Page 91 of No Man's Land

Although the Witch Light wasn’t as bright as a hand torch, its light diffused further, giving Josef a wider look at the tunnel as they started down towards the wall that blocked it off. The grey iron walls gleamed wetly, the tunnel itself not much wider than a train carriage, and from the ceiling he saw the stubby start of stalactites where the water drip, drip, dripped.

“What’s that?” Violet asked, pointing to something on the ground close to the wall blocking the tunnel.

Josef’s heart turned over uncomfortably when he recognised Alex’s hat. He must have lost it, or left it behind, when they’d scrambled through the hole made by the ghoul. Crouching, he picked it up and turned it over in his hands. Expensive, well made. Very Alex. “We have to get through there,” Josef said, standing. He didn’t let go of the hat.

Dutta made a disapproving noise, crouching down to peer through the hole. “Risky,” he said, as if they had a choice. “I’ll go first.” He glanced up at Josef and, after a slight pause, handed him his hand torch. “Hold this would you? Shine it through. I’d rather see what I’m getting into.”

Between Alex’s hat and his gun, Josef was running out of hands, so he settled the hat on his head to take the torch. Stupid, perhaps, but he wasn’t leaving that hat behind.

When he shone the beam through the hole, Dutta poked his head through. “It looks clear,” he said, doubtfully. “Clear enough.” Then, keeping his gun ready, he slipped through the hole and reached back for the torch.

The rest of them followed, Josef taking the lead. His excitement was growing, fear and anticipation mingling queasily. Not far to the door and the passage where he’d left Alex.

How long had it been? Less than three hours. He’d be all right. There was still time. There had to be because any other outcome was… Well, he couldn’t think about another outcome.

The door, when he found it, stood open. And this time, there was no light.

Wetting his dry mouth, heart thumping, Josef tried to remember whether he’d closed it behind him as he’d fled. Maybe he hadn’t? Maybe he’d left it just like this.

Dutta flashed his torch along the corridor, nose flaring in disgust. Josef didn’t blame him; the ghoul stench was powerful.

“Stay close,” Violet murmured to Lottie.

Lottie’s response was softer still. “You too.”

Perhaps Dutta really was a Subadar, or perhaps it was simply his aristocratic assumption of authority, but he went first through the door. Josef didn’t object. If toffs thought they had an inborn obligation to lead their men into the firing line, he was happy to let them do it. Especially happy in Dutta’s case, who he didn’t trust further than he could spit.

Lottie and Vi followed, side by side, and Josef brought up the rear. He kept one eye on the door behind them, belatedly wondering whether it would have been better to leave Dutta behind to guard their escape. He wasn’t about to offer to stay behind, though; he had to be the one to find Alex. He wasn’t leaving that to anyone else.

As they walked, the stench worsened. Josef’s grip on the gun grew clammy, his stomach roiling with fear and disgust and a clinging, desperate hope that they’d find Alex. That he’d be exactly where Josef had left him…

You fucking coward!

…and that he’d be fine. Well, no worse at least. Alive and still himself.

“Alex?” he called softly. Surely, they were close now. “Alex?”

Dutta shushed him.

No other sound came back to him save the pounding of his own heart, hard as a sledgehammer against his ribs.

Dutta stopped suddenly, his flashlight playing over something discarded on the ground. A man’s leg.

Violet swore creatively. Josef said, “It’s not Alex. That was—it was here before.”

He looked around, increasingly desperate in the soft glow of the Witch Light. “He should be here.”

“This is where you left him?” Lottie asked.

He nodded, pointing. “Against that wall…”

He felt sick, suddenly, short of air. Alex was gone.

Dutta said, “There’s a door here.”

That’s right. That led to the stairs Alex had tumbled down with the ghoul. The door was closed now, but Alex vividly remembered the sound of it opening as he fled…

Dutta leaned closer to it, listening, one hand up to silence the rest of them.

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