Pestilence

Chapter Fifteen

Claire spread out the plans on the table in the site office and said, “After the fire little was reported to have been left of the abbey itself but it’s likely that the cellars and vaults survived. As you can see they were quite extensive.”

“And we know that there must be at least two outlets,” said MacQuillan.

“We do?” said Claire.

“The one the rats used before the excavations gave them a new one here on Palmer’s Green.”

“Of course.”

“Our immediate aim is to estimate the size of the labyrinth. Once we know that we can work out how much gas we are going to need to destroy the inhabitants, fleas and all.”

The talking was over and it was time to examine the entrance hole on Palmer’s Green. The three of them put on protective clothing, Claire’s having been provided from one of the two army Land-Rovers standing by. MacQuillan issued a warning. “If we should come across any rats, back off, give them room. On no account come between them and their escape route.” He looked at Claire and Saracen in turn to verify that his point had been taken.

“Let’s get started,” said Saracen. He removed the wooden cover that the boy Edwards had fabricated to safe-guard his find and shone his torch inside the hole before dropping down and examining the walls. Once more his hands touched wood. This time a piece of chipboard had been wedged into the side wall. He levered it out and handed it to MacQuillan who put it to one side.

“Can you see anything?” asked Claire as Saracen bent down to peer through the opening with the aid of the torch.

Saracen grunted. He could see that he was standing on the roof of an arch that spanned a stone passage below. There was a two metre drop to the floor. He told the others.

“Can you get down?”

“I think so,” replied Saracen. “It must have been easier for the boy but here goes.” He manoeuvred backwards through the opening and lowered himself into the darkness, taking most of the strain on his arms as his feet searched for toe holds. He found two on the way down and let out a sigh of relief as his feet touched the floor of the passage. He could feel the cold and damp of the atmosphere permeate his protective suiting as he looked up to see the circle of light blotted out by Claire as she put her head into the opening.

“To your left,” Saracen advised her as he saw Claire’s foot seek out a hold.

“Got it.” Claire lowered herself gingerly and stood beside Saracen. She reached out her arms and could touch both walls. “Not much room,” she said.

MacQuillan joined them and they set off along the passage in single file with Saracen leading. “I don’t remember anything like this in the plans,” he said as the passage stretched beyond thirty metres. No one replied. “Any suggestions?” he asked as they passed fifty metres.

“It’s beginning to make sense,” said Claire behind him.

“Glad to hear it,” said Saracen dryly.

“I think this is an escape tunnel.”

“For whom?”

“For the Brothers of the abbey.”

“Why?”

“These were troubled times when violence was a way of life. Many castles, palaces, monasteries were built with secret escape tunnels that would not be marked on any plan.”

“That would explain why it’s so long,” said Saracen.

“And why it’s so narrow,” added MacQuillan. “If its only function was as a means of escape.”

Saracen reckoned that they had covered the best part of a hundred metres when the passage suddenly widened out into a circular chamber, closed off on the far side by an iron grilled gate. Tugging at the bars failed to budge it. Saracen shone the torch all round the edge but found no lock. Subsidence of the ground above them had driven the bars into the floor. He froze as a dark shape flitted quickly in and out of the torch beam. He heard Claire’s sharp intake of breath. “Was that what I thought it was?” she asked.

“‘Fraid so,” said Saracen.

“Over here,” said MacQuillan. Claire and Saracen joined him and saw that he was holding a crucifix in his hand. “I found it on the shelf here,” he said, running his torch beam along a stone lintel set in the wall.

“Can I hold it?” said Claire quietly and MacQuillan handed it to her. She took it gently in her palms and whispered, “To think that this belonged to the monks of Skelmoris.”

Saracen swept his torch beam around the floor of the chamber and paused as it picked out a red Coca Cola can. He picked it up and said, “Well, the monks never held this. I think we can be fairly certain that this was young Master Edwards’ treasure cave.”

MacQuillan looked at the way the gate was jammed and said, “He couldn’t have got past here.”

“Any idea what this chamber was for Claire?” Saracen asked.

“Hiding,” replied Claire. “They would wait here for a while before deciding whether to go back or use the tunnel.”

“And the gate would be the last line of defence in case the searchers found the entrance to the tunnel?”

“I think so,” agreed Claire.

