by Joan Aiken
But her shout came echoing back from the high chalky dome overhead. It did not seem as if the sound would pass through the heavy, wooden trap cover. Or as if anybody intended to take the slightest notice.
Thoughts began whizzing back and forth between Is and Arun like bees darting among clover blossoms.
“D’you reckon it was the Admiral that had us shut in down here?”
“But why? Why would he do that?”
“Cos he wanted to get hold of those pictures?”
“But they are down here in the cave with us.”
“Could it have been someone else shut us in? Not the Admiral?”
“But who?”
“One of the gardeners? One of the neighbours from Frog-Hole Lane?”
“Why?”
“Something to do with the Merry Gentry? And Mum’s pictures of them?”
“But those ones aren’t here.”
“The person might not know that.”
“What d’you reckon they plan to happen to us?”
“Starve to death? I daresay you could, down here.”
“It would take quite a while, though. And they won’t be able to get hold of the pictures, all the while we’re live lumber down here . . .”
“Maybe they plan to finish us off somehow.”
The thought was a disagreeable one.
“Well, let’s see if we can’t get outa this place. Maybe there’s another entrance.”
“Not much use to us if it’s high overhead, like the way we came in.”
Arun, now that he had a real problem to tackle, became much more sensible and alert than he had been while brooding over his Mum’s mysterious actions. And, usefully, left over from those days when he had believed he was a cat, he had eyes that could see in the dark much better than most people’s. They even glowed a little when the pupils were expanded, as cats’ eyes do, so that Is could see where he was standing. She, too, from months spent working in the northern coal-mines, was not much scared at being shut into this underground place, though very annoyed about it.
“They took us for right gull-finches.”
“Well, and so we were,” said Arun. “One of us shoulda stayed up top. Come on then; no sense in hanging about. You follow after me. Somewhere along that way I think I can hear water running. But don’t make a row. For all we know, we ain’t the only ones in this place.”
“No – that’s so. Ain’t it a maze, though,” said Is, quietly following behind him. And, to herself, she thought, I just hope there ain’t any spider-kin of the Admiral’s Rosamund down here.
The notion of outsize spiders scuttling along the chalky passages was a very disagreeable one.
But Arun picked up her thought and said comfortingly, “Spiders wouldn’t thrive down here.”
“Why not?”
“No flies.”
“Reckon you’re right,” agreed Is, much relieved. “Can you still hear water?”
“A long way off. Anyway, so long as we go downhill, we ought to find it.”
They walked and walked.
Is had the depressing thought that, if they went on going down, they might end up under the sea-bed. But Arun, catching this, said, “No, but we are heading north, not towards the sea.”
Is knew that his sense of direction, like his hearing, was better than her own.
“It ain’t half a plaguey long way, though,” she sighed, after an hour or so. “We must have walked two-three miles by now – much farther than from Cold Shoulder to the Admiral’s place. I wish we didn’t keep going down. We must be deep underground by now.”
“But remember,” said Arun, “where the Admiral lives is high up, on top of a chalky hill. By now, think on, we’ve just about got down to ground level.”
“Arun, you can be a right sensible chap when you try. But where’s this water of yours?”
“Not far ahead. I can still hear it.”
His ears were as keen as a bat’s. And, sure enough, in a few minutes, they came out into a larger tunnel. Is could feel a faint freshness in the air. Quite soon Arun, with a grunt of satisfaction, stooped and said, “Here’s the stream.”
It ran out of the wall on their left and trickled along, in a little stony channel, just an inch or two lower than the floor of the cave.
“Good water,” said Is, tasting it in cupped hands. “I wasn’t half thirsty.”
The water, filtered by a whole hill of chalk above, was pure and tasteless and very cold.
“It ain’t so dark now,” said Arun, peering forward.
But soon they were brought to a halt by a mysterious obstruction in the passage.
It was quite high – higher than either of them – and smooth. And curved.
