‘We’ve hit something!’ she shrieked.
The windows all down the side where Aleisha had been sitting were cracked. Two of them had smashed completely, letting in smoke and the rushing, roaring, gurgling din of the river. There was also a screeching, scraping noise and the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass.
Courtney looked for her friend. Aleisha had fallen to the floor and hit her head on the table on the way down. She was still just conscious, but dazed. Courtney took a step towards her as the boat gave another sudden lurch and tilted over at a crazy angle. Kyle grabbed Courtney to stop her falling. Aleisha rolled against the side.
‘Hold on, Aleisha!’ Courtney tried to break free from where Kyle was holding her steady, and the next moment, with a deafening crack, the boat split completely open. A gush of water burst through, reaching in like a giant black hand, and closed round Aleisha. And then it withdrew, sucked out as the boat tilted back the other way.
‘Aleisha!’ Courtney screamed, but her friend was gone.
‘You idiot, Matt,’ Ed shouted, picking himself up from where he’d been thrown to the floor by the force of the collision. ‘That was Westminster Bridge.’
‘We’re sinking,’ said Archie, clinging on to the wheel to keep from falling over.
‘It’s worse than that,’ said Jordan, looking out of the windows. ‘We’re breaking up. We need to find the lifeboats.’
‘Out there, look!’ Archie nodded through the window of the wheelhouse. There was a short deck in front of them with two dinghies tethered to it.
‘We’ll never all fit on them,’ said Ed. ‘There must be at least thirty of us.’
‘Look for more,’ said Jordan, struggling over to the door. ‘I’ll get these two sorted.’
Matt was staring out at the flames that raged over the south side of the river, his face lit with writhing yellows and scarlets.
‘The third angel sounded his trumpet,’ he said quietly. ‘And a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water – the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.’
78
Kyle had got rid of his garden fork and swapped it for a fire axe. He was up on the roof of the top deck with three of Jordan’s boys, hacking through the ropes that held four more lifeboats in place. It was tricky and dangerous work with the cruiser lying at such a steep angle, and every few seconds it gave a sharp jolt as the water tugged at it, slowly tearing it in half.
Ed appeared and helped them, clinging on to a bit of rope to keep from falling off. Amazingly, Kyle still seemed to be enjoying himself, as if this was all some mad game.
Kids were swarming over the boat in a panic. There was nowhere to go except up on to the roof or on to the short deck at the front. Ed heard DogNut down below yelling at them not to jump in. He leant over and shouted down to him.
‘There’s lifeboats up here. We’ll get them into the water, but be careful getting in. Jordan’s got two more boats at the front.’
The next few minutes were a nightmare. Ed was only dimly aware of all that was going on around him. Kids trying not to fall off the cruiser as she broke up. Other kids trying to get the boats into the water without losing them. Dead bodies and bits of floating wreckage knocking into them. Screams. Shouts. Arguments. Hands burned on ropes. Clothes drenched with water. Courtney yelling in one ear about Aleisha. DogNut yelling, ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ in the other.
Then the kids were spilling off the cruiser as she sank lower in the water, packing the lifeboats and threatening to capsize them. Jordan was in control at the front, snarling at the kids to slow down. Ed was trying to keep some sense of order on the roof.
‘Don’t aim directly for the lifeboats,’ Ed barked as kids lowered themselves over the side, or jumped or slipped. ‘You’ll sink them. You’ve got to land in the water next to them. The guys in the boats can pull you in.’
The water between the cruiser and the lifeboats was soon thick with splashing kids. It was too dark and too chaotic to tell if anyone was sinking or being swept away. Ed just prayed that most of them would make it.
Now it was his turn. If he left it any longer, the cruiser was going to sink and drag him under.
He launched himself into the air. Hit the water with a punch to his guts. The cold snatched his breath away. He reached out for the nearest lifeboat and then it was gone and he was under the water. Someone had landed on top of him, forcing him down. He felt hard shoes kicking at him. It was freezing and he could sense his body shutting down. A pale face looked at him through the murk, the features frozen into a scream, eyes wide, mouth gaping, then it floated away and he was alone again. The current pulled at him. He wanted to shout but had his mouth clamped shut against the poisonous waters of the Thames.
Then suddenly he was in the fresh stinging air. The light of the fire was blinding him. Strong hands had hold of his jacket and he was being pulled into one of the boats.
It was Kyle, still grinning like a madman. ‘Nearly lost you there, chief,’ he said, dumping Ed in the bottom of the boat. Ed lay there, useless as a landed fish.
‘How many of us made it?’ he croaked once he’d got his voice back. Nobody heard him, so he struggled to sit up. He saw Courtney packed in among the other kids next to DogNut. She was crying.
Ed looked back at the cruiser. It had finally split in two. The back half had sunk, but the top half was still afloat and drifting down the river, half submerged.
Then he saw an amazing sight. Matt and Archie and the four remaining acolytes were standing on top of the wheelhouse roof, like the crew of a submarine coming into harbour. They were holding their banner upright, their faces reflecting the fire that raged over south London. They didn’t look scared or worried at all. Rather they appeared to be quite calm and at peace.
