air cylinders rang on the rocks as we were borne swiftly up. A hundred feet above I saw a faint triangle of green light, where hope lay. In less than a minute Fargues pulled us out into the pool and leaped in the water after the senseless Dumas. Tailliez and Pinard waded in after me. I gathered what strength I had left to control my emotions, not to break down. I managed to walk out of the pool. Dumas lay on his stomach and vomited. Our friends stripped off our rubber suits. I warmed myself round a cauldron of flaming petrol. Fargues and the doctor worked over Dumas. In five minutes he was on his feet, standing by the fire. I handed him a bottle of brandy. He took a drink and said, ‘I’m going down again.’ I wondered where Simone was.

  The Mayor said, ‘When your air bubbles stopped coming to the surface, your wife ran down the hill. She said she could not stand it.’ Poor Simone had raced to a café in Vaucluse and ordered the most powerful spirit in the house. A rumour-monger raced through the village, yelling that one of the divers was drowned. Simone cried, ‘Which one? What colour was his mask?’

  ‘Red,’ said the harbinger.

  Simone gasped with relief – my mask was blue. Then she thought of Didi in his red mask and her joy collapsed. She returned distractedly up the trail to the Fountain. There stood Didi, a miracle to her.

  Dumas’ recuperative powers soon brought his colour back and his mind cleared. He wanted to know why we had been drugged in the cavern. In the afternoon another cordée, Tailliez and Guy Morandiere, prepared to dive, without the junk we had carried. They wore only long underwear and light ballast, which made them slightly buoyant. They planned to go to the cavern and reconnoitre for the passage which led to the secret of Vaucluse. As soon as they found it, they would immediately return and sketch the layout for the third cordée, which would make the final plunge.

  From the diving logs of Captain Tailliez and Morandiere, I am able to recount their experience, which was almost as appalling as ours. Certainly it took greater courage than ours to enter the Fountain from which we had been so luckily saved. In the few minutes they spent just under the surface of the pool, getting used to the water, Morandiere felt intense cold. They entered the tunnel abreast, roped together. Second cordée tactics were to swim down side by side along the ceiling.

  When they encountered humps sticking down from the roof, they were to duck under them and then return to follow the ceiling closely. Each hump they met promised to level off beyond, but never did. They went down and down. Our only depth gauge had been ruined, but the veteran Tailliez had a sharp physiological sense of depth. At an estimated one hundred and twenty feet he halted the march so they might study their subjective sensations. Tailliez felt the first inviting throbs of rapture of the depths. He knew that to be impossible at a mere twenty fathoms. However, the symptoms were pronounced.

  He called to Morandiere that they should turn back. Morandiere manoeuvred himself and the rope to facilitate Tailliez’s turnabout. As he did so, he heard that Tailliez’s respiratory rhythm was disorderly, and faced his partner so that Tailliez could see him give six pulls on the pig-iron rope. Unable to exchange words underwater, the team had to depend on errant flashlight beams and understanding to accomplish the turn. Morandiere stationed himself below Tailliez to conduct the Captain to the surface. Tailliez construed these activities to mean that Morandiere was in trouble. Both men were slipping into the blank rapture that had almost finished the first cordée.

  Tailliez carefully climbed the guide line. The rope behind drifted aimlessly in the water, and a loop hung round his shoulders. Tailliez felt he had to sever the rope before it entangled him. He whipped out his dagger and cut it away. Morandiere, swimming freely below him, was afraid his mate was passing out. The confused second cordée ascended to the green hall light of the Fountain. Morandiere closed in, took Tailliez’s feet, and gave him a strong boost through the narrow door. The effort upset Morandiere’s breathing cycle.

  We saw Tailliez emerge in his white underwear, Morandiere following through the underwater door. Tailliez broke the surface, found a footing, and walked out of the water, erect and wild-eyed. In his right hand he held his dagger, upside down. His fingers were cut to the bone by the blade and blood was flowing down his sodden woollens. He did not feel it.

  We resolved to call it a day with a shallow plunge to map the entrance of the Fountain. We made sure that Didi, in his anger against the cave, could not slip down to the drowned cavern that had nearly been our tomb. Fargues lashed a 150-foot line to Dumas’ waist and took Didi’s dagger to prevent him cutting himself loose and going down further. The final reconnaissance of the entrance shaft passed without incident.

  It was an emotional day. That evening in Vaucluse the first and second cordées made a subjective comparison of cognac narcosis and rapture of the Fountain. None of us could relax, thinking of the enigmatic stupor that had overtaken us. We knew the berserk intoxication of l’ivresse des grandes profondeurs at two hundred and fifty feet in the sea, but why did this clear, lifeless limestone water cheat a man’s mind in a different way?

  Simone, Didi and I drove back to Toulon that night, thinking hard, despite fatigue and headache. Long silences were spaced by occasional suggestions. Didi said, ‘Narcotic effects aren’t the only cause of diving accidents. There are social and subjective fears, the air you breathe . . .’ I jumped at the idea. ‘The air you breathe!’ I said. ‘Let’s run a lab test on the air left in the lungs.’