“Feels for all the world like a thundering great earthenware crock,” said Arun, tapping it first with a knuckle, then with a fingernail. “Smooth and round.”
Is, rubbing with her palms, agreed. “Feels like one o’ them big pots the Admiral has in his garden with rosebushes and daffydowndillies in. But this is a whole lot bigger. And who in mussy’s name ‘ud want to stick a big flowerpot down in a cave?”
Arun had a try at squeezing between the great obstacle and the cave wall, but nearly got himself jammed, and had to wriggle back again.
“No good,” he gasped.
“Maybe I could get through,” Is suggested. “I’m smaller.”
“Don’t try. If you got stuck, we’d be done for. We’ve gotta go over the top, I reckon.”
“But how?”
“I’ll hoist you up, you take a look and see if there’s a way.”
“All ruggy; give us a boost.”
Is was small and light. Arun had no trouble in raising her up so that she could grab the rim of the mysterious tun, vat, firkin, or whatever it might be, and pull herself up.
There was a squeak and a clank, as she balanced on the edge and then tumbled forward on top of whatever was contained inside.
“Good strange! It’s crammed full – all piled up with clobber! Right to the top.”
More metallic sounds, thumps and clanks and clinks.
“What’s in there, then?” he called.
“Blamed if I know! It’s hard, whatever it is.”
“Can you crawl over it?”
“The roofs mighty close. Just a minute.”
Her voice came from farther off. “Oh, blimey, Arun, there’s another of ’em, on beyond; another big crock full of stuff. But, yes, I reckon there’s jist enough space to wriggle over. Anyway, you come up too . . . wait’ll I give you a hoist.”
She swivelled round on her stomach, lying on the hard, lumpy, and mixed contents of the great round cistern, leaned down, and grabbed Arun’s wrists. She yanked hard, and he came up with a jerk and a scrabble, rolling in beside her.
“Ouch! Yike! I got stuck on a spike. What the plague is all this gubbage?”
“Blest if I know. Somebody musta set store by it. They musta stashed it away here . . .”
Is was now squirming her way over the second of the great pots.
“There’s three on ’em, all cram-full of loot. Boxes and bags and jars – mint sauce in some, I reckon; they clink – plates, – cups, – dangly things . . . hey, Arun! D’you reckon all this stuff is swag that’s been stowed in here by the Merry Gentry?”
By now they were resting their chins against the rim of the third and last vat and peering down into the darkness beyond it.
“No,” decided Arun, feeling around with cautious exploratory fingers. “The stuff in here has been lying in this place a lot longer than that – a real long time. Feel how thick the dust is on it. These things have been here for years and years. I got a fistful of pennies – or shillings – all coated in dust and lime. These things were here before ever the Gentry started up.”
Is groped likewise. “Forks, candlesticks – I found something feels like a string o’ beads . . .”
Arun rolled over, grasped the rim with both hands, wriggled, and dropped. Is, following, landed
on soft crumbling earth and stones. There was a little more light on this side of the vats. She peered at the chain of beads or stones that she had taken. “Looks like sparklers. Hah! Jist what I need, I don’t think.” She was about to toss the necklace scornfully back where it came from; then, on second thoughts, tucked it into her pocket. Maybe it might come in handy. And she had taken a few coins as well . . .
“Confound it. This is not good,” said Arun, groping ahead. “I reckon we found the reason why the fellers never came back to pick up the loot they stowed away. Or,” he added after a moment, “maybe they did come, and ran into trouble—”
“What’s amiss?”
“There’s been a cave-in ahead of us, can’t you feel? Blocked the passage-way.”
There was a gravelly rustle, as a small landslide of earth and stones came cascading towards them down the steep slope ahead. Is coughed and choked on the dust that it brought.
“Still, there is a bit of light along there, over the top; maybe we can scrape away enough of the piled-up grit so as to wriggle over the heap—”
So they lay side by side on their stomachs, carefully scooping and scraping and digging with their hands, and then pushing the soil that they had loosened back behind them. It was a most unpleasant exercise, for dust from the slope below and from the roof above nearly stifled them, and their hands soon became very sore indeed.
