I think, if I had not been so utterly weary, I should have danced a reel and whooped aloud at what I saw. In the dull yellow light, I saw stone steps leading downwards to darkness beyond which my torch’s feeble light could not penetrate. The loosened blocks gave me a footing and, in an instant, I had thrust my legs through the gap. I lowered myself gently on the other side, and by hanging with one hand and playing my torch on the stone steps below, I was able to drop on them without hurting myself.
For a second I hesitated, wondering whether to try to replace the blocks of stone I had dislodged to make the gap. But the size of the blocks was such that I doubted whether, in my weak state, I should be able to lift them into position. In any case, I thought that the time I should spend in rebuilding the wall would be greater than the check it would give to the pursuit. So I turned and hurried down the steps.
The air in that old stairway was warm and damp. The smell of the sewers was strong in my nostrils now, but at the same time the staleness of the atmosphere showed that there was little or no ventilation. It was then that I first began to wonder whether I should ever be able to get out of the place. In my dread of that cell and that horrible box, my discovery of a means of escape had been enough. I had not thought beyond the actual escape from that cell. Only now did I begin to wonder what lay ahead.
The steps soon ceased and I found myself hurrying along a stone passageway that sloped steadily downwards. The walls were dripping with moisture, and here and there were white and yellow fungus growths. The passage was constructed of smaller blocks of stone than those in my cell and the roof was arched and only five feet high, so that I had to stoop. The floor was flagged and in places broken up. Once I came across a small fall and could see the earth behind the stone. I walked hurriedly, the echo of my footsteps sounding behind as well as in front, so that several times I thought I was being followed. Now and then a rat scampered away from me. And always I was peering ahead of me, for besides the weakness of my torch, there seemed to be a kind of mist in the place.
Suddenly my passage came out into a broader one, running at right angles. Left or right? I hesitated. I sensed rather than actually saw that the slope of this was to the right and I chose that direction. There was no doubt about it. This was an old sewer. And I thought that the downward slope would lead me to the river, for what few sewers there were in the old London carried the sewage straight to the Thames.
I was able to walk upright now. The rounded tunnel had long since ceased to function as a sewer. But as I ploughed down the centre of the runway, the water was over my ankles. The walls were running with water, and every now and then, beyond the dim circle of light cast by my torch, I heard the sound of a rat in the water.
I seemed to plough through that ancient sewer for hours. Yet it could have only been for a few minutes. The uncanny sounds of the place frayed my nerves. I was gradually overcome by one terrible fear – that my torch would give out before I reached daylight. My brain dwelt with a horrible fascination on all the most unpleasant stories I had read of men who died, stark raving mad, because they had not been able to find their way out of some underground labyrinth. There were Catacombs, old Cornish tin mines and strange caves from which there was no escape. My brain dwelt on these, until I found myself almost running down that old culvert.
And then suddenly I stopped. The sewer ended. Facing me was a blank wall. But it was not of stone. It was brick, and it curved away from me. For a moment a sensation of complete despair overtook me. And then I had taken heart again. Those bricks gave me hope. Bricks meant a more modern construction, probably sewers now in use. And that curved construction was not made to bear localised pressure from the outside. I raised my foot and brought the heel of my shoe down against the bricks. I repeated this several times. But the leather of my shoes was so sodden with water that I did more injury to the shoes than to the brickwork.
So I turned back and went in search of a stone. I was fortunate. About fifty yards back there was a gap in the arch of the roof, and feeling about in the water, I found a big stone that had fallen. Those fifty yards back to the brickwork seemed a long way. The stone was heavy and very slimy. But at last I got it there. Using this as a hammer, I soon had the satisfaction of feeling the bricks give. I knocked out several of the bricks and heard them fall with a splash. More followed at the next blow. I shone my torch through the gap. Below me was a slow-flowing turgid stream. And on the side nearest me ran a narrow slippery-looking pathway, something like a tow-path. Few people can ever have been so glad as I was to see a sewer.
