The Moon Tunnel

10

‘It’s supposed to be haunted,’ said Humph, ripping the cellophane off a pre-packed Big British Breakfast triple sandwich. The cabbie surveyed Ely Gaol, home to the town’s museum, with evident relish. ‘You wouldn’t get me in there.’

‘Right,’ said Dryden. ‘So we can add the museum to almost every other building in the town, can we?’

Humph ignored him, inhaling a sausage from the sandwich filling with a slight popping sound.

‘I get about,’ he added, looking through the window away from Dryden at a tractor attempting a U-turn in Market Street.

‘What was the last thing you were in besides this car or your house?’ said Dryden, relentlessly pursuing the point, despite the knowledge that Humph’s immobility was a symptom of some psychological need to hide from the world while travelling through it.

Humph dabbed his lips with a page he had callously ripped from The Crow. ‘I went into the gas showroom before Christmas.’

Dryden, point made, searched his pockets for a snack. He discovered an individual pork pie wrapped in a till receipt. ‘Haunted by whom?’ he asked eventually.

‘Food rioters. Hanged for theft. They rattle their chains,’ said Humph, clearly an ear-witness.

Dryden checked his watch: 1.45 pm. The smog was still thick, and shredded, clawing the gaol walls like ghostly fingers. He walked through a wrought-iron gateway into the old exercise yard, now used as an activity area, with a set of replica stocks and life-size cut-outs of onetime prisoners looking suitably desperate. A party of schoolchildren sat huddled on wooden benches shivering, attacking lunch boxes after an enforced two-hour tour of the museum.

Dryden had telephoned ahead and the assistant curator for the museum and archives was in the foyer to meet him. Dryden needed a boxful of wartime memorabilia to bury with the bones unearthed at California, a promise he had been willing to fulfil for Azeglio Valgimigli. He felt a bond with the victim, and was determined to make his second burial in some way atone for the brutality of his first.

Dr S. V. Mann was, Dryden guessed, in his late seventies at least. A former Cambridge academic historian, he was seeing out his retirement amidst the ticking silence of the museum service as a volunteer. He was extremely tall, perhaps an inch beyond Dryden’s six foot two inches, and only slightly stooped by age. His hair had thinned, revealing a capacious skull. Otherwise he was an identikit of the English hearty outdoor type, his face, perpetually wind-tanned and marred by liver spots. A slightly worn dark blue bow-tie was tied casually under his chin, and a tweed jacket hung from his bony shoulders, the elbows patched with leather. Dryden imagined that at home he had a walking stick emblazoned with those little metal shields which record the triumphs of long-distance walkers. There was about him the faint odour of Kendal mint cake and pipe tobacco.

‘We have the place to ourselves, Mr Dryden,’ said Dr Mann, smiling, his voice steady. The manners were always punctilious, even if they edged dangerously towards the patronizing. The full-time staff at the museum suffered Dr Mann’s presence with ill-disguised distaste, and Dryden unkindly felt sure they envied his academic credentials and effortless knowledge. Talking to the press was one of the onerous duties they were happy to hand over to their unpaid volunteer.

Dryden had visited the museum many times in his childhood, all of these later coalescing into one stultifying vision of boredom. In those days the place had been firmly in the butterflies-behind-glass era: turn-of-the-century oak display cabinets holding a bewildering array of objects – the formative beginning of Dryden’s fierce hatred of pottery shards. But the late 1990s had marked a sea change: a new curator – a woman – had arrived, bringing fresh ideas and the vigour to see them through. A curved, interactive double-wall display now took visitors through the story of the flooding and draining of the Fens, complete with audio and video clips. Somewhere Dryden could hear a presentation in progress in the museum’s film theatre. The modernized rooms were fitted with sensors which triggered audio commentary as visitors entered. Many of the display cabinets now boasted interactive audio-visual material, and a portable tape tour was available at the counter. None of which made pottery shards any more interesting.

‘The annex, then,’ said Dr Mann, aware and clearly intrigued by Dryden’s enquiry, leading him through the ground floor towards a Nissen-hut extension which had been added to the museum in the 1950s, having been rescued from one of the nearby bomber aerodromes which dotted the Isle of Ely. Mann stopped in his tracks, plunging both hands deep in the tweed jacket pockets in frustration. ‘Forgive me – I’ve forgotten the keys. Can you hang on – I’ll be two minutes.’

