Ray brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, and Baz felt his heart lurch within him. He reached out, not caring how his actions might be interpreted by anyone watching, and grasped Ray’s hand, feeling the smear of dampness on his own palm.
“It’s not gonna happen,” he said. “So don’t even think about it. We’re gonna win. We’re gonna do what we said we’re gonna do, and get rid of the lot of ’em. We’ve just got to hang on, yeah? Hang on till we get it figured out. Just a bit longer, yeah?”
Ray nodded. His head was down.
They sat like that for a while with their hands clasped in each other’s. And though the light flickered above them, and other boys came and went, passing by on their way to the jakes, and though there may have been whispers and a few quizzical looks, neither of them made any attempt to pull away.
It was Gene who eventually broke them up. He walked past waving a green balloon. PARTY TIME!
“Hey,” he said. “Fart Club. Come on, you guys – no backsliding.”
Baz laughed. “OK.” He looked at Ray. “Are you in?”
Ray shook his head. “Maybe in the morning. That’s the way it works with me.”
“OK.” Baz let go of Ray’s hand and stood up.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m all right.”
* * *
By Friday Isaac was becoming impatient. He came out to see what progress had been made on digging up the school sign.
“What’s keeping you?” he said to Steiner.
“It’s this chuffin’ great lump of concrete,” said Steiner. “We’ve dug all around it, but we can’t get the chuffin’ thing to budge. We—”
“Oi. Watch your language.” Isaac looked down into the broad pit that now surrounded the stone sign. The boys worked on, conscious that they were being watched. Three days it had taken to reach this point. The huge lump of concrete that the tablet had been set into was now exposed – like the root ball at the base of a tree – but the stone itself stood as firm as ever.
“Have you tried the ropes?” Isaac said.
“Nah. These kids couldn’t pull a twig out of the ground. They’d never shift this.”
Isaac grunted. “Right. We’ve wasted enough time on this dam’ nonsense already. Wait there.”
He went back into the building.
Ten minutes later he returned, and this time he had the salvage crew in tow. The boys clambered out of the pit, and Isaac set about looping ropes around the top of the stone slab.
“We’ll take her out edgeways. It’ll be easier to get at the concrete then. Amos, Luke, get on that rope. I’ll take this one with Moko.”
The men spat on their hands and grabbed the nylon ropes.
“After three, then.” Isaac leaned back and got a foothold on the trampled-down earth. “One, two, three.”
The men threw themselves into action, straining against the ropes, and the top of the stone began to shift sideways – just a few centimeters at first, but it was enough to encourage an even mightier effort. Jaws set, eyes bulging, the salvage crew kept up the pressure, leaning almost horizontally, repositioning their stances as the stone continued to move.
“OK. Stop for a moment and take another grip. She’s coming – though God knows why we’re killing ourselves like this.” It was clear that Isaac’s heart was not in the job. “Poxy thing. Right, let’s go again, then. After three.”
Baz watched the men, and once again felt a sense of his own feebleness. This display of brute power was another reminder of just what they were up against.
The stone lay sideways at an angle of about forty-five degrees. It would go no further, the edge of it now against the rim of the pit it stood in. But the lump of concrete had lifted to the point where most of it could at least be seen. A fringe of blue material was visible, protruding from where the slab had been set into the concrete mix. Isaac jumped down into the pit for a closer inspection.
“Polythene,” he said. “Should be able to knock this stuff off all right, then. Steiner, bring the pickaxes back to the storeroom and get these kids some hammers instead. Sledgehammers, lump hammers, whatever we’ve got. Break up this concrete. And keep the ropes tied on – you’ll need them later.”
“OK, Skip. Do you want me to break up that drain cover too while we’ve got the sledgehammers out? Might as well.”
“Nope. Leave it alone until I tell you. Get this done first.”
Baz felt his heart rate rise, and then subside again.
