Story of Ben Read online

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  The next Saturday brought another beautiful sunrise. Opposite that were hundreds of small tufts of white clouds spread evenly across the western sky. Bitty was playing in the flower garden with Sara, a friend from up the road who stayed with them the night before. Sara's parents had left town for the weekend to visit an ailing relative.

  Ben came along at the same time as had become his habit. As he came through the gate, Bitty introduced him to Sara. Ben hugged Bitty to his side and said, "Good to meet you Sara."

  Maggie pushed open the patio door and Ben stepped inside. Immediately he smelled fresh coffee. "Have a seat," Maggie said.

  Ben saw the table was set, and the smell of bacon and eggs filled the air. "Mmmm!" was his response. Maggie chuckled.

  Maggie dished up servings on two plates, and brought them to the table.

  "What about the girls?" Ben asked.

  "They ate half an hour ago. Dig in."

  As they ate, Ben looked out the window and said, "It's going to rain today."

  Maggie looked at him with a slight expression of doubt. "The sun is shining," She said.

  Ben pointed out the window at the unusual pattern of clouds and paraphrased an old saying, "Mackerel sky at morning, a sailor's sure warning."

  As he spoke, the sound of a truck could be heard coming down the road, then stopping. Maggie leaned over to get a better look out the window. "It's just the county, " she said. They come by about once a month to maintain that eyesore over there in the field.

  "What is that?" Ben asked, as he now leaned over also.

  "Something to do with drainage," she replied. "One of the workers told me about it one time."

  As they watched, three men got out of a white pickup truck. On the back of it was a rack on top of which were two ladders. In the back were some toolboxes and a winch mounted under the rear window of the cab. After removing some equipment from the truck, one of the workers opened the cover to the duct and stood looking down into it. He took a ladder off the rack and placed it in the shaft.

  Maggie and Ben sat back and resumed eating.

  Bitty's friend Sara was curious and wanted to know what the men were working on, but Bitty told her she didn't know. "Mom says to stay away from there." Sara watched the men for a few minutes and then looked away.

  As morning turned to mid-day the sun slowly disappeared behind the clouds. By the time Maggie and Ben were collecting up the breakfast dishes there were only a few small openings left through which blue sky could be seen.

  Maggie invited Ben to sit in the living room. From there they could see the tall trees which Ben was so fond of.

  A few minutes later raindrops began to fall. Bitty and Sara moved to a covered porch swing which sat at the end of the patio near the front of the house.

  The men worked in the rain for an about an hour and then pulled the ladder up, closed the lid and left. Sara kept looking at the area where the men had been working. She wanted to go closer, but Bitty warned her not go.

  Sara disregarded Bitty's warning. She was almost ten, and was not taking orders. "Let's go take a look," she said. Undaunted by the rain, she left the garden area and started walking through the field.

  Bitty quickly followed to try to stop her, "No Sara! They'll be back. See, they left some of their things here," Bitty said pointing at some equipment still in the area. But Sara, already halfway to the enclosed area, disregarded her.

  As Bitty caught up, Sara bent down and slipped under the fence. Bitty stayed outside.

  Sara eyed the area and looked at a tool box the men had left behind. Then she walked over to where the top of the vertical shaft protruded above the ground. The lid on the access port had a hasp with a lock on it. Sara reached down to the lock, and to her surprise it fell open. It had not been closed securely. Bitty and Sara looked at each other, then back at the house, then back at each other. Sara began to slip the lock off the hasp.

  "Sara. . ." Bitty said in a low but scolding voice. Sara looked up at her but didn't say anything. She just looked back toward the house again. Bitty also looked back, and as she did, Sara began to open the cover. Sara struggled, but in a few seconds she managed to swing the cover up and over, and down to the ground. As young as she was Bitty knew this would come to no good. Frustrated, she squeezed her fingers tightly on the fence wires. "Sara!" she called out.

  Suddenly Sara dropped the lid open, looked over the edge, and began climbing down the rusted steel rungs on the inside of the culvert.

