It was Racel she feared most during those hours whilst Kuz was away. A slim young girl with no man of her own although sometimes the other men took her to satisfy their lust, a nymph who spent most of her time alone down by the stream. Jackie feared lest one night Kuz might go to her, her own status would then be in jeopardy. Her own hatred towards Racel simmered, she even considered killing the girl, holding her down in the water where she would not even be able to scream, leaving her there for the others to find. An accident, a drowning, none would be able to prove otherwise. But she hesitated, hoped that it would not come to that. As yet Kuz had shown no more than a passing interest in the younger girl. Jackie would keep a close watch on the situation. She would lose her life before she relinquished her mate.
Then one evening the hunters returned with a prisoner. An excited chattering from the other women brought Jackie to the door of the new dwelling-place, had her shading her eyes from the blinding last rays of the setting sun as she gazed in a westerly direction across the rolling heather and bracken slopes. She made out a file of some twenty or thirty men, the 'bearers' laden with the carcass of some huge animal, probably a bull or a cow, which they had slaughtered and jointed. She recognised Kuz's powerful shape in the lead and in front of him shambled a stooped and cowed form, one whose hands and arms were bound with ropes, being prodded along by a vicious pitchfork in the hands of the chief. Her mouth went dry and she trembled slightly.
The women flocked to the edge of the camp, clustered together, jabbering and pointing. What was this that the hunters had caught? It looked like a man, yet the features were hairless; the approaching column was now near enough for them to discern details. Strange clothing that virtually enclosed the entire body as though the tender while flesh had to be protected from the elements. Their cries of wonderment turning to fear, they huddled together in case this strange creature suddenly broke free and attacked them.
But there was no way the captive was going to escape from Kuz and his followers. The rope which bound him was pulled so tightly that his hands were numb from loss of circulation and there was a discoloration on the side of his head that was still swelling, a blow from a club having knocked him unconscious.
Phil Winder's head throbbed and his vision was distorted; blurred moving shapes around him, threatening creatures that might have come straight out of some weird fantasy movie, celluloid images taking on 3-D perspective. A swift jab to his buttocks from those needle prongs had him crying out his pain and fear aloud, guttural laughs mocking him. He almost blacked out; maybe it would be better if he had done so because when he came to these creatures would have disappeared, and if he didn't regain consciousness then at least he would be spared all this. But he didn't faint, just stumbled, the rope jerked taut preventing him from falling. And he knew then that it was all really happening.
At twenty his figure was still boyish, possibly ungainly but not when compared with this lot! His mother used to say repeatedly to her friends, 'Our Phil's got his dad's bum and my short legs.' Which was true but it didn't matter any more. He had come home on vacation from college, a week's courtesy stay really at his folks' farm out in the sticks because if he didn't show his face occasionally there was always the possibility that they might cut his allowance, and then he'd be left to manage on his grant which would be a well-nigh impossibility. Staying around the farm was just asking for trouble; Dad would rope him in for the hay harvest or else his mother would make the most of having a driver available and think up all kinds of shopping trips that her husband was always too busy to take her on. 'Now you go and park in the multi-storey and wait for me there—I shan't be long. And on the way back we'd better call and see the Mitchells. I haven't been there since last Christmas and they'll be thinking that I don't want to see them any more.' Mother would fill his days all right if Dad didn't, so he'd gone pot-holing. Well, not real pot-holing because the old mine shafts were artificial. Dangerous, too, but if you were careful you were safe enough. The locals called them the 'treacle mines', lead mines which were played out now, but there were a few shafts still open if you could find them, hidden in the moorland heather.
That was when Phil Winder's first nightmare had begun. He had found a deep shaft, had winched himself down. There was water in the bottom but only an inch or so, it drained away somewhere down one of the passages that led off from the main one. Using his torch he had followed that first passage, come to a fork and taken the left-hand one. Fascinating, exciting; the roof was sound enough even if it did sag in places and he had to crawl sometimes for ten yards at a stretch. Possibly nobody had come down here since the mine had closed at the turn of the century. There was no knowing what he might find. His spirit of adventure spurred him on oblivious of the obvious danger until it was too late. He was lost!
Panic at first, wanting to scream, to run blindly down every opening he came to. Help me, for God's sake somebody! But nobody would hear him. To give up, to slump down on the wet floor and sob. There's no way out, you'll die down here; they won't even find your body to give you a funeral. This is your grave, your own private tomb. You're here forever. You'll go mad before you die.
After the initial shock he had managed to pull himself together. He wouldn't get anywhere either by panicking or giving up, either way he would die. First, he had to rest, get his strength back, conserve his torch batteries as well. Then later he would embark upon a systematic exploration of the mine tunnels until he found the shaft that led up to the world above. It had to be here somewhere, it was just a question of stumbling on it. He could only hope. He didn't pray because he did not believe. Even in this sort of desperate situation he wasn't going to yield to that religious indoctrination that it had taken him all his college years to get rid of, like a child convincing himself that there isn't a bogey in the stair cupboard.
Fatigue forced him to sleep and when he awoke he embarked upon the search again, got the distinct feeling that some of the tunnels doubled back on themselves. It might have been his imagination, he was so disorientated that he couldn't be sure. He had lost all track of time, regretted not having brought a watch with him; didn't even know how long he had been below ground. It was impossible to hazard a guess. Hours, days? Eternal blackness whenever he switched the torch off, using it sparingly now because the battery was running out. Soon he would have to face up to life without even that dim yellow glow.
He was hungry, too. Nausea that had him retching, tasting his own bile and smelling his own sweat. Once he almost got round to praying, that was how bad it was.
He was glad he had not yielded to the temptation because shortly after that he spied a sliver of weak daylight up ahead of him and knew he'd found the shaft. If he had prayed his mind would never have accepted that those prayers had not been answered; he might even have started going to chapel again on Sundays. Sorry Mum, Dad, you were right after all. Sorry God. One coincidence could have changed his future life.
It took him some time to get back up to the surface. At one stage he thought he wasn't going to make it because he was so weak, like that time he had had the measles when he was sixteen. But he got there in the'end, lay prone in the scorching sun a few yards from the shaft entrance and promised himself he would never go pot-holing again. Not ever. Let's go on that shopping trip to Shrewsbury tomorrow, Mum. I'll wait for you in the multi-storey. Take your time, I don't mind how long you are. And maybe the day after I'll give Dad a hand with the hay harvest. But I won't ever go underground again.