Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon. George Manville Fenn
Busy at work, one don’t notice it, but when looking about, as I was, it all seemed to strike me in a way I can’t explain.
“Slowly on through the running water, holding my lantern up, and always looking at the same sight—a little spot of brickwork shining in the light of my bit of candle, and all beyond that black darkness. The light shone, too, a little off the top of the water in a queer glimmering way, as at every step I took there were little waves sent on before me to go beating and leaping up against the sides. But every now and then I could hear a little splash, and see the water on the move in a strange way in front, presenting just the same appearance as if some one was drawing a stick through it, and leaving a widening trail behind.
“I said ‘in a strange way,’ but it wasn’t a strange way to me, for I knew it well enough, and had seen it so often that I took hardly any notice of it. If I had had a strong light I should have seen a little dark shape leap from the opening of a drain into the water, and then disappear for a few moments, to come up again, and swim along quite fast; but with such a light as I had I could only see the disturbed water.
“Bats were old friends of mine, and did not trouble me in the least, as I went on, now turning to the right and now to the left, sometimes going back a little, and then pushing on again, till all at once, without a moment’s warning, out went my bit of candle, and I was in complete darkness.
“Well, I growled a good deal at that—not that I minded the dark, but it put a stop to the bit of overlooking I was upon; and though in most cases I had a bit or two of extra candle, it so happened that this time I hadn’t a scrap, and all I had to do was to get back.
“I suppose I hadn’t gone a dozen yards before I stopped short, with the cold sweat standing all over my face, and my breath coming thick and short, for, instead of the low musical, whispering tinkle of the water, there was a rushing noise I well knew coming along a large sewer to the left, and for want of the bit of presence of mind that I ought to have had then, instead of rushing up stream past the mouth of the opening, I must run down; and then came a curious wild, confused state of mind that I can always call back now when I like to go into the dark for a few minutes—when I was being borne along by a furious rush of water that seemed to fill the sewer, washing me before it now up and now down, like a cork in a stream.
“As a matter of course, I must try to do everything to make matters worse, and keep on fighting against a power that would have borne fifty men before it. But that was an awful minute—I call it a minute, though I dare say the struggle only lasted a few moments—when I seemed dashed against a corner, and there I was fighting my way with the stream carrying me swiftly along, but seeming weaker every moment; and at last I was standing, with my hands thrust into a side drain to keep me steady, while I coughed and panted, and tried to get my breath once more, feeling all the while dizzy and confused, and unable to make out where I was.
“The rush of water was now past, and the sewer two feet above its regular level; but, stunned as I had been, I could not get into my regular way of thinking, nor collect myself as to what I ought to do next; and it is no light thing to be fifty foot under ground in a dark tunnel with the water rushing furiously by, and you not able to think.
“When I say able to think, I mean not regularly, for I could think too much, and that too about things that I did not want to think about, for they troubled me. What I ought to have thought of then was the keeping of myself cool and trying to get out, but I couldn’t move, for I fancied that if I did I must be swept away again. Now, I had often been along the sewers when the water was deeper than it now was and running swifter, but for all that I was afraid to move.
“How I magnified the danger, and made out no end of fanciful images in the darkness, all of them seeming to point to my end, and telling me that I should never get out alive! Then I got calling up all the accidents and horrors of that great place where I was. First I recollected how two poor fellows came down not very far from where I stood—half a mile perhaps—and were working in one of the small drains that was half stopped with soil and rubbish; they were down on one knee, in a bent position, and shovelling the mud back from one to another underneath them, and working towards a man-hole, when a rush of water came, and they struggled on against it till a mate at the man-hole, who stood there with a lantern and shouted, just got hold of the first man’s hand, when there came a sharper rush than ever from above, and the poor fellow was gone. I was one of those who hunted for them the next day, now in one branch and then in another, going up culverts and drains of all sizes, where I thought it possible they could have been swept, for there had been a watch kept at the mouths, and hurdles put down to stop anything from being washed out. A whole week I was on that job before I found both, the last being in a narrow place, where the poor fellows must have crawled.
“Nice thing that was to think of at such a time! But it would come, and I seemed to have no power to stop it. Then I recollected about the mate of mine who lost his life in the foul air which collects sometimes in places where there isn’t a free current; and then, too, about the rat case, where the man who came up off the river-shore got amongst the rats, or else fell down in a fit, and the way he came out was in a basket, for there was nothing left but his bones.
“Ah! nice things these were for a man to get thinking of, shivering as I was there in the dark! But I didn’t shiver long, for I came all over hot and feverish, and I should have yelled for help but I was afraid, for the idea had come upon me that if I made the slightest noise I should have the rats about me; and although it was pitch dark, I seemed to see them waiting in droves, clustering like bees all over the sides of the sewer, clinging to the top and swimming across and across the surface of the water. There they all were plain enough, with their bright black eyes and sharp noses, while I kept on fancying how keen their teeth must be. We always supposed that they would attack a man in the dark, but as we never went unprovided with lights there was never any case known among us of a fight with them. But now, in the dark as I was, I quite made up my mind that they were waiting till I made a movement, and that then they would be swarming over me in all directions; and I shuddered, and my blood ran cold, as I thought of what would follow.
“Every drip—every little hollow splash, or ripple against the side seemed to me to be made by rats; the beating of my heart against my ribs with its heavy throb seemed to be the hurrying by of the little patting animals, and at times I fancied that I could hear their eager panting as they were scuffling by, hunting for me. Bats everywhere, as it seemed to me; and again and again I was feeling myself all over to see if any were clinging to me or climbing up, for the motion of the water as it swept on seemed for all the world like the little wretches brushing against my side.
“I don’t believe now that there was a rat near me all the time, for it was all pure imagination. Still the imagination was so strong that it was worse than reality, and even in what came afterwards I don’t think I suffered more. It seems to be that one’s nerves at such a time get worked up to a dreadful pitch, and everything one thinks of seems to come strongly before one, so that if the horror was strung up much tighter, nature could not bear it.
“I could bear no more then as I stood there; and knowing all the while—or feeling all the while—that to move was to bring the rats upon me, I started off, bewildered so that I had no idea where I was, only feeling that I must go with the stream to get out of the sewer, whichever branch I was in. So I tore on with the water up to my middle, but getting deeper and deeper every minute as I ran my hand along the wall, now turning to the left, now to the right, and shuddering every moment as I fancied I felt a rat touch me. But I had been walking and wading along for a good half-hour before I felt one, and then just as I fancied I saw a gleam of light peer out of the darkness right in front, something ran hastily up my breast and shoulder, and then leaped off with a splash into the water.
“If I had not grasped at the slippery side of the sewer and supported myself, I must have gone down; and to have sunk down in four feet of water was certain death, in the state I then was in; but I kept up, and giving a shout, half-shriek, half-yell, I dashed on towards where I fancied I had seen the light.
“Fancied, indeed, for it seemed to grow darker as I went on, and I grew more and more confused every moment. If I could only have known where I was for a single instant, that would have been