Patient Blue

In Chile, the San Jose Mine tour ended abruptly. In fact for Pete, Trude and the eighteen other students and their guide Hector it ended in the descent shaft just four hundred feet below the surface. The capsule came to a halt with a jarring shudder and the lights went out. There were gasps of surprise and Pete, who had been standing as close as possible to Trude during the descent, in fact so close she had begun to imperceptibly edge away, reached forward and held her hand. Only it wasn’t Trude’s hand but Gunthers, an Aryan superman of a youth from Dresden.

‘Get off me now’ said Gunther in a rather menacing tone, Pete mumbled ‘sorry’ and removed his hand as if scalded. Earlier he had found out that Gunther’s great Grandparents Heinrich and Eva, had been killed in a massive RAF bombing raid on the city in 1945 and Gunther seemed to have a particular aversion to all things English and Pete in particular. Pete didn’t know for sure, but felt he had also made things worse when he recounted what he considered an amusing anecdote to some of the group. It concerned his best mate back in England, Robert Harris, but known by everyone as Bomber. He had nearly managed to blow up the school science lab after sabotaging a Bunsen burner. Not many people laughed and Gunther had positively scowled.

Pete had also earlier seemed to upset another of the party and again it was totally unintentional. He had been listening to the radio back at the airport hotel a Little Richard song had been playing and the tune had lodged in his brain and he kept humming it and occasionally singing the lyrics. He had just started singing at the top of his voice the catchy chorus, which he got slightly wrong, ‘a wop bop aloo bop A WOP BAMBOO,’ just as Mario Chen a student of Italian Chinese ancestry wandered by. Mario thought Pete was making a derogatory comment on both his Italian and Chinese origins and glared in a threatening way at Pete. Pete seemed to have then made things worse by saying ’Tutti Frutti, it’s Tutti Frutti. Sadly, Mario thought this was another insult aimed at him and Italians in general.

Mario said ‘you take the piss mate’

‘It’s Little Richard’

‘Small Richard, you say I’m small Richard, small Dick is that what you say?’

Pete decided to leave before things got ugly.

Back in the capsule Pete once again tried to find Trude’s hand. He connected with what he knew must be Trude as he heard her exclaim ’oh’ in that distinctive, slightly husky and very sexy voice. Only it wasn’t Trude’s hand it was far too soft to be a hand. He had accidentally grabbed her left breast. A breast unrestrained by any mere bra, it felt warm, yielding but firm, he wanted to keep his hand there forever, realized that he couldn’t and had already left it there far too long for it to be considered just an accident; ‘Sorry’ said Pete, withdrawing his hand quickly and managing to elbow Gunther in the stomach.

‘Fick dich.’

‘Sorry’

A voice speaking first in Spanish, then French and finally English, said ‘please remain calm.’

It was obvious the capsule was going nowhere, either up or down. Weak battery powered emergency lights had kicked in and illuminated the interior with a faint sickly blue glow. Hector had been speaking animatedly over the radio to , Pete presumed, a safety controller back at the surface. There was an announcement from Hector, first in Spanish then French and finally English. ‘We must all leave the capsule and climb to the surface, but not to worry as there is a ladder for this purpose. It is lit up, you will not fall as you will each be wearing a harness and they are strong.’ At this point, he waved a complex looking strapped contraption above his head. ‘This harness will be attached to the ladder, like so,’ he clipped it to the handrail. As you go up it goes up with you, easy, this will be great fun a great adventure to tell to your amigos.’ Hector pointed to a hatch in the roof of the capsule, ‘we go now.’

Pete, no great lover of heights, felt concern at this turn of events, but then became aware of a delicious possibility. He could follow Trude up the ladder. She was wearing a short denim skirt, she might be wearing a thong, or being Dutch and liberated, no underwear at all. His mouth became dry and he was aware of an obvious bulge in his Jeans and hoped no one else was also aware, especially Trude. As the queue to exit moved forward he stopped to adjust his underwear to make himself more comfortable. He was barged aside and Gunther inserted himself directly behind Trude, Gunther said ‘OK’ and she smiled at him. Pete was tapped on the shoulder and directly behind him stood Mario. ’Hey be careful, make sure you don’t accidentally fall, it’s a long way down eh Tuitti-fruitti. It was going to be a long climb.

