The Republic of ARMY

23. Old Caves

The other trees came sooner than we expected. We ended up with seven thousand from BTS, and about four thousand other trees from other donors.

As always, we sorted through the trees, easily picking out the much weaker ones that we took to the green house and nursery. We applied a few nutrients to the soil surrounding the roots, and provided regular water to strengthen them.

The saplings we put aside came to about a thousand in number. We then identified a good working schedule and then settled on planting 100 trees a day. This helped the little green things get stronger as they were regularly watered.

The drip pipe establishment had helped grow the trees, especially the ones planted in the first month within our arrival.

While loitering through the sands one day, near the mountain ranges, we came across some caves. Mercy was walking and laughing at Richard's pervert jokes when she suddenly disappeared from sight.

"... And then... Mercy?"

I turned around to see Richard looking worried, and my cute intern was missing. Where had she gone?

"Mercy?"

"Mercy!" Richard echoed my frantic call. "Mercy!"

"Did someone take her?"

"Guys! I found something!" We both heard from behind us. We both turned, just in time to see her head vanish into a somewhat small opening in the ground.

"Mercy!" Richard called. I reached for my walkie talkie and radioed the command centre who, luckily already knew where we were headed. They were with us in a jiffy and quickly sent a few people into the little underground cave.

"I'm safe!" Mercy called before reaching for Richard's hand over mine. The disrespect was obviously felt. I sighed. "That cave will explain a lot of things we didn't understand about Bir Tawil."

"Was there water?"

"No, not really, but the walls were a bit slimy." She readily showed us the greenish algae matter on her hands.

"Was the air musty...?"

"It is actually really fresh down here. Almost like there is an exit, or exits, somewhere else."

"Don't you think we need backup to explore it?" I asked the guys. They agreed it was a wise idea, so Curtis, my brother and a few other people came over in a few minutes.

We were not allowed to slide into it until they declared it safe. Richard and I felt the instant temperature change when we got into the cave. The heat drastically reduced and we felt that cool air flow hit us the moment we took our first steps into the wide cavern.

The walls did have some algae and mold growing on it. The stones were a little slippery too. There was some mist further inside as they proceeded, and it wasn't too thick for them.

Eventually, the group got to what was the biggest part of the cave, and saw a tiny opening above them that allowed light to glow in and light up the structure. The walls had drawings on them, the illustrations making them stop right in their tracks.

"This isn't right... They said no one has lived here in years," Mercy mumbled as she looked from one wall to the other. The drawings looked a lot like the ones they had seen on television and in magazines in Europe and other places with rock drawings inside caves.

"Maybe they lived here during the time the Sahara was greener and grazed their animals on these lands," Richard whispered as they walked along the cave. From the centrally large room, there were five other openings out of it. The teams had to divide and pair up to proceed ahead.

"Walkie talkies work?"

"Testing one two."

Richard and Mercy looked at me, so I shrugged my shoulders, making them all burst out laughing. It was completely random, and as the Queen of Randomness, I just couldn't stop bursting out moves out of the blue.

"Carter and I will go this way then," I told everyone and we parted. He had a torch, so did I, and we started walking in a winding path that went at an incline of some sort. The wide path steadily became narrower as we progressed upwards, until eventually, we were crawling on our hands and knees.

We made it quite far in the dark until we got to the light at the end of the tunnel. We both proceeded ahead, slowly, the narrower path becoming much wider again, to the point that we could stand.

Light flooded up ahead, and we finally made it to the point where we could stand side by side. The cave opening was big, and we looked down and saw a drop of over ten feet downwards.

"Roger, Gazelle to Lion, we made it to the end," Carter said and listened to the crackling as he repeated the message. "The exit is very wide, but with an approximate twenty foot drop of sorts, Roger."

"Roger we hear you loud and clear Gazelle. Are there any drawings on the walls roger?"

"None roger."

"Roger where does the cave open to?"

"The South roger."

"Good job. Head back now carefully, roger."

"Thank you lion, roger and out."

Carter directed me to head back slowly. The radio crackled to life again as other teams reported their findings. We seemed to have had the highest sort of elevation, and slowly proceeded downwards to the starting point.

Carter and I stayed silent for the entire walk, while the walkie talkie came alive a number of times. We made it back after the first team that walked into a dead end.