“We are going to need help with the gate,” said MacQuillan and the others agreed. Saracen led the way back along the passage to seek the assistance of the military.

While they were waiting for the soldiers to deal with the jammed gate Claire took the crucifix to the site office to record its details. Saracen and MacQuillan took a breather and sat with their backs against one of the Land Rovers. Saracen said, “I’ve been thinking. If plague has survived in the rats for more than six centuries the rats must obviously have some kind of immunity from it.”

“That’s usually the case in sylvatic plague. Some animals are immune and others are not.”

“Is it known why?”

“No, but a healthy carrier state has been described in human beings too. A study carried out in Viet Nam showed that a number of people were carrying it in their naso-pharynx. What’s on your mind?”

“If the immunity factor could be identified it might be possible to use it.”

“But that kind of study could take years,” said MacQuillan.

“It might take years to do it scientifically and describe the immune mechanism in detail but I was thinking in more practical terms.”

“Go on.”

“If we could get blood from an immune rat and have Porton compare it with the blood of a rat that had succumbed to the disease they might be able to spot the immunity factor without having to know what it was. If they could get enough of it we could use it to treat people.”

MacQuillan thought for a moment before saying, “That, my friend is a bloody good idea.” He asked one of the soldiers to call up Beasdale on the radio. The soldier did so and handed him the handset.

Saracen listened while MacQuillan told Beasdale of the new plan. He could not hear what Beasdale was saying but it was obvious that some kind of argument was developing.

“Of course there can be no guarantee,” MacQuillan stormed. “But there is a real chance…No. I’m not stalling…Damn it man, listen to reason!” MacQuillan put down the handset and looked at the ground for a moment as if trying to compose himself before saying anything.

“Well?” asked Saracen.

“No extension to the time limit. We have forty six hours left.”

“We’d best get started then,” said Saracen. He asked the soldier for pen and paper and made out a list. “We need these things as quickly as possible,” he said to the man and the soldier snapped to it.

“What did you ask for,” asked MacQuillan.

“Sterile glassware, anticoagulants, scalpels, specimen containers and rat traps.”

The other three soldiers who had been down in the tunnel emerged and relayed their tools and equipment to the surface. “The gate’s open,” said the sergeant. “And we’ve left you better lighting.”

Saracen thanked him and dropped down into the hole again.

“One more thing sir,” said the sergeant. He handed Saracen a revolver and a box of shells. “Col Beasdale thought you’d better have this.”

“I’ve never used one of these things in my life,” said Saracen. MacQuillan said the same. The soldier took back the gun and ran through the rudiments like a schoolboy reciting a poem, the words of which he hadn’t considered. “This is a Smith and Wesson 0.38 calibre, double action weapon. It requires a trigger pressure of…”

Saracen listened politely and deduced what to squeeze and which end to point.

As they prepared to re-enter the tunnel the soldier said, “Col Beasdale is arranging for a truck with the required chemicals to be on site within the hour sir.”

Saracen gave a last thoughtful look across the site and said, “Don’t let any heavy vehicles cross the line of the tunnel will you? The roof might not take it.”

“Very good sir.”

“These are a vast improvement,” said Claire switching on one of the lamps that the soldiers had left for them. Saracen saw where the bars had been cut away from the bottom of the gate and pushed it gently back on its hinges to stand on the threshold. “Shall we continue?” he asked. The passage continued for some twenty metres before taking a turning to the left. Saracen was about to round the turn when he stopped in his tracks and said, “Can you hear something?”

“What?”

“A scuffling noise. There, it’s getting louder.”

“Someone is coming up behind us,” said MacQuillan.

Saracen let out the breath he had been holding and felt embarrassed at having let his imagination run away with him. “Dr Saracen?” said a voice from the blackness. “It’s Corporal Jackson sir. I’ve got the things you asked for.”

“Only two?” exclaimed Saracen when he saw the rat traps.

“All we could lay our hands on sir.”

“We’ll need more.”

“How many sir?”

“As many as possible. The more traps we set the more chance we have of catching one in time.”

“I’ll tell the sergeant sir.”

MacQuillan said, “I’ll set one back by the gate where we saw one of the damned things.”

“Mind your hands,” said Saracen as he gingerly handed him one of the primed and baited traps.

“Surely you don’t plan to catch them individually?” said Claire while they waited for MacQuillan to come back.

