by Giles Ekins
He got to his feet again, slowly rotated through 180 degrees and shuffled his way back to the altar. He carefully placed the nail into his jacket pocket and then felt about on the altar top for the candlesticks. There were two of them, some twelve inches high with a wide base – cast from heavy metal – probably brass – and then turned on a lathe to the finished profile. He removed the candles, putting these also into his pockets, not quite what he could use them for when he couldn’t ignite them, he didn’t know but it would do no harm to have them with him.
Taking up one of the candlesticks, Collingwood slowly made his way back to the hanging cross, feeling more confident about the correlation between crucifix and altar. His fingers lightly traced across the face of the dead girl, – forgive me – before he found his way down her arm to her hand and hard driven spike. Using the candlestick as a hammer, he quickly loosened the nail and was able to pocket it without mishap.
Back to the altar. He made one last search about the altar and for one fleeting moment thought about trying to eat one of the chicken carcasses – but his stomach so revolted at the thought he quickly passed the idea over.
With both candlesticks in hand and nails in his pocket, Collingwood made a sure way back to the arched, bricked up, doorway. He knelt down by the rat-hole to reassure himself that he had not deceived himself that there might be a sewer beyond. As he did so, a distant tremor of sound came to his ears through the tiny opening – the dying vestige of a boat’s siren? Which meant the river must be nearby – or else the distant screech of a foraging rat? He pressed closed to the wall, his ear hard to cold stone. As he did there was sudden scrabbling and a rat wriggled its sleek way through the crack and scurried past his nose, he could smell the beast, rank and acrid, redolent with sewer gas and rotting detritus. He started back, crushed by the thought that the sound he had heard might only have been this rat rather than a river call.
He felt tired and head -achy and lay down upon the cold floor, immensely depressed, his raging thirst an agony, convinced he would die where he lay. He wallowed in self-pity, ready to surrender to gloom and despair.
‘Don’t give up now, Guv. Give it a whirl. You gotta give it a go for sake of Lucy. Don’t let the jibblies get to you, Guv.’
‘Gimlet?’ Collingwood called. ‘Gimlet, are you there?’ his words rebounding about the crypt in diminishing echoes. No, of course Gimlet was not there, he was dead, his broken sorely pierced body lying across the other side of the cellar, impaled on cruel spikes. But he had heard something–or was it fevered imagination – the onset of madness and delirium? No matter, it– whatever it had been – awoke him from his self-piteous torpor. He carefully took out the long, blood sleeked spikes and laid them on the floor beside the candlesticks. Also the candles, making sure they did not roll away; he now had some idea that they could lubricate the nails as he worked at the mortar beds. He removed his jacket and waistcoat and after using a nail as an awl to punch holes in the cloth, he tore out the lining of the waistcoat. He would use the resultant rags to wrap around the nails or bind about his hands in protection.
He stood up and placed himself central in the archway. The weakest part of the wall must be its centre point, especially as the new stonework, used to block up the opening, had not been bonded into the existing stone courses but simply butted up to the side of the archway. Finding the joint closest to the horizontal and vertical midway point, he worked the point of a nail into the mortar, feeling it crumble about his fingers as he did so. Methodically he scraped the mortar out from the seams between the stones, using a candlestick like a hammer to drive in the nails. Despite the cloth protection, his hands soon became raw, swollen and bleeding, dust rose in choking clouds to further clog at his raw burning throat. He tore more lining, this time from his jacket and tied it across his nose and mouth, but still the talcum powder fine dust sucked into his gorge at every rasping breath.
Scrape away at the mortar, hammer in the nail – not too deep in case he could not extract it again – scrape again, hammer – scrape – hammer – scrape, scrape, scrape. Hammer once more. Scrape, scrape, working the point of the nails into the mortar, his hands bloody and raw, blood sticky on the blunting nails. He rested at intervals, perhaps he dozed from exhaustion, but all the time, driving him on through the agony was the thought that here – only here – was the way of escape.
