The Ka of Gifford Hillary (47 page)

I must have gone on like that for a long time; for I had always been fond of poetry and, although far from word perfect, my repertoire was considerable; and I ran through most of my favourite pieces twice. No doubt it was the cadences that first soothed then lulled my overwrought mind. Without realising what was happening, I fell asleep.

It was the sound of a loud bump immediately above my head that awoke me. I had slept deeply and, opening my eyes with a start, I stared up into inky blackness. For what, unrealised by me, were now several incredibly precious minutes, I did not know where I was. My brain, bemused by sleep, stumbled as through a fog, grasping at first only physical essentials; that I was cold, that my limbs were numbed, and that I was lying without a pillow on a hard surface in complete darkness. It was another sound which brought back to me with awful suddenness the fact that I was in my coffin and how I had got there.

Somewhere above me I caught a sudden faint murmur. It ceased and then came again almost at once. It had in fact been only one word of two syllables pronounced simultaneously by a number of people and repeated after a very brief interval. Yet even at a distance it was plainly recognisable. A congregation had twice made the response ‘Amen’.

Ankaret’s funeral was taking place. I had slept while the sexton was drawing the tarpaulin cover aside from the vault. Slept on while the Vicar had read the short second half of the service at the grave-side. It was her coffin when lowered bumping on mine that had aroused me. For the minutes while the last paragraphs of the service were being pronounced I had continued to lie there inactive, still half asleep. Only at its very end had the truth crashed home into my comprehension. The opportunity for which I had striven so hard to survive was almost gone. The crowd that had assembled about the grave-side and stood there for a good five minutes must now be moving away from it. My hope of life now hung by a thread.

Galvanised by desperate fear I went into instant action.
At the same moment my hands shot upwards and I called for help. To my horror my voice, through having been unused for a week, was no more than a hoarse croak.

In vain I strove to force a shout. My mouth gaped open, the sinews of my throat contracted, but only guttural sounds emerged. My agonised cries were little louder than the mewings of a cat and could not possibly have been heard by the people now moving away from the grave-side.

Yet, as I thrust upward, it flashed upon me that during sleep my strength had returned. My muscles were stiff and severe pains were shooting through them; but in this frightful emergency I gave little heed to that. With unspeakable relief at the thought that it now needed only an effort to burst my way out of the coffin, using hands, knees and head, I made it. To my amazement and terror the lid refused to budge.

Suddenly the awful truth dawned upon me. Ankaret’s coffin could have been lowered on to either my father’s or mine. The funeral mutes had, for no particular reason, chosen to let it down on my side of the vault. She was now lying immediately above me and the weight of her coffin made it impossible for me to raise the lid of my own. My strength had returned to me too late, and I had slept through my one chance of getting myself rescued. This was the end. After a few hours of agony I must now die where I lay.

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I was no exception to the rule which makes battling to survive a paramount instinct in man. I refused to accept the logical conclusion that there was no hope for me. As I croaked on my voice grew stronger. I shouted, raved, cursed, pleaded. Had I done so as loudly five minutes earlier I must have been heard. But those little holes in my coffin, while large enough to give me air, were too small to allow my shouts to be audible above ground level as more than muffled sounds. The Vicar must have closed his prayer book and with solemn mien be making his way to the vestry to disrobe. Bill, Ankaret’s aunts and cousins, James Compton, the rest of my co-directors, and the other mourners would all now have left the grave by divergent paths across the churchyard to drive off in the cars that had brought them there.

Fighting down the instinct to go on shouting, I forced myself to become silent for a moment while I listened. After the reverberations of my yells in that closely-confined space the silence was almost stunning. It had that eerie quality which has been so aptly described as ‘of the grave’.

I shuddered at the thought it conveyed. My sentence had not after all been suspended, but was confirmed. Up there, probably in the September sunshine, a score or more of people any one of whom would have dashed to my help had they known that I was alive were quietly walking off, thinking no doubt of their lunches, or perhaps their teas. I had lost my chance to make contact with them and it would never come again. No; never. Once more I was completely isolated from my fellow men and this time my isolation was final.

