'48

James Herbert

'48

For Kitty, who knew more than one Tyne Street.

Love and appreciation from us all...

1

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

My eyes snapped open and my head lifted an inch or so from the floor; a mess of thoughts stalled any sense.

I pushed the quilt I'd borrowed off my chest and an empty beer bottle rolled across the dusty carpet when my booted foot (I'd learned to sleep with my boots on) knocked it over. The glass made a dull clunk as it struck a tiny centre table. I raised my head another inch, my body tense, hearing now acute; I looked right, I looked left, I even looked up at the fancy ceiling. Early-morning sunlight flooded through the open half of the balcony doors, butting in on a gloom caused by boarded windows. A slight breeze tainted with the musk of decay drifted through with the light. I listened.

Cagney, who'd found a dark corner to nest in - he liked the shadows; survival came with low profile -

gave a mean growl, a soft rumbling that was warning rather than alarm. I brought up a hand to silence him and he obeyed; I could just make out the shine of his eyes as he watched me.

The quilt slid away when I leaned on an elbow and a sharp knife punctured the general ache inside my head, punishing me for the insobriety of the night before. There were plenty more brown bottles littering the floor around me, empty soulmates to the one I'd kicked over and counter-testimony to my long dislike of English beer. Skin scraped against jaw bristle as I wiped the back of my hand across dry lips.

Full consciousness arrived in a rush and then I was up, moving swiftly towards the light, crouched and quiet, ears and eyes alert for the slightest disturbance. I skirted the little round table and paused beside the open door to the balcony, keeping out of sight behind glass darkened by rotting blackout boards.

Despite the early hour a dry summer heat maundered through the opening, its soft breeze carrying dust motes from the damaged city outside along with its sourness. I snatched a quick look into the sunlight, ducking back again straight away. Then I took another, extended look.

The last barrage balloons hovered over the battered landscape like bloated sentinels. Much closer, directly opposite, the grey and grimed trio on the memorial plinth bowed their heads as if in shame, the words Truth, Charity and Justice now irrelevant. Save for metal litter, the broad, tree-lined avenue behind them was deserted.

What then? I'd chosen this billet because the balcony room offered a good view of anyone approaching the main entrance; it also gave me plenty of places to play hide 'n' seek in. The building was a warren of rooms, halls and corridors, a honeycomb of hideaways. It suited me fine.

But someone had discovered my sanctuary; the mutt wouldn't have growled for no reason. Maybe it was rats, skulking through the passageways, hardly afraid of humans any more. Or another dog, a cat maybe. But I didn't think so. Instinct told me it was something else. Instinct and Cagney I'd learned to rely on.

I didn't waste any more time.

The motorcycle was where I'd left it last night, carpet rucked up around its wheels. That was another thing I could rely on: a single-cylinder Matchless G3L, this one painted buff for desert warfare, only never shipped out. A survivor. Like me and the dog.

I moved fast, scooping up my fly-jacket from the floor and shrugging it on as I went. The added weight in the lining provided a small comfort. Out the corner of my eye I saw that Cagney was on his feet, ready for action, but waiting for me. His stubby mongrel tail was erect, expectant. Within seconds I'd pushed the bike off its stand, mounted it and was switching on. I kicked down on the starter, hard but smooth, sensing the machine the way you can if you 'know' them, if you love every working part, and the engine roared into life first go (I'd given this baby a lot of care and attention).

The wheels burned carpet as I took off, heading for the closed set of doors at the end of the room, doors that were just beginning to open.

I hit them hard and someone on the other side squawked blue hell as the heavy wood struck him. Paws grabbed at me as I shot through, but the Matchless was already too fast and all they found was empty air. Now I could smell 'em and believe me, it wasn't pleasant. One fool standing further back in the room jumped in front of me waving his arms like some demented traffic cop, so I swerved the bike and raised a boot. Groin or hip, I'm not sure which I made contact with, but he doubled up and swung round like a top, his whooshy grunt affording me some pleasure. Short-lived though, because the angle of the bike caused it to slide along the room's big rug, ruffling it up in thick waves. A few years' dust powdered the air as I fought to control the skid.

