too fascinated by the work itself. Only minutes earlier he had twisted his detonation wires with Otrepyev’s, and when the time came the larger explosion would mask the smaller.
When the time came.
Osokin looked at his watch again. It was a minute past. The sound of the guns would be muffled down here, but they’d be heard. Every day of digging they’d been audible, and that was above the crunch of shovels scraping unceasingly against the soil. Now all was silent. The loudest sound was Osokin’s own breathing. In the dimly lit tunnel it was impossible to see the men waiting behind, or the bend in the passage ahead which would protect them from the blast. The tallow candles spaced out along the walls flickered, making the shadows jump back and forth. Lukin had suggested using electric light, but the resources were simply not available out here, closer to Afghanistan than to Russia.
When it came, it was more of a sensation than a noise, reaching Osokin not through his ears but his feet. He waited a few moments more, wanting to be certain. It was a different sound from that of the days before, when they had been digging. Now he could hear nothing of the guns themselves; the blasts of expanding gas forcing the shells from their muzzles. All that could be perceived was the shaking ground as the onslaught pummelled the city above. He glanced at Lukin, who had noticed it too.
‘The men, sir,’ said Lukin, jerking his head in the direction of the tunnel behind them. ‘All those bodies – must be blocking the sound.’
Osokin nodded. He looked over at Otrepyev, who finally returned his gaze.
‘Well?’ demanded the colonel.
Much as Osokin would have liked to toy with Otrepyev’s impatience, he knew his duty. The guns had begun firing; the rest must follow. He pressed his fingers against his ears.
‘Do it!’ he hissed at Lukin.
The lieutenant turned the handle rapidly, like a little boy playing with a diable-en-boîte. Just as with the toy, the exact moment at which his effort would bear fruit was unpredictable. Thus the blast, even though expected, was a surprise when it came.
It was testament to the glorious power of technology that so slight an action could have so devastating an effect. The sound from the side tunnel, the shorter of the two, came first, but only by a moment. Even with his ears covered it was possible to distinguish the scale and direction of the two blasts, until the one from the tunnel ahead became so loud as to drive out every other sound – every other thought. It was still growing in volume when Osokin felt its effects – first a wind rushing through the passageway towards him, and then a more solid impact, as though he had run into a wall, which threw him back on to the ground. For a moment his hands moved from the sides of his head in an attempt to break his fall and he experienced the full intensity of the sound hammering against his eardrums. He quickly covered his ears again, preferring to be bruised than deafened.
He lay still for a few moments. Clouds of dust and debris began to billow along the tunnel towards them. To his right he noticed that Lukin had removed his hands from his ears and was using them to cover his mouth and nose. Osokin did likewise, and squeezed his eyes shut too as the first flecks of pulverized rock began to pepper them. The noise was still loud, but now more of a slow rumble, as column by column the city’s southern wall started to collapse into the pit that the explosion had created.
He waited a few seconds before opening his eyes again. The air was still thick with dust, making it impossible to see more than a short distance. Even so, Osokin could just detect the presence of daylight – something of which he had known little in the past two weeks. As they’d planned, the tunnel roof had caved in ahead. Here it was still intact, but at the end of the passageway the crater would be so large that no amount of rubble could fill it and block out the midday winter sun.
From behind him he heard a noise. It might have been a shout, but his ears still rang too much to make out what was said. A new sound assailed him, a rapid thump, thump, thump this time, again from behind. He turned, but