“In case one of them should return.”
Together they dragged the guard's body out of sight of the entrance to the mine.
James crouched low, eyes narrowed on the entrance.
“I don't know what I'll find inside.”
Albert nodded. He patted the shotgun, the rifle propped against a tree trunk.
“No one will get past.”
James didn't try to persuade him against it or suggest he hide in thick cover where it was safer. He knew what the reply would have been. Albert laid a hand on his arm as he rose and started toward the mine entrance.
“Bring them back safe,” he said, his expression slipping, a thought that went unspoken. Then it was gone, but they both understood his meaning.
James made his way slowly toward the entrance of the mine, moving from the cover of one large rock to another, at the same time watching for any sign that one of the others had been positioned inside.
Logic told him no. They wouldn't be expecting anyone. Not yet. And the guard had been placed at the entrance to prevent anyone going inside who might show up.
There was that point when there was no more cover to hide behind, the last half-dozen yards to those steel doors, when he would be fully exposed. He bent low and ran the last several yards. He reached the entrance and flattened himself against the outside of one of the doors.
The other door stood ajar. A quick glance, and he was inside.
It was just as Albert had described. The roof had caved in long ago. Debris, rocks, large cut-limestone rocks that had formed the roof were scattered everywhere, and a tree stretchedup through the opening in the roof where it had grown over the years.
He glimpsed a wood sign on a stake that had been driven into the ground and then rotted over time and collapsed, the faded warning in both English and French.
DANGER!
He stepped past it, stopped, and listened.
There was only the faint movement of air from the gaping hole in the ceiling and the opening at the door. There was no other sound, no movement.
Where would Faridani have taken them?
A sweep of the entrance revealed what Albert had told him from that earlier visit with Micheleine's brothers, before the war.
The entrance led to a passage that ran in two directions, parallel to the entrance. Tracks embedded in the floor ran in both directions, no doubt where rail cars loaded with limestone had once been brought to the surface and then loaded onto wagons at the entrance.
One passage was blocked by rock and debris that had caved in long ago, just as Albert had described it. That left only one possibility in the opposite direction.
Light from the entrance disappeared after the first dozen yards, but there was light intermittently from other sections of roof that had fallen in over the years. He followed the passage to a room that opened along one wall, then another, stopping, listening, then continuing on, deeper into the passage, then another room.
Row after row of cots filled the room. Most had rotted and collapsed, but several were intact, even a century later. A metal table with shelves stood against one wall. Several glass bottles and vials were scattered across the dirt floor where they had either fallen or animals had gotten to them looking for food.Another table sat against the wall with a chair pushed back as if someone had only just left, to return in a few minutes.
The hospital.
How many men had been taken there? English? French? The wounded? Dying? Those cots told the story.
Another war, in another place. Always the same.
The next room was smaller, only half the size of the first one. A dozen cots lined one wall. Was this where the more critically injured were taken?
A couple of threadbare woolen blankets had rotted. There was a pair of boots that sat at one end of a stretcher. An old oil lamp sat against a wall, and piles of old rags had been tossed into a corner.
Bandages for the wounded? They were soiled and stained with dirt and grime. Except for the one that had been tossed onto the top of the pile. It was relatively clean. There were no stains, only that faintly sweet smell, the same smell he'd picked up in the van.
At least one of them had been there, he thought, and not long ago. Then, taken some place else? But where?
