The Tower Bridge
By: Steve Simons
Copyright 2010 Steve Simons
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INDEX
Chapter 1 – The Chase, The Tower
Chapter 2 – Just What Is This Junk?
Chapter 3 – Beyond
Chapter 4 – Eyes On Stalks
Chapter 5 – The Saysestrians
Chapter 6 – Don't Give Up Hope
Chapter 7- Determined
Chapter 8 - Convincing
Chapter 9 – Have To Stop Them, But How?
Chapter 10 – What Have You Done?
Chapter 11 – Work The Like You Have Never Seen Before
Chapter 12 - Interference
Chapter 13 – More Complications
Chapter 14 – Who's What?
Chapter 15 - Re-United
Foreword
This book is dedicated to the staff and guests at the Tortworth Court Hotel, in Tortworth South Gloucester. This story was inspired by visits to the hotel and one occasion when the spiral stairs in the main tower, intrigued me.
https://tortworth-court-hotel.four-pillars.co.uk
Chapter 1 – The Chase, The Tower
The man, tall, thin, with dark hair moving quite briskly, with military precision, dressed in a smart uniform, is walking down the corridor towards the two boys. He smiles at them, but behind that smile, is he hiding the fact that he is onto their secret? The rather impressive tray he is carrying, could be for camouflage purposes only, to throw the boys off the scent. The boys dare not look into his eyes as he passes, in-case he can read the slightest hint of their purpose here. As hard as they can, they keep up their rate of walking, as if nothing is wrong. Their hearts beating at least three times their walking pace. Time seems to pass slowly. Despite the speed at which they are moving. It seems as if it would be impossible to gain sufficient ground, before the chase recommences. Perhaps someone else will be sent to observe them. The uniformed man is probably at this very moment summoning up reinforcements. The boys take a sneaky look behind them and see that the man with the tray has stopped and is talking to someone. Perhaps he is briefing this fellow conspirator. The man in the uniform points down the corridor.... in the direction of the boys. As both men turn to look towards the boys, Stuart suddenly feels himself being pulled to one side, it is Andrew's hand that is grasping his shirt and tugging him down a side corridor. Stuart is about to protest, but remembers the two men out to get them. The boys hope that the man in the smart uniform and his co-conspirator, haven't seen them disappear down this side corridor and chase after them.
This cat and mouse chase has been going on for about an hour now and whilst the people involved have all been different, the danger has always seemed the same, although some have appeared to be more suspicious than others. After all two boys aged respectively eleven and twelve, can get into a fair bit of mischief, if the will takes them that way.
having found themselves in this side shoot of a corridor, the boys need to find their way to safety, before those two chase after them. The new corridor leads to staircase, with its dark wooden railings and banister. The steps equally dark, but with carpet snaking its way down down the middle, following the curve of the stairway. Ahead lay its counterpart heading upwards. The decision awaiting the two boys, to go up or down? They had possibly encountered the lower set of stairs, whilst exploring the floor below, so to go down those would merely confirm that they had seen these stairs once before. Like a magnet they are drawn to the stairs leading upward. without a word being exchanged, they set off up the stairs.
Whilst the stairs themselves, are dark and foreboding, there is light streaming down from somewhere above, it is as if it is inviting them to journey upward, as indeed they do. Sure enough on the landing above there is a large window, that looks out across the roofs of the parts of the building building that stretch out below them. The grounds beyond look enticing with their formal gardens, lakes and woods.
There is a short length of corridor opposite the window, leading to yet more steps and a pair of wooden doors, set in an arched entrance, each door taking up its own half of that archway. The doors, large and imposing, made of the same dark wood as the stairs, looking equally foreboding, have glass panels that shine as if daylight lay beyond. Neither boy being tall enough to see through the glass panes. Perhaps it is some sort of balcony or roof garden. Will they be trapped up here? Their hearts still beating fast.
Andrew grabs the door handle and Stuart, in a whisper asks, "Do you think it is safe to go out there? Will there be anyone there?"
Andrew replies, equally in a whisper, "We can't stay here and we can't go back down, we just have to go through."
Stuart places an ear against the door listens carefully. After a short while he stands upright and announces, "Can't hear anything."
Andrew's hand reaches out for the door knob and gingerly turns it. The door at first, resists any movement, then suddenly gives. Andrew stops pushing.
Stuart resumes his listening again, in-case the door opening has attracted any attention from anyone the on other side.
The wait is painful and Andrew, not the most patient of boys, pushes the door open further.
"What are you doing?" whispers Stuart in a rather terse voice.
Andrew, encouraged by the fact that nothing has happened beyond the door opens it fully, without responding to Andrew's question.
