The Shivering Mountain

by Paul Somers

  It was then that Mollie suddenly said, “I think I can smell paraffin!”

  I sniffed. There was a curious smell, very faint but very characteristic. I thought she was right—it was paraffin. But I couldn’t imagine where it was coming from. There was no sound from below, no light, nothing.

  After a moment, curiosity got the better of caution. The alternative to revealing our presence was to retreat in ignorance—and whatever was down there, we couldn’t come to any harm on our ledge. I took one of the magnesium flares from my pocket and put a match to it and dropped it into the chasm. The light was blinding, and for a moment we were dazzled and drew back. Then, as our eyes got used to it, we stared in wonder at one of the most awe-inspiring sights I’d ever seen. We were about twenty feet above the floor of a vast cavern, large enough to swallow a house. The roof, even in that brilliant light, was too high to be visible. The cavern itself was a fairy landscape, with weird formations of amber limestone spread around the floor in infinite variety. There was a bunch of stalactite that looked like a frozen waterfall, and a rock cascade furrowed by gigantic flutings. There were things that looked like delicate coral fabrics, and obelisks, and organ pipes, and fantastically tortured sculptings. The spectacle was unbelievably beautiful, and we stood spellbound till the flare burned out.

  As darkness fell again, blacker than ever, a voice came echoing up out of the cavern! It seemed to come from somewhere away on the right, and was muffled, as though it had travelled round corners. But the words were clear enough. “Who’s there?” it said. Eerily, the question was repeated over and over till it died in a whisper.

  I cupped my hands and called, slowly and distinctly, “Who are you?”

  “Landon!” the voice came back. “Arthur Landon. Help …!”

  Mollie said, “God, we’ve found him …!”

  I called again. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  That was all I wanted to know. I cupped my hands for the last time. “Right …! I’m coming down to you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mollie’s face was tense. She leaned over the edge, examining the rock, and for an anxious moment I thought she was going to say she’d try to climb down too. But even she drew the line at that. “You’ll have to go alone,”, she said. “I’d never make it.… I’ll wait for you here.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  “Of course. I’ll have the torch. But be careful.” I swivelled my belt lamp slightly to one side so that it wouldn’t get in the way, and lowered myself cautiously over the edge. Mollie shone her light down the rock face to help me. For a moment or two I hung by my hands, scraping around for a toe-hold. Then I began slowly to descend. I’d done a good deal of rock-climbing in my time, some of it severe, but I’d never been on rock underground before and I didn’t at all care for it. Twenty feet wasn’t far but it was quite far enough for a disastrous fall, especially when there were sharp spikes of stalagmite all ready to impale me below. The worst danger was that I’d put my weight on something brittle and suddenly lose my main support. Finding reliable holds in the semi-darkness wasn’t at all easy. I’d certainly never made a slower descent. But I kept going, and in a few minutes I was safely at the bottom.

  I called up to Mollie that I’d made it, and at once set off across the floor of the cavern in the direction the voice had seemed to come from. Near the wall the ground was littered with stalagmite obstructions but as I moved towards the centre the going became better, with nothing worse than rubble and cave-earth to negotiate. Twice I stopped and called “Where are you, Landon?” and an echoing voice came back. I crossed a shallow stream, a mere trickle over the floor. Presently I became aware of a faint glow ahead. Landon must have a light after all. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen it before. Then, as I drew nearer, I realised that the glow was coming from behind a projecting wall of rock, as the voice had done. I quickened my pace, and reached the jutting rock. As I rounded it, a most astonishing sight met my eyes.

  There was a deep alcove—a cave within a cave. Inside it, a complete camp had been set up. There was a small bivouac tent guyed to limestone projections, with rugs spread around it and a camp-chair near the entrance. Behind it there was a great heap of stores—bottles and boxes and cans of every description. In front of the tent there was a paraffin pressure heater, going full blast, and a paraffin lamp with an incandescent mantle that gave an excellent light. There was a man sitting in the chair. I could see he was Landon, though he no longer looked much like his picture. His face, where it wasn’t covered by a stubble of beard, was bleached a parchment white. His long thin nose looked sharp as a knife. His eyes were sunk in his head. His hair was in disorder. He was wearing a wind-cheater over a polo-necked sweater, and thick khaki trousers, filthy with damp cave mud. On his feet, incongruously, were a pair of scarlet bedroom slippers.

  As I approached he raised himself from the chair and took an uncertain step towards me, swaying a little as though his long imprisonment had weakened him.

  “Who are you?” he asked in a shaky voice.

  I held his arm, steadying him. “I’m a newspaper reporter,” I said. “My name’s Curtis. I’m the Record man who came up with your daughter to bring the money.”

  Relief flooded his face—relief, and incredulity. He grasped my hand in both his. He was trembling. “How did you find me? How did you know I was here?”

  I told him briefly about Mollie, and how we’d followed Clara and seen the ribbed footmarks and suddenly stumbled on the pothole entrance. He shook his head slowly, as though it was all beyond him. I told him about the passage we’d taken, and the ledge I’d climbed down from, and that Mollie was up there now, waiting.

