by M. P. Wright
As I stuck my head further out to look at the next outcrop below, I was suddenly hit by a sharp blast of cool air. Rather than the wind dying away above me, the breeze became more intense and free flowing, its touch caressing my cheeks and brow. I grasped the flashlight tightly and stretched my arm down as far as I could: two further limestone outcrops stood out from the rock face to the right of us, again no more than three feet apart. As I brought the torch beam back up, the pencil-thin dying light caught something that was large and black, different from the white rock that was around us. I slowly drew the beam back up and, after searching in the darkness for a moment, picked out a large iron girder that appeared to rise up in front of the rock face. I turned to Truth, catching her dirt-coated face out with the torch’s beam, and stuck my arm out in front of her.
“Come on, let’s go find that water.”
The climb down to the next outcrop presented less of a challenge than the previous one. We took another short break then slowly descended to the third limestone plinth. The cool breeze became stronger and the iron girder work behind us had begun to reveal itself as part of an enormous conveyor belt. I could just make out rotting wooden tipping jetties hanging either side of two large decaying engine mountings that would originally have driven the stone along the length of the belt. My eyes, which were now growing more accustomed to the dark, looked down at the machinery. I followed the conveyor downwards towards the outline of a larger bank of stone that spread out in a long slope towards what looked to be the mine floor. Scaling down the limestone escarpment took another twenty minutes.
I carried Truth the rest of the way down the steep slope until my feet touched solid ground. I lifted her back onto her feet and shone the torch on the face of my watch. It was four thirty.
Our descent, although time-consuming, had not been as difficult as I had thought. The dark had given the impression that it was a greater drop to the bottom of the mine floor than it actually was. I took hold of Truth’s hand then followed the edge of the old conveyor belt along a wide, long tunnel that seemed to go on forever. The path alongside the mining machinery sank down into a dip before gradually rising upwards. Truth called out to me.
“Where are we, Joseph?”
“In some kinda mineshaft, I think.”
“I’m tired. Do you think we’re ever going to find our way out?”
I stopped in my tracks and bent down in front of her so that our faces were only inches apart. “Well, I ain’t plannin’ on spendin’ the rest of my days down here, child. How ’bout you?”
Truth unexpectedly giggled at me in the darkness. I reached down, picked the little girl up in my arms and began to slowly trudge further up the gradual incline of the mineshaft with no real idea where I was walking to.
I kept pushing on, unsure of how far I had actually walked. My head sunk low towards the ground and my feet ached inside my battered shoes, my gait unsteady as I strode forward. Truth became increasingly heavy in my arms. Each step started to become painful; splinters of muscular pain shot through my legs and thighs as I ploughed on into the unknown. I began to count each step I took, forcing myself to slog on along the path while I made a mental note of my footfall. My tongue felt like it was swelling in my mouth. Huge beads of sweat fell from my face, my clothing soaked in my own heavy perspiration. I became unsteady as I marched on, my elbow occasionally touching the side of the mine wall as I walked, and this contact my body made against the limestone rock became more frequent the further up the incline I walked. I lifted my head and looked up and could see that the walls either side where closing in around the conveyor belt, slowly pushing me against the wall as I walked. The ceiling above me became lower and the path began to thin inwards the further I climbed. My head sank again and I took another forty hard steps. I lifted my head once more and out of the corner of my eye caught my first glimpse of what I thought to be light.
Whatever it was started to glisten back at me like the illusion of water in a desert mirage; the thin shards of weak light that now sprang out in front of me seemed at first to be nothing more than a cruel will-o’-the-wisp-like apparition. I felt my legs spasm and lock as I pushed myself towards the distant light source. It must have been another five minutes before I finally reached the entrance to the shaft and stumbled out into the mouth of the mine and fell to my knees. I let the cool dawn breeze blow around me as I looked up towards the brilliant orange-hued rays of the morning sunrise, only then truly believing that what I was seeing was real.
