Cursed in the Act

by Raymond Buckland

  The first time his foot slipped on the frosty surface as he tried to run up it. He slid sideways and rolled off and to the side.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  He got up and dusted himself off without a word. He went back and began his run again. Planting his feet firmly on the wooden plank, he got far enough up the incline to be able to jump and grasp the top crossrail of the gate. Without a pause he kicked and pulled and, gasping, rolled over the top, ripping a large hole in his expensive jacket as he did so. He landed in a crumpled heap on my side of the gate. I now didn’t feel so badly about my own performance, and for a large man, I couldn’t help but admire his agility.

  “We’ll worry about getting out again later,” he said, struggling back into his coat. After catching his breath, he led the way toward the dark building.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  There were large loading doors at the front of the warehouse, but they were securely fastened. It wasn’t until we had moved around to the end of the building that we discovered a regular door. It was closed and locked, but the upper half of it included four small glass panes. A brief search uncovered a good size rock, and Stoker smashed out two of the panes. Reaching through, he unlocked the door, and moments later we were both inside the building.

  It was a relief to be out of the snow and away from the raw wind that had grown up.

  “Let us waste no time, Harry. We don’t know whether or not the men intend to return. We must search the place and find Edward.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Proceed cautiously. We don’t know whether or not they have left a guard here. I’ll go this way and you go that. If no luck, we’ll meet back here. Off you go.”

  Trying not to make any noise, I hurried as much as I could with my sore ankle. There seemed to be no light in the building. I found myself in a corridor. A ghostly sort of glimmer came through the windows, from the snow outside, but not enough to give any real light. I checked a number of rooms that seemed to be offices. I eventually rounded a corner and was surprised to see a low light coming from one of the glass-fronted office doors ahead of me. I advanced just as softly as I possibly could.

  Peering through the door’s window, my heart skipped a beat when I saw a small figure seated in a chair. It only took a moment to recognize Edward and to see that he was tied to his seat, in much the same way that I had been tied in the boathouse in Twickenham. The boy’s head was slumped forward on his chest, and I imagined he was asleep. Hopefully that and not drugged, I thought.

  There was no other sign of life in the room. I supposed that he had been left there and the kidnappers would return for him in the morning. I carefully tried the door handle. To my surprise, and delight, it was not locked. Since the outside door had been locked, I presumed the abductors had not worried about this inner one. I eased it open and stepped inside.

  “Shh! Edward!” I hissed. “Edward. It’s Mr. Rivers. I’ve come to . . .”

  “Well, come on in, then, Mr. Rivers,” said a voice.

  What seemed at that moment to be an abnormally large man emerged from out of the shadows and grabbed my arm. He locked onto it and then wrapped his other arm around my neck. I tried to gasp but found I couldn’t.

  “Help!” The young boy in the chair came alive and started struggling against his bonds. “Help!” he cried.

  Dragging me across the room, the big man aimed a kick at the chair and sent Edward crashing over onto the floor, bouncing off the corner of a desk on the way.

  “Shut up, you!” snarled the man. “Ain’t no one as is comin’ to ’elp you, so shut yer mouth!”

  “Hey!” I managed to get out. “Leave the boy alone. Ouch!”

  He gave a squeeze with the arm around my neck. It wasn’t pleasant.

  “They said as ’ow someone just might come lookin’ for the kid. Seems as ’ow they was right.”

  Suddenly the grip on my arm loosened and the arm about my neck came away. I almost fell as my burly captive staggered back a pace or two and then collapsed in a crumpled heap. Behind him I saw the equally burly figure of Bram Stoker, holding a cricket bat.

  “I found this in one of the rooms back there,” said Stoker, looking at the bat. “It’s signed by W. G. Grace, no less.”

  Dr. W. G. Grace was shaping up to be England’s finest cricketer. Last year he had scored England’s first ever Test century in his debut Test match against Australia. I could understand Mr. Stoker’s excitement, even if it seemed a little misplaced at this moment.

  “That’s wonderful, sir,” I said, rubbing my neck. “Let’s look to Edward.”

  The boy had started shouting and using a few phrases that I am sure he had not learned from his mother. Perhaps they are from Shakespeare, I thought. I hurried to his side and with Stoker’s help we righted the chair. I applied myself to untying the knots.

  “Easy, Edward,” said Stoker. “You’re all right now. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the boy was grateful enough to say. “I knew you’d come! Mother always said you were someone I could trust.”

  “Yes. Well, never mind. Let’s get on,” growled Stoker, obviously embarrassed at the praise. I thought a small sign of gratitude for myself might not be amiss, but I’m sure there was time yet for that. We still had to get out and safely back to the Lyceum.

  Stoker picked up the lamp from where it sat on a bench top and led the way back along the corridor. As we turned the corner and headed for the exit I saw lights outside the window. We stopped and looked out.

  A four-wheeler had drawn up outside the gate. It looked as though the other men had returned. Perhaps they had merely gone for refreshments or for some other reason. Whatever it was, it boded ill for us.

  “What now, sir?” I asked.

