Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

We reached the obelisk, the hub of the paths in the northern part of the park. A little beyond it, the spreading branches of a Spanish chestnut had protected the ground beneath it from much of the snow. Lantern in hand, Harmwell crouched and took a few lurching steps sideways like an ungainly crab.

"What the devil are you doing?" I said between chattering teeth.

"Look-" He angled the beam so it fell on a particular spot on the ground. "You see?"

I squatted beside him. In the light covering of snow was a perfectly formed small footprint. Harmwell moved the lantern a fraction and the beam shifted to reveal another.

"How should we interpret them?" I asked. "The lake or the ruins?"

"The lake, I think. They were going west, not east."

"To the ice-house?"

"Perhaps." He began to walk on. "It was an evil day I mentioned the word treasure."

"There is nothing to reproach yourself for, Mr Harmwell. They started on about treasure as soon as they saw the monastery ruins, and that was long before you and Mr Noak arrived."

"I made it worse."

"Nonsense. You cannot prevent boys from being boys."

We walked in silence until we came to the shores of the lake. Here Harmwell crouched again and began his crab-like examination of the ground.

"Yes – I have them."

"Coming or going?"

He straightened up. "I cannot be sure. But I do not think they have returned. If we are lucky we will not be far behind."

We had not gone further than a few yards along the path when a strange sound came out of the darkness. Though deadened by the snow, it was unmistakably metallic in nature. I judged its source to be perhaps a quarter of a mile away from us. Such was the silence, however, that it was perfectly audible.

"The door of the ice-house?" I said to my companion. "Or perhaps a spade or a pickaxe?"

"I think not, Mr Shield." Harmwell's face was invisible, and his deep voice came at me out of the darkness and appeared to be part of it. "I believe it may have been the sound the jaws of a mantrap make when they meet."

"My God! The boys!"

"I doubt it. Why should they have gone into the woods?"

"But we cannot be sure they did not."

Harmwell said matter-of-factly, "They had no reason to. Besides, if a living creature had been caught in a mantrap, man or beast, we should almost certainly have heard the screams."

He strode tirelessly forward with long gliding steps, his legs slightly bent at the knee. I staggered after him, thinking of reasons why a boy in a mantrap might not scream: he had fainted from the pain, he had lost his voice, he was dead. The image of the mantrap filled my mind until it became an emblem of all that was cold, ruthless and inhumane, all that preyed on the weak, the poor and the unfortunate. The snow slackened and at last dwindled to the occasional flake. To the east a few stars appeared over the lake, though most of the sky remained cloudy.

"How did you know it was a mantrap?" I asked in a trembling voice.

"When one is habituated to it, the clang it produces is quite distinctive."

"You speak with the experience of the hunter?"

He left a pause before he replied, "And of the hunted."

We came at length to the mouth of the defile leading to the icehouse. Our progress became slower and slower. The ground was strewn with the consequences of the autumn gales, pieces of rock, uprooted trees, and branches, all disguised by the snow and blanketed further by the darkness. Nor was there as much shelter here as I had expected, for the wind had changed direction during the evening and was now blowing across the lake and up towards the ice-house. With the wind had come the snow.

A few paces ahead of me, Harmwell crouched and again examined the ground. "Someone else has been here recently," he said over his shoulder. "Perhaps more than one."

I brought my mouth so close to his ear I felt the coldness of his skin. "You do not mean the boys?"

"Grown men, I think. But I cannot be sure, not in this light – the tracks are confused."

We hurried up the path until at last we came to the ice-house. The double doors stood wide.

"They are here!" I cried.

"It does not follow," Harmwell said. "The place was left open. The workmen desired to air the place overnight."

"But someone has been here," I said. "Look at the snow in the doorway."

As I spoke, we stepped into the passage. The familiar stench of decay, less powerful than before, swept out to meet us. Harmwell pushed roughly past and, holding his lantern high, preceded me towards the chamber. I pulled my muffler over my nose and mouth and followed.

The inner doors were open. We looked into the black depths of the pit. The light from the lanterns, feeble though it was, flowed like water into the darkness below.

"Oh God," I murmured. "Oh dear God."

Harmwell clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Who is it?" he said.

I did not answer. Lying on the floor of the pit was the body of a man, face-down, his head obscured by a hat. He wore a long dark coat with a high collar. His arms were outstretched, and his body was embedded in the thin layer of dirty straw and slush.

"Who is it?" said Harmwell again, and there was a thrill of urgency in his voice. "For Christ's sake, man, who is it?"

There are memories that haunt the mind like ghosts: some benign, some not, but in either case one cannot avoid them, one cannot pretend they do not exist. So, though I do not care to dwell on what happened next, I shall set it down here, in its proper place.

First, the light. The only source of illumination, of course, was from our lanterns. A faint, murky radiance filled the chamber, as unsettling as marsh gas, making the very air seem solid and unwholesome. The stones, the brickwork, the slush on the floor, the thing that lay in the bottom of the pit – everything glistened with drops of moisture that reflected back what little light there was.

I glanced at Harmwell, who was holding the jamb of the door with one hand and staring down at the body. I fancied there was a clammy sheen on his black cheek. He was muttering something under his breath, a continuous mumble, perhaps a prayer.

"Who is it?" he repeated, speaking low, but his rich, deep voice rolled round the ice-house and bounced back at us like the light of the lanterns.

"I don't know."

But I did know. That was what made it infinitely worse. I grasped the bracket on the wall, set the lantern on the threshold of the doorway, and swung my weight into the void. My foot lodged on a rung of the iron ladder. Step by step I descended, climbing slowly because of the damp flapping skirts of my topcoat. The foetid smell rose up to greet me, growing stronger and thicker with every step I took.

"Shall I lower the lantern?" Harmwell called down.

The cold was intense: it seemed to creep into my bones and take up residence there.

"Mr Shield? Mr Shield?"

I looked upward and saw Harmwell's face, the whites of the eyes shockingly vivid, poised over the pit. I gave a little shake of the head; I was reluctant to speak for that would mean opening my mouth and allowing in more of that foul air. I lowered my foot on to the next rung. No need for a lantern because I knew what I would find on the floor: a nightmare which would poison all our lives, that would fill every crack and cranny of our existence like the air itself.

My right boot splashed into the mess of straw and icy water that carpeted the floor. The body, a black, wet bundle, lay with its head near the foot of the ladder, and its feet towards the centre of the chamber. Propped against the wall was a cartwheel. I stared at it stupidly, trying to imagine what it was doing here, where no wagon would ever come. I stripped off my right glove and extended my arm towards the wheel. Where my fingers expected wood, they found the cold, abrasive surface of rusting cast-iron.