“Fingers like ribbons,” croaked Is. “And my mouth’s full o’ sand.”
“Don’t raise your head – the roof comes down at a touch.”
Indeed there was one dreadful moment when a whole loose section of roof came thundering down on Arun and buried him under a pile of heavy crumbly earth and stones.
“Arun!” implored Is in terrified thought. “Arun, where are you?”
She began to wriggle towards him and started another landfall.
“Don’t fret, I’m here!” his thought came back, and in a moment he pushed his head out of the rubble. “Thought I’d pegged it, did you? Sure was a near thing—” He spat out grit and powder. “Just keep on creeping along. But real cautious and slow.”
“This place is a right queer-den. Blame that old Admiral.”
Arun chuckled. “I’ll lay he’d like to know about what’s stashed down here!”
“That’s so,” Is agreed thoughtfully. “He’d go numbjumbous. And he can’t know, or he’d have had it up in his house long ago.”
They crept and scraped, and scraped and crept, for what seemed like two or three hours, and might have been at least one, until finally the whole mass of loose rubble under them began to slope downhill. Then they were able to rise up on hands and knees, and finally, staggering a little, to stand upright.
“Joseph!” said Arun. “That was a rat-hole! I just hope we don’t find we’ve got to turn round and go back that way.”
“Don’t!” shivered Is, rubbing her scraped hands on her torn breeches. “I wonder where the brook’s got to?”
“Buried under the landslip, I guess.”
Arun did not add his guess that there might also be human bones buried under that massive pile of earth and rock; bones of the people who had hidden those three huge pots in the cave, years ago, and then, returning to fetch them, had started the collapse of the tunnel roof and never come out again.
“Seems to me there was a tale somebody told me, about a treasure belonging to King Charles and Queen Henrietta that got sunk in a ship off the Goodwins . . .”
“I see,” said Is. “And then you think somebody came across that wreck, when there was a low tide—?”
“It happens now and again,” agreed Arun. “You can see the Sands, when the tide’s extra low; folk go out and race horses or play cricket on them.”
“Rummy thing to do . . . And someone came out one time and found the loot and stashed it away in those great crocks. They’d need ox wagons to shift it all; more than the Admiral’s trolley—” said Is, chuckling a little despite her sore hands, aching back, and scraped knees. “Hark – there’s the brook again.”
There it was, bubbling out of a lumpy hummock in the floor. Is and Arun were immensely glad to rinse their hands and their parched throats.
By now the dark of the cave had paled to a grey twilight, in which they could follow the windings of the tunnel easily enough.
“I can see a real glim along there,” said Is. “Reckon it’s coming up to morning time. We put in a whole night in the cave.”
“When we come out,” said Arun, “we’d better do it real careful and slow.”
“You’re not just whistling psalms! For all we know, we might pop up in some cove’s kitchen garden.”
“All the people round here are so unfriendly—”
“Well, you can’t hardly blame them,” said Is, “with the Merry Gentry putting the squeeze on ordinary decent folk, and your Dad’s Silent Sect keeping their dubbers mum in that spooky way, no help to anybody, and thinking themselves better than their neighbours—”
“Hush!”
The tunnel had narrowed to a sandy crevice, then to a gully, down the sides of which hung brambles, gorse, and hawthorn bushes. There was sky overhead. The light was misty and grey; plainly it was still very early morning, before sunrise probably. A bird or two twittered; they could hear a lark spiralling away.
Treading as softly as they could, taking the greatest possible care not to shift a pebble or snap a twig, Is and Arun crept along the gully and then, where there came a gap in the bramble thicket, peered forward.
What they saw was so unexpected that both simultaneously sucked in their breath; Is grabbed Arun’s wrist and pulled him back.
“All right, keep calm! I can see it, too!” he soothed her, in thought language.