As I raised the stone to widen the gap in the brickwork, I heard an unfamiliar sound. I paused and half turned. It came echoing down the old sewer along which I had just come. It was the sound of voices. They sounded strange in that peculiar setting – strange and fearful. I turned and attacked the brickwork like a maniac. The hunt was up and I knew that I had little chance if they caught up with me.
Three strong blows and the brickwork had crumbled away sufficiently for me to tumble through the gap. I slipped on the slimy path and sprawled half into the actual runway of the sewer. I scrambled to my feet, wet to the knees. Fortunately I still held my torch, and in its feeble glimmer I hurried, almost running, along the narrow pathway of the sewer, following the flow of the water.
Unlike the old sewer, this was full of sound. The murmur of the slow-flowing sewage water was everywhere. And ahead of me rats in their thousands, it seemed, scampered and plopped into the water. And the place stank most foully. But unpleasant though it was, it had the friendliness of something associated with man. It had none of the haunting lostness of the unused culvert from which I had just come. And then I caught my first glimpse of daylight. What a blessed sight that was! And how unattainable! It came from one of the ventilation shafts. I paused for a moment beneath it. There was a circular hole in the roof and far above me I saw a little circle of very white light. It was like looking up the shaft of a well. And down that shaft came a friendly sound – the sound of a London bus. For a moment it was quite distinct. Then it was gone, merged into the gentle murmur of traffic in the roadway far above and in the nearer sound of moving water.
I was just starting forward again, when a sound made me turn. It was the sound of voices, distant, but clear as in a speaking tube. Behind me flashed the light of torches. They must have been nearly a quarter of a mile away, for the sewer ran straight as a die. For a second I was riveted to the spot. Not by fear, but by my first glimpse along the sewer. The curve of the walls showed black and glistening and the tunnel seemed to narrow down to those pinpoints of light. The shape of the sewer was that of an egg. The roof was nicely rounded, like the tubes of the Underground, but the walls came sharply inwards as they fell and finished almost in a point. And constructed out of the wall nearest me was the little platform on which I was standing. To the right of that platform, the water moved sluggishly towards me, black and unpleasant. The Styx itself could not have looked more grim. And between me and those pinpoints of light were rats – thousands of them.
Like a fool, I had turned with my torch still alight. In an instant, I heard the faint echo of ‘There he is.’ That broke the spell. I turned and ran. But I was hampered by the dimness of my torch and I could sense my followers closing up on me. Every fifty yards or so I passed beneath a ventilation shaft, and occasionally I heard the murmur of the street above. And behind me was the ever-present sound of running feet, hollow and distorted by the echo. I passed several subsidiary sewers. These were much smaller than the main sewer and had no platform along which to walk. I dared not turn off up any of these, because my pursuers could see my movements and I feared being trapped in a dead end. That same fear prevented me from hiding in any of the exit shafts I passed. These were dark openings in the wall of the sewer that led to a brick shaft. As I ran past them, the light of my torch showed dimly the lower rungs of an iron ladder. These were the exits for the sewer men and led to the pavement above. But I knew that, without the iron key
with which to unlock the metal trap-door at the top, it would only lead to my capture.
By now I must have run more than a mile along that main sewer. I was almost dropping with fatigue and was rapidly losing the will to go on. I felt my capture was inevitable and I wanted to give in. At the same time I was spurred automatically on by the fear that was in my heart. My torch was very dim by now. But that no longer worried me. The sewers seemed a friendly place. My imagination no longer dwelt upon the horror of wandering alone in the darkness in this evil-smelling rat-infested, subterranean rabbit warren. All my thoughts were centred upon that box again. Anything was better than that. And at every stop I felt my pursuers gaining on me.
The horror of it was that I knew my strength would soon give out. I had had no sleep. I had laboured as I had not laboured in years throughout the night, and now I was running for my life. I could not keep it up for ever. I knew enough about London’s sewers to know the main sewers run down to the Barking flats. There the sewage is separated, the water is purified and run out into the Thames and the sludge is carried out in barges to be dumped out by the Nore lightship. And Barking was miles away!
