by Philip Webb
For the last few hundred yards before the river, we leave Sheba and go on foot, away from the track and up onto one of the slag mounds. All along the dark reach of water, we can see the still-standing bridges picked out with searchlights. To the right, the remains of the old Millennium Walkway and Southwark. In front of us, the arches of Blackfriars. And to the left, as the river swings round, Waterloo. Even from here, I can make out the figures of Vlad sentries moving about near the busted railings of the bridge ahead.
“Ain’t no good. We’ll never get past them guards.”
“What about a boat or something?” goes Peyto.
“Nah, there ain’t no boats here. People ain’t allowed on the river this far up.”
“Maybe we could swim,” goes Erin.
I look at her like she’s lost it. “You seen the current? You’d be down to the dogs soon as you dipped your toe in. Anyhow, even if you was a decent swimmer, it’s way too cold. You wouldn’t last five minutes.”
“Just an idea,” she goes, all sulky.
“The tunnel,” whispers Wilbur. “You know – the Jubilee one.”
“Nah, it’s got to be flooded. The tunnel’s lower than the river –”
“No, the water’s drained away – not completely, but there’s like a gap near the roof.”
“What kind of cobblers is that, you spod? How can it drain away? There ain’t no tides no more with the Great Barrier holding the sea back.”
“It’s not a tide that does it. It’s the pumps – there’s loads of them on the north side dredging the old Underground tunnels. They run all day, but they work much harder at night when all the crushers are shut down.”
I look at him. “How on Earth d’you know all that?”
“Heard Gramps say once.”
He’s all shy then. Wilbur’s so quiet most of the time, you forget he’s there. But when people are yabbering, he never misses a trick.
“Makes no odds,” I go at last. “If it ain’t drained away the whole hog, then it’s still gonna be too deep for us.”
“If Wilbur thinks there’s a way across the river, we should at least look,” says Peyto firmly. “We said we’d listen to him.” The way he glances at me, his eyes all fired up, I feel on edge all of a sudden.
Wilbur looks gobsmacked cos no one ever listens to his harebrained schemes usually. I give him evils, just so he knows not to get too cocky on all the attention. But I can tell none of them is gonna back down. So I lead the way through the trenches toward the big old crater that marks where Waterloo Station once stood. It gets sludgier as we plow on, till you can see water pouring into the entrance where the old tracks dip underground.
“See?” goes Wilbur.
“See what?” I snap back. “Anyone got a submarine handy?”
“We’ve got to go deeper, follow where the water drops,” says Wilbur.
“Wilbur, you crack-job, this ain’t like paddling up Blackheath. Check it out!”
But Wilbur ain’t looking at me. He’s looking at Peyto, who’s forged on ahead, clambering down bits of broken concrete at the edge of the tunnel wall. I’m pretty much done with the whole adventure, but I don’t want to waste the I-told-you-so speech that’s brewing in my head. So we carry on.
And guess what? Wilbur’s right – where the tunnel starts proper, the roof is a good thirty feet clear of the water. It don’t exactly look inviting, though – the tunnel mouth has all these rusty rods poking out of it, all covered in gunk like mucky fangs. And course, we ain’t thought to bring a lamp or nothing.
We edge closer and look at the darkness, which is about as total as it gets. In the distance, you can hear the rushing echoes of water, and what sounds like a right downpour – probably leaks in the roof. Me and Peyto squelch down the slope together, leaving the other two behind. Peyto spots it first – an old steel ladder fixed to the wall. It leads to a platform cut into the concrete and there’s something bulky stashed up there.
We look at each other. I know what he’s thinking. Everything round here has been scavved out, so whatever it is has to be stashed here on purpose.
I volunteer to go up first, but pretty soon I’m cursing that blinding idea, cos the rungs are all slimy and I get the horrors about three-quarters of the way up. Somehow I hold it together enough to reach the platform. The thing is lashed really tight to the wall with rope and tarpaulin, but at last I manage to squeeze under the cover.