The curator fled, leaving Dryden alone in one of the older, unmodernized, rooms. A Roman skull looked out of the nearest display box, its cranium holed above the right eye by what looked like an axe blow. According to the printed legend it had belonged to a soldier uncovered on the site of a villa north of Littleport. A display in the corner attempted to recreate life in this outpost of fenland civilization, with two full-sized mannequin figures dressed stiffly in crisp togas. He dismissed the thought that one of them had just moved, but as he turned his back he felt the hairs rise on his neck.

Then he heard a footfall from the next gallery, then heard it again. A series of tiny taps followed, the sound of a pen top dotting on glass. Dryden slipped his feet forward noiselessly over the parquet flooring and moved towards the interconnecting doorway. The far room was dedicated to Anglo-Saxon finds in the area, principally the hill fort uncovered near Ely in the 1950s at Wardy Hill. Leaning over one of the display cabinets, her head almost touching the glass, was Ma Trunch.

‘Ma,’ said Dryden, surprised that she should jump guiltily at the sound of her own name.

Dryden peered into the cabinet with her. It contained some bronze items from an Anglo-Saxon burial in the north of the county.

‘Hobby?’ asked Dryden, remembering the metal-detector.

‘Not much else to do now the site is closed. The Crow didn’t help.’

She straightened up and blocked out quite a bit of light. Dryden couldn’t prevent himself from stepping back. The dog’s lead hung lifelessly at her side. She must have left Boudicca outside.

One of the slabs of meat which made up her face slid over another: ‘I can be interested like anybody else,’ she said. ‘I was a student once, you know.’

Dryden tried to imagine this but failed. ‘Cambridge?’ he said, playing the flattery card.

‘Oxford,’ she said, trumping him.

‘Find much?’

‘Yes. That’s mine,’ she said, pointing at a tiny gold pin mounted on a black card in a separate case. ‘Saxon tunic jewellery. Field over West Fen.’

‘Any news on the dogs?’ said Dryden.

‘It’s treasure trove, but I let the museum have it,’ she said, ignoring him.

‘The security firm guarding the archaeological site at California lost its three dogs two nights ago. I guess the police have been in touch?’ said Dryden, ignoring her now that it was his turn.

She looked at Dryden and he noticed the whites of her eyes were a mucky colour, like the old fridges at the dump.

‘Why’s that your business to mind?’ she said.

Dryden, intimidated, felt his Adam’s apple bobble.

Dr Mann reappeared with the keys to the annex and Ma Trunch melted away, an impressive feat given the terrain.

The annex, opened only for group visits or at weekends and in high summer, housed three large displays. The air was chilly, and a thin stratum of mist had seeped in through the louvred windows in the Nissen-hut’s roof. On one side stood a tableau of masons working on the cathedral roof, with gargoyles half finished, and stone being hauled using block and tackle. On the other wall an eel-catcher’s cottage had been built, complete with glowing fireplace and a smoking shed. And in the centre stood the PoW hut, the number 14 stencilled in black paint on the façade. The figure of a British squaddie in 1940s kit stood guard at one corner, a misshapen stuffed Alsatian at his side.

‘It’s a bit of a shock to see it,’ said Dryden. ‘You just don’t think…’

‘That the British had PoW camps too? Oh, yes. What else could they do with prisoners – there were more than 400,000 Germans taken, let alone the Italians. Something like three hundred camps in the UK.’

‘What do the kids think?’

‘It’s a popular exhibit, Mr Dryden. Possibly for the wrong reasons. They just think its like Colditz or The Great Escape. I’m not sure it sinks in that it happened here – in their own town. We used to do the occasional tour out to California, when the huts were still standing. Visiting German tourists were very interested, you see. I suspect it helps redress the balance of the mind: they too were victims.’ He smiled, but the hard edges of his face killed any warmth.

‘But nobody did escape, did they? From California.’

Dr Mann led the way into the hut. ‘That’s right. But more than four hundred Axis prisoners did get out of the camps around Britain and more than eighty were never accounted for. So escapes happened. Finding the tunnel is exciting – I’d like to get a short section moved here.’

Inside Hut 14 a dozen beds were lined on either side of a central aisle at the end of which stood a single pot-bellied stove, its flue rising through the roof. Beside each bed was a box side-table made from packing-case planks, and each pair of beds shared a roughly made wardrobe. On each table was an array of memorabilia: cut-throat razors, pictures, a lighter made from gunmetal, a gold chain with a locket, and some books – mostly bound in brown paper to stiffen the paperback covers.

Dryden picked up one of the books and smelt it: a wave of remembrance of stories past coming with the familiar odour of ageing paper.

He opened it. No linguist himself, he could still tell the difference between Italian and German.