I had reached the conclusion that the only thing to do was to hide in one of the exit shafts and hope for the best, when I noticed that the sewer was bearing away to the right. The bend proved quite a sharp one, doubtless following the roadway above. I followed it round, and when the walls straightened out again, I glanced back over my shoulder. All was dark behind me. My pursuers were lost round the bed. I increased my pace, breathing heavily. I had developed a painful stitch and I knew that I was at the end of my tether.
Then I saw what I wanted. The black circle of a tributary sewer showing in the wall to my right. There was no pathway along it. The water ran steadily out from the tunnel dark and filthy. I did not hesitate. I stepped down into that tunnel and splashed up it. The sewage was about a foot and a half deep. But it did not worry me. With a last burst of energy, I surged through it, glancing every now and then over my shoulder for the glow of light that would tell me that the chase had reached the entrance. When I saw that glow outlining the circular opening of my sewer, I switched off my torch and slowed up so that I made no sound as I pushed steadily on through the sewage water.
I saw the flash of their torches as they passed the entrance and went on down the main sewer, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But that relief was shortlived, for within a minute the beam of a powerful torch was shone along the sewer. Impeded by the water and my weak condition, my progress had been slow, so that I was still no more than a hundred yards from the entrance. A shout echoed eerily along the tunnel, and a second later there was a loud report and a bullet sang past me, hit the wall ahead and went singing up the sewer.
But the light of the torches had showed me a bend in the tunnel ahead. The sound of that bullet whistling up that narrow tunnel gave me fresh strength. I splashed furiously on. Another shot was fired, but I think the bullet must have hit the water behind me, for it never reached me. A few moments later and I had rounded the bend. I could have cried out for joy then for the sewer forked. I took the right-hand branch, for I saw there was no bend in it.
My pursuers no longer had the advantage of their torches for it was impossible to push ahead through the water at anything but a slow rate. It was up to my knees. Moreover, I was able to save my torch, for the sewer was a circular pipe and I could feel the middle with my feet. I could touch the wall, too, on either side. And as I staggered on a faint luminosity grew behind me until I could actually see the sweating concrete of the tunnel on either side of me. My pursuers had guessed which fork I had taken.
I could have sat down and cried like a child for weariness and despair. The tunnel ran straight before me and, at any moment, they would sight me and I should be under fire again.
And then I had my first real bit of luck. I saw a square opening in the tunnel on my left. I peeped into it as I passed and saw daylight shining upon an iron ladder. Quite distinctly I heard a voice say, ‘Mind where you’re treading, Bert.’ I stopped, and down that ladder appeared the heavy waders of a sewer man. I had an overwhelming urge to reach the light of day. But I suppose a sixth sense held me back. In an instant my brain took up the argument of my instinct. I should not be able to get there before the pursuit was upon me. I must look a terrible sight. Apart from the mess my clothes were in, I was unshaven and hollow-eyed. At best I should be taken to a police station, and if Marburgs charged me as one of their clerks with some petty crime, I might have considerable difficulty in clearing myself. And the engine was due to leave London in two nights’ time.
All this flashed through my mind as the man’s waders came slowly into view. I knew instantly that I dared not risk it. I hurried on up the sewer, making as little noise as possible. And then it began to bend. I think I must have been round that bend before the chase came into the straight behind me. And then the sound of voices echoed and re-echoed along the tunnel. The best that I could have hoped for had happened. The sewer men had stepped out into the tunnel to find out who was coming through the sewer. The long altercation faded away behind me. The sewer forked again. Then I came to a ventilation shaft, the top of which was scarcely ten feet above my head. I could see wheels crossing over it and the roar of traffic was practically continuous. I guessed I must be somewhere near the river now, for I had turned right from the main sewer, which must have been leading in the direction of Barking, and I was now clearly in a low-lying part of London. The number of tributary sewers – little more than pipes – became increasingly numerous, so that I guessed I was in a district of congested, narrow streets. The concrete circular walls of the sewer in which I was walking had now given place to stone, and I realised that this must be one of the old sewers still in use. The rats, too, seemed more numerous here. My legs were perpetually brushing against them.
