‘I wonder if they have a phone?’ I wondered to myself. ‘Then I could phone someone for advice.’
Right.
It was a wonderful shop. Never in my life have I seen a more comprehensive selection of subterranean expedition outfittings. I was particularly impressed by the chrome carabiners, the belay devices, the braided cords, cap lamps, caving helmets, chest harnesses, dry sacs, elbow-patches, dynamic ropes, Maillon Rapide screw links and polyester webbing.
Not to mention the shock-absorbing lanyards and the semi-static ropes and the micro-slim emergency cord.
Which on this occasion I did, because I wanted to buy all of it.
I pointed to this and that and indeed the other and told the proprietor, Mr Ashbury Molesworth, that I would have them. And I purchased a really over-the-top-of-the-range sleeping bag, and some special chocolate that gives you energy. And I also purchased some other stuff!
‘Are you going in deep?’ he asked. In a suitably dark voice.
‘Very possibly so,’ I said. ‘Could you recommend a decent torch?’
And he did. The Astra Multi-Beam one-million-candlepower mega-torch. And also an ACME Ever-Lite Varie-Flame cigarette lighter, to light candles once the battery of the Astra Multi-Beam had given up the ghost.
And I took everything he recommended, including a ukulele, which he said was good for relieving boredom when trapped several hundred feet below the surface of the Earth, with little or no hope of rescue. And Mr Molesworth encouraged me to take a telescope and a 26.5 mm Very flare pistol with a telescopic sight. And although I said that I really couldn’t see the point of taking them on a subterranean journey, he assured me that they might prove to be invaluable. So I took them.
‘I’ll take a spare set of strings for the ukulele, too,’ I said, ‘in case once I’ve fired my flares it takes a really long time for me to starve to death.’
‘Well prepared is best prepared,’ said he. ‘Why, I’m really getting quite excited myself.’
‘Why?’ I asked him. Because I wanted to know.
‘Because,’ he said, ‘you’re English, aren’t you? I can tell by your voice.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘And that makes you excited?’
‘Not as such. It’s just that you Brits never get the hang of American dollars, so you won’t notice just how much I grossly overcharge you for all this specialist equipment.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Well, you have probably made a fundamental error there, because I have no intention of paying for any of these items. I have a gun in my pocket and shortly will be pointing it at you.’
And oh how we laughed.
Until I produced the gun.
But eventually we came to an arrangement, which involved him selling me the items I required for a fair price, in exchange for me not holding him up at gunpoint and taking everything for nothing.
I remain to this day uncertain as to which of us came out best upon the deal.
But finally I was all togged-up. And all paid-up. And as night was falling, the proprietor all closed-up. And I found myself back in the street.
Although this time perfectly attired and equipped for the task that lay ahead.
To enter Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage).
Descend from it to the entrance of the lost city beneath.
Enter the lost city and avail myself of whatever there was to avail myself of.
Return to the surface, bearing same.
Defeat and destroy the Homunculus.
Beer at Fangio’s.
Bed.
Done and dusted.
Piece of cake.
And all that kind of caper.
58
Orpheus descended into the Underworld. He went there to rescue Eurydice, I think, although I never paid as much attention to that particular Greek myth. I liked Odysseus shooting that big arrow into the eye of Polyphemus the Cyclops. And the Gorgon, with all those snakes on her head. And Hercules mucking out the stables. Anything, really, that involved Ray Harryhausen doing the animation. And I wondered, to myself, privately, as I prised open an entry into that long-deserted station, whether, just perhaps, if everything did go well and I did win and everything, I might attain the status of mythic hero and Ray Harryhausen might do the animation for any of the monsters I might encounter. When they made the movie.
Monsters? Now why had I thought that word? I squeezed between boards that I had parted and found myself within. Little light was there to greet me and so I switched on the brand new Astra Multi-Beam and revelled in its million candlepower.