Collingwood emptied his bladder, having left it as long as he could before doing so, reluctant to lose bodily fluid, he must already be severely dehydrated, and losing fluid through heavy perspiration, fluid that could not be replaced. As he urinated, he formed a cup with his hands and scooped hot pungent urine into his mouth, forcing himself to swallow. He gagged ferociously at the smell and taste, but the liquid stayed down, but the taste in his mouth was vile. The hot stench of urine, together with that of his excrement when later he voided his bowels clung to his nostrils like a noxious cloth pressed to his face. He could only clean himself with rags torn from his clothes and he felt befouled.
At last, Collingwood slumped exhausted to the stone floor, a thick carpet of mortar dust beneath him. He had excavated mortar – to a depth of five inches – from a panel of stonework three feet wide and four feet in height. How long it had taken him Collingwood could not even begin to estimate. Hours and hours, that was certain.
The wall must be weakened by now. It had to be! The only problem being that he did not know how thick the wall was. For all he knew the stonework could be eleven inches thick with another six inches of mortar remaining. In which case he would die where he was.
He slept, wakening with a start, disorientated. He had been dreaming. In his dream he floated high over green fields and forests, sparkling streams of rivers that reflected silver in the warm sunlight, he slowly swooped down, skimming over the tops of the trees before soaring high into the pale azure of the sky, the bright sunlight hot against his face. Higher he rose, like Icarus, ever closer to the sun. Burning him now, the heat searing at his flesh. He holds up his hands to protect his face and eyes from the fierce fiery heat, his hands now burn, charring black before his eyes, the pain so intense he had to cry out in anguish.
That was when he awoke, his hands inflamed and bloody, flesh ripped raw from his fingertips, nails split and torn.
Cold, the chill from the stone floor eating into his wearied bones. Stiff and groaning Collingwood got to his feet, hobbling with cramps in his calves.
He needs to urinate again, but only a thin trickle emerged. He does not try to drink it this time.
He faces the wall, feeling once again the deep striations he had gouged into the mortar. How weak was the wall? How weak was the wall? He hammered on the stonework again, convincing himself that it sounded hollow beyond. He hammered on the wall alongside the archway, certainly the noise of the hammer blows here sounded deeper, less resonant. But was he fooling himself?
Gathering all his strength, Collingwood faced the wall and placed the sole of his boot against the centre section of the excavated panel, mentally picturing his aiming point. He leaned back and kicked flat-footed at the wall, punching the sole and heel of the shoe onto the wall in the same manner that, as a young police constable, he had kicked in the locked and barred doors of criminal dens. The shock of the kick reverberated up his lower leg and thigh and he winced again at the sudden sharp pain in his shin. He took a step further back and launched another fierce kick. And another. And another, a relentless barrage that sent shooting pains jarring through from his shin to his spine. Still he kicked on, reluctant to stop even though he was close to the end of his strength. Once he stopped, he might never find the energy to re-commence. Sweat streamed once more into his eyes, stinging them harshly with salt. He blinked away tears, wiping his head with the back of his hand before continuing the assault on the wall.
As far as he had been able, all his kicks had been aimed at the same spot. Another kick and he felt the slightest of movements in the stone. Or had he imagined it, blind hope raising fantasi
es of success? He felt at the surface of the wall, running his swollen hands across the face of the stones. Here, this stone, it had moved, he could feel a ridge, fingernail thick, where the stone butted against its neighbour. He kicked again with renewed vigour, kick after kick after kick, barely stopping to draw breath between each blow. Sometimes he shoulder charged the wall, driving his weight full force onto the stones, his shoulders soon becoming bruised and agonised, even after he had put his jacket back on again and wrapped his torn waistcoat across his shoulder as padding.
He checked the surface of the wall again, the ridge was definitely greater and it seemed to him as if the entire wall were buckling inwards. He picked up the candlestick and hammered at the sliding stone, driving the flat base of the heavy candlestick hard at the centre of the stone, after every few blows checking to see if it moved any more. At first, it seemed not to move at all; then suddenly it slid away inwards by about half an inch. Each successive blow drove it further in, until the stone was too deep to hit with any momentum. Then Collingwood used one candlestick to hit the other, as if driving a nail into the wall.
