Pestilence

by Ken McClure

  “Can you get down?”

  “I think so,” replied Saracen. “It must have been easier for the boy but here goes.” He manoeuvred backwards through the opening and lowered himself into the darkness, taking most of the strain on his arms as his feet searched for toe holds. He found two on the way down and let out a sigh of relief as his feet touched the floor of the passage. He could feel the cold and damp of the atmosphere permeate his protective suiting as he looked up to see the circle of light blotted out by Claire as she put her head into the opening.

  “To your left,” Saracen advised her as he saw Claire’s foot seek out a hold.

  “Got it.” Claire lowered herself gingerly and stood beside Saracen. She reached out her arms and could touch both walls. “Not much room,” she said.

  MacQuillan joined them and they set off along the passage in single file with Saracen leading. “I don’t remember anything like this in the plans,” he said as the passage stretched beyond thirty metres. No one replied. “Any suggestions?” he asked as they passed fifty metres.

  “It’s beginning to make sense,” said Claire behind him.

  “Glad to hear it,” said Saracen dryly.

  “I think this is an escape tunnel.”

  “For whom?”

  “For the Brothers of the abbey.”

  “Why?”

  “These were troubled times when violence was a way of life. Many castles, palaces, monasteries were built with secret escape tunnels that would not be marked on any plan.”

  “That would explain why it’s so long,” said Saracen.

  “And why it’s so narrow,” added MacQuillan. “If its only function was as a means of escape.”

  Saracen reckoned that they had covered the best part of a hundred metres when the passage suddenly widened out into a circular chamber, closed off on the far side by an iron grilled gate. Tugging at the bars failed to budge it. Saracen shone the torch all round the edge but found no lock. Subsidence of the ground above them had driven the bars into the floor. He froze as a dark shape flitted quickly in and out of the torch beam. He heard Claire’s sharp intake of breath. “Was that what I thought it was?” she asked.

  “‘Fraid so,” said Saracen.

  “Over here,” said MacQuillan. Claire and Saracen joined him and saw that he was holding a crucifix in his hand. “I found it on the shelf here,” he said, running his torch beam along a stone lintel set in the wall.

  “Can I hold it?” said Claire quietly and MacQuillan handed it to her. She took it gently in her palms and whispered, “To think that this belonged to the monks of Skelmoris.”

  Saracen swept his torch beam around the floor of the chamber and paused as it picked out a red Coca Cola can. He picked it up and said, “Well, the monks never held this. I think we can be fairly certain that this was young Master Edwards’ treasure cave.”

  MacQuillan looked at the way the gate was jammed and said, “He couldn’t have got past here.”

  “Any idea what this chamber was for Claire?” Saracen asked.

  “Hiding,” replied Claire. “They would wait here for a while before deciding whether to go back or use the tunnel.”

  “And the gate would be the last line of defence in case the searchers found the entrance to the tunnel?”

  “I think so,” agreed Claire.

  “We are going to need help with the gate,” said MacQuillan and the others agreed. Saracen led the way back along the passage to seek the assistance of the military.

  While they were waiting for the soldiers to deal with the jammed gate Claire took the crucifix to the site office to record its details. Saracen and MacQuillan took a breather and sat with their backs against one of the Land Rovers. Saracen said, “I’ve been thinking. If plague has survived in the rats for more than six centuries the rats must obviously have some kind of immunity from it.”

  “That’s usually the case in sylvatic plague. Some animals are immune and others are not.”

  “Is it known why?”

  “No, but a healthy carrier state has been described in human beings too. A study carried out in Viet Nam showed that a number of people were carrying it in their naso-pharynx. What’s on your mind?”

  “If the immunity factor could be identified it might be possible to use it.”

  “But that kind of study could take years,” said MacQuillan.

  “It might take years to do it scientifically and describe the immune mechanism in detail but I was thinking in more practical terms.”

  “Go on.”