“I need some rat blood,” said Saracen. “I’ll explain later.” MacQuillan re-joined them and they continued in single file.

The passage grew ever narrower until they felt that the cold, damp walls were closing in on them. Saracen stopped and said, “Now what?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Claire.

“We’ve come to a blank wall.”

“This must be where the tunnel meets the abbey. Try pushing, pulling, sliding things.”

Saracen’s hands moved over the stone without success. He was about to say so when he felt one of the stones move and his heart leapt as he pushed it and the wall opened up in front of them causing him to marvel momentarily at the hidden counter-weight mechanism. They stepped through into a long, low cellar with an arched roof.

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Claire.

Saracen wheeled round and saw the skeleton of a man caught in Claire’s torch beam. “And another,” said MacQuillan from further along.

“And another and another,” said Saracen as he slowly walked the length of the cellar past fifteen skeletons lying parallel to each other and about a metre apart.

“It’s a dormitory,” said Claire.

“Not a dormitory,” said Saracen quietly. “An infirmary.”

“God yes,” murmured MacQuillan. “We are looking at a medieval Ward Twenty.”

Claire screamed as the black shadows of two rats scampered across the floor and disappeared again. She apologised. “Don’t,” said MacQuillan. “I feel the same way.”

Saracen asked Claire if she could work out where they were in the abbey from her plans and she unfolded them and looked for a place to spread them out. She considered the floor briefly before remembering the rats and opted instead to lay them gently across two of the skeletons.

“I think we are here,” she said, pointing to a rectangle near the foot of the paper. “That would mean that there should be a doorway over there.” She swung round her torch and saw what she wanted to see. “Yes, there it is. If we go through there we should come to a round chamber that we think was used as a wine cellar and after that there is a room off to the right where the treasures were kept.”

“But that’s not what we are hear for,” Saracen reminded her on hearing the excitement in her voice. He turned to MacQuillan and said, “Do you think it is going to be possible to gas a place of this side from the outside?”

“Doubtful,” said MacQuillan. “We can ask the army for advice but first we have to find the other exit and block it up and, of course, catch you a rat.”

Saracen looked at his watch and saw that they had been in the tunnel for an hour. They moved into the next chamber and found, as Claire had predicted, that it was round. Claire moved to the right and Saracen and MacQuillan followed. They heard her gasp and then saw that she was holding a golden crucifix in her hand. “It’s the alter piece!” she exclaimed. “The alter piece of Skelmoris Abbey.”

“And the candle sticks,” said MacQuillan delving into the chest from which Claire had taken the cross. “And communion goblets and…”

“We don’t have time,” said Saracen.

“But the Skelmoris Chalice must be here!” protested Claire. “We must look!”

“There is no time,” insisted Saracen.

Claire became angry. “What difference will a few minutes make?” she demanded.

“There are some things you don’t understand,” said Saracen. “We have to hurry.”

“No!” Claire exclaimed. “You go on if you must, catch your damned rat, seal up your exits but I am staying here and I am going to find the chalice!”

Saracen could see that to argue was pointless and he had no wish to tell her what Beasdale had planned for the town. “Very well,” he said softly. “Perhaps you can tell us what to expect in the other cellars.”

Claire opened up the plan again and ran through the presumed location and uses of the remaining chambers. Her voice was subdued with guilt but an overriding ambition maintained her resolve. When she had finished Saracen asked, “Have you any idea at all where the other exit might be?”

Claire pointed to the plan and said, “The steps leading down from the abbey came out in this room. Perhaps they still give access to the world above.”

“Could there be a second escape tunnel?”

“It was not unknown for there to be two. One was often built as a decoy and accordingly was quite easy to find. It took the heat off the real one.”

“Any thoughts?”

“If there is a second one I would guess at somewhere along the North wall.”

Saracen and MacQuillan moved off and left Claire on her own. They came to the room where Claire had said that the steps would be and shone their torches up at the ceiling. There was no longer any way up to the outside world. Instead worn treads rose into the ceiling to disappear into solid, unbroken earth. There was no way through, even for a rat.

Saracen was examining a crumbling section of wall on the North side when he heard a sound. He stood up and listened, urging MacQuillan to do the same.

“It’s someone calling,” said MacQuillan.

“Someone screaming!” said Saracen. “It’s Claire!”

