The White Road Read online

  ‘How long will it take us to get through?’

  ‘About three hours to the Rat Run if you don’t mess about. Then another hour or so to get out. We’ll exit about a mile from where we started.’ Up until the mention of the Rat Run I’d successfully managed to keep claustrophobia at bay, but now it began to nip at me. ‘Cwm Pot is known for its aptly named “Rat Run”, five hundred metres of some of the tightest squeezes in the UK’, was how the sadistic caving guide I’d consulted put it.

  The tunnel’s roof tapered down, forcing me to lurch along like a hunchback, and ended at a jumble of mid-sized boulders. A scramble over these led into a more impressive conduit, the rock around us diminishing up into velvety blackness, the sloping floor peppered with scree. The burble and spatter of water was always with us. I double-checked the camera was secure, mindful that I only had an hour and a half of battery life. I’d have to be picky; especially if I got the chance to capture the footage I was really down here for.

  The tunnel widened again, roomy enough for us to walk side by side. ‘Where are you from, Ed?’ Sometimes his voice had a Yorkshire burr; at other times it morphed into something less distinct.

  ‘Lived all over.’

  ‘And you usually do this alone?’

  ‘Ay.’

  ‘So what drew you to caving?’

  ‘Been doing it off and on all my life, lad.’ He turned and tapped the side of his nose. ‘It’s one of the places they can’t get you.’

  ‘Eh? Who can’t get you?’

  ‘Them, lad. Them. You know who I mean. Blair and Bush and those other fuckers. They can’t track you down here, lad, with their CCTV and their satellites and their electromagnetic signals.’

  Was he trying to psych me out again? I waited for the accompanying cackle. It didn’t come. Shit. Now it wasn’t just the thought of squeezing my bulk through a sodden rock fissure that made my bowels clench. Ed wasn’t just a grumpy old codger with a drinking problem, but a bona fide nutter. But as we walked on, I caught him glancing slyly at me. I honestly couldn’t tell if he was messing with me for some twisted reason of his own, or if he was genuinely deluded.

  Go back, go back, make some excuse.

  It wasn’t just the practicalities that kept me moving forward–I’d never get back up that ladder–but my ego. Conspiracy nut or not, I couldn’t bear the thought of Ed’s scorn if I backed out now. Instead, I changed the subject. ‘So they would have come this way? The lads who died down here in the eighties?’ Lads. I was picking up his speech patterns.

  ‘They would. One route in, one route out. I was part of the rescue team.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh ay. Only cavers can rescue cavers. No good sending anyone else down. Don’t know what they’re doing, see?’

  ‘It must have been horrible.’

  ‘Oh it was horrible all right, lad,’ he spat, reminding me more than ever of Quint. ‘Couple of us almost drowned as well. Had to dam that stream up top, but it wouldn’t hold.’

  We’d reached an enormous pile of boulders, the evidence of a long-ago cave-in, stacked to the top of the chamber. They looked impassable, implausible, like a movie set. ‘Boulder choke,’ Ed said, matter-of-factly. ‘Stay close. Going to be tight.’ He glanced at my belly. ‘You’re going to wish you’d given the pies a miss, lad.’

  He scaled the rocks closest to us, then posted his body through a tiny V-shaped opening, twisting his torso mid-manoeuvre. His light was far brighter than mine, and the second he slipped through the crack, shadows closed in on me. I hesitated, unsure that I would actually fit through it. It was all right for Ed. Ed was wiry. I had wide shoulders and a gut gestating a Guinness baby. Aping him, I corkscrewed my bulk through it, rock scraping my belly and back, trying not to think about the tons of impervious material above and around me. I detected a faint guff of sulphur as my suit rubbed against limestone–the first whiff of anything I’d had down here. Once through the opening, I had to contort myself through a lumpy U-bend, haul my body up a short vertical shaft, then scramble along a narrow funnel. Ed could do this on his hands and knees; I was forced to do an inelegant belly wiggle, pushing myself along with my elbows and toes, and all the while trying not to bash the camera on any outcroppings. Still, it wasn’t anywhere as difficult as he’d led me to believe. Fuck you, Ed.

