Noble House

"Where is he?" Fire Chief Harry Hooks asked.
"There, somewhere down there. His name's Bartlett, Line Bartlett." Hooks saw the light seep down a few feet then stop, blocked by the maze. He lay down on the ground. Close to the ground the gas smell was heavier. "Down there, Mr. Bartlett! Can you hear me?" he shouted into the wreckage.
They all listened intently. "Yes," came back faintly.
"Are you hurt?"
"No!"
"Can you see our light?"
"No!"
Hooks cursed, then shouted, "Stay where you are for the moment!"
"All right, but the gas is heavy!"
He got up. The officer said, "A Mr. Gornt was here and he's gone to get more help."
"Good. Everyone spread out, see if you can find a passage down to him, or where we can get closer." They did as he ordered. In a moment one of the Gurkhas let out a shout. "Over here!"
It was a small space between ugly broken slabs of concrete, broken timbers and joists and some steel H-beams, perhaps enough for a man to crawl down into. Hooks hesitated then took off his heavy equipment. "No," the officer said. "We'd better try." He looked at his men. "Eh?"
At once they grinned and all moved for the hole. "No," the officer ordered. "Sangri, you're the smallest."
"Thank you, sah," the little man said with a great beam, his teeth white in his dark face. They all watched him squirm underground headfirst like an eel.
Twenty-odd feet below, Bartlett was craning around in the darkness. He was in a small crawlspace, his way up blocked by a big slab of flooring, the smell of gas strong. Then his eyes caught a flicker of light ahead off to one side and he got a quick look at his surroundings. He could hear nothing except the drip of water and the creaking wreckage. With great care he squirmed off toward where he had seen the light. A small avalanche began as he shoved some boards aside. Soon it stopped. Above was another small space. He wormed his way up and along this space and reached a dead end. Another way, dead end. Above he felt some loosened boards in the crumpled flooring. He lay on his back and fought the boards away, coughing and choking in the dust. Abruptly light doused him. Not much, very little, but when his eyes adjusted it was enough for him to see a few yards. His elation vanished as he realized the extent of the tomb. In every direction he was blocked.
"Hello above!"
Faintly, "We hear youuuuu!"
"I'm in the light now!"
After a moment, "Which light?"
"How the hell do I know for chrissake?" Bartlett said. Don't panic, think and wait, he almost heard Spurgeon say. Holding on, he waited, then the light he was in moved a little. "That one!" he shouted.
Instantly the light stopped.
"We have you positioned! Stay where you are!"
Bartlett looked around, quartering the area very carefully. A second time with still the same result: there was no way out.
None.
"They'll have to dig me out," he muttered, his fear gathering
Sangri, the young Gurkha, was down about ten feet under the surface but well away to the right from Bartlett. He could go no farther. His way was blocked. He squirmed around and got a purchase on a j'agged concrete slab and moved it slightly. At once this part of the wreckage began to shift. He froze, let the slab rest again. But there was no other way to go, so, gritting his teeth and praying that everything would not collapse on him and whoever was below, he pulled the slab aside. The wreckage held. Panting, he put his flash into the cavity, then his head, peering around.
Another dead end. Impossible to go farther. Reluctantly, he pulled back. "Sergeant," he shouted in Nepalese, "I can go no farther."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh yes sah, very sure!"
"Come back!"
Before he left he shouted down into the darkness, "Hello down there!"
"I hear you!" Bartlett called back.
"We're not far away! We'll get you out, sah! Don't worry!" "Okay!"
With great difficulty Sangri began to back out, retracing his way painfully. A small avalanche pelted him with rubble. Grimly he continued climbing.
Dunross and Gornt clambered over the wreckage to join the clusters of men who were in a chain, removing rubble and beams where they could.
"Evening, tai-pan, Mr. Gornt. We've pegged him but we're not close." Hooks pointed at the man who was holding the flash steady. "That's his direction."
"How far down is he?"
"By the sound of his voice about twenty feet."
"Christ!"
