by Nigel Seed
Jim pointed. Geordie who stood next to it, tried to grab the edge of the stone and pull, but was unable to get a grip.
“Can I borrow your hammer, Ivan? If I shove the back edge into here I should be able to lever it open enough to get a grip and pull it the rest of the way.”
Without speaking, the Welshman stepped forward, put his shoulder against the wall and pushed. With a grinding noise and a shower of rock dust the wall swung away from him. They stood staring into the square opening that had been revealed.
Their helmet lamps showed what looked like boxes covered in tarpaulins. There were bunk beds against the wall and a table with an ancient radio set on it. Jim went to move forward, but was restrained by Ivan’s arm.
“Need to do the booby trap check first, boss.”
“Surely not here inside a major base? Not with all that ammunition not far away?”
“It’s a Sergeant Major’s job to be careful, boss. Just let me check for my own peace of mind.”
“Fair enough.” Jim stepped back.
Ivan made a very careful check around the doorway and inside the room they had found before he agreed that it was safe to enter. They went inside and shone their headlights around. Geordie was the first to remove a tarpaulin.
“Looks like a weapons box to me”
“According to the markings, what we have in here is a Lewis Gun,” said Ivan. “Some museum is going to love that.”
Geordie looked puzzled. “Lewis Gun? What’s that when it’s at home?”
“Probably the first successful Light Machine Gun,” Jim said. “Used in the First World War in the trenches and a version was even mounted on the early fighter planes. It could be used by just one man where the earlier machine guns needed a crew because they were so big and awkward.”
Geordie used the claw hammer to prise open the lid. He looked inside to find the machine gun was wrapped in waxed paper and the bottom of the box stained by the oil that had been liberally applied to the weapon. He reached in and pulled out one of the drum magazines that were also in the box. He turned it over.
“Mags are filled and ready to go. These guys were ready for trouble.”
“And that’s not all they had,” said Ivan from behind them. “This case has four Lee Enfield rifles with loaded magazines and stripper clips of spare ammunition.”
“I fired one of those when I did my basic training at Sandhurst,” said Jim. “Bolt action, but still very quick to use and Peter gave us a nice demonstration with one when we were in Castleton.”
Ivan rubbed his shoulder. “Don’t remind me.”
“Oh, wow, look at this,” said Geordie.
From yet another crate he had withdrawn one of the most famous sub machine guns in the world. He stood there, cradling the gleaming Thompson gun in his arms. He reached back into the box and pulled out a handful of magazines.
“These are filled and ready for use as well. It’s a shame they are the straight magazines and not the drum one Al Capone used. Now, that would be cool.”
Jim looked around the room and checked his watch. “We could stay here all night looking through this lot, but it’s going to take us a while to get back to the surface and we need to be fresh for this. Let’s pack up and head out, after seventy years or so down here another day won’t matter.”
Chapter 65
There was a definite spring in their step as they approached the steel entrance door the next morning. Ivan had peeled off to visit someone and caught up again as Geordie swung the door open. They entered the elevator and rode down to the lower level. As the lift doors opened Ivan handed Jim a package.
“Here you go, boss. We thought you would like a souvenir of your climb down into a toilet in the woods.”
Jim looked at his two grinning men and opened the package. Inside was a gleaming Webley .38 revolver. It looked brand new.
“Where did you get this?”
“It’s the one you took off the corpse at Cave Castle. I’ve had the armorer here working on it for the last four weeks and he even managed to get you a box of .38 ammunition to go with it” said Ivan, handing the small cardboard box over.
“Well that’s really thoughtful of you, but I don’t see how I can keep it with the gun laws in this country.”
“As long as you have the Prime Minister’s authority letter in your pocket that shouldn’t be a problem, boss. Any police force in the country will give you a firearms license based on that.”
“True. Well thanks, I really appreciate this.” Jim slipped the revolver into one jacket pocket and the ammunition into another. “But now, let’s get down to the worksite. I think we have a lot to do today.”
They shouldered their packs and set off down the tunnels. With a goal in sight the distance to the Auxiliary Unit base did not seem as long today and they made it in good time. Ivan removed the piece of stone covering the door mechanism, took hold of the handle, pulled it out and then down. Once again the door clicked open for Geordie to push it wide.
Jim paused in the outer tunnel. Something was not right. After years of soldiering in many places around the world he had learned to trust his instincts. He stepped slowly back until his shoulder blades touched the wall behind him. He waited, with his head cocked to one side listening and watching the tunnel they had come down. He glanced at the doorway to see his two men standing stock still and silent. After working together for so long they recognized that Jim knew something was happening.
There it was. He heard a footstep from further up the tunnel in the dark. Somebody had kicked one of the small stones, that had been dislodged from the tunnel roof by years of train vibration. There was no sound now.
Jim swallowed and made a small hand gesture to his men to tell them to stay where they were.
“Who’s there?” There was silence. “I know you’re there, answer me!”