34
I’d found water, if that’s what you could call it. Just outside the mine entrance stood the remains of an old weighbridge office and plumbed in next to the front door was a decaying brass standpipe. With what little strength I still possessed I’d managed to kick at the top of the rusted tap until it had loosened. I’d turned the tap full on until it reluctantly began to spurt out a slow dribble of sulphurous-smelling, sludge-coloured spring water. After a short while, the standpipe began to flow erratically, glugging and churning as the mucky liquid came up the pipe. As the water spilled onto the ground, the colour became a little less dark and it didn’t stink as much. I’d sipped a handful; it didn’t taste great but I doubted that drinking it would do the two of us any lasting harm. I’d let Truth take a drink, watching that she didn’t wolf down too much and make herself ill. When she’d finished I’d taken my handkerchief from my hip pocket, wet the cotton cloth under the standpipe and cleaned the mud and dirt from her face.
Truth and I collapsed on a bank of grass opposite the weighbridge office; above the door was a small wooden plaque with the fading words “Black Rock Quarry”. We sat facing each other with our backs resting against two large boulders. I looked across at the mouth of the entrance of what I could now see to be a disused limekiln and mine.
Not a dozen words had passed between the two of us since I carried Truth out from the darkness. Exhaustion had suddenly taken a grip of my washed-out body and mind, and I struggled to keep my eyes open. It had been just six days since Ida Stephens had casually walked into my office and paid me to find Doc Fowler. Just over twenty-four hours later I’d witnessed the doc’s death and found Truth hidden by him underneath Speedwell swimming baths. It wasn’t long before the shady American police officers Paxton and Jardine, along with Detective Constable Beaumont and a sizable crew of his fellow corrupt Bristol and Avon police officers, were throwing their weight about and had tried to hunt down the two of us across half of Somerset and the West Country. In just over a hundred and forty-four hours, Truth and I had been shot at, tracked through underground caves and woodland, and run to ground like scared animals, and I was still struggling to understand why.
I stared thoughtfully across at Truth and wondered to myself how the two of us had managed to survive the last few days. The odds had been seriously stacked against us, but somehow, beyond all hope, we’d managed to find ourselves still alive and sitting peacefully in the early summer sunshine on a late June morning. Something told me that our new-found calm would not last: Paxton and his cronies wouldn’t lose our trail for long and would soon be snapping at our heels.
Truth, realising that I had been watching her, shyly dropped her eyes to the ground. She sat forward, away from the boulder, and rested the palm of one of her hands on her knee then began to hum a tune to herself while making circular patterns in the soil with one of her fingers. She sat like that for a short while before plucking up the courage to raise her head and make eye contact with me. She gave a brief, timid smile before speaking.
“Who is Ellie, Joseph?”
I immediately felt a lump rise in my throat and quickly looked back towards the entrance of the old mine, my eyes darting anywhere rather than make eye contact with the child. Truth waited patiently for an answer. I rubbed the palms of my hands together nervously and fixed my gaze on the tree line that ran alongside where we were sat.
“Ellie was my wife.”
Truth, taken aback a little by my reply, stared down at the gr
ound before speaking again. “She was your wife. You mean you don’t live together any more?”
I felt my throat tighten. I coughed a couple of times to try and clear it then looked at Truth. “No, we used to live together, but she died.”
Truth kept her eyes fixed to the ground, her fingers digging deeper into the soil. “Died? How did she die?”
I swallowed hard. “It was in a fire.”
I watched as the little girl slowly shook her head in disbelief. “That sounds so horrid.”
I nodded. “Yeah . . . yeah, it sure was.”
Truth, with all good intentions, innocently tried to lighten the mood. “You have any children, Joseph?”
“I did. Ellie and me, we had a little girl, her name was Amelia. She died with her momma.”
Truth repeated my daughter’s name to herself. “Amelia, that’s a pretty name.”