Whatever it is, it’s sopping wet and stinks of old rubber, and I’m squitting it cos I can’t see a thing. Then my hands land on what feels like a bag, and inside it something solid, plastic maybe, long like a tube. I try to drag the bag out, but I lose my grip and drop it. Then my heart nearly gives out cos a light beam shoots right into my face. Slowly I calm down and realize what I’ve done. The bag is see-through and inside it is a flashlight – old-school ’lectric with a battery. Me dropping it has switched the bloomin’ thing on.
All the stuff inside is bone dry. Apart from the flashlight, there’s half a dozen street maps torn from a book, a notepad, a pencil, and a compass. In the notepad it’s just diagrams with no writing, and what looks like numbers, but I can’t read, so it’s cobblers to me. I pan round with the flashlight. And find myself sitting in the bottom of a dinghy. It’s pretty big – enough room for six or seven people, I reckon. Parked on the sides, there’s two paddles and a grapple hook on a cable.
Next thing I know, there’s a pale face staring up at me from the edge of the tarpaulin and I just about freak.
“It’s me!” goes Peyto.
“Yeah, you wanna give me some warning next time? My ticker’s gonna give out any second!”
But he’s just grinning at the boat. “There’s a winch here, see? Give me a hand.”
I show him the notepad and the maps, but he can’t suss them out either.
“It looks like code, or a checklist. I don’t know.”
“This is looters’ stuff,” I go. “Maybe we should just get out of here.”
“We’re just going to borrow it.”
I shine the flashlight at him and he’s beaming from ear to ear. He really is enjoying all this, but then, I have to admit I am, too.
Ten minutes later we’ve got the dinghy lowered into the water.
Erin and Wilbur are both speechless – Erin through fear, and Wilbur … Well, Wilbur don’t exactly look scared, but it’s kind of funny that he doesn’t “ooh” and “ah” like I’d expect. In fact, he never says much at all, right up to the point when I say he can’t come.
“Cass! Oh, please!”
“I’m crazy even to let you come this far! If Dad knew, he’d clout me into next week!”
“It was my idea to come to the tunnel!”
“So? This ain’t a game!”
“I can help!”
Wilbur’s on the verge of tears, but then Peyto squats down and puts an arm round him.
“Of course you can help,” he goes. “See, someone has to stay and look after Sheba.”
“That’s right,” I go. “Gonna have to be one brave soldier staying here in the dark to keep Sheba company.”
Wilbur ain’t too happy about it, but least he stops sniveling.
“Can’t Erin stay with me?” he whimpers.
We all look at Erin.
“I don’t think we should leave Wilbur here on his own,” she goes at last. “Can’t we all go together?”
“I told you he ain’t coming with us.” I’m all spoiling for a fight, cos we just sorted the question of Wilbur.
She throws a pointed look at Wilbur, who’s getting all hopeful about tagging along again. “But what if the Vlads come here looking?” she goes.
“It ain’t no crime to be this side of the river. All he has to say is he’s digging up bait for fishing or something. But they ain’t gonna be bothered – a kid and a cart horse. It’s us you have to worry about.”
“I don’t think you realize how dangerous it is over there,” explains Peyto.
“Too ri
ght. We ain’t got any excuse to be across the water at night. They catch us, it’s curtains.”
She gives me a puzzled look then, not angry. “I don’t want to argue with you, Cass. I just didn’t want to leave Wilbur alone, that’s all. If you say it’s safer for him here, I believe you.”
That takes the wind out my sails. “Fair enough. I think it’s me and Peyto on the paddles, but someone has to sit up front with the flashlight – and that’s got to be you.”
She strokes Wilbur’s head and nods at me, and without the huge scrap I was gearing up for, it’s done and dusted.
“Right, Wilbur, listening? Check your watch. We’re gonna be gone no more than, say, six hours. If we ain’t back by two at the latest, then don’t hang around, you hear?”
