Nothing should have shocked me by now – three years of living among sights that were the stuff of nightmares should have conditioned me – but the skull-head that returned my stare, with its black hollow eyes and gaping grin, made me jump back in fright. Stupidly, I’d expected the train to be empty. Of course passengers had been travelling on the Underground network all over the city when the disease had struck, the Blood Death drifting down into the tunnels, seeking out its victims like some predator roaming the burrows of the earth, and the Dead Man’s Handle had jammed on as soon as the train driver had slumped over, cutting the circuit so that the carriages had come to a halt, to remain locked there in the darkness as one by one their occupants keeled over. How many had escaped? I wondered. How many of the ABnegs – if there’d been any on board – had managed to crawl out into the tunnels and make their way back to the surface, only to wish they’d died with their fellow travellers below?
The skull resting against the window still wore a driver’s cap, its peak tilted by the glass to a rakish angle so that, with its unrestricted grin, the skeleton appeared to have kept its sense of humour. I didn’t get the joke though, and was ready to unravel as I went back to the others. I was about to tell ‘em to keep their eyes low when they passed by the carriages, but I never got the chance.
The flash that swept through the tunnel was like sheet lightning, its glare bleaching everything white before blinding us with its brilliance, the thunderclap that followed a split second later shaking the walls and deafening us all. Searing air blasted around us, but we were protected by the carriages we cowered behind, only our legs feeling a deflected part of the heat. The world may have become silent to us as we fell to our knees, but it continued to spasm and shake, causing us to sprawl between the tracks, bodies stretched, hands over our heads.
I’m not sure if I felt or sensed the train lurch, but an instinct sent me scrabbling forward onto the girls, using my weight to hold them still until the wheels shuddered to a stop. As I blinked to clear my dazzled eyes, I became aware that the air was suddenly cleansed, the smoke and filth pushed back by the blast; but even as I rubbed at my eyes and my hearing began to return, grime and dust, along with brickwork, started to fall from the ceiling and walls. Head still reeling, senses floating, I guessed what had caused the explosion further down the Tube line, but now was not the time to mull it over – although we’d been shielded from the full force of the blast, we were now in a worse predicament than before. And unfortunately our chances of survival were getting slimmer by the second.
I staggered to my feet, grabbing the fallen but still-burning lamp as I rose, then swung round to squint into the flickering shadows behind us. The shadowy figure of the German was leaning against the train, his head jerking from left to right as if he were trying to shake some sense back into it; and beyond him the train itself was burning, the flames further along the carriages contained by the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, but spreading fast towards us. Stern was swiftly lost from sight as great clouds of smoke swept between us.
The very air felt scorched, dried out, and suddenly it was hard to draw breath.
‘Back!’ I managed to squawk, but I doubt any of the others heard me.
I pushed the girls, herding them away from this new threat, and Stern wasn’t slow in figuring it out for himself. He was soon alongside us as we staggered through the smoke and falling dirt. He held Muriel’s arm while I hung on to Cissie, and as a tight group we stumbled back along the track, not thinking ahead, fear and heat forcing the retreat, the thick, choking smoke swilling around us, increasing our panic, until it was exhaustion, not common sense, that slowed us after a hundred yards or so. Muriel dropped to her knees first and Cissie followed her down.
Stern attempted to drag Muriel up again, but she was bent double, gagging on fumes, her body a dead weight.
I crouched close to Cissie. ‘Come on, we’ll choke to death if we stay here.’ Even to me my voice sounded faint after the explosion, kind of trapped inside my own head, but I think she heard me. She tried to tug herself free.
Her voice was distant too, but I caught what she was saying. ‘Where can we go?’ she asked. ‘We’re between two fires, you bloody fool, and it’s your fault. You made us come down here.’
She had a point. But hell, what other choice had there been?
I looked around, up the tunnel, down the tunnel, and wasn’t encouraged. Out of the fire and into the inferno, I told myself. Some days were like that.
