Free The White Mountains (The Tripods) by John Christopher Page B

with letters on, in front. I looked at the Watch again. No, I was not going to call them.
    Eventually, we more or less gave up looking in the shops. In part, this was because our curiosity was sated, but more because we had been several hours in the city. with no sign of approaching the other side. The reverse,in fact. At one point, where devastation had left a great mound of rubble, we climbed up through the bushes and grass that covered it and found ourselves looking down on the waving green and crumbling stone. It stretched about us, seemingly endless, like a sea ribbed with reefs of rock. But for the compass we would have been lost, for the day had clouded and there was no sun to give us direction. As it was, we knew we were still heading south, and the day was less than half-run, but we felt the need to push on faster than we had been doing so far.
    We came to wider streets, flanked by bigger buildings, that ran broad and straight for immense distances. We stopped to eat where several of these met; there was a place where the trees had not found a purchase, and we sat chewing our meat and the hard biscuits Captain Curtis had given us—our bread was all gone—on a mossy stone. Afterward, we rested, but Beanpole got up after a while and wandered off. Henry followed him. I lay flat, looking up at the gray sky, and did not answer at first when they called me. But Beanpole called again, and sounded excited. They seemed to have found something interesting.
    It was a large hole, surrounded on three sides by rusted rails with steps leading down into the darkness. At the top, opposite the entrance, there was a metal plate which said METRO .
    Beanpole said, “The steps—they are so wide that ten people can go side by side. Where do they lead?”
    I said, “Does it matter? If we aren’t resting, we’d better be getting on.”
    “If I could see …” Beanpole said. “Why was such a thing built, so great a tunnel?”
    “Who cares?” I shrugged. “You wouldn’t see anything down there.”
    “We’ve got candles,” Henry said.
    I said angrily, “We haven’t got time. We don’t want to have to spend a night here.”
    They ignored me. Henry said to Beanpole, “We could go a bit of the way down, and see what there is.” Beanpole nodded.
    I said, “It’s stupid!”
    Henry said, “You don’t need to come, if you don’t want to. You can stay here and rest.”
    He said it indifferently, already rummaging in his pack for the candles. They would have to be lit, and I was the only one with a tinderbox. But they were determined, I realized, and I might as well give in with as good a grace as I could manage. I said:
    “I’ll come with you. I still think it’s pointless, though.”
    The stairs descended first into a cavern, which we explored as well as the meager light of the candles permitted. Being less subject to the elements, things had deteriorated less here than in the world above. There were queer machines, showing patches of rust but otherwise undamaged, and a kind of hut with glass in the windows, intact.
    And there were tunnels leading off the cavern; some, like the one by which we had entered, with stairs going up, others leading still farther down. Beanpolewas all for exploring one of these, and got his way for want of opposition. The steps went a very long way, and at the bottom there was another small tunnel going to the right. Whatever slight interest I had had was gone by now—all I wanted was to get back up into the daylight. But I was not going to suggest this. I had an idea, from the increasing lack of enthusiasm in his replies to Beanpole’s comments, that Henry was no more keen than I was on going farther—perhaps less. I reckoned I could leave it to him to call a halt before Beanpole went too far.
    Beanpole led the way along the small tunnel, which twisted and ended in a gate of heavy iron bars. It creaked as he pushed it open. We followed him through, and stared at what we could now see.
    It was