The Death Chamber by Sarah Rayne Read Free Book Online Page B

think he could manage them anyway. He looked at his mother in sudden panic, but then his
father said, very softly, ‘Walter, this is what it says.
    Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
    Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
    But for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed,
    And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
    ‘It’s a poem written by an Irishman called Tom Kettle. I know you don’t understand it now, but one day I think you might. So when you’re a bit older I’d like you to
read it sometimes and think about me. Will you do that, Walter? For me? Because I’m about to die for a dream, you see.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Walter. Not really knowing what he was promising. ‘Yes, I promise.’
    ‘Nicholas, they are looking after you, aren’t they? They are being kind to you?’
    ‘I have no complaints,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Although there’s a doctor here who stares at me as if he’d like to collect my soul. It’s not worth the
collecting, of course.’ He glanced at the warders, and then reached for her hand and held it tightly. In a totally different voice, he said, ‘Pray for me when eight o’clock chimes
the day after tomorrow. Will you?’
    ‘Yes. There’s no chance of—’
    ‘A reprieve? A rescue? No chance at all.’
    After they got home – two long train journeys, the carriages stuffy and crowded with bad-tempered people – Walter had his supper, and went to bed as usual.
    All through the next day he thought about the dreadful room and the man in it, and he pored over the writing on the paper trying to make out the words. He thought about the woman with the slanty
face and tilting-up eyes, as well. Belinda, that had been her name. It was a very suitable name for her, and he was glad she was there with his father in the sad room. Once or twice he thought
about the doctor who had wanted to collect souls. You surely could not collect a soul, could you?
    On the second morning his mother came into his bedroom very early – it was barely half past six and a thin grey light trickled in through the curtains; it was only then that he remembered
this was the day after tomorrow.
    He had a mug of milk and some bread and honey, and they walked quietly along the street to the little church where they went each Sunday morning and which smelled of the stuff the vicar put on
his chest every winter.
    ‘It’s not your father’s Church,’ said his mother. ‘Not exactly, because he’s Catholic. But it’s my Church and it’s where I want to be now.
There’s no one about,’ she said, pushing the door open and peering inside. ‘That’s very good, because no one must know any of this. You understand that, don’t you,
Walter? You must never tell anyone where we were two days ago. In any case, we’re going to live somewhere else soon, and we won’t be called O’Kane any longer, just
Kane.’
    ‘Won’t that cost a great lot of money?’
    ‘We have some money,’ said Walter’s mother, but she shuddered as she said this and Walter remembered what she had said about the drowned faces in the money. He thought he would
make sure not to look at the money too closely in case the poor drowned faces swam up out of it like dead fish.
    But he was intrigued by the thought of going to live somewhere else and of changing his name, and he thought about it while they knelt down in the pew they always had on Sundays. His mother read
bits from her Bible, and then she read the writing on Walter’s piece of paper. Walter listened, not speaking, because you had to be very quiet in church. He supposed that one day he would
understand the words about dying not for a king but for a dream.
    He was so absorbed in thinking about all these things, that he did not hear the church clock begin to chime eight.
    Extract from
Talismans of the Mind
by C. R. Ingram
    During the First World War, telegrams were sent to inform relatives that their sons, husbands, brothers, were ‘Missing, believed killed’. They