  The next morning we sampled the cylinders. The analysis showed 1/2000 of carbon monoxide. At a depth of one hundred and sixty feet the effect of carbon monoxide is sixfold. The amount we were breathing may kill a man in twenty minutes. We started our new Diesel-powered free-piston air compressor. We saw the compressor sucking in its own exhaust fumes. We had all been breathing lethal doses of carbon monoxide.

  Deserts

  Swedish explorer and geographer, the leader of many expeditions to Tibet, China and Central Asia. The incident below took place in the Gobi Desert in 1895.

  That night I wrote what I supposed were to be my last lines in my diary: ‘Halted on a high dune, where the camels dropped. We examined the east through the field glasses: mountains of sand in all directions, not a straw, no life. All, men as well as camels, are extremely weak. God help us!’ May Day, a springtime feast of joy and light at home in Sweden, was for us the heaviest day on our via dolorosa through the desert.

  The night had been quiet, clear and cold; but the sun was hardly above the horizon when it grew warm. The men squeezed the last drops of the rancid oil out of a goatskin and gave them to the camels. The day before I had not had a single drop of water, and the day before that, only two cups. I was suffering from thirst; and when by chance I found the bottle in which we kept the Chinese s
pirits for the Primus stove, I could not resist the temptation to drink some of it. It was a foolish thing to do; but nevertheless I drank half the bottle. Yoldash heard the gurgling sound and came toward me, wagging his tail. I let him have a sniff. He snorted and went away sadly. I threw the bottle away and the rest of the liquid flowed out into the sand.

  That treacherous drink finished me. I tried to rise but my legs would not support me. The caravan broke camp but I remained behind. Islam Bai led, compass in hand, going due east. The sun was already burning hot. My men probably thought I would die where I lay. They went on slowly, like snails. The sound of the bells grew fainter and finally died away altogether. On every dune-crest the caravan reappeared like a dark spot, smaller and smaller; in every hollow between the dunes it remained concealed for a while. Finally I saw it no more. But the deep trail, with its dark shadows from the sun, which was still low, reminded me of the danger of my situation. I had not strength enough to follow the others. They had left me. The horrible desert extended in all directions. The sun was burning and blinding; there was not a breath of air.

  Then a terrible thought struck me. What if this was the quiet preceding a storm? At any moment, then, I might see the black streak across the horizon in the east, which heralded the approach of a sandstorm. The trail of the caravan would then be obliterated in a few moments, and I would never find my men and camels again, those wrecks of the ships of the desert. I exerted all my willpower, got up, reeled, fell, crawled for a while along the trail, got up again, dragged myself along, and crawled. One hour passed, and then another. From the ridge of a dune I saw the caravan. It was standing still. The bells had ceased tinkling. By superhuman efforts I managed to reach it.

  Islam stood on a ridge, scanning the eastern horizon and shading his eyes with his hand. Again he asked permission to hurry eastward with the jugs. But seeing my condition he quickly abandoned the idea. Mohammed Shah was lying on his face, sobbingly invoking Allah. Kasim sat in the shadow of a camel, his face covered with his hands. He told me that Mohammed Shah had been raving about water all the way. Yolchi lay on the sand as if he were dead.

  Islam suggested that we continue and look for a spot of hard clay ground, where we might dig for water. All the camels were lying down. I climbed on the white one. Like the others, he refused to get up. Our plight was desperate. Here we were to die. Mohammed Shah lay babbling, toying with the sand and raving about water. I realized that we had reached the last act of our desert drama. But I was not yet ready to give in altogether.

  The sun was now glowing like an oven. ‘When the sun has gone down,’ I said to Islam, ‘we will break camp and march all night. Up with the tent!’ The camels were freed from their burdens and lay in the blazing sun all day. Islam and Kasim pitched the tent. I crawled in, undressed completely, and lay down on a blanket, my head pillowed on a sack. Islam, Kasim, Yoldash and the sheep went into the shade, while Mohammed Shah and Yolchi stayed where they had fallen. The hens were the only ones to keep up their spirits. This death-camp was the unhappiest I lived through in all my wanderings in Asia.

  It was only half past nine in the morning, and we had hardly traversed three miles. I was absolutely done up and unable to move a finger. I thought I was dying. I imagined myself already lying in a mortuary chapel. The church bells had stopped tolling for the funeral. My whole life flew past me like a dream. There were not many hours left me on the threshold of eternity. But most of all, I was tormented by the thought of the anxiety and uncertainty which I would cause my parents and brother and sisters. When I should be reported missing, Consul Petrovsky would make investigations. He would learn that I had left Merket on 10 April. All traces after that, however, would then have been swept away; for several storms would have passed over the desert since then. They would wait and wait at home. One year would pass after another. But no news would come, and finally they would cease hoping.

  About noon the slack flaps of the tent began to bulge, and a faint southerly breeze moved over the desert. It blew stronger, and after a couple of hours it was so fresh that I rolled myself up in my blanket.