Ed looked at the banner. It was brightly lit by the flames, and the image of the golden boy on it seemed to be glowing. Behind him the other boy, the shadowy one, looked as if he was made of smoke. The way the banner fluttered, the Lamb and the Goat appeared to be alive, moving. And then the lifeboat passed under Waterloo Bridge and that was the last Ed saw of Matt.
79
The last stragglers were crossing the bridge, the feeblest, the weakest, the sickest, shambling along as behind them the flames tore at the sky, raining down ash and soot.
He’d stayed behind to eat a part of one of the small bodies lying in the road. The others, the stupid ones, just wanted to get away from the fire. Not him. He knew he had to eat. Meat Is Life. He’d stayed there, squatting in the road as the fire ripped into the buildings. It was pretty. He liked fire. Always had done.
The fire couldn’t get him, though. It couldn’t leap across the road or the round thing, the thing the cars went round, round, the roundabout, the magic roundabout. But there was nothing left for him here. He belched. He was full. He picked up his bundle and walked towards the bridge. They were over there, the ones he needed. He could smell them. The living food.
There was water below him now. He stopped to look. And over there … He knew those houses, the big boys lived there, the bastards, he knew the name …
HP sauce, or something, the jolly green giant.
Big Ben.
Aaaah, it was all too much for him.
All he knew was that the bastards lived in there, in the spiky buildings. The ones who made the laws …
Politicians.
You see. He still had the words in him.
Politicians.
He looked down into the river. It was full of fire and death and pigs.
No, not pigs …
He looked at the boiling colours. He wanted to drop something in, see it splash. That’s what you did, wasn’t it? There was a game.
Pig sticks.
No.
Not pigs.
Pooh.
Pooh sticks.
Race them under the bridge
. Two sticks. See which one came out first the other side. He’d played it with him, the little one, the boy, what was his name …?
Gone now.
They’d played it, racing sticks under a bridge in the park. Played the game. He wanted to drop something in now. He had something. This thing in his hands. Didn’t know what it was. Why was he carrying it?
It weighed nothing, just a bundle of scraps and twigs.
A stick, yeah. It was a sort of stick.
He propped it on the wall of the bridge then pushed it over, watched as it turned and fluttered in the air, as if it was trying to fly away. And somehow it turned into a boy. A little angel, flying down …
Down and down it fell.
And then the tiny splash.
Watched it float away under the bridge.
Now what? There was something he was going to do, something about a race and sticks and pigs and a jolly green giant.
It had gone.
No mind. No mind. Get over the water to the other side. Get home. Go see his boy.
His Liam.
That was it. Get home to see Liam.
He turned and walked on.
80
The first lifeboat bumped into the pier and the kids gave a cheer. They’d been beginning to wonder if they’d ever be able to make it to the north bank, or whether they were going to be swept all the way down to the estuary and out to sea. They’d managed to lash the boats together, which gave them greater stability and protection, but steering the giant raft had proved difficult. There were powerful eddies and currents in the Thames, and the raft had a tendency to spin. The force of the water seemed to grow stronger and stronger, and no matter how hard they tried to aim towards the edge they kept being pulled back into the centre where the flow was strongest. After bumping against Hungerford Bridge they passed under seven more bridges, and each time it caused a mad panic among the kids. The water bunched up and foamed between the pilings and they nearly lost two of the boats in a collision. But as they cleared London Bridge they hit a clear straight stretch of river and finally managed to get some sort of control over the raft. Centimetre by centimetre, metre by metre, they made their way closer to the side. Then they’d seen a modern steel pier sticking out into the river and it had given them something to aim for.
They clawed at the water, sticking their bodies half over the sides and kicking, scrabbling with the few oars they had. At last they’d stopped.
They were on a wide, open reach of the Thames. On the far side was the great hulk of the battleship HMS Belfast, which had been run as a tourist attraction. Ahead were the twin gothic towers of Tower Bridge. On this side of the river were the high walls and turrets of the Tower of London.
Ed planted his feet firmly on the steel decking of the pier and hugged Courtney. The two of them were cold and wet and exhausted. They clung to each other laughing and crying at the same time.
The fire hadn’t spread this far downriver so it was quite dark. Though the sky to the west was lit by an angry red glow. Ed broke away from Courtney, wiped his face and looked up at the ramparts of the Tower, silhouetted against the sky.
‘It was Wiki, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Or was it Jibber-jabber? One of them, anyway, said we should come here.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Courtney. ‘Where are we?’
‘Don’t you recognize it? It’s the Tower of London.’
‘It looks like a castle.’
‘That’s because it is a castle.’ Ed laughed. ‘The oldest bit was built by William the Conqueror, I think.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Ed shook his head. ‘All that matters is that we’ve washed up in just about the safest spot we could. This is the perfect place to hide out. No sickos could get to us in there.’
Jordan Hordern was already organizing the kids, shouting at them to form into groups.
‘We need to know who’s made it and who we’ve lost,’ he barked.
