I have been told more about caves

than I want to know in the last fortnight.
No, I didn't have to write a communication board this time - which is just as well because Thai is not a language I know a lot about even now. I have extreme difficulty with anything related to it. 
But people I know are peripherally involved in the immensely complex operation and several times I have been asked, "How would you say this in Plain English so that I can explain...?"
It has made me acutely aware yet again of how difficult it is to not just write instructions but to issue them even when you speak the same language as those you are instructing. When you are doing it in your second language or those you are instructing use English as a second language or foreign language - there's a difference between those two things - it can be very difficult indeed. When the lives of other people depend on being able to communicate accurately and rapidly then the sense of responsibility becomes immense.
I know I shouldn't feel responsible. I don't have to make the decisions. Those working on the problem have to make the decisions.
But, these are young people - all of them. What if I could have helped to explain something just a little better so that communication was just a little better, a little faster, a little more accurate? 
I won't be able to do anything about any of the diseases you can catch from being stuck in a damp cave - some of which might not show up for years. I understand that. I can't physically dive in and guide those young non-swimmers out through those narrow, rough passages filled with now filthy and freezing water.  I understand that.
But I still feel some sense of responsibility for them. One of the people who supplied some of the advice about the equipment they might now be using feels the same sense of responsibility. His, "Are they using the best available? What if it fails Cat? How will I feel?" wasn't selfish. It was just his enormous sense of responsibility for the life of any other human.
And I look at the faces of those parents waiting....and waiting... the hope mixed with the despair and the guilt. Each second is a year to them, each minute a life-time of waiting. And it won't be over even if they get everyone out safely...there is a lifetime of facing the experience for those who were trapped there, for those who have gone in to rescue them.
It's like that in other settings too - the sort that never make the news because they are in the middle of a war or a disaster. 
There are times when I hate my job because of those things - hate it while I know I couldn't do anything else.
Sarah Doudney had it right when she said, 
     "But the waiting time my brothers
       Is the hardest time of all."