Cameron did something he had never done before. He tried to rush the boys off the valley floor and up the first climb in record time. They were young, fit and driven by an emergency. The adrenalin push would be very high.
Water had started gushing down the creek bed as the boys had made their way to the last canyon. Danger was rife as water poured down the normally dry hole the boys had to descend through the earth. Cameron had marshalled Peter, Ian, Mark and the rest of the boys around a track on the upward slope of the southern side of a cliff face. They saw the familiar prussick loop with metal device around a tree and were comforted they were on the right track out. Their problem was to beat the river flow before it hit their area from the rain deluge further upstream.
“See that tiny triangular hole over there,” Cameron said to the boys.
“That’s our entry point. This one is doubly hard. Ordinarily you have to chivvy down the hole and into the chamber below. However, this rain has made it very hard with the amount of water pouring in to the hole as well and making the whole space so slippery. I have confidence in each of you as Mike has, that you can do it. Remember, we are in a hurry to get to an area to telephone in but also, we have to be extra cautious as we make our way down this last chamber.
“Are you up for it?”
The boys looked at each other and raised their right fists in unison as they said ‘Yes,” loudly and strongly.
Ian was the first to hook onto the prussick loop and then the abseil rope. The slope down to the hole was easy going. The youth stopped as he tried to sit astride the hole and lower himself into the opening. Water was starting to gush around him as he pushed against the back wall. Slowly he lowered himself. His left hand was grating between the cliff top and the abseil rope because of the cramped conditions. He pulled his left hand away from the rope and let some rope run through his right hand. This freed his body from the hole and he fell under control through the hole and into the chamber below.
It was like two walls had been pushed apart by a superior force and giant rocks placed like marbles on top of each other to form one of the walls. Water was now streaming down the entrance hole to the chamber below. Cameron was worried the chamber would fill with water too quickly before he could get his Venturers out and up onto the slopes.
“Okay. I’m through,” Ian yelled.
He abseiled in a controlled fall around 10 metres between the rock walls to the ground and water below. The water was around knee high and slowly rising as the rain pelted down across the valley. Ian looked up and saw sheets of water pouring through the hole he just descended. He unhooked his self-belay and untied from the abseil rope. He then married the ends of the abseil rope around him and yelled out.
“Ready to belay!”
Cameron started sending the other Venturers down one by one and each in turn took over the belaying of the next one on the rope until he made his entrance into the chamber.
“Yoiks this is the deepest I have experienced water here,” Cameron said. It’s not normally waist high and rising. It’s usually just a trickle. Everything’s okay. We can still make our exit point from the valley before this stream builds up too high as long as we methodically pace ourselves. Are you still with me?”
A rousing chorus of ‘yes’ rose up from the Venturers. They were tired, angry, but driven with a mission to save themselves and get help to their injured Venturer.
“I hope Brett and Scott are okay,” Peter said. “This will be a long day and night for them.”
“They’ll be fine. They have Mike with them and he’s never let us down,” Ian said.
Mark couldn’t hold back either. “Those three will be fine as long as we can get our fat behinds out of here and in an area where we can ring for emergency services …..”
“We should try the number Scott helped set up,” Peter said.
“Yeah, and then the other emergency services as they have the helicopters to get them out,” Mark butted in.
Cameron could see the boys getting worried again and wanted to re-focus them on the task ahead.
“All three will be fine; otherwise I wouldn’t have left them. It’s now up to us to direct every bit of emergency manpower to our people as soon as possible. We have a special task and we must carry it out. If this means run up the hill ahead, then so be it. We can do it. We can do it for Brett, Scott and Mike, come on!”
The boys pulled the abseil rope down and re-coiled it before stowing it in Cameron’s backpack. They waded their way through the waist high deep water and out into grey lit day punctuated with heavy rain and rolling thunder. The boys walked through the sub-tropical glen between the mouths of two rock walls. They came to a dead end and looked up.
“Do we have to climb that?” Ian asked in exasperation.
“Yes. I have every confidence you will not only make it, but do so in good timings as your mates’ lives are on the line in real time,” Cameron said.
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