Ashes to Ashes (19 page)

‘What are we going to do now, Mr Hancock?’ Milly said after a pause. ‘Shall we follow that boy?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘But . . .’ Milly must have taken notice of the blank look on my face because she went silent herself now.

I sat down. Right there on that balcony, with the whole dark cathedral spreading out in front of me. I didn’t have a clue. At that moment all I could imagine was giving in to the men who were pursuing us and, once we were caught, trying to persuade those not involved with Rolls and company to take our side. As a plan it was well nigh useless. Even with Rolls hiding down in the cathedral, Smith and his other cronies could easily get to us first and kill us before any of the other blokes arrived. We still had the gun, of course, but what did that matter with so many men pursuing us now? Gun or no gun, they would overwhelm us. It wouldn’t be difficult.

‘Get up!’

I thought it was them at first until I realised that it was in fact Milly. She pulled at the shoulders of my jacket and said it again, ‘Get up!’

‘Milly, what’s the point? They—’

‘That boy, that kid in a dress,’ she said referring to George, ‘he went this way.’ She pointed to our left, towards the entrance to the northern of the two church towers. ‘We’re following him,’ Milly said. ‘We ain’t dying, not in here. We ain’t doing what
they
want.’

And then with a remarkable amount of strength for such a little girl she pulled me to my feet.

Mr Smith, Mr Bolton and whoever else was down below and involved with them, used the fair few blokes who came to help from the Whispering Gallery, to push the tower door open. They then told those watchmen to get back to their duties, which they did. Those blokes, the real watchmen, they only helped out because they truly believed they were doing some good by helping Smith and Bolton to find us. Those men worked that night like I’ve never seen civilians work before. But now the ‘bad men’ were coming up behind us and so we ran into the northern tower and found out that the door to the stairwell over it was closed. I discovered the little door that led out on to a place I’d never seen before and one that I will now never forget.

This balcony is so easily overlooked. It runs, although it isn’t connected to it, from the balcony at the western end of the cathedral along both sides of the nave and around the bottom of the dome. I thought that it finished right at the back of the church behind the high altar. I was to be proved wrong on that count, however. The balcony is below the Whispering Gallery, although probably only by about fifty stairs. There are actually several small doors into this place, the same as the one that I found, from the area I later learned was called the Triforium. It’s a cross between a museum, with rooms for books and old exhibits and what have you, and a storage area for brooms and spare electrical wire and things of that nature. The door, a nondescript and small thing, opened easily and as we heard the sound of Mr Smith and his men thundering up the stairs, I pulled Milly in behind me.

‘Where are—’

I slapped a hand roughly over her mouth. We could be seen from almost everywhere in the cathedral! We could also probably be heard. I had to assume that the men who were following us knew about this place and so, still with my hand over Milly’s mouth, I looked around for somewhere we might be able to hide.

‘Close the door quietly behind you and don’t make a sound,’ I whispered into Milly’s ear. ‘Not a murmur.’

She looked very serious, but she did as she was told and, as she pulled the door shut behind us, she cringed just ever so slightly at the soft clicking noise that it made. There was no way that I could see to lock the door – I didn’t want to use my torch in case someone saw the light and spotted us – and so I had to think about how we might be able to hide on this balcony. It had probably been built so that workmen could maintain the upper part of the cathedral; Sir Christopher Wren was a man who thought of everything. I imagined it was still being used for such purposes now. But, like the rest of the place, it was dark and there was little I could see. As well as the men’s voices behind us somewhere in the triforium I also knew that Mr Rolls was down in the cathedral somewhere, maybe he was even watching us right at that moment.

There was something else too. The balcony we were on, although surrounded by a rail, was narrow. And, although actually seeing the floor below us wasn’t really possible, I knew it was there, far, far below us and that was good, or bad, enough for me. Where we’d come out was about halfway along the nave. I looked back towards the balcony at the western end, the one we’d just come from, and then to the east, towards the dome. There were no hiding places here. There were a few boxes, what could have been radiators, but that was about it. As soon as Smith and his men walked on to this thing, they’d see us. If we moved to get around into the dome or up towards the high altar, they would hear us. And anyway, I was scared. My poor old knees were tensing up again as my fear of heights took over once more.