  “If we could get blood from an immune rat and have Porton compare it with the blood of a rat that had succumbed to the disease they might be able to spot the immunity factor without having to know what it was. If they could get enough of it we could use it to treat people.”

  MacQuillan thought for a moment before saying, “That, my friend is a bloody good idea.” He asked one of the soldiers to call up Beasdale on the radio. The soldier did so and handed him the handset.

  Saracen listened while MacQuillan told Beasdale of the new plan. He could not hear what Beasdale was saying but it was obvious that some kind of argument was developing.

  “Of course there can be no guarantee,” MacQuillan stormed. “But there is a real chance…No. I’m not stalling…Damn it man, listen to reason!” MacQuillan put down the handset and looked at the ground for a moment as if trying to compose himself before saying anything.

  “Well?” asked Saracen.

  “No extension to the time limit. We have forty six hours left.”

  “We’d best get started then,” said Saracen. He asked the soldier for pen and paper and made out a list. “We need these things as quickly as possible,” he said to the man and the soldier snapped to it.

  “What did you ask for,” asked MacQuillan.

  “Sterile glassware, anticoagulants, scalpels, specimen containers and rat traps.”

  The other three soldiers who had been down in the tunnel emerged and relayed their tools and equipment to the surface. “The gate’s open,” said the sergeant. “And we’ve left you better lighting.”

  Saracen thanked him and dropped down into the hole again.

  “One more thing sir,” said the sergeant. He handed Saracen a revolver and a box of shells. “Col Beasdale thought you’d better have this.”

  “I’ve never used one of these things in my life,” said Saracen. MacQuillan said the same. The soldier took back the gun and ran through the rudiments like a schoolboy reciting a poem, the words of which he hadn’t considered. “This is a Smith and Wesson 0.38 calibre, double action weapon. It requires a trigger pressure of…”

  Saracen listened politely and deduced what to squeeze and which end to point.

  As they prepared to re-enter the tunnel the soldier said, “Col Beasdale is arranging for a truck with the required chemicals to be on site within the hour sir.”

  Saracen gave a last thoughtful look across the site and said, “Don’t let any heavy vehicles cross the line of the tunnel will you? The roof might not take it.”

  “Very good sir.”

  “These are a vast improvement,” said Claire switching on one of the lamps that the soldiers had left for them. Saracen saw where the bars had been cut away from the bottom of the gate and pushed it gently back on its hinges to stand on the threshold. “Shall we continue?” he asked. The passage continued for some twenty metres before taking a turning to the left. Saracen was about to round the turn when he stopped in his tracks and said, “Can you hear something?”

  “What?”

  “A scuffling noise. There, it’s getting louder.”

  “Someone is coming up behind us,” said MacQuillan.

  Saracen let out the breath he had been holding and felt embarrassed at having let his imagination run away with him. “Dr Saracen?” said a voice from the blackness. “It’s Corporal Jackson sir. I’ve got the things you asked for.”

  “Only two?” exclaimed Saracen when he saw the rat traps.


  “All we could lay our hands on sir.”

  “We’ll need more.”

  “How many sir?”

  “As many as possible. The more traps we set the more chance we have of catching one in time.”

  “I’ll tell the sergeant sir.”

  MacQuillan said, “I’ll set one back by the gate where we saw one of the damned things.”

  “Mind your hands,” said Saracen as he gingerly handed him one of the primed and baited traps.

  “Surely you don’t plan to catch them individually?” said Claire while they waited for MacQuillan to come back.

  “I need some rat blood,” said Saracen. “I’ll explain later.” MacQuillan re-joined them and they continued in single file.

  The passage grew ever narrower until they felt that the cold, damp walls were closing in on them. Saracen stopped and said, “Now what?”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Claire.

  “We’ve come to a blank wall.”

  “This must be where the tunnel meets the abbey. Try pushing, pulling, sliding things.”