The German, his back against the wall, was coughing so violently I thought his gut might burst, and Muriel’s arched figure was heaving, her throat rasping as she fought to draw in poisoned air. Back there the whole tunnel was alight, clouds of rolling smoke softening the blaze, and in the other direction, towards the station, even more smoke tumbled towards us, a thick, curling torrent of it, so dense it looked solid.
I hauled myself up, but my legs barely supported me. My energy was sapped and my head was dizzy from lack of pure oxygen. A veil seemed to be drawing over my mind, and it wasn’t unpleasant; no, it seemed like an escape, a retreat from the horror all around us in this black stormy hell. I fought it though, because fighting against things that were not right, legal and fair was in my nature, always had been. That was why I’d gotten into the stinking rotten war before most of my compatriots in the first place. Sure, I was a fighter – life, and death, had made me that way – but this looked like the final battle.
I raged against it, even lifted a weary fist in defiance, but I knew I’d lost. There were no options. Like the girl said, I’d led them into a trap of my own making, and the price of that foolishness was death. We were gonna die alongside the scorched vermin.
And as the black smoke closed in and that flimsy veil floating across my mind thickened, something happened that sent a last reserve of adrenaline rushing through me.
5
EVEN THROUGH THE SMOKY mists this new light was bright enough to dazzle. It seemed to come straight from the tunnel wall itself, only a few yards away, and it swept over us, taking us all in, its beam defined by the smoke. The speaker was invisible behind the glare, but his voice was clear enough.
‘You’re a sorry sight, the lot of yer.’ The voice was low, gruff, a little peppery, as if the guy wasn’t excessively pleased to find us. ‘You’d better get yourselves inside,’ it went on in that growly way, ‘unless you want to choke to death. Come on, in ‘ere, ladies first.’
The German was on his feet, but the two girls remained sprawled across the tracks, heads raised and looking towards the light. I figured we were being offered sound advice so I dragged Cissie up by her armpits, croaking out to Stern to help Muriel at the same time. Every muscle in my body ached and my shoulder stung from the nick it had taken earlier, but I managed to haul Cissie over to the light source, the lamp I’d been using left by the tracks. We must have looked quite a sight, covered in filth, clothes a mess, faces blackened and tear-stained, all of us coughing so much smoke we could hardly speak. Blasts of heat swept over us in waves and we could hear the sound of popping glass as the train’s windows fractured. There were other noises too – the roof over the train falling in, old brickwork crumbling with the heat, and a deep rumbling, like an earthquake, going on way below our feet. Between coughing fits, the girls were crying out, floating ash and smoke creating a storm around us, and I swallowed hard before lending my own voice to the racket by shouting at the man behind the light to quit blinding us.
When we didn’t seem to be getting any closer I realized the light was pulling away, its spread becoming confined and outlining a doorway in the tunnel wall. I realized the door must have been in shadow when we passed it before and we’d been too busy running from those fireballs to notice. Possibly it’d been locked from the inside anyway, so it would have been useless even if we had spotted it None of that mattered now though: the door was open and this surly guardian angel was inviting us in.
The light retreated along a bare-bricked corrido
r and we tumbled after it, collapsing inside the doorway in a tangle of bodies, too exhausted and overwhelmed by our escape to move another inch. As we lay there gasping air like decked flounders I felt something, someone, shuffling around us, back towards the entrance. I caught a glimpse of baggy, dark-coloured overalls before the iron door clanged shut behind us.
Although there was still a faint rumbling somewhere off in the distance and a weak vibration running through my hands and knees from the concrete floor, it suddenly became quiet, peaceful, as though the mayhem had been left far behind. I could barely move, and thinking was too much effort; I just wanted to lay there and convalesce. The others were coughing up smoke, their breathing scratchy and difficult, and I wasn’t much better off. my throat was raw and my thoughts were disassembled. It took a great effort of will to roll over from my knees and press my back against the wall so that I could look around.
The corridor was long and narrow, and at the end of it was a stone flight of stairs leading upwards. A softer light than the one carried by our guardian angel came from a paraffin lamp set on the second step, and when the flashlight switched off I turned my attention towards the door and the man standing before it.