  “We need to hide. Quickly, Harry and Edward. I had found the main warehouse space in my searching. Through that door there, down the passage to the next door, and in! Fast as you can!”

  While the men outside were unlocking and removing the chains from around the front gates, we moved along and into the warehouse proper. It was mostly bare with no obvious place to hide. Stoker held up the lamp he had taken from Edward’s room and we surveyed the area.

  “I had no light before,” he said. “I rather hoped that we might find something here we could utilize.”

  We moved into the middle of the bare space. There was one large packing case off to one side, a couple of very small wooden boxes, and a light handcart; there was nothing that looked as though it would be of the slightest use. We heard the men come into the building; they commented on the broken windowpanes. It sounded as though there were three of them. We heard two of them hurrying off in the direction of the room where we had found Edward. They must have decided to break up as Stoker and I had done on first entering, for the door into where we were began to open.

  Once again displaying his ability to move fast despite his size, Stoker thrust the lantern into my hand, leapt across to the opening door, and swung the cricket bat he still carried. There was a dull thud and Ralph Bateman rolled into the area and lay still. In the distance we heard the others give a shout, apparently discovering that Edward was gone.

  “Quickly!” cried Stoker. “We don’t have any choice. There’s no time to get outside. Harry, lift up that grating.”

  In the middle of the floor there was a circular grating over an opening, which was obviously for draining off any water that accumulated in the warehouse. It was a large opening, much like a manhole. I gave Stoker back the lantern and then ran across to the hole, ignoring my still aching ankle, and with great effort managed to lift the cover. I looked down into blackness, what I believe the poets refer to as “Stygian darkness.”

  “Hop on down, Harry,” said Stoker.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Quickly now,” he said. “Here, I’ll go f
irst and then you can pass Edward down to me.”

  “I can get down by myself,” protested Edward.

  As I watched, Stoker lowered himself into the hole and disappeared. Edward was right behind him. I couldn’t be left, so I advanced to the gaping opening and again looked down. I saw that there were horseshoe-shaped steps hammered into the side of the rough-hewn shaft. I could see the glimmer of Stoker’s lantern at the bottom.

  “Hurry up, Harry. And pull the cover back over,” came his voice.

  Despite my newfound fear of closed spaces, I lost no more time and, balancing on the top step, dragged the metal cover up to the lip of the hole. I eased myself down and pulled the cover all the way across. With my heart thumping in my chest and sweat starting out all over my body, I climbed slowly downward. Above, I heard shouts and the stamping of feet.

  “What are they doing?” asked Stoker from below me. “Can you make out anything?”

  There came the sound of something being dragged across the floor and then a thump as all the light that had been seeping down through the grating disappeared. I knew instinctively what had happened. I climbed back up and tried to open the grate again. It wouldn’t budge.

  “I think they realized where we had gone,” I called down the shaft. “They’ve dragged that big packing case over on top of the manhole cover. We’re trapped! We can’t get out again!”

  * * *

  “So this is what a sewer is like.”

  Edward sounded calm and captivated. For myself, I was a nervous wreck. Prior to my run-in with that packing crate, I had never before realized that I had a fear of being enclosed. The darkness didn’t help. Stoker held the small lamp in front of him as we advanced along the channel of the sewer. His great bulk in effect cut off any illumination from reaching where I brought up the rear. I found myself sweating profusely.

  “The water is warm,” continued Edward.

  It was. I had expected to descend into cold if not freezing liquid, but as the boy had remarked, it was tepid if not verging on hot.

  “Why is that, sir?” I called ahead. “How is it that it’s heated?”

  His voice came back, echoing off the close walls. “It’s runoff from the Commercial Gas Works, Harry. They produce the coal gas with coke-fired furnaces, taking in water from the Regents Canal, which is next to the works. I believe the water is then pumped through what they call a hydraulic main. Something to do with ridding the gas of tar. It then runs off and comes down here.”

  “Stinks like rotten eggs,” said Edward. “Pheoo!”

  It did indeed have an abominable odor. I tried holding my hand over my mouth and nose, but it didn’t help, so I abandoned the idea.

  “Where are we going, Mr. Stoker?” asked Edward.

  “Out!” came back the curt reply.

  “There’s a way out?” I said. “How do you know which way to go?”

  “Look at the flow of the water,” said Stoker. “These sewers take the water and refuse out to the river. If we follow the way it’s flowing, we will eventually come to where it opens into the Thames.”

  “How far is that, sir?” asked Edward, putting into words the question I had been about to ask. Stoker did not reply, which I did not take as a good sign.

  We continued for some time.

  “Are there rats here?” asked Edward, again putting my thoughts into words. “Mama says that the sewers of London are alive with verm . . . verm . . . with rats.”

  I was not a little disturbed and expected to hear and feel the scampering of creatures over my feet. I had read of filthy rats that grew to enormous size, living off the swill that swept through London’s sewers. I shuddered. I was not a rat lover.

  “Fear not, Edward,” said Stoker. “This sewer is carrying waste water from the gas works so probably attracts far fewer rats than the lines transporting human waste and excrement.”

  Probably? I thought.

