Дэвид Уоллес - Island of Fog and Death

“Tori?” Maxwell’s voice, from far away, aroused her from her contemplation. “Are you coming? It’s this way, we think.” She saw that he was a hundred yards off, his arm indicating a path into the copse of trees.

“Here I come,” she shouted, and began jogging to catch up. Jogging made her ample bosom jiggle attractively, which caught Maxwell’s attention and held him in place, his arm outstretched to indicate the path, an idiotic grin on his face and a growing bulge at his crotch. Tori smiled, thinking, men are such fools. Owain was pushing through an overgrown path, with Gilda close behind. Tori followed, with Maxwell bringing up the rear, his eyes fixed on her rear.

There was a dilapidated fence to the left of the path. Owain led them through a gap in the fence, and forward between birch trees to emerge in a clearing surrounding a grey stone building.

“This must be it,” said Owain.

They walked slowly around the building, studying the stonework. Maxwell squatted to look more closely at the bottom of the walls. “This looks like Roman era brickwork to me,” he said, parting the long grass and indicating the bottom of the wall. “Red clay mud, low profile, fire dried. Just what you’d expect to come out of a Roman army portable kiln.”

“Most of the walls are much later, I think,” said Gilda. “Stone blocks, roughly shaped. Gaps filled in with mud and straw. A few patches here and there look like repurposed Roman brick.”

“Mm, yes, I think so,” Owain contributed. Modern cement patches higher up, do you see? And the roof is corrugated sheeting.”

“So, folks, what does that add up to?” asked Maxwell. “Gilda, what’s your take?”

“Right,” she said. “Without seeing what it looks like on the inside, I’d say we have an original structure built between the first and fifth centuries using Roman brick. It may have collapsed, or been pulled down, and rebuilt, almost certainly after the fifth century and before – say – the eleventh or twelfth century using stone blocks. If it had been rebuilt much later than that, then it’s likely that they’d use more bricks. Oh – and there aren’t any windows in the walls, which suggests an earlier date rather than a later one, because glass was such a luxury.”

“Owain, do you want to add anything?” asked Maxwell.

“Just that the last major refurbishment of the walls was probably post world war two,” he said. He pointed upward at a patch of red bricks. “Those look like flettons, which were not available in this part of the world until the 1930s, but were pretty much ubiquitous in the whole country by the fifties.”

Maxwell clapped his hands. “Well done, both of you,” he said. “That sounds pretty good to me. The tin roof is the most recent addition. That sheeting is box-profile, and was obviously put in to replace an older corrugated iron roof.”

“How do you know that?” asked Gilda, staring intently at the edge of the roof.

“The old roof is quietly rusting away about twenty feet behind you,” answered Maxwell with a laugh.

Tori was leaning against the wall beside the door. “You don’t honestly study bricks at your Uni, do you?” she asked.

“Indeed we do!” said Maxwell enthusiastically. “If you have an appreciation of bricks and building techniques over the years, you can get a quick and dirty chronology for your ruins, or in this case, for your little chapel. Not as accurate as carbon dating, of course, but a damned sight cheaper and faster. Now, let’s see if the door is open so we can look inside.”

“It’s open,” she said.

Maxwell noticed she had a padlock in her hand. “Was it open before we got here?” he asked.

“I couldn’t say,” she said with a grin.

“I hope you didn’t just bust the lock,” he said with a slight frown.

“Course not!” she exclaimed in mock outrage. “That’s what lock-picks are for! We can put it back, good as new.”

“You resourceful little fox!” laughed Maxwell.

“Well, I want to see what’s down there!”

“Well, come on then!” said Maxwell, and he pulled the door open and stepped through.

The interior of the structure was gloomy, the only light coming in through translucent panels in the ceiling. Maxwell pulled a battery powered lantern from his rucksack and handed it to Owain, then a second which he kept himself. With the lanterns lit, they could see more clearly what was in the little building. The two long walls, to left and right of the doorway, were fronted by metal shelving units, loaded up with organic pig and chicken food in big paper sacks. Facing the door was a large stack of brown cardboard boxes that appeared to contain dietary supplements for dairy goats.

“Well,” said Tori. “That’s not terribly interesting, is it?”

Maxwell grinned at her. “The interesting stuff will be under it and behind it all. We need to clear enough space to get a good look at the brickwork and the floor.” He clapped his hands. “Hup! Jump to it, Owain and Gilda! Put your backs into it! Let’s clear the boxes out the way first! I’ve a hankering for a closer look at that end.”

Gilda looked at him suspiciously. “And while we’re doing the manual labour…?”

“I’ll be trying to find the jolly farmer to let him know we’re here, and Tori will be bringing the vans down the road and parking them round the side. Then we’ll be joining you in the manual labour, hey Tori? I mean, come on, Gilda, I’ll only ask you to do things that I’m willing and eager to do myself. Right, see you shortly.”

Maxwell and Tori left. Gilda waited for them to get out of earshot, then nudged Owain. “Does that mean he’ll be asking us to shag Tori, then?” she asked.

“You’d be on your own with that task, mate,” he replied.

Tori returned first, having parked first one camper then the other alongside the little building. She fiddled around in the vans, not doing anything in particular, with one eye on the road for Maxwell’s return. It wasn’t that she was incapable of manual work – her unique physiology meant that she was stronger than humans – it was just that she was unwilling to do it unless there was no option. Until Maxwell got back, there was an option to avoid it, and avoid it she did.

She caught sight of Maxwell striding along the road, so it was time to look willing. She entered the chapel just as a sweating Owain carried the last box outside.

“Oh, well done, Owain,” said Tori. “You’ve cleared them all?”

“With some help,” said Gilda, from behind her. “But none from you, I see.”

“Well I’ve just finished sorting out the vans,” said Tori. “Oh, Maxwell, there you are! Look, Owain and Gilda have done all that by themselves! ”

“Very good, you two,” said Maxwell. “And I see the vans are moved, thank you Tori. Now let’s get some better lighting in here. Let’s crank up the generator and break out the work lights. Owain, we can get some film of the exterior and then the interior.”

“So you got hold of the farmer, did you?” asked Owain. “He’s OK with us doing this?”

Maxwell sighed somewhat theatrically. “Alas no, dear boy. I knocked on the door, and looked round the farm, but to no avail. We’ll try again later.”

“And so, just to be clear, we don’t have permission to be doing this,” confirmed Owain.

“Oh, do lighten up, Owain,” said Maxwell. “We’re doing no damage, and trespass on farm land isn’t a crime. What’s the worst that can happen? The farmer can ask us to leave. But he won’t, I mean, who doesn’t want to be on TV? And who wouldn’t want to be paid for being on TV? So let’s just get on with this.”