A STRONG TOWER

PART EIGHT: DEGREES OF WETNESS
 

"Blowhole?" Ando asked, dropping the largest of the seven wombats from her arms. "Hando fart?"  She knew from long experience just how explosive an event that could be.

"No, silly," Berti remonstrated the geologically-challenged former Welshwoman, "what it means is that we must be within several hundred meters of the Bight."

"Is she right? About the Bight?" Max asked. Ever afterwards no one could say with any degree of certainty just which Max had asked the Bight question. 

"You think that MATTERS?" Buggie moaned, resorting once again to caps for greater emphasis of her growing despair. "My Biebe's embedded blowholey-speaking and you stand here discussing bites?!"  All too well she remembered when Biebe HAD been bitten, but that was back in Pennsylvania...in the forest...by the strange train tracks. (A New Jeopardy)

"Not bites, Buggie," Berti explained with the great patience of one who cleaned 5 litterboxes every day, "just one Bight. THE Bight."

"One bite was quite enough," Buggie practically spat. "I can still barely look at a carrot to this day!"

"I have an extra wombat...or two," Ando smiled, offering to share and possibly distract poor Buggie from rampant carrotaphophia.

"Where?" It was Himself, asking again the one necessary question.

"There!" Buggie pointed into the darkness past where Ben Wade was doing things that, if there were more light, would have changed the rating of the epi.

Himself could not resist a final glare at Joimus before he strode rapidly in a somewhat circuitous path toward the sound of what he hoped was the correct source of muffled groaning.

Terry, though fairly certain no real kidnapping was involved, had nonetheless gone into full rescue mode. Annsmac had already checked and found his equipment fully functional. Truth be told, his equipment was just about always functional. It was one of the things that endeared him so to her heart and other places.

"Do be careful!" she called after him. His lower half having been granite for the entire unwritten ending chapters of Crossing Australia, she did live in some fear of  the ephemeral possibility of his equipment remaining in normal condition. Then she giggled to herself. There was nothing at all normal about Terry's equipment, now was there?

Himself, Terry and Bud surrounded the embedded Biebe. The sheriff was in a most awkward position, sort of half-sitting atop the blowhole, left leg straight out in front of him, right leg nowhere to be seen. His arms were stiff as he braced himself on the rocks.

"John!" Himself said with great concern as he squatted and lay a hand on Biebe's shoulder. "Are you injured?"

"I...I'm not...sure," Biebe gasped between clenched teeth. "L...leg's completely...down...."

"Let me have a look," Terry said quietly, moving around to Biebe's other side. After a moment, he sighed. "Completely wedged."

"Like Pooh," Ando offered. "A wedged bear in a great tightness."

"Some...somehow...I don't think...depriving me of honey will...really be much...help, Ando," Biebe managed with a pained grin.

"But that's an idea!" Terry spoke up.

"Not feeding Biebe honey's an idea?" Buggie snapped.

"No, that story. In the story Rabbit goes to the other side of the hole Pooh's stuck in and tries

to push from there." His eyes began to scan the darkness. "Maybe there's some way, some other way, and we can get inside the blowhole?"

"Ye dinna ken what ye're sayin'," Broch said, shaking his head warily. "Blowholes be full o' water...an' other things."

"What...other things?" Himself asked, standing and looking at the Scot.

Broch shrugged. "Legends...stories...."

"About what?"

"Odd things, Himsel'. Verra verra odd."

Buggie noticed that Biebe had begun to sweat, little trails of wetness running down toward his eyebrows. Quickly she knelt beside him, removing his bearfur hat and wiping at his face with

the hem of Ando's skirt. He had a verra odd, um, very odd expression on his face.

"What is it, darling?" Buggie asked.

"Some...thing's...brushing against my boot!" he gasped, frantically pushing as hard as he could with his arms. Terry got behind him, sliding his hands through Biebe's armpits and pulling with all his strength.

"No! Stop!" Biebe hollered. "It's no use...no use!"

"Where?" Himself asked, his voice deadly serious. "Where, Broch, is it most likely we'd find another way into the blowhole?"