“But then what?” groans Wilbur.
“Well, we are gonna be back, I promise. It’s just in case we get stranded over there when the sun comes up – if that happens, I’d rather lay low till it gets dark again. Look, it’s gonna be fine. Get onto one of them mounds and keep an eye out. When we get to the far side, I’ll flash the light a few times to let you know we’re safe, then you stick with Sheba till we show up again.”
He nods and watches us as we clamber into the dinghy. It’s tragic watching him wave as we undo the winch rope and cast off into the gloom.
It’s swirly in places where the water’s being sucked deeper into the tunnels – vicious little currents that make the dinghy hard to straighten up. Every now and then, water gushes down from the roof and we get a drenching.
The farther we go, the stronger the current gets. After about ten minutes I clock a patch of moonlight shining through a hole in the roof. The tunnel branches off here in two directions – up a steep slope to the surface, and off into the rest of the Underground where the old Tube trains used to run. Me and Peyto paddle against the flow, and Erin manages to wedge the grapple hook round a bit of concrete. Which is a relief, cos I don’t fancy floating all the way into the West End – them old train tunnels are meant to go on forever this side of the river. I leave the maps in the dinghy and just take the flashlight before we head up to the surface.
All’s quiet as we climb out onto the north bank – just a few foxes screeching. I spot one of them padding through the river mud, starving and wary. This end of the tunnel has got the same slag mounds, and we crawl up one of them for a butcher’s. To the south I can’t see much – just the leaning wreckage of Westminster Abbey and Big Ben blocking out the starlight. In the west I can make out the swaying tops of trees – St. James’s Park. North lies the yet-to-be-scavved buildings of Whitehall, shabby and stained but still managing to look important. To the east lies the approach to the river – the ripped-up canyons of mud and the bare stumps of Westminster Bridge, mostly pulled down now.
It’s a risk to signal Wilbur, but I can’t leave the lad on tenterhooks. He’s got to know we’re safe, so I flash the flashlight three times.
“Let’s get a lick on,” I whisper. “And keep your eyes peeled.”
THE SPIDER NEST
We hurry up to the Embankment road and move away from the river toward the Old Admiralty Offices. I want to stick to semi-scavved areas cos of the cover and cos it’s quicker than crossing mud and potholes. I scout out the way where it’s open, then give them the signal to follow one at a time. Peyto’s not bad at the commando stuff, but Erin’s a nightmare – running bolt upright like a goose, and what with her earmuffs on, her head’s about twice as big as it needs to be. Talk about give the Vlads a bit more of a target to aim at. And blimey, she’s clumsy – tripping over her own feet and making a proper racket.
“Can’t you get down lower?” I hiss at her. “Might as well be waving a flippin’ flag the way you’re prancing about.” “I can’t help it,” she groans. “I can’t see anything!” “Just go slower, then. And d’you reckon you could get through London without kicking every bit of brick along the way?”
“You could plant your feet where I plant mine,” offers Peyto.
“Hey, if I need your advice on how walking works, I’ll be sure to ask you,” goes Erin.
“All right, don’t flip your gimbals – it was just a suggestion.”
They both eyeball each other, and Peyto looks stunned at what he’s just said, like he’s made it up.
“Flip your gimbals? What planet are you two from?”
They go blank as mudfish on me then, like I’ve just bad-mouthed the Queen. Which is just as well, cos I want to get on with minimum fuss.
It’s right creepy round Horse Guards Parade with weeds scraping in the wind and not a soul about. I ain’t used to being in the scav zone at night like that without the crushers going hell-for-leather and the chock-chocking of picks and hammers.
It’s all clear as we creep past the once-grand houses of Downing Street where the Lord President of London used to live. And in the dark and the silence, without the scav gangs swarming all over it, you can imagine this city as it once was. It don’t take much to think of the lights and the crowds, maybe folks like the Piccadilly Princess in the picture, rushing off to meet her fella, living it up.
