Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [46]
Sewage filled the pipe except the top seven inches. Cray twisted his neck so that his mouth and nose remained above the surface. The air was putrid, but Cray knew it wasn't the scent but rather the methane and the absence of oxygen that would kill him if he was too long in the pipe. He scrambled along, his feet slipping on slime that coated the pipe walls under the surface. He held his breath as long as possible, then let it slowly out. When he at last had to inhale, the fumes seemed to lock in his lungs, and on his second breath neon spots began appearing before his eyes. He dug his feet into the walls and pushed off again and again. He used his hands as paddles, struggling up the sewage stream. His head scraped along the top of the pipe, loosening crusted filth that dripped into his eyes and ears.
That distant purple spot seemed to draw no nearer. Blackness pressed in on Cray. He could see nothing except more neon colors, now dancing in front of him. He lost his bearings and drifted sideways, his shoulder bumping the pipe wall. He could not tell which direction was up. And then he could not detect the surface of the sewage His mind was going. He kicked and kicked against the slime-covered walls, vaguely hoping he was still going toward that patch of purple. Soft fingers of unconsciousness reached for him.
Abruptly his head no longer had contact with the pipe. He rose in the waste. He had found the cleft in the pipe caused by the bomb blast. Cray gulped air.
The mad colors in front of his eyes dimmed. His thoughts began arranging themselves. The opening in the pipe was twice the breadth of his shoulders. Cray was in a conical bomb crater, with a short horizon of dirt all around, as if he were standing at the bottom of a funnel He stood slowly so that the muck dripping off him would be soundless. He wiped his eyes and lips. He placed a foot on the dirt to test his weight. When several pebbles fell into the sewage, Cray froze to listen for the guards. He heard only good-natured chatter. With small and careful steps, he rose to the crest of the crater.
He could see nothing but bomb wreckage in all directions. He crawled over two beams that had fallen across each other, then up a hillock of bricks. He lay on the rubble pile like a lizard, sodden and stinking and once again getting cold.
Laughter came from a patrol near the river. Piles of debris hid Cray from the German guards. He crawled toward the armory, moving one limb at a time, testing each handhold and each foot placement. He moved down a hill of bricks, then along a valley between more mounds. He slipped through a tangle of bent pipe and split wood. He moved without thought, his limbs silently finding their way through the twisted ruins, his mind on the guards.
When he heard new voices, he paused to cup both ears with his hands, then rotated one cup downward, a hunter's trick that allowed him to better gauge the direction of the conversation. Sentries were both to his left and his right, to the street and the river sides of the building. Footfalls came from the rubble near the street, but they were even and unconcerned. Again Cray crawled forward.
In lieu of the fallen wall, tarpaulins had been hung from beams. They warded off the weather and acted as blackout curtains. They billowed in the wind. Cray moved the last few yards to a tarp. He slowly lifted a corner.
Sounds of machinery and men came from the far end of the building. Down a long aisle of wooden boxes, workers were pushing containers into two Wehrmacht trucks that had backed into loading bays. Cray's end of the building was dark. He slipped under the tarp and moved to a stack of boxes.
Many of the containers had apparently been salvaged from the destroyed end of the building, because they lay about in disarray uncharacteristic