The Lieutenant lifted me up, he dropped me into the suit like a kitten into a sack. I fought, I shrieked but I couldn’t get out, he took up the helmet and screwed it on top. I was inside then, there was no getting out. He knocked on the glass of the helmet, and he grinned and waved at me. He unhooked me then and carried me in the leathery suit that was wet at the bottom, in the boots of it, and stank inside of dead animal. I couldn’t see very well, everything through the round glass of the helmet was misty. He tied something tight around my waist, I couldn’t see it. He knocked on the helmet, opened the round glass window of it.

‘Five hundred yards!’ he yelled. ‘You must come back with salvage. Must! And quick as you can. Then you shan’t have to go out again. But you come back with nothing and you’ll have to go right back out into it. Understand?’

I nodded.

All the other heap Iremongers were lined up and I was pushed amongst them; behind me was my anchor carrying all the rope, so much smaller than the others, and behind him was the Lieutenant with a weight in his hands.

‘All ready?’ called the Captain.

‘Heap! Heap!’ called the Iremongers.

‘Be strong, lads. Keep close to the wall!’

He held a long metal whistle, I could just see the writing on it – it said THE METROPOLITAN PATENT METROPOLITAN POLICE. J. HUDSON & CO. 244 BARR STREET, BIRMINGHAM. This wasn’t his then, not originally, it was taken from someone, or found out in the heaps.

‘Steady! Steady!’ he called.

All were ready with raised sticks and buckets.

‘Steady!’

A bell was rung back inside the house.

The Captain blew his whistle.

‘Tally ho!’ the Captain cried. ‘Open the gate!’

The gate was opened. The heap Iremongers charged forth, and I stumbled and trod with them as fast as I could, and somewhere a little way behind me was my anchor.

Out into the heaps.

16

A SILVER CUSPIDOR (FOR PERSONAL USAGE)

Clod Iremonger’s narrative continued

The Visitor in the Corner

My plug was resting on my chest when I woke. It was whispering very faintly as if it was frightened. I opened my eyes. I found I was in a bed. In the Infirmary. I thought of Lucy at first, then I remembered Robert Burrington amongst the chimney stacks, the screams of a tea strainer called Percy Detmold and then, worst of all, a bucket in a bed, and …

‘Alice Higgs!’ I called.

‘No one here of that name.’

Someone was sitting in the corner of the dark room. A big man in a black suit, wearing a top hat like Robert Burrington’s chimney. It wasn’t him though, not thin enough, not tall enough either.

‘Who’s there?’ I asked.

Then I heard the birth object.

‘Jack Pike.’