Not Flag or Fail by D.E. Kirk Read Free Book Online Page A

entrance to the tomb was opposite the gate, it had a braced door that looked as if it may have been made of oak, studded with iron rivets and looked very substantial, however it was only held closed by a very old and very rusty hasp and hinge and an old padlock.
    “Ok I said wait here and keep your eyes open.” I ran across to the tomb and hit the gate padlock with the butt of my rifle, it sounded very loud in the quiet of the morning but despite the noise nothing happened. I was poised to hit it again when Fishy came up behind me.
    “Move Bomb you’re doing it wrong,” he said, and putting his bayonet on the top of the lock he moved the lock so that it was supported by the railing.
    “Now hit the bayonet and not me flipping hand.” he said. I did has he said and the lock burst open, I opened my mouth to speak.
    “Don’t ask” he said moving in towards the tomb door. With a blow from his rifle, the hasp fell away from the door and with a shove he had it open.
    Six steps led down into the tomb, which wasn’t particularly dark, as light was spilling in from the entrance. The inside was also made mainly of stone and on three of the sides there were three stone shelves, all but two of which held coffins. At the bottom of the steps was a space about seven feet long by four foot wide, it was big enough to hold us all.
    I went back up the steps to where Fishy was still hanging around by the entrance and waved for the others to join us. They ran across and I told them to go straight in, Fishy and I closed the gate and did our best to put the lock back looking as if it were still locked. We decided it would not hold up to close inspection. Pushing Fishy in front of me, we went down a couple of the steps, and then I turned to close the door behind us.
    “Wait!” shouted Fishy, louder than I felt was necessary, but I stopped anyway.
    “What’s the matter now?” I said “We have to close the bloody door!”
    “I know that” said Fishy “but look, if you do, there’s no way to open it again.”
    He was right, when I looked again; I saw that the door had nothing inside that would allow us to pull it open. Fishy had needed to put his shoulder to it to get it open, so if I had shut it we would have been trapped.
    “Bloody hell, that was close, you’re right. I did nearly get us stuck but if I don’t close it someone is going to see us.” I said.
    “What if we put something there to stop it closing altogether?” said Ronny.
    “Ok, let me go outside and take a look. Fishy, put your bayonet into the jamb and then push the door to.” I said.
    I went outside again, made sure there was no one around and then went over to the gate. The door closed to and I looked across, you could not tell that it was slightly ajar. I returned quickly to the tomb and pushed the door open; Fishy was still on the top steps.
    “Move down Fish, so that I can get in.” I said giving him a push.
    “You go past me Bomb, I’m not going any blinking further than here!” he replied standing his ground.
    I went past him down to the bottom of the steps, it was not totally dark in the tomb, even with the door closed because there were two small ornamental slits in the stonework on each side of the tomb which allowed a limited amount of light inside. It was also dry and the only smell was a sort of earthiness.
    “Well, I said, we might as well make ourselves comfortable; we could be here for a while. Anyone want to volunteer for the spare shelves?” I asked. The two vacant shelves were the top shelves, one on each side, and were about the size of bunk beds.
    “I’ll try one!” said Ronny, using the other two shelves as steps, to get him up to the top. “Eh this is not bad; you can see out through the slits, there’s a good view down the path to where we came in.”
    I got up on the shelf on the other side and looking through the slit could follow the path up to the church entrance.
    We settled down and Ronny quietly began describing the