The Trojan Horse (19 page)

All this flashed through my mind as the man's waders came slowly into view. I knew instantly that I dared not risk it. I hurried on up the sewer, making as little noise as possible. And then it began to bend. I think I must have been round that bend before the chase came into the straight behind me. And then the sound of voices echoed and re-echoed along the
tunnel. The best that I could have hoped for had happened. The sewer men had stepped out into the tunnel to find out who was coming through the sewer. The long altercation faded away behind me. The sewer forked again. Then I came to a ventilation shaft, the top of which was scarcely ten feet above my head. I could see wheels crossing over it and the roar of traffic was practically continuous. I guessed I must be somewhere near the river now, for I had turned right from the main sewer, which must have been leading in the direction of Barking, and I was now clearly in a low-lying part of London. The number of tributary sewers – little more than pipes – became increasingly numerous, so that I guessed I was in a district of congested, narrow streets. The concrete circular walls of the sewer in which I was walking had now given place to stone, and I realised that this must be one of the old sewers still in use. The rats, too, seemed more numerous here. My legs were perpetually brushing against them.

I was beginning to wonder how I was to get out. I had hoped, once I had shaken off my pursuers, to climb one of the exit shafts, and by shouting and beating on the cast-iron trap-door at the top to attract the attention of a passer-by. But there seemed to be no exit shafts to this sewer.

I think it was the fear that I might have to retrace my steps and risk the possibility of capture if I were ever to get out, that made me pause before a patch of bricks. The bricks formed a large square, like the entrance to a passage, in the left-hand wall of the
sewer. I peered at them closely in the dull glimmer of my fading torch. One or two near the top were missing and the mortar was crumbling badly. I pulled two or three away and, pushing my torch into the gap, I gazed through. There seemed to be a sort of passageway with walls of stone that reminded me of the old sewer I had got into from the Marburg vaults. But it was not that so much as the air that decided me. The atmosphere of the old tunnel was cool and almost fresh in comparison with the warm stench to which I had become accustomed.

The bricks presented little difficulty. They came away quite easily, and in a short space of time I had made a hole big enough to climb through. There was no doubt about it. This was an old sewer. And it led, I felt certain, in the direction of the river. This seemed to be confirmed by the fact that it sloped gently in the direction in which I was going. But progress was slow. My torch was reduced to such a feeble glimmer that it made no impression upon the darkness unless thrust very closely to the floor. The culvert was in a very bad state of repair. Probably it had not been used for more than a century.

Soon my torch gave out completely. I went forward, feeling my way, my hands stretched out on either side to touch the wet slimy stone of the walls. The darkness was the darkness of the vaults from which I had escaped. It pressed down against my eyes. I was filled with a terrible lassitude and I was hungry, and above all thirsty. But I kept doggedly on because
the air on my face was fresh and I knew there must be an opening somewhere.

Often I looked at the luminous dial of my watch – not to see the time, but to see its friendly little face shining at me in the darkness. I was determined not to use a match until it was absolutely necessary, for the box in my pocket was half empty. For hours and hours I groped my way along that culvert. There were no ventilation shafts. I could see nothing, only the Stygian blackness. But the warm stench of the sewers was behind me, and for that I was thankful.

I had entered the culvert shortly after ten. I think it was about one o'clock that I slipped and lay on the stones, exhausted. I slept fitfully for a while. And when at last I had recovered strength enough to climb to my feet, I found it was three o'clock. I was soaked to the skin, for there was a certain amount of water in the culvert, and I was shivering with cold.

Nevertheless, the sleep had done me good. But with my recovered strength I found my brain no longer dulled. And my imagination, always a little too vivid, pictured myself groping along that tunnel unendingly till I died. Once I nearly panicked. Only the dial of my wrist-watch saved me. It was a friendly face and gave me courage. The culvert twisted and turned and my feet were sore and bruised with stumbling against the blocks of broken stone that had fallen from the roof. My one great fear was that I should bear away from the open air on a branch of the culvert. But always I had the satisfaction of feeling cool air on my face. As long as I felt that cool air in
front of me, I knew I should find strength to go on. Pains were beginning to shoot through my belly, pains of hunger. But they were nothing to the thirst, which swelled my tongue and clove it to the roof of my mouth. And all the time I was slopping through water, which I still had sense enough not to touch.

