Jenni Mills - Crow Stone

The sea urchin floats above me, set for ever in its chalky ocean. It couldn’t be more indifferent.

Chapter Three

I can still see the sea urchin so I know I’m not dead. It sits in a circle of light that’s ominously yellow. My head-torch battery must be failing.

That’s not a pleasant thought. Even if I’m not dead I might as well be, once the torch goes. It’s just about possible to be ironic while I can still see, but in the darkness I suspect I’m going to cry. I don’t want to do that if I can help it. I don’t want to die feeling sorry for myself, though I suppose it’s the one time you’re justified in feeling that way.

I don’t want to die

How long have I been here? It’s so quiet. Not even the creak of settling rock.

‘Martin!’

Pathetic. Hardly a bat-squeak. Throat too dry, tongue too big for my mouth. The air’s full of dust–but at least there’s still air. For the moment.

‘Maar-tin!’

My ears feel wrong. They’re ringing, maybe something to do with the air pressure. I can hardly hear myself.

‘Maaar-tin!’

Don’t want to bring the rest of the roof down, shouting. Come on, Martin, answer, you bugger.

Fuck.

Dust and chalk fragments on my upper body, one hand’s free and I can feel that, even reach up to touch my face, but from the pelvis down I’m pinned. My legs seem to be under a lot of rubble. I can feel them, though, and I think I’m wiggling my toes–I think –so the weight hasn’t broken my back. I suppose I should count myself lucky.

On second thoughts, lucky isn’t quite the word.

It reminds me of the games we used to play as children: which would you rather? Be crushed to death by an enormous weight? Slowly suffocated? Starve? Die screaming voicelessly, tormented by thirst?

None of the above, thank you. I think I will just have that little cry, after all.

But I’m not crying. I’m shaking.

Jesus

Stop it . I’m shaking hard enough to bring the rest of the ceiling down over my face.

My body won’t pay any attention to what I tell it. It goes on shaking. Big, shuddering tremors start in my legs, travel up to my shoulders and into my head. Is this what soldiers get the night before battle: a mad uncontrollable jerking dance of fear?

Judging by the silence, Martin’s in more trouble than I am. He must be under the main fall. Between me and the way out.

‘MAAAR-TIN!’

Got to stop this shaking.

Breathe.

Think about anything other than dying.

Chalk is fossil heaven. Even the dust is a universe, composed almost entirely of tiny shells, minute cartwheels and rings and florets, the remains of plankton, which can only be seen under the electron microscope. Coccoliths, the smallest fossils on earth .

Easier, now.

Unlike angels, they actually know how many coccoliths you can get on to a single pinhead–upwards of a hundred .

I suppose my lungs are full of the bloody things.

How long does it take to die underground?

The human body can survive weeks or months without food, but only days without water. Days like this–I’ll never stand it. My tongue’s like sandpaper. No, it’s already died in my mouth and is slowly setting, like cement.

‘Mmmm-MAA—’

Everything tightens, my lungs shut down. I can’t breathe .

I’m starting to shake again and that isn’t a good sign.

And now the bloody torch is flickering and– blink –it’s going to go and– blink –it’s back no it’s not blink it’s gone it’s dark I’m stuck here in the bloody dark I’d rather die just get it over with

The Camera Man watching with his single bloodshot eye his long pale fingers reaching for me the darkness

HOLY Mary Mother of

It’s back . Thank God. The light’s on again. Shaking so much I hit my head on the ceiling and the damn thing came back on.

Breathe, Kit, take it slow and steady . I have to get myself under control, make the most of the light while it’s still on, start trying to dig myself out instead of lying here like I’m already fossilized.

Which would you rather? Suffocate, or bleed to death, wearing your fingertips down to raw stumps as you feebly try to claw your way out?

There’s something scrabbling around my feet.

Or be eaten from the toes up by rats? Slowly gnawed and nibbled, inch by bone-crunching inch?

Ha-bloody-ha.

A waft of fresh but sweat-scented air reaches my nose.

‘Martin, you fucker, you took your time.’

Above ground, the air has never smelt so good, even though it’s laced with rotting rabbit. It strikes me, sitting on the grass by the mine-shaft, that I can’t remember anything about the last fifteen minutes or so since Martin hauled me out by my ankles, spluttering chalk dust.

I’ve almost stopped shaking. That’s a plus.

‘Got a cigarette? I need a bloody cigarette.’

‘Kit, I don’t smoke. Never have, as you well know. Where are yours?’

‘Fuck knows. Under half a ton of chalk, probably.’

God knows how long Martin must have spent shifting rubble patiently out of the tunnel before he could get to me. I hope I was helpful, on the way out. I probably wasn’t.

‘So, nothing came down where you were?’

‘Not a sausage. Fortunately it was a fairly small collapse as roof falls go. Pitifully small, I’d say.’ He tries to smile. His face is pale, though, and it isn’t just chalk dust.

‘Yeah, well,’ I say. ‘You weren’t under it, Nancy Boy. I’m counting that as a near-death experience.’

I dust myself off a bit, and look at the sliver of moon. She’s on the turn. Funny thing, all these years of looking at moons, I’m still not sure which way round is the crescent and which is waning to dark. I promise myself I’ll find out now, for sure, and never forget.

Martin squats down beside me, and puts his arm round my shoulders in a big, rough, rushed hug. It’s so rare that we touch, I find my eyes filling with tears.

‘You OK? Really?’ he asks.

‘Really. I think. I’ll tell you after a hot bath.’

‘Didn’t you hear me calling? I could hear you.’

‘Struck deaf by terror, I guess, as well as dumb.’ My ears still feel funny. Like I was in an explosion.

‘I thought for a moment I’d lost you.’ His eyes look shiny in what’s left of the light.

‘You came and found me, though.’

‘If I hadn’t you’d have dug yourself out and come after me.’ He shudders. ‘I felt like a cork in a bottle after squashing my shoulders into that passageway. Anyway, if you can make it, we ought to start down before it gets too dark to find the track.’

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I shove him away, and try to get up. There doesn’t seem to be any strength in me, and I can’t push myself off the ground. He puts his arm under mine and hauls me to my feet. ‘I can walk.’

‘Like a geriatric.’

Did I get up the ladder on my own? He surely couldn’t have carried me. I have a dim memory of trying to cling to the rungs with no strength in my arms, Martin pushing from below. Right now, I’d love him to give me a piggyback, but I shake him off all the same.

We set off slowly through the beech trees. The ground drops away sharply in front of us. Through the last crisp copper leaves, lights glimmer on the farmland below. In the distance there is a smudge of orange that must be Worthing. I’m listening out for the raven’s cough, but there’s nothing except the crunch of our feet on the beech mast. My feet feel like lead.