When Jack got back to the tunnel from his second run that night with Race and Toms and eight semi-crushed boxes of Uneeda biscuits, the news wasn't good.
"Pipes is running a little dry, Jack," Boots told him.
Jack tore off another narrow strip of handkerchief and began wrapping David's thumb before the blood could begin to bead up again. "How bad?"
"Took all day just to get twelve bottles and four canteens."
That there was still fresh water running in the city was something of a miracle. There were no working steam-pumps left to move the water, of course, and a month ago it seemed something had begun to block, at unpredictable intervals, most of the flow into Manhattan from the reservoirs upstate. But the city's mains had been laid out with an eye towards letting gravity do much of the work, so water still made its way, albeit sluggishly, through pipes from the reservoir in Central Park—and from whatever managed to trickle in from upstate—down through to the south end of Manhattan.
But just because water flowed didn't mean you could always get to it. Low water pressure meant that water rarely made it above basement-level pipes—although you could sometimes get lucky, the farther downtown you went—but basements were often flooded, whether by the bursting of these pipes or by rainwater, or by the rare but deadly sudden surge from upstream. The liquid that filled these spaces was almost guaranteed to turn out to be tainted by debris and sewage and, once in a while, bodies; you quickly learned not to even approach them if you were smart.
Pipes could be smashed open, but unless you did it carefully, you'd submerge your own source soon enough, or at the very least leave the floor covered in a layer of standing water, heaven for mosquitoes and other sources of disease.
And you never knew when a pipe would simply dry up. If the pressure dropped, if it developed a leak somewhere else, if a building went down between here and the mains...
But the entrance grating to their ventilation shaft was situated, by nothing but pure dumb luck, near the City Hall Park's drinking fountain. The fountain itself had long since been toppled, but no matter: there was no longer enough pressure to bring the water up to ground level. The boys had managed to dig a deep, narrow hole near the fountain—making sure to scatter the resulting mound of dirt, because it did no good to draw attention to yourself—and by dint of scraped knuckles and badly-stripped tools and no small amount of cursing, tapped into the pipe just enough to get a dribble of water that could be stopped up at will.
The pipe was a slender one, which meant the pressure didn't drop as much as it could have, but still they'd had to deepen the hole and re-open the pipe at successively lower spots as the weeks wore on.
Jack tied off the ends of the small make-shift bandage. "How much we got stored?"
"Enough for three days," Specs said. "Not counting what they brung in today."
"Four canteens and fourteen bottles yesterday?" Jack asked.
"Yeah. Same's the day before that."
Bringing in only twelve bottles in addition to the canteens meant they were breaking even on the drinking water. They weren't in danger of dying of thirst, but their reserves would dwindle...reserves that they needed for things other than drinking, like washing their food pots, and keeping injuries clean. And you could only store so much for so long, cool though the air was down in the tunnel.
"Can't go much lower," Boots said. "'Nother foot, maybe..."
"I ain't going any deeper," Pocket declared. "'S already twenty feet—"
"Thirteen feet," Specs murmured, without ire.
"—and it's all sand at the bottom. I don't care if you got planks up all around it. I read the papes. I know what happens when you dig in deep and it's all sand at the bottom."
"He's right, Jack," Boots said. "It caved in a little yesterday. Not much, and we scooped it right back out, but..."
"It ain't just the sand," Specs said. "I know the pipes is drying out, but you never know when they'll flood again. And if somebody's down there when it does..."
"All right," Jack said, "all right. Let me think." He turned to David. "Wanna walk?"
Not waiting for an answer, he lifted David's hand and set it on his own arm, then stood. Once in a while David simply let go and refused to follow, but this time he only hesitated before getting to his feet without protest.
"Want some company?" Racetrack asked.
"Yeah."
Race picked up a candle in a jar and they paced towards the south end of the tunnel. David trailed silently behind, fingers loosely gripping Jack's elbow.
"Been a dry coupla weeks," Race said. "Ain't a cloud in the sky."
"The Reservoir might be running low." Not that there was any way to truly find out. Manhattan boasted three reservoirs, only one of which was still in use. The other two, though taken out of service years ago, still held water which could conceivably be retrieved, but that wasn't the point. If the reservoirs were the obvious source of water for the city's remaining inhabitants, then it was obvious to the dragons, too.
Like lions at a watering-hole, dragons could always be found near the reservoirs. Not only had they appropriated the giant artificial lakes for their own use—in a case of supreme irony, it was their arrival that had halted the planned demolition of the reservoir in Bryant Park—but those people sufficiently foolish or desperate to dare a run for the water in the early days had also provided more than enough incentive for the dragons to stay. By sheer proximity, the smaller lakes at Central Park were likewise too risky to use as sources, but that didn't stop people from occasionally trying.
And yet the dragons did not foul their own drinking-water, nor did they allow anything else to, a curse and a blessing mixed for those survivors who tried to get their water from anywhere south of the Central Park Reservoir.
"Another month and we might have snow," Race said. "Won't be no problems then."
"And the water barons'll go bust."
They paused by one of the fire-buckets, which were set against the wall at intervals. Jack tapped it with his boot out of reflex, was rewarded with the low pinging sound of a full bucket and a slight shimmer reflected in the lamplight.
"We gotta find a new pipe," Jack continued, musing aloud. "We tell the boys to keep an eye out whenever they'se outside. Maybe send out a few of 'em to look, special."
"And we start saving up to buy," Racetrack said.
"Race—"
"I know you don't like it. Well, neither do I. But what choice do we got?"
"They'd just as soon rip you off as look at you."
"I know."
"And if they don't rob you, somebody else will."
"I know." Race sighed. He was quiet for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out something which he turned and offered to David.
In his palm sat a small folding knife, its plain handle of dark wood set with two brass rivets. A long, deep scratch marred one side of it, but it was otherwise in one piece. David stared at it expressionlessly. Racetrack coughed.
"Found it today—the only one left that wasn't burned or bent or whatever." He waited patiently, then added, "Thought it might help with fixin' the ropes...you know."
Maybe it was the fact that Race spoke directly to David, not even once flashing an uncertain glance at Jack as most tended to do when David didn't respond immediately. Or maybe it was David's practical side responding to the simple usefulness of the tool. Either way, he let go of Jack and took the knife.
When he snapped it open and tilted it towards the dim light, Jack could see that the blade was a good one, sturdy but with a fine edge. The knife that David used now was thin and tended to dull easily when used to saw through heavy rope fibers. They had a couple of whetstones for the store of blades they'd collected, and no boy went out without an unsharpened one; but two whetstones were not nearly enough for all of them, and nothing beat having good-quality steel in the first place.
David closed the knife, then met Race's eyes briefly before blinking and looking away again.
Jack grinned. "Not bad, Race."
Race merely shrugged.
"Last ones in!" Mush called, jogging past them from the guard-post at the south end, where they could see boys climbing down, carrying bundles. Mush limped only slightly these days; by now, the break in his stride was no longer very noticeable unless you knew to look for it. As he got closer to the other end of the tunnel, it was obvious he repeated the message, as the rest began gathering in preparation for the evening meal.
"Eat first," Jack said. "We'll work it out after."