Abruptly the loosened stone fell away. A rush of foul air burst into the crypt, ruffling at his hair like a March morning breeze. He peered urgently through the gap, but the blackness beyond was as impenetrable as that within the cellar and he felt a huge surge of disappointment run through him, all this effort for nothing, as if he had expected to see the river and the embankment immediately there. He slumped against the wall, so utterly weary and sore he felt as if he could do no more. Sinistrari had defeated him at last. Just lie down and die.
Colours swirled before his fevered eyes, vivid orange and yellows bursts of flame seared across his retina, and he felt himself spinning into oblivion, as though he were about to pass out. He jerked back, and shakily rose to his feet once by, his feet so badly bruised from the pounding kicks into the wall it felt as though he were walking on hot coals or heating nails.
Whimpering with each step, Collingwood approached the wall and felt around the hole he had created, trying to determine how loose the remaining stonework was, but his hands were now so bruised and bloody he could obtain no real purchase on the blocks. He stood back, lowered his shoulder and charged the wall, crashing his right shoulder hard into the stones of the excavated panel. Wincing with the pain, he shoulder charged again and felt the wall buckle inwards from the blow. The third charge further buckled the wall whilst the next brought it down, tumbling away from him into the void beyond. Collingwood’s momentum carried him through the collapsing wall to crash heavily onto the sharp edged jumbled stones Peaked corners and edges dug into his hands and knees where he landed, a falling block landed right on the point of his ankle and he screamed aloud at the sudden barrage of agonies into his battered weary limbs. Winded and bruised he crawled further on until he was finally clear, beyond the crypt. However, before he went too far, he turned and crawled back into the crypt, searching out the candlesticks and nails, who knew whether he might need them, securing them in his pockets before crawling out across the fallen blocks of stone back into the passage beyond the dungeon.
The blackness here was as intense as that within the crypt and he had no means of knowing what lay before him, he could stagger blindly onwards and fall headlong into a pit or sewer without warning. But to turn back was agonising death. Slowly Collingwood got to his feet, flinching with the sudden pains and aches that ravaged him. He held out both arms from his body, to his right touched a stone wall, to his left – nothing. He shuffled to his left and almost immediately made contact with stonework to that side also. Reaching up he found the roof to be vaulted – he was in an arched passage, about six feet wide and eight feet in height. The floor beneath his feet comprised brick pavers and it seemed to him that the passage sloped very slightly downwards.
Keeping close to the right hand wall Collingwood crept slowly forwards, ever mindful that the ground beneath might suddenly drop away. The stench of sewage grew stronger, the tunnel he was in was not a sewer itself, but perhaps a sewer line had been connected to it at a later date. The tunnel obviously led to and from the crypt, perhaps for clandestine passage to and from the river. The passage turned to the left, still sloping downwards. Then he came to the source of the sewage stench. A twelve inch sewer pipe flowed into the passage from the right and Collingwood found himself wading through a morass of stinking sewage, the stench making his head swim – but even so – he felt encouraged. The presence of the sewer line almost certainly meant the tunnel led to the river. Although most of the City of London’s old sewers no longer discharged directly into the Thames1, there were a few old lines not connected to the main intercepting sewers and that still discharged their foul cargo into the river. Often the outfall was below the water line and so virtually undetectable. Collingwood surmised that although the tunnel was not a sewer, at some in the past, a sewer line had been connected to the tunnel precisely because it led to the river.
A trilling scurry of rats flowed past his feet like a tidal flow and he cringed against the slimy wall until they had passed. The passage continued to turn to the left. The stream of sewage slowed, as if it had run its course. Bitterly cold, Collingwood crept on, his head reeling from tiredness and dehydration.
