After twenty hours of boring, the drill head suddenly came off and
rattled down into a cavern. We saw a light and heard guttural shouting
below and the cracking of a gun as a few bullets spattered against the
roof of our chamber. We heaved down our gas bombs and covered over our
shaft. Within a few hours the light below went out and our microphones
failed to detect any sound from the rocks beneath us. It was then
perhaps that I should have called for military aid, but the uncanny
silence of the lower workings proved too much for my eager curiosity. We
waited two days and still there was no evidence of life below. I knew
there had been ample time for the gas from our bombs to have been
dissipated, as it was decomposed by contact with moisture. A light was
lowered, but this brought forth no response.

I now called for a volunteer to descend the shaft. None was forthcoming
from among my men, and against their protest I insisted on being lowered
into the shaft. When I was a few metres from the bottom the cable parted
and I fell and lay stunned on the floor below.

~2~

When I recovered consciousness the light had gone out. There was no
sound about me. I shouted up the shaft above and could get no answer.
The chamber in which I lay was many times my height and I could make
nothing out in the dark hole above. For some hours I scarcely stirred
and feared to burn my pocket flash both because it might reveal my
presence to lurking enemies and because I wished to conserve my battery
against graver need.

But no rescue came from my men above. Only recently, after the lapse of