Beyond the door is a room with large windows. It looks like an old fashioned lounge, with arm chairs and sofas around the edges, and small tables dotted around the room. There does not appear to be anyone in the room. Andrew steps inside, closely followed by Stuart. The boys walk to the centre of the room and stop, after having checked out the whole room for any sign of people or other entrances, but there are none. Although there is a strange black metal spiral staircase in one corner, it has rather ornate uprights leading to a rather plain curving banister. The whole leads up to the ceiling, where there is a hexagonal hole, into which the staircase disappears.
The boys stare out of the large windows. They overlook all of the surrounding grounds, at least those before the trees commence. The trees rising in height and blocking out the horizon beyond.
The boys' interest turns back to the metal staircase. There is a chain across the bottom of the stairs, with a sign that says, 'No Exit'.
A forbidden area. There must be something of great interest, or possibly danger beyond the staircase. Is it the former or latter? Both boy's parents had warned them from an early age, to take note of such signs and to obey them. But this was different wasn't it? They were on a mission and the mission was to find out as much as they could, without getting caught.
Andrew is first to walk to the spiral stairs, he looks up at the ever so dark stairs, leading to the even more dark metallic landing above. The edge of the landing has rails matching the pattern of the ones supporting the metal banister that spirals up with the steps. As Andrew tilts his head to one side, through the gloom, can just about make out something at the end end of the railings, it is dark, almost as dark as the railings and steps. The desire to to know what lies beyond those stairs is just too much. Andrew ducks under the chain and sign.
Stuart protests, "We can't it could be dangerous!"
Andrew says nothing, but starts climbing the stairs. There's a kind of bounce as the whole staircase reacts to Andrew's footsteps.
"Come down, it might collapse!" says Stuart.
Andrew replies, "The sign didn't say dangerous, or don't
climb, it just advised that there was no exit this way. Come on, it probably doesn't lead anywhere anyway, but I have to admit its fun climbing the steps."
Stuart nervously looks about himself, as if expecting to see an adult who was going to tell him not to go. As the two boys are alone, it isn't going to happen. Stuart pauses a while longer, whilst making up his mind. Andrew is now half way up the stairs.
Stuart ducks under the chain, it rattles as it sways back and forth, tapping against the metal frame. The stairs feel really strange with the two boys climbing.
Andrew suggests, "Hey let's walk in step, just like army soldiers crossing a rope bridge. I read about it once in a book. When they walked out of step the bridge felt unsafe, but when they walked in step the bridge seemed much more secure."
Soon Andrew is standing on the metal landing and looking down watching Stuart approach. Stuart asks, "What is up there?"
Andrew doesn't reply but turns his attention to the end of the landing that is opposite the last few steps. The dark thing he could see from below, is a wood panelled door, which appears to be made of the same dark wood as used in the rest of this place. There are no glass panels in this door. there are however, dark leaden windows in the other four Walls, the only confirmation that they are made of glass being some reflections of light from below. There is no glimmer of light from the other side. So they are either boarded up the other side or there is no light beyond.
Andrew turns his attention back to the door. There is an old fashioned door catch, which has a spoon shaped thing sticking out of the wood. Andrew has seen one of these before at some old house that he'd visited with his parents. He remembered some old guy telling him that you had to push down on the spoon shape. Andrew pushes, but nothing happens, there's a little give at first but then just total resistance.
Stuart now behind Andrew, says, "Here let me have a go."
Andrew moves to one side, Stuart grabs the handle below the spoon shaped thing, he pulls and at the same time squeezes down on the spoon. There's a loud clunk noise coming from the other side of the door. Stuart pushes and the door opens with a creaking sound. It is dark beyond the door.
~~o~~o~~o~~o~~
Chapter 2 – Just What Is This Junk?
Andrew walks into the dark room, treading carefully. There is something in front of him, blocking his path, so he turns, then fishes around in his pocket and his hand emerges with a tiny torch, which is already on. Gingerly, he steps into the room. Despite the torch the room is still unbearably dark. The torch only managing to catch glimpses of things within the room. They just seem like unconnected shapes, some shiny some dull, none of which make any sense. The two boys stick closely together, as they twist and turn around the room. There is an overwhelming smell of dust and damp. This room, has clearly not been disturbed, for some considerable time.
Stuart stops dead, as if he has seen something that has disturbed him, he says, "This is stupid, we should explore this place in a methodical way, rather than catch small glimpses of this stuff. Shine your torch in front of you on the ground, then slowly bring it up, so we can see if these things are connected in any way. At the moment, it just looks like some sort of storage area."
Andrew replies, "Well that would make sense, after all we do appear to be in the roof. I think this is the tower that we saw when we got here."
Andrew does as Stuart had suggested, his torch starts on the floor and gently swings upwards.
