[Jack Howard 03] The Lost Tomb by David Gibbins

Author:David Gibbins [Gibbins, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-11T23:00:00+00:00

A few minutes later they stood just inside the portico of the Guildhal Art Galery, looking out over the yard with the eliptical line of the Roman amphitheater arena marked across it. To their right was the medieval façade of the Guildhal itself, and to the left the solid, functional shape of St. Lawrence Jewry.

“This place seems pristine now, but it’s seen three circles of hel,” Jack said quietly, peering out into the drizzle. “Boudica’s revolt in AD 60, the massacre, possibly human sacrifice. Then the Great Fire of 1666.

Of the buildings here, only the Guildhal wasn’t completely destroyed, because its old oaks wouldn’t burn. An eyewitness said it looked like a bright shining coal, as if it had been a palace of gold or a great building of burnished brass. Then, almost three centuries later, the inferno visited again. This time from above.”

“December 29, 1940,” Jeremy said. “The Blitz.”

“One night of many,” Jack replied. “But that night the Luftwaffe targeted the square mile, the City of London. My grandmother was here, a dispatch rider at the Air Ministry. She said the sound of dropping incendiaries was ominously gentle, like a rain shower, but the high-explosive bombs had been fitted with tubes so they screamed rather than whistled. Hundreds were kiled and maimed, men, women, children. That famous picture of St. Paul’s Cathedral, wreathed in flames but miraculously intact, comes from that night. St. Lawrence Jewry wasn’t so lucky. It went up like a Roman candle, the flames leaping above the city.”

“My grandmother heard a terrible scream that night, like a banshee,”

Jack said quietly. “It haunted her for the rest of her life.”

“Must have been a lot of horror,” Costas said.

“The scream came from the church,” Jack continued. “The organ was on fire and the hot air rushing through the pipes made it shriek, as if the church was in a death agony.”

“Shit.”

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