  “I can hardly believe it,” he said. He looked quite dazed. “It seems like a miracle.…”

  “Let’s hope our luck holds!” I said. “Tell me about the kidnappers—are they coming back?”

  “They said they’d be back. They said they’d come at ten o’clock to-night to release me. That was last night, after they’d collected the money. I didn’t know whether to believe them or not. I still don’t. But I think they may come—to release me or to kill me!”

  “What sort of men are they?”

  “One of them is young, perhaps thirty, with short, cropped hair. He has a very deep voice. The other is much older, about my age. They’re educated men, very sardonic and efficient. I still haven’t seen their faces. When they’re with me they always wear masks—children’s comic masks! Hideous things. They joke about them. One of them wears a steel helmet and a canvas suit when he comes—the other one doesn’t bother. The younger one always has a gun—it was he who made me walk out of Clara’s house. …”

  Now that he’d started talking he was obviously eager to go on, but I had to interrupt him. There were a hundred things I wanted to know, but the details would have to wait. The first thing was to get out. I looked at my watch. It wasn’t quite eight-thirty. If the kidnappers weren’t going to be back till ten, we still had some time. I said, “How did you get down here?” I knew he hadn’t come over the ledge, because he obviously hadn’t known of its existence till I’d told him.

  “They brought me along a passage with a stream running through it,” he said. “The one that starts by the waterfall—the one you didn’t take. The passage comes out up there.…” He pointed to the wall of rock on his left. “About forty feet up. They’ve got a folding ladder made of steel wire. That’s how I got here. Every time they come, they let it down, and every time they leave they draw it up behind them, so that I’m shut in. They’ve taken my shoes away, so that I can’t try to climb out. They know I was once a good rock-climber—I don’t know how.”

  I shone my lamp on the rock face. It was much smoother, as well as much higher, than the one I’d come down. I said, “It looks impossible to me, shoes or no shoes.”

  “I think it is.… Even when I was young I don’t think I could have done it. But perhaps I could climb up on to your ledge.
”

  “I doubt if you could make that, either,” I said. “You’ve had a bad time—you don’t look in good shape for climbing.…”

  “I’m all right, I assure you. They treated me quite well, you know. They brought all this stuff down for me—they prepared the camp and made it comfortable. I’ve had warm clothes and plenty of food, tinned food, and light, and water from the stream—even some books to read. Oh, yes, they’ve looked after me.…” His voice cracked. “But I’ve been here for eight days—alone, except for their short visits. It’s a long time to be alone in a cave, eight days! Every day seems like a year. And I wasn’t sure I should ever get out again … I did all I could … I even floated paper boats down the stream that runs across the floor, with messages on them, hoping they’d reach daylight and be read by someone—but of course it didn’t work. In the end, I almost lost hope—that’s why I’m like this.… Despair saps your strength.… But I’ll be all right now. I’ll get to the ledge—you’ll see!”

  I couldn’t have felt more doubtful. His face was wet with sweat, his hands were clasping and unclasping convulsively. He looked a nervous wreck to me. I said, “Well, I don’t know …” hesitating. I wanted to get him out, but not in pieces. He took a step forward, and stumbled against me. It was all he could do to stand. I knew then that it was impossible.

  “No,” I said, “it’s too great a risk without a rope.… Look, suppose I go back to the ledge and out to the waterfall and come back along the other passage—the one you used. I can do it in half an hour. Then I can lower the ladder to you and you can climb up.”

  He shook his head. “They always take the ladder away with them when they go. They’re afraid potholers may come in and find it and climb down. They hide it somewhere—I don’t know where. I think it would be better if you fetched help—the police.…”

  I nodded. In view of his condition, that obviously was the best thing to do. If Mollie and I left straight away and raced back to Castleton we could probably have a police party at the pothole well before ten. If the kidnappers returned then, as they’d promised, we’d have a good chance of catching them. If they didn’t, we could at least rescue Landon without risk of accident.

  “Right,” I said, “we’ll get the police.… If the kidnappers show up before we do you’ll have to pretend that nothing’s happened—but with luck they won’t. We’ll do our best, anyway.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you!”

  He turned, and sank into the camp-chair, and covered his face with his hands. It was difficult to see in him the confident, brilliant physicist on whom the country had relied a week ago. His ordeal had broken him—he seemed no more than the shadow of a man. I hated leaving him—but I could think of no better way to serve him.

  Speed, now, was the most important thing. I left the alcove and set off quickly across the cavern floor. As soon as Mollie saw my light she flashed her own, so that I knew where to make for. In a few moments I was at the foot of the rock. I rested for a short while, steadying myself for the ascent. That was something that couldn’t be hurried. Presently I began to climb. It was easier going up, because Mollie’s torch lit up the handholds above me. In five minutes I was beside her on the ledge. I explained the situation in a few words, and she didn’t argue. In a real crisis, she never argued. We rushed back along the passage at breakneck speed and reached the fork where the stream ran in and continued along the tunnel towards the entrance. The last stretch was wet, where before it had been dry, and as we emerged into the store chamber we realised why. It was raining hard outside. Water was streaming into the swallow and pouring over the floor. We were going to have a wet dash to Castleton. I grabbed my raincoat from the niche where I’d thrust it and was just going to put it on when Mollie caught my arm. “Hugh!” she cried.