  Suddenly all was darkness and Stoker halted and muttered, “Damnation!”

  “What is it, sir?”

  “The lamp. It must have run dry of oil. Now we have only our instincts to guide us.” He moved forward again, at a much slower pace.

  “How far is it, sir?” asked Edward again.

  “I don’t know, I’m afraid. Not far, I hope. We were south of the gas works, somewhere in Limehouse. My guess is that this sewer line runs underneath the Commercial Road and empties into the river somewhere close to Eagle Wharf. I seem to recall once noticing pipes projecting into the river at that point, just west of where the canal itself empties.”

  “I—I don’t like the dark, Mr. Stoker.” Edward was obviously trying to be brave and not show fear.

  “Put out your hand and feel the side of the tunnel,” said Stoker. “That will keep you in the center and help you avoid bumping into the walls.”

  “It’s slimy!” wailed the boy.

  “Disgusting!” I added.

  We shuffled ahead in silence for a long while.

  After several minutes I noticed that the sloshing noise we made as we shuffled through the swill seemed to be coming from off to my left. I stopped.

  “Sir?”

  “What is it, Harry?”

  Yes, his voice was no longer directly ahead of me. “Sir! Where are you? You seem to have moved.”

  “Moved? What are you talking about?”

  I tried to orient myself and to explain my concern. “You don’t seem to be directly ahead of me anymore, sir, and your voice sounds farther away.”

  There was a silence and then, “Put out your hands, Harry, just as we talked about a short time ago. Both hands. Now, can you feel the wall on either side of you?”

  I did as he instructed. “No, sir. Only on my right.”

  “And, now that I do the same, I can only feel a wall on my left.”

  “What’s happening, Mr. Stoker?” Edward’s voice had a quaver to it.

  “Nothing too terrible,” came the big man’s reassuring growl. “It would seem that the sewer has forked and that you are starting to move off down the right-hand tunnel, Harry, while Edward and I are going to the left. Hmm! Good thing you noticed it when you did. Just put out your left hand, Harry, and move over to your left as you come forward again.”

  I did as instructed.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry, Edward,” I said. “I must have caught up with you now.”

  “Good.”

  “Just one more thing though, sir.”

  He sighed. “And that is?”

  “If the tunnel has now divided and we are going off along the left-hand branch . . . how do we know that this is the correct way? What if it’s the right-hand tunnel that will lead us to the river?”

  Mr. Stoker was my boss and, as such, was a brilliant man who—it seemed to me—had all the answers. But every once in a while he admitted that I came up with a problem that he had not foreseen. This was apparently one such occasion. We stood in water up to our knees for a very long while.

  “You raise a very pertinent point, Harry. One to which there would appear to be no immediate solution. I suggest we continue forward on our present path—the left-hand tunnel—and see where it leads. Hopefully it will shortly open out into the river. If, however, it does not, then I’m afraid we will have no choice but to retrace our steps and then take the other tunnel, hoping that, in turn, will take us where we wish to go.”

  “And if there are other tunnel divisions, sir?” I asked. “If this left-hand tunnel later divides into two?”

  Edward picked up my thoughts. “And then, later, if the one we choose from there divides again . . . ?”

  There came no reply from Mr. Stoker, while my wild imaginings saw us wandering for days through the catacombs that were the sewer web beneath the City of London.

  We continued for what seemed a very long distance.


  “Mr. Stoker, sir?” I eventually called.

  He grunted.

  “I don’t know what this means, but have you noticed that the water is rising? It was around my ankles when we first descended but it’s now well over my knees.”

  We halted again.

  “You are right, Harry. My mind was on other things and I had not noticed.”

  “Are we going to drown?” asked Edward, in a surprisingly bright voice. Despite the dark—or perhaps because of it—I think he was finding the whole thing a big adventure. For myself, I would rather have been safely tucked into bed off Chancery Lane.

  “It is probably that the outflowing from the gas works fluctuates,” said Stoker eventually. I thought he sounded uncertain. His voice lacked its usual conviction. “Come! Let us press on. The sooner we get to the end of this tunnel the better.”

  We moved forward at a slightly faster pace but could not keep it up in the darkness. Meanwhile, as we progressed, I noticed that the water level, slowly yet consistently, continued to rise. Stoker halted.

  “It makes no sense,” he offered, “but it may be that there is some change of depth to the sewer that we have encountered. Much as I hate to say it, I do believe we need to turn around and go back to that division of the sewer tunnel. We must take the other branch and hope that that maintains its level.”

  With groaning and grumbling from Edward, who had actually been holding up well, I thought, we did reverse ourselves, Mr. Stoker moving to the lead with myself bringing up the rear. With a great deal of sighing and not a little yawning—it must have been well into the early hours of Tuesday morning—we dragged ourselves back through the tepid water in the total blackness that was the inner depths of the London sewers.

  With outstretched hands sliding along the walls, we finally found the original division of the ways and started anew along the second sewer line.

  “It’s getting colder, Mr. Stoker,” said Edward. “And it’s getting deeper. The water’s up to my chest.”

  “It is cold,” I agreed. “What’s happening?”