The Closet

Chapter 5

Time was still the big problem and they didn’t have a solution.  Fortunately, their Dad did.  That evening at the dinner table, Frank told everyone that he had to go to a conference in Garmisch some distance away from Mannheim.  Garmisch is an alpine ski resort city in the Bavarian Alps. He said he would be gone for 3 days, leaving on the following Monday. 

Frank had been raised in the country on a Kansas farm.  As a youth, he had the responsibility of milking cows twice a day in the early morning and late afternoon.  By the time he was 13, he was driving a tractor.  If his parents went to town, they didn’t think twice about having him look after his younger siblings, especially when a nearby neighbor was available in case of emergency.  He had tried to teach that ethic of responsibility to his own sons.

“John,” said his Dad, “I’d like for your mother to be able to go with me on this trip.  You’re 15 years old.  Do you think you can babysit your brothers and sister if we have Mrs. Friedrickson next door look in on you?”

“You know I can!” cried John.

“How about you three?  Will you obey your brother?”

“Yes, Dad,” they chorused.

“Frank!” said Lacy, “Do you really think we should leave them all alone?”

“They won’t be all alone,” said Frank.  “Colonel and Mrs. Friedrickson are right next door in the same building.  The Colonel said they would be happy to look after the kids.”

It was Friday and school was out for the weekend. Meeting again for a planning session that evening, the four began checking over their acquisitions. The rope that Allie had untied from the fence would work out well. It would take some time to configure it as a ladder, but they had a whole weekend. Jarom had found the headlamps in the basement and with the batteries John had purchased, they worked fine. The other two headlamps he bought at the Px used up all his remaining cash, but he figured an adventure must be worth something.  Jason had secreted under his bed, crackers and cookies and granola bars as well as bottles of water.  They all had their own backpacks, so all they could do at this point was speculate as to the purpose of the shaft and bide their time ‘til Monday. 

John spent some of Saturday making the rope ladder.  He found some steel hooks in the basement he could tie to the top of the ropes so it would hook on the bottom rung of the ladder in the shaft.  Sunday, the family attended church together and that evening, Frank and Lacy packed their bags for their trip to Garmisch.  Lacy was very excited.  It had been a long time since she and Frank had been alone together and this seemed like a dream come true.  She worried about the children, but she knew that Frank was right.  They were responsible kids and the neighbors were very close.  In this age of instant communication, she could check on them herself whenever she needed to, so they went to bed that night dreaming of a wonderful time together.

The children went to bed dreaming of a wonderful time together too, but in a completely different way.  They knew that they would have to go to school the next day and check in with Mrs. Friedrickson in the evening, but after that they were more-or-less free to responsibly explore a secret shaft hidden beneath the upstairs closet of their house.  The construction of the shaft was puzzling.  Who built it?  Who used it?  Why was it in their house?  They didn’t know, but they were confident that they would discover the answers. 

Monday morning came with the James children ready for school and saying goodbye to their parents. The day passed slowly, and meeting together after school in a house without parental presence seemed odd, but it was an oddity they could accommodate.

“Let’s go over and let Mrs. Friedrickson know we are OK now so she won’t feel she has to check on us later,” said John.

Everyone agreed and they trooped next door and rang the doorbell.  Mrs. Friedrickson was very welcoming and suggested that they come back for dinner at 6:30.  They didn’t know how to refuse her kind invitation and so went back home to get ready for the big night.  They packed their backpacks with their supplies and equipment and did their homework.  At 6:30, they returned to the Friedricksons’ and were welcomed in.  Colonel and Mrs. Friedrickson were pleasant and they ate a delicious fried chicken dinner. They thanked Mrs. Friedrickson for dinner and were home by 7:30, just in time to hear the phone ring. 
Jarom answered, “Hello?”

His mother replied, “Hello, honey.  Is everything alright?”

Jarom told his mother about dinner next door and after she had talked to each of the other children, they hung up the phone and the night’s activities were ready to begin.

            Jason suddenly broke in with his face looking like he had lost his best friend. “I think we should tell Mom and Dad.  They wouldn’t approve of our sneaking around.”

            Jarom countered back, “We will tell them, but this is OUR secret just for now.  If we told Dad, he’d have to tell the Army, and they’d lock us out.  They might even make us move!  Or worse, they’d tell the Germans and they’d kick us out.  We would never even get a look at OUR discovery.  Let’s take a real look at what we’ve found, and then we’ll tell Dad and Mom.”

            John looked Allie and they silently nodded their assent.

            Jason finally agreed, ”OK, but when they get home, we’ll tell them,” and that was left hanging in the air.

            Everyone grabbed their backpack, checked things one more time, and opened the closet door.  Jarom pried up the floor with the screwdriver and all the headlamps were switched on.  The rope ladder was in Jarom’s backpack and he started down the ladder first.  The shaft was just wide enough for the ladder on the wall, a body, and a backpack with the backpack cleaning the cobwebs off the wall.  The shaft was much brighter this time with all the headlamps on.  When Jarom got to the bottom rung, he slipped off his backpack and retrieved the rope ladder.