"Aye, Christ it is. The poor bugger's in a pickle. Look't those!" Heavy steel H-beams were blocking the way down. "We daren't use cutters, too much gas."
"There must be another way? From the side?" Dunross asked.
"We're looking. Best we can do's get more men and clear what we can away." Hooks glanced off at an encouraging shout. They all hurried toward the excited soldiers. Below a mess of torn-up flooring that the men had taken away was a rough passageway that seemed to lead downward, twisting out of sight. They saw one of the small men jump into the cavity, then vanish. Others watched, shouting encouragement. The way was easy for six feet, very hard for the next ten feet, twisting and turning, then he was blocked. "Hello down there, sah, can you see my light?"
"Yes!" Bartlett's voice was louder. There was almost no need to shout.
"I'm going to move the light around, sah. Please if it gets near, please give me right or left, up or down, sah."
"Okay." Bartlett could see a tiny part of light up and to his right through a mass of the beams, girders and joists and broken rooms. Directly above him was an impenetrable mess of flooring and girders. Once he lost the light beam but soon picked it up again. "Right a bit," he called, his voice already a little hoarse. Obediently the light moved. "Down! Stop there! Now up a fraction." It seemed to take an age but the light centered on him. "That's it!"
The soldier held the flash steadily, made a cradle for it with rubble, then took his hand away. "All right, sah?" he shouted.
"Yesss! You're on the money!"
"I'm going back for more help."
"All right."
The soldier retreated. In ten minutes he had guided Hooks back. The fire chief gauged the path of the beam and meticulously examined the obstacle course ahead. "Stone the crows, it'll take a month of Sundays," he muttered. Then, containing his dread, he took out his compass and measured the angle carefully.
"Don't you worry, mate," he called down. "We'll get you out nice and easy. Can you get closer to the light?"
"No. I don't think so."
"Just stay where you are and rest. Are you hurt?"
"No, no but I can smell gas."
"Don't worry, lad, we're not far away." Hooks clambered out of the passage. On the surface again, he measured the line on the compass and then paced out over the tilted surface. "He's below this spot, tai-pan, Mr. Gornt, within five feet or so, about twenty feet down." They were two thirds of the way down the slope, closer to Sinclair Road than to Kotewall. There was no way in from the sides that they could see, mud and earth of the slide heavier to the right than to the left.
"The only thing we can do's dig," he said with finality. "We can't get a crane here, so it's elbow grease. We'll try here first." Hooks indicated an area that seemed promising, ten feet away, close to the hole the soldiers had discovered.
"Why there?"
"Safer, tai-pan, in case we start the whole mess a-shifting. Come on, mates, lend a hand. But take care!"
So they began to dig and to carry away everything removable. It was very hard work. All surfaces were wet and treacherous, the wreckage itself unbalanced. Beams, joists, flooring, planks, concrete, plaster, pots, radios, TV sets, bureaus, clothes, all in an untidy impossible jumble. Work stopped as they uncovered another body. "Get a medic up here!" Hooks shouted. "She's alive?"
"In a manner of speaking." The woman was old, her once white smock and black trousers tattered and mud-colored, her long hair tied in a ratty queue. It was Ah Poo. "Someone's gan sun, " Dunross said.
Gornt was staring incredulously at the place she had been found, a tiny hole within an ugly, almost solid, jagged mess of broken and reinforced concrete. "How the hell do people survive?"
Hooks's face split with his grin, his broken teeth brown and tobacco stained. "Joss, Mr. Gornt. There's always hope so long as a body can breathe. Joss." Then he bellowed below. "Send a stretcher up here, Charlie! On the double!"
It came quickly. The stretcher bearers carried her away. Work continued. The pit deepened. An hour later, four or five feet lower they were blocked by tons of steel beams. "We'll have to detour," Hooks said. Patiently they began again. A few feet later again blocked. "Detour over there." "Can't we saw through this mess?"
"Oh yes, tai-pan, but one spark and we're all bloody angels. Come on, lads. Here. Let's try here." Men rushed to obey . . .