  Saracen’s hands moved over the stone without success. He was about to say so when he felt one of the stones move and his heart leapt as he pushed it and the wall opened up in front of them causing him to marvel momentarily at the hidden counter-weight mechanism. They stepped through into a long, low cellar with an arched roof.

  “Oh my God!” exclaimed Claire.

  Saracen wheeled round and saw the skeleton of a man caught in Claire’s torch beam. “And another,” said MacQuillan from further along.

  “And another and another,” said Saracen as he slowly walked the length of the cellar past fifteen skeletons lying parallel to each other and about a metre apart.

  “It’s a dormitory,” said Claire.

  “Not a dormitory,” said Saracen quietly. “An infirmary.”

  “God yes,” murmured MacQuillan. “We are looking at a medieval Ward Twenty.”

  Claire screamed as the black shadows of two rats scampered across the floor and disappeared again. She apologised. “Don’t,” said MacQuillan. “I feel the same way.”

  Saracen asked Claire if she could work out where they were in the abbey from her plans and she unfolded them and looked for a place to spread them out. She considered the floor briefly before remembering the rats and opted instead to lay them gently across two of the skeletons.

  “I think we are here,” she said, pointing to a rectangle near the foot of the paper. “That would mean that there should be a doorway over there.” She swung round her torch and saw what she wanted to see. “Yes, there it is. If we go through there we should come to a round chamber that we think was used as a wine cellar and after that there is a room off to the right where the treasures were kept.”

  “But that’s not what we are hear for,” Saracen reminded her on hearing the excitement in her voice. He turned to MacQuillan and said, “Do you think it is going to be possible to gas a place of this side from the outside?”

  “Doubtful,” said MacQuillan. “We can ask the army for advice but first we have to find the other exit and block it up and, of course, catch you a rat.”

  Saracen looked at his watch and saw that they had been in the tunnel for an hour. They moved into the next chamber and found, as Claire had predicted, that it was round. Claire moved to the right and Saracen and MacQuillan followed. They heard her gasp and then saw that she was holding a golden crucifix in her hand. “It’s the alter piece!” she exclaimed. “The alter piece of Skelmoris Abbey.”

  “And the candle sticks,” said MacQuillan delving into the chest from which Claire had taken the cross. “And communion goblets and…”

  “We don’t have time,” said Saracen.

  “But the Skelmoris Chalice must be here!” protested Claire. “We must look!”

  “There is no time,” insisted Saracen.

  Claire became angry. “What difference will a few minutes make?” she demanded.

  “There are some things you don’t understand,” said Saracen. “We have to hurry.”

  “No!” Claire exclaimed. “You go on if you must, catch your damned rat, seal up your exits but I am staying here and I am going to find the chalice!”

  Saracen could see that to argue was pointless and he had no wish to tell her what Beasdale had planned for the town. “Very well,” he said softly. “Perhaps you can tell us what to expect in the other cellars.”

  Claire opened up the plan again and ran through the presumed location and uses of the remaining chambers. Her voice was subdued with guilt but an overriding ambition maintained her resolve. When she had finished Saracen asked, “Have you any idea at all where the other exit might be?”

  Claire pointed to the plan and said, “The steps leading down from the abbey came out in this room. Perhaps they still give access to the world above.”

  “Could there be a second escape tunnel?”

  “It was not unknown for there to be two. One was often built as a decoy and accordingly was quite easy to find. It took the heat off the real one.”

  “Any thoughts?”

  “If there is a second one I would guess at somewhere along the North wall.”

  Saracen and MacQuillan moved off and left Claire on her own. They came to the room where Claire had said that the steps would be and shone their torches up at the ceiling. There was no longer any way up to the outside world. Instead worn treads rose into the ceiling to disappear into solid, unbroken earth. There was no way through, even for a rat.

  Saracen was examining a crumbling section of wall on the North side when he heard a sound. He stood up and listened, urging MacQuillan to do the same.

  “It’s someone calling,” said MacQuillan.

  “Someone screaming!” said Saracen. “It’s Claire!”

