I had a very singular case, one day, being called in to attend, in a
busy part of London, upon a curious-looking man who lay in bed suffering
from the effects of bad gas. He was a peculiar-looking fellow, with
grizzled black hair, excessively sallow skin, piercing eyes, and his
face was as strangely and terribly seamed with the smallpox.
I had some little trouble with his case, which was the result of his
having been prisoned for some hours in one of the sewers that run like
arteries under London. A sudden flood had come on, and he had been
compelled with a companion to retreat to a higher level, where the foul
air had accumulated, and he had had a narrow escape for his life.
As he amended! Used to chat with him about his avocation, and I was
much struck by the coolness with which he used to talk about his work,
and incidentally I learned whence came the seaming in his face.
"You see, sir," he said, "the danger's nothing if a man has what you
call presence of mind--has his wits about him, you know. For instance,
say he's in danger, or what not, and he steps out with his right foot,
and he steps out of danger; but say he steps out with his left foot, and
he loses his life. Sounds but very little, that does; but it makes two
steps difference between the right way and the wrong way, and that's
enough to settle it all; sound or cripple, home or hospital, fireside or
a hole in the churchyard. Presence of mind's everything to a working
man, and it's a pity they can't teach a little more of it in schools to
the boys. I don't want to boast, for I'm very thankful; but a little
bit of quiet thought has saved my life more than once, when poor
fellows, mates of mine, have been in better places and lost theirs.
"I'm a queer sort of fellow, always having been fond of moling and
working underground from a boy. Why, when I went to school, nothing
pleased me better than setting up what we called a robbers' cave in the
old hill, where they dug the bright red sand; and there, of a Wednesday
afternoon, we'd go and climb up the side to the steep pitch where it was
all honeycombed by the sand-martins, and then, just like them, we'd go
on burrowing and digging in at the side, scooping away in the beautiful
clean sand, till I should think one summer we had dug in twenty feet.
Grand place that was, so we thought, and fine and proud we used to be;
and the only wonder is that the unsupported roof did not come down and
bury some half-dozen of us. Small sets-out of that sort of course we
did have, parts of the side falling down; but as long as it did not bury
our heads we rather enjoyed it, and laughed at one another.
"Well, my old love for underground work seemed to cling to me when I
grew up, and that's how it is I've always been employed so much upon
sewers. They're nasty places, to say the best of them; but, then, as
they're made for the health of a town, and it's somebody's duty to work
down in them, why, one does it in a regular sort of way, and forgets all
the nastiness.
"Now, just shut your eyes for a few minutes and fancy you're close at my
elbow, and I'll try if I can't take you down with me into a sewer, and
you shall have the nice little adventure over again that happened to
me--nothing to signify, you know, only a trifling affair; but rather
startling to a man all the same. The sewerage is altered now a good
deal, and the great main stream goes far down the river, but I'm talking
about the time when all the sewers emptied themselves straight into the
Thames.
"Now, we've got an opening here in the street on account of a stoppage,
and we've gone down ladder after ladder, and from stage to stage, until
we are at the bottom, where the brick arch has been cut away, and now
I'm calling it all up again, as you shall hear.
"I don't think I ever knew what fear was in those days--I mean fear in
my work, for, being the way in which I got my daily bread, danger seemed
nothing, and I went anywhere, as I did on the night I am speaking of.
It was a very large sewer, and through not having any clock at home, I'd
come out a good hour before my time. I stopped talking to the men I was
to relieve for some little time, waiting for my mates to come--the job
being kept on with, night and day. Last of all, I lit a bit of candle
in one of the lanterns, and, taking it, stepped down into the water,
which came nearly to the tops of my boots, and began wading up stream.
"Now, when I say up to the tops of my boots, I mean high navigator's
boots that covered the thigh; and so I went wading along, holding my
lantern above my head, and taking a good look at the brickwork, to see
if I could find any sore places--it being of course of great consequence
that all should be sound and strong.
"Strange wild places those are when you are not busy! Dark as pitch,
and with every plash in the water echoing along quite loud when by you,
and then whispering off in a curious creepy way, as if curious creatures
in the far-off dark were talking about it, and wondering at you for
going down there. Over your head the black, damp brickwork; both sides
of you, wet, slimy brickwork; and under your feet slippery brickwork,
covered inches deep with a soft yielding mud that gives way under your
feet, and makes walking hard work. In some places the mud is swept
nearly clean away, and then you go splashing along, while always in a
curious, echoing, musical way, comes the sound of running water,
dripping water, plashing water, seeming always to be playing one
melancholy strange tune, sad and sweet, and peculiar. 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 sufficient, even to
knowing only what particular branch I was in; but I was too confused to
try and make out any of the marks that might have told me.