88
4:10 A.M. :
Bartlett could hear them loudly now. From time to time dust and dirt would cascade, sodden rubble in its wake, as timbers and beams and mess above were removed. His rescuers seemed to be about ten yards away as far as he could judge, still five or six feet above him, the trickle of light making the waiting easier. His own escape was blocked all around. Earlier he had considered going back, down under this flooring, then down again to try to find another route and seek better safety that way.
"Better wait, Mr. Bartlett!" Hooks had shouted to him. "We knows where you be!"
So he had stayed. He was rain soaked, lying on some boards, not too uncomfortably and well protected by heavy beams. Most of his line of sight was blocked a few feet away. Above was more twisted flooring. There was just enough room to lie down or, with care, to sit up. The smell of gas was strong but he had no headache yet and felt he was safe enough, the air good enough to last forever. He was tired, very tired. Even so, he forced himself to stay awake. From his vantage point he knew it would take them the rest of the night, perhaps part of the day, to work a shaft to him. That did not worry him at all. They were there. And he had made contact. An hour ago he had heard Dunross nearby. "Line? Line, it's Ian!"
"What the hell're you doing here?" he had called back happily.
"Looking for you. Don't worry, we're not far away."
"Sure. Say, Ian," he had begun, his anxiety almost overwhelming, "Orlanda, Orlanda Ramos, you know her? I was wai—"
"Yes. Yes I saw her just after the slip hit the building. She's fine. She's waiting up at Kotewall. She's fine. How about you?"
"Hell, no sweat," he had said, almost light-headed now, knowing she was safe. And when Dunross had told him about his own miraculous escape and that Casey had seen the whole catastrophe happen, he was appalled at the thought of how close the others had all been to disaster. "Jesus! A couple of minutes either way and you'd all've been clobbered." "Joss!"
They had chatted for a while then Dunross had moved out of the way so the rescue could continue.
Thinking about Orlanda now, another tremor shook him and again he thanked God that she was safe and Casey was safe. Orlan-da'd never make it underground, he thought. Casey maybe, but not Orlanda. Never. But that's no loss of face either.
He eased himself more comfortably, his soaking clothes making his skin crawl, the shouts and noises of the approaching rescue comforting. To pass the time, he continued his reverie about the two women. I've never known a body like Orlanda's or a woman like her. It's almost as though I've known her for years, not a couple of days. That's a fact. She's exciting, unknown, female, wonderfully dangerous. Casey's no danger. She'd make a great wife, a great partner but she's not female like Orlanda is. Sure Orlanda likes pretty clothes, expensive presents, and if what people here say is true she'll spend money like there's no tomorrow. But isn't that what most of it's for? My ex's taken care of, so're the kids. Shouldn't I have some fun? And be able to protect her from the Biltzmanns of the world?
Sure. But I still don't know what it is about her—or Hong Kong —that's got to me. It's the best place I've ever been and I feel more at home here than back home. "Maybe, Line, you've been here in a previous lifetime," Orlanda had said.
"You believe in reincarnation?"
"Oh yes."
Wouldn't that be wonderful, he thought in his reverie, not noticing the gas or that now the gas was touching him a little. To have more than one lifetime would be the best luck in all the world an—
"Line!"
"Hey! Hi, Ian, what's cooking?" Bartlett's happiness picked up. Dunross's voice was quite close. Very close. "Nothing. We're just going to take a short break. It's heavy going.
We've got to detour again but we're only a few yards away. Thought I'd chat. As far as we can judge we're about five feet above you, coming in from the west. Can you see us yet?"
"No. There's a floor above me, all busted up, and beams, but I'm okay. I can last out easy. Hey, you know something?"
"What?"
"Tonight's the first time you called me Line."
"Oh? I hadn't noticed."
Bullshit, Bartlett thought and grinned to himself. "What y—" A sudden chill took both men as the wreckage began groaning, twisting here and there. In a moment the noise ceased, most of it. Bartlett began to breathe easier. "What you going to do tomorrow?"