Seeing the sinkhole up close, we hesitated. Geological prospectors always retain some thought of safety, and we knew that this type of cave would be dangerous to explore. The water level was also high, and the spray it kicked up as it rushed into the hole greatly reduced our field of vision.
What now? I asked Wang Sichuan. The situation inside the hole was anyone’s guess from out here, he said. He would descend first and check it out. The deputy squad leader immediately interjected that he should go instead, but Wang Sichuan stopped him. “That son of a bitch Pei Qing and I are different,” he said. “I’m a geological prospector, and climbing into caves is my specialty. It’s up to me to explore it first. Don’t argue about this.”
At this my temper flared. “Don’t pull this hero shit now,” I said to Wang Sichuan. “That note was stuffed into my pocket. It’s up to me to handle it.”
I’ve always found these kinds of arguments infuriating, but this was how everyone acted in all of the revolutionary movies, and that’s where we learned how to behave. What could you do? In the end, it was decided that I would be the first to descend. Wang Sichuan was too big. Even with three corpsmen holding the rope, we were afraid they still wouldn’t be able to pull him up.
We had originally been carrying equipment for this sort of thing, but we’d dropped it while fleeing the rising water. Luckily the people who’d been here before us left their belongings behind. We put all the gear in order, and I strapped on a headlamp. This was my least favorite piece of equipment. Wearing it makes one’s forehead burning hot, and this affects my thinking. Looking into the deep cave, I felt a twinge of regret. Being the trailblazer has never been my forte. But there was nothing to do now except grit my teeth and take the plunge.
I hooked myself in and climbed over the iron railing. Stepping onto the tangle of power cables, I slid into the cave. With the torrent of water splashing all around me, I could see nothing but the thick black cables. The cave wall behind them was completely obscured. The uppermost portion of the sinkhole was narrow and cramped with power cables. After descending a short distance, I began to hear a creaking sound. Scanning below with my headlamp, I could just make out a dark form somewhere far below my feet. It appeared to be a platform with some kind of machine. The men up above continued to lower me down. I turned my head to escape the water’s spray, but I was soon drenched and freezing. After another twenty or so feet, my headlamp illuminated an iron sign, rusted to ruin, hung amid the power cables: Station-0384-Line 8. More Japanese was written on the back, but I couldn’t understand what it said. The sound of rushing water filled my ears. I finally descended deep enough to get a clear look at the machine. You could see the traces of where the engineering corpsmen had peeled the calcium carbonate from its exterior. The generator had been erected on a platform of iron bars laid across the hole like a protective filter. Looking through the gaps I could see the utter blackness below. Another iron sign had been placed on the platform: “No Entry.”
Little by little I continued to descend, until at last I dropped onto the platform. It immediately let out a fearful groan and began to buckle. I stepped onto the “No Entry” sign. The sign was so rusted, it split apart and tumbled through the cracks. The nerves on my back tingled. I took another step. Again the platform groaned, but this time the sound clearly suggested it would hold, so I dropped my whole weight onto it.
The generator was water powered and hidden beneath a layer of calcium carbonate. Even the propeller blades were covered in the stuff, but they still managed to slowly turn as water rushed past them. Knowing little about such things, I decided not to investigate it any further. Instead I took a quick, exploratory lap around the platform. Behind the machine, I found a space on the floor where one of the iron bars had split off, leaving a gap big enough for a person to descend through. I squatted down and shined my flashlight into the breach. Sure enough, thirty feet down the cave was no longer vertical. Here it sloped into a kind of staircase that ran deep into the earth. Perfect, I thought. From here on the way will be easier. Even if I fall, I probably won’t get seriously injured. So I pulled on the rope—telling them to let more of it out—squatted next to the opening, and took a careful look down. Kneeling this close to the platform, I began to detect a thick, foul chemical odor. Covering my nose, I leaned in close and looked down. A layer of iron netting had been wound underneath the platform and a hole torn through it. Something had clearly passed through here, but this “something” was a good bit smaller than Wang Sichuan.
I yelled up to the top several times, asking them to toss me down some pliers. A moment later a pair slid down the rope. Grabbing them, I extended my arm into the opening, felt around a bit, and began cutting through the netting. At this angle the work was strenuous. After a few minutes, my back started to cramp. I continued to cut, tearing off pieces of the netting as I worked. At last the job seemed more or less complete, so I bent over and wriggled my upper half through the gap, scanning about with my headlamp to see what was waiting for me underneath. The iron mesh beneath the platform was very dense, like close vegetation. I turned my head to illuminate the darkness. Then I saw it. There, tangled deep in the wiring, was a thick clump of hair.
CHAPTER 26
The Clump of Hair
Just beneath the hair, I saw a dark, curled-up shadow, but it was sunk too deep in the mesh for me to make it out.
As I brought my head closer to the object, the stink grew even stronger. In my heart I already knew what it was. I brought the pliers through the gap and, gripping the clump of hair, gently pulled it away, revealing a sickeningly pale face, swollen with water. Just as I’d thought. Even though I knew what I was going to find the moment I saw the hair, it was still a shock when my suspicions were confirmed. At once I pulled my head out and began to yell toward the surface. At last, someone else rappelled down—one of the corpsmen. He descended until he was hanging just above the platform. “What is it?” he asked. I gestured for him to quiet down. Having someone else down here filled me with newfound courage. Covering my nose to block the awful smell, I leaned back in for another look.
The corpse was entirely wound in the iron netting, his uniform identical to our own. He must have belonged to the same unit as Yuan Xile. The corpsmen had just searched this goddamn area, yet none of them had discovered the dead body. Did this mean that rather than continuing deeper into the cave, Yuan Xile and her team had stopped here and descended into the sinkhole, just as we were doing?
I felt a chill in the air and drew back out of the gap. After telling the young soldier that there was a dead body beneath the platform, I yanked on the rope, signaling to the others to lift us up. Back on top everyone was stunned. This is a clue as well, said Wang Sichuan. He asked me if I’d recognized who it was. I shook my head, but seeing as he’d died here, the sinkhole probably didn’t lead anywhere good. We’d better lift the corpse out and take a look first, I said. Then we could figure out our next move.
We spent the next three hours taking turns cutting away the iron mesh that bound the body. By the time we’d raised it up, all of us stunk of death from head to toe. The man’s hair was very long and covered his face. The face, although slightly swollen with water, remained well defined. He had very dark skin and looked to be about forty—he was probably the team elder. Wang Sichuan had been looking closely at the corpse. Once we washed its face clean, his expression abruptly changed.