  The going for the next half-hour or so wasn’t challenging either: another hands-and-knees crawl, a squirm through a couple of eye-holes, and then I was birthed out into one of those roomy chambers. Niggles about hiring a nut to guide me aside, I was beginning to enjoy myself. I decided it was best not to ask him about the bodies–not now that he’d revealed himself as a possible member of the tin-foil hat tribe. Instead, I’d concentrate on filming the Rat Run, and get Thierry to add creepy music and subtitles hinting at the caves’ tragic history: A Trip down Cwm Pot, The Caves of DEATH, or something.

  Ed was waiting for me at the base of a wide vertical face, which was riddled with ridgelines. Halfway up it, an elongated slender mouth bisected the stone, a rusty chain hanging in front of it.

  ‘Took your time, lad. You ready for the next bit?’ He pointed at the mouth with a gnarled finger. ‘Got to climb up there, grab the chain and post yourself through that gap there.’

  I could sense he was waiting for my reaction. From our vantage point the aperture looked too narrow to admit anything more substantial than a newspaper. ‘Sure. No problem.’

  He snorted, clearly seeing through my fake bravado. ‘I’ll go first, shall I?’

  ‘Yep.’ My mouth was dry.

  He hared up the crease at the side of the wall, monkeyed across a ledge on the balls of his feet, and then, in one smooth movement, lunged, grabbed the chain and slotted himself feet first into the gap. He wriggled his way inside it, disappearing into the darkness beyond.

  He’d made it look easy, and it was at first. The climb up was effortless, as if the cracks and ledges were purpose-made rather than random acts of nature, but when I reached for the chain and trusted my full weight to it, it jerked as if it was about to come loose from the bolt holding it in place. Heart in my throat, I pin-wheeled my legs upwards, catching the edge of the mouth with my toes, my head and torso hanging vertically down, brain filled with images of my head cracking open like a watermelon on the rock below. If the chain came loose from its mooring, that would be it. Moving my hands up the chain to eke my body into a better position, I managed to slot my feet inside, then my legs. Thank fuck. There was just enough room for me to squirm my body further into the gloom, but I had to remove the helmet to prevent the camera scraping against the low ceiling. Using my bum and shoulder muscles, I wormed my way along, the stone above me a hair’s breadth from my gut. The top opened out, and I slid the helmet back on. Now I was able to shift my body around, roll onto my front and crawl head-first along a passageway to where Ed was waiting for me, a savage smile on his face. ‘Careful here, lad.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ The end of the tunnel dropped down to an inky abyss, a good three storeys below. The route down gave the impression of being as smooth as a sheet of glass. As my headlamp swept it, I fought a twist of vertigo, although I’d never had an issue with heights before.

  Again he was watching me slyly. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem for a climber like you. Not one who’s done the Aiguilles.’ He didn’t suggest a belay. In any case, we didn’t have any rope.

  And then he was off, dropping down, fearlessly taking a direct route, clinging to the rock like a spider. I watched him carefully, trying to memorise the handholds he chose.

  ‘Come on then, Chris Bonington, let’s see what you’re made of.’

  Dry-mouthed once more, I turned on the camera, my inner voice unhelpfully ad-libbing, caught on camera, the last tragic moments of Simon Newman’s life, rolled onto my front and felt for the first toeholds, hoping to Christ that the limited light created an optical illusion, and made it appear more challenging that it actually was. You can do this. I couldn’t allow myself to get gripped–frozen midway between moves. Traversing across was the best plan, and I paused while I scanned for the first grab. Within seconds, muscle memory kicked in, and taking my weight on my legs, I shone the light down and across for the next handhold. As with the previous face, they were fairly evenly placed. Step down, traverse again. Take it slow, solve the problem. Down and across, down and across. I took my time, fully absorbed in what I was doing, grateful that my ankle didn’t appear to be taking any strain. My thighs shook when I finally reached the base. And I was flushed with something else: euphoria. It was a basic climb, but I’d nailed it. The first real climb I’d done since the accident. I switched off the head-cam and turned to grin at Ed. ‘That was actually—’

  My spine exploded with pain as I was slammed into the crag behind me. Before my brain could fully comprehend what was happening, Ed had a hand at my throat, his fingers pincering my windpipe, his full weight pressing against me. ‘Why are you really down here!’ he spat in my face. ‘Who sent you, who sent you!’