Ed checked his crew. It didn’t take long. He and Courtney were the only two left. Jordan had lost five of his boys, either in the fight or when the boat had sunk. Of the third group, the kids who’d joined the fight at the roundabout, nobody really knew how many there had been to start with. Some kids talked of losing friends, but again it had all been so confusing – for all they knew their friends could have crossed Lambeth Bridge safely. Though one or two were certain their friends had disappeared in the water. Ed remembered that pale face sinking past him when he’d gone under.
He tried to shut the image out of his mind.
‘We need to get inside the Tower,’ said Jordan, who had evidently come to the same conclusion as Ed. ‘In the morning we can find food and water, but for now we need somewhere to get warm and dry and safe. We have to assume, though, that there’s already people inside. So be ready for a fight.’ He took off his glasses and wiped them clean. ‘If you all work together and do what I say, you’ll be all right. But just remember – I’m in charge. OK? DogNut here is my second in command directly responsible for my boys. That’s Ed over there. The one with the scar. He’s in charge of everyone else. You do what he says, he does what I say.’
‘Who says he’s in charge of us?’ said a short kid with thick arms and a fat neck.
‘I do.’
‘And who says you’re in charge?’
Jordan walked over to the short kid. He didn’t stare at him directly, but stood right next to him and looked out across the river at HMS Belfast. Somehow it was more intimidating than if he’d gone eyeball to eyeball with him.
‘Don’t argue with me,’ he said quietly.
‘Listen –’ said the kid, but Jordan cut him off.
‘So you want to be in charge, do you?’
‘Maybe?’
The short kid looked around for support. Nobody seemed keen to back him up.
‘Do you not think I’d better be in charge?’ asked Jordan. His voice low and steady.
‘Yeah, all right,’ said the short kid, and Jordan walked away.
‘I like him. I like his style,’ said Kyle quietly as he came over to stand next to Ed, still holding his fire axe. Then he raised his voice and addressed everyone else. ‘I ain’t got no problems with Ed,’ he said, and gave a big smile. ‘He knows what he’s doing. I saw him fight. This man is a maniac! Now, let’s get shifted. I’m freezing my bollocks off here.’
The castle was ringed by two walls: a plain outer wall, and a higher inner wall studded with round towers. The main entrance was via a large turreted gatehouse that was connected to the castle by a narrow walkway over the wide, dry moat.
The gates in the gatehouse were too big and solid to force but there were drainpipes up the outer wall of the castle and DogNut and Kyle volunteered to see if they could climb them. Jordan gave them the go-ahead and they vaulted the railings by the edge of the moat and then sprinted across the grass to the other side.
They stopped at the bottom of the wall and looked up.
‘What d’you reckon?’ DogNut asked.
‘No problem,’ said Kyle. ‘Used to break into houses all the time when I was younger. Race you!’
It proved to be quite easy. The two of them scrambled up the drainpipes and were over the top of the wall in less than a minute. It was another easy climb down the other side where they found the main castle gates unguarded and only secured with a metal bar.
They lifted the bar and five minutes later the kids were tramping into the Tower. Some of them had visited recently with their schools and they showed the party round to where there was another gateway through to the inner courtyard. There was a big open space here. Around the edges were various ancient castle towers and a mismatched jumble of redbrick, Tudor and Victorian houses. The oldest part, the White Tower, a tall square building with a turret at each corner, stood in the centre of the grounds on a low mound.
The kids assembled in an area to one side that felt like a village green with a chapel at one end and timber-framed houses at the
other.
‘Looks like there’s no one about,’ said DogNut.
‘Let’s find out,’ said Kyle, and before anyone could stop him he started shouting. ‘Oi! Wakey, wakey! Anyone at home?’
Jordan hurried over to shut him up.
‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘If there is anyone here, we don’t want to wake them up. We’ll lose the element of surprise.’
‘Why, what was you gonna do?’ asked Kyle with a mad grin. ‘Slaughter them in their beds? Cut their throats while they sleep?’
‘Makes no difference now,’ said Jordan. ‘Here they come.’
Figures were emerging from one of the houses. Ed had lost his rifle, but he still had his pistol in its holster. He was just about to slip it loose when he saw that they were only other kids, three unarmed boys and a girl, wrapped in coats, looking cold, sleepy and confused.
‘Who are you?’ said one of the boys with a yawn. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. He was tall and thin with sunken cheeks and a bad cough. ‘How’d you get in?’
‘Who’s in charge here?’ asked Jordan.
‘No one really.’ The boy shrugged.
‘What about Tomoki?’ said the girl.
‘Yeah, Tomoki, I suppose.’
‘Go and get him.’
‘What?’
‘Go and get this Tomoki,’ said Jordan. ‘I want to talk to him.’
‘He’ll be asleep.’
‘Then wake him up.’
‘I’ll go,’ said a younger boy, and he trotted off towards the timber-framed building.
The two groups stood there staring at each other. Ed was shivering and just wanted to go inside and get warm. But Jordan wasn’t moving.
‘How many of you are there living here?’ he asked the boy with the cough.
‘Dunno,’ he replied. ‘Maybe thirty?’
‘OK,’ was all that Jordan said.
In a minute the small boy returned with an older boy who had long straight black hair and oriental features.