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‘It must be somewhere around here,’ said Jack, sweeping his torch beam across the wall.
‘What’s where?’ asked Alyssa, trying to look over his shoulder at the photo without their bodies touching. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m looking for this.’ Jack enlarged the map and traced his finger along the lines. ‘If this line is the tunnel, I think we must be here’ – he pointed at the screen – ‘because we’d gone past this right-hand bend, and I think this shaded area here could be the storeroom we’ve just come from. Do you agree?’
Alyssa peered at the map. ‘That makes sense.’
‘And if that’s the case, what’s this?’ Jack pointed at a faint line running off the tunnel, close to where they were standing.
‘A slip of the pen?’
‘Perhaps, if our luck’s run out. But I’ve been thinking, what if it’s some sort of ventilation shaft that’s topping up the oxygen levels down here? That might explain why we don’t seem to be suffering from carbon dioxide build-up.’
‘Would they have bothered building ventilation shafts if the tunnel was open at both ends?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe they would, to keep the air down here as fresh as possible.’
‘And a ventilation shaft would lead to the surface.’
Jack only gave a tight nod, but it was enough to spark hope in Alyssa. This could prove to be their way out, if the shaft existed and they could find it. It was a long shot, but they were all out of other ideas.
‘We’d better get searching, then,’ she said, already digging her hands into the rubble.
If the map was to be believed, the shaft lay on the opposite side of the tunnel from the storeroom. Part of the roof had collapsed there, probably years ago, and she and Jack began carefully to pull away fallen stones and earth, trying to see what lay behind.
It was hot and heavy work, and after a while Alyssa’s hopes began to fade. Nothing but brick walls lay behind the fallen rubble that she was moving.
She stopped and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, craving a glass of clear, cold water. And space – the walls down here seemed to be folding in on her, making her feel claustrophobic and panicky. She closed her eyes and imagined that she was standing on the beach, her bare feet sinking into the sand and the wide, bright sky above her. She pictured the sun rising out of the sea, its golden rays lighting the cliffs that soared to the heavens, and she felt her shoulders drop. She would see the sky again. She had to hold on to hope.
‘Are you doing OK?’ Jack’s voice cut through her thoughts. Turning her hot face towards him, she opened her eyes. He’d stopped digging in the rubble and was watching her, his dark shadow looming behind him like a monster. ‘Do you need to take a break? We don’t want to get too dehydrated.’
But Alyssa had stopped listening because something was different. ‘Can you feel that?’ she asked, turning her face from side to side.
‘Feel what?’
‘There’s a draught coming from somewhere. It’s cold on my skin, on my cheeks.’
He moved to her side, bumping into her in the gloom, and held up a hand in front of her face. Then he smiled. ‘You’re right. I can feel it too.’ He began to move his hand along a section of the tunnel wall that they’d almost cleared of rubble. ‘It’s here!’ he said triumphantly, grabbing hold of Alyssa’s hand and holding it where his had been.
Alyssa grinned at him as a stream of cold air began winding round her fingers. ‘Let’s get the rest of this section cleared.’
Together, they began to move the rubble that remained piled up against the tunnel wall, until a loud clang echoed around them. A metal grille was set into the wall, at waist height.
‘Well, will you look at that?’ said Jack, laughing with relief.
Alyssa resisted an urge to throw her arms around him in celebration. The mark on the map hadn’t been a slip of the pen at all. The smugglers, bless them, had had the foresight to build a ventilation shaft – though Alyssa doubted they’d imagined it being used as an escape route almost three hundred years later.
‘Give me a hand getting this off,’ said Jack, his jaw straining as he pulled at the grille.
Alyssa hooked her fingers around the edge of the metal and began to pull with him. Sharp slivers lodged under her nails but she kept on pulling until the grille began to shift and suddenly it came free, sending her and Jack tumbling backwards.
‘Ouch!’ Alyssa rubbed her shoulder as she helped Jack to his feet. The metal grille lay on the ground and a strong, cold draught was snaking out from the hole in the wall.
‘Abracadabra! A ventilation shaft!’ Jack grinned broadly and shouted ‘Hello’ into the opening. ‘Can anyone hear me? Help! We’re trapped!’ His words disappeared into the void and were met with silence.
Alyssa shone her torch into the opening and the hope that had flared in her heart dimmed a little. The ventilation shaft was basically another tunnel, but this one was little more than a body-width wide, and it climbed at a steep angle.
‘Hello!’ Jack shouted again. ‘We need help!’ But there was still no reply. The cavalry wasn’t coming any time soon. If at all.