I lost it, though. The machine slicked away from me and I let it go, afraid of catching a leg underneath if we both went down together. I rolled with the fall, tucking in a shoulder and staying loose the way I'd been trained. I was up, crouched and ready before the bike had slithered into a fancy chest of drawers halfway down the chamber, ruining painted panels and gold carvings.

One of the intruders, his face ugly with dirt and aggression, came lurching towards me while his two pals behind the crashed doors tended their hurts. Cagney trotted into view and stood in the doorway, interested in how things were working out.

The Blackshirt, almost on me now, clutched an M1 carbine across his chest. Now either he was too crocked to aim the rifle, or he was under orders not to shoot me. I figured the second was most likely, because I knew by this time that his chief, Hubbe, would prefer me alive - my blood would be better warm and runny. You see, he had a crazy use for me. Real crazy. But then I guess only the crazies were left. The crazies and me. And who said I was sane?

Well fuck you, Hubble, you and your goons. Satan's hell-house would be cooler'n a penguin's ass before you took me alive.

Hubbe's stormtrooper caught the glint in my eyes and changed his mind about following orders. He began to swing the weapon towards me.

His action was sluggish though, as if he had to think about the move rather than just react, and it occurred to me he wasn't only dazed by the slam he'd taken, but by the effects of the Slow Death itself: there was a darkness around his eyes and smudges beneath his skin, bruisings that were never going to fade; and the ends of his fingers were blackish, as if the blood had jellied at his body's extremities. That didn't make him any less dangerous though, just a little slower.

My own weapon, a Colt .45 automatic, standard US issue, was in the holster I'd stitched into the lining of my leather jacket. Buck Jones might've made the draw, but I was no gunslinger. So I made the only move open to me.

I took a dive, rolling forward under the rifle barrel, head tucked in, legs curled up. As soon as my back hit the deck I kicked out with both feet, catching the goon in the lower belly and doubling him up. He almost fell on top of me, but I used my legs again to push him to one side. He gave a kind of honk and collapsed. I was on him before he had the chance to get his breath back, pushing the rifle towards him instead of pulling it away as he'd expected. The breech cracked against his jaw and his grip relaxed. In one swift action I wrenched the carbine from him and smacked the stock against the side of his face. His head snapped to the right and his body went limp.

I tossed the weapon aside and sprinted towards the Matchless. Cagney decided things were going pretty well and scampered from the doorway to join me, yapping his approval as he skirted the injured Blackshirts. I ignored his licks as I hauled the motorbike away from the wrecked cabinet, angry that my cover was blown, my regal refuge now useless. There'd be more of them around, searching for me, combing every room, every corridor, every damn nook and cranny, no matter how long it took.

I pulled the bike upright and swung a leg over. Voices came through from the balcony room I'd been using as a bivouac and I guessed Hubble's screwball army had been applying a pincer movement, working through the place from both sides. How the hell did they know I was here? I had the whole goddamn city - and there was plenty left still standing - to hole up in, yet he'd zeroed in on me. Shit luck.

Someone must've followed me or caught me sneaking in. With anger as much as fear I hit the starter hard, but this time the engine didn't kick in first time. Those voices were getting louder and the men I'd already tangled with, 'cept the one I'd poleaxed with the rifle butt, were rising to their feet and regarding me with hate in their hearts and caution in their eyes. I tried again, adding a cuss for luck, and the engine caught, the machine roared into life. Music to my ears.

Running footsteps next door, they'd heard the music too. Cagney took off without me, heading into the blue as if he were the prey. Well maybe he had a point - they'd shoot him just for the pleasure.

The motorcycle's front wheel almost reared up as I took off. I had to lean low over the fuel tank and use my weight to hold the bike to the floor as I fled the bad guys. There was a crack of gunfire from behind and the cobwebbed face of a tall pedestal clock ahead of me imploded. Sculptured figures, all dusty gilt, clung for dear life as the old timepiece reverberated with tiny jangly explosions. The marksman was either a shit shot or he wanted to unnerve me; maybe he was only warning others I was on my way.

