The bright helmet mounted flashlights on the Argonauts, and perhaps their strange appearance in those TALOS suits, were suddenly enough to send the beast looking for safer ground. He scampered away, and when they reached the spot where he had been, Elena stooped to pick up a remnant of the food he had been eating.
“Chocolate?”
“Probably a treat from one of the garrison soldiers,” said MacRae. “The rascal didn’t want to share it with his troop, and came down here for a little private feast.”
Then they found it, the dull brown wrapper, torn but largely intact, and there, written prominently across the front in green italic letters, it read “Milky Way.” A small oval below this indicated this was the “fun size.”
“How did he get hold of that?” said Elena. “Isn’t that an American candy bar?”
They stared at one another, until Miss Fairchild produced a tab device and looked it up. The Mars Candy Company, created by the family of the same name, was 100 years old and a worldwide operation with over $100 million in annual sales for that single product, only one revenue stream in its $33 Billion annual haul. In Europe the treat was simply called the “Mars Bar,” so finding this one here was most unusual, and a closer look at the crumpled candy bar wrapper sent Elena’s pulse into another gear.
“Did any of the men bring this in here?”
She was most insistent, but the entire squad was grilled and no one admitted to the crime. “Damn!” she exclaimed more than swore, her voice edged with a sense of awe. “Look at this. First off, this wrapper wouldn’t have looked like this in 1942. The original wrappers were white, as in this image I called up. Now look under that flap at the bottom. Get some more light over here.”
Three Argonauts leaned in around the others, focusing their helmet lights, and Elena squinted. “Can’t make it out,” she said, frustrated. Then the eagle-eyed Mac Morgan reached for the wrapper and was able to read the fine print.
“It’s just marketing drivel,” he began. “Says ‘we value your questions and comments. Call…” he stopped short. “Good Lord…. It lists an 800 telephone number and a bloody web address… milkywaybar.com!” He looked at the others, completely befuddled. “Are you certain none of the men brought this in here?”
Elena looked from Morgan to Captain MacRae, then wheeled about to find Sergeant Keller. “Find that monkey,” she said. “Now.”
Two of the men had seen it scamper down into the cave feature known as the Prison. Morgan had been using a map reference to guide them, and he had also called up a document created during an earlier geological survey of these caves. One Captain Jerome and a Doctor Jackson of the 86th Regiment, with Sergeant Hanson and Bombardier Robert Smith of the Royal Artillery, had written up extensive notes.
“They once thought this feature was the lowermost end of things here,” he said, then read from his pad: “All preceding explorers had arrived at the conclusion that ‘the Prison’ was the extreme end of this cavern, and it was only by means of great labor, and care, that we were enabled to prove the contrary. The axis of fracture, the lines of stratification, and above all the currents of air which were manifest… together with the sound, convinced me that there were other large caverns in this wonderful fissure, beyond the one we were in now…”
“That would be Hanson’s Cave up ahead,” said MacRae, named for that Sergeant he had with him that day.”
“Beyond that we get Brown’s seat, a shelf of stone where he believed this entire fissure ended. He said it looked to be impenetrable by any normal means of exploration.”
“Well that Macaque went this way, we all saw him. Have the men turned anything up?”
No trace of the beast had been found, which left the party with an unsettled feeling of mystery here. They were certain the monkey did not get past them. In fact, the men heard it making sounds up ahead of them, but could find no trace of the rascal.
“What’s directly above us?” asked Elena, eyeing the toothy falls of stalactites from the roof of the chamber.
“Lenora’s Cave,” said Morgan. “Then the Bell Chamber.”
“Lenora’s cave…” that rang a bell in Elena’s mind. “Wasn’t that the cave that was said to lead to the hidden tunnel under the Straits of Gibraltar?”
“Just an old tale,” said Morgan.
“You know they once thought this place was bottomless,” she said. “Let’s do a radar scan of the entire area near Brown’s seat—that shelf of rock over there. Look high and low.”
MacRae was looking at his compass, and now he held it out to the others. “Damn thing has gone bonkers,” he said. It was spinning this way and that, unable to find true north.
“This Lieutenant Brown mentions that as well,” said Morgan, reading again… “The fact of the magnetic needle being slightly deflected in some places, shows evidently strong traces of iron in the cave.”
“Well this is more than slightly deflected,” said MacRae. “It’s spinning about like a top now.”
“A magnetic anomaly, and well beneath Lenora’s Cave,” said Elena. “A missing Barbary Ape that had to have found some way forward from this point. Gentlemen, get busy.”
The ten man squad fanned out, their helmet lamps searching all the ground ahead. They nosed around the twisted pillars of limestone extending up from the floor, and probed with files and other tooling at the walls. Three men had the hand held ground penetrating radar sets, and it wasn’t long before they scanned some very interesting returns.
“I was expecting a solid mass,” said Morgan. “You know, one of those well machined doors like we found at Delphi, but this is reading quite the opposite. That monkey is on to something here. That big rock there reads solid, but these readings show a void beyond that stone.”
They were, in fact, standing before the very same stone where Sergeant Hobson had been prompted to get after the Barbary Ape the previous year, though none of them knew that at the moment. The Argonauts searched the sides of the rock, but it appeared to be emerging directly from the scored limestone wall behind it. Then they got perhaps the same break that had led Sergeant Hobson on. There came a skittering sound, and then something fell right onto the bill of the helmet worn by MacRae. He reached up, thinking to brush away some small lose stone fragment, but instead he was amazed to see a peanut shell fall to the cave floor, right between the toes of his boots. He stooped, confirming his find, and handing it to Elena, and now all eyes looked up, the beams of the ten helmets suddenly catching the amber glow of two eyes, cat like, in the shadow of the upper rock where it approached the wall. Then they vanished.
“There’s the little beastie,” said MacRae. “Come on lads, get that folded ladder up.”
It took all of five minutes, but Sergeant Keller led the way up, noting scratches on the rock as he went. At the very top, it first seemed that there was no way to proceed, but as he eased himself to the place where they had seen the Macaque, he called down.
“A break on the rock up here,” he said. “But I don’t think I can get through.” It was too small for the broad chested Sergeant, but they had a smaller man in the team, and he climbed up to the place, and was barely able to squeeze through.
“A very narrow passage,” he said. “I’ll have to slide through on my back.” For a time, Corporal James was only able to move by squirming on his back and using his shoulder blades to keep him going, but gradually, the passage opened up a bit. They heard him calling, seeming very distant now, his voice becoming a slight echo of itself.
“Switch to your helmet radio,” said the Sergeant.
Morgan looked at Elena. “Well I think we’re on to something here. Is it another chamber, Sergeant?”
“No sir, my man James says it’s more of a long passage, very winding, and the walls are scored with well faulted rock. He says it resembles Hell’s Throat.”