  And now a miracle happened! My debility vanished and my strength returned! If ever I longed for the sunset it was now. I did not want to die: I would not die in this miserable, sandy desert! I could run, walk, crawl on my hands and feet. My men might not survive, but I had to find water! The sun lay like a red-hot cannonball on a dune in the west. I was in the best of condition. I dressed and ordered Islam and Kasim to prepare for departure. The sunset glow spread its purple light over the dunes. Mohammed Shah and Yolchi were in the same position as in the morning. The former had already begun his death-struggle, and he never regained consciousness. But the latter woke to life in the cool of the evening. With his hands clenched he crawled up to me and cried pitifully: ‘Water! Give us water, sir! Only a drop of water!’ Then he crawled away.

  ‘Is there no liquid here, whatever?’ I said.

  ‘Why, the rooster!’ So they cut off the rooster’s head and drank his blood. But that was only a drop in the bucket. Their eyes fell on the sheep, which had followed us as faithfully as a dog without complaining. Everyone hesitated. It would be murder to kill the sheep to prolong our lives for only one day. But Islam led it away, turned its head towards Mecca and slashed its carotids. The blood, reddish-brown and ill-smelling, flowed slowly and thickly. It coagulated immediately into a cake, which the men gulped down. I tried it, too; but it was nauseous, and the mucous membrane of my throat was so dry that it stuck there, and I had to get rid of it quickly.

  Mad with thirst, Islam and Yolchi collected camel’s urine in a receptacle, mixed it with sugar and vinegar, held their noses, and drank. Kasim and I declined to join in this drinking-bout. The two who had drunk this poison were totally incapacitated. They were overcome with violent cramps and vomiting, and lay writhing and groaning on the sand.

  Islam recovered slightly. Before darkness fell we went over our baggage. I laid everything that was irreplaceable in one pile: notebooks, itineraries, maps, instruments, pencils and paper, arms and ammunition, the Chinese silver (about £260), lanterns, candles, a pail, a shovel, provisions for three days, some tobacco and a few other things. A pocket Bible was the only book included. Among the things abandoned were the cameras and about a thousand plates, of which about one hundred had already been exposed, the medicine-chest, saddles, clothes, presents intended for the natives, and much besides. I removed a suit of clean clothing from the pile of discarded things and changed everything from head to foot; for if I was to die and be buried by the sandstorms in the eternal desert, I would at least be robed in a clean, new shroud.

  The things we had decided to take along were packed in soft saddle-bags, and these were fastened to the camels. All the pack-saddles were discarded, as they would only have added unnecessary weight.

  Yolchi had crawled into the tent to lie down on my blanket. He looked repulsive, soiled as he was with blood from the lungs of the sheep. I tried to brace him up and advised him to follow our track during the night. He did not answer. Mohammed Shah was already delirious. In his delirium he muttered the name of Allah. I tried to make his head comfortable, passed my hand over his burning forehead, begged him to crawl along our trail as far as he could, and told him that we would return to rescue him as soon as we found water.

  The two men eventually died in the death-camp, or near it. They were never heard of; and when, after a year had elapsed, they were still missing, I gave a sum of money to their respective widows and children.

  All five camels were induced to get up, and they were tied to one another in single file. Islam led and Kasim brought up the rear. We did not take the two dying men along, because the camels were too weak to carry them; and, indeed, in their deplorable condition, they could not have kept their seats between the humps. We also cherished the hope that we would find water, in which case we were going to fill the two goatskins that we still carried, and hurry back to save the unfortunate ones.

&nbs
p; The hens, having satisfied their keen hunger with the dead sheep’s blood, had gone to rest. A silence more profound than that of the grave prevailed around the tent. As twilight was about to merge into darkness, the bronze bells sounded for the last time. We headed eastward as usual, avoiding the highest ridges. After a few minutes’ walk I turned about, and gave a farewell glance at the death-camp. The tent stood out distinctly in the vanishing daylight that still lingered in the west. It was a relief to get away from this ghastly place. It was soon swallowed up by the night . . .

  Thus we walked on through the night and the sand. After two hours of it, we were so exhausted from fatigue and from lack of sleep, that we flung ourselves headlong on the sand, and dozed off. I was wearing thin, white, cotton clothes, and was soon awakened by the cold night air. Then we walked again, till the limit of our endurance was reached. We slept once more on a dune. My stiff-topped boots, reaching to my knees, made progress difficult. I was on the point of throwing them away several times, but fortunately I did not do so.

  After another halt we walked on for five hours more, that is, from four to nine in the morning. This was on 2 May. Then one hour’s rest again, and one and a half hour’s slow march. The sun was blazing. All became black before our eyes as we sank down on the sand. Kasim dug out, from a northerly slope, sand which was still cold from the night. I stripped and laid myself down in it, while Kasim shovelled sand over me up to my neck. He did the same for himself. Our heads were quite close to each other, and we shaded ourselves from the sun by hanging our clothes on the spade, which we had stuck in the ground.

  All day long we lay like this, speaking not a word, and not getting a wink of sleep. The turquoise-blue sky arched over us, and the yellow sea of the desert extended around us, stretching to the horizon.