I was beginning to wonder how I was to get out. I had hoped, once I had shaken off my pursuers, to climb one of the exit shafts, and by shouting and beating on the cast-iron trap-door at the top to attract the attention of a passer-by. But there seemed to be no exit shafts to this sewer.
I think it was the fear that I might have to retrace my steps and risk the possibility of capture if I were ever to get out, that made me pause before a patch of bricks. The bricks formed a large square, like the entrance to a passage, in the left-hand wall of the sewer. I peered at them closely in the dull glimmer of my fading torch. One or two near the top were missing and the mortar was crumbling badly. I pulled two or three away and, pushing my torch into the gap, I gazed through. There seemed to be a sort of passageway with walls of stone that reminded me of the old sewer I had got into from the Marburg vaults. But it was not that so much as the air that decided me. The atmosphere of the old tunnel was cool and almost fresh in comparison with the warm stench to which I had become accustomed.
The bricks presented little difficulty. They came away quite easily, and in a short space of time I had made a hole big enough to climb through. There was no doubt about it. This was an old sewer. And it led, I felt certain, in the direction of the river. This seemed to be confirmed by the fact that it sloped gently in the direction in which I was going. But progress was slow. My torch was reduced to such a feeble glimmer that it made no impression upon the darkness unless thrust very closely to the floor. The culvert was in a very bad state of repair. Probably it had not been used for more than a century.
Soon my torch gave out completely. I went forward, feeling my way, my hands stretched out on either side to touch the wet slimy stone of the walls. The darkness was the darkness of the vaults from which I had escaped. It pressed down against my eyes. I was filled with a terrible lassitude and I was hungry, and above all thirsty. But I kept doggedly on because the air on my face was fresh and I knew there must be an opening somewhere.
Often I looked at the luminous dial of my watch – not to see the time, but to see its friendly little face shining at me in the darkness. I was determined not to
use a match until it was absolutely necessary, for the box in my pocket was half empty. For hours and hours I groped my way along that culvert. There were no ventilation shafts. I could see nothing, only the Stygian blackness. But the warm stench of the sewers was behind me, and for that I was thankful.
I had entered the culvert shortly after ten. I think it was about one o’clock that I slipped and lay on the stones, exhausted. I slept fitfully for a while. And when at last I had recovered strength enough to climb to my feet, I found it was three o’clock. I was soaked to the skin, for there was a certain amount of water in the culvert, and I was shivering with cold.
Nevertheless, the sleep had done me good. But with my recovered strength I found my brain no longer dulled. And my imagination, always a little too vivid, pictured myself groping along that tunnel unendingly till I died. Once I nearly panicked. Only the dial of my wrist-watch saved me. It was a friendly face and gave me courage. The culvert twisted and turned and my feet were sore and bruised with stumbling against the blocks of broken stone that had fallen from the roof. My one great fear was that I should bear away from the open air on a branch of the culvert. But always I had the satisfaction of feeling cool air on my face. As long as I felt that cool air in front of me, I knew I should find strength to go on. Pains were beginning to shoot through my belly, pains of hunger. But they were nothing to the thirst, which swelled my tongue and clove it to the roof of my mouth. And all the time I was slopping through water, which I still had sense enough not to touch.
Suddenly the walls on either side of me opened out. I lost contact with them. I stopped and pulled out my box of matches. But I found them sodden by the water in which I had lain asleep. I went back a few steps, found the left-hand wall and began to follow it. Almost immediately it fell away again and I had to turn a sharp left to keep in touch with it. Before I had gone more than a few paces I realised that I was no longer facing into the cool air, and faint, but quite distinguishable, I smelt the sewers again. I knew then that I had come to a point at which two of these old sewers met. I retraced my steps, found my own sewer, and began following the right-hand wall. The same thing happened. After that, I turned my face towards the cool air and moved slowly, blindly forward, feeling my way with my feet. Soon my hands which were outstretched in front of me touched the wet cold surface of a stone wall. I followed it and found that I was still facing the cool air.
The Trojan Horse Page 14