| CASE | SO-012 / BELLHOUSE |
|---|---|
| CLASSIFICATION | ACROSS — SEALED SITE |
| FAR SIDE | Regional Seat of Government 12, under Sheldon Moor, Derbyshire. The present day. |
| REGISTRY OFFICER | Mr Bewley |
Bellhouse is a government bunker built into a worked-out coal mine under Sheldon Moor and commissioned in 1962. On 4 November 1974 its staff and their families, 412 people, went below for a civil defence exercise. The door was shut. Nobody came up.
In 1975 the entrance was filled in. After that the Seat is on no map, no index and no budget. Nobody asked why.
In May this year a Seat return dated Week 1, 1974, arrived in the Registry in-tray. It was not posted. It is enclosed (SO-H02). It is stamped with a small circle cut by a stroke. The same mark is on the letter of instruction recovered in case TT-004, Mercy Draw, 1881, from a Mr Smith whom the company never employed.
Coal smoke has been settling on Wetherlaw Farm, above the Seat, for fifty years, and there is no chimney on the moor. Milk does not turn in that farmhouse. The dog is thirty-one. The department’s reading is that the Seat is still occupied, and that something under it is running slow and running over.
You go in as a Board of Inspection of 1974. Dress, speak and carry paper accordingly: these people have had no outside voice for fifty-two years and the department will not open with a shock. Carry your warrant card where it can be seen — a warrant of the Department is named in the Seat’s own Order. Do not argue with anyone about the war until you can prove it.
Standing Order 9 applies. Nothing modern goes through.
A crossing stands at the warm vent head on Sheldon Moor, above Wetherlaw Farm. It opens at dusk. Mrs Joan Wetherlaw will meet you at the farm gate. She is not cleared.
Hand lamp · Geiger counter, 1974 pattern · greatcoat · document case · warrant card. No firearms are issued for this case. No telephones.