‘I think we’re through, but keep your heads down for a while, there might be some projections in the roof.’
Slowly the light grew in intensity until they could clearly see the smooth roof of the tunnel, burnished over time by the fine grains of sand which the river had picked up when in full flood and had filled the tunnel completely.
The raft seemed to be slowing up as the light increased, and Arki rose to his feet now there was plenty of head room.
Picking up his pole, he tried to find how deep the water was, but the pole didn’t reach the river bed even when he lay down to gain that extra bit of depth.
Glyn, looking directly ahead, suddenly shouted a warning,
‘Get over to the side of the tunnel, use your poles on the roof and make it quick.’
The tunnel opened out to nearly three times its normal width and consequently the river had slowed down considerably, to disappear into space as it left the cavern.
‘Come on, use those poles,’ yelled Glyn, grabbing a pole himself, ‘if we don’t make it to the side and hold on, we’ll be over the edge.’
The raft bumped along the side of the tunnel walls, but despite many eager hands, no one was able to get a grip on the smooth rock.
Just as they thought they were going to be catapulted into the air as the river surged over the lip of the giant water fall, the raft caught on a small outcrop of rock on the very edge of the lip itself, and shuddered to a halt.
‘Nobody move until we see how stable the situation is.’ Arki called out, and everyone froze, realizing that one false move could dislodge the raft and send it over the edge.
He carefully worked his way up to the leading edge of the craft and looked down into the dark water below.
‘Although the piece of rock I can see just below the surface of the water is small, it extends on each side for quite a way, and I think the raft is quite safely lodged against it. I’ll take a look over the edge of the falls to see if we can get down in one piece.’
Arki wriggled forward as far as he could to peer over the curve of dark water, two of the others holding onto his ankles to make sure he didn’t slip over the edge. After a few moments he squirmed his way back from the edge, ashen faced and looking none too happy.
‘Well, what can you see?’ asked Glyn, fearing the worst.
‘The river doesn’t just fall away in a cascade, but goes down a long slope as it did when we entered the tunnel. It is quite smooth in its flow, but goes down a very long way to level out in a seemingly normal flow of water.’
‘Good, that means we can probably go down it as before, so why the long face?’ asked Glyn.
‘Well, it starts off like a normal river, and then goes into a huge circular basin with a giant whirlpool in the middle. There’s no way we can get past it that I can see, even if we get down the slope in one piece to start with.’
‘If there isn’t any debris in the middle, then it means if we get caught up in the spinning water, we should eventually get spun out again.’ Glyn reasoned.
‘There isn’t any debris in the middle because there isn’t a middle, what I mean is that the water spins around and then disappears down the hole in the middle, and we would follow if we got caught up in the spin.’ Arki was having difficulty finding the words to describe what he had seen.
Just then a low frequency vibration seemed to make everything shudder as the whirlpool took a hand in deciding what they could or couldn’t do.
The water in the middle suddenly stopped falling into the hole, and welled back up to form a huge bulge which hovered for a few moments before accelerating upwards in a glistening white column.
Countless millions of litres of water screamed out of the centre of the whirlpool to shoot up into the clear blue sky, soon followed by a colossal burst of boiling white water vapour which formed a huge seething cloud around the base of the ascending column.
Slowly, as in a dream, the huge water column collapsed back into the basin with a thunderous roar, sending a wave of boiling white foam high up the sides of the basin and creating a brilliant double rainbow, then, as the foaming waters subsided, the whirlpool slowly began its twisting dance around the depression in the river bed once again.
Glyn had by now crawled up to the front edge of the raft, and standing up saw for himself the devastating effect the whirlpool and its descending column of water would have had on their somewhat fragile craft if it had been swept over the edge of the lip they were now caught on.
‘We’re stuck here by the looks of it. There’s no other way out of this tunnel, and we can’t even crawl down the sides of the water slide because they’re too smooth.’ Glyn said.
Arki crawled up to the front end of the raft once more and stayed until another cycle of the whirlpool had taken place.
‘You know, I think we might just make it if we time it right. As you say, there’s no other way down, so we either stay here and starve or take a chance on the raft. What we need is something to throw into the water and time its progress to the whirlpool. It’ll need to be something big or we shan’t be able to see it clearly when it reaches the area of the basin.’
‘I
f we get it just right, we should arrive at the edge of the basin just before the bulge comes up, and then slip past it before the whole thing shoots up into the air. We may get a little wet, but it’s better than just staying here.’
‘What can we use to throw over.’ Glyn asked, and they both looked at Brendon who shrank back with a look of horror on his face.
‘Don’t be so silly, we’re only joking, you wouldn’t be big enough.’ Arki felt sorry for the man.
‘Oh, I don’t know, we could get him to wave his tunic just before the whirlpool sucked him into the middle, we should be able to see that from here.’ Glyn couldn’t help having one more go at the gullible unfortunate.
‘How about the remains of the side screen, that’s quite big and should float well.’ someone suggested.
‘Good idea.’ said Glyn, a little hope returning to his voice.
The screen was disentangled from the rest of the wreckage brought about by the shelter hitting the roof of the tunnel, and Glyn stood by with an eye to his timekeeper as the side shield was thrown overboard when the whirlpool went into its spinning action after the collapse of the water column.
They timed its journey down the water slope and along the river to the point where it was pulled into the vortex of the whirlpool, and it then disappeared from sight. A short while later the whirlpool erupted in its customary fashion, but there was no sight of the shield amid the general uproar of the water column as it cleaved the heavens and then crashed back down to the basin.
‘Getting the timing right is going to be crucial if we are to come out of this in one piece.’ Glyn said with little confidence in his voice.