There is something rather special about old deserted stations. Well, old deserted anythings, really. They are redolent with all kinds of things. They are the stuff of memory. There are faded posters and ephemera and ceased-to-be cigarette packets. And the dust has that certain smell and things have made nests. And what once was commonplace is now mysterious and intriguing.
I viewed a crumbling poster that advertised a wartime ersatz cheese, that was manufactured from hand-laundered pine cones. And the word ‘cheese’ made me nostalgic. I thought of Rob and those early days with The Sumerian Kynges. He’d always had this thing about cheese. And I wondered what had happened to him and whether he was even still alive. And I thought of Neil and of Toby and of Andy. And what they would think if they knew that I was here, right now, doing this.
And I shrugged off the sadness that had suddenly descended upon me and shone my torch about a bit more. I was in the concourse of what must once have been quite a substantial station, with marble flooring and etched-glassed ticket booths. And stairs leading down. And I took them.
The torchlight tunnelled ahead of me as I descended those stairs. And my footfalls echoed and I felt very alone. Perhaps, I thought, I should establish a base camp here, get a fire going and bed down for the night. I was very much looking forward to getting into my over-the-top-of-the-range sleeping bag. And that special chocolate that gave you energy sounded particularly tempting.
‘Perhaps a bit further down,’ I told myself. ‘At least as far as the platform. ’
And I continued down and down with the light going on before me.
And it didn’t smell so bad down here. Not nearly as bad as it smelled topside. But then there were no people down here.
No people!
That was it, wasn’t it? That smell. That rancid smell that cloaked New York above. It was the smell of death.
The smell of the dead. The walking dead. How horrid. And the living must have let it creep up on them, more so and more so, without even noticing it.
Very horrid.
The platform formed an elegant arc, tiled in glazed terracotta. There were lamps in the Tiffany style, hanging at intervals. There were more wartime posters, this time for violet wands, which had evidently been in great demand, along with electric enemas and patented pneumatic trusses. Thinking about it, there appeared to have been a very great deal of illness back in the war days, all of which required specific patented equipment of the electrical persuasion to effect all-but-miraculous cures. Most of which plugged in and vibrated. So no change there, then. Boom-boom.
And the sun may well have gone behind a cloud somewhere and a dog may well have howled somewhere else, in the distance, but I was deep down down below, so I was unaware. I also spied upon the wall something that I might not have expected to have seen. To whit, a number of posters advertising the movies of George Formby. It appeared that there had been showings of his movies right here on the platform during the war years. Perhaps to engender some kind of Blitz spirit amongst New Yorkers. To prepare them in case they got theirs, as it were. Which they didn’t, of course, but they might have.
What to do now, though? Wander down a tunnel?
I wasn’t keen on that idea. The friend I mentioned earlier, who had once been in the TA, had also once worked for London Transport, on lifts and escalators. And he told me that it was forbidden for any London Transport sub-ground operative to walk down a tunnel unaccompanie
d.
‘Because,’ he told me, ‘if you fell over or got knocked down or something, the rats would eat you up.’
So not, perhaps, down the tunnel.
And, ‘So,’ I said to myself, ‘if I was a lost city of gold hereabouts, where would I have my hidden entrance?’
And an answer returned to me in an instant. And hidden this answer was. Because it would be hidden, wouldn’t it? Because if it hadn’t been hidden, then wartime travellers would have stumbled upon it. Wouldn’t they? And I agreed, with myself, that they would.
‘I think that maybe I should establish base camp right here, right now, get a fire going, get into my sleeping bag and eat the special chocolate, was my considered opinion. Finding this city might just take a bit longer than I might have hoped. And it would be best to go about searching for it all bright and fresh.
But do you know what? I didn’t do that. Because many-togged as that sleeping bag might have been and inviting to equally many, I had just spent ten years on my back and had probably had all the sleep I needed for the foreseeable future.
So, press on. But to where?
