I dashed back for my torch, finding it easily in the flickering window glow. The shaded light showed the cavity at which I looked anew. Could fire ever penetrate paving stones? Maybe heat could. On the other hand, how long would a cottage like mine burn? And how long would the heat take to cook me alive in there?
The sink. I raced back, filled two pans full of water at the tap, and hurried back. The smoke was making it practically impossible to see. I was coughing constantly. The carpet had to be soaked to keep the flags as cool as possible. If they were damp, though they might eventually burn, they would perhaps act as a heat barrier for a while. I poured the water over the carpet and dashed into the kitchen alcove again.
By plugging the sink and turning both taps on at full blast I might eventually manage to flood the cottage floor. I'd actually done it once by accident. I wedged a dishcloth into the overflow at the back of the sink, which was the best I could do. It broke my heart to leave the Mortimers, but since he knew I'd fired at him they were going to be evidence of my doom. Quickly filling two milk bottles with water, I grabbed a loaf and a big piece of cheese which would have to last me. I remembered the torch at the last minute.
The idea was to have the flag in place covering the priest hole with me in it and the wet carpet covering that neatly. Under a mound of ash and fallen debris there'd be little sense in searching the ground unless they knew of my priest hole, and nobody else did. But how to do it? I stood on the steps with my shoulders bracing back the flag while my fingers inched the carpet forward until it touched the floor. Then I lowered the flag by edging my way down step by step. The last step was done with the heavy paving stone actually supported by my head. Twice I had to repeat the maneuver because the carpet somehow folded inside and wedged the stone open a fraction. I couldn't risk that. I stepped down inch by inch. The stone finally clicked into place without a hitch. Now it was covered by the carpet, and above me the cottage was roaring like a furnace.
I was entombed. Ovened.
The vents showed a hazy glimpse of orange redness to either side. Fine, but there was smoke starting to drift in from the direction of the back garden. My water and food I placed for safety on the lowest shelf, where I couldn't possibly knock them over. I swiftly took stock of what I had to fight with. First, his ignorance of my priest hole. Second, the weapons I had available.
There were the powder guns, but black powder is notoriously unstable. Even the modern version such as I had got from Dick Barton could not be completely free from capricious behavior. Weapons already loaded could easily explode in heat. I'd heard of it happening. Still, if I loaded a couple of pistols and left them cased and carefully pointing along one of the vents, there might not be too much risk, and they'd be cooler. I stuffed my shirt into a vent and shielded the other with my body. I switched on the torch.
I decided on the Barratt pair although they were percussion. The sight of my bloodstained hands frightened me almost to death. I was glad I hadn't got a mirror, because my face was probably in a worse state still. Shakily, taking twice as long as usual, I loaded the pair of twin barrels and slipped valuable original Eley percussion caps over the four nipples. Half-cock. .Then I loaded the Samuel Nock pair. They were more of a danger in this growing heat, being flintlock, as the powder in the flashpan was external to the breech and so more easily ignited. For what it was worth I laid them flashpan downward in one of the vents.
The heat was greater now. Smoke was still drifting from one vent. I must find some means of creating an increased draft from one vent to the other, perhaps bringing in cooler fresh air from outside to dilute this hot dry air inside the priest hole.
Barrels. Barrels are tubes. The longest barrels I had were on the Brown Bess and the Arab jezails. Perhaps, I reasoned, if I drew in a deep breath facing one vent and blew it out down a barrel lying along the other vent I would be all right with the faint draft it was bound to create. But I'd need to take the breech plugs out. The tools were handy, which was one blessing.
As I worked I stripped naked. The heat was almost intolerable now. I used up a whole bottle of water wetting my shirt and using it to cover my head. The barrels together would reach about half way down one vent, so they'd have to be bound in sequence. I did this with an old duster soaked in my urine, binding the rag around the junction of the two barrels to make it as air tight as possible. Because the priest hole was so narrow I had to complete the job standing on the steps with one barrel already poked inside the vent's shaft and the other sticking out past my face. By the time it was done I was quivering from exhaustion.
I tried my idea of blowing but the heat was beginning to defeat me. The air entering my lungs was already searingly hot. From above, my head came frantic gushing sounds, creakings, and occasional ponderous crashes, which terrified me more than anything. The walls would be burning now, and the beams would be tumbling through the living-room ceiling. Twice I heard loud reports as the glass windows went. It must be an inferno. I was worn out and dying from heat. Too clever by far, I'd got myself into the reverse of the usual position. I was safe from smoke and being cooked in an oven. If only I could bring air in.
I forced myself to think as the blaze above my head reached a crescendo. What could make air move? Propellers, windmills, waterwheels? A fan. A jet engine. A ship's screw. A paddle device. What had they used in prisoner-of-war camps when digging those tunnels? Bellows, conveyors of buckets, paddle engines? Bellows.
Below me, on the shelf near my precious bottle of water, was the air gun. I had a pump for it, but at what rate did it actually pump air? It usually needed about four minutes to fill the gun's copper globe going full pelt, and that was tiring enough. I took the implement and gave a couple of trial puffs. The force was considerable, as it indeed would need to be, seeing that the eventual ball pressure was enough to propel a fourteen-bore lead sphere some thousand yards or so. I clasped it to me and put the screw nozzle against the open gun breech projecting from the vent. With some difficulty I began pumping. Almost immediately I felt a marvelous gentle breeze against my back from the opposite vent, but there came an unpleasant inrush of smoke with it. I would need to blow air out in the opposite direction. There might be less smoke that side.
The barrels were easy to swap over as the vents were of a height. I simply slotted them in, having to mend the junction on the way across. That way around it was easier to use the pump, because I found I could use the wall as a support and one of the shelves as a fulcrum for my elbow. This time I was rewarded by the cool air on my shoulders without very much smoke. I guessed that a faint breeze must be blowing the fire and smoke in the direction I was facing.
There was a certain amount of squeaking from the air pump, and its leather bellows flapped noisily, but in the cacophony from the fire above nothing I was doing could possibly be distinguished from the other noise. My only worry was if he saw a steady current of air somehow piercing the slanting smoke from somewhere in the grass. The shifting firelight would help.
As minutes went by I improved on the system. Once it became obvious the system was working, I started settling down to a less frantic rate. I might, I reasoned, have to do this forever. You see fires still burning days after they've started, don't you? I counted my rate at about twenty pumps a minute. By stuffing my shirt into the vent around the jezail barrel I improved the motion still further by preventing any back draft. All incoming air was from the opposite side. Occasional gusts of smoke frightened me now and again, but they weren't too bad.
I tried pausing for two consecutive beats to listen. Was there shouting from above? I dreamed—Was it a dream?—I heard a big vehicle revving, followed crazily by a sound of splashing of water. But the bastard might be trying to pretend the firemen had arrived. Twice I was near screaming for help. Drenched and demented, I resisted and pumped on, haunted by the memory of the stables which had burned down behind the old rectory. Submerged by the low evening mist, horses and stables were found as just ashes a full day later. And worse still I had no way out whether it was friends or foe on the other side, except through the flames.