"Lovely, isn't it?" said Vitalka.
I nodded. But all of a sudden we flew into a strip of freezing cold
air and were swiftly brought back to reality. There was nothing for it
but to fly down towards the roofs again.
At last the monastery's wall flashed by below, the weather-vane on
the pointed peak of its corner tower drifted by and straight ahead was
the belfry advancing on us like a giant.
We hovered by its wall about ten metres off the ground. All day long
it had been basking in the sun and was now as hot as an oven and smelt of
heated bricks, lime and fresh wormwood.
As we rose slowly upwards and the wall slipped down past us, I
pressed my palm against it and instantly felt a rough burning sensation
on my skin and saw that my palm was covered in chalk. I was just about to
rub it off against my trousers when I remembered about my new suit and
simply rubbed it against the other palm.
"What are you clapping for?" asked Vitalka. "We haven't found
anything yet."
"We will," I said.
And I really was sure we were bound to find something interesting in
such a mysterious old tower. Of course, I hoped it wouldn't be a
skeleton...
The clock's huge face loomed above us and we stopped dead in the
centre, opposite the spindle its mighty hands were attached to. The
minute hand was about the same size as me and smelt, just like our
telescope, of brass. The iron clock-face smelt of rust.
"How's that for a little alarm-clock!" Vitalka whispered admiringly.
I nodded and flew the carpet up to the face's top edge.
Both hands were pointing up - the minute one at just before twelve
and the hour one at one. The gunboat's shell had hit it just before one
in the afternoon.
I touched the minute hand's ornate tip. It felt cold. Brass obviously
cooled faster than iron.
"What huge numbers!" said Vitalka in the same whisper.
The brass Roman numerals were each the size of a large book. I wanted
to touch them, too, but the carpet rose smoothly as Vitalka guided it
towards the bells.
We stopped by an arch partitioned off by a railing of metre-high
carved pillars and a thick cross-beam. High above the railing hung a dark
bell under which Vitalka, Vetka, Breezy and I could have easily hidden.
Only from a distance did the arch look like an ordinary semi-circular
window with a little bell inside. Close-up it looked more like some tall
gateway. It suddenly occurred to me that if you were to shout out, your
voice would carry into the vaults, strike the bell and echo right across
the town. For some reason or other this thought made me feel rather
weird.
However, while I was pondering this, Vitalka boldly stepped off the
carpet and onto the railing and sat astride them.
"Come on," he said. "I'm holding onto the carpet."
So I also climbed onto the railing, which was rough and prickly to
the touch. If you did not watch out, you could easily get a splinter in
your palm. We pulled the carpet towards us, folded it in half and hung it
on the railing.
"Well, here we are," said Vitalka.
He pulled up his shirt, fumbled about, dragged a little torch out of
his pocket and switched it on.
"Look, there's a floor!"
I also turned on my torch, which was hanging on a string round my
neck.
Yes, sure enough down below us stretched a plank floor. But what a
state it was in! It was pitted with dark holes, which had obviously been
made by shell splinters, and in the middle there was a large gaping hole
with charred beams sticking out of it.
We had heard grown-ups say that the shell had struck the arch's side
wall and exploded in the midst of the bells. Two of the smaller bells had
been hurled into the monastery's courtyard and one large one which had
hung under the dome, had broken free and plunged down to the ground
crashing through the flooring. The other bells plaintively droned for a
while but stayed put.
After cautiously lighting up all the corners with my torch and making
sure there was no sign of a skeleton, I cheered up.
"It certainly made a mess," I said.
"The machine-gunner must have got thrown out by the blast. And his
machine-gun, too," replied Vitalka in dismay.
"We could search for treasure," I suggested half-heartedly because I
could not imagine where we might find any here.
"Let's have a look round first," said Vitalka.
He bravely dangled his legs over the railing and jumped onto the
planks which trembled slightly but without giving way. I followed suit.
Then we rolled up the carpet and laid it on the floor against the
wall and had another look round.
There was nothing to search for on the upper landing. Its most
interesting feature was its bells. But treasures aren't usually hidden in
bells, and we would always be able to examine them properly later.
I crawled on all fours towards the black hole and shone my torch down
it, but all was dark and empty.
