128 The Labyrinth
Some years ago, the family business, then as now, under Jos’s directorship, bought the premises of a coach firm in Norwich.
The business needed storage in the area for cranes and other building machinery and this was an ideal place, being a small workshop and office building surrounded by a large yard on which the coaches had previously been parked. It was actually too big and after a year or so, it was all demolished and houses built for a nice profit.
It was sited on a hill-side on the outskirts of the town and had a large void beneath the yard and the office, hardly describable as a basement – Jos called it an ‘undercroft’-, and which could only be reached by way of a trap-door in the floor of the workshop’s office.
Down there, one could stand upright reasonably easily on the line of the original sloping hillside, now covered in rough concrete, and walk through a maze of supporting walls, drainpipes, water tanks and general rubbish under a concrete roof, actually the floor of the building itself and the coach parking area. It was damp down there, frequented by rats and, without the help of the minimal lighting, one could easily get lost.
Why am I writing about this? I’ve just given a clue, - “getting lost” ie a maze! There had been a cartoon strip adventure in the Daily Mirror some years before, in which Garth, the hero, was captured by his enemies and put in an underground labyrinth full of beasts and things. That was no real problem for Garth, of course, except that his torturers had fitted him with a steel helmet which completely covered his head, but allowing him to breathe. He couldn’t see and the helmet was bolted on so securely that even he couldn’t get it off, so he was forced to grope blindly around this maze fighting off all the perils. Of course, he got out safely in the end. Curiously, this adventure quite appealed to both Jos and myself.
So, one week-end, Jos met me at the Hospital and took me to see these newly acquired premises and especially the undercroft area.
It was difficult to get down, even though there were iron footholds in the wall next to the hatch, since Jos considered that it was necessary to wear wellington boots and, of course, mackintoshes. As I often did when out with Jos, I was wearing my Austrian mack and Jos had bought his shiny black rubber surfaced mack and boots with him. There was also a large tank down there acting as a petrol interceptor so once down there Jos had to put on his gas-mask, which of course he had thoughtfully remembered to bring. I was starting to get the idea. No wonder we had come on a Sunday afternoon, with no chance of some casual caller finding us dressed in this curious manner for no apparent reason.
The following Saturday evening, that same casual caller would have been even more mystified by our antics. Anyone who has followed my accounts so far won’t need explanations of the following episode and I shan’t bore you by giving any. We had together devised the plan and Jos had carried out most of the preparations during that week. A locking arrangement had now been fitted to the underside of the trap-door which secured it with a pad-lock. The trap door could be locked and unlocked from the top of the workshop by lifting it a few inches, as far as it would go against the locking gadget, which then allowed access to the padlock inside, a cunning, if fiddly arrangement. If it was locked and one was inside and had the key, then it could be unlocked from the top of the iron footholds.
Jos had driven over to Norwich, collected me and we went out to the yard and let ourselves into the deserted building. We locked the gates behind us.
The plan was that Jos was going to experience the ‘Garth’ adventure and be locked in the labyrinth and left to find his way out, handicapped by his own version of the non-removable head mask. In order to escape at all he would have to find the key to the trapdoor which I was going to hide down there, before I let myself out and locked up with the spare key.
Jos was already dressed in suitable warm labyrinth wandering gear. On top, he wore his shiny black rubber surfaced mackintosh, with the matching trousers tucked into black rubber riding boots, no doubt having stopped to change somewhere en route whilst I, was wearing my blue hooded Austrian mack and glossy black wellingtons. Once safely inside the workshop, I help Jos complete his outfit with our recent additions to his wardrobe. Elbow length gloves under his mackintosh sleeves, heavier rubber gauntlets on top of these. Thin cord, which had already been tightly tied around each gauntlet’s fingers, was threaded through a small hole made in the gauntlet at the wrist, then up inside each sleeves of the mackintosh and was now tightly knotted together by me at the back of his neck. This was a tried and tested method of ensuring that Jos could not remove the gloves. Wax earplugs from Boots, a dark blue rubber bathing cap, also from Boots, and then his gas mask which now had the eye-pieces blacked out on the inside with rubber foam and tape. A length of chain, the sort used on bath-plugs, had been fastened to the mask’s strap fittings in such a way that I was able, with the aid of a small brass padlock, to lock the gas mask firmly into place. This mask, which he had acquired in more recent years was, I gathered an ex Israeli army model. It had two tubes connected to a metal filter cylinder-shaped cannister which fitted at the back of the head hanging from a short strap attached to the mask's straps.
