by Derek Reid
It was fun, I can tell you, travelling through the tunnel. We could shout and scream and the tunnel would echo back at us. Tonka barked and barked - enjoying the sound of his own bark was fun.
“Hello! Hello! Boxer is a funny fellow! Hah! Hah!” I shouted.
‘Hello, hello, hello,’ bounced back the echo.
“Matty! Matty”, shouted Boxer, “is a funny fellow.”
This was followed by more intense laughter. Already we had travelled a long way along the tunnel, which seemed strange really because not much time had passed.
“Boxer,” I said in a panic, “the water in the tunnel is going the wrong way. Oh, Gawd!”
“What are we gonna do, Matty?”
“Let’s try and stop the boat by dragging the oars on the walls of the tunnel. It might work.”
The boat began to pick up speed. The tunnel river was galloping so much we couldn’t hold out much longer. We would soon be dead, I was sure of that! Then suddenly the tunnel narrowed and the front of the boat began knocking against the walls on one side and then the other. Eventually it jammed solid.
We both took our shirts off, rolled them into a ball, and, using them to protect our hands, tried in earnest to push the boat along the tunnel, but the effort was almost too much for two small boys. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were razor-sharp, and in spite of our precautions we were both cut very badly. Freezing water seeping through the roof didn’t help. Progress was painfully slow, and we were close to despair. It was deadly quiet.
“I’m scared, Boxer.”
In front of our eyes a mist began to rise - a dark, eerie mist, a mist of evil. The still, black water was illuminated by a funnel of light from the tunnel entrance behind us. Small bubbles appeared and as the bubbles grew larger, ripples began to spread across the water’s surface. Something in the water was rising slowly towards the surface.
Suddenly we could both see human hair - black curly hair, all matted and twisted. Then ears and eyebrows showed, followed by closed eyelids. It was horrible. It was a human head! We both screamed together as the dead, twisted mouth came next. There was no body attached to the head.
“Gawd, we’re finished now!” Boxer cried.
The head started to bob up and down, and the eyes slowly opened. More heads appeared, but the boat was now free and we were moving quickly forward. I grabbed hold of an oar and started to whack the heads. The heads screamed at me.
“Please, please help us!” they cried out. “Help us...!”
The cries faded away in the dark, swirling mist.
With a jolt the boat slowed down and almost stopped. All we could see was a faint light behind us and nothing ahead. It was pitch-black. The heads had gone. We sat motionless as the boat crept slowly forward. The tunnel began to grow lighter and we saw a bend ahead to the right. Then suddenly we could both hear faint voices. We grabbed hold of each other’s arms, terrified. As we rounded the bend, laughter rained down the tunnel, echoing and bouncing from wall to wall. In my fear, I burst out crying and called out for my mum.
“Mum!” I called aloud in desperation.
Boxer had changed colour to a fearsome pale white and was shaking from head to foot.
We found ourselves in a cave very dimly lit, and there, sitting round a table and chairs which appeared to be made of human bones, sat four skeletons. Behind them I could see a stone spiral staircase.
“Run for the staircase, Boxer,” I shouted as loudly as I could.
“Matty!” called out Boxer.
I looked behind me. He had slipped and fallen on the first step. I too fell to the ground.
Grabbing a rock jutting out from the stone wall, I tried to lift myself up. The skeletons moved towards me, waving their arms. Boxer moved so that he was next to me. It was no good - we were beaten. Certain death lay at our doorstep.
“Ha ha ha!” echoed laughter from the four skeletons. It was the rest of our gang dressed up in black overalls. In the dark we could only see the skeleton bones, which were painted in fluorescent green. They laughed while Boxer and I felt stupid.
“You can all laugh.”
I was still shaking with fear. The experience had been mind-bending.
“This is Boxer, you guys,” I called out aloud.
Everyone stopped in their tracks.
“Hi,” said Rocks. “Sorry about all of that.” He looked at the others. “We all say hi.”
“Anyway,” said Boxer, having moved over to look at the bone table and chairs, “these look like Roman soldier bones.”