  All of the rungs were rusty. Some were broken or loose and some were missing. Sara started to climb down carefully, but lost her grip when she tried to step where a rung was missing. She fell, frantically trying to grab hold of something to stop herself. Her back and shoulders bumped the sides of the shaft as she accelerated downward. In a few short seconds she hit the bottom feet first with most of her weight landing on her right foot. A sharp pain went up her side and she let out a loud shriek. When she caught enough breath, she began to moan. Her right ankle was badly sprained. And she suddenly became aware that it was dark down there. The only illumination came from the small circular opening high above her. As she laid on her side she could barely catch enough breath to cry. Her right foot hurt so bad. Her right arm ached and she couldn't bend her elbow. As she looked up, the opening she had climbed though only a moment ago, now seemed very small and distant. Sara became frightened and cried louder.

  Bitty yelled "Mom! Mommy!" and ran for the house.

  Ben and Maggie heard Bitty and came out of the house to investigate. They saw Bitty running toward them. As Bitty neared Maggie she cried out "Mommy, Mommy, Sara fell in the hole."

  Ben looked toward the open shaft and started to run toward it.

  Bitty reached Maggie and threw her arms around Maggie's waist. Maggie clutched her daughter and held her close.

  Just as Ben reached the open shaft the sound of a truck could be heard coming down the road from the city. In less than a minute the workers were on the scene. Sara's cries could be heard steadily coming from the shaft. Ben introduced himself and explained the situation to the other men as they approached the shaft to see what was going on. Jim, one of the workers, went to the truck to get a flashlight, then returned and started down the shaft. The rungs were in poor condition and many were missing. Jim could only climb down a few feet down because of the missing rungs. But with the flashlight he was able to see Sara in a sitting position with her legs outstretched, at the bottom.

  The foreman was a tall, portly man named Dirk. The other worker, Paul stood next to Maggie and asked, "is that your Daughter down there Ma'am?"

  "No," Maggie replied. "She's the daughter of a friend. Her parents are out of town for the weekend." Then Maggie asked, "What is that anyway?"

  Dirk explained, "This shaft is an access point to an old storm drainage system. It's about sixteen feet to the bottom. The shaft goes down to a culvert that runs from town over to here, then west to a wash that runs down to the ocean." Dirk gestured as he continued, " About halfway down the shaft, a another line comes in from the north. That's the line from the residential area up the road toward town. It looks like the girl is at the bottom. Any time now water is going to be flowing in there. We've got to get her out!"

  "Can you get her out?" Ben asked.

  Just then Jim appeared at the top of the shaft and pulled himself out. "We won't be able to get the ladder back in there," he said. "She's right at the bottom."

  "Aren't there rungs on the sides?" Ben pressed further.

  "Too many rungs are missing." Dirk said.

  Jim went to the truck and got a rope. He put a loop at the end with a slip knot. He lowered it into the shaft and called down to Sara, "Try to put your head and shoulder through the loop."

  "Okay." Sara replied.

  Jim watched with the flashlight as Sara struggled to get the rope around herself. He could see her wor
k the rope around her head and her left arm, but after several tries she just couldn't move her right arm into it.

  "I can't move my arm!" Came the plaintive and angry cry from the bottom.

  "It's no use," Jim said to the others. "She can't get the rope around herself securely. We've got to find another way."

  While the adults pondered a solution, rain continued to fall. Water began to flow in the lower culvert where Sara was sitting.

  "Hold on Sara!" Maggie yelled down. Dirk said, "We've got to get her out soon. These culverts fill with water quickly. She'll be swept into the west pipe. Even if she gets above that, she's in danger of water flowing in from the north system pipe. It fills slower than the others because its higher, but it'll fill if the rain keeps up."

  Dirk, Paul and Jim huddled, then got the ladder off the truck. They took it over to the shaft and looked in. "Sara," Dirk called. "Can you move over some so we can put a ladder in there?" Sara replied, "I can't move, my foot hurts so bad. . . . I can hear something. I think its water."

  Dirk yelled back, "OK, we'll try something else." He turned, and looked at Maggie and Ben with urgency in his expression. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a phone. He pushed 9-1-1 and in a few seconds had someone on the line. This is Dirk Hansen with county maintenance, we've got an emergency situation out at the west access point number 4 on the old water collection system," Dirk explained to the dispatcher.

  "I'll notify the fire department in that area immediately," came the reply.

  Sara yelled, "The water's on me, the water's on me!"

  Dirk looked in the hole, then back to the truck. He looked again at the ladders.

  Ben also looked at the truck, but his eyes were fixed on something else.

