Soon my torch gave out completely. I went forward, feeling my way, my hands stretched out on either side to touch the wet slimy stone of the walls. The darkness was the darkness of the vaults from which I had escaped. It pressed down against my eyes. I was filled with a terrible lassitude and I was hungry, and above all thirsty. But I kept doggedly on because the air on my face was fresh and I knew there must be an opening somewhere.
Often I looked at the luminous dial of my watch — not to see the time, but to see its friendly little face shining at me in the darkness. I was determined not to use a match until it was absolutely necessary, for the box in my pocket was half empty. For hours and hours I groped my way along that culvert. There were no ventilation shafts. I could see nothing, only the Stygian blackness. But the warm stench of the sewers was behind me, and for that I was thankful.
I had entered the culvert shortly after ten. I think it was about one o’clock that I slipped and lay on the stones, exhausted. I slept fitfully for a while. And when at last I had recovered strength enough to climb to my feet, I found it was three o’clock. I was soaked to the skin, for there was a certain amount of water in the culvert, and I was shivering with cold.
Nevertheless, the sleep had done me good. But with my recovered strength I found my brain no longer dulled. And my imagination, always a little too vivid, pictured myself groping along that tunnel unendingly till I died. Once I nearly panicked. Only the dial of my wrist-watch saved me. It was a friendly face and gave me courage. The culvert twisted and turned and my feet were sore and bruised with stumbling against the blocks of broken stone that had fallen from the roof. My one great fear was that I should bear away from the open air on a branch of the culvert. But always I had the satisfaction of feeling cool air on my face. As long as I felt that cool air in front of me, I knew I should find strength to go on. Pains were beginning to shoot through my belly, pains of hunger. But they were nothing to the thirst, which swelled my tongue and clove it to the roof of my mouth. And all the time I was slopping through water, which I still had sense enough not to touch.
Suddenly the walls on either side of me opened out. I lost contact with them. I stopped and pulled out my box of matches. But I found them sodden by the water in which I had lain asleep. I went back a few steps, found the left-hand wall and began to follow it. Almost immediately it fell away again and I had to turn a sharp left to keep in touch with it. Before I had gone more than a few paces I realised that I was no longer facing into the cool air, and faint, but quite distinguishable, I smelt the sewers again. I knew then that I had come to a point at which two of these old sewers met. I retraced my steps, found my own sewer, and began following the right-hand wall. The same thing happened. After that, I turned my face towards the cool air and moved slowly, blindly forward, feeling my way with my feet. Soon my hands which were outstretched in front of me touched the wet cold surface of a stone wall. I followed it and found that I was still facing the cool air.
After a time, I stopped and, facing directly away from this wall, went forward a few paces. The ground sloped away to water. I stumbled against a stone and found my feet sinking into mud. Then the ground rose again and I came up against another wall. I knew then that I was in a much wider sewer, and my spirits rose.
It was now nearly four. If I did not reach the entrance soon, darkness would have fallen. I knew it would be folly to attempt to get out into the Thames, presuming that that was where the sewer led, in the dark. And I had no desire to spend the night in the place. Where I had fallen and slept there had been hardly any rats. But here there seemed to be thousands of them. The sound of their movement was everywhere, like the soughing of a wind up the sewer.
Soon I encountered slimy weed on the wall along which I was feeling my way, then my feet began to slither and squelch on a thin layer of mud, which extended close up to the wall. I knew then that I must be nearing the Thames, and a new fear assailed me. Until that moment I had had no thought of what the exit of the sewer into the river would be like. I had just been intent on reaching that exit — nothing else. The mud got deeper until it was pulling at my sodden shoes. Then I found I was floundering through a few inches of water. I had a sudden awful fear that the sewer might come out into the river underwater. Or supposing the water came right up the sewer at high tide? Should I be able to find my way back faster than the water flowed up the culvert? It was an unpleasant thought. But I went doggedly on, encouraged by the cool air on my face, which could now be described as almost a breeze.
Soon I was in nearly a foot of water. I glanced at my watch. It was nearly a quarter to five. And then I noticed a peculiar thing. That friendly little face was not as bright as it had been. I peered closely at the watch. But there was no doubt about it. The luminosity was dulled. I stared around me in the darkness. Was it my imagination, or had it lightened? Was there a tinge of grey in the inky blackness?
I stumbled hurriedly on, the wall curving away to the right. Soon I was left in no doubt at all. The darkness was lifting. Ahead of me I could begin to make out vaguely the bend of the sewer. A little farther and the darkness had become definitely grey. Soon I could see the walls, all weedgrown and slimy. And then the sewer itself took shape — a sixteen-foot-wide arched culvert made of great stone blocks, beneath which a sheet of water stretched from wall to wall.
The relief of seeing daylight filtering through into that disused tunnel! I went forward at an increased rate, my hunger and thirst and weariness forgotten in my joy at the sight of that grey light. The sewer bore away to the left, and as I rounded the bend, the water now over my knees, I saw the actual opening into the river. There before me was an arch of daylight that almost hurt my eyes. And across that arched sewer exit was a lattice-work of iron bars, like a portcullis.
It was the last straw. I think I should have burst into tears if I had not been so buoyed up by the sight of that grey half-circle of daylight. Beyond it, I could see some sort of wharf. The great wooden piles were wrapped in green weed, and around them the river slopped. There was a wooden ladder, too, its rungs rotting, but giving promise of a way to safety, if only I could get through those iron bars. They reached right to the arched roof of the sewer. But there was a cross-bar near the water level. I could stand on that and perhaps by shouting I should be able to attract attention to my plight.
I went forward resolutely. The iron grille was only about fifty yards from me. The water rose to my waist. It was bitterly cold and there was a scum of oil floating on its dark surface. At each step my feet sank deeper into mud. I had soon lost both my shoes, but I did not mind, for it lightened my feet. When the water was up to my chest, I launched out, using a long sweeping breast stroke and ducking my head at each thrust of my arms. I made good pace and I was within a few yards of the bars before my muscles had grown tired with the weight of my waterlogged clothes.
Four more strokes and I was clutching the bar near the centre. But the cross-bar, which from a distance of fifty yards had seemed so near the water level, was over three feet above my head. In my exhausted condition, I knew I could never draw myself up to it. I looked back, The darkness of that tunnel, full of inky water, appalled me. I could not face the prospect of going back. Besides, I was doubtful whether I could make it.
Twenty yards beyond the grille the water slopped tantalisingly against the lower rungs of the ladder to the wharf. I thought if I clung to the bars for a time, the incoming tide might lift me to the cross bar. But then, out beyond the green timbers of the wharf, I saw a barge drifting slowly downstream, and I knew then that the tide was still on the ebb. The centre of the river was whipped into brown waves by the tide and the wind, and beyond was a drab line of wharves and cranes. How homely and safe they seemed! I had many times looked at such a scene from the security of London Bridge, and I longed to be back there, treading its firm pavements.