He stumbled over something soft and foul, he reached down to feel his way around it, his hands sank into rotting flesh and fur and he started away with a gasp of horror, scurrying past the rotting dead dog – or at least he hoped it was only a dog – as quickly as he could. Feasting rats hissed him on his way.
The softening of the darkness was so gradual that at first Collingwood did not realise it, not that he could see anything, or that the blackness was not complete – it was rather as if the darkness were less intense, less palpable. A shift from total impenetrable darkness; it was a subtle transformation from darkness so complete that it was almost tangible to a darkness that meant only the absence of light. From total and utter darkness to simple blackness.
Blackness seeped slowly into charcoal grey, a thin worm of diminution of intensity of dark. Then, slowly, he was able to see the black outline of the tunnel profile against a lighter grey. Individual stones became apparent. He could see the outline of his hands before him. See his feet. The tunnel took on substance. Pale grey light oozed along the damp stonework. Another mob of rats scuttle away from him, their thin squeaks ringing in his ears and Collingwood was grateful that he had been unable to see just how large the beasts were when he had been in closer communion with them. In the far distance he heard the raucous shriek of seagulls – mewling like lost spirits on the wind – and his pulses quickened, the river must be close.
Another slow bend in the tunnel. Grey scummy water sloshed at his feet, deepening with every pace he took. The bend straightened out. The tunnel had come to an end, three quarters submerged in the waters of the river into which it discharged. Fitful grey light daylight crept through a half moon of opening, only the topmost section of the arch was above the water level. Dirty tidemarks and drying scum on the stonework of the tunnel walls told him that the tidal waters rose much higher, that high tide would almost completely submerge the entrance to the tunnel.
The surface of the waters that sloshed about the tunnel entrance was overlaid with a pungent scum, a slime of indefinable origin. Collingwood parted the scum and scooped up a handful of the grey river-waters and pressed it to his face, moistening his lips, desperately fighting the urge to take more than a sip or two. He dared not take more than half a mouthful, just enough to ease the raging fire in his throat, Lord knew what foul infectious organisms swam unfettered in the fetid black water, tainted and polluted from sewage and rat droppings. The thin sips of water were fouler even than the urine that he had drunk earlier, but the finest champagne never tasted better.
He surged forward, the deepening waters bitterly cold to his already gelid flesh, but he bore the cold no mind, he was free. Then suddenly he stopped a heavy crush of failure seizing his chest – the entra
nce to the tunnel was barred. Five feet back from where the mouth of the tunnel entered the river, he could now clearly see the vertical bars of a wrought iron grille, like the bars of a cage.
He sank back in despair against the slime-encrusted wall, waist deep in the grey waters that lapped up around him in a surge of wash. To have come so far; to suffer for so long only to be thwarted at his moment of triumph, he held his head in his hands, ready to weep in despondency. Shivering violently he started to retreat up the tunnel – before rational thought once again took over from defeatism. At least investigate the grille before giving up; it might be loose. It might be a hinged gate, easy to open – it may only extend a foot or so below the water line. At least TRY!
Collingwood waded back again and when the water reached above his waist, he plunged forwards and stiffly swam to the grating, hanging onto the bars like the monkeys he had once seen on a visit to Regents Park Zoological Gardens with Lucy when she was a child. How she had loved to watch those monkeys as they had swung and frolicked along the bars and ropes and climbing frames within the confines of their cage. Even though the sight of a pair of them copulating had raised some awkward questions, questions that he had been unable to answer satisfactorily.
Lucy! The thought of Lucy and her peril jolted his senses, prompting him to action. Reaching down with his feet, he found that the grille extended well below the water level, exactly how far down he could not yet ascertain. The grille was composed of one inch diameter vertical bars, set six inches apart, passing through and welded into three flat horizontal bars. Cast from wrought iron, thgrille had once been painted black but the paint now crumbled away in rusting flakes under his fingers. Heavy bolts secured the grille to the side walls. No matter how hard he rattled and pulled at the bars, they remained securely and solidly fixed.