They raced back through the cellars towards the chamber where they had left Claire looking for the chalice. As they approached the screams became louder but still seemed strangely muffled and by the time they had reached the room they had stopped altogether.

“There!” said MacQuillan, swinging his torch round. They could see the lower half of Claire’s body protruding from a small opening in the back wall. “She’s stuck in the gap,” said MacQuillan.

“She must have panicked and fainted,” said Saracen, trying to free Claire’s limp body but finding it stuck fast. There was a frantic scratching sound from the other side of the gap and both men started to make soothing sounds assuming that it was Claire clawing at the dirt in fear but then Saracen looked down at Claire’s motionless legs and a nightmare was born. If Claire was still unconscious…what was making the scraping sound?

“Oh Jesus Christ Almighty,” said Saracen in a faltering whisper. His lungs went into a spasm of revulsion as he realised the awful truth. MacQuillan too had realised the significance of Claire’s lifeless legs and the scraping noise. “Rats,” he said as if afraid of the word.

Saracen nodded. “She must have been trying to crawl through the gap and got herself stuck between the rats and freedom.”

“Is she dead?” asked MacQuillan.

“She’s dead.” replied Saracen who had been searching for a pulse.

“Oh my God,” said MacQuillan mesmerised by horror.

“The rats are still trapped inside,” said Saracen. “We’ll have to be careful when we pull her body out.”

MacQuillan did not need the warning for his imagination had gone into overdrive. They pulled hard and moved Claire’s body back through the gap slowly and paused before the final tug. “Ready?” asked MacQuillan.

Saracen nodded and they moved Claire’s body so that a gap between her shoulder and the roof of the gap appeared. As soon as it did a rat flew through the space and spread-eagled itself across Saracen’s face visor before scrambling down over his shoulder and off into the blackness. Saracen looked down and saw a rat still fastened to Claire’s face. He overcame a tide of nausea and swung his torch at the thing sending it flying across the room. Several other rats joined in the exodus from the chamber and then there was silence.

Saracen looked at Claire and had to swallow hard to contain the urge to vomit. He heard MacQuillan do the same. “God and she was so beautiful,” he whispered looking down at the featureless tissue. MacQuillan turned away.

When they had both sufficiently recovered MacQuillan said, “You’ve got your rat.”

Saracen followed MacQuillan’s torch beam and saw that it was resting on the rat that he had hit with his torch. It was lying in a bundle in the corner. MacQuillan fetched it and Saracen prepared his equipment. He opened the lids of several containers in readiness and then removed the guard from a scalpel blade as MacQuillan held up the animal to expose its throat. Saracen cut straight across it and collected the blood, filling one container after another until the animal was completely exsanguinated then MacQuillan tossed the carcase away.

Saracen was packing the bottles into his bag when he heard MacQuillan say, “Good God, look at that!”

Saracen saw MacQuillan reach through the gap where Claire had been trapped and remove something. He held it up and shone his torch on it. It was a gold chalice encrusted with rubies as big as birds’ eggs. “So that’s why she was trying to get in there,” said MacQuillan. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? It must be worth millions.”

“Leave the damned thing,” said Saracen. “God knows how many people have died for it.”

“Let’s not over-react,” whispered MacQuillan, examining the chalice from every angle. Surely you don’t believe that old curse nonsense.”

“Let’s get this blood back. We’ll take Claire’s body with us.” said Saracen, arranging the body so that he could grip her arms. “You take her feet.”

MacQuillan stuffed the chalice inside his protective suit and gripped Claire’s ankles. “Ready.”

They had almost reached the iron gate when they heard footsteps coming towards them. It was the soldiers and they had brought more rat traps. Saracen thanked them but explained that they had managed to catch a healthy rat. He handed the blood samples to the sergeant, telling him to get them to Beasdale as fast as possible. “He knows where they have to go.”

“And the traps sir?”

“Just leave them.”

As the soldiers took charge of Claire’s body and turned to head back along the passage the air was filled with a rumbling sound from above. It grew louder and they could make out the characteristic throb of a diesel engine. Saracen looked at the sergeant in alarm and said, “You did warn them about not crossing the line of the tunnel?” He could see by the look on the man’s face that he had not. The man turned on his heel and started running back to the entrance while the soldiers bearing Claire’s body followed as quickly as they could.