I hurtled through the open doors at the end of the room and had to brake hard to avoid crashing through windows dead ahead; this was where the east face met the north wing. My left foot dragged floor as I brought the bike round in a skid that sent a small table and the ornate and no doubt priceless (but nowadays worthless) vase on its top flying. The vase shattered on the floor, but no one was going to complain.

Because of the blackout precautions, everywhere inside this place was gloomy, but enough light shone through chinks and cracks for me to find my way. I'd just entered the complex of private apartments and bedrooms so knew there was a stairway close by. Unfortunately it was too steep and narrow for the bike and I had no mind to try it on foot: speed was my ally, had been for some time now, y'see, and I had to stick to the escape route I'd already worked out. Besides, I'd be an easy target for anyone waiting to ambush me in the stairwell.

Another bullet whistled through the doors and thudded into the wall next to the windows; but I had the bike under control again and shot into the long corridor that would take me through the north wing.

Fortunately the place had been cleared of corpses and evacuated as soon as the main tenants - God rest their poor souls - had taken flight, so I didn't have to worry about rotting carcasses getting in my way. I opened up, roasting rug, spewing up dust, the engine's roar shaking the walls, filling the air. It didn't take long to reach the west wing and that's where the real fun started.

I'd been making for the main staircase, which I knew the Matchless could take easy enough, reducing speed along the way only to negotiate the trickier twists and turns, and I'd arrived at a long picture gallery where I could change up a gear, make better headway. I'd zipped past Rembrandts, Vermeers, Canalettos (I'd spent some time in this museum with its glazed arched ceiling and low viewing couches set around the walls, enjoying the brilliance before me but bitter, I guess, that these works of art now counted for zilch), when a figure leapt out from one of the several openings, halfway down on my left.

He only clipped my shoulder as I went by, but that was enough. I lost balance and slewed off at an angle, careering into one of the gallery's small tables, knocking it aside before running into a couch. I recovered enough to keep going, my right leg trapped between bike frame and seat, yelling as my pants ripped and my skin burned. I pulled away, picking up speed again, the gallery no more than a dirt track without soil to me.

But again I had to brake as three men appeared in the little lobby at the end of the hall, using the handbrake a split second ahead of the footbrake pedal and leaning hard so that the bike screeched to a clean sideways halt.

I sat there one or two moments, fists tight around the handgrips, holding the clutch lever, sweat soaking my forehead, running down my back. Vibrations from the machine's simmering engine ran through my body. The three Blackshirts watched me from the lobby, one of 'em grinning, knowing they had me trapped. They all carried firearms, but no one bothered to take aim. Their hair was short, cut military-style, and their shirts - black, naturally, although the effect spoilt by dust and creases - were tucked into loose black pants, the grimy uniform of arrogance, the cloth of annihilation. These sick degenerates still hadn't learned the lesson.

A shifting in the shadows behind them, and then another face, a woman's face, appeared at their shoulders. She grinned too when she sized up the situation.

I glanced to the left and saw the sap who'd tried to ambush me pulling himself up, disappointment souring his mug. Through the same entrance came another Blackshirt, this one thumping what looked like a pickaxe handle into the open palm of his hand, the dull thwack it made amplified by the long room's acoustics. The gleam in his eye and the twisted leer he beamed my way were anything but pleasant. Just to confirm the odds really were against me the sound of running footsteps came from the far end of the picture gallery. The vermin who'd started the chase arrived at the opening down there and they also took time out to consider the state of play.

I turned back to the four who were creeping out of the lobby. They stopped, as if my look had caught them put, and now all of them grinned as I sat there revving up the engine. They had me, they were thinking.

And then I grinned too and theirs faded away.

I took off, spinning the bike, swerving close to the wall, aiming straight at the luckless ambusher who'd only just picked himself up. His eyes widened, first in surprise, then in panic, as I hurtled towards him, the bike's roar deafening as it bounced off walls and curved ceiling. He managed to jump clear, throwing himself into the arms of his slack-jawed buddy, the axe handle trapped between their bodies. I was long gone before they'd had time to disentangle, veering left and disappearing through the opposite doorway to the one they'd used (luckily for me the gallery had more than its share of entrances and exits).