We get to Little Sanctuary safe and sound, and I’m starting to think the whole jaunt is a breeze. Past the silent crusher, up five flights of stairs, and into the rooms we scavved earlier.
Peyto scrabbles round in the dark for a bit, feeling along the edge of the skirting board.
“Switch on the flashlight – I can’t find it,” he goes.
“Where’d you stash it?”
“I hid it just here. I’m sure it was in this gap.”
“Come on, Peyto,” pleads Erin. “Don’t play around.”
“I’m not! It’s not here, I’m telling you!” Peyto’s voice is getting panicky.
“Hey, pipe down, will you?” I go. “You want the whole Vlad army up here?”
I push past him and shove my hand into the hole. At first there’s nothing. Just dirt and loose wires. The plaster’s so loose, it comes away in my fingers, and I start to pull at it one chunk at a time till I can see the cavity behind. There’s no need for the light – Peyto’s flinder glows blue through churning puffs of dust. He breathes a sigh of relief and reaches out for it, but I hold him back. There’s something there, moving in the shadows, and as the dust settles I see it clearly – a whole nest of spiders, big and small, crowding around the light. And they ain’t just milling about, they’re building a web. Together. Peyto and Erin edge closer.
“That is stand-out weird,” I go at last.
“Why? What are they?” says Erin, her face caught up in the wonder of it.
And it hits me slowly. She ain’t never seen spiders before.
“It’s like they’re trying to hide it,” breathes Peyto.
And he’s right – the tresses of the web are starting to cover the flinder like a cocoon. It gives me a shiver to think how long they’d have to be at it to blot out that light. It’s the first time for a hundred years anything new’s been built in London.
“Sorry,” I go to the spiders. Cos it’s a shame to break that gorgeous bit of weaving. Needs must. But then as my fingers push through the threads and close on the flinder, them lonely echoes rise up again, tingling through my arm, into my brain. Like faraway voices calling out to me. Not calling, more like singing. It’s a shock and I want to let go. But I don’t, I can’t, cos the touch of it holds me. It pulses softly, like Erin’s flinder, but it’s a different shape, more knotty with a hole through it.
“What’s wrong?” goes Peyto.
I realize I must look a bit dazed. I hand it to him.
I feel that wrench again, the same as when Erin took back her flinder. Except this time I’m distracted by a whole bunch of spiders clinging to the broken trails of web, scuttling to and fro over my hand, up my sleeve. And it feels a strange comfort that they’re there, not running away. So I let them be.
Peyto’s much more interested in the spiders than the flinder. He smiles at me and tries to catch them as
they drop.
“You get the goose bumps when you touch the flinder?” I go.
“What do you mean?”
“Like voices inside.”
They both stare at me.
“No,” he goes. “But Erin does.”
I shrug. “Maybe it’s a girl thing.”
But straightaway I know it ain’t that. I see it in the way he holds the flinder. He don’t treasure it the way Erin treasures hers. To him it’s a thing he should look after, not a thing he wants. Erin would never have left hers anyplace, even if the whole Vlad army was on her heels. And maybe it knows that. Cos I reckon Gramps is right. It really has got something like a soul.
There’s about a squillion questions queueing up in my bonce now, but this ain’t the time or the place.
I hurry them both down to street level and peep outside the door. Still all clear. It’s all going so swimmingly that I’m starting to reckon we’re gonna get away with this. Which is the worst jinx ever.
Cos that’s precisely when it all goes pear-shaped.
We turn out of the top end of Little Sanctuary and there, coming from the park toward us, is a Vlad patrol – maybe a dozen soldiers.
We duck behind the skeleton of an old car and I check we ain’t being surrounded.
“Have they seen us?” whispers Erin.
The lead soldier makes a few hand signals, then the others peel off either side of him and start advancing up the road from car to car.
“They’ve seen us …,” I mutter.