Dead or Alive (22 page)

‘They won't,' said James, who felt he'd said too much. Milly nodded because she trusted him. James hoped she had good reason to trust him.

‘Shall we sing
Zip A Dee Doo Dah
?'
she asked.

‘Uh?'

James's thoughts were now preoccupied as he stared into a dark corner. The dim lightbulb provided barely enough light to illuminate the whole cellar. He got to his feet and walked over, staring into the gloom at a small pile of bricks at the bottom of a wall.

‘What is it?' Milly asked.

‘Just some bricks.'

‘Oh.'

James looked up towards the top of the wall. Milly's question about them dying in here still on his mind. Up until now he'd thought it was just a question of waiting for their freedom, but time was beginning to kill that hope and if there was anything he could do to keep them alive he should give it a go.

There was a gap from where the bricks must have fallen. He gave the matter some thought and began to build the fallen bricks into a neat pile.

‘Watcha doin'?'

‘Buildin' these bricks.'

‘Why? Why are you building bricks now?'

‘There's a hole at the top of this wall. I wanna take a look through it.'

‘I don't 'spect it leads to anything.'

‘That's what I thought, but it'll do no harm to look. It's something to do. I'm fed up of having nothing to do.'

She went over to watch him. Like he said, it was something to do. She helped him pile up the bricks and even looked around the cellar to find any other stray bricks. Eventually they had built a solid pile about three feet high. James got on top of it and reached up with his hands. He got a grip on the bottom course of bricks in the hole.

‘I bet I could get up there,' he said.

‘Well, I couldn't and you're not leaving me down here.'

‘I just wanna see what's on the other side of this wall.'

‘Another cellar, I 'spect.'

‘It might not be locked like this one is.'

‘Have you just thought of that after all this time?'

‘Well, I've always thought it might not even be a cellar. It's mos' prob'ly small and horrible, but you never know.'

‘You might end up trapped and can't get back.'

‘If I do, you just tell them where I am and they'll let me out.'

James pulled himself up so his eyes were level with the hole.

‘Can you see anything?' asked Milly.

‘No, it's too dark.'

An idea struck him. He climbed off the pile of bricks and picked a half brick they hadn't used.

‘What are you going to do with that?'

‘This,' said James. He threw the brick though the hole and heard it land and skid across a hard floor. He guessed it had travelled some distance before it landed which meant that beyond the hole was a spacious room.

‘It's deffo another cellar,' he said. ‘I bet I could get through.'

‘I don't want to be left in here on my own.'

‘Milly, if I can get through I can always get back. I might even be able to let you out.'

‘So long as you promise not to leave me here on my own.'

‘I promise.'

He pulled himself up until his head was through the hole and his legs dangling on Milly's side. Normally James would have been over the wall in a flash but their meagre diet had reduced both his strength and energy, turning this into a Herculean effort. He lay in this position completely out of breath, planning his next move.

‘Are you OK, James?'

‘Yeah, just a bit out of puff that's all.'

He realized he needed to get his legs though first or he'd be landing on his head. He loosened a brick to his left and pushed it back to the floor, calling out to his sister.

‘Watch out, Milly, I'm making the hole bigger.'

Milly took a couple of steps back as several more bricks fell to the floor. James now swung his legs right over until he was at the other side, just hanging by his hands and hoping the drop to the floor was no greater than in the first room. He let go. The drop was no more than four feet. He was OK.

Breathing heavily, he looked up at the hole he'd come through. It provided a dismal light into this new room, enough for him to see a door which was already open. He went through it into a narrow corridor and immediately found the door to his erstwhile prison. There was a key in the lock. He turned it and opened the door. Milly came out and hugged him, fearfully.

‘What do we do now, James?'

‘Try and get out of this place.'

In the gloom they saw stone steps at the end of the passage. ‘Follow me,' said James.

She followed him up the steps. At the top was a door. James turned the handle.

‘It's locked,' he told her. ‘Listen, can you hear anything? Any voices or anyone walking about?'

They both listened for a full minute but they could hear nothing. ‘I think they left us on our own,' said James. He ran his hand around the wall until he felt a light switch. A light came on. They both blinked in the unaccustomed brightness.

‘What do we do now?' Milly asked.

‘We think of an idea to get out.'

‘I'm no good at ideas. What do we do?'

‘We have a good look round. See what we can see.'

There was another light switch down in the passage. James switched it on and opened the door to the room he'd just crawled into, allowing in light. It was empty and dusty, just like the room that had been their prison. James was looking for some sort of tools that might help them break out. The ceiling looked very old and in desperate need of repair. The floorboards of whatever room was above could be seen between the holes in the crumbling plaster. They found a third room, much smaller than the other two. More of a store room but not much was stored in it. In the light from the open door, James kicked around in the piles of detritus on the floor and kicked against something hard and metallic. He picked it up and examined it. Recognizing it immediately. It was about five feet long with a flattened end.

‘What is it?' asked Milly.

‘It's a piece of scaffolding tube. This end is flattened so it can fit in a joint in the wall. It's called a putlog.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because Dad told me. I go on his building sites with him now and again.' He took it out into the lit passage and looked up at the crumbling ceiling. ‘I'll tell you something else, as well.'

‘What?'

He pointed upwards. ‘Them boards up there are floorboards and they're held down by two inch nails.'

‘I bet they're rusty by now,' said Milly.

‘I bet they are,' said James. ‘I bet this place is a hundred years old and they had rubbish nails a hundred years ago. I bet I could knock a hole in them boards big enough for us to get through.'

‘If you do, how do we get up there?'

‘I can only solve one problem at a time, Milly.'