I was in a room whose main wall was one huge bowed window that, if it hadn't been for the blackout shades, would have overlooked acres of overgrown lawns and weed-filled gardens. Tall black pillars on either side of individual windows reached up to a vaulted and domed ceiling and over white marble fireplaces were big arched mirrors in plaster frames. (I'd taken all this in, you'll understand, on another day when my time was less occupied.) I kept the bike turning in a rough elongated semi-circle from my starting point, tyres screeching off a parquet flooring of rich woods, speeding up into the adjoining room, sure of the layout even in the dusky light. I straightened up, whipping past Corinthian columns, long velvet drapes, the breeze I was creating causing low-hanging crystal chandeliers smothered in cobwebs to sway; past blue and gold chairs, large paintings of ancient monarchs mounted on blue flock walls; past a marble and gilt bronze clock with three dials, a dark blue porcelain vase, a set of elaborate side tables, again all marble and gilt bronze; diverting round a circular single-pedestal table, before zooming through the open mirror doors into the next state room. (I knew exactly where I was headed because I'd had plenty of time to check out the whole set-up during my stay and, being naturally cautious, I had more than one escape route planned should the need arise, with certain doors deliberately left open to give me a clear run.)

What I needed was for those lunkheads to follow me rather than try to cut me off, because I was continuing the semicircle, the blue room itself parallel to the picture gallery they'd chased me from. I'd snuck a quick look to my left just before going through the doors into the grand dining room and observed that the small lobby which served both the gallery and the blue room was empty. Good. It meant they'd taken the bait - the Blackshirts were chasing instead of waiting.

Vases of withered flowers, an oval tureen, and tarnished silver ewers with cobweb sails trailing to the huge lacklustre tabletop said it all: Grandeur given over to decay. The dusty red walls and carpet gave me the sickening feeling of passing through a festering, open wound, and the cold eyes of long-gone royals framed by dull gold followed me all the way. These crazy notions were brought on, I guess, by adrenaline overload; but what the hell, they kept my senses kicking.

I began to brake again for the sharp turn I was gonna have to make, and almost stopped completely inside the smaller antechamber filled with large tapestries I found myself in. Shoving one of those over-elaborate kneehole desks out the way with my front wheel, I went on through to a short passage room, then foot-wheeled a left into another gallery. A wide descending stairway was at the far end and that was my goal. I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip as I raced past the usual collection of masterpieces, aware I was travelling too fast to take the stairs but disinclined to slow down - I knew my pursuers would second-guess me as soon as they heard the bike coming back their way. I braked hard at the last moment.

It was a bumpy ride, despite the fact that the Matchless G3L was one of the first British motorcycles to be built with hydraulically damped telescopic forks and the stairway itself was fitted with a plush red carpet all the way down; my arms were rigid fighting the acute angle, my butt barely touching the seat, every bone in my body jolted as I kept the rear wheel almost locked. Head juddering, bones rattling, I vented a staccato kind of wail (I'd never taken the stairs at that speed before), and then the bike was level for a piece and my wail pitched to a whoop of relief or triumph, I'm not sure which.

On either side, two arms of the grand staircase swept up to a balcony overlooking the next set of steps I was about to take, the doorway at the top leading to the long picture gallery where they thought they'd had me trapped; the Blackshirts had cut back and were pouring through that doorway. The lead goon just had time to raise his gun over the bronze balustrade and fire a wild shot before I opened throttle and took off, sailing over the second set of steps without touching one. My extended whoop came dangerously close to a scream as a bullet clanged off the bike's pannier rack.

The shock of landing nearly threw me off, but I rode the bounce, tyres scorching carpet as I braked and fought to keep the machine in a straight line. We screeched (yeah, bike and I) to a stop inches from the opposite set of rising steps in the great entrance chamber.

I grabbed a breath, then dug my heels into the deep pile, hauling the Matchless back to give me room to swing round. Shouts and footsteps behind told me the mob was descending the curved staircase.

Someone released a burst of fire that could only have come from a Sten gun and as I turned I saw holes puncturing paintings around the walls. Maybe the shooter was trying to scare me into surrender, or maybe he was just pissed off, as the British say.