Suddenly the walls on either side of me opened out. I lost contact with them. I stopped and pulled out my box of matches. But I found them sodden by the water in which I had lain asleep. I went back a few steps, found the left-hand wall and began to follow it. Almost immediately it fell away again and I had to turn a sharp left to keep in touch with it. Before I had gone more than a few paces I realised that I was no longer facing into the cool air, and faint, but quite distinguishable, I smelt the sewers again. I knew then that I had come to a point at which two of these old sewers met. I retraced my steps, found my own sewer, and began following the right-hand wall. The same thing happened. After that, I turned my face towards the cool air and moved slowly, blindly forward, feeling my way with my feet. Soon my hands which were outstretched in front of me touched the wet cold surface of a stone wall. I followed it and found that I was still facing the cool air.

After a time, I stopped and, facing directly away from this wall, went forward a few paces. The ground sloped away to water. I stumbled against a stone and found my feet sinking into mud. Then the ground rose again and I came up against another wall. I knew
then that I was in a much wider sewer, and my spirits rose.

It was now nearly four. If I did not reach the entrance soon, darkness would have fallen. I knew it would be folly to attempt to get out into the Thames, presuming that that was where the sewer led, in the dark. And I had no desire to spend the night in the place. Where I had fallen and slept there had been hardly any rats. But here there seemed to be thousands of them. The sound of their movement was everywhere, like the soughing of a wind up the sewer.

Soon I encountered slimy weed on the wall along which I was feeling my way, then my feet began to slither and squelch on a thin layer of mud, which extended close up to the wall. I knew then that I must be nearing the Thames, and a new fear assailed me. Until that moment I had had no thought of what the exit of the sewer into the river would be like. I had just been intent on reaching that exit – nothing else. The mud got deeper until it was pulling at my sodden shoes. Then I found I was floundering through a few inches of water. I had a sudden awful fear that the sewer might come out into the river underwater. Or supposing the water came right up the sewer at high tide? Should I be able to find my way back faster than the water flowed up the culvert? It was an unpleasant thought. But I went doggedly on, encouraged by the cool air on my face, which could now be described as almost a breeze.

Soon I was in nearly a foot of water. I glanced at my watch. It was nearly a quarter to five. And then I
noticed a peculiar thing. That friendly little face was not as bright as it had been. I peered closely at the watch. But there was no doubt about it. The luminosity was dulled. I stared around me in the darkness. Was it my imagination, or had it lightened? Was there a tinge of grey in the inky blackness?

I stumbled hurriedly on, the wall curving away to the right. Soon I was left in no doubt at all. The darkness was lifting. Ahead of me I could begin to make out vaguely the bend of the sewer. A little farther and the darkness had become definitely grey. Soon I could see the walls, all weedgrown and slimy. And then the sewer itself took shape – a sixteen-foot-wide arched culvert made of great stone blocks, beneath which a sheet of water stretched from wall to wall.

The relief of seeing daylight filtering through into that disused tunnel! I went forward at an increased rate, my hunger and thirst and weariness forgotten in my joy at the sight of that grey light. The sewer bore away to the left, and as I rounded the bend, the water now over my knees, I saw the actual opening into the river. There before me was an arch of daylight that almost hurt my eyes. And across that arched sewer exit was a lattice-work of iron bars, like a portcullis.

It was the last straw. I think I should have burst into tears if I had not been so buoyed up by the sight of that grey half-circle of daylight. Beyond it, I could see some sort of wharf. The great wooden piles were wrapped in green weed, and around them the river slopped. There was a wooden ladder, too, its rungs
rotting, but giving promise of a way to safety, if only I could get through those iron bars. They reached right to the arched roof of the sewer. But there was a cross-bar near the water level. I could stand on that and perhaps by shouting I should be able to attract attention to my plight.

