Christ had not descended in glory from Heaven. Perhaps their own descent might not be into Hell.
Chapter Twenty Four
There must have been a hundred people in the ticket hall. The gathered glow of their lamps gave the place the look of rush hour in the Olden Days. But, if there was no railway train to catch, there was a desperation to reach the platforms that reminded Jennifer of a much older time she’d read about, when the Underground had also been a place of safety—a place of safety from the attacks of a government other than the British.
“Take the Central Line,” a young priest quavered repeatedly from just beyond one of the smashed ticket gates. “Beware of possible flooding.” He clutched a rosary, and gave a worried look at the stairs up to the street. As yet, the only people coming down were those trying to escape. Would he stay there to direct others to probable safety right to the final moment? Would he look firmly to the last at the boots that would tramp down the stairs? Jennifer took a deep breath and squeezed through the gap. She waited for Michael to make his own way through. She took his hand and ran for the stairs marked in red. Hand in hand, they hurried down until the sound of their own and all the other footsteps had blotted out the sound of the priest in the booking hall.
According to her father, who’d been many times to London for his meetings with Radleigh, the whole Underground had been flushed out with poison gas at the end of the Food Riots and then sealed. The still clothed skeletons that covered the Central Line platform told Jennifer that he’d been right. For just a moment, they looked as if they were all trying to get up to greet this latest wave of refugees from the massacre above. But it was only the rats, squealing and scampering in their escape from one of their only places of safety. The light of a hundred lamps showed the fresh advertisements for holidays to places that no longer existed, and for goods and services that she’d almost forgotten. Jennifer turned to Michael and pointed wordlessly at the dark mouth of the tunnel that led past Bond Street to Marble Arch. There must already have been fifty people hurrying into its depths. She realised that this would take them straight to where the authorities had set up the mouth of their trap. She pulled back from the edge of the platform and pointed in the other direction. Tottenham Court Road might still be clear. Or it might not. She put both hands against the wall and leaned. She needed time to think. She’d been trying to think straight since leaving Radleigh’s fire escape. If, somehow, she’d got, without proper thought, through everything since then, she now needed to think what to do next.
Michael reached up and took her right hand. “Come on,” he said in a flat and weary voice. “We can’t stay here.” He looked briefly down at the rat-gnawed skeletons, and helped her to the edge of the platform. They jumped down and pushed their way into the crowd of those who were already picking their way along the rails into the mysteries of the tunnel. She looked again at the western tunnel. Perhaps the least obvious way out was the better escape after all. But there was now the echoing crash of gunfire from the ticket hall, and a noise of pleading cut off in mid-voice. Michael gave her hand a squeeze that might have reassured her if his own hadn’t trembled so. “Come on,” he said again. “They’ll be down here at any moment.”
For a dozen yards into the tunnel, Jennifer could tell herself they’d got away. Then, with a flash of light from all about, and a chorus of shrieks that stopped barely sooner than they began, the nightmare was back on at full pelt. “Don’t touch the rails!” she cried in English. Her Latin was gone, and she might have struggled at the best of times to explain the idea of electrical conduction. It was hard enough, in the glow from the now bright platform, to make sense of it for herself. She could see ceramic insulators under the rail that hugged the left wall of the tunnel, and under the central rail. Did this mean the others were safe? She remembered her father’s joke about drunken youths, fried when they urinated from the platform. “Don’t touch anything metal,” she breathed. Not moving in the central trench of the tunnel, they stood with barely inches either side between them and the dull rails. Jennifer looked back at the platform. Another volley of shots, and a brief silence, and she saw the first of the soldiers filing out of the approach tunnel. One of them raised his gun and picked off a woman as she tried to push her child behind the safety of a refreshment machine. Behind her, there was another flash that lit up the tunnel, and another truncated scream. They were trapped. It was a choice between fried and shot. One look from any of the soldiers, and the choice would be made for them.
She thought the next volley of shots had taken out the platform lights. But she could hear the scampering of people deeper inside the tunnel. By accident or design, the power was back off and it was safe to press deeper into the tunnel. Then, even as she turned her face into the chilly draught and reached back for Michael’s hand, she could hear a rhythmical squeaking deep within the tunnel. It came closer, and was joined by a shout of fear that was silenced by a single shot. There were more shots, and Jennifer could hear the terrified cries of people who’d turned back and were hurrying towards her and Michael. There was a long plea for mercy and more shots, and she could now see the beam of an approaching light.
“It’s a handcar!” a man shouted. “Get back!” He pushed by her and made for the platform. He was taken down before he could reach it. She heard one of the soldiers laugh and cock his rifle. More people pushed by. More shots. More death. More laughter. But now there was a snarled command, and, with a dimming of the torchlight, she saw soldiers leaving the platform. Two remained. They threw themselves on one of the benches, and reached for their cigarettes. Jennifer looked at the approaching handcar and at the platform. They were caught in another trap.
She turned to whisper in Michael’s ear. If they were quiet, and if they kept low enough, they might be able to go past the platform into the far tunnel. Perhaps the handcar would stop here. Perhaps. Marble Arch was the best escape after all. Michael shook his head. He got both hands into the small of her back and he pushed his face close to hers. “On the ground,” he hissed. “Just get down, and don’t move till I tell you.” She tried to fight him off. But he was using the full directed force that had let him kill three men. Before she could get a word out, she was lying face up on the damp, stinking ground of the tunnel, and he was sprawled on top of her.
They lay for what seemed an age as the handcar approached and more shots were fired. Jennifer did try once to get her face from the cover of Michael’s chest. He reached quickly over and gave her side a cruel pinch that got her still again and counting the rapid beating of his heart. As they both lay there in full view, she heard a grating of the rails above her, and was aware of voices, and then of bright torches. The handcar passed above them. Then it stopped. There was a smell of tobacco substitute mixed in with cannabis. “Don’t waste bullets, Frankie,” someone giggled in a drugged voice. “Look at the blood all over them—they’re both goners.” She felt a jolt against Michael’s body that was enough to move his chest so that the glare of a torch could play over her closed eyes. She fought to keep her face absolutely still, and was already imagining the shrill gloat of triumph and the crash of the last thing she’d ever hear, when there was another order from the platform, and an obscenity from the handcar. “I telled you they was dead, innit?” The drugged voice said again. Then the pink glow faded from the other side of her eyelids, and there was the renewed squeal as the handcar continued towards the platform.