I nodded my head to myself, and kept nodding it, over and over again, trying to hold back a flood of tears. I tried to clear my throat again and finally croaked out a quiet reply. “A pretty name . . . Yeah, ain’t it just.”
Truth didn’t say another word; she just kept staring down at the ground. A few moments later she turned her back to me, drew her legs up to her chest, linked both arms around the front of her calves then rested her chin on the tops of her knees. I sat watching her through tear-filled eyes, thinking to myself that even an inquisitive, well-meaning child knew better than to mess with a man’s grief.
It was just after five forty-five. The sun had begun to lift itself higher into the sky, its early morning warmth washing down onto the glimmering dew that hung from the blades of grass and purple-flower-tipped moss that covered the tumbling moorland stretching out from the hill where Truth and I were now standing. I looked down across the valley and could clearly see the village of Cheddar just a mile or so away.
I knew that Vic would be waiting somewhere down there for the two of us. All that was stopping me from finding him was some pretty inhospitable, rambling heathland and five or six heavily armed coppers intent on taking me and the girl out at the neck. I knew it was too dangerous for Truth to walk down into the village with me. I turned and looked back blankly at the old limekiln entrance then down at Truth. I didn’t have to say a word to the child; she already knew what I was going to ask.
We walked back down into the mine and Truth and I began to search about the place. About twenty feet inside the entrance, spurring off on the left-hand side, I found a thin passageway cut out of the limestone. We walked along the short stone corridor and found an old miner’s lean-to. It had been carefully tucked away, a place of refuge for tough men who had once worked underground. The lean-to was situated far enough past the opening of the disused workings to remain concealed but not so remote that it made you feel you were returning to the foreboding bleakness of the dark tunnel. Inside the hut, the walls were covered in thick dust and old cobwebs. A bunch of old picks and shovels were stacked up next to the door along with three lengths of old tarpaulin. Two wicker and cane chairs sat either side of an old card table, its green baize top long rotted away. On the back wall stood a small carpenter’s bench. Various rusting tools were strewn across the top of it along with a couple of brass miners’ lamps.
I picked one up, put it to my ear and shook it. The paraffin oil inside sloshed about from side to side. I reached into the holdall and fished out the box of matches that Lazarus had given to me. Truth watched me as I took a match, opened up the little door on the side of the miner’s lamp then struck the match against the box and let the flame rest against the wick until it ignited the oil. The lamp began to glow and quickly lit up the small lean-to. I placed the Davy lamp back on the bench and checked the other one. It had less oil in it but would come in handy if the first ran out. Truth turned around and looked about the hut.
“This is just like the place Theo left me, Joseph.”
I nodded my head. “Yeah, kinda, I suppose.”
“You’re going to leave me here, aren’t you?”
“It’s gonna be the safest place for you to stay while I go find Vic.”
Truth looked up at me and I saw her mouth begin to tremble. “Theo left me. He never came back.”
I knelt down in front of Truth and brushed the side of her cheek with the back of my hand. “I know he didn’t. But I will, you’ve got my solemn word on it.”
I pulled out one of the wicker chairs and sat down then lifted Truth onto my knee. “I’ll be gone a few hours. I’ll find my cousin Vic and the two of us will come get you straight away, I promise.”
Truth stared up at me, desperately trying to fight back a flood of tears. “You promise?”
I nodded my head. “Promise.”
I sat with Truth on my lap for a while longer. She said nothing more about being left alone. She knew she didn’t need to. She had witnesses with her own eyes what Paxton and his men were capable of, and those cruel deeds had been enough to persuade her that she would be safer lying low in the old cabin than by my side as I tried to find Vic.
Before leaving I showed Truth how to light the other Davy lamp then pulled the carpenter’s bench away from the wall a little, dragged a length of the tarpaulin across and rolled it down the back of the bench.
“On the off chance you hear anybody out there that ain’t me, you blow out that lamp light and get behind here under this canvas as quick as you can, understand?”