They found that the concrete had been made to a fairly loose mix, not as rock hard as it had first appeared. The fact that the base of the slab had been sheathed in polythene meant that the concrete broke away in satisfying chunks beneath blows of the sledgehammers.
But the job itself was difficult and dangerous. The boys stood two to each side of the pit and took it in turns to attack the slab, bits of stone flying in all directions. Baz was dizzy with fatigue, muscles aching, head swimming. He raised his sledge hammer for the hundredth time and prepared to swing... but then the spot that he was aiming at seemed to move. Baz blinked the sweat out of his eyes, and realized that the slab was tilting, coming towards him. Everyone was suddenly yelling his name. “Baz! Baz!” He dropped the sledgehammer, stumbled sideways to avoid the on-coming slab, and tripped. As he rolled over onto his back, he saw that the stone sign was closing down upon him like the lid of some huge box. Too late to think straight, too late to do anything but follow instinct – Baz pushed backwards on his elbows, frantically wriggling towards the edge of the dug-out pit. The stone heeled over in a kind of awful slow motion, blocking out the sky, the chiselled words bringing their message of doom: TAB HILL HIGH SCHOOL...
There was just time for Baz to get the palms of his hands flat against the huge monolith as it came, pressing him to the earth, the big red letter S looming straight at his face. Gasping, screaming at the terror of being crushed alive, Baz turned his head sideways and pushed at the stone. He felt his elbows and shoulder blades digging into the soil beneath him, the air in his lungs being squeezed out of him, and heard the sound of his last hopeless cry, amplified in the confined and shrinking space.
Then, as he shoved with all his might against the weight crushing down on his body, the pressure eased, and the slab began to rise upwards. For a moment Baz thought that he’d found some superhuman power, that he really was lifting a ton of stone from his chest with his own bare hands. His terror had given him the strength of ten men – twenty men – strength far beyond that of Isaac and his crew...
But the stone carried on rising until it floated out of the reach of his fingertips, and Baz realized that it had simply tipped up like a seesaw, pivoting on the edge of the pit to lie flat on the ground above. The shorter end of it had been raised, and was now suspended over his head. Baz rolled sideways, preparing to scrabble out of the way, and in that moment the last big lump of concrete fell from the underside of the slab. It landed with a dull and heavy thud, right beside him.
As Baz emerged from beneath the great tablet, heart thumping, he saw a ring of pale faces staring down at him, all of them wearing the same horrified expression. All but one.
“Ha. I always said he looked like something that just crawled out from under a stone.” Steiner’s slack-jawed face split into a grin.
* * *
They had been told to bring fencing posts from the stacked pile outside the sort room, and these were now inserted beneath the slab.
“Right,” said Steiner. “Get on those ropes and start pulling.”
The round posts were apparently supposed to act as rollers. But though the four boys heaved on the ropes again and again, the stone wouldn’t budge. Eventually Steiner gave up and went off in disgust. He returned with Hutchinson and the sort-room crew, including Gene. Now there were eight of them, and they found that if they all pulled in unison, they could just about move the slab. It took a good twenty minutes to maneuver it off the grass verge and onto the tarmac pathway, but here things beca
me a little easier. The rollers started to work properly, and the smallest of the boys – Enoch – could be spared from the haulage team. It became his job to run from the back of the slab to the front, continually replacing the fencing posts.
Like Egyptian slaves they worked, pulling the slab along, a few centimeters at a time, with Enoch keeping the rollers in position.
“What are we doing?” Gene asked. “Building a bloody pyramid?”
“You’ll see,” said Hutchinson. “Tell you what, though – it makes a change seeing you break into a sweat.”
“Yeah,” said Steiner. “’Bout time you did some proper work, kiddo.”
Once the tarmac path began its downward slope the slab became more difficult to control. The crew was split – three boys to the front, steering the slab from left to right, and four at the back, hauling on their ropes to act as a brake. When they reached the point where the tarmac ended and the jetty began, Steiner just said, “OK, keep going.”