In the stranded capsule, Pete followed Trude and Gunther through the small hatch in the roof. Halfway up the emergency exit ladder Gunther farted in Pete’s face, turned around and smirked; ‘You want to watch out or I might drop a bomb on you.’

‘Yeah, very funny.’

Mario shoved him hard from behind; ‘Move it Tutti-Frutti, we all want to get out.’

‘Look, stop shoving me, it’s awkward I’m going as fast as I can.’

‘So go faster anyway, move the arse quick’

‘I can’t he’s stuck behind Trude.’

Gunther turned and gave Pete a poisonous stare.

Pete and Mario were the last to leave the capsule, once on the flat roof and looking up Pete could see a line of students ascending the aluminum escape ladder to the surface. From where he was standing and due to the dim light, he could see no more than a hundred feet or so, he began to comprehend what an epic climb it would be to reach the surface at least four hundred feet above. The air felt stale and a hot breeze ruffled his hair, the atmosphere reminded him of a packed London underground station as a tube train approached the platform.

Hector indicated he should climb by pointing at the ladder and giving him a winning smile and a thumbs up. ‘You go, no worries you be out real soon.’

Pete fervently hoped that was true. Above, he could see Trude on the ladder with Gunther a few feet behind and Gunther was looking, the bastard was looking up her skirt. This spurred Pete on and he was soon clambering up the ladder to catch up with Mario close behind and finally Hector bringing up the rear. It was hard going and after fifty rungs he was panting and wanting to stop for a rest. He also felt incredibly claustrophobic in the hot airless tunnel. As he began slowing, Mario pushed him,

‘Move, I want to get out’

Pete looked up and was suddenly spurred on as he caught a tantalizing glimpse up Trude’s skirt. oh joy, white knickers. He started to move up the ladder quicker in order to get closer and improve his view, but Gunther got in the way and Pete’s glimpse of adolescent Heaven was obscured by the broad Teutonic back and Strawberry blonde hair of Gunther. Pete tried to see around the obstruction, by moving his head sharply to the right, but as he did so his foot slipped and he almost fell, only breaking his fall by grabbing Gunther’s trousers and dragging them down as far as his knees whilst at the same time his flailing foot caught Mario full in the face breaking his nose.

‘Swine,’ shouted Gunther,

’Bastardi, screamed Mario through blood smeared hands that were holding his damaged nose.

‘Sorry,’ said Pete rather ineffectually. He looked up and there was Trude looking coyly over her shoulder at the scene and oh happy, happy day, he could see she was definitely wearing skimpy white knickers.

Before the axis reverted to type and things turned violent, a vibration began running through the ladder slowly increasing in intensity. There was a deep rumbling and alarming sounds of cracking, gravel and small stones began showering down. Hector shouted, ‘Hold tight to the ladder, keep your legs and arms in and your heads down. No panic, the harness will hold you, I think we have an earthquake’. The shaking intensified and the ladder began to rock, all the safety lights went out and the pitch dark only intensified the panic that Pete was feeling. He heard screams and not all of them female realizing that one of the loudest and highest pitched was his own. Hector tried to calm everything as best he could, but had reverted to his native Spanish and this didn’t reassure Pete at all. More and larger stones began to fall and part of the ladder separated from the wall. Mario fell but the harness held him and Hector was able to help the blood covered boy to cling back on to the rungs of the increasingly unstable ladder. After what seemed like hours, but in reality could only have been minutes, the truth and not a cliché. The shaking began to subside and finally stop. There was silence punctuated only by soft sobbing, he looked over the head of Gunther who was clamped to the ladder like a Limpet on a rock, to Trude. He could see she was crying and he had an overwhelming urge to go to her hold her in his arms, comfort her and tell her everything would be fine and that he, Pete would protect her forever, that he loved her. Well, maybe he wouldn’t say the L word, at least not until after they’d had sex anyway.