‘I’ve noticed one thing which may help,’ Arki interjected, ‘and that’s when the bulge of water comes up from the hole, it sets up a big wave which bounces around the basin, but on the far side the wave seems to carry on down the river. If we could get the raft into position so that the wave picks it up, we would be quickly swept away from the collapsing water column and on down the river.’
‘I don’t know if we can time it that accurately, but it’s certainly worth a try.’ Glyn said, and then proceeded to tell the others what he proposed to do.
The remains of the shelter was securely lashed down over the backpacks and the remaining food stocks, and everyone was drilled in what they had to do when the raft was released from the rock holding it at the lip of the water slide.
‘Everyone spread out over the raft, and check the lashings around your area are holding securely. Make a loop with any of the new growths or lose ends of the creepers to put your feet in, and make sure you have a good hand hold. If anyone goes overboard, don’t try to save them, you could get swept away as well. If anyone does get thrown off, try to keep afloat and as near the raft as possible, and we’ll pick you up once we’re past the basin. Good luck everyone, and hold on.’
Glyn went through the timing sequence once more, and then he and Arki used the poles to lever the raft free of the rock which had held them safely at the lip of the water slide, and they were off.
The raft gave a sickening lurch as it went over the lip of the slide, and seemed to drop like a stone as it picked up speed on the silently flowing water chute. There were several screams as the raft accelerated downwards, despite the fact that the motion of the raft was as smooth as silk.
As the raft reached the bottom of the water slide and the horizon tilted back to its more normal position, Glyn raised his head a little to see how near the whirlpool they were.
‘I think we’re being swept out to one side of the main swirl.’ he said, as an eerie hissing noise filled the air.
As they raced towards the seething maelstrom of the whirlpool, the raft tilted up on one side, and they were trapped in the swirling waters as they spun ever inwards to disappear down the hole in the centre.
The angle of tilt grew even steeper as the raft was drawn inwards, and all they could see was the opposite side of the dark funnel of water as it spun faster and faster towards the dark abyss of the massive geyser.
Those brave enough to raise their heads to confront what seemed to be the inevitable end to their journey in the new world, were too paralysed with fear to scream, and so the raft spun on downwards to the accompaniment of the ear splitting hiss of the falling waters.
Just when all seemed lost, the raft returned to its level position and then tilted in the opposite direction. The hole was filled, and the bulge had begun.
As the enormous column of water began its journey up from the depths of the hole, the raft tilted even more steeply, and once again they could see the surrounding basin and the river trailing off into the distance.
The bulge in the middle of the whirlpool grew higher, and the raft was lifted up on the wave caused by the change of direction of the water flow.
They had come down the main water slide at a fair speed, but it was nothing compared to the velocity the raft now had as the wave raced away from the huge column of water which was tearing skywards behind them.
The deep gorge they were in narrowed a little, and the wave with the raft atop its crest, sped up as the water tried to find more room for itself in an ever decreasing channel.
Arki let out a yell of triumph as he released the tension which had built up over the last few minutes, and a ragged chorus of cheers rang out from those who had managed to draw enough breath into their lungs to do so.
The sky seemed to darken as the massive water column went ever higher, and then it collapsed. They felt the shock wave before the water hit them in a series of stunning blows which threatened to smash the raft and its travellers into pulp.
The thunderous noise of the water returning to the basin reverberated along the gorge, hurting their ears, but none were willing to chance letting go of their grip on the raft’s lashing to protect their tortured eardrums.
After what seemed an age, the falling mass of water receded to heavy rain, and the wave which had sped them to safety lost momentum as the gorge widened. Glyn stood up carefully to see where they were in relation to the whirlpool. It was now safely some distance behind them, and as he encouraged the others to regain their feet, the rain turned to drizzle and then stopped altogether.
The warmth of the sun was very welcome after the drenching and pummelling they had received, and it wasn’t long before a more cheerful mood had manifested itself, the odd joke being greeted with copious amounts of nervous laughter, thus releasing the tremendous tension they had all been under. ‘I must admit, I did have my doubts as to whether we would make it through that maelstrom of a whirlpool, but we did, so perhaps we can reach the southern areas we were instructed to find after all.’
Glyn was feeling pleased and relieved that they had all survived against seemingly impossible odds yet again, and his old confidence returned.
The raft was back in its drifting mode now, gently guided by two men with poles to keep it not too far from the bank.
A little high cloud had obscured the sun, making it difficult for Glyn to judge what direction they were actually going in, although he assumed that the river was still heading south as they hadn’t encountered any bends in the water flow worth mentioning.
‘I think we should find somewhere to land soon. It would be good to stretch our legs on something solid again after what we’ve been through, and we’ll need to find a place for tonight anyway.’ Glyn was planning ahead again as he assumed responsibility for all those under his care.
The raft drifted on, several streams joining the main flow, but none offering the kind of beach they were looking for. A short way ahead, a rocky outcrop jutted out into the river and the guide poles were used to push the raft out into the main stream to avoid grounding the craft on the rocks.
What they hadn’t seen was the fast moving river exiting into the main flow just behind the rocky promontory, and the raft was whisked out into the middle of the river before they knew what had happened.
‘I can’t reach the bottom,’ one of the 'polers' called out, ‘so I can’t steer the raft. What shall we do?’ There was little they could do, except hope that the current would eventually return them to the bank on one side of the river or the other.
Most of the raft’s occupants were either lying down or sitting with their legs dangling in the warm water, relaxing, when Arki called out with a touch of raw panic in his voice,
‘Look over there, what do you think is causing that?’
About five hundred metres up stream, and heading straight for them, something very big was moving along just below the surface. The bow wave was nearly a metre high, the water humped up and then falling away from the submarine shape, without a sign of foam or other disturbance to the river’s normally smooth surface.
‘Oh no, I thought things were going too smoothly.’ Glyn muttered to himself as he heaved his tired body to its feet.