I went forward resolutely. The iron grille was only about fifty yards from me. The water rose to my waist. It was bitterly cold and there was a scum of oil floating on its dark surface. At each step my feet sank deeper into mud. I had soon lost both my shoes, but I did not mind, for it lightened my feet. When the water was up to my chest, I launched out, using a long sweeping breast stroke and ducking my head at each thrust of my arms. I made good pace and I was within a few yards of the bars before my muscles had grown tired with the weight of my waterlogged clothes.

Four more strokes and I was clutching the bar near the centre. But the cross-bar, which from a distance of fifty yards had seemed so near the water level, was over three feet above my head. In my exhausted condition, I knew I could never draw myself up to it. I looked back, The darkness of that tunnel, full of inky water, appalled me. I could not face the prospect of going back. Besides, I was doubtful whether I could make it.

Twenty yards beyond the grille the water slopped tantalisingly against the lower rungs of the ladder to the wharf. I thought if I clung to the bars for a time, the incoming tide might lift me to the cross bar.
But then, out beyond the green timbers of the wharf, I saw a barge drifting slowly downstream, and I knew then that the tide was still on the ebb. The centre of the river was whipped into brown waves by the tide and the wind, and beyond was a drab line of wharves and cranes. How homely and safe they seemed! I had many times looked at such a scene from the security of London Bridge, and I longed to be back there, treading its firm pavements.

My left hand suddenly slipped on the rust-coated bar. I quickly took a fresh grip. The cold was beginning to tell on me. Soon my hands would be numb and I should have to let go and attempt to get back into the sewer. And perhaps I should never have the strength to swim out to the grille again. I had to do something. I began to shout. I shouted till my throat was rough. My calls echoed back at me from the sewer. The big stone archway rang with my cries. But no one came. I began to scream. The panic feeling of a drowning man had seized me. But it was Saturday. No one was about. And when no one came or answered, blank despair suddenly fell upon me. I was suddenly silent, clutching the cold bars with my hands and looking out upon the river with my chin just above the water. And with my silence, came a mental calm, and I knew that I must either go back or find a means of going forward. And whichever I did, I should have to do it quickly.

There was only one possible chance of going forward. I took a deep breath, shut my mouth and then, with my hands on the bars, pushed myself under the
water. It seemed a long way that I went down, and all the time my feet were against the bars. My lungs felt as though they would burst. But one more thrust of my arms and my feet were no longer touching the bars. I felt about, but there were no bars where my feet were. Another thrust and they sank into the mud. I let go my hold of the bars and struggled to the surface, where I gulped in fresh air in great mouthfuls.

I rested for a moment, clutching the bars again. I reckoned there was a gap of about two feet, or perhaps a little more, between the end of the bars and mud. But it was a long dive and there was the mud. I had an awful fear of being caught in that mud. And then there might be spikes sticking out on the other side, which would prevent me from rising.

It was a long time before I could pluck up the necessary courage. But with every minute I was getting colder. And so, suddenly, like a diver taking his first plunge of the year, I took a deep breath and began thrusting myself down hand over hand. It was done before I had time to think about it. In no time, it seemed, my feet were clear of the bars. I thrust myself sideways, pulling my body down with my hands, like a monkey crawling across the face of his cage. I felt the pointed end of a bar. The water was singing in my ears. I thrust myself farther down. I felt my body press against mud that yielded and bubbled unpleasantly. I had the point of a bar in the palm of my hand. I thrust myself under it. For a moment my foot became entangled with the points of the bars. My lungs now felt as though they must burst my chest
apart. I wrenched my foot clear, and in the same movement, thrust myself upwards, letting go my hold on the bars.

I thought I should never reach the surface. But I did, and as I panted for breath, I found the tide carrying me slowly towards the wharf. It was perhaps as well, for I was very weak now. But I had sense enough to realise that the tide might grow stronger and sweep me past the ladder if I did not fend for myself. I summoned my last remaining energy, and with a few desperate strokes, reached the ladder and hung there, gasping and half crying.