A loud bang up in the dome made me almost jump out of my skin. This was followed by a voice which shouted, ‘Up on the roof! The flames are gaining on us! Everybody up on the roof!’

There was a thunder of boots. I moved and, pulling Milly after me, shuffled towards the dome. It was just before we reached the terrifying corner where the nave fans out into the dome that my foot caught on something. I bent down to find out what it was. It was a blanket and it smelt of damp. As well as boots and voices up in the dome, I could also hear boots and voices in the triforium. I pulled Milly down with me and drew the blanket over us as quietly as I could. All I could hope was that Smith and his men didn’t look under the blanket. If they didn’t then, provided we could stay where we were until after they’d gone, we stood a chance of slipping back down to the cathedral floor and, hopefully, outside the building. Although I feared what might be out there almost as much as I dreaded the mad Masons inside. By the sound of it, almost everyone was fighting the fires up on the roof now. Everything around the cathedral was on fire. Ludgate Hill, Hitchcock, Williams and Co., Paternoster Row. The world was burning, or at least my world was. I looked at Milly as best I could through the darkness underneath the blanket and I wondered what sort of world she and all the other youngsters were going to inherit at the end of all this. We’re not just in a war, we’re also in the middle of something catastrophic in people’s minds, too. It was mostly just old soldiers who went doolally after the First Lot. But it’ll be civilians too, this time. They’ve seen too much, especially in London. Mr Rolls, Mr Smith and all the other blokes whose beliefs had twisted in this terrible war, wanted to do their awful deeds for very good reasons. They wanted to save the cathedral, to stop that evil maniac Hitler from destroying it. But the war had driven them mad. I knew that and to a large part I was actually sorry for them, even then.

It must have been about five minutes before the door on to our balcony opened and we heard the sound of footsteps. No words were spoken, but we knew it was them. Who else could it be? Milly gripped my hand tightly and I, I must admit, shut my eyes.

I’ve no idea how long it took for them to scan along the balcony and look behind radiators or whatever it was they did. I think at some point one or more of the men got close to where we were, but maybe the deep darkness on that part of the balcony together with its height put them off. But I heard the door open again and I assumed that they were filing through so I opened my eyes at that moment. Unfortunately, Milly, younger and much more impatient than I was took all this as a signal that she could move. Milly sat up and found herself staring, if at some distance, into a face.

‘Mr Bolton . . . Lads . . .’ It was Mr Smith’s voice. Neither Milly nor I could see his face. But as we both got to our feet we could see that a little bunch of blokes were looking at us. We were at the corner of the balcony where it continues around into the dome. I looked behind me and saw that there was a small fence of iron between these two parts. We’d have to get ourselves over that if we wanted to continue running from these men.

‘We can still use her!’ a voice from down below in the cathedral boomed. It belonged to Mr Rolls, the madman in charge of this madness!

We had no choice. I picked Milly up and lifted her over the fence, hoping against hope that the floor over there was strong enough to support her. Not everything in buildings as old as St Paul’s is always looked after. But Milly didn’t come to any harm over there and so as soon as she was over, I followed. As Mr Smith and what turned out to be Mr Bolton, Mr Arnold and some other bloke came towards me, I swung one of my legs over the fence and staggered on to the balcony around the base of the dome. Milly, who was already running ahead of me said, ‘You’ve got a gun! Use it!’

It was in my pocket. I put my hand in to get a hold of it, but I was shaking now and so I lost my grasp on the gun which clattered to the floor beside me.

‘You can’t escape, and even if you could, nobody would ever believe you!’ Mr Smith said as he struggled to swing his short legs over the fence. As I bent down to pick up the gun I began to feel dizzy and felt as if I might fall.

‘Come on!’ I heard Milly squeal. ‘Leave it! Come on!’

