Now some twenty years on from the innocence of my schooldays, secure inside the bolt-hole with the entrance blocked by rocks, I sit exhausted in the deeper, larger section of my new home. Although not able to stand fully upright, I can kneel comfortably without risk of suffering a head injury, as would undoubtedly have been the case in the Graves Park bolt-hole. I gratefully remove my boots and soaking wet socks, and under the torchlight inspect my blistered, red and swollen feet. They’re in desperate need of a good soak, but I have no such luxury. Almost too tired to move, I lean over to the back of the bolt-hole and find the two large rucksacks I’d hidden behind a collection of loose rocks a few days earlier. I drag out my sleeping bag from inside the first rucksack, and then a Gore-Tex bivvy bag, a large waterproof sack made of breathable fabric. I briefly consider preparing a boil-in-the-bag camping meal that I’d stashed away, but tiredness rather than hunger is my overwhelming emotion and I crawl fully clothed into the sleeping bag and then awkwardly manoeuvre myself into the larger bivvy bag. Too exhausted to even unfurl my cushioned sleeping mat, I lie on the damp and rocky floor and pull the hood of the sleeping bag over my head. After all I’ve been through in the last few days, I still can’t quite believe that I’ve made it. Gripped by exhaustion, within seconds I’m asleep.
Chapter 10
My first morning in the Kinder Scout bolt-hole, I wake abruptly to the beeping of the 6:00 a.m. alarm on my watch. Initially disorientated in the total blackness, it takes a few seconds to realise where I am, and, to my amazement, that I’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours. It’s probably the first time since the hit-and-run that I’ve slept through the night undisturbed by horrific dreams and picturing the boys crumpled bodies.
Despite the good night’s sleep I feel horrendous. My neck is on fire and the smell coming from the wound is like rotting fish. I slowly adjust my position, trying to get more comfortable, but searing pain immediately shoots through my body. As I try and breathe through the pain, I realise that my sweatshirt bottoms are soaking wet and it crosses my mind that I’ve pissed myself. But then, as my body starts to shake and I touch my red hot skin, I realise that sweat is leeching from every pore. Jesus, what’s happening to me?
For a frustrating thirty seconds or so I fumble in the darkness searching for my torch, eventually finding it at the bottom of the sleeping bag. With the light on, and studying my flushed reflection in the tiny compact mirror, I gingerly begin to peel off the crepe bandage covering the gash in my neck. The smell is overpowering as thick yellow pus oozes from the dressing and my thinking begins to fog and the walls of the bolt-hole spin. I grit my teeth and remove the last of the bandage, which is stuck to my skin with congealed blood and pus, but seemingly with the adhesive properties of Superglue. I lie back down on the sleeping bag, taking a few seconds to recover and to stifle the nausea, before again going to work to clean the wound with baby-wipes. The process takes a good hour, with frequent rests when the pain or nausea becomes too much to bare. Eventually the edge of the gaping wound is clean, and with a final surge of effort I douse it in antiseptic TCP. The second the fiery liquid hits the raw wound edges, acidic vomit fills my mouth and I lurch to one side to avoid puking on my sleeping bag.
As the urge to vomit finally subsides, I lie back down taking slow deep breaths. I can’t believe I feel so bad. As a kid I’d had a burst appendix and spent two weeks in hospital, but I’m sure it was never as bad as this. I’m getting really worried. This is no ordinary infection: the vomiting, the fever, the stinking pus, and now the shaking. Blood poisoning, or septicaemia, I think is the medical name for it, and I know that you can die without proper antibiotics. I have a weird, edgy feeling that the bolt-hole might prove to be some kind of tomb. Maybe I’ll be discovered fifty years down the line, all desiccated and shrivelled in my final resting place.
With paranoid fear beginning to kick in, I reach for my rucksack and remove the small first-aid kit. In amongst the plasters, bandages and miscellaneous other stuff are several strips of antibiotics. The names I can barely pronounce: metronidazole, cefuroxime, co-amoxicillin. Most of them I’d picked up from my parents’ bathroom cabinet, stockpiled by my mum after she had a nasty tooth abscess. Although I’ve no idea of the proper dose, I take two of each of the antibiotic tablets plus the painkillers ibuprofen, paracetamol and codeine for good measure, and then wash the mouthful down with water. I lie back on the sleeping bag, desperately trying not to be sick as my body continues to shake.
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I wake in the bolt-hole with the sleeping bag round my ankles. I’m unbelievably cold, and starving hungry, but feeling infinitely closer to life than in my previous recollection of consciousness. My neck is still sore but much improved, and the fever and shaking have settled. Sitting up, I check the illuminated face of my watch. It’s 7:10 a.m., but I’m shocked when I see the date: 11th October. I’ve been in the Kinder Scout bolt-hole for over forty-eight hours, and I’ve no idea where the time has gone. I can only imagine that the fever combined with the painkillers and antibiotics knocked me out to the extent of some sort of near-coma. With the smug satisfaction that I feel so well, other than being freezing cold, I pull the sleeping bag snugly around me and over my head, and curl into a ball to conserve heat.
The warmth gradually begins to seep through me, and after a few minutes I stretch out and my hand finds the torch lying in the sleeping bag next to me. I flick the switch on and off several times but nothing happens. I reluctantly lean out of the warmth of the sleeping bag and cautiously extend my hand in the total darkness to feel for the two rucksacks at the back of the bolt-hole. After a few seconds I find the first, unzip the top pocket and take out spare batteries. The torch illuminates my underground sanctuary and I’m further reminded, if it were needed, of the icy temperature as the water vapour in my breath immediately condenses in the air. With the insulating effect of the thick walls, I’ve no doubt that the sun-starved bolt-hole will remain on the chilly side of comfortable, irrespective of the weather outside. Wedged with a few small pebbles, I jam my torch in a small crevice in the rocky side wall and adjust the aperture of the lens to produce a broad shaft of light that illuminates much of the bolt-hole. I scan around me, studying the numerous massive boulders that form much of the structure that will be my home for the next six months. The floor is a single large boulder with a flat upper surface that cuts into the side of a gently sloping hill. As I turn towards the entrance, the damp peat surface of the hill provides the wall on the left hand side. The walls to the right and that behind me, the furthest from the entrance, are composed of several large boulders, the gaps between which are blocked with numerous smaller rocks, providing a barrier to the outside that is probably close to a metre thick. A single large boulder also forms the ceiling such that ultimately the arrangement of rocks and boulders has, presumably by some fluke of nature, created a wind- and rain-proof box that is no doubt capable of withstanding a nuclear explosion.
I’m famished. Other than the occasional chocolate bar, I’ve not eaten a proper meal for more than four days. Even the baked beans and biscuit breakfast on the day of my commute to my new abode have mostly re-seen the light of day after the psychological trauma of the bus journey. I reach behind me for one of the bottles of icy cold water that I dropped off the previous week. After taking a swig, I fill a small saucepan and begin heating it on a gas camping stove, warming my cold hands over the flame at the same time.