I felt rather small about Vitalka always doing things first as if I
was scared to, and so I boldly said, "Let's have the rope. I'll go down."
But Vitalka replied that it was foolish to go down a hole on a rope
when you could go downstairs in a perfectly normal manner.
And, sure enough, by the wall there was a small square hatch with a
ladder. However, I still got to it before Vitalka and hastily lowered my
feet onto the top rung.
The explosion had not damaged the ladder and it did not even rock
under me. My torch snatched some floorboards out of the darkness, and I
boldly jumped down although I had terrible butterflies in my stomach. And
no wonder! Nearby there was a black gaping hole similar to the one on the
upper landing.
Vitalka jumped down after me.
Quite unlike the upper landing, it was very dark and eerie here. Only
one tiny window gleamed dimly in the thick wall and cracked, broken and
charred beams were strewn all around. Our torch beams darted along the
brick walls, floorboards, steps and then all of a sudden...
I don't remember who called out first but I think we probably both
did: "Gosh, look at that! It's the clock!"
It was, in fact, the clock's mechanism - pile of brass cogged wheels,
which had gone green here and there, and ranged in size from saucer to a
wash-basin...
"Look, it's all right. It's just stopped, that's all," said Vitalka
in the same tone as one would say of a large placid wild animal, "Look,
it's alive - it's just asleep..."
"It was probably shaken up by the blast and something's snapped off,"
I remarked.
"But what?"
We examined the old brass mechanism as if it was a sleeping elephant.
I was wrong to call it a "pile of cogged wheels" because this was
merely a first impression and it was, in fact, nothing of the sort. All
cogs and cylinders were beautifully designed and fitted together
perfectly.
It looked as if the clock had not been damaged by the explosion.
Many towers have clock-faces on all four sides, but ours had one only
in its west side. The old monastery had been built to the east of the
town with its clock facing it so that everyone could see it not only from
the town but also from aboard ships going upriver, homebound from distant
sea voyages. Well, and as it only had one face, its mechanism was located
in a deep niche in the wall and not in the tower's centre. And so the
heavy bell, as it crashed through the floors, had not so mush as
scratched it.
"Let's crawl inside," whispered Vitalka, "and have a good look at
it." He started crawling towards the mechanism with me close behind.
As bad luck would have it, on this landing the black hole was very
close to the niche and the only way of getting to it was along a dusty
and slightly charred beam.
But what did Vitalka care! He had black trousers on so the soot
wouldn't show on them. Rolling up the hem of his shirt, he sat astride
the beam as if it were a gym horse and made his way towards the niche
with his weight on his hands.
However, I could not possibly sit down because I was wearing my new
blue suit and, what's more, had white socks on, blast them! What could I
do?
My heart in my throat, I stood upright on the beam; it was wide and
did not sway under me, but even so... I simply don't remember how I
walked across that terrible dark hole. I knew that it was a sheer drop of
about forty metres down to the ground! It's fine when you've a magic
carpet under you but your legs buckle down when you haven't.
More dead than alive, I jumped down beside Vitalka who was gazing at
me with admiration. At once I felt proud of myself for even though I had
been scared out of my wits, I had still accomplished a heroic feat. And
so that Vitalka should not think I was boasting, I said casually, "Well,
anything interesting here?"
We were literally right inside the giant clock, surrounded by brass
gears and levers, and facing two cogged shafts with huge chains across
them which disappeared through openings in the brickwork.
"They're like the windlasses aboard Dad's ship," whispered Vitalka.
And in my mind's eye I also saw the anchor drums in the motorship's
prow.
"But what are they doing here?"
"Why, they're weights, of course!"
"Very well, one chain's got a weight on the end of it, but what about
the other?"
"The other one probably has one, too. One weight's for the hands and
the other for the bells - just like the special chain for the cuckoo in
Auntie Valya's clock. Have you forgotten?"
Goodness, how dim I was!..
I imagined the powerful pig-iron weights, a hundred stone apiece,
dozing on chains deep inside the tower. What would happen if they got fed
up of hanging there and pulled the chain a little harder? The idea made
me feel rather frightened and excited.
"Vitalka!" I said in a scared whisper. "What if the clock suddenly
starts ticking! These cogs will make mincemeat of us..."