The answer came in the sound of a weapon being cocked, followed by a burst of automatic fire. With his nerves stretched tight, Jim had reacted instinctively to the first sound by diving to the floor and rolling, the way he had been taught in basic training all those years ago. The burst of fire chipped stone from the wall right where he had been standing. If he had not moved he would be dead or severely injured by now. He came up from his roll and dived through the doorway into the hidden base.
As he landed Geordie heaved the door shut behind him and Ivan stepped forward to wedge it shut with a piece of packing case lid. Jim sat up to find his two men watching him.
“It seems we have company and they aren’t friendly at all.”
“Whoever fired that burst seems to be a pretty good shot, boss and not scared to use his weapon. I think we might have a bijou problemette. Any idea who they might be?”
“You know, Ivan, I think you might be right. If they get that door open we could be up that special creek without a paddle. As to who they are or who sent them; I have an idea but I’m not sure yet.”
“Not necessarily a problem, boss.” Geordie moved across to the crates. “If these are still working we have enough firepower to start a small war. Particularly if we can find some grenades.”
“Even if we find them, I would be very wary of chucking grenades about inside a seventy-year-old tunnel. We could end up sealed in here if we bring the ceiling down.”
“Damn! And that was such a good plan up to then.”
Jim stood up and dusted himself down. The dive through the door had put a scape across his forehead, but the bleeding was only slight. He looked around the chamber.
“Right, time for some action. If this base is built like all the others we´ve found, there should be another exit. Ivan, our job is to find that other door. Geordie, you find us some weapons that are in working order with ammunition that looks like it has stood the test of time.”
Without another word, the three of them set to their tasks. Ivan dragged crates away from the left hand wall and Jim examined the wall behind the radio table. Jim looked over his shoulder to see Geordie heaving th
e Lewis Gun out of its crate and working the mechanism. From here he could see no rust on the gun, the Auxiliary Unit soldiers had been careful it seemed.
The men worked in silence, each intent on his own task, until Ivan crossed the chamber to Jim. “Nothing obvious my side, boss. Any joy over here?”
“No. Nothing as far as I can see. Take the other end of this table, will you? I’ll have a look behind it.”
They each grabbed an end and lifted, but the table did not move.
“That’s odd. It doesn’t look that heavy.”
They each pulled out the two drawers beneath the table top and looked under. At the back of the table they could now see the two bolt heads that secured it to the wall. Jim reached in and tried to turn the bolt head at his end by hand. It would not move. Ivan tried his with the same result.
“Ivan, can you see if there are any tools that might help, while I check the third wall?”
“Not sure that wall is going to be any use though. My guess is that the railway is just the other side of there.”
To prove him right the room thundered and shook as a train rushed by. A lot closer than it had been in the passage outside. Jim nodded, but carried on as Ivan dived into the smaller boxes scattered around the weapon crates. Jim found nothing, but Ivan found a box of tools and he and Jim went back to the table.
Ivan knelt down and reached under the table with a large adjustable wrench in his hand. He fitted it to the first bolt head and started to turn. It took a deal of strength, but the bolt eventually moved, only for half a turn and then locked solid again.
“Stop, Ivan, you’ve done it!”
Ivan pulled himself out from under the table and looked where Jim was pointing. There was a crack running down the wall behind the bunks. Turning the bolt had released another lock and revealed the carefully concealed doorway. Ivan stood up and walked across to the bunk. He pushed on the wall and watched as it swung back. They lifted the bunk out of the way and looked into the chamber beyond. There were the boxes they had been looking for, stacked from floor to ceiling.
“You know something, boss? I reckon they must have recruited a master stonemason to build these doors. The joins were so tight it had to have been done by somebody with an incredible level of skill.”
“I think you’re right. A lot of these Auxiliary soldiers were specialists in their own field and they were dedicated people. A very special group.”
As usual, Ivan insisted on checking the room for booby traps before letting them enter. While he was doing that, Jim went to check on Geordie’s progress with the weapons.
“What have we got?”
“Some bonny weapons in here and they looked after them carefully before they left. The guns were dripping in oil but the ammunition was bone dry so we have a good chance that they will work.”
“So what does that give us to work with?”
“One Lewis Gun with ten drum magazines, all full. A Thompson sub-machine gun with another ten magazines, again all full and four Lee Enfield rifles with about a hundred rounds each, all in stripper clips for rapid loading.”
“As you said, we can start a small war with that lot.”
“That’s not all. We have thirty hand grenades with the fuses removed and stored. As you said, we don’t want to use them in here, but we also have four phosphorus grenades which might be quite useful if we need smoke. But my personal favorite is over here.”
He turned to a long, thin, polished box that sat on top of another crate. Geordie lifted it up gently and placed it in front of Jim. He slipped the two brass catches sideways and opened the lid. Jim looked in to see a rifle with a highly polished wooden butt and stock. Mounted on top was a long telescopic sight. Geordie carefully lifted the weapon out.
“You remember that book you had on the Auxiliary Units? Well, this is one of the .22 sniper rifles they mention in there. Designed to take out enemy officers or collaborators with minimal noise. Beautiful piece of work isn’t she?”