And now I considered the other stuff. I previously mentioned the other stuff, but only briefly and in passing and was in no way specific or indeed even hinted as to what the other stuff might be. And this I did because I didn’t know whether I would need to use the other stuff or not. And if I wasn’t going to use it, then I didn’t want to get the reader’s hopes up that I might use it, only to dash them down when I didn’t.
But now I considered the other stuff. Because the other stuff might just be the solution to finding the hidden entrance.
And so now I will name the other stuff specifically.
It was manufactured by ACME.
And it was dynamite.
A dozen sticks of it, with fuses.
Well, I couldn’t let dynamite slip by, could I? I mean, how many times in your life have you ever had the chance to let off a stick of dynamite? Probably never, that’s how many.
Dynamite! I divested myself of my multi-denominational rucksack, un-Velcroed the windproof, rainproof coverall top flap and dug down deep into the contents therein and came up with a stick of dynamite. And examined it by torchlight.
Dynamite! A red sealed tube, like in the movies, with a fuse sticking out of one end.
Dynamite! I gave it a little loving stroke.
In all truth, I had been looking for the slightest opportunity to use it. I had even thought of letting off a stick upstairs by the ticket booths, just to see how much damage it would do. But I wisely considered that at ground level it might draw some unwanted attention from passers-by.
But down here . . .
Dynamite!
‘Calm yourself, Tyler,’ I told myself. ‘It’s only dynamite.’
Only!
But I did calm myself down. And I had a good think. Where should I place this dynamite? Lowest point in the station seemed favourite. But surely I was there now. On the track, then? Sounded good. Whereabouts?
So many questions!
‘Right in the middle,’ I said to myself, and my words echoed up and then down the ancient platform.
I took myself, my rucksack and my torch and my dynamite along that platform until I had reached roughly the middle. And satisfying myself that this was roughly the middle and that I was now having a very exciting time, I laid down my rucksack and shone my super-torch onto the track. A rat scuttled by and I didn’t like that. But I did have the dynamite. So how much to use? How powerful was dynamite? How many seconds would I have to make away to a place of safety once I’d lit the fuse? How far was a place of safety?
Too many questions.
‘In answer to the first question, how much to use,’ I said in a whispery tone, ‘I have twelve sticks, so let’s say, well . . .’ And I counted on my fingers and made that thinking-face. ‘Six?’ I said. Yes, six sounded like a nice round figure. If there was a lost city below, then six sticks of dynamite should be able to blast a way through to it.
Six it was, then.
I fished out another five. And by the megawatt light of my most excellent torch, bound them together with a length of ACME Patented Climbing Cord. Cut to length with my multi-blade Swiss Army knife.
I got my rucksack back onto my shoulders, then took from my pocket my brand-new ACME Ever-Lite Varie-Flame lighter and thumbed it into flame. I figured that to light just the one fuse would probably be enough. And this I now did. Noting the wonderful fizz as it lit and all the pretty sparks.
And then I tossed the bundle of dynamite sticks down onto the railway track and took to my heels at the hurry-up. And if it was interesting, from a detached point of view, just how fast you can run when pursued by policemen firing guns at you, it was equally, if not more so, interesting to note that you can run even faster when faced with the possibility of being blown to pieces by dynamite.
So to speak.
I legged it up that platform and up those steps and all the way back to the ticket booths above. And I flung myself down into one of those booths and assumed that foetal position Fangio had favoured earlier in the day and I switched off my torch and covered my ears and held my breath and waited.
And I won’t draw things out. I reckon it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds later when that dynamite went off. And it wasn’t deafening where I was, all huddled. But there was a terrific woomph! and a terrible shudder, as of an earthquake starting up. And then there was the dust. And I hadn’t really allowed for the dust. Or given the dust a moment’s thought. Even imagined that there would be any dust.
But that dust came rushing up the stairs and suddenly the darkness was a stifling darkness. A choking darkness. A fatally asphyxiating darkness.