So now their destination became clear. At the far end of the jetty stood the box-like construction built out of concrete blocks. It didn’t take a genius to guess that the big stone slab might be intended as a lid for that box, but still nobody could guess what its purpose might be.
Progress along the top of the jetty was far slower than it had been on the tarmac, and it was late afternoon by the time the boys had managed to position the slab parallel to the concrete platform. The nylon ropes had blistered their hands, and they were exhausted.
“Had enough?” said Steiner – but he was speaking to Hutchinson.
“Yeah, I reckon.”
“Right then, you lot. Everybody back to the sort room. Today’s Friday. We’ve got till tomorrow night to get this baby up onto the box. Preacher John’s orders.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” said Gene.
“How?” said Steiner. “I don’t care how. You’re the chuffin’ smartarse, you figure it out. But it’ll be done by tomorrow night, OK? Now get back to the sort room.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Saturday morning, and the entire crew were down at the jetty. On Gene’s instructions they had barrowed a few dozen concrete blocks down from the building site, together with three long scaffolding poles.
“First thing we’re gonna do,” said Gene, “is try and get the slab up onto the platform. We’ll use the scaffolding poles as levers – two of us on each pole.”
Steiner and Hutchinson looked on, their arms folded. They had adopted the air of school masters, or competition judges – those who understood perfectly well how this task should be accomplished, but were testing the boys to see whether they could work it out for themselves. They were fooling nobody, however. This was Gene’s show, and everybody knew it.
The stone slab was still on its wooden rollers from the night before. Two of the fencing posts were removed from one end, and the scaffolding poles inserted in the gap beneath.
“Right then, lift!” said Gene, and eight boys began to raise the tubular steel poles. These were heavy enough in themselves, and Baz had little faith in their ability to lift the weight of the stone as well. So he was amazed when the front of the slab began to rise up and separate from its bed of rollers. The boys shuffled to one side, and the front corner of the tablet slewed across to the concrete platform.
“Now the back corner.” Gene seemed to have it all planned out. He laid out three concrete blocks in a row on the platform, and with a lot of lifting and levering the slab eventually lay balanced like a seesaw on the line of blocks.
“We put blocks under each end,” said Gene, “and keep going like that – levering it up and building three stacks of blocks, yeah? So the stone rests on the three stacks. Once we get it high enough, we’ll jiggle it across onto the walls. Job done.”
Steiner looked at Hutchinson. “Yeah, that’s one way. It was either that or a ramp.”
“Yeah. Or block and tackle.”
“We need a couple of guys doing the concrete blocks,” said Gene. “How about Enoch and Ray? You OK with that? Have to watch your hands, though.”
“All right,” said Enoch.
“Yeah, I don’t mind.” Ray glanced at Baz and pulled a slightly crooked face.
The slab had to be jacked up at quite a steep angle in order to get the blocks into position. One slip and fingers could easily get crushed under there. From where he stood, at the furthest end of a scaffold pole, it was difficult for Baz to see what was going on. He kept peering anxiously over Jubo’s shoulder as Ray and Enoch crawled around beneath the construction.
The supporting stacks of blocks grew higher, until the slab was almost level with the top of the wall, but by now the whole thing was beginning to feel creakily unstable, groaning beneath its own massive weight. Baz could smell the perspiration of those around him. The slab seemed darkly threatening, poised, a slumbering monster that had been poked and prodded once too often.
Gene let go of his pole and stepped back to inspect, wiping his forehead. “Just one more level,” he said, “and we’re there.”
Baz looked across at Jubo and let out a long shaky breath. Even Steiner and Hutchinson had dropped their pretended lack of interest, and now watched with frowning concentration.
“Come on,” said Gene. “We’re OK. Ready, Enoch? Ray? Middle blocks then.”
The boys inserted the scaffolding poles, and gingerly began to apply some force. The end of the slab rose up, but then Gene seemed to lose his nerve.
“Whoa... whoa... lower it again.”
