not the first person to come down here. The inscription was old, however, perhaps scratched there by a foolish prisoner attempting to escape. I need not fear discovery.
Five minutes later I was beneath another grating. The stains beneath this one, however, were from a different bodily fluid to that which I had crawled through. These blotches were the darker brown-black left by blood. A faint sobbing emanated from the room above.
I pushed up on the grating. It did not move. I squirmed around and kicked it up into the air. It fell to the stone floor with a clatter. The voice above broke into a terrified, meaningless gibber. They had been right. The Professor would not last a minute against Der Schmerzbringer.
I clambered out of the hole. A grey-haired old man lay on a filthy campbed in a dark corner of the small cell, hands and feet tied to the frame. He stared at me, wild-eyed. I put my finger to my lips – sssh – and crossed to his side.
“Professor Cherry?” I asked. It would not do to save the wrong man from the torturer’s art.
“Yes, sir. Yes, I am. You’ve... you’ve come for me?” he gasped, the light of hope entering his weary, rheumy eyes as he gazed up at his saviour. I nodded.
“Indeed I have, Professor. We would never allow you to be tortured by the Nazi bastards.”
“You smell appallingly, young man,” he smiled, “yet I am overjoyed to see you.”
I took out my knife, and he looked up, pulling his scrawny right hand away from the metal framework so that I might easily cut his bonds. I placed the sharp edge of my blade against his neck just below the ear. With a swift movement, and a twist so that the neck muscles would not interfere, I sliced through his carotid artery. His blood splashed over my face. I twisted his head, ignoring the bewildered, pleading look in his eyes, and severed the artery on the other side. Blood fountained up the wall and drenched my hair. He gurgled, gasped, and fell into unconsciousness, his brain starved of oxygen. He would be dead within three minutes.
I turned to slide back down the hole in the floor. The precious British secret was safe.
Other books by Michael Wombat
Warren Peace – a rabbit tale.
Fog – an award-winning thriller.
Cubic Scats – a compendium of Northcentric nonsense.
Moth Girl versus The Bats – a steampunky adventure.
Soul of the Universe – a music-inspired anthology.
Cutthroats and Curses – a pirate anthology.
Blood on the Ground – a collection of short stories.
Tooth and Claw – a short dragon tale.
About the Author
A Yorkshireman living in the rural green hills of Lancashire, Michael Wombat is a man of huge beard. He has a penchant for good single-malts, inept football teams, big daft dogs and the diary of Mr. Samuel Pepys. Abducted by pirates at the age of twelve he quickly rose to captain the feared privateer ‘The Mrs. Nesbitt’ and terrorised the Skull Coast throughout his early twenties. Narrowly escaping the Revenue men by dressing as a burlesque dancer, he went on to work successively and successfully as a burlesque dancer, a forester, a busker, and a magic carpet salesman. The fact that he was once one of that forgotten company, the bus conductors, will immediately tell you that he is as old as the hills in which he lives.
Nowadays he spends his time writing and pretending to take good photographs. You can have a good laugh at his blog or his photographs, but most of all please go and mock him mercilessly on Twitter or Facebook. Michael Wombat has published over one book. Other authors are available.
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