These Dark Wings Read Online Free PDF Page B

the wind picks up, echoing in the silence. We move deeper into the tower, past rooted pillars and giant arches, all smooth grey stone, the colour of nothing. Suits of armour stand to attention.
    The passage continues for what seems like miles. Already I long for a roofless space. Oakes gestures for me to follow him deeper inside. I can move freely enough – I can feel my arms and legs again (and the bruise already forming on my knee).
    The air is damp, heavy, the faint light giving Oakes more than one shadow.
    Winged figures – angels, I guess – stare down from the walls. The endless stairs make my knee ache. Stumble-footed, I climb. The temperature drops with each step. A cough floats down on the cold air. Our steps ring in the silence.
    Oakes slips through a narrow archway that opens up to the large upper room. Another stale, clammy room, with thick wooden rafters holding back the stone.
    All at once I see something. Opposite the window, near the floor.
    It’s like nothing else I have seen in the Tower. Intricately detailed, quite beautiful, it is... something ... carved into the wall. A drawing, or a sign. Obviously it does not belong here. It is not part of the Tower.
    ‘Hew Draper made this. An innkeeper from Bristol, and a prisoner here a long time ago.’
    Wind breathes through the room, and I step closer to the carving. The series of criss-crossing lines leads out from the centre. Is it a map of the secret tunnels and passageways of the Tower? Is this how he disappeared?
    ‘So it’s... a map?’
    Oakes smiles. ‘In a sense. It’s a form of zodiac wheel. Beautifully done, each constellation rendered alongside the days of the week and hours of the day. All perfectly accurate.’
    A map of the night sky? Why?
    Before the blackout, only a few stars were ever visible in the city. Now, when I walk back from the shelter, I lose count. But I don’t know the name of a single star, not one.
    ‘How did he make these drawings, of the stars and things?’
    His smile grows. ‘Same way as all the others did. Using the knife he ate with.’
    ‘How did it... help him to escape?’
    He laughs, a not unpleasant laugh, his shoulders going up and down.
    ‘Well, perhaps it did. He certainly vanished without a trace. Of Hew Draper’s death, of the rest of his life – there is no record. At the time they thought it was sorcery.’
    Sorcery? A small leak, quiet but steady, drips water in the corner. After another moment of expectant silence, I cough. Oakes is not a spy, or a traitor. Would a traitor really meet with someone at Traitors’ Gate? I was just spooked by Merlin. And there is no secret tunnel out of the Tower. Oakes is simply a boring old man fascinated by walls.
    Still, other thoughts nag at me. Oakes at breakfast, muttering about ‘making peace with Hitler’.
    Salt Tower is locked, and we leave by another exit, which includes even more stairs. I grip the rope tightly, wishing there was a banister for balance. But who was he meeting with? Warders never seem to talk to anyone except each other. That man at the gate was definitely not a Warder. Could he have been meeting with a spy – a German?
    Oakes has marched ahead down the dark passage. There is a draught here, and the walls seem to lean in. I stop when a sudden thought strikes me. Always Oakes talks about how he hates Churchill. About peace with Hitler.
    Churchill is coming. Next Sunday.
    I stand fixed, staring helplessly. What if Oakes is a spy? What if he is plotting to kill the prime minister? He thinks it will end the war. He is mad... No one is safe. Anything is possible.
    ‘But nobody knows what did happen to Hew Draper,’ comes the dry voice, ‘he simply vanished – into the corridors, inside the keep. Some people say he is still here somewhere.’
    His voice echoes back to me.
    ‘So please be careful, Anna. In gloomy old places like this, we sometimes see things that are not truly there.’
    Sunday, 6 October 1940
    For another night the raid is