MacQuillan thought for a moment before saying, “That, my friend is a bloody good idea.” He asked one of the soldiers to call up Beasdale on the radio. The soldier did so and handed him the handset.
Saracen listened while MacQuillan told Beasdale of the new plan. He could not hear what Beasdale was saying but it was obvious that some kind of argument was developing.
“Of course there can be no guarantee,” MacQuillan stormed. “But there is a real chance…No. I’m not stalling…Damn it man, listen to reason!” MacQuillan put down the handset and looked at the ground for a moment as if trying to compose himself before saying anything.
“Well?” asked Saracen.
“No extension to the time limit. We have forty six hours left.”
“We’d best get started then,” said Saracen. He asked the soldier for pen and paper and made out a list. “We need these things as quickly as possible,” he said to the man and the soldier snapped to it.
“What did you ask for,” asked MacQuillan.
“Sterile glassware, anticoagulants, scalpels, specimen containers and rat traps.”
The other three soldiers who had been down in the tunnel emerged and relayed their tools and equipment to the surface. “The gate’s open,” said the sergeant. “And we’ve left you better lighting.”
Saracen thanked him and dropped down into the hole again.
“One more thing sir,” said the sergeant. He handed Saracen a revolver and a box of shells. “Col Beasdale thought you’d better have this.”
“I’ve never used one of these things in my life,” said Saracen. MacQuillan said the same. The soldier took back the gun and ran through the rudiments like a schoolboy reciting a poem, the words of which he hadn’t considered. “This is a Smith and Wesson 0.38 calibre, double action weapon. It requires a trigger pressure of…”
Saracen listened politely and deduced what to squeeze and which end to point.
As they prepared to re-enter the tunnel the soldier said, “Col Beasdale is arranging for a truck with the required chemicals to be on site within the hour sir.”
Saracen gave a last thoughtful look across the site and said, “Don’t let any heavy vehicles cross the line of the tunnel will you? The roof might not take it.”
“Very good sir.”
“These are a vast improvement,” said Claire switching on one of the lamps that the soldiers had left for them. Saracen saw where the bars had been cut away from the bottom of the gate and pushed it gently back on its hinges to stand on the threshold. “Shall we continue?” he asked. The passage continued for some twenty metres before taking a turning to the left. Saracen was about to round the turn when he stopped in his tracks and said, “Can you hear something?”
“What?”
“A scuffling noise. There, it’s getting louder.”
“Someone is coming up behind us,” said MacQuillan.
Saracen let out the breath he had been holding and felt embarrassed at having let his imagination run away with him. “Dr Saracen?” said a voice from the blackness. “It’s Corporal Jackson sir. I’ve got the things you asked for.”
“Only two?” exclaimed Saracen when he saw the rat traps.
“All we could lay our hands on sir.”
“We’ll need more.”
“How many sir?”
“As many as possible. The more traps we set the more chance we have of catching one in time.”
“I’ll tell the sergeant sir.”
MacQuillan said, “I’ll set one back by the gate where we saw one of the damned things.”
“Mind your hands,” said Saracen as he gingerly handed him one of the primed and baited traps.
“Surely you don’t plan to catch them individually?” said Claire while they waited for MacQuillan to come back.
“I need some rat blood,” said Saracen. “I’ll explain later.” MacQuillan re-joined them and they continued in single file.
The passage grew ever narrower until they felt that the cold, damp walls were closing in on them. Saracen stopped and said, “Now what?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Claire.
“We’ve come to a blank wall.”
“This must be where the tunnel meets the abbey. Try pushing, pulling, sliding things.”
Saracen’s hands moved over the stone without success. He was about to say so when he felt one of the stones move and his heart leapt as he pushed it and the wall opened up in front of them causing him to marvel momentarily at the hidden counter-weight mechanism. They stepped through into a long, low cellar with an arched roof.
“Oh my God!” exclaimed Claire.
Saracen wheeled round and saw the skeleton of a man caught in Claire’s torch beam. “And another,” said MacQuillan from further along.
“And another and another,” said Saracen as he slowly walked the length of the cellar past fifteen skeletons lying parallel to each other and about a metre apart.
“It’s a dormitory,” said Claire.
“Not a dormitory,” said Saracen quietly. “An infirmary.”
“God yes,” murmured MacQuillan. “We are looking at a medieval Ward Twenty.”
Claire screamed as the black shadows of two rats scampered across the floor and disappeared again. She apologised. “Don’t,” said MacQuillan. “I feel the same way.”
Saracen asked Claire if she could work out where they were in the abbey from her plans and she unfolded them and looked for a place to spread them out. She considered the floor briefly before remembering the rats and opted instead to lay them gently across two of the skeletons.
“I think we are here,” she said, pointing to a rectangle near the foot of the paper. “That would mean that there should be a doorway over there.” She swung round her torch and saw what she wanted to see. “Yes, there it is. If we go through there we should come to a round chamber that we think was used as a wine cellar and after that there is a room off to the right where the treasures were kept.”
“But that’s not what we are hear for,” Saracen reminded her on hearing the excitement in her voice. He turned to MacQuillan and said, “Do you think it is going to be possible to gas a place of this side from the outside?”
“Doubtful,” said MacQuillan. “We can ask the army for advice but first we have to find the other exit and block it up and, of course, catch you a rat.”
Saracen looked at his watch and saw that they had been in the tunnel for an hour. They moved into the next chamber and found, as Claire had predicted, that it was round. Claire moved to the right and Saracen and MacQuillan followed. They heard her gasp and then saw that she was holding a golden crucifix in her hand. “It’s the alter piece!” she exclaimed. “The alter piece of Skelmoris Abbey.”
“And the candle sticks,” said MacQuillan delving into the chest from which Claire had taken the cross. “And communion goblets and…”
“We don’t have time,” said Saracen.
“But the Skelmoris Chalice must be here!” protested Claire. “We must look!”
“There is no time,” insisted Saracen.
Claire became angry. “What difference will a few minutes make?” she demanded.
“There are some things you don’t understand,” said Saracen. “We have to hurry.”
“No!” Claire exclaimed. “You go on if you must, catch your damned rat, seal up your exits but I am staying here and I am going to find the chalice!”
Saracen could see that to argue was pointless and he had no wish to tell her what Beasdale had planned for the town. “Very well,” he said softly. “Perhaps you can tell us what to expect in the other cellars.”
Claire opened up the plan again and ran through the presumed location and uses of the remaining chambers. Her voice was subdued with guilt but an overriding ambition maintained her resolve. When she had finished Saracen asked, “Have you any idea at all where the other exit might be?”
Claire pointed to the plan and said, “The steps leading down from the abbey came out in this room. Perhaps they still give access to the world above.”