• TWENTY-THREE •
“MY WORD,” THE VICAR said. “Someone has been here before us.”
The two of us were shoulder to shoulder at the very edge of the pit, staring down into the shaft as if we were looking down a well. A cold, acrid draft blew up into our faces from a ragged opening halfway down the side. At the bottom of the pit, pitiful tatters of Saint Tancred’s robe shivered in the moving air.
“They’ve knocked a hole in the wall,” I said.
“A cave-in,” George Battle said, edging me aside and taking my place. “You get cave-ins in old churches.”
Suddenly and quietly, Adam was behind us. He was wearing a soft peaked cap, rubber boots, and a sort of explorer’s vest covered in pockets bursting with scientific supplies. A bulky camera bag completed his kit.
“If I may,” he said quite abruptly to the vicar, “I need to make my descent before anything else is disturbed.”
“By all means. Albert, if you wouldn’t mind fetching Mr. Sowerby a ladder …”
He was speaking to Mr. Haskins, who had come into the crypt behind Adam.
“Ladder?” Mr. Haskins asked, as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word, or as if he didn’t want to be bothered.
“There’s a ladder on the back of Mr. Battle’s lorry,” I said helpfully. “Several of them, actually.”
“Norman,” Mr. Battle said, with a glance at his helpers. Norman, tall in the crypt, ducked his head and stepped out through the archway.
Nobody said anything for the longest time, each of us shifting from foot to foot, looking everywhere but at one another.
I wondered why.
I glanced casually round at the remaining workers. Tommy from Malden Fenwick took advantage of the lull to light a cigarette. The other man, whose name I did not know, shook his head as Tommy held out the pack and offered him a smoke.
There was no idle chatter. Just a couple of workmen waiting restlessly to get on with the job.
Then Norman was back with the ladder, clattering through the crypt, breaking the spell of silence. With much banging and a few muttered instructions, the ladder’s end was maneuvered down into the saint’s grave.
Adam sprang up onto the ledge and placed a foot on one of the upper rungs.
“Wish me luck,” he said, and taking the torch from Tommy, he began his descent.
“Adam—” the vicar said.
Adam stopped, already almost out of sight. He seemed surprised.
“Let us pray,” the vicar said, in a remarkably strong voice, and we all of us bowed our heads.
“Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art God from everlasting, and the world without end. Thou turnest man back to the dust, and Thou sayest, ‘Return, ye children of men.’ For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Amen.”
“Amen,” we echoed.
Adam’s face looked up at us quizzically, strangely pale in the light of the torch.
“Just in case,” the vicar said.
“Thank you,” Adam said quietly, and was gone.
I recognized the vicar’s words as being from the Order of the Burial of the Dead. Psalm 90. But why had he chosen them? Was he thinking of Saint Tancred? Of Adam? Of his lost Hannah?—or of himself?
The ladder trembled as Adam descended. I peered over the edge to watch as he pulled an elaborate flash unit from the bag. The shaft and even the chamber where we stood were soon illuminated by a series of white lightning flashes from the pit.
There wasn’t much to see from directly above. I was content to linger and listen. At first there was silence and an occasional muffled exclamation. And then Adam began to whistle.
I knew the tune at once. It was a song we had sung in Girl Guides, and its words went through my mind.
Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile.
While you’ve a lucifer to light your fag, smile boys, that’s the style …