Roger Curtis - Lights in a Western Sky

In the rising water he cried bitter tears of frustration, unable to make any decision that might relieve his situation. For the first time in many months Thomas prayed.

The Almighty’s response began with a crackle of twigs on the embankment above. At first Thomas thought it was Mirabelle selecting a favourable position of vantage from which to crow. But a moment later a youth of about his own age and appearance, with torn clothes and bleeding scratches on his cheeks, climbed – or rather slid – down the bank towards him. Thomas stared in disbelief.

‘You’ve set yourself a difficult task there,’ the boy observed.

‘Yes, haven’t I just,’ Thomas replied.

‘Think you can make it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then why are you doing it?’

‘I promised someone I would.’

‘And what do you get in return?’

‘My self-respect… and a rat… and…’

‘A rat! Heavens, there are enough rats in that tunnel.’

‘Not seriously?’

‘Seriously.’

Thomas looked at him suspiciously. ‘How do you know?’

‘I know someone who went through once. Don’t worry, they leave you alone.’

‘I can’t decide.’

‘I know that feeling. Want to know what I’d do in that situation?’

‘What?’

‘Let chance decide. Got a coin?’

Thomas withdrew from his pocket the penny Aunt Esther had given him. ‘Ye…es,’ he stuttered

‘Toss it. I’ll call.’

‘I’d rather call myself.’ Thomas was becoming flustered.

‘Then it wouldn’t be chance, would it?’

‘I suppose not.’ Reluctantly Thomas threw the coin into the air.

‘Heads you go through. Heads it is! Best not to wait. Do it now.’

‘I can’t.’

‘If you don’t I shall have to make you.’ The boy’s laugh held no humour.

‘No.’

Thomas bent double as the boy’s fist embedded itself in his stomach. A moment later he was in an arm lock and being propelled towards the gaping orifice. His face was in the water. He had difficulty retrieving his twisted arm. A stone clattering after him came to rest just in front of his head. In panic he squirmed his way forward.

That was the moment – as Aunt Esther was to tell him later - that Mirabelle’s voice floated sweetly across the lawn. ‘Thomas, Thomas. Where are you? You don’t have to do it.’

The water rushed past with a desperation that seemed to match his own. Its currents might have been kindred souls fleeing a fire or an insurgent army. It was how it had been that day in the playground, with the mob upon him, when the classroom had offered no refuge and Crighton was leading the pack. Now, like in his recurring dreams, they seemed once more behind him, their exchanges just as vicious. ‘Lock him in the cupboard.’ ‘Christ, Crighton, can’t you shut him up.’ ‘We’re going to shut him up.’ ‘He won’t fit in.’ ‘Know what a coffin is, Thomas? Here, Midgeley, give a hand and push. Over she goes, mind your toes.’ ‘Look, there’s a hole. Can you see him?’ ‘I can see an ear.’ ‘What does Beaky say?’ ‘I don’t know, what does he say?’ ‘Beaky says, wash your ears out, boy.’ ‘Crighton, no! Not ink!’ ‘Bullseye!’ ‘Let’s get out, please Crighton.’ ‘So much as a squeak, Thomas, and you bloody know what will happen.’

He imagined the ink flowing down his face and dripping into the water beneath his body. Yet when he felt there with his hand there was only dampness. As he opened his eyes the brightness of the janitor’s torch was consumed by the brighter ball of daylight that was almost upon him. The clockwork of his squirming body wound down.

The nightmare over, he felt relief and a sense of achievement as the tunnel end came nearer. And there were noises: chipping, knocking, veritably human noises. He noticed that the floor of the tunnel was now dry. Already he could smell the fresh earth outside. His thoughts returned to Mirabelle.

But, in rapid succession, the sky, the sunlit meadow and human faces spun in a mêlée of pain and confusion. From where he came to lie he could see the jagged, broken end of the tunnel. Around him lay the scattered bricks, each with its buttering of fresh mortar.

And then the two men were circling him with shovels held like jabbing spears, as if waiting for a vulnerable part of his body to be exposed.

‘See what you bloody done?’ one said.

‘How long you bin hiding in there?’ the other demanded.

‘Hiding?’ Thomas said. I wasn’t hiding. I crawled through.’

‘You what? You lying bugger! Other end’s blocked. Has been for days.’

‘You shifted the logs, did you?’

Then Thomas remembered the dry floor of the tunnel as he approached its end. Inexplicably the man was credible. Perplexed, he said nothing. He felt the flat of a shovel pushing viciously against his head.

‘Course you didn’t. Couldn’t. Take an ’orse to shift those logs.’ He turned to his companion. ‘You get his legs.’

‘You be careful, Jed!’ This was a third voice, thin, musical, undeniably feminine, piercing the confusion like a shaft of light.

‘We’ve only just started.’ Jed growled.

‘I said be careful of him.’

‘Look, you don’t…’ But the admonition was converted into a rearward thrust of the shovel handle that caught the girl – for Thomas, with his body suspended between the two men, could now see her – just below her ear. She reeled backwards, clutching her face.

‘Now I’ve got an idea,’ Jed said. ‘Let’s put him back inside.’ He laughed. ‘So he can crawl back to the other end. Backwards.’

The sharpness of each brick was a knife in Thomas’ back as he was dragged to the tunnel and flung inside. But the real pain came from the manic laughter as the bricks were rebuttered and piled on top of each other until only a space the size of a letterbox remained.

‘We’re off,’ Jed told the girl. ‘If he tries to break out, hit him hard.’ From the clang of the blade it was clear to Thomas that he was instructing her in the use of the shovel. The scrunch of boots on the scattered bricks resolved into silence.

Thomas’ plight was horribly apparent, but its explanation still eluded him. It seemed at first that he was acting out a part in a set-piece drama devised by Mirabelle, or even Aunt Harriet, to force him back through the tunnel to face further humiliation on emerging rearwards and bloodied into their laughter. On the other hand, what Jed had said about the logs had the greater resonance of truth. Thomas sought guidance from the only possible quarter.

The girl sat with her back arched towards the space that was his window on the world. Her head was inclined backwards, the listening ear exposed now and then as the wisps of sunlit hair shadowed her cheek in the breeze.

Thomas pushed gently at the bricks. The mortar had not yet set and for the moment there remained a possibility of escape. If he dared. He needed to know more about the girl.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Tessie.’

‘I’m Thomas.’

‘Well Thomas, you’ve got yourself into a fine pickle. Why did you lie to them like that?’

‘I told you, I crawled through.’

‘If you lie to them again they’ll kill you. You wouldn’t be the first.’

‘When will they come back?’

‘They take an hour, usually.’

‘Then what’ll they do?’

‘I really don’t know.’ The impatience in her voice was a warning, but he persisted.

‘But what do you think?’

‘Beat you probably. They’ll enjoy that.’ Something seemed to amuse her. ‘But they’ve got to finish the tunnel today, so it will be over quickly.’

‘What if I tried to escape?’

Suddenly the girl’s face filled the aperture, the eyes wide with apprehension. The blade of Jed’s shovel passed slowly before her face. ‘Then I would have to stop you with this.’