Holding the steel tube in both hands he thrust it up against the boards. There was a bang and a cloud of descending dust but nothing moved. ‘I think I loosened it a bit,' James said optimistically. He thrust the tube up again, three times.

‘I can see a gap,' said Milly.

‘Can you have a go, I'm out of puff?'

Milly tried but couldn't reach. James took the putlog from her and began to bang along the length of the board until several feet of it was now bending upwards. He paused to catch his breath then turned his attention to the floorboard next to it and soon had a few feet of that bending up as well.

Completely exhausted he put down the tube and took stock of the situation. ‘Well,' he said. ‘The good thing is that there's no one in the place or they'd have been down here by now.'

‘I was a bit worried about that,' said Milly. ‘What will they do if they come back now and find out what we've been doing. They'll go mad.'

‘Yeah, but they won't touch us. We're valuable merchandise we are.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘It just means we're valuable to them, so they won't do us any damage. You don't damage something that's valuable. Stands to reason.'

‘Right,' said Milly.

James looked up again. ‘If I could get up there high enough to push at them boards I bet I could push them right out.'

‘There's a steel box thing in that little room you've just been in.'

‘That's right. I wonder if it's fixed in to anything? Could be a water tank y'see,' he said, knowledgably.

‘Dunno.'

They went back into the small room where they found the metal tank which once had contained water. It was three feet long by two feet wide and still contained the ball cock mechanism but it was attached to nothing. James checked all around it to ascertain this.

‘I think we should be able to drag it out into the passage,' he said. ‘Look, I'll move it away from the wall then I'll pull, you push.'

Despite his exhaustion, James was a strong lad for his age and between them they had no problem dragging the tank out into the passage. He sat on it for a while to regain his strength.

‘Right,' he said, at length. ‘I need us to stand it on its end so I can get up higher. I bet if I stand on it I can reach the ceiling easy.'

They stood it on end, James climbed on it and pushed up at the two loose floor boards. Gradually they came away from the rusty nails that had held them down for well over a hundred years. Above James was a gap about ten inches wide.

‘I need to push another one out at least. Pass me that putlog up.'

‘OK.'

James hammered away with the tube until he'd freed another board which he also pushed up until it came free of its nails. He threw it into the room above, along with the other two. He now had a gap big enough for him to climb through. He looked down at his sister, knowing that getting her out as well might be a problem. She knew what he was thinking.

‘I don't want you to leave me down here, James.'

‘I'm not going to. Once I'm out you climb on the tank and I'll pull you up.'

‘OK,' she said, uncertainly.

It took the exhausted James some considerable time to pull himself up through the hole in the floor. He looked around at his new surroundings, lit only by the light coming from the street. It was a big room with many windows and chairs. A room a lot easier to escape from than the cellar.

‘I'm still here,' Milly called up.

James laid flat on the floor and reached down to grab his sister's upstretched hands. She was a slightly-built girl, but it still wasn't going to be easy to pull her up.

‘Grab hold of me as tight as you can. I'm going to pull you up until you've got your arms through the hole.'

‘OK, James. Don't let me go.'

‘I won't, honest.'

It took most of James's remaining strength to pull her up the two feet they needed for Milly to be through the gap and supporting herself with her arms and elbows on the floor. James then grabbed her by her armpits and, with a final massive effort, pulled her through. She stood in front of him, shivering with fear and holding on to him. Both of them were breathing heavily.

It was some time before Milly managed to say, ‘Are we going to be all right, James?'

‘Course we are. We've got this far, haven't we? Look at all these windows. All we've got to do is open one and we're outside.'

Milly shivered. ‘I wish I'd brought my coat.'

‘And me,' said James. ‘Still, we can't think of everything.'

He went over to a window which, like all the others, was quite high off the floor. It was dark outside but some light came in from street lights. He found a window catch and opened it. Then he placed a chair beneath it and took a look outside. There was a five foot drop to the ground which he could manage all right but maybe not his sister. He picked up another chair and dropped it through the window.

‘I'll go first then I'll help you out,' he said.

Once out he stood the chair against the window and helped his sister climb out. They took a few steps away from this building that had held them prisoner, wondering what it was. It was on a residential street of terraced houses.

‘We should knock on one of those doors,' said James. ‘If we tell them we're the Strathmore children who were kidnapped, I bet they'll ring the police for us.'

‘Will they?'

‘Course they will.'

Both of them unsteady on their feet from their efforts, they crossed the street and knocked on the first door they came to – number 17. To them it was as good a door as any. In fact it was the worst door they could have knocked on. There was no answer so they knocked again. The door opened and an elderly man stood there, glaring at these two exhausted and scruffy children, both very dirty from their ordeal in the cellar.

‘What the fuck do you toe-rags want?'

The children were taken aback by such profanity coming from an adult. ‘I er, we're the Strathmore children …' said James.

‘So what?'

‘We er … we were kidnapped and we've escaped.'

‘What's that got ter do wi' me? Piss off!'

He slammed the door. James and Milly walked on, disconsolately, holding hands, both wondering if they should try another door, but not too keen on repeating the experience.

‘I think we'll just look for a telephone box,' said Milly, ‘and ring 999.'

A car turned a corner ahead of them. ‘No,' said James. ‘We'll stop this car. I bet the driver'll help us.'

It was a large, new car. Not the sort of car that would be driven by a foul-mouthed man who might swear at them rather than help them. James stepped into the road and waved at it to stop. It did. The driver's window buzzed down electronically. James went round to his side and said, ‘I wonder if you can help us. My sister and I have been kidnapped. We're the Strathmore children, maybe you know about us.'