Tunnels 03, Freefall

these," she said to Chester, passing him a couple of rolls of linen bandages from her apron pocket. "Right, Will, go round to the other side of the bed. I need you to hold her steady."
    Will did as she directed. Martha then gripped Elliott's wrist and pulled several times. The boys heard clicking as the broken bones grated against each other.
    "Ohh," Chester said. "Awful..."
    From behind Will there was a dull thud.
    "What was that?" Will asked, still gripping Elliott by the shoulders.
    "You friend Chester has just passed out. Leave him there -- I need you to keep the girl steady," Martha said to Will. "I've to get this right." She pulled on Elliott's arm again, applying tension to it as she manipulated it. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and Martha was mumbling to herself all the time she worked.
    "That looks better," Will said.
    Martha nodded. "It's so swollen it's difficult to tell, but I think the bones are back in place now," she said. She spent a few more minutes checking the arm, then appeared to be satisfied. She carefully put the splints on either side of the arm and bound them with the linen strips, tying each roll off.
    Martha rose to her feet and sighed, as Will also got up from the bed. He turned to see Chester was in a heap on the floor.
    "We'd better get him next door," Martha chuckled.

    * * * * *

    "The Highfield Bugle, 19 th June, 1895," Mrs. Burrows observed as she leant over the old newspaper spread open on the table before her. "So, Mr. Ashmi, what exactly am I looking for?" she called out.
    Mrs. Burrows was in the Highfield historical record office, where documents dating as far back as the tenth century were kept. As no answer appeared to be forthcoming from Mr. Ashmi, she scanned the newspaper, noticing the title in faded print halfway down the page. " The Ghosts of the Earth . Now there's a headline guaranteed to get your attention!"
    "Certainly is, and that's the report you should read," came the muffled response from the far end of the basement, past umpteen tiers of free-standing shelves on which were a mind-boggling number of document bundles and boxes. Mr. Ashmi, the borough archivist, stopped delving in the box before him and stuck his head round the edge of the rack to look at Mrs. Burrows. His horn-rimmed glasses caught the sickly yellow illumination of the strip lights overhead as he spoke. "It's typical of the incidents."
    "Okay," Mrs. Burrows agreed. "But I hope you're going to tell me why I need to read it when I've finished." She turned again to the newspaper and began.

    "Work on a tunnel for the new Highfield & Crossly North station was abandoned after an incident in the early morning hours of the morning Wednesday last. The Harris brothers, the celebrated tunneling engineers from Canada, assisted by a four-man work gang, had drilled and set explosives in a deposit of sandstone. The warning klaxon was sounded, and the area cleared."

    "The next bit gets to the nub of it," Mr. Ashmi grunted as he heaved a box of papers from a shelf and pushed it into the central aisle, then beetled off to another part of the basement.
    Mrs. Burrows cleared her throat and continued.

    "After the detonations had been performed, the Harris brothers and the work gang, now accompanied by Mr. Wallace, the Northern & Counties Railways assistant surveyor, re-entered the excavations. As they waited for the dust to settle in order to make an assessment of the workface, they hear grating noises under their feet. They at once suspected it to be subsidence and began to withdraw from the tunnel. However, the grating noises became even louder, portending a terrible scene as strong lights suddenly shone into the tunnel from out of the very ground itself. All those present said they beheld trapdoors opening in the bedrock, from which an army of phantom-like apparitions marched out."

    Mrs. Burrows stopped reading. "Is this for real?" she asked.
    " The Times took if seriously enough to run it the next day," Mr. Ashmi replied from behind a rack. "Keep going."
    "If you say so," Mrs. Burrows said with a shrug, then read on.

    "Mr. Wallace stated that the figures sported dark fustian or gabardine coats, and that they had white collars around their necks. In their hands they held spheres from which issued bolts of green light. As the menacing figures began to advance, he and the work team were afeared and fled for their lives. According to Mr. Wallace, the Harris brothers did not run, courageously holding their