  I swung round. “What’s the matter?”

  “The tin hat!” she said. “It’s gone!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I stared at the heap of stores. It was true—the helmet had gone. So, I now saw, had the boiler-suit. Someone had obviously entered the pothole after we had. I shone my lamp on the ground, and there were footmarks there that had been made since the rain had started. We hadn’t noticed them till then because we’d been in such a hurry to leave, but they were plain enough. They were a man’s prints—not the ribbed ones we’d picked up on the moor, but smooth ones, with rubber heels. The conclusion seemed inescapable. One of the kidnappers must have returned before time and gone on in by the left-hand fork while we were still in the right one. Presumably he’d come to release Landon—but we couldn’t bank on that. There was always the outside chance that he’d come to kill him.

  The discovery knocked our plans sideways. If we went for the police now, the rescue party would almost certainly arrive too late to affect the Landon issue, and the kidnapper might well have made his escape. Once he’d gone, there’d be little chance of ever catching him. The alternative was to go in after him. If he was the man with the gun it could be risky—though with three of us around he might well hesitate to shoot. If he wasn’t, I thought I could probably handle him. I put it to Mollie, and she said at once, “Let’s go back.” We turned, and began to retrace our steps.

  The noise as we approached the waterfall was louder than it had been. The flow from the cleft had increased as a result of the rain and the roar in the chamber was deafening. We got very wet skirting the cascade, and I could well understand why our kidnapper had equipped himself with a boiler-suit. What I couldn’t understand was why the other one hadn’t. But we were much too excited now to bother about trifles like that. With a desperate man trapped in front of us, we’d got to watch our step all the way. I warned Mollie to be ready to switch her light off the moment we saw or heard anything, and went cautiously ahead.

  The passage was very different from the first one we’d taken. That had seemed dead—probably it had been abandoned by the waters thousands of years ago. This one, with a stream running through it, was alive and spectacular. The water had built up its own clay and pebble dams, so that there was a chain of wide, still pools that reflected and doubled the exquisite beauties of the rock. Our lights kept picking out lovely sheets of crystalline enamel, and silken curtains petrified as though by a spell, and delicate limestone flowers in rock niches. But we had little eye for beauty now—the going was treacherous, with slabs of soft, slippery clay lying between young growths of stalagmite that snapped and crackled beneath our feet.

  After about twenty yards the passage divided. To the left there was an upward-going tunnel that looked as though it might well lead to another exit. Wherever it went to, it wasn’t the one for us—the rubber heel marks continued on beside the stream. We kept going. Presently the passage took a sharp dip and for a few yards the water raced downhill beside us in a series of miniature cataracts. As we descended, the roof got lower, forcing us to crouch and finally to crawl. It was knee marks in the clay that we were following now—and other, older marks, made I imagined by the boxes of stores that must have been hauled along there.

  Suddenly, as we stopped for a moment to rest, I thought I caught a sound above the murmur of the water. I called softly to Mollie to douse her light and switched mine off too. I looked ahead—and knew that I hadn’t been mistaken. There was a bend in the passage just in front of us, and from round the corner came a glow of light. Someone was coming towards us with a lamp! There was something very peculiar about his movements, too. It sounded as though he was dragging himself along on his stomach—yet there was certainly no need for that. With over three feet of headroom, it was an easy crawl. A chill ran through me. He could be dragging someone else along!

  I inched forward in the darkness and took up a position just before the bend, keeping away from the stream and close to the inside wall so that I’d have the greatest possible cover. I unhooked the lamp from my belt and put it on the floor three feet away to my left, still switched off but pointing forwards. If the kidnappers had a gun and started shooting when
the lights went up, I’d be happier not to be in line with the lamp. I whispered to Mollie to come up close behind me. I didn’t quite know what I was going to do, but we were committed now to the encounter—and at least we should have the advantage of surprise.… The shuffling noise grew louder. I peered round the corner of the rock. The light was much nearer, but its direct beam was obscured by something. By whatever was making the shuffling noise, I thought. It was all horribly eerie.

  I daren’t let the man come too close. Once he was round the bend we’d be sitting targets. I waited till I thought he was near enough for the beam of my lamp to reach him. Then I stretched my hand out, and pressed the switch, and drew back quickly into the shelter of the wall.

  There was a sharp gasp ahead. Very cautiously, I peered out again. For a moment, all I could see was the outline of a suitcase! It was the friction of the case, being pushed along the floor, that had made the shuffling noise. Then a brilliant light appeared beside it—the light from a helmeted head. I couldn’t see the man’s face, because the beam was shining straight at me, dazzling me. For a second or two there was no sound. Then a sharp voice said, “Who’s that?”

  I could hardly believe my ears—but I knew that voice. It was the voice of Ronald Barr!