By now I must have run more than a mile along that main sewer. I was almost dropping with fatigue and was rapidly losing the will to go on. I felt my capture was inevitable and I wanted to give in. At the same time I was spurred automatically on by the fear that was in my heart. My torch was very dim by now. But that no longer worried me. The sewers seemed a friendly place. My imagination no longer dwelt upon the horror of wandering alone in the darkness in this evil-smelling rat-infested, subterranean rabbit warren. All my thoughts were centred upon that box again. Anything was better than that. And at every stop I felt my pursuers gaining on me.
The horror of it was that I knew my strength would soon give out. I had had no sleep. I had laboured as I had not laboured in years throughout the night, and now I was running for my life. I could not keep it up for ever. I knew enough about London’s sewers to know the main sewers run down to the Barking flats. There the sewage is separated, the water is purified and run out into the Thames and the sludge is carried out in barges to be dumped out by the Nore lightship. And Barking was miles away!
I had reached the conclusion that the only thing to do was to hide in one of the exit shafts and hope for the best, when I noticed that the sewer was bearing away to the right. The bend proved quite a sharp one, doubtless following the roadway above. I followed it round, and when the walls straightened out again, I glanced back over my shoulder. All was dark behind me. My pursuers were lost round the bed. I increased my pace, breathing heavily. I had developed a painful stitch and I knew that I was at the end of my tether.
Then I saw what I wanted. The black circle of a tributary sewer showing in the wall to my right. There was no pathway along it. The water ran steadily out from the tunnel dark and filthy. I did not hesitate. I stepped down into that tunnel and splashed up it. The sewage was about a foot and a half deep. But it did not worry me. With a last burst of energy, I surged through it, glancing every now and then over my shoulder for the glow of light that would tell me that the chase had reached the entrance. When I saw that glow outlining the circular opening of my sewer, I switched off my torch and slowed up so that I made no sound as I pushed steadily on through the sewage water.
I saw the flash of their torches as they passed the entrance and went on down the main sewer, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But that relief was shortlived, for within a minute the beam of a powerful torch was shone along the sewer. Impeded by the water and my weak condition, my progress had been slow, so that I was still no more than a hundred yards from the entrance. A shout echoed eerily along the tunnel, and a second later there was a loud report and a bullet sang past me, hit the wall ahead and went singing up the sewer.
But the light of the torches had showed me a bend in the tunnel ahead. The sound of that bullet whistling up that narrow tunnel gave me fresh strength. I splashed furiously on. Another shot was fired, but I think the bullet must have hit the water behind me, for it never reached me. A few moments later and I had rounded the bend. I could have cried out for joy then for the sewer forked. I took the right-hand branch, for I saw there was no bend in it.
My pursuers no longer had the advantage of their torches for it was impossible to push ahead through the water at anything but a slow rate. It was up to my knees. Moreover, I was able to save my torch, for the sewer was a circular pipe and I could feel the middle with my feet. I could touch the wall, too, on either side. And as I staggered on a faint luminosity grew behind me until I could actually see the sweating concrete of the tunnel on either side of me. My pursuers had guessed which fork I had taken.
I could have sat down and cried like a child for weariness and despair. The tunnel ran straight before me and, at any moment, they would sight me and I should be under fire again.
And then I had my first real bit of luck. I saw a square opening in the tunnel on my left. I peeped into it as I passed and saw daylight shining upon an iron ladder. Quite distinctly I heard a voice say, ‘Mind where you’re treading, Bert.’ I stopped, and down that ladder appeared the heavy waders of a sewer man. I had an overwhelming urge to reach the light of day. But I suppose a sixth sense held me back. In an instant my brain took up the argument of my instinct. I should not be able to get there before the pursuit was upon me. I must look a terrible sight. Apart from the mess my clothes were in, I was unshaven and hollow-eyed. At best I should be taken to a police station, and if Marburgs charged me as one of their clerks with some petty crime, I might have considerable difficulty in clearing myself. And the engine was due to leave London in two nights’ time.
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.