I'd cleared enough space when I heard a yap from close by. I did a quick scan for Cagney, but he was nowhere in sight. Well the mutt could take care of himself - hadn't he let me grab all the attention while he'd sneaked down another way? I opened up again, and the Matchless spun a smart turn, scuffing the bottom step of the four leading to a marble hall beyond the entrance chamber. That was where Cagney finally showed, loping along the royal gathering place, avoiding the marble on either side of the red carpet which presumably was too cool or too smooth for his dainty pads. He lingered to wag his stumpy tail at me and I yelled at him to get the hell out. He took the hint and streaked past me towards the entrance doors.

My circle was taking me close to the staircase I'd just sailed over and the sight I caught was not an encouraging one: three of my pursuers were leaning over the stair rail aiming their weapons at me while still more scurried down behind them. The angle was too awkward for the marksmen and anyway, I didn't wait for them to get a bead on me. Their shots chewed carpet and chipped marble columns, but I was out of there, hunched over the handlebars, already passing through the entrance doors to the classy porch outside.

With my right foot scraping concrete, I skidded around the double portico's stone columns and was soon out in the open; left again and a quadrangle surrounded by the four blocks of the ancient building itself spread out before me.

Across the broad expanse of concrete and directly opposite the portico was a narrow archway, with even narrower pedestrian passageways on either side, leading through to the forecourt and open gates. In better times the ceremonial coach had used that archway, but now it was going to accommodate just one man and his dog. Cagney was already halfway across and I was catching up fast when I spotted the Bedford OYD tucked away in the far corner of the square. The army truck hadn't been there the night before, nor the night before that, so I figured the Blackshirts had arrived in it earlier that morning - a military vehicle suited their martial games just fine.

One of them, on his own and presumably the driver, straightened from the snub-nosed hood he'd been leaning against, his jaw dropping open, cigarette falling from it His weapon must have been inside the cab of the truck, because he was soon pulling at the driver's door. He'd guessed my intention and by now I was too committed to change direction. He heaved himself up into the driver's seat.

Cagney had already disappeared into the shadows of the arch (which, incidentally, was beneath the balcony room I'd holed up in for the past few days - I'd run full circle, you see) and I accelerated, anxious to join him.

The Bedford quivered as the driver started her up, and then began to roll forward. Yeah, he'd guessed my game plan all right and now I understood his: he was gonna plug the exit. Just to tighten things an arm appeared through the open cab window and the black metal of a gun barrel pointed my way.

Maybe I could have tried for a different route at the last moment, through a courtyard behind me on my right and out into the street beyond (the two other archways directly ahead were sealed by sandbags), but like I say, I was committed. Besides, that would've meant slowing down, then offering my back as a target; even if he'd missed with the first bullet, he'd have taken me with the second. No, there really was only one choice and anyways, I was already two-thirds across and going a pretty fair lick.

A bright flash of gunfire came from the truck and even over the noise of the bike's 347cc engine I swear I heard the thiddd of displaced air as the bullet passed by.

I rocked a little to spoil his aim, mighty glad that driving and shooting at the same time wasn't this particular hero's speciality. That small pleasure lasted no more'n a heartbeat -it was plain the truck was going to reach the archway ahead of me. Another shot cracked out, just as wild as the first one, but it struck metal; the blackout shield over the front light whipped away. I tried a fancy swerve, but with every second our common objective was drawing us closer together and soon he'd have a target he couldn't miss. I hissed a curse - I mean, the beginning of one - when the Bedford's hood moved across the first passageway; that curse changed to a rage-roar as the truck stole some of the archway.

The rattle of gunshots from behind reminded me the truck driver was not the only contender. A hail of badly aimed bullets flailed the wall ahead. The Blackshirts chasing me were too far away and maybe too excited to get off any decent shots as they came out of the double portico, but they sure as hell didn't help the situation any. Luckily they were keeping their fire to the right to avoid hitting the moving Bedford and from their angle truck and bike must've seemed pretty damn close. More puffs of plaster powdered off the wall beside the second passageway and at any moment - we're talking split seconds here - I expected to feel bullets thudding into my back.