  "You could wrap some of that chain around my ankles." He pointed to a pile of chain in the back of the truck. "I can fit in that pipe." Ben said. "I can get her!"

  Dirk looked at the chain.

  "Might work." Dirk said. He had to think quickly. His eyes darted from the chain to the winch to the shaft and then he looked at Ben.

  "You could lower me in with the winch," Ben said anxiously. "Run that cable over the cross brace up there." Ben pointed to the rack that held the ladders.

  "Ok, let's try!" Said Dirk.

  The men backed the truck up to the shaft and secured a short piece of chain around Ban's ankles. Paul started the winch and let out enough cable to reach the ground. Ben helped the workers as they fastened the hook at the end of the cable to the chain.

  Again, Sara cried out - now with an unmistakeable urgency, "It's coming faster, its getting deeper. Hurry, hurry!!"

  Ben laid on the ground. Dirk put a hand on the cable and shouted, "OK, up, up! Paul let out the clutch on the winch and Ben's body began to angle upward until he was suspended vertically upside down. With Dirk directing, Jim backed the truck up until Ben was looking down the opening of the shaft. Paul reversed the direction of rotation on the winch to let the cable out, and looked to Dirk for the next move.

  "I'm ready, let's go!" Ben yelled.

  "Take this," Dirk said, as he handed a flashlight to Ben. Then he signaled Paul to let out some cable. As Ben entered the shaft, he could see rusted and broken rungs protruding from one side of the old concrete tube. He used his forearms and elbows as best he could to guide himself past the hazards. Slowly Ben descended. In a minute, Ben's entire body was in the tube. Dirk waved his hand sideways and Paul stopped the winch.

  "Are you OK Ben?" Dirk yelled.

  "Yeah, keep going!" Ben responded.

  Ben's body swung from side to side as he went further and further into the duct. A broken rung grazed the left side of his head before he could deflect his body away from it. Ben felt the bump, but he was more concerned about getting to Sara who was sitting in the stream of water that was now flowing in the culvert at the bottom. As he approached the halfway pipe, he could see water pouring from it into the vertical shaft. It was coming out faster than it was just a few minutes ago when he entered the tube. Ben managed to twist his body so the he would be facing away from the streaming water as he passed it. No sooner had he done that when the moment came, and the water was now gushing against the back of Ben's shoulders and head.

  Dirk could see Ben getting hit by the stream of water. He motioned to Paul. The cable stopped again.

  Ben shouted, "Don't stop! Keep going!" Just as the cable start moving again, the stream of water from the halfway pipe turned in to a torrent, hitting Ben squarely on his back and pushing him up against the rungs. The flashlight fell from Ben's hand. It landed near Sara. She grasped it and pointed it upward. All she could see was falling water. It was flowing constantly in front of Ben's face and into his nose and eyes. As Ben gasped for breath, he shook his head hard and again felt it hit something. But he was distracted by all the noise and the increasing volume of water flowing in the shaft. Ben began to feel dizzy. He thought it was from being upside down. He tried to focus on fending off the remaining rungs as he descended toward the bottom. He never noticed the stream of blood, which was being diluted in continual flow of water.

  At the bottom Sara sat helpless and terrified, as what little light there had been was almost entirely extinguished by the rushing water. The flashlight was all that was left.

  Ben became more disoriented. He twisted his head to the left then to the right, trying to shake off water, but it was useless. He struggled to breathe through his mouth as water had filled his nostrils. He tried to shake off the drowsiness he was beginning to feel. And then, though the water seemed to be hitting him harder, it started to feel warmer - and a strange feeling of comfort started to come over him. Suddenly he thought he could see a ray of sunlight at the bottom. It didn't look like the flashlight. It looked like sunlight. Was he imagining it? He couldn't tell. The splashing of the water seemed to slow down. Then he couldn't feel it at all. He felt like he was floating. And ahead of him he saw a sandy beach and blue water washing up on the shore. And the sound of the water was now the sound of waves curling and crashing as they rolled onto the shore. He was standing upright now, and there was no crying. There was only sun and sand and warmth. . . .and water, beautiful blue water. And there ahead - walking toward him on the sand - was his daughter Mindy! They were on a sandy beach in the warmth of the sun. Ben walked over to where she was standing.

  "Are you alright Mindy?" He asked.

