The Pit I cannot possibly describe to you what it felt like to be standing alone in the pitchy blackness of that silent wood in the small hours of the night. The sense of loneliness was overwhelming, the silence was as deep as death, and the only sounds were the ones I made myself. I tried to keep absolutely still for as long as possible to see if I could hear anything at all. I listened and listened. I held my breath and listened again. I had a queer feeling that the whole wood was listening with me, the trees and the bushes, the little animals hiding in the undergrowth and the birds roosting in the branches. All were listening. Even the silence was listening. Silence was listening to silence.
I switched on the torch. A brilliant beam of light reached out ahead of me like a long white arm. That was better. Now at any rate I could see where I was going.
The keepers would also see. But I didn"t care about the keepers any more. The only person I cared about was my father. I wanted him back.
I kept the torch on and went deeper into the wood.
"Dad!" I shouted. "Dad! It"s Danny! Are you there?"
I didn"t know which direction I was going in. I just went on walking and calling out, walking and calling; and each time I called, I would stop and listen. But no answer came.
After a time, my voice began to go all trembly. I started to say silly things like, "Oh Dad, please tell me where you are! Please answer me! Please, oh please..." And I knew that if I wasn"t careful, the sheer hopelessness of it all would get the better of me and I would simply give up and lie down under the trees.
"Are you there, Dad? Are you there?" I shouted. "It"s Danny!"
I stood still, listening, listening, listening, and in the silence that followed, I heard or thought I heard the faint, but oh so faint, sound of a human voice.
I froze and kept listening.
Yes, there it was again.
I ran towards the sound. "Dad!" I shouted. "It"s Danny! Where are you?"
I stopped again and listened.
This time the answer came just loud enough for me to hear the words. "I"m here!" the voice called out. "Over here!"
It was him!
I was so excited my legs began to get all shaky.
"Where are you, Danny?" my father called out.
"I"m here, Dad! I"m coming."
With the beam of the torch shining ahead of me, I ran towards the voice. The trees were bigger here and s.p.a.ced farther apart. The ground was a carpet of brown leaves from last year and was good to run on. I didn"t call out any more after that. I simply dashed ahead.
And all at once, his voice was right in front of me. "Stop, Danny, stop!" he shouted.
I stopped dead. I shone the torch over the ground. I couldn"t see him.
"Where are you, Dad?"
"I"m down here. Come forward slowly. But be careful. Don"t fall in."
I crept forward. Then I saw the pit. I went to the edge of it and shone the light downward and there was my father. He was sitting on the floor of the pit and he looked up into the light and said, "h.e.l.lo, my marvellous darling. Thank you for coming."
"Are you all right, Dad?"
"My ankle seems to be broken," he said. "It happened when I fell in."
The pit had been dug in the shape of a square, with each side about six feet long. But it was the depth of it that was so awful. It was at least twelve feet deep. The sides had been cut straight down into the earth, presumably with a mechanical shovel, and no man could have climbed out of it without help.
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "It hurts a lot. But don"t worry about that. The point is, I"ve got to get out of here before morning. I"ve got to get out of here before morning. The keepers know I"m here and they"re coming back for me as soon as it gets light." The keepers know I"m here and they"re coming back for me as soon as it gets light."
"Did they dig the hole to catch people?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
I shone my light around the top of the pit and saw how the keepers had covered it over with sticks and leaves and how the whole thing had collapsed when my father stepped on it. It was the kind of trap hunters in Africa dig to catch wild animals.
"Do the keepers know who you are?" I asked.
"No," he said. "Two of them came and shone a light down on me but I covered my face with my arms and they couldn"t recognize me. I heard them trying to guess. They were guessing all sorts of names but they didn"t mention mine. Then one of them shouted, "We"ll find out who you are all right in the morning, my lad. And guess who"s coming with us to fish you out?" I didn"t answer. I didn"t want them to hear my voice. "We"ll tell you who"s coming," he said. "Mr Victor Hazell himself is coming with us to say h.e.l.lo to you!" And the other one said, "Boy, I hate to think what he"s going to do when he gets his hands on you!" They both laughed and then they went away. Ouch! My poor ankle!"
"Have the keepers gone, Dad?"
"Yes," he said. "They"ve gone for the night."
I was kneeling on the edge of the pit. I wanted so badly to go down and comfort him, but that would have been madness.
