FB - Cave In

As Rambo started up the slope of shale toward the mine, a bullet whacked into the rocks a few yards to his left, the rifle report echoing through the forest back there. Staring at the mine entrance, he hurried stumbling up the slope into the tunnel, shielding his face from chips of stone that two more bullets blasted off the right side of the opening. Far down the tunnel, out of reach of more bullets, he stopped exhausted, slumping against a wall, gasping. He had not been able to maintain his distance from them. His ribs. Now the Guardsmen were barely a half mile behind him, coming fast, so taken up in the hunt that they were shooting before they had a clear target. Weekend soldiers. Trained for this but not experienced, so they did not have the discipline and in the excitement might do anything. Rush in stupidly. Spray bullets down the shaft. He was right to have come here. If he had tried giving up at the stream, they would have been too quick, would have shot him. He needed a buffer between himself and them so they would not shoot before he explained.

He returned up the dark tunnel toward the light at the mouth, studying the roof. When he found where it was dangerously cracked, he pushed away the support beams, lurching back before the ceiling could cave in on him. He was not worried by the risk. If the collapse was so great that it buried the entrance and blocked off his air, he knew that they would dig him out before he died. But when he pushed away the beams, nothing happened, and he had to try the next beams ten feet farther down, and this time when he pushed, the roof did collapse, barely missing him with a crash and rumble of falling rock that made his ears ring. The passage was filled with dust and he was choking, standing back coughing, waiting for the dust to settle so he could see how much rock had fallen. A faint beam of light was radiating through the dust, and then the dust was clouding to the floor, and there was a foot of space between the barrier of rocks and the nearly demolished roof. More rocks dislodged, and the space dwindled to six inches. The reduced breeze that was coming through wafted some of the dust down the tunnel. It became colder. He slid down the wall to the damp floor, listening to the roof crack and settle, and very soon he heard the dim voices out there.

'Do you think it killed him?'

'How would you like to crawl in and find out?'

'Me?'

Some of them laughed then, and Rambo smiled.

'A cave or a mine,' another man said. His voice was loud and deliberate, and Rambo guessed that he was talking into a field radio. 'We saw him run inside, and then the place dumped in on him. You should have seen the dust. We have him for sure. Wait a minute, hold it a second.' And then as if to someone outside, 'Get your dumb ass away from the entrance. If he's still alive, he might be able to see to shoot at you.'


- First Blood, Part 3, Chapter 9