He looked further at them, and the gang were looking very worried that he might uncover something very sinister.
“We all went and dug them up after we saw you two going into the tunnel,” said Rocks, his large frame now quivering with rear of reprisals from the dead Roman soldier. “D-d-do you think something will happen to me, Boxer?” His large frame was shuddering.
“I’ve heard some boys have shrunk very rapidly after upsetting a--”
“R-roman soldier’s grave?” butted in Rocks.
“Yes - it haunted them to an early grave.”
Rocks shot up the staircase screaming; the other two followed, also screaming. Boxer and I burst out laughing, but then we both moved quickly to the staircase and started stepping more quickly as we both, together, realised it could be true!
“Whose idea was it with the heads in the tunnel?” I chuckled.
“Not ours,” replied the gang, mystified.
“What heads?” Nifty shouted.
Boxer and I shot up the staircase as fast as our legs could carry us.
We all climbed the staircase two steps at a time to the top, and found ourselves in a large warehouse. There were row upon row of large wooden barrows, some empty, some full of socks and gloves and God knows what else.
“The people who worked here must have used downstairs as a loading bay for the barges in very olden times,” I said, standing on a high box to see over the edge of one of the barrows.
“No,” said Rocks, who didn’t need a box to stand on.
Everyone stopped to look up at him.
“My dad used to be the captain of a barge before the war, and now he is the captain of a barge carrying coal to London Docks.”
“You’ll be saying next that you were born on the barge.”
There were roars of laughter from all, which quickly died down when we could see the anger on his face. Rocks could be a mean boy if he so desired.
“Yes,” - he had a smug look - “I was, actually. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it!”
Silence from all.
“Hang on a mo - what’s that over there in the corner?” Rocks went over to the corner of the building. “Great Scot, lads, it’s a box of old uniforms!” he said as he opened up the lid.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” said Little Joe as we made our way over to Rocks.
Nifty tried on one of the army uniforms and Nat had the only RAF uniform - which nobody minded as his dad was in the RAF. We tried on the uniforms with the utmost glee.
“Somebody has to swear us in one by one,” said Little Joe as he took a step backwards for fear it might be himself.
Rocks, there in front like a flash, shouted, “OK, you ’orrible lot, chests out, stomachs in, right turn, quick march!”
We marched in line down some old wooden steps, out of the hosiery mill towards the pillbox in the middle of the field singing our favourite song.
It wasn’t the yanks that won the war, parlez-vous.
It wasn’t the yanks that won the war, parlez-vous.
It wasn’t the yanks that won the war;
The Big, Big Five got there before,
Inky-pinky, parlez-vou-ou-ous.”
Roars of laughter followed. Rocks, who
was leading the line suddenly dropped to the floor and waved his hands for the rest of us to do the same. He pointed towards the pillbox. Smoke billowed out from the opening in the pillbox. There was no doubt who the culprit was.
Chapter 8 - The Devil Jack in the Pillbox
There was a hot clear blue sky, but hanging above the pillbox the mist swirled and curled in eerie patterns that could only put fear in your belly. Although some way off, we could see clearly an evil twisted face with a hooked nose and pointed ears. It was the Devil Jack, who was dressed all in black with pointed shoes.
He must have heard something, for he began to look slowly this way and that brandishing a knife and thrusting it backwards and forwards as though stabbing something - or someone. He sniffed the air then looked in our direction. He started moving forwards.
Up we leapt and ran towards the hawthorn hedge in the corner of the field. Tonka was hard at our heels with the same fear as we all had.
The Devil Jack was old, but he began to gain ground. Rocks went down like a ton of bricks with the thing nearly upon him, but we all ran back to pick him up and drag him through the hedge. The thing was no match for us as we had all scrambled through the hedge on many occasion. We were aware of a place where we could cut through and miss the spiky, painful thorns which awaited the unwary. One occasion comes to my mind when Craggy the Bull tried to chase me through this very hedge. He was a monster-sized bull, but he screamed out in pain when he hit the thorns.