I guessed him to be in his late fifties, maybe sixty even, a stocky little guy wearing dark blue overalls and a flat, white tin helmet with a large black W painted on it. It was the uniform of an Air Raid Precautions – ARP – warden, and I wondered why nobody had bothered to tell him the war had ended three years ago, back in ‘45. His face was kind of flabby and hard at the same time, a working-man’s, used to fresh air and tough labour, a network of purple veins colouring his jowly cheeks; bushy eyebrows, stubby nose and small, gimlet eyes completed the picture. He looked us over and didn’t appear happy with what he saw. He gave a disapproving shake of his head.
‘All right, you lot,’ he said, ‘on yer feet. I don’t know what you’ve gone and bloody well done, but even this place ain’t safe any more.’
As if to reinforce the message, a muffled explosion came from somewhere close by.
‘Oh, good Gawd,’ he said, more to himself than us. He stepped over our legs, making his way towards the concrete stairs, but pausing when he reached me. He bent closer, squinting his eyes, then nodded as if confirming something he already knew.
‘Always reckoned you’d be trouble one day,’ he murmured before moving on to the steps. He scooped up the lamp and turned in our direction again. ‘Listen, I can see you’re all done in, but you can’t stay ‘ere. You’re still in danger, see? Somethin you set off in the tunnel has ruptured gas mains that feed into this bunker, an’ that’s caused fires that’re spreadin right through the place. We’re safe where we are for the minute, but that won’t be for much longer. So unless we get movin right now, we’ll be stuck. Understand? Get me? Stuck.’
He was talking to us as if we were sapheads, but I guess we were all wearing dumb expressions, relief and exhaustion taking its toll. I was still wondering why I’d been given the double-take. The little guy was getting impatient. ‘When somethin blows under the streets, it can cause an upset somewheres else. Then that starts a nuisance in another place, a fire or explosion or somethin. Chain reaction, y’see. Build-up of gas, pipe gas or sewer gas, all bleedin lethal. It’s a wonder the whole city’s not in ruins by now.’
‘It was a gas pocket in the tunnel.’ The words hurt my throat.
‘What’s‘at?’ His beady eyes set on mine again.
‘Burning rats ran past us in the tunnel. I think they reached some trapped gas further along the line.’
He sniffed and brought out a grubby spotted red handkerchief from his overalls pocket to mop his face and plump neck. ‘Yeah, that was probably it, not that it bleedin matters right now.’ He nodded his head a couple of times, considering me. ‘So you are a Yank then? Thought you was from the Yank flying jacket you always wear.’
‘You know me?’ My brain was beginning to function again.
‘I’ve seen you about, son. And this mornin I saw yer bein chased by them Blackshirts, you and these others ‘ere. Yer didn’t see me though, none of yers did, I made sure of that. I watched you duck into the Tube station and reckoned on where yer’d be headin if yer got the chance.’
I struggled to my feet and gaped at him, one elbow resting against the wall, every muscle in my body stiff. The German and the two girls were beginning to stir themselves, but I wasn’t sure if they’d been following the conversation.
‘How did you know which tunnel to find us in?’ I asked the warden, curiosity overriding the tiredness.
‘Like I says, I thought I knew where yer was headed. It was a chance, but yer struck lucky, son. Now then, yer got the strength to help your friends?’
I barely had the strength to stand upright, but I nodded anyway.
‘Right, follow me.’ He began climbing the stairs, boots noisy on the concrete.
‘Who is he?’ Cissie asked in a hushed voice as she used my arm to drag herself up.
‘No idea,’ I replied, giving her some help. ‘But I could kiss his little fat head.’
The German helped Muriel to her feet and she caught my anxious look.
‘I’ll be okay,’ she said quickly, her voice strained. ‘Once I get into better air I’ll be fine.’
‘You lot comin?’