There are black tubes running up from the floor to some sort of black metal box. The box in turn has other tubes emerging sideways and also towards the roof, but the torch isn't strong enough to show where those tubes go. Andrew follows the line of the tubes running out of the right hand side. There are three of them, one goes to a large green cylinder, the next to a box which has a large glass globe beside it. Somewhere behind the tube, there is some faint light, it appears to be coming from one of the leaden windows facing out onto the landing. The glass must be so dusty, however, that the light that is making its way through, is very dim. The globe has several things in it, but the detail is hard to make out. The third tube, runs further on round and enters a tall rectangular box, which has no front cover, so is more like a frame. Inside the frame are several layers, each containing glass cylinders and every so often shiny metallic tubes, inter-spaced with other darker objects. There are what look like smaller pipes running between these things.
Next is the doorway, with the door still standing open. The light from the room below is quite faint, but as the boys' eyes are becoming more accustomed to the low lighting levels, this light is now contributing more towards them making sense of this room and its contents. The boys are glad that the floor appears to be perfectly clear, dusty but tidy.
Andrew says, "Do you know this place reminds me of a very old laboratory. In comparison with a modern school lab everything seems to be super sized."
Stuart suggests, "Maybe it is just some form of old power distribution device, that has long since become unused."
Andrew agrees, "You could be right, it does look like it is electrical in nature. If only we could get to the windows, perhaps we could clean them and they would let a bit more light in."
Andrew swings his torch around a bit further and yet more racks of glass tubes and another glass globe can be seen. Then there is a series of large copper coils, two vertical rows of them either side of a space, which is now in front of them. There are two coils above, pointing in at an angle. The whole apparatus in this room seems to be focused on this one area. A number of the black tubes heading in towards the coils.
Andrew lets out an involuntary whistle and says, "Will you cop a look at that!"
Stuart, jumps at the noise and exclaims, "What the hell is it?"
"Heck knows, but I'll tell you what, it isn't a power thingy." replies Andrew, walking around it, not daring to touch, but fascinated with the thickness of the coils.
It is only then, that Andrew realises, that Stuart is no longer at his side. He spins around and sees that Stuart's shadowy figure, is over by the doorway. There's a sharp click noise, a flicker of light and suddenly Andrew realises that Stuart has managed to turn on some lights. Andrew catches sight of strange bulbs hanging from the ceiling, they are glowing a sort of orangey light which is gradually getting brighter and changing to white. There are numerous cobwebs strung between the hanging bulbs, like some form of organic network of fine thread bridges.
"Well done Stew, how did you know the light switch was there?" asks Andrew.
"I suddenly caught sight of it, just now when you swung your torch around."
replies Stuart.
"These bulbs must be really old, I have never seen lights come on like that before, except in really old movies." says Andrew, as he turns off his torch and stows it away in his pocket again.
The contents of the room, are now so much easier to make out. It looks even more like a really old laboratory, every bit of equipment seems to be connected to the rest, by way of the black tubes. It seemed very orderly, whilst also looking quite chaotic, well chaotic in comparison to modern devices.
Andrew remarks, "Well this is obviously where it ends, but where does all this lot begin?"
"More importantly,"Stuart says as he rejoins Andrew by the large coils, "What is it all for?"
"Given its age, probably more like, was for." corrects Andrew.
Stuart has moved and is by the first box that they had seen when Andrew fished out his torch. He suggests, "Given that these tubes go out to all bits of the room and the box is fed by by the tube from the floor, it probably all starts from here."
"I can't see any controls around here." replies Andrew, looking carefully around the room.
"Why do you want to find those?" asks Stuart.
"Because controls are usually labelled with what they do. We would then know what all this is for." Andrew smiles a smug smile. The sort that Stuart doesn't like, the type that
says I'm smart and you're not.
Stuart determined to get his own back turns his attention to the black box in front of him. Stuart examines it closely and notices a small knob on the front, he pulls it and a small door opens, inside there is a large switch and a bank of strange white things, each one lining up with small tubes, no wires, each heading to one of the tubes to the sides and top of the box. "Hey come and see this."
Andrew joins Stuart and after a short while of examining the box, announces, "It's a fuse box, my grandma's house had one that was a bit like this, only those vertical bars were black. Hey its still on."
"So there's no power up here now then." replies Stuart, somewhat
disappointed.
"Not necessarily, each one of these white things has a piece of wire in it. They break if there's too much power going through." Andrew reaches out for the large switch and pushes it upwards. There's a clunk sound.
"What are you doing?" asks Stuart.
"Turning off the power so its safe." Andrew smiles.
"How do you know that's off?"
Andrew taps the upper part of the switch panel, where the switch is now pointing. The faint letters O F F can just about be made out, black letters against a black background, does not make the task easy.