And I coughed and croaked and spluttered in this lung-filling darkness and it was pretty horrible, I can tell you.
And I don’t know whether I passed out or not. But I do recall switching on my torch and finding myself looking like a grey snowman. And having to empty my nostrils and cough up clouds of dust. And then do a lot of manic pattings to restore myself to a measure of sartorial elegance.
‘I must remember in future about the dust,’ I said. In a hoarse and baritone voice. ‘But let’s go and look at the damage.’
And I descended once more to the platform of Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage). And, shining my torch all around and about, declared that it was a mess.
It was now a most untidy platform, all smothered in great boulders and rocks and everything velvet with dust, and I steered my way between the boulders and rocks to view the epicentre of the concussion.
And shone my torch down into a very large hole indeed.
It was a real humdinger of a hole.
A veritable pit-shaft.
And as I flashed my flashlight down, I thought I discerned amongst gentle twirling risings of dusts a certain degree of twinkling.
And as I looked and as I saw, certain words came to me.
From my memory. Words I had once read in a book about the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. And of how Howard Carter had knocked a small hole through the wall of the tomb and shone his torch inside.
‘What do you see?’ Howard had been asked.
And he said, ‘Wonderful things.’
59
And thus did I descend into the abyss.
Upon braided cord, secured by a chrome carabiner and employing certain belay devices, shock-absorbing lanyards and polyester webbing.
A veritable sight to behold.
But no one beheld me as I lowered myself carefully down. Down, down to where I beheld the beauty of sparkling gold. For sparkling gold there was a-plenty. My big mega-candlepower torch, affixed to my person with the appropriate chest harness, cast its brilliant light across burnished walls and dazzling glittering spires. I was above the city of Begrem, which, it appeared, was enclosed within a monstrous cavern. One that now had a dirty great hole in its ceiling. Happily I had not skimped upon the braided
cord. And I had gone for the best-quality ACME nail-clamp-pseudo-sprockets, so the pulley-wheels whirred upon frictionless bearings as I went abseiling down.
To land in some central plaza, surrounded, it appeared, by buildings of the Byzantine persuasion. There was much in the way of helmed and hipped roofs, Palladian-style minarets, fluted in the Isabelline fashion. Lancet windows were in evidence, but also Diocletian, in the clerestory regions. And there were cusps and cupolas and flying buttresses a-plenty.
And so on and so forth and suchlike. So, a somewhat eclectic collection of archaeological styles. To say that I was entranced would be to severely underplay the emotions that were whirling all around and about within me.
I had found it. I had actually found it. It actually existed.
I had dreamed of this moment. When I had lain there in that hospital bed, I had dreamed of finding Begrem. I had pictured myself strolling amongst its ruins, picking up this golden gewgaw and that. Tossing them into my rucksack. Returning to the surface in glory.
And now I was here. And I felt desperately lonely. All of a sudden, I did. It just swept over me. I was all alone here in this lost city, and no one knew of it. Mr Ishmael, he knew of it. But he wouldn’t know that I was here now. Nor my family, nor any one of the few friends that I had. I was totally alone. And I really hated it.
But I did love it, too. Being here. Incredible.
I disconnected myself from the braided cord, unclipped my torch and flashed it all around. And the gold of the buildings twinkled and glittered, and then I saw something more.
And I switched off my torch. Because there was light here, here in this sunken realm, a soft effulgence that seemed to swell from the very golden buildings themselves. It was so unspeakably beautiful that I sank down to my knees and, lacking any words that could be said, I had a little cry.
And then I pulled myself together. And took myself off to explore.
There was quite a lot of rubble on the central plaza, all blown down by the force of my explosion above, and I have to admit that it did somewhat sully the golden cityscape. And that made me feel rather guilty, because this place had lain here hidden from the eyes of man for centuries and now I had arrived and littered it up and made mess.