And this was more like it. He stood up, testing the point and trying to gauge the strength of the steel. It was still surprisingly sharp, not only the point, but the edges too, but the tempered iron was of poor quality native work. What had proved itself against red coats and white skin might not do so well against seasoned oak. But it would have to do nevertheless .. .
He retired to the end room, closing the last door for the last time but forcing himself to move methodically; for this was no longer a retreat, but a strategic withdrawal to a final line.
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And the documents must come first. He undipped the metal fasteners, abstracted Neil Smith's records and folded them into his coat pocket. Then he pushed the table to one side and began to examine the floor.
Two bonuses at once met his eye. The edges of the floorboards were pock-marked with worm holes for an inch or two on each side of the edges and at one point a section of deal had been spliced into a heavily-infested area. That was the point to attack.
With powerful but controlled strokes he began to demolish the length of spliced wood until he had splintered off enough to give him a handhold.
As he had expected, the new section came up easily, with hardly a protest. In the cavity below he could see the lath and plaster of the ceiling of the room below. Using the piece of floorboard as a battering ram he smashed a hole through the ceiling, sending the plaster pattering down: it was a lofty room below, perhaps twelve feet high, but that was nothing. It was the way to safety.
But first, somehow, he had to raise the oak floorboards on each side of the hole—boards which ran the whole length of the attic and would have to be cut in half at this point to give him leverage. And for that he had only the assegai—and the fire at his back.
He worked with the hot fury of anger, each blow striking the planking a quarter of an inch from its predecessor. And as he worked he felt the salt sweat running down his face into the corners of his mouth
—it dripped off his face and made little puddles in the dust-grimed wood, or fell through the hole in the ceiling into the room below among the empty iron bedsteads.
And then the first floorboard was defeated—he smashed through the last two inches with a tremendous blow of his heel.
Now to lift it. It was hard to get a proper grip on the splintered end, especially as a huge blister had appeared from nowhere on to his palm. In the end he stripped off his waistcoat and wrapped it round the splinters, straddling the board to get the greatest leverage.
He took a deep breath and slowly began to exert his strength.
Easy does it—the nails are big, but they are old and brittle —slow does it—listen to the roar of the fire—
steady does it— and don't forget that swine in the shrubbery—
The board came up with a crack like a pistol shot, catching Butler a blow in the balls that knocked him sideways against the files. A shower of old medical certificates cascaded over him.
He rolled away from the shelving, scattering the papers and gasping with pain and triumph. He hadn't realised that the original old floorboards were far wider than modern boards. With the hole he'd already dummy2.htm
made there now might be enough room, just enough room, for him to squeeze his way between the joists to safety.
But he'd have to hurry even so, for the volume of sound beyond the door, the continuous roar of the flames, was loud now: the demon was still reaching for him.
He staggered to his feet, immediately bending almost double as the injured testicles protested in agony.
But in the circumstances he could ignore their protest: self-preservation in the short term outweighed doubts about their future performance.
He grasped the smaller floorboard and began to enlarge the hole in the lath and plaster. By the grace of God it presented a piece of open floor below, between the beds; a bed might indeed break his fall, but under the force of 196 pounds of plummeting human being it would more likely collapse and injure him further.
Now the hole was as big as he could make it. He knelt down and threw first his coat and then his waistcoat through it, and then as an afterthought the faithful assegai, before easing himself into it.
It was a tight squeeze. His hips went through easily, but the oak pinched his chest and his shoulder blades cruelly. He could feel his feet kicking impotently In the air of the room below, like those of a hanged man in defective scaffold. He was stuck!
In the distance, clear through the broken window of the attic, he heard the siren of a fire engine.
Christ! To be caught like this would be almost as bad as frying! The siren triggered his own muscles into a paroxysm of effort: he felt his shirt bunch and then rip as he scraped through the gap. For a moment his hands took the strain, and then, as his body straightened, he allowed himself to fall with a crash into the pile of ceiling debris on the floor below.
There was no time for reflection, only for the few seconds he needed to repair his appearance: torn shirt covered by dirty, crumpled waistcoat; dirty, crumpled waistcoat covered by jacket; grimy sweat wiped hastily from face. As he raced past the adjoining dormitory he saw gobbets of burning material dropping into it from above—the firemen would have to work fast to save Eden Hall for posterity!
That was their concern—as he crashed out of the changing rooms and through the back door he heard their siren shrill much nearer, to be echoed by another in the distance. His concern was not to be caught on the premises, out of the fire into the frying pan.
At least the siren told him that they were approaching the hall from the front, so that the way was still clear for him to escape over the wall beside the cypresses. All the same it would be advisable to move cautiously, he thought: there was nothing like a fire engine to draw spectators from all sides. It was a miracle the place wasn't crawling with them already . . .
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The awkward point would come when he left the protective shadow of the outbuildings; there was a twenty yard gap between them and the evergreens when he would be clearly visible to anyone standing in the junior playing field. Cautiously he peered round the angle of the last of them, pressing himself against the brickwork.
