Rhapsody in Black Read Free Page A

flesh-stripped fingertips to make sure that they were still adequately sensitive to touch, and then sent them scuttling along the rock.
    I discovered the edge, and found that it was not simply a bend, but a hairpin reverse. The rock at my back was a wedge of what seemed to me then to be fragile thinness. Almost reflexively, I pulled myself erect, so that I did not lean on it so heavily. I inched forward, hoping that the ledge would not give out. As I reached the ultimate projection of the rock face, I shut my eyes—I could see nothing in any case, with the flashlight pressed to the rock behind me—and pushed my foot slowly around the corner, toe down.
    In my mind’s eye, I could see myself balanced on the end of a chisel-shaped spur of rock projecting into nowhere, with an immeasurable abyss beneath me. The susurrus of running water now contained an ominous gurgle which suggested abysmal depths to my sensitive imagination.
    Then my toe found a floor. It might only be a ledge as narrow as the one on which I was now standing, but I dared not contort my leg any further in order to explore its whole extent. The simple fact that a way out did exist was enough for me at that moment.
    I had to turn round in order to negotiate the corner, and that offered difficulties. I transferred the flashlight from left hand to right, but decided it would be no more convenient there. I couldn’t stick it in my belt, where it would get in between me and the wall. It was too big to hold sideways in my mouth, as pirates were once reputed to have carried cutlasses. I came to the conclusion that the only place it would be out of harm’s way, and also in no danger of being lost, was dropped down the neck of my shirt at the back. This, of course, meant that I would be denied its light. Not that the light would be particularly useful, but it was a comforting thing to have around.
    However, when needs must...
    Turning myself face in to the rock wasn’t too difficult. The wall was almost plumb vertical, fortunately. Had it leaned towards me, I would very likely have lost my balance and fallen.
    Once my body was correctly orientated, I began to curl myself around the chisel-head, with my arms at full stretch on either side of the hairpin, and my feet as close together as I dared put them without endangering my equilibrium. It took me only a few seconds to ooze my body around the corner, but they were precarious seconds, and living them was by no means easy.
    When I had recovered myself fully, I began to explore with my toe again, sending my left foot out cautiously to investigate the width of rock available to me.
    There was an awful lot of it.
    I turned around where I stood, luxuriating in the space which made the manoeuvre comfortable, and then fished the flashlight out of the small of my back—a feat almost as difficult as rounding the corner.
    When I switched it on, I saw that although the wall turned through an angle of about one-sixty-five degrees, the floor only turned through eighty or so. There was another wall some six or seven feet away.
    â€˜Bloody hell!’ I said with feeling. It had been a lot easier than I’d thought.
    Caution never did anyone any harm, said the wind, comfortingly.
    â€˜Go to hell,’ I said. Then I began to walk along the tunnel, playing the light along the floor in front of me. It wasn’t so cold, either, though I was still walking down the airstream. The current was slower, here, though. I didn’t know nearly enough about the aerodynamics of alveolar strata to judge exactly what that meant. It was presumably a venous shaft rather than an arterial, but whether the strength of the current was determined by the architecture of this element in the system, or by the connections it made with other tunnels, I couldn’t say. Probably both.
    I could hear the faint rustle of water behind the walls, and that too would have its part to play in maintaining the local temperature