  I’m not totally useless in a fight, but I fought the instinct to lash out at him, go for his eyes, head-butt him maybe. That wasn’t an option. I had to calm him down; I was God knows how far underground and needed him to guide me out of here. The pressure on my windpipe increased–it hurt like a bastard–and I put my hands up in surrender. ‘Please, Ed!’ my voice squeaked out. ‘Calm the fuck down. Please!’

  ‘Why are you really here?’ Spit flecked my skin, and I had the horrible feeling that he was about to lean in and bite me.

  ‘I want to film the bodies for a website!’

  The raw, agonising pressure on my windpipe eased. He stepped back, muttering to himself. I gagged and rubbed at my throat. ‘Ed, I swear—’

  ‘Quiet, lad.’ He coughed, tu
rned and spat. ‘What website?’

  ‘Me and my mate Thierry run it. It’s called Journey to the Dark Side, and we’ve started doing this thing where we film creepy places and banter about them and put the clips up on the net and I heard about the caves and the disaster in the eighties, and a rumour that the bodies of the men who died back then are still here.’ I was babbling like an idiot, but I didn’t care. ‘I wanted to film them. That’s it. I swear that’s the truth. It’s not for a documentary and I’m sorry I lied about that, but I didn’t realise …’ I didn’t realise you were such a fucking nutter. ‘You believe me?’

  We stood there, me breathing hard, him staring at me with those pickled-onion eyes for at least a minute. I couldn’t read his expression. It was muddy, unfocused.

  I prepared myself for another onslaught. This time, I decided, I’d fight back; hit him with everything I had. If I fought him off, could I climb back up the traverse? Yeah, probably. But then what? I mentally tried to map the route we’d taken here. Christ, I just didn’t know if I’d be able to retrace my steps, never mind get back up the ladder. I’d been following him blindly.

  Then he let out one of his cackles.

  ‘You believe me, Ed?’

  ‘I believe you, lad. Had to be sure you weren’t one of them.’

  ‘I understand that, Ed.’ Oh Jesus.

  The flask emerged. We passed it back and forth, the cheap burn of the alcohol flushing away the irony after-tang of adrenalin, and making me feel vaguely sick. Again he was watching me with a wicked half-smile on his lips. I still couldn’t decide if Ed’s conspiracy bollocks and violent outburst were put on to freak me out. The thought wasn’t a comfort: Ed was either a psychopath who was toying with me for sadistic reasons or a paranoid schizophrenic. The raw ache in my throat was easing, but my spine throbbed from being slammed against the rock.

  ‘So. You want to see the bodies, you say.’

  No. I want to get the fuck out of here and away from you as fast as possible. Too late for that, I was stuck with him. Might as well make the best out of a bad situation. ‘Is it true? Are their remains still down here?’

  He nodded, a trick of the light deepening the grooves in his face. ‘Course they are. Think about it. You can’t take a body out when it’s this deep underground, lad. Not out of a network like this.’

  I tried to imagine dragging a corpse through the snug spaces we’d been through, managing to make myself feel even sicker. ‘And you know where they are?’

  ‘Parents of the lads got the remains moved up to a chamber in the late eighties. They were going to seal it in with concrete, but then the landowner petitioned to have the whole system closed for good, so they didn’t see the point. You want to film them, you say?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Only now it seemed stupid. Obscene.

  ‘You seen a dead body before, lad?’

  ‘Yes.’ Don’t go there. But I couldn’t stop the image of Dad flooding in. Lying there behind the grubby hospital curtain, his face muscles slack, an emptiness about him that had badly scared my ten-year-old self. Still scared me, if I’m honest.

  ‘Me, I’ve seen plenty. Belfast. Bosnia. Been all over.’

  ‘You were in the army, Ed?’

  ‘Seventeen years, lad.’

  Bosnia. When was that, early nineties? I should know. ‘Why did you leave?’ Apart from the fact that you’re certifiably insane or a psychopath. Or both.

  ‘Had to get rid of me, knew their plans, see? Knew what they were really up to.’

  Conspiracy theory alert, keep him on track. ‘Is it possible to see the bodies? Can we get to them?’

  A crafty look. ‘Ay. I can show you, lad. Shall we say an extra hundred quid?’