Yet, for as long as I can remember, I had always believed in the old adage that ‘God helps those who help themselves’. By what seemed a miracle He had restored my strength to me. I suppose that having fallen into a natural sleep my Ka had, unrealised by me, again left my body, and fulfilled its normal function by returning as I woke to recharge it with new energy. In any case, although my limbs were cold and my movements still cramped, physically I felt as strong as I had ever been. Perhaps the feat of raising Ankaret’s coffin as well as my own coffin lid was not now beyond me.

Bracing myself, I made the attempt, thrusting upwards with my knees. With frantic excitement I felt the weight above me yield. A faint streak of greyness appeared low down near my left leg between the coffin and its lid. I heaved again. The streak widened. Once more I heaved. The gap was now at least three inches wide. If only I could sustain and increase the pressure I might yet escape death by inches.

Yet, even as new hope flamed so brightly within me, I suddenly realised that my strivings were in vain. To free myself I must, somehow, overturn Ankaret’s coffin sideways on to that of my father. To lift it even a foot or more was not enough, I could not possibly raise it on end with my knees alone, and keep it suspended in mid-air while I crawled out from beneath it.

To yield those few inches of grey daylight which I had gained by such tremendous exertion was one of the hardest things that I have ever done. But done it had to be. The hope
of achieving freedom that way I now recognised as an illusion. To pursue it was as useless as butting one’s head against a brick wall.

Slowly, with intense reluctance, I relaxed the pressure on my aching knees. I could have wept as that band of dim light narrowed and finally disappeared. It had seemed to link me again with life and joy and all the happy things I had ever known; yet I had had voluntarily to sever that link and once more condemn my eyes to unrelieved darkness.

For a time I lay still, rallying my strength for a fresh effort. Then, placing my hands palm upward, flat against the coffin lid above my head, I made it. Again, under the pressure I exerted the coffin lid lifted. Again I saw that blessed streak of grey daylight to my left, and now on a level with my head. The strain upon the muscles of my arms was agonising. It increased with every fraction of an inch that I forced upwards the grim weight that now held me prisoner. It was a torture equal to that of being stretched upon the rack; but to bear, and wilfully intensify, it offered the only possible alternative to suffering tortures still worse. More—in addition to lifting I had yet to throw Ankaret’s coffin sideways before I could crawl out of my own.

Raising my right knee I placed it firmly against the coffin lid. Relaxing a little the pressure exerted by my left arm, I took the weight of the head end on my right. I was all set now for the final movement. Taking a deep breath, I threw every ounce of strength I had into one terrific heave, aimed at using my right knee and arm to tip Ankaret’s coffin over on to that of my father. The band of daylight on my left swiftly widened to from two to four, six, eight inches. The strain seemed unbearable, yet it might not have been if I had paused then, holding up the weight but not striving to raise it further until I had recruited fresh strength. It was owing to my reasoning faculties having been submerged by terror, and the frantic urge to escape, that I made my fatal mistake.

The accursed thought came to me that by gripping the right edge of my coffin lid I should be better able to exert the leverage needed to turn Ankaret’s coffin right over. Withdrawing my right hand from its place above my head, I made a swift grab at the raised edge of the coffin lid. I was not
quick enough, and my movement was fouled by my finger-tips striking the brick side of the vault. My right knee and left arm proved insufficient to support the weight above me. My left arm crumpled; the upper part of the lid descended with a rush. My right hand was half in, half out of the coffin. Its palm was caught and crushed. A sickening stab of pain ran up my right arm. But that was not the worst. Frantically I strove to drag my hand free. I could not. It was trapped; gripped as in a vice between the coffin lid and the right-hand edge of the coffin. The agony became excruciating. I fainted.

For how long I was out, I had no means of judging. When I came to my brain was again bemused, and thoughts trickled back into it through a mist of pain. Once more I suffered the ghastly process of slowly becoming aware of the full horror of my situation. My right arm was bent round at an awkward angle and my hand caught palm upward on a level with my head. The hand itself had gone numb, but a pulsing ache throbbed through the muscles of my arm right up to the arm-pit.