Truth nodded her head at me. I picked up the holdall, walked over to Truth and dropped it at her feet then pointed down at it with my finger.
“OK, in that old bag we’ve been haulin’ ’bout with us, we got ourselves over a thousand pounds.”
Truth looked up at me in disbelief. I bent down and took out the envelope containing the bank notes and gave it to Truth.
“When all this is over and we get back to Bristol, this is yours.”
Truth looked at the wad of cash inside the envelope. “Mine?”
“You bet, so you best start countin’ it, make sure it’s all there, then put it back in that bag for safekeeping. Don’t let it outta your sight, got it?”
Truth looked down at the money again and squeezed the envelope tightly. She looked back up at me and began to nod her head up and down excitedly. “Yeah, I got it!”
“Good, I’m gonna get going. Find that cousin of mine.”
As I began to walk towards the cabin door, Truth rushed after me and grabbed hold of the tail of my jacket and pulled me back. I turned to face her and she flung her arms around me, squeezing me tightly.
“You will come back, won’t you?” she whispered.
I reached down and brushed at her soft, downy hair with my hand. “Course, I will . . . I’ll be back befo’ you know it.”
Truth slowly released me from her grip. I turned and walked out of the lean-to. As I made my way back down the passageway I could have sworn I heard Truth begin to cry. I stopped and looked back down the stone corridor but could hear nothing. I turned around, put my head down and kept on walking towards the mine entrance, telling myself it was just my imagination. My conscience, on the other hand, told me that the hushed weeping I’d heard was very real.
I headed out from the mine and quickly found a gravel road that led through the old Black Rock quarry and on to the main road, which looked like it ran straight down into Cheddar village. Rather than follow the narrow gorge road and be an easy target, I stuck to the shaded wooded area that ran alongside it.
It took me a while longer to cover the distance, trudging over moss-covered crags and steep downhill footpaths. Every muscle in my body ached. I thought of Truth sitting back in the lean-to at the mine and pushed myself on all the harder. I finally walked into the outskirts of the village at just after 7.30 a.m. There had been no sign of Paxton or any of his men; I just hoped it would stay that way.
I had no idea where I was heading; all I knew was what Milo had told me, which was that the White Hart inn was tucked away at the far end of the village. I kept to as many
back streets as possible. Few people were about at such an early hour. If I saw anybody heading my way I quickly dipped into a doorway or snuck over a garden gate to avoid any unwanted attention. I was hoping that Vic would be holed up in one of his motors as I neared the pub, but finding the public house was proving to be a real problem. I walked along a series of narrow side streets, lined either side by attractive thatched cottages, and eventually came to a crossroads. To my right was a track road leading up to what looked like a copse or wooded area. Parked up next to a row of trees, halfway along the track, was a red Commer postal van. I looked about for the postman but could see no one. I crossed the road and the took left-hand lane; a street sign nailed high up on the side of the wall of one of the cottages read “The Bays”. I kept walking down the lane until I reached a small fork in the road.
On the right-hand side, next to an old, disused farmhouse, ran a low walled path, and on the left, nestled right at the back of the lane, sat the White Hart inn. I looked behind me. There was nobody about. The pub was understandably quiet so early in the morning. The curtains were still drawn at the front of the grey stone building and the few cottages behind me seemed equally subdued. I wanted to call out Vic’s name but decided that would be a bad idea. I turned to my right and looked up along the long path next to the farmhouse. Was that where I’d find the disused barns Milo had spoken of, the place Truth and I were to hole up until Vic arrived? I felt my stomach knot and the hairs on the backs of my arms and neck rise. I stuck my hand in my jacket pocket and pulled out my service-issue Smith & Wesson revolver, clicked off the safety then held it loosely at my side and began to slowly walk up the path. I peered over the left-hand side of the wall that separated the path from what appeared to be the entrance to an old allotment. I nervously held my revolver out at waist height and kept walking slowly towards the rear of the farmhouse.