            As he hung it on the bottom rung, he said, ”I hope you put your Boy Scout training to good use with these knots, John….I don’t want to get dumped!”

            The rope ladder reached to within a foot of the floor, and Jarom started down.  Climbing a rope ladder that is unsecured on the bottom was easier said than done.  The ladder pendulated back and forth like a swing.  Jarom finally reached the bottom and slowed the swing with his foot on the ground.  He then grabbed the bottom and stretched it out to make it easier for the others to climb down.  A moment later, they were all standing in a round room with exits in eight directions.  It was hard to know where to start exploring and they hadn’t even thought about where the tunnels might lead.  They had several hours, but time would evaporate quickly if they became lost. 

            John proposed, “Let’s stay together and we’ll see where the tunnels go.  Which shall we start with? I checked my compass while we were upstairs and the ladder is on the east side of the shaft.  North would be 90 degrees counter-clockwise from that.”

            Jarom said, “Then let’s go north.  It is as good a direction to start as any.”

            They started down the northerly tunnel.  There was plenty of room for them to travel two by two.  John and Jarom were the leaders with Jason and Allie right behind.  The tunnel walls were either rock or had been reinforced with concrete.  It was easy to see that the complex was no casual construction.  There was a light dust on the floor when Jason stopped the group.

            “Look,” he said examining the floor.  “There are shoe prints every so often.  I wonder how long they might have been here.” 

            “Do you think they could be new?” asked Allie.  She was not eager to run into anybody down here.

            “I don’t know,” said John.  “You can feel some air movement, but I don’t think it is enough to stir up the dust.” 

            Jarom said, “We should have started counting our paces back at the shaft.  Did anybody check the time when we started walking?”

            John replied, “I looked at my watch when we started down the shaft.  It was 8 PM exactly.  It must have taken us 15 minutes or so to get organized down here and it’s 8:30 now.”

“These headlamps let us see really well.  I guess someone else could see us even better,” pointed out Jason.  If we turn them off, do you think we could see any light?”

“Let’s give it a try,” posed Jarom, and they switched off their lights one by one.  In the darkness deeper than pitch, Jarom gave a terrifying scream, and everyone else jumped. Jason bounced off the side of the tunnel and Allie fell down sobbing.

John switched his light back on and punched his brother in the arm.

“That isn’t helping, Jarom!” he exclaimed. 

“I just wanted to see if there was an echo,” he protested innocently rubbing his arm.

In fact there was an echo from both directions.  They had been traveling about 20 minutes by that time and could hear water running a short distance away.  They continued walking and after another 10 minutes, the sound was much closer.  They realized that they had been hearing the same sound getting gradually louder since they left the shaft, but hadn’t realized that it was water.  The tunnel had not been straight, but wound to the left and the right, and around the next bend they could see an underground river bank.  As they neared the river, the sound became deafening but using the headlamps they examined the river and the walls.  There were grooves worn in the floor of the tunnel as if carts had been wheeled along the tunnel.  The sight was remarkable, but unable to communicate with more than hand signals because of the noise, they began to retrace their steps. Paying more attention to the sides of the tunnel, they noticed a joint between rock and concrete that hadn’t been closed when the concrete was poured.  Carefully John went over every inch and uncovered what might have at one time been a door into a connecting tunnel running to the east.  He wasn’t able to open the door, if that is what it was, so began once again to lead his siblings toward the shaft.

“That was cool,” said Jarom, “but why build a tunnel all the way to the river?”

“Maybe they didn’t realize the river was there,” Allie replied simply, and the rest agreed with her logic.

“There are 7 more tunnels,” said Jarom.  “I think there will be lots more answers.”

By the time they returned to the ladder-shaft, it was 9:30.  It was getting late for a school-night, but they knew that their window of opportunity was narrow and they were determined to keep exploring. 

“We need to move a little faster,” prodded John.  “Which way shall we go this time?”

“Let’s keep going clockwise around the room,” said Jarom.  “I guess that would be northeast next,” and he started off at a fast walk.

 The others followed along right behind.  This tunnel was straighter and they could see down the tunnel until the sides seemed to run together as the light faded in the distance. John remembered to check the time as well as start counting his paces.  They walked a long time and wondered how far the tunnel might go, but after what John estimated to be about 1 1/2 miles or about 40 minutes, they came to a large room with a concrete stairway at one end.  They climbed the stairway but found it sealed with concrete at the top.  It even looked as if there had been a bigger opening beside the stairway that larger items could have been lowered down to the floor with a crane or a hoist of some sort, but that opening had also been sealed off with a slab of cement.  They counted the steps as they went back down to the floor of the great room.  There were 121 steps, and being quick even without a calculator, Jason estimated it at an 85 foot vertical drop.  Because the surrounding land is relatively flat and the tunnel didn’t seem to rise or fall, they guessed the ladder-shaft must be about 110 feet because it started on the second floor of the house.

