mishap, and waded thigh-deep into the slime again, to reach the object. It was a nasty moment. But he sank no deeper once it had reached his waist. After what seemed an eternity of fiddling about, he managed to get one of the ropes round it. I remember he shouted up at us, ‘It is a boat.’
We signalled, and they began to haul on the rope he’d got round the boat. Slowly, easing the rope as it inched across the pallets, we began to pull it up the bricks. All our eyes were on it as it boomed out metallically every time it banged on the bricks. The slime was wearing off it; soon the bricks would be doing damage to it . . .
At last, it came up over the lip of the pit; over the edge of the pallets. That was a nasty moment, because the pallets began to slide towards the pit. Then stopped.
I don’t know what made me glance down at Rory then; but something did.
The slime had risen up to his chest, and he hadn’t even noticed himself . . .
I yelled a warning, and watched him vanish another inch . . .
There was some misunderstanding among the gangs holding the ends of the ropes. It was the ones holding the end of Hermione’s rope who pulled; she was dragged over and back across the mud.
The raft of pallets slid down a little more. It was poised directly above poor Rory’s upturned face. Another second it would slide in and bury him.
I felt the rope tighten round my own waist. Fools, fools! I clung on to the pallets, and that stopped them sliding for a moment.
And then, thank God, they were pulling on the correct rope; I saw it tighten.
Hermione came back across the pallets; they trembled and began to slide yet again.
But, slowly, the rope round Rory was working. Four inches of his chest reappeared, black with slime . . . then another four inches. But one pallet broke loose and went tumbling down on top of him; he put up his arms to protect himself, but it hit him a nasty thud, and then he was no longer looking up at us, but lolling head-down, under the bulk of the pallet.
‘Heave! Heave!’ Hermione was screeching now.
Nothing seemed to happen for a long time, and then suddenly the pallet reared up on end and fell away from Rory, and I saw he was out of the mud as far as his thighs. But still inert, unconscious, and worse, face-down.
Another heave, and he was out of it to his knees. But the slimy bricks were scraping at his unprotected face.
‘My rope – slack off – slowly,’ shouted Hermione. And then she was clawing her way down the bricks.
It was the bravest thing I ever saw. I could not have done it in a million years.
As she went, the pallets moved uneasily a fourth time.
But she reached him in the end. I saw her pale face contort with effort, as she slowly, agonizingly, slipping herself all the time, turned him over on to his back.
Then it was me shouting, ‘Heave, heave!’
Half-way up, his rope caught between two pallets. Frantically I kicked at them to free it. And all the time the pallets slid and trembled.
Then, of their own accord, nothing to do with me, the pallets shifted again, and his rope was free.
‘Heave, heave!’ I noticed the brawny firemen were running across the dry mud to join in now.
We got them up at last, Rory’s face was a ghastly mask of slime and blood, slowly drying and cracking. But Hermione bent to him and said, ‘He’s still breathing.’
I felt the island of pallets give a last ominous shift.
‘Look out. It’s going.’
Then we were off them and wading through knee-high mud, dragging poor Rory between us.
Behind, I heard the clatter as the pallets fell to their doom.
The ambulance had gone with Rory. He was still breathing, and even had his eyes open. And they’d washed the mud and blood off his face, and said he wasn’t bleeding seriously anywhere, but perhaps there might be internal injuries. He certainly wasn’t saying anything to anybody; just giving convulsive shivers.
Of the pallets which had been on the edge of the pit, there was no sign. Gone under the mud. And the outermost of our ladders had gone with them, too.
But something still lay, large and bulky, on the edge of the pit. The model ship that Rory had nearly lost