  They raced back through the cellars towards the chamber where they had left Claire looking for the chalice. As they approached the screams became louder but still seemed strangely muffled and by the time they had reached the room they had stopped altogether.

  “There!” said MacQuillan, swinging his torch round. They could see the lower half of Claire’s body protruding from a small opening in the back wall. “She’s stuck in the gap,” said MacQuillan.

  “She must have panicked and fainted,” said Saracen, trying to free Claire’s limp body but finding it stuck fast. There was a frantic scratching sound from the other side of the gap and both men started to make soothing sounds assuming that it was Claire clawing at the dirt in fear but then Saracen looked down at Claire’s motionless legs and a nightmare was born. If Claire was still unconscious…what was making the scraping sound?

  “Oh Jesus Christ Almighty,” said Saracen in a faltering whisper. His lungs went into a spasm of revulsion as he realised the awful truth. MacQuillan too had realised the significance of Claire’s lifeless legs and the scraping noise. “Rats,” he said as if afraid of the word.

  Saracen nodded. “She must have been trying to crawl through the gap and got herself stuck between the rats and freedom.”

  “Is she dead?” asked MacQuillan.

  “She’s dead.” replied Saracen who had been searching for a pulse.

  “Oh my God,” said MacQuillan mesmerised by horror.

  “The rats are still trapped inside,” said Saracen. “We’ll have to be careful when we pull her body out.”

  MacQuillan did not need the warning for his imagination had gone into overdrive. They pulled hard and moved Claire’s body back through the gap slowly and paused before the final tug. “Ready?” asked MacQuillan.

  Saracen nodded and they moved Claire’s body so that a gap between her shoulder and the roof of the gap appeared. As soon as it did a rat flew through the space and spread-eagled itself across Saracen’s face visor before scrambling down over his shoulder and off into the blackness. Saracen looked down and saw a rat still fastened to Claire’s face. He overcame a tide of nausea and swung his torch at the thing sending it flying across the room. Several
other rats joined in the exodus from the chamber and then there was silence.

  Saracen looked at Claire and had to swallow hard to contain the urge to vomit. He heard MacQuillan do the same. “God and she was so beautiful,” he whispered looking down at the featureless tissue. MacQuillan turned away.

  When they had both sufficiently recovered MacQuillan said, “You’ve got your rat.”

  Saracen followed MacQuillan’s torch beam and saw that it was resting on the rat that he had hit with his torch. It was lying in a bundle in the corner. MacQuillan fetched it and Saracen prepared his equipment. He opened the lids of several containers in readiness and then removed the guard from a scalpel blade as MacQuillan held up the animal to expose its throat. Saracen cut straight across it and collected the blood, filling one container after another until the animal was completely exsanguinated then MacQuillan tossed the carcase away.

  Saracen was packing the bottles into his bag when he heard MacQuillan say, “Good God, look at that!”

  Saracen saw MacQuillan reach through the gap where Claire had been trapped and remove something. He held it up and shone his torch on it. It was a gold chalice encrusted with rubies as big as birds’ eggs. “So that’s why she was trying to get in there,” said MacQuillan. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? It must be worth millions.”

  “Leave the damned thing,” said Saracen. “God knows how many people have died for it.”

  “Let’s not over-react,” whispered MacQuillan, examining the chalice from every angle. Surely you don’t believe that old curse nonsense.”

  “Let’s get this blood back. We’ll take Claire’s body with us.” said Saracen, arranging the body so that he could grip her arms. “You take her feet.”

  MacQuillan stuffed the chalice inside his protective suit and gripped Claire’s ankles. “Ready.”

  They had almost reached the iron gate when they heard footsteps coming towards them. It was the soldiers and they had brought more rat traps. Saracen thanked them but explained that they had managed to catch a healthy rat. He handed the blood samples to the sergeant, telling him to get them to Beasdale as fast as possible. “He knows where they have to go.”