"Cave," Broch replied. "We need tae find oursel's a cave." At Himself's raised eyebrow, he continued. "Near the sea."  He pointed south.

Himself bellowed, gathering the few cast stragglers who'd not already come to see what was going on. Ben, otherwise occupied, ignored the bellow. "Franki, Marti," Himself directed, "you two nurses stay here with John...."

"I'm a nurse, too," piped up a new feminine voice.

Himself narrowed his eyes, staring at the woman who stepped forward from beside Johnny. "I thought you were Greek."

"Not any more. Now I'm Californian."  Mary, you see, had become Mar-ee, a subtle change, to be sure, but a change nonetheless.

Max nudged Max. "I like that. Really confusing."

"How...? No, never mind. Ok, you stay with John, too, then."  The fact of the matter was, though, he didn't plan on taking any of the women along as they made their way through blowhole territory in the dark in search of a water-filled limestone cave that might contain... something. "Look," he continued, "I'm only taking a handful of men with me. That way, if we don't come back, the rest of you can get the women to safety."

"If they don't come back?"  Ando repeated. "Why wouldn't they come back?"

"Oh, I dunno," Berti replied. "Death...dismemberment...you know how it's become in epis since Yook."

"Not Hando!" Ando cried. "Surely he's not taking Hando?"

"Probably not," Berti supplied. "I don't think Himself likes to get the Melbourner near the sea. After all, he died in less than two inches of water once, didn't he? Why would he take him into a water-filled cave?"

"He didn't drown!" Ando huffed, insulted. "It was the knife in the neck artery."

"Still," Berti persisted, "it was only two inches of water."

Indeed, Himself was busily grouping his more deep-water guys into a small team. Terry, Zack, East, and Jack were all listening intently to his directions.

Laura noticed Steve was standing a little to one side. "Aren't you going?" she asked.

"Bathtub," he shrugged. "Not quite deep enough."

"Bud, you too." Himself wanted Officer White along in case there were something in the cave that needed bashing. This, despite the fact that Bud's only experience with water had been a

bit of standing in the rain.

Wanda stepped protectively in front of Lachlan. The airman had both rain AND bathtubs in his resume. Perhaps, together, they might be enough.

Before they left, Aubrey walked up to Rose, handing her his blue jacket. "Broch says...things...

in the cave, they might be attracted by the flash of gold epaulet fringe," he said tenderly, his fingers trailing through her dark hair.

Rose, loving his touch, was, however, distracted by Franki's use of the word 'triage'. "Just in case," Franki was saying to her cohorts. "We should be ready with our medical supplies."

Marti frowned, knowing good and well that all they had was garlic.

 

Rose knew that, too, and was forever grateful that when the city bus had taken Aubrey down

it had been in the heart of Sydney and only a few blocks from a major hospital. What about Maturin? No mention had, as yet, been made of Stephen. Rose wasn't even sure he'd made it

off the train. Her eyes sought out Nash and she sighed in great relief when she saw he was deep in conversation with Charles. Well, it was most likely Charles. Either that or he'd taken up speaking with a large clump of saltbush. If Charles were in the Nullarbor, that meant Stephen was as well.

"You will take great care, Capitaine?" Rose whispered in her soft French accent.

"For you," he smiled, "I shall always return, even from the furthest side of anywhere."

"Jack!" Himself called. "We need to get going."

Joimus felt Maximus' arm muscles tighten again under her hand. "You wish to go, too, do you not?"

He nodded grimly, watching his fellows be swallowed up into the darkness as they moved south across the vast plain. His only official experience with wetness, though, had been snow, sweat, pee and blood. Himself was taking no chances on character loss.

Egan and Cort had knelt, one on either side of Biebe, supporting him with just enough upward lift on his arms to relieve some of the pressure of his awkward position.  "Hang in there, Mate," Egan encouraged.

Hanging was about all Biebe could do, that and biting hard on his lip to muffle the wild screams of panic that rose up his throat when...something...would brush against his boot from time to time.

Franki, watching, was worried. She knew, from many years of nursing experience, that garlic was not ALL that useful during amputations just below the hip.

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