  I didn’t have an extra hundred quid, but I’d cross that bridge when we got out of here. ‘Fine.’

  The next section was easy. A short belly-wriggle, another boulder choke, and then the air was alive with the gush and chatter of water. We sidestepped down a scree slope to where a fast-moving stream gurgled into a tunnel. Ed crouched next to it. ‘Water’s higher than I’d like.’ He sniffed. ‘Should be okay, long as we don’t fuck about. You getting cold feet, lad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You will soon.’ The cackle turned into a liquid coughing fit that doubled him over. After another of his delightful hawk-and-spit combos, he stepped into the stream and sloshed ahead. I followed, the current coiling and pulsing against my calves. The floor dipped, I stumbled, and water spilled over the lip of my boots, soaking my socks, the sudden shock of cold making me gasp.

  ‘Watch where you put your feet, lad, there are sinkholes here that go straight down to hell.’

  We rounded a corner and edged past an inky sump pool. ‘Watch this bit, it can be a right arse-clencher.’ He clambered up onto a slender ledge skirting the stream, then stepped across, straddling it, one foot either side. I did the same, praying that my weak ankle would hold my weight and the wellies wouldn’t lose their purchase on the slippery ridges. As we shuffled along, we crept incrementally higher, until we were a good six feet above the frothing stream below us. Falling now would be a disaster, and I had to remind myself to breathe. Ed paused and pointed upwards. Stalactite shapes dripped from the ceiling: a cluster of slender straws, larger fangs, weird alien ribbed fans. But I wasn’t there for the geological marvels.

  ‘Ready for the Rat Run, lad?’

  ‘It’s here?’

  ‘Ay.’

  He lurched across to an outcropping on the right, leaving the stream behind, then squirrelled over a jumble of rocks and through one of those tapering eye-holes.

  I turned on the camera–my hands were trembling, so it took a while to get it right–took a deep breath, then copied Ed’s moves, making a stupid yipping sound when my left foot slipped as I reached across, almost sending me slithering back into the water.

  The Rat Run started off mildly as if it was trying to lull me into a false sense of security, with a hands-and-knees crawl that wasn’t particularly taxing, but made me appreciate the kneepads. Ed was waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.

  ‘Next bit gets a bit tight, lad.’

  The understatement of the year–a squeeze through a gut-crushing aperture led into a tight space that couldn’t have been more than a foot high. Forced to twist my head to the side to fit, my cheek a breath away from the damp scree, I scraped along it, so constrained that the only way I could get any traction was by pushing with my toes and using my fingers as leverage. After five minutes of this my busted ankle started screaming. Every so often I’d feel the rock above me press against my back and buttocks with heavy hands. My whole body started to tingle unpleasantly and I was more aware than ever of the weight of the rock above me. The effort it took to squirm along stole my breath, and soon I was panting. Rivulets of sweat stung my eyes.

  The tunnel opened up for a glorious section where I could use my elbows and knees to propel me along instead of my digits, then squashed in on itself once again, the roof jutting down, a brutally low slab that seemed to go on forever. Even Ed was having difficulty eking his way through here, his boots scrabbling on the loose ground to get purchase. The tingling in my limbs increased as my energy leached away; I had to keep pausing to get my breath and strength back. The ceiling lifted enough for me to raise my head to ease the ache in my neck, but there was far worse to come: an impossibly tight cavity that twisted up and around a bend. Ahead of me, Ed was halfway through it, grunting and swearing, his legs kicking frantically before he finally made it through. I let my head drop onto my arms for a few seconds. My mind kept latching onto horrible images: a cave-in further on that would trap me forever in this constricted space; Ed dying in front of me, blocking the route ahead; a show-reel of what had happened to those lads down here…

  Stop it.

  Gathering my remaining strength, I posted my head and shoulders through the gap, but there was only enough room to slip one arm through the awkward orifice. I felt around for a handhold on the other side, hoping to find something to latch onto that would help haul me through it, but my fingers were unable to grip the slippery surface beyond. I kicked as hard as I could, managed to nudge forward, fighting to breathe as the rock strangled my ribcage. I tried to back up, but I was jammed, one arm through, the other wedged at my side, like a swimmer caught mid-crawl. I pushed with my toes. Still nothing.