“What’s the matter?” said Steiner.
The slab came back down to rest and Gene shook his head.
“I dunno about this. I think it’s too much.”
“What do you mean “too much”?” said Steiner. “It’s the same as all the other times.”
“No,” said Gene. “I’m worried about the stacks. They’re starting to wobble.”
“Hey – we can see what’s going on from here. You can’t. Now get it done. Come on – we’ll keep an eye on it. It’s fine.”
Gene bit his lip and hesitated, but then Hutchinson joined in.
“Listen, if we think it’s looking dodgy we’ll tell you. Now stop friggin’ about and get this job finished. I’ve laid off the sort-room crew long enough.”
“OK...” Gene still sounded uncertain. “Well, just you keep watching that end stack, that’s all. If it starts to lean, then you better bloody tell us.”
“Oi, watch your lip! We don’t take our orders from you, OK?”
Gene shrugged. “Come on, guys. It’ll be all right.” He positioned himself on the scaffolding pole again. “Gently does it.”
Once more the boys began to push down on the scaffolding poles.
“We’re OK... we’re OK...” Gene leaned outwards to get a better view of what was happening. “That high enough, Ray?”
“Bit more...” Ray’s muffled voice came from beneath the slab.
Baz could hear Ray muttering something to Enoch. “Got it? Shove your end in then... bit further...”
And then Baz felt the metal pole being wrenched from his grasp, dragged sideways with a force far beyond his control. There was a horrible grinding crunch, a hollow echo of it in the tube that he was gripping. He lurched forward against Jubo, pulled by the unbelievable weight of collapsing steel and stone. Down it all went, the metal poles clanging out their warning amid a rumble of exploding concrete. The stone tablet crashed into the billowing grey dust like some giant oil tanker belly-flopping into a raging sea.
Baz somersaulted over Jubo and landed on top of the slab, oblivious to his own danger even as he fell. All his thoughts were for Ray – Ray, who had been under the huge monolith as it collapsed... and was under there now. Baz scrambled sideways, trying to get off the slab, his head filled with the panicky notion that he was only adding to the weight, that he might somehow be making matters worse. He slithered down amongst the rubble, banging his knees and elbows on the rough corners of broken blocks, his heart pump
ing as though it would burst.
Baz hauled himself into a kneeling position, grabbing uselessly at lumps of concrete, throwing them aside...
“No! No! Ray... he’s under there!”
And then he saw that Ray was sitting right next to him.
Ray’s face was damp with sweat, dark patches of grey on his forehead and chin where the concrete dust had stuck to him. His eyes were wide with shock, his gaze fixed on the stone slab.
“God...” Baz dropped the piece of concrete that he was holding, the breath collapsing out of him. “Ohhhh... God. You got out. I thought you were... thought you were still under...”
But Ray said nothing, wasn’t even looking at Baz. Open-mouthed, he began to struggle to his feet, and as Baz squinted up at him he saw that all the other boys were standing, a loose and silent group staring down at the slab.
Enoch! Baz rolled over and pushed himself upright. He’d forgotten all about Enoch.
Gene picked his way forward through the rubble and crouched beside the slab, his head tilted as if to listen.
“Enoch?” His voice was higher than normal, on the verge of panic. “Enoch! Can you hear me?” No reply. “Oh, God...” Gene stood up again. “Uh... right. Grab the scaffolding poles.” He looked around at the mess of rubble. “Oh, Christ. Let me think for a minute. OK. Um... just two poles then. One at each end. Let’s see if we can lift it right up and tilt it back against the wall.”
But it couldn’t be done. There was only room for two boys to effectively get a grip on each of the two poles, and that was too few to be able to raise the slab. After a couple of attempts they gave up.
“We’re gonna have to put a pole in the middle as well, then,” said Gene. “But watch what you’re doing. He’s under there somewhere.”
“Christ,” groaned Steiner. “What a friggin’ mess.” Neither he nor Hutchinson offered any help.
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