Hammond Innes - Levkas man

"Paul," I said, my voice barely recognizable, so gripped was I by my dreadful surroundings.

"Paul?" he seemed not to understand, his appearance wild, his voice dazed.

I shifted the torch in my hand, directing the beam of it onto my face.

He recognized me then. "So it's you!" His words sounded like a sigh of relief and I saw his limbs move, an awkward attempt to rise to his feet. His face was grey with stubble, the eyes deep-sunk and staring. "Give me that torch." His voice was hoarse, a harsh whisper desperate with urgency.

I didn't move. There were questions that had to be answered, and I stood there, rooted to the spot, my mouth dry, my tongue mute. There was an atmosphere about that place-something old, very old, that touched a chord, a deep sub-conscious instinct. And as though he read my thoughts, he said, "You are in the presence of the Earth Goddess. Man's oldest god. And this-" His thin hand moved-"This is her temple. Move the beam of your torch to the right-over there. Those bison-they're being driven over a cliff. Superb!" he breathed. "And I've been here in the dark, unable to see since. ." He checked himself. "How long is it? How long have I been down here?"

"Almost three days," I said.

"And only a few hours-of light-to see what I had found. All those years, searching. ." He was trembling, his voice on the edge of tears. And then he moved, sheer willpower pushing him up till he stood erect, the rock wall supporting him and his limbs shaking under him. His head-ascetic, skull-like with age and exhaustion-was outlined against the red flanks of a charging bull. "The torch," he whispered, the urgency back in his voice, his hand held out-begging for the light.

I passed it to him then, and he snatched it from my hand in his eagerness to see what he'd been living with in darkness-his fantastic discovery. Slowly he swung the beam, illuminating that butcher's cavern with its great beasts tumbling into traps, driven over cliffs, or caught in the moment of death with the weapons of the hunters scoring their flanks. "Look!" he breathed, the beam steadying on the red shape of a bison painted on the roof. "See how the cave artist used the bulge of that rock to emphasize the weight of the head, the massive power of the shoulders." The torch trembled in his hand, the croak of his voice almost breathless with wonder. "I haven't seen anything like this since I was in Font de Gaume. I was just a youngster then, and I had left the Dordogne before they discovered Lascaux. I've seen photographs, of course, but that's not the same."

By then I had a grip on myself, was thinking of Bert, and Holroyd's body in the pool out there beyond the further cavern. "What happened after the rock fall trapped you?" I took hold of his arm. It was thin and hard, all bone under my hand as I pressed him for an answer. But he was still intent upon the beam of the torch, lost in a world of his own as he feasted his eyes on the paintings. It was only when I asked him how he'd found them that I got any sensible reaction.

"By accident," he said, his eyes following the beam as it illuminated a gory melee of animals superimposed one upon another. "I'd only matches. And not many of those-no other light. But that's how I saw it first-this temple to Man the Killer." He said those words as though they carried a personal message. "Look! See how the charcoal has been used to express the terror in that reindeer's eyes-marvellous!"

I slid my hand down his arm and took hold of the torch. "I have to save the battery," I said. But he didn't seem to understand. He was beyond practicalities, entirely rapt at the wonder of his find, and he tightened his grip on the torch so that I had to wrench it from him. It wasn't difficult. There was no strength left in him.

"Give it to me." He was suddenly like a child, pleading. "You don't realize what it means-all the hours sitting here-waiting, praying for a light to see them by."

"Sit down." My hand was on his shoulder, urging him. And then I switched off the torch and in the dark he cried out as though I'd hurt him physically. Then suddenly he sank to the floor of the cave, exhausted.

"Now," I said, sitting down beside him, my back against the wall. "Tell me what happened. You were through the old rock fall, exploring the upper cave, when that earth tremor brought the roof down. What happened then?"

The darkness was total, and in the darkness I could hear his breathing, a rasping sound, very laboured.

"Did you have your acetylene lamp with you?"

"Of course."

"And you'd found the blow hole?"

"Yes. I was in there, examining the walls, when it happened-the ground trembling and the crash of rock falling." In the blackness, without the distraction of the cave paintings, he began to talk. And once he had started, it was like a dam breaking, the whole story of his discovery pouring out of him.

He had gone back up to the cave-shelter to examine the rock fall, and realizing there was no way out, that he was trapped with little chance of being rescued, he had explored the only alternative, going down the blow hole until at last he reached the end of it. Then, with his back braced against the wall of it, he had peered down, leaning perilously over the gap and holding his lamp at the full stretch of his arm. He had seen the glint of water, the vague shape of the rock ledges and the shadowed entrance to a gallery beyond. "I was afraid at first." His voice breathed at me out of the darkness, a croaking whisper, tired and faint. "It seemed a desperate step, to let myself fall into the water, the lamp extinguished-no light, nothing but darkness."

He had tried to climb back up the slope of the blow hole, but it was too steep and his muscles were tired. And then gradually the acetylene flame of his lamp had weakened. Finally he had worked his way back down to the end of the blow hole. There he had managed to slip the box of matches he carried into the empty wallet in his hip pocket, and as the flame of his lamp dwindled to nothing, he had let himself fall. "I had no alternative. I was at the end of my strength." He paused, breathing heavily, reliving in the darkness his experience. "It was easier than I had expected. The water was cool, refreshing. And when I'd hauled myself out and recovered from the shock, I felt my way into the gallery and worked along it with my arms stretched wide, touching the walls, and when the walls fell away, I knew I had entered some sort of a cave. That was when I struck my first match."

He was excited then, his words coming faster: "Can you imagine, Paul-how I felt? The sudden realization. All those paintings. And nobody to share my discovery, no means of telling the world what I had found." He laughed then, that same hard jeering laugh that I remembered and hated. But this time he was laughing at himself, at the irony of it. "All my life-seeking. And now suddenly I had stumbled by chance on what I had been searching for. I struck match after match. I was crazed with excitement." He paused. Then added slowly, "In the end there were no more matches. I was in darkness, complete darkness, standing like a fool in the greatest art gallery in the world and I couldn't see it." He sighed, a dreadful, tearing sigh. "Well, that's how it was. That's how I stumbled on the work of Levkas Man." He repeated those words slowly-Levkas Man. "That's the name I have given to him. Sitting here in the dark I've had time to think-about this cave and about what it means. I've no doubts now. My theory was right. A land-bridge did exist. And now I must start at the other end-at Pantelleria. If something similar exists on Pantelleria. . Give me that torch again." His hand clawed at my arm. "I've been in the dark so long. Ho^v long have I been here, did you say? Three days?"

"About that."

"Seventy-two hours."

"But not all in darkness," I said. "You had a spotlight, didn't you?"