We could only see the glow of the lamp shining down the stairs, the corridor we were in now darkened, full of our own shadows, and without another word we set off after the warden, the girls behind me, Stern following at the rear. The old guy was waiting for us by another door at the top of the stairs, this one also made of iron.
‘What is this place?’ I asked when I reached him.
‘Civil Defence shelter. There’s a whole complex of plannin rooms on the other side of this door, all underground, too deep for any bombs to reach. They never counted on the poison though, never thought anythin could touch ‘em down ‘ere. All very hush-hush and all bloody useless.’
‘If it was so secret how did you find it?’
‘It was on my beat, son. As a warden it was my job to make sure none of the street entrances was blocked.’
He peered over my shoulder to make sure we were all together, then twisted the handle and pushed open the door. It was heavy, judging by the effort he put into it.
I touched his arm, moving closer. ‘You said you knew where I was making for. I’d like to know how.’
My hand stayed on his arm and he looked down at it, then up at me. ‘I know where your base is, so it stood to reason you’d use the Tube line going back to the Aldwych, which is near the hotel you’ve been usin. I’ve watched yer goin in and out of the place plenny a’ times. Sometimes yer disappear for a while, but yer always come back to it. Yer like yer bit of luxury, don’t yer?’ He even gave a little chortle.
‘You’ve watched me?’
Any humour vanished from his broad, ruddy face. Yeah, I’ve watched yer, son. And I know what yer do.’ He turned away, but not before I’d caught the unease in his eyes.
Hoke?’ Cissie was pressing against me, her breathing shaky. coming in gasps. ‘What are you two –?’
‘Forget it. Let’s just concentrate on getting outta here.’ I took her hand and surprisingly – I thought she was still mad at me – she allowed me to guide her.
Once through the door we found ourselves inside another corridor, this one wider though, with openings along each side. Water covered its concrete floor and at the far end a carbide lamp burned, its white glare harsher than the warden’s paraffin lamp but more effective. On the wall outside one of the open doorways was a yellowing poster, an upper corner drooping over, and as I passed by I saw there were two pictures of Adolf Hitler on it, front and profile, WANTED writ large at the top, smaller headline type explaining why. FOR MURDER…it Said. FOR KIDNAPPING…FOR THEFT AND ARSON. It should’ve added FOR WORLD GENOCIDE. Our breeze caused the opposite corner to curl over so that the paper folded and the mad Führer was out of sight The floor shook beneath
our feet and Cissie’s grip tightened in mine.
I took a peek through a doorway and saw a plain square room inside, pipes running round the walls close to the ceiling. One of the smaller pipes was leaking in a couple of places, thin jets of water arcing onto the bare floor. The only furniture was an iron table with four straight-backed chairs around it a black telephone sat on the tabletop. It was a relief to see there were no human remains in there.
Other rooms were similar but with more furniture; two or three tables, green filing cabinets and cupboards. The pipes ran through every room, and there were more leaks, some pretty bad. There was another stairway at the end of the corridor, broader than the last and turning back on itself as it rose to the next levels. We used its iron handrail to drag ourselves upwards, the warden urging us on and getting mighty agitated with the ladies for holding us back. We’d just reached the next level when an explosion beyond a set of doors to our left shook the walls.
The warden clung to the stair rail until the world had settled down a little. ‘It’s the gas cylinders!’ he shouted at me accusingly, as if it were my fault, I’d arranged the whole thing. ‘They’re kept ‘ere for emergency power and now your bloody fire’s got to them!’
My bloody fire? Yeah, sure. But you had to wonder what kind of genius built an underground bunker vulnerable to explosions beneath the city streets. We were both distracted by smoke curling through the gap beneath the heavy double doors.
‘Which way do we go?’ I asked as Cissie sank down next to me. Muriel stood with her back resting against the wall, the German supporting her, his impatience to get moving plain in his quick-shifting eyes.
‘Upwards!’ the warden shouted back at me. ‘There’s sleepin quarters and plannin rooms on the next floor, and we can get out through there.’
‘Doesn’t this stairway lead to the street?’