‘Why Italian?’ He picked up one of the snapshots which showed a young man, proudly holding what looked like a new bicycle, on a crowded city pavement with the dome of the Vatican caught on the horizon.

‘They occupied the huts for three years – from 1941 to 1944. The Germans were there for only a year.’

‘But surely the Italians took their things with them when they moved out to the farms?’

‘No. No they didn’t. Well… It’s complicated.’

Dryden bristled, acutely aware when he was about to be patronized.

‘The authorities here on the Isle of Ely were concerned that there would be trouble if they told the prisoners they were being put permanently out to work. They were good workers in the fields, but they wanted to come back together at night. They were together at California, and there was a strong community spirit, I think – you only have to talk to those who stayed behind.

‘The train carrying the Germans turned up early – typical War Office cock-up. So the authorities decided to solve both problems in one move – they brought the Germans straight in and billeted the Italians straight out on the farms. They collected most things of value and the prisoners got it all – and new shaving kits, and other things, to sweeten the move. But a lot of stuff just stuck on the walls was left behind. It was a botched job, really – typical of war, I’m afraid, although most of the PoWs carried anything really valuable with them.’

Dryden tried to recall Mann’s academic field: history certainly, modern European perhaps.

‘So all this stuff was stored in the camp?’

‘Yes. The Germans collected the items here and stored them carefully for their eventual return. When they left they took all their personal effects. They were very neat.’

‘Did the two communities ever mix?’

‘No. There’s no record of that at all, although some of the Italians were drafted in to do menial work at the camp. As you can imagine, the Germans despised them for surrendering and for being, in their eyes, third-rate soldiers. The Germans were seen as ideologues, Nazis, and war criminals – a crude caricature but a view widely held.’

‘The tunnel – at the PoW camp. Do you think they dug it – the Germans? Or was it there when they were moved into the camp?’

Mann shrugged. ‘It would help to see it, I think – but so far, the site is still closed.’

‘They sent you the ID disc they found – the police?’

‘Yes.’ He took a folded pouch from his pocket, placed it on the palm of his hand and unfolded it to reveal the disc. ‘Very badly corroded I’m sad to say. Unreadable. But we have others here…’

He opened a cabinet and extracted an ID disc. It had been crudely engraved with a punch mark: FIELD WORKER 478.

‘Field worker?’

‘Yes. When they let the Italians out on the land they gave them these.’

‘Can you trace the number to a name?’

Dr Mann shook his head, replacing the disc with care in the museum cabinet.

‘Do you know Professor Valgimigli?’ asked Dryden.

‘Certainly. I taught him, Mr Dryden – at Cambridge. A fine student. He was here only last week, touring our modest museum. Which is, I think…’

‘Yes. Of course. The body found in the tunnel – well, the bones. It’s been suggested we might put some items in the coffin – something which might be appropriate although we can’t be sure…’

‘Indeed. Your message made it clear so I took the liberty…’ On a deal table he had arranged items taken from the museum stores. Two medals – one Italian, one German, some ammunition, some furled flags and pennants, a tobacco tin, some playing dice, and an assortment of military buttons and buckles.

‘And these,’ said Mann. ‘We recovered these from the site.’ Some small gardening tools, handmade from broom handles and reworked metal. Mann packed them all carefully in a large Red Cross box, adding the cleaned ID disc with the deference of ceremony.

About to leave, Dryden had a sudden afterthought. ‘If the tunnel they found at the dig started in one of the huts – which is probable – where would the entrance have been, do you think?’

Mann surveyed the hut and a smile curled the corner of his thin lips. ‘Under the stove? Difficult, but ideal if you could keep the fire going twenty-four hours day – not many search parties would have gone to the trouble of trying to lift it red-hot. Under a bed? The shower block?’

‘Where was that?’

‘There were four. You can tell they are different – they were built with a special kind of porous brick to stop the damp. The dormitory huts are in concrete, and they had the stoves. There was no heating in the shower blocks.’

A vision of enforced school cross-country runs flashed before Dryden’s eyes and he shivered. ‘Thanks,’ he said, buttoning up his greatcoat and fishing a half-eaten sausage roll out of the folds of one pocket.

Dr Mann helped him carry the Red Cross box to the cab outside. He gave Dryden his card as he left: Dr S. V. Mann. Curator, East Cambridgeshire Museums. It was the home address that caught the reporter’s eye: Vintry House was a Georgian pile on the edge of the town, with fine views over the Black Fen, views recently enhanced by the demolition of the nearby PoW camp huts, separated from the house by a single copse of pine trees.