As I remembered the opportunity of which sleep had robbed me tears trickled from my eyes. Then as I thought of the way in which the funeral party had left the grave-side before I could make myself heard by them, a ray of fresh hope suddenly illuminated my distraught mind.

When they left, the Sexton had not drawn the tarpaulin back over the vault. It was certain that he would return to do so, before nightfall. I should hear him and my shouts would bring him to my rescue. Suffering as I was, there was no danger of my falling asleep a second time. There was another danger, though. My heart contracted as I thought of it. Unless my pain eased I might faint again. Yet another thought brought quick relief. Even if I did faint, while covering the vault he could not fail to see my fingers sticking out from the side of the coffin.

It was then I made a terrible discovery. My trapped palm held open the right side of the coffin near my head a good inch. A streak of grey twilight should show there. But it did not. I was once again enshrouded in the utter darkness of the pit. The Sexton must have come and re-covered the vault while I was lying unconscious. As Ankaret’s coffin was on top
of mine, in the deep shadow cast by it he had failed to see my fingers.

At this dashing of my final hope I lost all control of myself. Threshing about within the narrow limits of my prison, I screamed and shouted: ‘Help! Help! Help! Let me out! I’m alive! Alive! Alive! Oh can’t you hear me! Help! Help! Help!’

My voice, seeming unnaturally loud in that confined space, roared and rumbled, sometimes rising to a piercing shriek, but it only echoed back to me mockingly.

All the time I was shouting, my limbs were flailing in violent unco-ordinated movements. I kicked with my feet, banged on the coffin lid with my knees, hammered at it with my clenched left fist, and jerked at my imprisoned right hand. For as long as my strength lasted, I kept it up; but my voice grew husky and my limbs tired until they were capable of no more than feeble twitchings. At last, overcome with exhaustion, I fell silent and lay still once more.

My frantic efforts to free my hand had set all the nerves in it going again. The coffin lid was cutting like the edge of a door that was being forced shut into the upper part of my palm just below the fingers; the side of the coffin cut with equal force into the back of my hand. As I lay panting and sweating from my recent struggle I recalled having heard of people who when similarly trapped in some desperate situation had saved themselves by cutting off the limb by which they were held prisoner. For me to have done so in my case, had it been possible, could hardly have caused me greater agony. But it was not possible. I had no knife and, even had I had one, I was so cramped for room that I could not have used it effectively.

Yet, unless I could free my hand, there was not a particle of hope left for me. I wondered if by a superhuman effort I could tear my fingers off, or perhaps wriggle them until they were severed by the two edges of wood that cut into them so cruelly. If I succeeded there was the possibility that I would bleed to death, but that was a welcome thought compared to the other death that awaited me.

Nerving myself afresh, I made the attempt. Never had I believed that I could endure such agony. Perhaps I might have succeeded if it had been my fingers only that were caught, but the lower part of my hand was also trapped,
and too thick for those terrible edges to cut through. The only result of my effort was that I again fainted.

When I came round I was conscious for the first time of thirst. My exertions had at least succeeded in temporarily warming me, but they, and the pain I was in, had caused me to break out in a profuse sweat. It was now dry and cold on my forehead, but my mouth felt hot, dry and parched. Again sheer terror seized upon my mind; and once more my limbs threshed convulsively.

After a time I once more got control of myself. Accepting the fact at last that all hope of either rescue or escape was gone, I faced up to a new problem. My extremity had purged me of all my old prejudices against committing suicide; and I began to consider how I might save myself from further torment by making a quick end of myself.

Again I cursed my folly in having ordered air-holes to be bored in my coffin. Had I not done so I might have been dead long since; yet, if only I had the strength of mind, I might perhaps manage to suffocate myself. Wriggling my left hand around, I got hold of the torn winding sheet, pulled it up as far as I could, and stuffed a wad of it into my mouth. As I could still breath through my nose the mouthful of sheet did no more than add to my discomfort. Firmly I gripped my nose between finger and thumb, and held on to it.