"There it was again--a scratching of tiny claws and a hurried rush up my
breast, over my shoulder, something wet and cold brushing my face, then
the half-leap, half-start I gave, and the sharp splash in the water as
the beast leaped off me. And then it came quicker and faster--two and
three--six--a dozen upon me, and as I tore them off they bit me
savagely, making their little teeth meet in my hands, and hanging there;
while more than one vicious bite in the face made me yell out with pain.
"The horrible fear seemed now to have gone, strange as it may appear to
say so. I was mad with rage now, and fought desperately for my life, as
the rats swarmed round and attacked me furiously, without giving me a
moment's rest. I had a large knife, which I managed to get open and
strike with, but it was more than useless, for my enemies were so small
and active and constant in their attacks that I could not get a fair
blow at them, and dashing away the blade I was glad enough to fight them
with their own weapons, and bit and tore at them, seizing them one after
another in my hands, and either crushing or dashing them up against the
sides of the sewer.
"But it seemed toil in vain, for as I dashed one off half a dozen
swarmed up me, over my arms and back, covering my chest, fastening on to
the bare parts of my neck, and making my face run down with blood.
"`Can't last much longer!' I remember thinking; but I felt that I must
fight on to the last, and I kept on tearing the squeaking vermin off,
and crushing them in my hands, often so that they had no chance of
biting; but there must have been hundreds swarming round me, waiting
until others were beaten off to make a lodgment. Now I was dashing up
stream as hard as I could, in the hope that I could shake them off; and
as I waded splashing along I tore those off that were upon me, but they
hunted me as dogs would a hare; and though it was dense black darkness
there, so that I groped my way along with outstretched hands, it seemed
to me that the little beasts could see well enough, and kept dashing up
me as fast as I could beat them off.
"Splashing along as I was, I had a better chance of keeping the vermin
off; but then I could not keep it up. I must have been struggling about
for hours now, and was worn out, for even at the best of times it is
terribly hard work walking in water; and now that I was drenched with
it, and had my great thigh boots full, the toil was fearful, and I felt
that I must give in.
"`I wouldn't mind so much,' I thought, `if I could find a dry spot where
I could lie down;' but the idea of this double death was dreadful, and
spurred me on again to new efforts, so that I kept on rushing forward by
spurts, my breath coming in groans and sobs, while I kept the vermin off
my face as well as I could.
"`It's all over!' I groaned at last, sinking on my knees close to the
side of the sewer, and nearly going under, as my legs slipped in the
ooze at the bottom. But I stopped that by trying to force my nails in
one of the cracks between the slimy bricks, and as the rats came at me
there was only my head and neck up above the filthy water; while I gave
a long shriek that drove them back for a moment. And now it seemed to
me that I could see the little wretches coming at me, and, yes--no--yes,
I could see a faint gleam on the top of the water, and then it was
brighter, and I heard a shout which I believe I answered, though I can
recollect no more.
"Well, they ain't such very deep marks, sir--only just through the skin,
you know; but they spoil a man's beauty, which they say is just
skin-deep. Lots of people have thought as I've had the smallpox very
bad, and I let them, for this here as you've heard the whole story about
is one of the things as I don't like to bring up very often. I always
feel as if I'd been very close to the end and had been dragged back,
which makes me feel solemn, and I always back out when any mate tries to
draw the story out of me, for they're uncommon fond of hearing it over
and over again. Joe Stock--that's one of them--he could tell you the
part as I can't about how they hunted for me and shouted till they were
tired--going miles, you know, for it would surprise you to thoroughly
know what there is under the streets of London.
"`Harry,' he's said to me before now, `I never see such a sight in my
life, and when I saw you get up off your knees, mate, and come a reeling
towards me, I'm blest if I didn't think it was somethin' no canny, and I
nearly dropped my lantern and ran for it. There was your face all
streaming down with blood, and your hands the same, and as to the noise
you was making--ugh!' he'd say, `it was awful bad.'
"And now, just one word of advice, sir--don't you never go down no
sewers without two or three bits of candle in your pocket--high up in
the breast of your jacket, you know--and plenty of lucifers in a
watertight tin box, or perhaps you may get in such a mess as I did."
Very good advice, no doubt; but after seeing the place where three men
went down to work some short time since, listening to the hollow musical
drip of the water, and the strange whisperings of the long tunnels;
after listening to the history of the hard fight against a sudden rush
of water told me by the sturdy toiler, who shuddered and turned pale as
he recalled the desperate fight for life, and then, in lowered tones,
narrated how he had found his poor mate's body washed into a narrow
culvert, I felt quite satisfied, and I don't think I shall ever make any
explorations in a sewer.
In fact, I never see a grating open, or meet one of the sturdy fellows
in his blue Jersey shirt and high boots without thinking of my patient,
and the risks such people run to earn their daily bread.