They emerged on the other side of the bend—where they fired some new flares—and beheld a steep staircase that plunged down the curving wall of the chasm before them, hugging it all the way down to the water at its base.
Indeed, the staircase seemed to continue
But yet again, the Nazis had bridged this peril with a gangway.
West flew down the stairs—running beneath a large and rather ominous wall-hole mounted above the tunnel's doorway.
'Jack!' Wizard called. 'Trigger stones! Find them and point them out for the rest of us, will you!'
West did so, avoiding any step that was askew or suspicious, and identifying it for the next person in their line.
Their progress was slowed at two places along the staircase— where the stairs had decayed and fallen away, meaning they had to make precarious jumps over the voids.
It was just as the last man in their line—Pooh Bear—was leaping over the second void that another CIEF trooper appeared at the top of the staircase!
Pooh Bear jumped.
The CIEF man charged.
And in his hurry, Pooh Bear landed awkwardly . . . and slipped . . . and fell, dropping clumsily onto his butt, and landing squarely on a trigger stone.
'Blast!' Pooh Bear swore.
Everyone froze, and turned.
'You stupid, stupid Arab . . .' Stretch muttered.
'Stretch . . . not now,' West snapped.
An ominous rumbling came from the wall-hole at the top of the long curving staircase.
'Let me guess,' Stretch said. 'A big round boulder is going to roll out of that hole and chase us down the stairs, just like in
Not exactly.
Three wooden boulders, all a metre in diameter and clearly heavy, came rushing out of the hole in quick succession—and each was fitted with hundreds of outward-pointing bronze
They must have weighed 100 kilograms each and they bounded down the stairway, booming with every impact, bearing down on the team.
West scooped up Lily. 'Go!
The team bolted down the stairs, chased by the nail-ridden boulders.
So did the lone CIEF trooper.
West came to the base of the stairs, to the Nazi gangway balanced across the whirlpool there at an odd angle.
He sprang across it, leading Lily by the hand, followed by Zoe and Big Ears, then Wizard and Stretch.
But the CIEF man was also fleet-footed and, chased by the nail-boulders, he hurdled the two voids easily and almost caught up with Pooh Bear, running last of all, red-faced and breathless.
But at the final moment, Pooh dived forwards, leaping full-stretch onto the gangway. The CIEF man did the same, but in the instant he leapt into the air, the first of the nail-boulders
'Ouch . . .' said Pooh Bear, lying on the gangway.
'Come on, Pooh!' West called. 'No time for resting now.'
'Resting? Resting! Pity those of us who don't have your energy, Captain West.' And so with a groan, Pooh Bear hauled himself up and took off after the others.
Crossing the Nazi gangway, they arrived at a sizeable stone platform separated from the next large stepping-stone by a five-foot-wide gap of water.
A further five feet beyond that stepping-stone was another staircase, going upwards. However, this staircase was difficult to access—its first step lay seven feet
The biggest problem, however, lay above the stepping-stone itself.
A great cube-shaped cage was suspended above it, ready to drop the moment someone landed on it.
'It's a drowning cage,' Wizard said. 'We jump onto the stepping-stone and the cage traps us. Then
'But it's the only way across . . .' Zoe said.
Stretch was covering the rear. 'Figure something out, people. Because Kallis is here!'
West spun—
—to see Kallis emerge from the sinkhole cave at the top of the staircase behind them.
'What do you think, Jack?' Wizard asked.
West bit his lip. 'Hmmm. Can't swim around it because of the whirlpools. And we can't climb up and around it: the wall here is polished smooth. There just doesn't seem to be any way to avoid it . . .'
Then West looked over at the ascending staircase
Three Nazi skeletons lay on it—all headless. But beyond them, he saw something else:
A square doorway sunk into the wall, covered in cobwebs.
'There
Stretch urged, 'Some action, people. Kallis is halfway down the stairs . . .'
Zoe said to West: 'Enter the trap in order to pass it? What do you mean?'
'Hurry
West spun to see Kallis gaining on them, still with nine more men, only thirty yards away and closing.
'Okay, everyone,' he said, 'you have to trust me on this one. No time to go in groups, we have to do this together.'
'A bit all or nothing, isn't it, Jack?' Zoe said.
'No other choice. People, get your pony bottles ready. Then we all jump onto that stepping-stone. Ready . . . go!'
And they all jumped together.
The seven of them landed as one on the wide stepping-stone—
—and immediately, the great cage above it dropped, clanging down around them like a giant mousetrap, trapping them under its immense weight—
—and the entire ten-foot-wide stepping-stone began
'I hope you're right, Jack!' Zoe yelled. She grabbed her pony bottle from her belt, put its mouthpiece to her mouth. You breathe from a pony bottle just like you do from a regular scuba tank, but it only has enough air for about three minutes.
The cage went knee-deep in water.
West didn't answer her, just waded over to the wall-side of the cage and checked its great bronze bars.
And there he found it—a small archway cut into the cage's wall-side bars, maybe three feet high, large enough for a man to crawl through.
But the stone wall abutting that side of the cage was solid rock. The little arch led nowhere . . .
The cage sank further into the swirling water and the little arch went under.
Waist-deep.
Big Ears lifted Lily into his arms, above the swirling waterline.
On the stairway behind them, Cal Kallis paused, grinned at their predicament.