Once through the hedge, we doubled back on ourselves towards the pillbox so as to confuse the Devil Jack. Rocks slammed the pillbox entrance shut with a large boulder we kept inside for such emergencies. Then he fell to the ground with exhaustion. A little yelp came from outside - I had left Tonka outside! Rocks came to the rescue, opening up the door slightly, dragging in Tonka and, at the same time, pushing away the Devil Jack, who was trying to gain entry.
Boxer lit a candle after we thought the Devil Jack had gone. We had placed large boulders in front of the door, and now we added old boxes and anything else we could find. Then we all huddled together in the far corner and waited, and waited.
“He’s gone,” someone said in a hushed voice.
Suddenly an almighty roar was followed by something crashing on to the pillbox roof and horrible screams which shook us to the bone.
Later - much later - we crept to the narrow opening to look outside. The Devil Jack had gone. A sickly coldness came over us all - a feeling of being at death’s door.
“This is all your doin, Rocks,” I found the courage to say.
“What do ya mean?” he retorted in a gruff voice, shrugging his large shoulders.
“You stole the Roman soldier bones from the grave.”
“I have a confession to make,” said Boxer, looking at me then at the others. “The bones are not human bones - they belong to a dog.” He looked sheepish. “The Roman soldier had a faithful dog buried with him to lead him into the next life.” Boxer’s head bowed as he spoke.
Chapter 9 - The Body of Little Jimmy Brown
He had hardly spoken when two gunshots rang out. We looked through the narrow opening in the pillbox to see the Devil Jack running across the meadow, followed by the Home Guard firing shots at him.
“Although they are only from the soldier’s dog, I bags we take the bones back,” said Nifty with fear on his face as they all sat down.
“Good idea,” replied the group in a low tone.
We ran back to the mill and down the stone spiral steps. Then we boarded the rowing boat and made for the tunnel entrance. Our intention was to return the bones.
Coasting slowly out into the river - slowly, in case the old man across the river might see us again - we were just about to return the boat to the common when we heard many voices coming from under the stone Norman bridge. The All Saints Church bell tolled slowly: bong ... bong ... bong ...
The sight that met our eyes was most awful. Crowds had gathered on the banks of Skipper Hall’s boatyard and also there were crowds on the opposite bank overlooking Diggers Quicksand. In the centre of the river were many boats - too many for me to count. There were police and soldiers digging into the dyke. Each shovel of dirt they dug was laid carefully on to the weed-cutter’s raft tied close by. There were ladies weeping openly, and - a thing I had never seen before - grown men with their caps off were weeping also and making the sign of the cross of Our Lord upon their chests. For the first time ever, the river flowed in silence. Not a ripple was heard. Not a bird sang. Small children, with their heads hung low and caps in hand, wept.
They were unable to find his poor body, but intended to bury the soil in which he died in the cemetery of All Saints Church. His mother ran her fingers through the mud of Diggers Quicksand and made the sign of the cross. Then the weed-cutter’s raft carried away the soil to be buried in the churchyard as there was no hope of finding little Jimmy himself. Men of the cloth had come to this decision.
We moored the rowing boat against the riverbank, taking no notice of the old man shaking his fist at us from the other side of the river.
‘Who cares about him’, we all thought, ‘now Jimmy has gone to his Maker?’
Suddenly, we stopped in our tracks, looking at one another. Someone was crying out for help.
“Help! Please, somebody, help me.”
“It’s coming from the tunnel!” shouted Little Joe.
Back we went, paddling as fast as we could, to the tunnel entrance.
“Shh!” said Rocks.
Nifty put his ear close to the water.
“It’s coming from the top end.”
He was able to tell because he had a gift for locating the source of mysterious sounds.
We paddled like never before, while the cries grew louder and louder.
“We’re coming,” called out Rocks.
We paddled even faster. The cries seemed to be on top of us as we reached the end of the tunnel, but then they started to fade away.
“We must have passed him,” said Nifty.
