Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [77]
‘Nothing has been broken,’ he announced, ‘except the arm. You cannot go for help?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tony said. ‘We haven’t explored yet. But I have a feeling the guy who tricked us in here isn’t going to leave an exit open.’
‘Perhaps you would care to look?’ Blankenhagen suggested. I didn’t blame him for sounding sarcastic.
‘Okay,’ said Tony meekly. He stood up; and then sat down again, clutching his head.
‘I am sorry,’ said Blankenhagen, feeling his weight descend. ‘I did not think . . . You are injured. If you will come here, I will try – ’
‘Oh, don’t be so damned noble,’ said Tony grumpily. ‘I’m all right. I just had a thought. Maybe some of this wood might make a torch. We’d have an easier time with a little light.’
‘Without oil or petrol,’ Blankenhagen began.
I interrupted him with a hoot of triumph. ‘I have some oil. I got it so I could oil the locks.’
I fished the almost forgotten can out of my coat pocket and gave it to Tony. He wasted several matches experimenting, but finally a chunk of wood consented to burn.
We looked first at the shaft. One look was enough.
A few stairs remained, at the very top. The lowest tread was five feet above my upstretched fingertips.
Tony turned the light into the passage that led out of the shaft. It was faced with stones cemented together. We could see only a few feet of its length; it turned a corner not far from us.
Tony started down the passage, but he had taken only a couple of steps when he swayed dizzily and fell back against the wall. I grabbed the torch from his hand.
‘Sit down till you get your strength back,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a look.’
He didn’t argue. He looked sick.
The roof of the passage was so low that I had to stoop. I went on around the corner, but I didn’t go far. Just behind the bend, the passage ended. It was not the original end. A mass of loose stones and dirt had spilled down from the roof, filling the tunnel from top to bottom. To me, it looked like a very recent cave-in.
Chapter Eleven
I HAD NOT EXPECTED to find an open door with an EXIT sign beside it; but I hadn’t anticipated anything quite as bad as this. My hands were shaking as I wedged my torch into a crack in the wall and started digging. It didn’t take long to verify my pessimistic suspicions. The dirt and rubble continued for some distance. For all I knew, the rest of the tunnel might be filled. And I was here, in a neat airless trap, with two injured men.
I gave vent to my emotions briefly, but I did it without noise. Then I wiped my face on the sleeve of my coat and went back to the wounded.
Tony, squatting with his back up against the tunnel wall, looked a little better. I had put on a cheery smile, but it didn’t deceive him.
‘No way out?’
‘It doesn’t look good.’ I handed him the torch and knelt down by Blankenhagen, whose eyes were closed. ‘Doctor. If you can tell me what to do as I go along, I’ll try to fix your arm.’
‘I will tell you first,’ said Blankenhagen, without opening his eyes. ‘I am about to lose consciousness.’
And he did, too, as soon as I put my clumsy paws on his arm. Tony offered to take over, but I clamped my lower lip between my teeth and elbowed him away. Like mine, his knowledge was purely theoretical, derived from far-off memories of Scout manuals and Red Cross training. I did the job, with strips torn from my blouse and pieces of wood from the stairs; but I was covered with perspiration by the time I was through.
After a while, Blankenhagen opened one eye.
‘Finished?’ he inquired warily.
‘Finished is right.’ I was sitting on the floor next to Tony.
‘Then speak,’ ordered Blankenhagen, prone but positive. ‘What is our position?’
I told them. Neither of them liked it very much.
‘Seems to me,’ I concluded, ‘that our best bet is to try to dig through the earth fall. Even if I could climb the shaft – which I can’t – we can be sure that trapdoor is closed