  "I'm alright daddy." He heard her say. He reached out to her and held her hand. They walked along together, smiling and laughing. How wonderful it felt to be with her again. He had missed her so much. They looked up at the sun, and out at the sea. They looked down at the warm sand beneath their feet. They could see the sand between their toes. He looked at his daughter. She looked up at him and smiled. They walked, and they walked. But then, a shadow moved over the sand. A dark cloud was drifting in front of the sun. Soon it covered the sun completely. And then it started to rain.

  The rain began to fall harder, and then harder. Ben looked up into the sky, still holding his daughter's hand. He saw the raindrops falling on them. The drops seemed to become larger. They were falling faster and faster. He could see them so clearly. And then, suddenly, they stopped in mid-air - suspended in front of him, and all around him. Then he noticed his daughter was not there. The drops began to move again, upward this time. They moved slowly at first. Then they started moving faster, going back into the sky. The rain was falling upward! It began to move more quickly. Then the drops began to merge, joining together into streams of water flowing upward, upward. . . and away from him. And it kept going faster, and faster! Then he saw his arms stretched out over his head, reaching upward toward the sky. And suddenly - he heard the sound of the rushing water. And he felt it as it splashed against him, harder and harder. And then he knew he was not looking up - he was looking down - as he hung by a chain in a shaft in the midst of a torrential flow of wa
ter, so powerful he now felt it squeezing him from all sides, and it poured into the shaft from above him with a deafening roar. He could barely hear the screams of the terrified little girl who was now only a few feet below him. And through the surging water he could see the little girl dimly lit by the flashlight now lying next to her, under a foot of water which covered her legs completely. And she cried out "B--E--N!"

  Ben could barely move his feet because of the chain around his ankles. But he managed to twist himself around so his toes pressed up against one of the last metal rungs. Though he couldn't see, his hands were now only inches away from Sara's. Water now poured down the shaft in continuous sheets. The flow around Sara would soon be strong enough to sweep her away. "B-E-N!" She cried out again, "B-E-N!" Ben braced his feet on a rung as best he could, and lunged forward. Their fingertips slid past each others as their hands met. Sara desperately grabbed hold of a finger on each of Ben's hands.

  Up above, Dirk knew they could wait no longer. He yelled "Have you got her Ben? Ben??" There was no answer. Dirk could hear the rushing water, but could no longer hear Sara's screams. With one hand on the cable, Dirk knelt down and tried to aim his flash light down the shaft to see if Ben had reached her yet. He could see nothing but the chain which disappeared into the rushing water.

  " I think he's got her!" Dirk shouted, hoping he was right. He turned toward Paul, and yelled, "PULL HIM UP! PULL HIM UP!!" Slowly the the cable came up out of the shaft and wound around the spool of the winch. Dirk watched the cable and the surging water intently. Soon he saw Ben's feet emerge from the foaming flow. Dirk turned to Paul. "Here he comes!" he exclaimed. Maggie clasped her hands over her mouth. Suddenly, there at the end of Ben's long frame were Sara's hands clutching Ben's fingers. "He's got her!" Dirk exclaimed loudly. He reached down and grabbed hold of Sara's left arm. As she reached clear air she coughed up water, gasped, and began to cry.

  "Let go sweetheart," Dirk coaxed her. Slowly Sara let go of Ben. Dirk handed her to Jim, who carried her to the cab of the truck. Paul stopped the winch when Ben's arms and hands had cleared the top of the shaft. Dirk pulled Ben, still suspended by the chain, away from the opening. Paul let the cable out so Ben's feet could reach the ground.

  Dirk and Paul laid Ben down, partly propped against a corner of the fence. They could see Ben was not conscious. Jim unfastened the chain from Ben's ankles. Maggie, seeing Sara was safely inside the truck, turned her head and saw Dirk bend down and touch the side of Ben's neck. Maggie covered her eyes with her hand as she feared the worst. After a few seconds Dirk stood up slowly, took off his hat, and stared into the cloudy sky as the rain washed tears from his face. Maggie bit her lip and lowered her head. She choked back a gasp, and turned Bitty's face against her side.

  Bitty pulled her head back, looked up at her mother and said, "Is Ben OK mommy?"

  Maggie looked down at Bitty, closed her eyes and wept.

  End