all well, all pale and sweaty, so I didn’t nag him.
‘Where’s James? And Sam?’ Turn your back for five minutes and the idle sods are costing you wages for nothing . . .
‘Gone up to the Pond. They came and said there was something else. In the middle . . .’
‘I’ll give them “in the middle” . . .’
But Hermione said, ‘We’d better get up there, Jeff.’
Something was up indeed. Every available ladder led out to the very lip of the deep part, where the firemen were still pumping. There, a veritable island of wooden pallets had been built, and there were about fifteen people standing on it.
‘For God’s sake,’ said Hermione, ‘they’ve built it too close. If it starts to slip into the deep part . . .’ We began hurrying along the ladders.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ shouted Hermione as she arrived. ‘Rory?’
Rory emerged from the huddle, wearing only bathing-trunks, with a rope round his waist.
‘Something big down there.’ He pointed.
The edges of what I shall always think of as the pit sloped down at an angle of about forty degrees on all sides. It must have been a hundred feet across, and about thirty feet deep. The bottom was still full of black water, with the armoured hoses of the fire brigade dropping down into it, and pulsing, as the pumping went on. It all looked about as safe as a warm jelly on a plate; a nasty black jelly nobody would ever want to eat. But there was something down there on the edge of the water, and it was big; about as big as a man. Or a coffin. As we craned over to look, the island of pallets trembled.
‘Everybody off,’ said Hermione decisively. ‘Except Rory. Go on. Move!’
Reluctantly, people began retreating along the ladders, taking two coils of rope with them. It felt a lot safer, once they’d gone. But they were damned reluctant to go. Every face was avid, cheated, angry.
‘What the hell are you up to, Rory?’
‘Going down. On a rope. Tie the other rope round that thing. Haul it up.’ He could hardly get the words out; he was beside himself with the same mad avid excitement.
Hermione pondered; looked at the slope of slime. How stable was it? She picked up a long pole somebody had left, and poked at it. Again, the island of pallets trembled, and I was sure she would call the whole crazy scheme off. But, somehow, the excitement seemed to be seeping into her too, now.
Still, she took her time; consulted the leading fireman from the fire brigade; had more ropes fetched. In the end, we all had ropes round our waists: her, me, and two round Rory. And they all led back to little teams of students, safely aground on the dried-out parts of the mud. I still thought what we were doing was mad; but somehow I no longer cared. I suppose the excitement was undermining my common sense too . . .
‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘Down you go, then. And be careful.’
Careful? He stepped cautiously off the island, and immediately the slime sucked him in almost to the top of his thighs. And began to move down the slope with him.
We made frantic hand-signals, and the teams hauled on his ropes. I thanked God as he was pulled clear, as a black treacly avalanche slowly oozed to the bottom of the pit, half burying the long object.
‘That’ll do,’ said Hermione, very finally. ‘Whatever it is, it’s not worth risking your life for!’
But Rory, far from being scared, was pointing and jabbering, a comic figure, top-half pale white, bottom-half greeny black.
‘Bricks, look. Bricks!’
And he was right. Now the avalanche of ooze had fallen, a slope of old brickwork was visible. Glistening under blackness, but still solid brickwork. Some sort of sump or drainhole, put in before the Pond was first flooded.
‘It’s safe now!’ yelled Rory. ‘A good foothold all the way down.’
It was a long time before Hermione said anything. She was biting at her lips with anxiety. Impatient shouts came echoing at her from the gangs on the dried mud. I think if they hadn’t shouted at her, she might have said no, and everything would have been different. So very, very different.
But in the end she nodded and said, ‘One more try.’
He climbed down the slope of brick backwards, looking up at us from time to time, digging his toes into the cracks like a mountaineer. He reached the bottom without