As the truck passed overhead the roof of the tunnel collapsed. It was quite sudden; there was no warning trickle of dirt, no creaking sounds. The roof just imploded some thirty metres from where Saracen and MacQuillan stood.

Saracen stared at the wall of rock in stunned silence. The sergeant, the soldiers, Claire’s body, the blood samples were all gone, buried under tons of black stone. Two more stone sets fell from the roof and broke the spell. “The rest is going to go!” Saracen yelled. They turned to run but MacQuillan tripped and fell. The chalice he had been clutching flew from his grasp and sailed between the bars of the gate. “Leave it!” urged Saracen but MacQuillan was determined. He crawled over to the bars and stretched his arm through to grope blindly for the lost chalice in spite of Saracen’s warning.

Instead of the chalice MacQuillan’s hand found the rat trap that he had set earlier by the gate. The hammer released and smashed down on his fingers making it impossible for him to pull his hand back through the bars. He cried out in pain as he tried to free himself and overhead the roof began to move. One stone fell, then another. Saracen threw himself backwards as the whole lot collapsed. As he did so he caught a glimpse of the terror on MacQuillan’s face just before a huge stone fell and crushed him.

Saracen was alone in the infirmary of Skelmoris Abbey save for fifteen skeletons and the rats. He was exhausted physically and mentally and could not be certain how long he had been sitting there in the darkness. He had switched off his lamp to conserve the batteries after a fruitless search for another way out. Was there any point in going on, he wondered. The odds were hopelessly against him and time was running out. He brought out the revolver that the soldier had given him and weighed it in his hand while he considered his position. God, he was tired. Revulsion, fear and anguish had conspired to drain him of every last vestige of hope. He brought the cold muzzle of the gun to rest against his temple and curled his index finger lightly round the trigger. He caressed the curved steel and flirted with an increase in pressure. The thought of Jill stopped him.

Ye Gods! How clear it all seemed now. The hurt and pain that Marion had caused him had been much greater than he had ever cared to admit. His reluctance to concede that he had fallen in love with Jill had just been fear that it might happen all over again. Claire had been right about that. He did love Jill. Of that he was now very sure. The guilt he felt after his fling with Clare should have told him but he had fought against it and now it was too late. He would never be able to look into Jill’s beautiful face and tell her how much he loved her, how much he adored her and wanted her. The thought of her hair on the pillow and her face smiling up at him filled him with an almost unbearable sadness.

The spectre of death was returning to court Saracen when the sound of scurrying paws startled him out of his trance. He whipped the gun round and blazed away at where he thought the sound had come from.

The chamber was transformed from being a silent tomb into an echo chamber filled with endlessly reverberating thunder and the blackness was punctuated with flashes of orange lightning. “Bastards!” Saracen yelled. “Stinking, verminous bastards!”

He started to tremble all over and hysteria made his breathing erratic. Curses were interspersed with sobs as he dropped the gun and placed both hands over his face, taking what comfort he could from the feel of his fingertips massaging his skin. The moment passed and he came back from the brink. “For God’s sake get a grip,” he muttered as he got to his feet. If only he could find a way out there might still be time to destroy the rat colony before Beasdale acted.

If only. He reloaded the gun, picked up his lamp and returned to the North wall of the cellars.

At the end of another fruitless search where he had felt his way along each stone from ground to shoulder level along the entire North face of the Abbey cellars Saracen sat down to rest. The silence was broken periodically by the sound of running feet in the blackness but he had now come to terms with this. As he sat there listening, it occurred to him that the movement of the rats was not entirely random. There seemed to be a constant East to West movement along the corridor outside the chamber where he sat. He tested his theory by waiting for the next sound. There it was again! Two animals running east to west along the passage. Where were they going?

Saracen got up and followed the passage along to the last chamber. It was at the North-West corner of the cellars and seemed to have been some kind of wash or bath house for there were five large stone troughs standing in line, each with its own spur to a main water channel. A rat scurried across the floor and over Saracen’s feet making goose flesh spring up on his neck. He swore to maintain his fragile courage and break a silence that threatened to smother him. Another rat shot across the floor going in the opposite direction from the one that had hurdled his feet. He squatted down cautiously to see if he could see where it had come from.

Saracen’s pulse raced as his torch beam picked out an opening in the wall under the end trough. It was not difficult to work out what the opening had been for; it was the drainage channel for the troughs but it was much bigger than it had to be for the volume of water it had been liable to encounter. It was about two thirds of a metre high in the centre and slightly narrower in width. At a pinch a man could crawl inside and escape to the outside world. This was the decoy tunnel!