It had been tested, by both of us needless to say, properly connected to the filter canister and locked on for several hours that previous week. Now I finally test that it’s fitted properly by pinching closed the air exhaling valve on the mask itself, and then by putting my hand over the inlet to the filter behind his head. In both cases, the mask almost immediately flattens itself against his face as he tries to breathe when the air route is cut off. Having done these checks then, Jos is now blind, deaf and restricted by the gloves from freeing himself until he has access to the key to the mask’s padlock.
I open the hatch to the undercroft and help him down. This can’t be done in a hurry. The mere fact that we are both wearing restricting and fairly heavy mackintoshes, me in a hood and he, now with a sou’wester tied over his locked gas-mask, makes it difficult enough to climb the ladder in the dark. Once we are safely down, I turn on the lights, for my benefit only of course, and we set off, me guiding Jos in as roundabout a fashion as possible out to the furthest part of the labyrinth, ensuring that he loses all sense of direction before he even starts. A final check on his all enveloping gear, listening to his breathing through the gas mask filter and, with a final pat on his shoulder, I creep silently off. I have tied the key to the hatch padlock to a piece of wood only just large enough to make it locatable to groping gloved fingers and I have already decided where to hide it. I have promised to make it reasonably accessible and to hide it somewhere within the rooms that are immediately next to the one at the bottom of the hatch. Even that gives me some considerable scope but he knows that he can trust me on such matters. In each gap through the supporting walls, there is a line of blocks across the floor which could easily trip the unwary – or the blind and masked! The blocks had cavities in them which have filled with stagnant water over the years. I drop the key into one of these and the wood block floats on the surface. Quite reasonable, I think, as Jos expects it to take half the night or more to find his way out. The key to his gas-mask is to be put in a drawer in the office. I have the spare keys and plan to return to the workshop after my next shift at the hospital, where I am due in half an hour, to check progress.
My shift goes through to early the following day, Sunday. We both took the opportunity to get some sleep before hand, something which I do as a matter of course when on shifts but a new departure for Jo. He knows he may well be down there all night if he can’t find the hidden key. If he does get out, we’ve arranged a camp bed and some coffee in a thermos flask and will make himself comfortable until I return. What he doesn’t know is that I will be able to get away in the middle of the night, on the pretext of taking drugs across the city to the other hospital, and intend to silently check on his progress then.
So, off to work I go and try not to worry about Jos’s well-being as I do my rounds and deal with the patients on my ward.
Somewhere about five hours later, I’m back. I leave the car well away from the place and let myself in as quietly as possible. After all, I don’t want the neighbours calling the police, do I? Once in the workshop I quietly unlock the cover and listen carefully. After a while I hear some sounds and, as I listen for five or so minutes, I decide they sound as normal as one could expect, not that I’ve had any experience of this sort of situation before. He either hasn’t found the key or has done so and is making the most of his predicament before getting out. I lock up quietly and creep away.
Next time back, the sun was just coming up and I didn’t make such an effort to keep quiet. In the workshop office, Jos was sound asleep having discarded the gas-mask, gloves and sou’wester but still wearing everything else and had finished off the coffee. We went back to my flat to catch up on some sleep before he drove back home. He hadn’t brought any pyjamas needless to say, so I had to lend him something of mine to sleep in. It was a very rare occasion that he shares my bed, or vice versa, without at least one of us dressing as if expecting rainy weather and this time was no exception.
He told me that, perhaps more out of boredom than anything else, he turned his escapade into an intellectual exercise and once he had orientated himself, spent time making a thorough finger tip search, room by room, plotting everything in his mind. Even though, by the time I first arrived, he must have passed over the key in its hiding hole more than once. He eventually found it with some relief but did, as I suspected, finish his ‘survey’ before letting himself out and locating the key to his mask, which he knew was in a drawer in the office.
We planned, with not too much enthusiasm on my part, that I should undergo the same experience, but I never did and, as I said, the place was demolished after a short time.
This gas-mask is quite safe to wear for long periods providing it’s properly fitted and air is drawn in through the filter and exhaled out through a one-way valve in the mask itself. Jos had adapted it so that the tubes could be disconnected from the filter and secured instead inside the sou'wester which,of course, made breathing more difficult, but air crept in to the sou'wester so no chance of asphyxiation. Just like wearing doubled hoods.
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