We doubled back, and again the cries grew louder. There in the wall of the tunnel was a small wrought-iron grille, and on the other side was a tiny but just recognisable face, weeping. Two hands clasping the wrought-iron bars and a voice called out, “Help!” It was dear little Jimmy Brown. The tears flooded from all of us - the happiness was too much to bear. We just sat in the rowing boat clapping with joy.
“There’s a little door further along,” said Jimmy, totally out of breath. “Don’t go too far or the river will swallow you up.”
Out of the boat shot Tonka. Straight into the water he plunged.
“Come back!” I shouted to him. “Come back!”
He took no notice, but paddled on to find the doorway. There was a small ledge next to the little door and he climbed on to it. On the ledge was a wrought-iron ring and Tonka was able, with his mouth, to attach to it the rope Rocks threw him. Rocks, with his mighty strength, was then able to haul us up to the door of the prison.
We all stood on the ledge and, with an almighty push, we knocked down the whole door. We all rushed in to give a mighty handshake and hug to Jimmy.
There was no time to lose. We had to get out quickly as the prison had begun to flood. But worse was yet to come: out of nowhere came a flurry of huge bats. Our biggest fear was now upon us. The bats had one enormous green eye, and this evil eye was on the top of the head. Diving and swirling with vicious huge teeth they attacked the Big Five and Boxer. They bit chunks of flesh from the gallant group, causing untold pain.
“Into the boat!” shouted Rocks.
“Where’s Tonka?” I shouted desperately.
“He’s being attacked,” shouted Little Joe.
Rocks, already knee-deep in the water, knocked the bats unconscious, striking out this way and that till he was able to pull To
nka on board.
Back at the pillbox we prepared Jimmy for his reunion with family and friends. He told us of his time imprisoned by none other than the Devil Jack.
“He may be lying dead,” said Little Joe. “We heard two shots fired at him by the Home Guard.”
“I had no food for days on end,” Jimmy said as he tucked into the remains of the food I had left at my camp. “Sometimes I could hear people laughing near the tunnel entrance. I shouted and screamed, but nobody came. Anyway, my dearest friends, and Tonka, I think you’re all the greatest.”
“Stop, stop, everyone!” called out Rocks, waving his hands in the air. “We have all forgotten the loved ones of little Jimmy. His mum still knows nothing about him being found.”
“You’re right, Boxer. Let’s take him to the bridge where everyone is - right now, this minute.”
Back we went to the rowing boat and made towards the bridge. Nifty couldn’t wait - he jumped into the river and swam to All Saints Church, ran up the belfry staircase and pulled the bell rope. ‘Bong, bong, bong,’ rang the church bell. It rang like never before.
The Big Five and Tonka came under the bridge with Little Jimmy being carried on all shoulders.
The cheers that rose at the sight of the rowing boat coming under the bridge made tears flow everywhere. Even the old man who had told us off was in a flood of tears. Children waved their caps in the air at the sight of their lost school friend, and happiest of all was Jimmy’s mum.
Chapter 10 - The Stack
“Have you heard of the stack, Boxer?”
For the moment he carried on talking to Tonka. “Good boy, Tonka,” he said, ruffling the dog’s brown-and-white coat. “I had a dog once, Matty,” said Boxer, looking up at me while he stroked Tonka.
“What was the dog’s name, Boxer?”
“I named him Blacky. Just a little old mutt he were - nothing to other folks, but the world to me, Matty.” He held both Tonka’s ears and kissed him on the forehead. He looked at me again. “I had him when I lived with some folks who looked after me a while. It was at an old farm, I remember that. He was a little Labrador, Matty.” He cuddled Tonka’s head. “He were taken from me a year or so later.” It showed in his face, the pain he must have felt then. “I was in utter despair and I always wonder where he is and what he’s up to.” He gave Tonka another kiss. “Blacky loved being on the farm cos he could rummage all day long. He used to find the eggs the hens had laid - some in the oddest places, Matty. I think I was about five then.” He cocked his head at an angle as he looked up. “I do remember, a while before that, sitting in an old metal bath pretending it was my ship and all the old cans I collected and put in it were guns.”