“I thought you’d be more excited by the machine guns?”
“Oh yes, they’ll be fun. But this little beauty is a precision weapon. A craftsman’s tool.”
Ivan joined them. “The gold store is safe to enter and they have a couple of interesting features in there you might want to look at.”
“Good. But I think our first order of business is to tell our friends outside in the corridor we are back in the game. Geordie grab that Thompson.”
Geordie stepped to the crates, lifted the Thompson and loaded one of the magazines.
“Might as well test it then, eh?” said Jim. “As I open the outside door a crack you put a full magazine down range. With all that rock out there, the rounds should ricochet all over the place and even if we don’t hit anybody it should frighten the crap out of them. Ready?”
“Ready.” Geordie cocked the old weapon.
Jim removed the wedge and pulled the door open a crack. Geordie put the barrel of the weapon in the opening and let rip with the full magazine of twenty rounds. The noise in the enclosed space was deafening, but they were rewarded with a scream from the passage outside as they slammed the door shut again.
“That’s opened the batting with one for the good guys. Should make them think twice about trying anything. Now let’s see about getting out of here.”
Chapter 66
With the chamber door wedged firmly shut again, they turned to enter the second room they had opened. Geordie reloaded the Thompson and laid it on the radio table ready for use. The three of them stood and looked at the pile of wooden boxes in front of them.
“Am I dreaming or does that pile look a lot bigger than the other ones we have found?”
“I think you might be right, Ivan,” Jim said, “and look at the boxes at the top of the pile. The wood looks newer than lower down. I wonder why?”
Geordie tested the weight of one of the upper boxes. “It’s certainly heavy enough to be gold. I wonder if this is the stuff from South Cave?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, you said that there was a lot of rotten wood from packing cases in the chamber by the toilet so maybe they re-boxed it when they moved it here?”
“That would fit. Maybe they moved it after that poor soul found it? A bit of a shame they just left him down there, though,” said Ivan.
“True, but you have to remember these guys were trying to keep a seriously big secret. They probably didn’t know he was a copper.”
Jim looked around the room. On the wall that butted up against the railway tunnel he saw a large painted sign on the stone ‘Check Before Exit.’ Below it he could see a rusty metal handle in the wall. It seemed they had found the other exit.
“So, Ivan, you mentioned some interesting features.”
“Didn’t think you had heard me, boss. Well, you’ll have seen the sign up there about checking and down here is the way to do that.” Ivan pointed at two rectangular boxes mounted against the wall. “They seem to be two driver’s periscopes from an armored vehicle of some kind. If you push them out a couple of inches and have a look you might be surprised.”
Jim did as Ivan suggested. He pushed the first periscope out a little and then bent down to look through. He found he was looking along the side wall of the Box Railway Tunnel. He pushed the other one and craned round to look through that. Sure enough he could see the Box Tunnel again, but in the opposite direction.
“Presumably that’s to guard against stepping out in front of the 8:20 from Paddington? Somebody really thought this through.”
“They did indeed. The level of sophistication down here is surprising since they were working in secret and could not let anyone else down in the tunnels know about them.”
“Despite having our friend waiting outside the door, is anybody hungry?” said Geordie.
Jim checked his watch; it was some time beyond their normal lunch break. With all the excitement he had completely forgotten about it. Trust Geordie to be practical and remember the need f
or food.
“Since the opposition can’t get at us in here why not? What did the pub pack for us today?”
“Ham and cheese with pickle. At least, that’s what I asked for, but I thought you might like to live dangerously.”
“More dangerously than being in a seventy-year-old tunnel, right next to the railway main line with armed unfriendlies on the other side of the door?”
“Yep! I’ve found a big box of rations left over from the war. Does tinned food last seventy years do you think?”
“I think we’ll stay with the ham and cheese. The last thing I need is for you two to be bringing up your stomach linings all over the place.”
“You could be right there, boss. Sandwiches it is then.”
They sat on the crates in the main chamber working their way through the very generous pub sandwiches. Geordie had also thought to bring a can of beer each for them to wash it down.
“I thought it would be more of a celebration about now when I packed the beer. I wasn’t expecting to get shot at.”
“With any luck, Geordie, there was just the one of them and we know you have at least winged him. I think once we’re finished eating we need to take a look outside and see how your friend is doing.”
They packed the empty tins and the sandwich wrappings away in Geordie’s pack. Then Jim motioned Geordie to pick up the Thompson again and stand ready.
“Headlights out and pass me one of those empty beer cans.”
Jim removed the wedge from the door and slowly swung it open a fraction. Outside was as dark as a witch’s heart with not a sound. Jim tossed the can into the passage and as it clattered to the floor he was rewarded with a burst of automatic gunfire.
He swung the door closed again and wedged it firmly. “Looks like we aren’t going out that way anytime soon. It will have to be through the door onto the track. Let’s go.”
Chapter 67
They returned to the gold chamber and Ivan went over to the two periscopes. He pushed the first one out and recoiled. At that second a train roared down the track.