'Aubrey.' Jack tugged on his arm and pointed.
A ragged hole had been punched through the metal of the tunnel on the left, a few feet from the brickwork. A yard or so across, Aubrey couldn't imagine the sort of force required to make such a rent. Water still trickled from it. He bent, but couldn't see far, and had to jerk back his head when a wave heaved out, splashing into the tunnel. Jack danced aside with a cry of dismay, the sort that a wet man gives when he realises he's just become wetter.
Aubrey could hear the sound of rushing water coming through the gap, and a strange, whirring clatter, but he couldn't see a thing.
'Any ideas?' Jack asked.
'The river's down that way. It could be an aquifer, a drain, something diverted down in this direction.' Aubrey straightened. 'The water was clean.'
'Relatively. I take it you mean that it wasn't sewage.
Thank goodness.'
'Quite. No, this was river water. What time is it?'
Jack looked startled, then consulted his pocket watch. 'Just after one.'
'High tide.'
Aubrey hummed a little. If the tidal surge up the river had become diverted into a nearby tunnel, which couldn't cope and burst, diverting water this way . . .
'Are there any other tunnels around here?'
Jack laughed. 'The city is full of 'em, Aubrey, I thought you knew that. Not just the underground, but access tunnels for repairs to building basements, sewer mains, even private pneumatic tunnels and miniature railways that some companies have put in, electrically driven, to scoot packages all around.'
It was a subterranean world Aubrey had never really contemplated. Pipes, wires, tunnels, it was a veritable jungle underneath the staid old city. 'I think Maggie had better look for a new headquarters,' he said. 'I don't think this one will be habitable for some time.'
Thirteen
BLEARY-EYED, AUBREY STAGGERED ONTO THE GREY-thorn train just before it left. He threw his hat and his travelling bag onto the luggage rack, hung his jacket on the hook by the door and blessed the designers of the first-class carriages for their forethought in providing seats that were plush, comfortable and conducive to sleep. An extra bonus, one that he couldn't attribute to the designers, was that he was alone in his compartment, with no-one he had to be polite to.
He ached from his battering in the underground flood and the pocket thunderstorm, but it was healthy bruising rather than the pernicious pain that came when his body and soul were drifting apart. He felt perversely satisfied after the subterranean adventure, glad he'd been able to help Maggie's Crew, and pleased that – with his surveillance in place – he was making a positive move in this strange struggle with Dr Tremaine. It was almost as if it were being conducted by correspondence – a move, then a lag, then a response.
But all the time, Aubrey had the feeling of forces being marshalled, battalions being manoeuvred and battlefields being chosen. A confrontation was looming, but when?
He settled himself in. A minute, he thought. I'll be asleep in a minute.
The train moved out of the station and Aubrey closed his eyes. He could feel the easeful embrace of sleep starting to enfold him.
The train dropped off the edge of the world.
Totally unprepared, Aubrey flew out of his seat. His stomach shot up, slammed off the roof of his mouth and smacked back down again. Desperately, he flailed for a handhold, and then – of all things – he banged his funny bone. He hissed as sparks of pain ran up and down his arm, turning it into a limp, fuzzy, useless object. Handholds forgotten, he landed back on the seat with enough force to wind him.
When his arm returned to normal, he noticed that the compartment was almost completely black. With the shouts and cries for help, Aubrey had an awful moment when he thought he was dreaming, taken back to the flood in the hydraulic railway station. Then a guard – tall, sandy-haired, missing his cap, but with a good, steady bullseye lantern – threw open the door. 'You all right, young sir?'
'I'm fine. Just a little shaken. Can I help?'
'Just make your way to the back of the carriage, sir, if you please.'
'What's happened?'
'Not sure, sir. Looks as if the train's fallen into a hole.'
Suddenly, the compartment dropped a further foot. Amid the renewed crashing and groaning, both Aubrey and the guard grabbed at the walls to steady themselves.
The guard grinned, nervously. 'Better step lively, sir.' The guard moved along the passage, offering his help to the other compartments in a solicitous, calm manner that made Aubrey proud to be a Albionite. In crisis or upheaval, the ordinary man in the street (or woman, he added mentally, hearing Caroline's voice in his head) could be relied on to button down and soldier on. It was part of the Albionite makeup, like knowing how to wait in a queue, enjoying the company of dogs and understanding the rules of cricket.
Another conductor was waiting at the end of the carriage. He held a lantern to help passengers off the train. When Aubrey alighted, he saw that they were in a tunnel, but the track directly under the locomotive had subsided. This meant that the first three carriages of the train – and the locomotive – were at a forty-five degree angle, more or less. The locomotive was canted to the right, but all its wheels were still on the track.
The conductor pointed Aubrey back toward the station, which was only a few hundred yards away. He looked at the line of passengers making their way in that direction, and he decided that a fortunate set of circumstances had come together to prevent a disaster. The train was still picking up speed after leaving the station and the subsidence occurred under a straight section of track. If either of this had been different . . .
He shuddered.
Navvies were already hurrying along the tracks, against the flow of passengers, carrying tools, ropes and lengths of heavy timber. Every second man had a powerful lantern. Aubrey stood for a moment, then turned away from the station and joined the first wave of heavy-booted labourers as they made their way to the distressed locomotive.
Last night's incident in the old hydraulic railway tunnel was on his mind. A second subterranean anomaly might be totally unrelated, but Aubrey couldn't let his curiosity go unsatisfied.
He searched in his pockets until he found an old railway timetable. With that folded over, and a pencil in his hand, it provided enough of George's protective colouration to allow him to mingle with the navvies unchallenged.
No need for an invisibility spell, he thought smugly as he pretended to scrutinise one of the driving wheels of the locomotive. No magic needed at all.
The engineer was uninjured, to judge from the wrathful indignation he was venting on the impressed navvies. The thoroughly soot-coated individual sitting on the ground had to be the stoker, Aubrey guessed. He was holding a startlingly white handkerchief to his forehead but otherwise seemed to be in fine fettle, joking with those around him.