Patience Wins: War in the Works

by George Manville Fenn

It looked too horrible, all wet, slimy, and dripping as it was, or possibly I might have climbed up it and reached the edge of the dam, so I swam right beyond it and felt along the other side, but without avail. There was nothing but the slimy stonework, try where I would, and the chill of horror began to have a numbing effect on my arms.

I swam on to and fro beneath the doorway, with the little platform hanging by one end far above my had, and once as I swam my foot seemed to touch something, which might have been a piece of the sunken wood or iron work, but which made me shrink as if some horrible monster had made a snatch at me.

I shouted, but there was only the hollow echoing of the stone chamber and the lapping and whispering of the water; and, knowing that I was alone locked in the works, the terrible idea began to dance before me that I was going to die, for unless I could save myself I need not expect help.

The thought unnerved me more and more and made me swim more rapidly in the useless fashion I was pursuing, and once more I stared in a shrinking way at the great wheel, which, innocent enough in itself, seemed a more terrible engine than ever. I knew it would move if I swam across and clung to it, and I really dared not go near.

There was always something repellent and strange even in a big water cistern in a house, and as a mere boy I have often started back in terror at the noise made by the pipes when the water was coming driving the air before it with a snorting gurgle, and then pouring in, while to climb up a ladder or set of steps and look down into the black watery place always gave me a shudder and made me glad to get away.

It is easy to imagine, then, what my feelings were, suddenly cast into that great stone-walled place, with I did not know what depth of water beneath me, and inhabited as I knew by large twining eels.

I daresay the eels were as much afraid of me as I was of them; but that made no difference to my feelings as I swam here and there trying in vain for something to which to cling; but in the darkest parts as well as the lightest it was always the same, my hand glided over the stones and splashed down again into the water.

I was too much confused to think much, and moment by moment I was growing more helpless. I can remember making a sort of bound to try and get a hold of the broken platform above my head, but the effect of that effort was only to send me below the surface. I can recall, too, thinking that if I let my feet down I might find bottom, but this I dared not do for fear of what might be below; and so, each moment growing more feeble, I stared at the opened doorway through which I had come, at the iron-barred grating through which the water escaped, and which was the entrance to a tunnel or drain that ran beneath the works. Then I turned my eyes up at the sunlit opening through which seemed to come hope surrounding the black tooth-like engine that was hung there ready to turn and grind me down.

My energy was nearly exhausted, the water was above my lips, and after a wild glare round at the slimy walls the whispering lapping echoes were changed for the thunderous roar and confusion felt by one plunged beneath the surface; and in my blind horror I began beating the water frantically in my last struggle for life.

Natural instinct seems to have no hesitation in seizing upon the first help that comes. It was so here. I might have swum to the wheel at first and clung to it, but I was afraid; but now, after going under once or twice—I’m sure I don’t know which—I came up in close proximity to the great mass of slimy wood-work, one of my hands touched it, the other joined it directly, and I clung panting there, blind, confused, helpless, but able to breathe.