When a dozen Thai boys and their football coach were trapped by rising water in a series of caves I heard on the news that they would have to be taught to die.
This philosophic stoicism made me want to explore becoming a Buddhist until Robert pointed out that they would be taught to dive. The whole episode reminded me of an incident in Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain’s 1876 novel set on the banks of the Mississippi. I have a tattered Puffin paperback published in 1950.
There is a school outing to McDougal’s Caves and, like Pinic at Hanging Rock, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher get separated from the rest of the party. They are lost in the caves for three days and three nights before Tom discovers an opening they escape through – five miles from the entrance. The villain of the piece, Injun Joe, is also hiding out in the caves but is not so lucky. When Tom and Becky return from their ordeal the mouth of the cave is sealed and IJ is later discovered dead within.
The Thai boys were not found for nine days and were rescued after another six days. A case of truth being stranger than fiction as Mark Twain acknowledged: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t”.