"What time is it?" he said. "Shine the light down so I can see." I did as he asked. "It"s ten to three," he said. "I must be out of here before sunrise."
"Dad," I said.
"Yes?"
"I brought the car. I came in the Baby Austin."
"You what? what?" he cried.
"I wanted to get here quickly so I just drove it out of the workshop and came straight here."
He sat there staring at me. I kept the torch pointed to one side of him so as not to dazzle his eyes.
"You mean you actually drove here in the Baby Austin?"
"Yes."
"You"re crazy," he said. "You"re absolutely plumb crazy"
"It wasn"t difficult," I said.
"You could have been killed," he said. "If anything had hit you in that little thing, you"d have been smashed to smithereens."
"It went fine, Dad."
"Where is it now?"
"Just outside the wood on the b.u.mpy track."
His face was all puckered up with pain and as white as a sheet of paper. "Are you all right?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "I"m fine." He was shivering all over though it was a warm night.
"If we could get you out, I"m sure I could help you to the car," I said. "You could lean on me and hop on one leg."
"I"ll never get out of here without a ladder," he said.
"Wouldn"t a rope do?" I asked.
"A rope!" he said. "Yes, of course! A rope would do it! There"s one in the Baby Austin! It"s under the back seat! Mr Pratchett always carries a tow-rope in case of a breakdown."
"I"ll get it," I said. "Wait there, Dad."
I left him and ran back the way I had come, shining the torch ahead of me. I found the car. I lifted up the back seat. The tow-rope was there, tangled up with the jack and the wheel-brace. I got it out and slung it over my shoulder. I wriggled through the hedge and ran back into the wood.
"Where are you, Dad?" I called out.
"Over here," he answered.
With his voice to guide me, I had no trouble finding him this time. "I"ve got the rope," I said.
"Good. Now tie one end of it to the nearest tree."
Using the torch all the time, I tied one end of the rope round the nearest tree. I lowered the other end down to my father in the pit. He grasped it with both hands and hauled himself up into a standing position. He stood only on his right leg. He kept his left foot off the ground by bending his knee.
"Jeepers," he said. "This hurts."
"Do you think you can make it, Dad?"
"I"ve got to make it," he said. "Is the rope tied properly?"
"Yes."
I lay on my stomach with my hands dangling down into the pit. I wanted to help pull him up as soon as he came within reach. I kept the torch on him all the time.
"I"ve got to climb this with hands only," he said.
"You can do it," I told him.
I saw his knuckles tighten as he gripped the rope. Then he came up, hand over hand, and as soon as he was within reach I got hold of one of his arms and pulled for all I was worth. He came over the top edge of the pit sliding on his chest and stomach, him pulling on the rope and me pulling on his arm. He lay on the ground, breathing fast and loud.
"You"ve done it!" I said.
"Let me rest a moment."
I waited, kneeling beside him.
"All right," he said. "Now for the next bit. Give me a hand, Danny. You"ll have to do most of the work from now on."
I helped him to keep his balance as he got up on to his one good foot. "Which side do you want me on?" I asked.
"On my right," he said. "Otherwise you"ll keep knocking against my bad ankle."
I moved up close to his right side and he put both his hands on my shoulders.
"Go on, Dad," I said. "You can lean harder than that."
"Shine the light forward so we can see where we"re going," he said.
I did as he asked.
He tried a couple of hops on his right foot.
"All right?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said. "Let"s go."
Holding his left foot just clear of the ground and leaning on me with both hands, he began to hop forward on one leg. I shuffled along beside him, trying to go at exactly the speed he wanted.
"Say when you want a rest."
"Now," he said. We stopped. "I"ve got to sit down," he said. I helped him to lower himself to the ground. His left foot dangled helplessly on its broken ankle, and every time it touched the ground he jumped with pain. I sat beside him on the brown leaves that covered the floor of the wood. The sweat was pouring down his face.
"Does it hurt terribly, Dad?"
"It does when I hop," he said. "Each time I hop, it jars it"
He sat on the ground resting for several minutes.
"Let"s try again," he said.
I helped him up and off we went. This time I put an arm round his waist to give him extra support. He put his right arm round my shoulders and leaned on me hard. It went better that way. But boy, was he heavy. My legs kept bending and buckling with each hop.
Hop...
Hop...
Hop...
"Keep going," he gasped. "Come on. We can make it."
"There"s the hedge," I said, waving the torch. "We"re nearly there."
Hop...