But I didn’t want Smith and his blokes to get the gun! He was halfway over when I kicked it through the railings. It hit the marble floor down below with a crack. I heard a voice from down there, it was Rolls, say something, but I couldn’t say what it was because by that time I was running. I followed Milly around the left-hand side of the dome, trying all the time as I did so not to look at the little red lamp down on the cathedral floor below. We were fortunately well ahead of Mr Smith and the others when I discovered that my assumption that this balcony stretched all the way around the cathedral was incorrect.

‘We’ll have to climb!’ Milly said as she pointed to the top of the massive archway which marked the end of the balcony on the eastern side of the dome. Shaking like someone with St Vitus’s dance, I pulled my torch out of my pocket and shone it in front of me. What I saw was so frightening that even when I recall it now I can feel myself begin to sweat. There was indeed a huge archway in front of us. Rising up from the end of the balcony it stretched over a great big space of nothing before it joined up with another balcony which this time really did lead up to the high altar. The arch wasn’t, however, just suspended in mid air, it was attached to the marble wall behind it. It was in effect a ledge, albeit one with no railings to protect whoever might be bonkers enough to climb it. Above the ledge, however, there were railings which protected a sort of open chamber high up on the side of the dome. If Milly and myself were to climb this thing, we had two choices, we could just go straight over the arch, risking falling as we crawled down the steep opposite side, or we could climb up to the top of the thing and then try to scramble into the chamber. I went first. Knowing that I had first Milly and then the Masonic nutters behind me would, I hoped, make me hurry up.

Chapter Fourteen

E
verybody says that if you’re climbing something right up high you should never ever look down at the ground. I didn’t, not once. I went forward on all fours and, when I heard the men running along the balcony towards us, I scampered up to the top of the archway calling out to Milly as I did so.

‘Use your hands!’ I said as I felt her very tentative steps behind me.

‘Mr Hancock, I am so scared!’ I heard her say in a voice so plaintive and so unlike her it almost made me cry.

‘It’s all right, love!’ I said. ‘Look, there’s a ledge up here, you can get a hold under the railings and pull yourself up.’

At the top of the archway there was indeed a ledge underneath the railings that protected that chamber. Smith was just putting his feet on to the end of the archway now and so I knew that I was going to have to try and pull myself up and somehow scramble into that chamber soon. I put my hands as far up the wrought-iron work as I could and then I pulled. I’m not a heavy bloke, but I am strong. That said, I couldn’t even begin to haul myself up towards that chamber. I pushed down with my feet and pulled with all my strength, but I just couldn’t get any purchase. Smith, though moving much more slowly than either Milly or myself, was gaining on us.

‘Mr Hancock!’

Smith’s fingers were touching Milly’s heels. I pulled yet again and this time I felt some movement upwards. But I knew that it wasn’t going to be anything like enough.

‘Mr Smith!’ I’d only just recently heard that voice; it was young George. ‘Leave them alone! Stop it!’

I don’t know whether Smith turned around to look at George or not. The boy was obviously way back along the balcony, having just come in as we all had, via the triforium. I just pulled on the railings and then took the next step of letting go with one hand and then grabbing higher up to pull myself forwards.

‘It’s wrong!’ George said. ‘I’ve come back because you must be stopped. It’s wrong to kill Mr Hancock, he’s entirely innocent.’

‘Boy, you don’t know anything about wrong or right!’ Mr Smith replied. ‘Is this cathedral still in danger?’

I managed to get one elbow hooked over the top of the railings. Below me on the archway, all other movement had ceased.

‘George, are there fires still raging all around this building?’

‘Well, yes they . . .’

‘Then the cathedral is still at risk,’ Mr Smith said. ‘We have to make sacrifice, George. We all agreed, you included.’

‘I know, but I was wrong. You killed Mr Andrews! I . . .’ George began to sob.

With a massive effort, more of will than of physical strength, I pulled my poor old body over the top of the railings and into the shallow chamber beyond. I didn’t even catch my breath before I leaned back over the railings and held my hands out to Milly. ‘Come on!’

Still on all fours, she looked up at me with fear in her eyes.