As yet another rat flew from the mouth of the drain Saracen knew that he had found the primary entrance and exit that the rats used and the thought filled him with dread. He had found his way out but it was going to be full of rats. Once committed there would be no room for manoeuvre inside the channel because it was too narrow and his body would practically fill it. Rats would be coming towards him and up behind him. The image of Claire’s face after the rats had finished with her haunted his subconscious like a vision of hell. Did he have the nerve?

Saracen sat down with his back against one of the stone troughs and took deep breaths. He moved his head restlessly from side to side as variations on a nightmare invaded his mind. But it was the only way. There was no alternative.

He crawled back to the entrance to the drain and rested his hand on the stone above it. Was it his imagination or was the air sweeter here? Fresher? The thought of sky and fresh air stiffened Saracen’s resolve. He would do it. He had to. But first he would do something about improving the odds. If he could somehow block up the entrance to the wash-house he could eliminate the possibility of rats coming up behind him in the tunnel when he could not turn round. That would leave the ones coming towards him but for them he would have the gun. He would hold the lamp in one hand and the gun in the other as he wriggled along on his belly. There might even be a chance that oncoming rats would turn and flee when they saw him coming and that would be much better than having to use the gun.

He set about blocking up the entrance to the chamber with whatever came to hand and discovered that it was difficult because anything that remained in the cellars after all these years tended to be hard, wood, stone, iron. There was nothing soft that he could use to plug up small gaps with. He did what he could with the materials to hand and consoled himself with the thought that the barrier did not have to last long, just until he had crawled along the length of the drainage channel. He tried not to dwell on the fact that he had no idea of how long that was going to be.

Saracen’s throat was tight as he checked the pistol for the last time and dispensed with the remaining cartridges because, once inside the drain, there would be no room to draw his arms back to re-load again. He could feel the blood start to pound in his temples as he knelt down in front of the channel entrance and, frightened to delay too long in case his nerve snapped, he slid his arms into the mouth and wriggled inside. Almost immediately he hit trouble; his face visor prevented him from raising his head to see where he was going. He withdrew and tore it off to throw it across the chamber in anger, venting his pent up frustration with every obscenity he could think of and several that didn’t make sense.

As he calmed down and steadied himself on his emotional tightrope he could hear scratching at the barrier he had erected. The rats were trying to get through it already. He went over to it and shouted and banged to scare them off then all went quiet and he entered the drain again.

He had moved forward about twenty metres when he had to stop because his elbows and knees demanded a break from the pain of continual bruising against the unforgiving stone. He comforted himself with the thought that, as yet, he had seen no rats. On the other hand there was nothing but blackness ahead of him in the tunnel. How long was the channel going to be and what if the exit should be barred with an iron gate? It was the first time he had considered this possibility and it ate at his stomach like acid. He had rested enough. He gripped the lamp and the gun and started crawling again.

The lamp picked out two eyes in the darkness; there was a rat five metres ahead! Saracen’s sense of fear was already on overload so he could find no extra emotional response. He stared at it then yelled at it and the creature turned and fled. He crawled on for another ten metres. Another two eyes, no this time there were four. He shouted again and two disappeared but two remained.

Saracen yelled again but the eyes did not move. This was a braver rat. He inched forward but the animal held its ground so Saracen’s fingers left the lamp and moved across in front of him until he held the gun in both hands. He looked along the barrel and held the front sight between the glowing embers. The index finger of his right hand squeezed harder and harder until a deafening report pained his ear drums and the rats head exploded on impact.

Saracen coughed and spluttered in the acrid gun smoke. The paroxysms had the side-effect of relieving some of the tension that had built up inside him and made him feel marginally better although his ears were ringing painfully. He edged forward again until he encountered the carcase of the rat and found a new problem. There was no room to push the corpse behind him. He would have to push it along on front of him with the heels of his hands. The smells of its innards together with the gun smoke and the ever encroaching claustrophobia of the drain as he edged in ever deeper conspired to push Saracen once more to the verge of hysteria. No vision of hell could have outdone the situation that he now found himself in.

