“I haven’t been able to see since we left Jericho’s house,” the old banker grumbled. “This is not my habit, splashing in the dark.” Soon the water was thigh-deep, cool but not cold. The tunnel passage we were wading into was as wide as my outstretched arms and from ten to fifteen feet high, bearing the texture of ancient picks.
This was a man-made tube built to bring natural spring water into King David’s old city, Farhi told us. Its bottom was uneven, making us stumble. When we were far enough into the tunnel for Jericho to risk lighting the first lantern, I splashed up to Tentwhistle. “There’s no chance you were followed down here, was there?” I asked.
“We paid our guides to keep their mouths shut,” the lieutenant said.
“Aye, and didn’t breathe a word in Jerusalem, neither,” Ned put in.
“Wait. The four of you English sailors went inside the city?”
“Just to get some tack.”
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“I told you to lie low until dark!” Jericho hissed with exasperation.
“We were in Arab sheets, and kept to ourselves,” Tentwhistle said defensively. “By the pulpit, I’m not getting all the way to Jerusalem and not have a look around. Famous town, it is.”
“Arab sheets!” I exclaimed. “All of you look as Arab as Father Christmas! Your beet-red faces couldn’t be any more obvious if you’d marched in with the Union Jack!”
“So we was s’posed to starve ourselves until nightfall and then dig you a hole?” Big Ned countered. “Meet us with some tucker if you’re so determined to keep us out of your precious city.” Well, what could we do about it now? I turned to Jericho, his face gloomy in the amber lantern light. “I think we’d better hurry.”
“I left a strong padlock at the grate. But you’re our rear guard, with your rifle.”
Suddenly Miriam yelped from the shadows. “Don’t touch me!”
“Sorry, did I brush against?” Little Tom said salaciously.
“Here, doll, I’ll keep you safe,” Ned added.
Jericho started to raise his pick, but I stayed his hand. “I’ll handle this.” As I pushed my way back to the rear of the file, I let the barrel of my new rifle drive into Ned’s groin. “Bloody hell!” he gasped.
“My clumsiness,” I said, swinging the stock away so abruptly that it nicely clipped the side of Little Tom’s face.
“Bastard!”
“I’m sure if we all keep our distance, we won’t bump.”
“I’ll stand where I bloody well . . .” Then Tom yelped and jumped.
“That bitch snuck up behind!”
“Sorry, did I brush against?” Miriam was holding a pry bar.
“I warned you, gentlemen. Keep distant if you value your man-hood.”
“I’ll geld you myself if you touch my sister again,” Jericho added.
“And I’ll give you both a dance with the lash,” Tentwhistle said.
“Ensign Potts! Keep discipline!”
“Yes sir! You two—behave!”
“Ah, we was just playing . . . Lord on high! What happened to him?” Farhi had passed through the lantern light, and the startled t h e
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sailors had their first look at his mutilated face: the cratered eye, the snoutlike nose, the butchered ear.
“I touched his sister,” the Jew said slyly.
The sailors went white and kept as far from Miriam as they could.
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¤
If there was any advantage to the long slog through thigh-deep water, it was that it took some starch out of the panting sailors.
They weren’t used to close places or land work, and only their assumption of ancient coin kept them from balking entirely. To keep them wheezing, I suggested to Tentwhistle that Ned and Tom help carry Jericho’s bag of mortar.
“Why don’t we all just carry a hod of bloody bricks while we’re at it?” Ned complained. But he plodded on like a mule, all of us wading in a cocoon of lantern light. I paused once to listen while the others pushed ahead, darkness growing as they receded. There—was that the echo of a clang, of a padlock being broken far behind? Yet at such a distance it was hardly more audible than the drop of a pin, and I heard nothing else. At length I gave up and hurried to catch the others.
Finally there was the sound of running water and the tunnel began lowering toward the water surface. Soon we’d be crawling.
“We are nearing the natural spring,” Farhi said. “Legend says that somewhere above is the navel of Jerusalem.”
“I think we’re in the bloody arse, meself,” Little Tom muttered.
We hunted with our lanterns until we indeed found a dark slit overhead, tight as a purser’s pocket. I wouldn’t have guessed it led anywhere, but once we’d boosted each other up it opened and a passage angled back toward the main city, dry this time. We crawled over boulders fallen from the ceiling, Miriam more agile than any of us.
There was another mouse hole and the woman led the way, Big Ned cursing as he barely squeezed through, pushing the sack of mortar. He was covered in a sweaty sheen. Then the tunnel became regular again, man-made. It led upward at a steady slope, its ceiling only a foot 8 0
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above our heads and its diameter too narrow for two men to easily pass. Ned kept bumping his crown and cursing.
“Legend has it that this passage was built just wide enough for a shield,” Farhi said. “A single man could hold it against an army of invaders. We’re on the right path.”
As we advanced the air grew stale and the lanterns dimmer. I had no idea how far we’d come or what time it was. I wouldn’t have been surprised to have been told we’d walked, waded and crawled back to Paris. Finally we came to dressed stone, not cave walls. “Herod’s wall,” Jericho murmured. “We’re passing under it, and thus under the Temple Mount platform itself, far above.” We pressed on, and once more I heard water ahead. Suddenly our passageway ended in a large cave barely bridged by our feeble light.
Jericho had me hold his lantern while he cautiously lowered himself into a pool below. “It’s all right, only chest deep and clean,” he announced. “We’ve found the cisterns. Be as quiet as you can.” At the other side the tunnel went on. We came to a second cistern and then a third, each about ten yards across. “In a wetter season all these passages would be underwater,” Jericho said.
Finally the passageway led upward again to a dry cavern, and at last our path abruptly ended. The ceiling was higher because of a cave-in of stone that half-filled the chamber, raising its floor as well. Beyond, we could see the top of an arched doorway made of stone. Trouble was, its door was gone and the opening had been entirely filled with mortared stone blocks, our way plugged.
“Bloody hell, it’s all for nothing then,” Ned wheezed.
“Is it?” Jericho said. “What’s behind this wall that its builders didn’t want us to get to?”
“Or let out,” Miriam added.
“We needs a keg of powder,” the sailor said, throwing down the mortar.
“No, quiet is the key,” said Farhi. “You must dig through before dawn prayers.”
“And seal it back up,” Miriam put in.
“Bollocks,” said Ned.
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I tried to focus the oaf. “Lost time is never found again, old Ben would say.”
“And men that cheats at cards should give back what they wrong-fully took, Big Ned says.” He squinted at me. “There better be something on the other side of that wall, guv’nor, or I’ll empty you by shaking from the ankles.” But despite his bluster he and Little Tom finally pitched in, the eight of us forming a chain, passing loose rock to make a trench to the base of the blocked arch. It took two hours of backbreaking work to push enough rubble aside to see the entrance whole. A broad underground gate was stoppered like a bottle by different-colored limestone.