They were looking down a steep slope into what had once been a wide grassy valley. But now it contained a railway and some brand-new flint-and-stone station buildings. Embankment walls had been cut out of the dazzling white chalk, and shining new rail tracks curved away in both directions, east and west. At the eastern end of the valley, where the sky was now becoming bright with sunrise, the rails ran downhill into the round black mouth of a tunnel, and across this tunnel-mouth a metal gate, composed of a massive red-painted criss-cross grid, barred the way.
“Must be the new Channel Tunnel. I wonder how that gate is opened?”
“Done with a counterbalance, maybe. Remember how they got coal out of the mine?”
“Just look at that train!”
“Never mind the train, see what those fellows are doing!”
The train – not meant for passengers, a series of goods wagons all painted a silvery grey – stood in the station, its engine gently steaming. The train’s peaceful stillness contrasted with the frantic, antlike activity of the men around it, who were unloading bundles and boxes from the goods wagons and transferring them to the backs of a train of baggage-ponies who stood alongside the track. The heads and eyes of the ponies were bandaged; and the twenty or so men unloading all wore black hoods with eye-slits. One of them, over his hood, wore a white hat. He was somewhat shorter than the rest of the troop, and seemed to be directing the operation, which was performed with great skill and speed.
Is and Arun had no need to put into words the thought that filled both their minds. These must be the Merry Gentry unloading a batch of goods that had never paid customs duty.
Mammoths’ tusks, maybe, thought Is.
The job was nearly done; most of the ponies were loaded up already and most of the wagons were empty. The first of the cavalcade started away westwards, going at a quiet trot. Their hoofs were wrapped in sacking. They must be later than they oughta be, thought Is. They should have done all this while it was still dark, surely? They are taking a big risk. They’ll have to make for the woods.
Two or three men were busy about the tunnel gate, setting in motion a great wheel, worked by levers. The wheel turned, the gate began to rise. Half a dozen wolves darted out and fled away into a patch of woodland which still remained
on the valley’s north slope. Nobody paid them any heed.
I guess they dassn’t shoot the wolves, thought Is, because of the noise.
The train let out a faint sigh, like a person waking from sleep, and began to glide downhill towards the tunnel-mouth.
Suddenly there came an interruption. A thin, wild-looking man ran, shouting and waving his arms, slantways down the valley side towards the station, coming from the direction of Folkestone town.
“Where’s my boy!” he shouted furiously. “Devils! Devils! What did you do with my son? Where is he? Give him back!”
He made straight for the man in the white hat, who took half a dozen quick steps towards him. There was a lightning-swift flash – a gleam in the rays of the rising sun – and the shouting man was suddenly huddled on the grass, motionless. Two of the black-hooded men picked him up, carelessly, as if he had been a bale of cloth, and tossed him into one of the open goods wagons, now sliding past at gathering speed. The train passed completely into the tunnel.
The red-mesh gate dropped down again, with a slight creak.
All the unloading party were by this time in motion, mounted on their ponies; the man who had worked the gate ran to a pony tethered nearby, bestrode it, and followed the others; in five minutes the whole valley lay deserted and silent, except for the song of larks in the mist overhead. And a small dark patch on the ground.
“Mercy!” breathed Is. “Arun! That poor devil of a man! D’you think he was dead?”
“Yes I do,” said Arun. “That fellow in the white hat ran him through with a shiv as long as a poker.”
“We’d best get away from here,” shivered Is, “while there’s no one about. This ain’t no healthy spot to loiter. You’d think, though, there’d be a station-master, or a tunnel warden, some cove in charge down there.”
“Probably paid good money to keep away. Yes, let’s scarper.”
They crawled back through the bramble-brake (getting more scratches in the process) and emerged from it over the ridge and out of view of the valley. On the right, now, they had a glimpse of the sea, a silver gleam in the early light; then a thick white fog came down, blotting everything from view.
“Lucky for us,” Arun remarked.
