Cissie ceased tending her friend for a moment to say something. She, too, took off her mask when she realized we hadn't understood a word, and tried again.
'I said, where does this tunnel go to?'
'What the hell does it matter right now?' I replied. 'You think we should wait for the fire?'
The light was shining right on her and I watched her lips tighten, her eyes blaze.
'Who the-'she began.
'Cissie, he's right. We must keep going.' Muriel was still sagging slightly, one hand on Cissie's shoulder for support She held a tiny handkerchief not much bigger than a Wills cigarette card, to her mouth, and she was still shaking, little cough-spasms hunching her shoulders.
Cissie clamped her jaw tight, but the annoyance was still there in her eyes. When she spoke again, she barely parted her teeth. 'All right. But, mister, you and me are falling out fast'
I couldn't help it, it wasn't the time, but I grinned back at her. She looked good and mad, her face all sooted up, big hazel eyes glaring, but I saw now she was young, maybe twenty, twenty-one, and at that moment she had the angry-stern look of a mother whose kid was gonna get one hell of a beating when she got him home. I guess my grin got her more riled, because she stomped off into the shadows ahead without waiting for any of us.
Muriel threw me a reproving look and set off after her. The German followed without comment, lamp in one hand, mask in the other.
My shrug was for my own benefit - there was no one else around - and I limped after them, shining the dismal light into the darkness ahead to help them find their way. I was soon in the lead again, warning the others of the 'obstacles' laid between and across the tracks whenever I came upon them. The atmosphere this far along wasn't healthy, but it was breathable, and I assumed some of the smoke was escaping through airshafts that we couldn't see. The ground began to dip and it wasn't long before we were treading through puddles, and then what felt like a shallow, stagnant pool, the water filthy black and oily in the light from the flashlight. A lot of these tunnels had been flooded during last year's awful winter and I guess we were lucky most of the water had drained away from this one. In the distance behind us we could hear the muted rumple of the fire, but when I looked back I could only see a dull, reddish tinge to the darkness, a soft kind of hue that pulsated almost benignly; somewhere along the way we had rounded a slight curve in the tunnel.
Abruptly, the flashlight dimmed even more, revived, then settled at a weaker level than before. The batteries were fading fast. I brought my little troop to a halt
'Let's take a look at that lamp,' I said to the German.
'By all means.' Stern came forward and passed me the square-shaped oil lamp. 'And perhaps you will now tell us where this tunnel leads to and how long our journey will be.'
His English was almost perfect, but the will sounded like vill and the where like vare - he spoke like Conrad Veidt in one of those Nazi spy propaganda movies - and it steamed me up plenty. I held tight though, biding my time.
Lifting one of the glass windows at the side of the lamp I shone the light directly at the wick inside. It looked okay, enough there to burn. As I passed the flashlight over to Stern and searched for my Zippo with my free hand, I told them about the tunnel and where it would take us.
'And how do you know these people who chased us will not be waiting there for us to emerge?'
Vaiting there. My jaw muscles clenched.
Cissie surprised me by speaking up. 'They wouldn't know which tunnel we took. Plenty of Tube lines run through Holborn - we could come up anywhere.'
'She's right' I found the lighter and flicked it on. 'Besides, they probably think they got us with the fire.' I held the small flame up to see their faces. Muriel looked about ready to fold.
'But how long is this tunnel?' she said in a quiet voice. 'I don't know if...'
'You'll make it. It's the shortest route we could've taken.'
'For a Yank you seem to know your way around.' There was still some resentment in Cissie's voice, as well as some breathlessness.
'I had a good guide once. Someone who was proud of her city.'
Silence then from the girls; I guess they'd caught something in my tone. But the German was becoming agitated.
'Then, as you say, we must keep moving. This place is not good.'
I ignored him, tilting the lamp and touching the lighter flame to the wick. Before it had the chance to ignite, faint sounds came to us, too distant to make out what they were. The sounds were growing louder though.
We all looked in the direction of the fire.
I'd heard this kind of noise in the past, but couldn't remember where or when. The volume was turning up, as if the source was drawing closer. A hand closed around my arm and I found Muriel beside me, body tensed rigid, the whites of her eyes shining dully in the gloom. Then it came to me, where I'd heard such a racket before.
Although there were fewer animals kept in the London Zoo during the Blitz years of the war, the more dangerous kind even being put down in case they escaped while an air raid was in progress, Sally had taken me there more than once when I was on leave, enjoying the sight of some of those exotic creatures more than I did, I think. One time we'd wandered into an aviary and something had set the birds off - a low-flying aircraft, as I recall. The explosion of noise was incredible, all those different species of bird splitting the air with their gabble - a bedlam medley of panic, anger, fright, and maybe just plain comfort calls to their partners, who knows? We'd clamped our hands over our ears, but the hullabaloo had still come through, so we ran out of there laughing - we laughed at a lot of things in those days - leaving the birds to their riot. Even from a distance we could hear them, kicking up hell, screeching their tiny lungs out.
And that was the kind of sound I was hearing now. Not the same, because birds didn't live in underground passages, never did, never would. No, these sounds were similar, but different. Someone ran an ice cube up my spine.
Muriel pressed against me and I felt her draw in a sharp breath. Cissie moved closer to the both of us.
Squealing, that's what it was. Not birds' chittering. Squealing. Like high-pitched screams. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them.
The light down the tunnel grew brighter. Fluttered, kind of. And then the first few appeared.
Small fireballs coming our way. Little units of run-amok blazes. Lighting the darkness as they came.
4
'WHAT ARE THEY?'
Muriel's hold on me was painful, but I ignored it 'Move back!' I yelled, following my own advice and dragging the girl with me. It was hard to take our eyes off the fiery horde - there was something mesmeric about these miniature infernos, some of them rising up the walls and falling back when they got so far, others spinning in the air to land on the tracks where they burned like tiny beacons, but most streaking towards us as if launched from some ancient war machine - and soon we were tripping over the human remains hidden in the darkness. That's when we wised up and ran like hell, with Cissie and the German in the lead. An anxious backward glance told me it was a race we could never win - the fireballs were nearly on us. I'd thought we could outrun 'em, that they'd be consumed by the fires that rode their backs long before they could catch up with us, but I was wrong, they kept coming and we kept running.
Dirty water splashed at our feet as high-pitched squeals mocked our flight. In the unsteady and almost useless light of the flashlight carried by the German I could see shadows here and there along the tunnel walls; it didn't take long for me to figure out they were safety recesses used by Underground workers to slip into whenever a train went by. Stern had noticed them too; he suddenly stopped and threw himself into one.