"It won't, replied Vitalka coolly. "Look, the beam's holding the
pendulum back."
The sharp broken end of the beam we had crawled along appeared to be
jammed in the mechanism's lower part. Down below, on the end of a rod we
could see a bronze cymbal-like disc - a pendulum!
"So that's why it's stopped..." said Vitalka thoughtfully.
We at once glanced at one another because we had both thought of the
same thing at the same time: what if we removed the beam?
"But how?" I asked.
"Saw it off with a hack-saw."
"But where do we get the saw?"
"Why, at home, of course!"
"So we'll have to fly back for it?"
Vitalka shrugged his shoulders. After all, flying back was no great
hardship, was it? Imagine people walking up the next morning, and seeing
that the clock was going over the town!
Vitalka sat astride the beam again, hopped along it like a frog, took
off the rope which was hanging over his shoulder and tossed one end to
me.
"Tie it round just in case..."
I did as I was told - I'd done enough heroics for one day.
We climbed onto the top landing, slipped through the arch and flew
straight off home.
We got there quickly because we did not pause to admire the moon and
the town lights. All was quiet at home. Auntie Valya was asleep. Vitalka
dragged the tool box out ever so carefully so as not to make a noise and
found the saw.
"It's blunt... Well, it'll have to do. But what's the time?"
We looked at the watch which had belonged to Auntie Valya's
grandfather. It said half-past twelve.
"Gosh!" Vitalka said. He took the watch off the nail, slipped it into
his pocket and attached its chain to his belt.
"What do we need that for?"
"What time is it on the big clock?" asked Vitalka.
"What? Well, five to... or three minutes to one..."
"See! Going by this one, we'll start it off at three minutes to one.
But we'll have to look sharp because if we are late, how will we turn the
hands? Any idea?"
I had none. It would, of course, be impossible to move them manually
and we hadn't sorted out the mechanism yet.
"Off we go!" ordered Vitalka.
We flew back fast and were chilled to the bone, but then the belfry
now seemed cosy and familiar.
We hurriedly climbed down to the mechanism again and, forgetting
about our tidy new clothes, crawled on our knees, valiantly collecting on
the way old soot, cobwebs, lime, brick dust and the green film from the
brass. And these layers of dirt would later testify to all our
adventures.
Vitalka told me to take hold of his shirt, and picked up the
hack-saw.
The saw was really blunt, and the wood turned out to be hard.
Soon Vitalka was wet with perspiration and started muttering in an
angry hoarse voice, and so I took over.
The saw kept getting stuck and I had to jerk it out each time,
muttering words which would have made Auntie Valya fall in a dead faint.
Vitalka sympathetically breathed down my neck and said as a reminder once
in a while, "Six minutes left... Three... Two."
But what could I do? I was working hard, wasn't I? I was just about
to tell Vitalka to go and jump in the hole which was gaping below us when
all of a sudden the beam snapped! The heavy pendulum had pressed against
the almost sawn-off end and it snapped off, crashed down and struck the
flag-stones on the ground floor. The whole tower rumbled.
I sprang back so as not to crash down with the broken beam-end. And
then a loud ringing sound struck out overhead. Once! Twice!
Twang! Twang! And off it went!
It was the pendulum swinging to the left and hitching a little brass
hook onto a small sunflower-shaped wheel, which in turn moved another
gear.
"Hurrah!.. It's going..." said Vitalka in a whisper.
"Hurrah!" I roared.
"Hurrah!" we yelled together.
I very much wanted to write about how a flock of birds, frightened by
our shouting, flushed up into the sky, but if the truth be told, nothing
of the sort happened. For some reason or other there weren't any birds
living here and only an echo rang round the tower. But so what! We were
like birds ourselves! Flying magicians! We had brought the old clock to
life and its brass wheels were now clanging cheerfully as if saying
"thank you".
"It's almost right," said Vitalka, pulling his watch out of his
pocket. "Look, it's five to one."
Five to one! The middle of the night!
"Let's go home, Vitalka. If Auntie Valya wakes up and finds out, we
won't half catch it."
"All right," Vitalka agreed cheerfully. "We've done what we set out
to do."
He tried to climbed onto the beam and exclaimed in surprise, "Hey,
what are you holding onto me for?"
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