The merest suggestion of a movement in the air caressed Saracen’s cheek. There was still no light ahead but there was definitely a faint breeze, he was sure of it and it rescued his sanity. But elation was to turn to despair when the tunnel ahead of him filled with eyes.

Terror became blind fury as Saracen fired three times in rapid succession and ignored the agony in his ears. He was waiting for the smoke to clear when a rat loomed up in the torch beam and he fired again but only to miss in his panic. The rat launched itself at him and he dipped his head to protect his face. He felt the rat’s paws scratch on the back of his head as it struggled for balance and he waited for its teeth to gnaw into the back of his neck but it didn’t happen. The animal had found enough space between the top of his body and the roof of the tunnel to be able to pass along. He felt it run down the centre of his back and leave him. Another rat followed, using the same route and Saracen felt this one pause for one dreadful moment on the back of his upper thigh but then it too continued on its journey and scampered down over his ankles and away. The way ahead was now clear.

Desperately calling on what little energy he had left Saracen wriggled forward, ignoring all pain as he pushed a pile of rat corpses ahead of him using his forearms as angled blades. The drain channel curved to the right and he could see daylight. Five metres…four…three…two, one and he was free of his stone prison. He raised himself painfully to his knees and took great gulps of fresh air for a full half minute before he even thought to look around. With a final super-human effort he pulled himself up a two metre bank and found himself on a hillside. He was on the hill behind Skelmore Municipal Rubbish Dump and rubbish had never smelt sweeter.

Saracen lay on his back for a moment and looked up at the drifting clouds taking pleasure from the feel of the watery sun on his face. He gripped handfuls of coarse grass and rejoiced in its feel before throwing it to the breeze as pale rays of sunshine broke through the clouds like a poster on a Sunday school wall. He wanted to sleep; he desperately wanted to sleep but there was no time. He had to tell Beasdale how to get at the rat colony.

In the distance Saracen heard an engine. He got up and saw that a military vehicle was coming down the road towards the dump. He yelled out but the truck showed no signs of stopping until he pulled out his pistol and emptied it into the air. The truck stopped and a soldier jumped down. Saracen waved his arms and saw the soldier put his weapon to his shoulder and point it at him. “No!” he cried. “For God’s sake no!”

It was Saracen’s protective suit that saved him for the soldier saw it at the last moment and realised that any person wearing it must have an official role to play. The man lowered the weapon and Saracen stumbled down the hill to say who he was.

“Christ, you were lucky sir. I nearly…”

“I know what you nearly did,” said Saracen wearily. “Call Col. Beasdale, will you.”

“Dr Saracen? You’re alive!” said Beasdale’s voice.”

“All the others died and the blood samples were destroyed when the tunnel caved in but I do know where the rat colony is and where the old exit is. You must destroy it.”

“No they weren’t,” said Beasdale.”

“Pardon?”

“The blood samples, they weren’t destroyed. Sergeant Morris got out. The rock fall just missed him. Your samples were flown to Porton and analysed.”

“And?”

“They’ve identified the relevant factor as an adjuvant? Is that how you say it?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently this adjuvant stimulates antibody production against the Skelmore strain. In short they say they can make and antiserum and a vaccine…Are you still there Doctor?”

Saracen had gone weak at the knees. He rubbed his forehead and said, “I’m still here. You won’t be destroying the town then?”

“I don’t know what you mean Doctor.”

“Thank God,” whispered Saracen.

“You say you can show us how to gain access to the rats?”

“Yes but gassing them is probably a non-starter. The cellars are too big.”

“The sergeant was of the same opinion,” said Beasdale. “We are going to use Parapalm.”

“What?”

“Parapalm, liquid fire. It will generate enough heat to incinerate anything in the cellars.”

“And you just happened to have it handy,” said Saracen.

“Is there anything I can do for you Doctor?” asked Beasdale, choosing to ignore the comment. “Anyone I can get in touch with? We all thought you were dead.”

“Yes there is,” said Saracen weakly. “I’d like you to contact Staff nurse Rawlings at the General.”

“What shall I say?”

“Tell her…tell her I love her very much will you.”

Consciousness was slipping away from Saracen. So the plague for the abbey was going to be treated with fire just as it had been six hundred years before. The chalice was safe again. Those who had dared to touch it had been destroyed. Just a coincidence, just a legend. Saracen smiled and passed out.

“Poor bugger,” said a soldier. “He looks all in.