Black Feathers

27

Whoever or whatever had blocked the tunnel had made a good job of it.

The space Gordon had in which to crawl would not have afforded a man passage. Even with his slight build aiding him for once he still got stuck from time to time. His aim was to clear blockages into cracks and crevices to either side of himself. This would save him having to drag debris back out. He tried to work lying on his left side to save his cut thigh from further damage, but it was impossible. After a few seconds or minutes of successfully and painlessly clearing chunks of rubble to either side of his crawlspace, Gordon would catch his right leg on something jagged and cry out..

The roof of the tunnel was never more than a couple of inches above him, causing moments of wild panic which made him want to crawl as fast as he could, without any care for his wound and without going back for his pack and tent. What if the earth above the tunnel shifted somehow and the tunnel’s roof subsided just an inch or so? The bricks might settle down onto his back, not killing him but trapping him belly-down on the sharp-edged rubble and holding him there until he starved, suffocated or went insane. Fear kept him working with a cold efficiency.

The beam of his torch, once bright and crisp against the darkness, had yellowed and dimmed. Its light was oily ochre now and illuminated only the space immediately ahead. There was no end to his labours. The crawlspace just went on and on. As he moved a large nugget of rubble to his left, the torch flickered and went out. He tapped it and then hammered it against his palm. It flickered and died again. Hands shaking, he unscrewed the casing and removed the two batteries. He rubbed them in his hands and blew on them, prayed over them to stay alive just a little longer. He replaced them and the torch beam recovered long enough for him to shift one more obstacle. Then it died for good.

He sighed and laid his head against the broken rocks beneath him. They pushed up hard and cold into his face. There was no way to turn around. He would have to inch backwards, all the way back to the top of the rubble pile where he’d left his gear. Dust from the disturbed rubble got into his mouth, nose and eyes, making him cough and sneeze and send up more particles. Knowing how far he’d come facing the right direction made the mere thought of going backwards exhausting. There was no other option.

He pushed back with both hands, trying to raise his feet over the lumps in their way. Several times he got one foot trapped and had to move forwards to free it before proceeding backwards again. His temples throbbed with heat and pain and he caught the wound in his thigh often. He was weeping uncontrollably by the time he felt the space behind him widen and the coolness of the tunnel air spread up his legs and back. Before he’d had time to change the batteries and tie everything onto his pack, he was shivering, his head aflame but the rest of him encased in aching, gripping ice.

This time he dragged his pack with him, kicking back as much shifted rubble into the space behind him as he could. Knowles had told him to seal the space, but he didn’t have the will to turn around and do it properly. He wasn’t even sure he could make it back to where his batteries had given out.

The new challenge became hauling his backpack and freeing it each time the straps got caught on a protruding piece of mortar or bar of steel. He worked forwards like a fugitive animal now, no longer able to think, merely knowing that his choices had become very simple: keep moving and survive or stop and die. Something was wrong with him, he knew, but he couldn’t allow himself to acknowledge it as anything other than a reason to keep going. He couldn’t let it kill his hope. He had to make it somewhere safe and then he would rest. Stupid and spent with effort, he came to the place where his batteries had run out. He shone his renewed light ahead.

Tears came again.

He had already shifted the final obstacle with the dying of the torch batteries. Beyond, the blackness widened again and the air was cool and dust-free. He crawled onwards and was borne from darkness into darkness once more. Hauling his pack out behind him, he first rose to a crouch and then stood to descend a rubble pile exactly like the one he’d climbed. He could have been going out the way he’d come in – everything felt exactly the same. The rubble ended on flat, bare earth and the tunnel extended away into infinity. None of it mattered. For now his work was done.

At the base of the rubble pile he pitched his tent, forcing the pegs down into the earth without too much difficulty. At least here the surface below him was close to dead flat. He dragged everything inside the tent and unrolled his sleeping bag. Once again, not bothering to take off any of his clothes, he opened the bag, slid in and zipped it up around him. He took a cheese sandwich from the pack, somewhat squashed and battered now but tasting better than any meal he’d ever eaten. He tore into it and drank all his water. There was no way to resist the fire in his dust-lined throat. When he’d chewed down cheese and bread and grit from the rubble, he took his spare clothes out and piled them around himself inside the sleeping bag. He was frozen but his leg and face were roasting.

He lay down and succumbed to blackness.