Musing to himself, John wondered aloud, “Why start the shaft on the second floor of the house?” 

No one answered, and having no place else to go, they turned around and began the trek back to the round room with the ladder-shaft leading up to their house.  It was after 11PM when they got back to the ladder shaft. 

John had been thinking during the walk back.  “I wonder if we could find anything on a map?  It might give us a clue as to what these tunnels are for and who built them.”   He and Jarom agreed to meet in the school library after classes to see if they could find old maps of the area. 

So far what they had discovered was fascinating, but seemed a bit sterile.  The troop sat down for a minute and pulled out their energy bars and water.  They spent a couple of minutes recharging as they began to discuss their options. There was no real sign of people or purpose aside from the tracks they had seen in the first tunnel.  They began to look at the time.  11:10.  They decided that they would explore one more tunnel until midnight, but that they needed to be back by then.  Staying with the plan they had made, the chose the east branch and began walking.  This tunnel was narrower and they couldn’t move quite as quickly, but still made good time.  The walls of this arm of the system had been bored through solid rock.  There was no concrete visible, and in places rubble from the ceiling and walls had fallen over the years and made piles they had to carefully negotiate.  They didn’t have to walk too far, however.  By John’s calculations, they had only come about ½ mile when they arrived at a vertical shaft that was a twin for the one rising to their closet.  The bottom rung of the ladder was 10 feet off the ground and boosting each other up wasn’t enough.  Jarom tried walking up the wall by putting one foot on either side of the tunnel, and he was able to climb to the tunnel’s ceiling, but it wasn’t as high as the bottom rung of the ladder, and wasn’t close enough to be able to reach it, even if it were tall enough.  Time was passing, but Jason had a brainstorm.

“Look just down the tunnel,” he pointed.  “There are lots of rocks on the ground.  What if we started carrying them back here and built a platform to reach from? “

John looked doubtful.  “It would take a lot of rocks to make a stand high enough to reach the ladder,” he said reluctantly, “but let’s give it a try.  What do we have to lose?”

They dropped their backpacks and began hurrying down the tunnel, picking up rocks, and bringing them back.  Some were like bowling balls, but more were like loaves of bread, and Jason began stacking them like blocks.  Soon he had a platform that was about 18” in diameter and about 3 ½ feet tall.  John was the tallest and climbing carefully on top of the stack, he could barely touch the bottom rung.  He thought he could jump and grab it, but the platform wasn’t stable enough to jump from without breaking an ankle.

Frustration was overcoming them when Allie said, “John, put me on your shoulders and then climb up on the platform.”  Jarom and Jason can help you balance.  Then you can lift me up to where I can reach.”

“What are you going to do then? Can you pull yourself up with only your arms to help?”

“No, John!  Once I grab hold, you can put your hands under my feet and push me up far enough that I can climb.”

He could see that it would work, but he was worried about sending his little sister up another ladder without knowing what was at the top.  They all gave her advice at once.

“Jarom said, “If there is a trap door, just put your ear up to it and listen.  Don’t try and open it.  We don’t know whose house you might be in.”

“And be careful climbing the ladder.  It’s still a long way up there and we have another ladder to climb to get home,” pointed out John.

Jason reminded her to count the rungs to see how far down they were, and John boosted her onto his shoulders. She dropped her backpack from there to make the acrobatics a little easier, and then he stepped onto the rock platform.  She reached up as high as she could and grabbed the rung, and she lifted her feet onto his palms and he pushed her straight up.  She used his push to reach her hands up another rung and then swung her knees up to the first one.  A little more gymnastics and she was climbing up the ladder. She could feel with her hands that these bars had been worn smooth and even flat on the tops, as if they had received a lot of use. Each step was nearly a foot, and though she was getting tired, she counted 85 rungs before she reached the top of the shaft. She put her ear to the trap door she found there and could hear footsteps.  Lots of footsteps.  Loud footsteps.  That was enough for her.  She started back down the ladder.  A few minutes and most of her strength later, she got to the bottom rung. The boys had added a few more rocks, so John was able to reach a little higher and they reversed their earlier strategy.  On the ground again, she couldn’t wait to tell her brothers what she had found.

“I put my ear to the trap door, and I could hear people walking around.  It sounded like they were walking right on the trap door.  Maybe they even come down here,” she said.

The boys began to look for evidence, but could see only their own footprints. 

“It’s way past midnight already,” John said alarmingly.  “We should head for home. We can research where we have been on a map tomorrow, get some rest, and tomorrow night we can give it another try.”

They were all tired and wordlessly agreed as they started back toward the ladder-shaft beneath their house.  They arrived about 10 minutes later and one-by-one climbed up the rope ladder and then the steel one to the trap door in their closet.  Allie was exhausted and drifted to her room where she was asleep in seconds. Though there was no one to see their secret, they felt more secure closing it up. They put the trap door down, closed the closet door, and then Jason stuck a chair under it.