Goddamn, the truck had covered the archway and the driver was slamming on his brakes to keep it that way. It slid onwards though, bellying across the passage. Another gunshot, the crack clear as a bell this time - hell, I was close enough to see the joy in the driver's eyes - and I felt leather rip at my shoulder.

No numbness, no pain - no real damage.

I twitched the handlebars, no more'n a shrew's shrug, as the hood closed the gap, knowing I couldn't stop now even if I'd wanted to.

I kept up the roar, jaw straining, eyes narrowed, hands clenched tight around the grips, bullets spewing into the wall above and beside the passageway, truck still sliding, the hand with the gun waving at me, the gap closing down, tighter, tighter -

And then I was through, elbow skimming along the truck's hood bar, leather sleeve on the other side scuffing plaster. I was in the cool shade of the short passageway, my roar hollow-sounding, and then I was out again in bright, glorious sunshine, tearing over the wide forecourt for the open gates, their gilded ironwork rotting to rust, the tall railings on either side worthless protection against the death that had claimed almost all, bloodline having no privilege over blood type.

Through the gates I sped, and around the old queen's memorial, past the statues of women and children I'd gazed at from the balcony room less than ten minutes ago, round to the other side where Victoria herself sat feeing the long, elm- and lime-lined Mall. I swear I could feel her mournful eyes on my back as I fled Buckingham Palace, heading for another sanctuary in the dead city. Half a century ago she'd been proud mother to a fabulous empire and a great country; now there was nothing left of empire and precious little of country. Better then those eyes were only of stone.

Gunfire broke the thought that was fleeting anyway. I had a straight run ahead of me and I took full advantage: the Matchless approached seventy and I knew I could coax more out of her.

If I was gonna lose those bastards behind me I'd have to.

2

ST JAMES'S PALACE and Clarence House to my left, the overgrown park and lake on my right Sally and me, we'd fed the swans in that park and laid together on the moist spring grass. But that was another lifetime, a different age, and this was now. Crazy that memories should override all other considerations, even at moments like this, choosing their own time, it seemed to me, with a mercilessness that suggested self-torture. But they were my link with the past, and the past was all I had left.

I avoided the few cars parked along the road, some of them askew, doors wide as if the drivers had skidded to a halt and attempted to flee before the Reaper finished his job. Probably there were bodies -

rotted corpses or loose suits of bones - still inside some of them, but I wasn't looking, I had other things in mind.

The mutt, his sandy-brown coat glistening damp gold in the sunlight, looked over his shoulder as he heard me coming up. He didn't break pace any, but seemed pleased to see me.

'Lose yourself, stupid!' I yelled at him as I drew level. 'Get off the road!'

I swerved into him to give him a fright and he veered away, making for a flight of stone steps leading off the main hike. I watched him go and returned my attention to the road just in time to avoid a Wolseley parked sideways across the Mall's centre. Its passenger window suddenly shattered inwards and the metalwork of its doors punctured as bullets tore into it. The shots were wild, but that didn't mean they couldn't get lucky. I straightened up, keeping the Wolseley at my back, using it as a temporary shield.

Those Blackshirts were acting like good ol' boys from down South out on a nigger hunt, rednecks on a roust, the local sheriff one of 'em. Back home we'd pretended that kind of bigot didn't exist - theirs was another state anyways, a foreign country almost - and when the news informed us otherwise, we'd be pretty damn certain some black buck had raped another white girl so he, along with all his blackass cousins, was getting exactly what he deserved. You might say these days my opinion on such things has changed a little, 'specially now I'd kind of taken the place of that black boy.

Admiralty Arch loomed up, sandbags piled high in front of the doorways and windows of buildings around it, red London buses and other vehicles clearly visible in the square on the other side. I kept the Matchless on a set course, building speed, putting distance between me and the truck behind. The roads through the arches had been narrowed some by barbed wire and guard boxes, but that was no problem for the bike -I was through in the blink of an eye and into the great square beyond.

With its loose jumble of immobile vehicles, Trafalgar Square looked like one of those frozen pictures you used to see sometimes on a movie screen, as if at any moment the action would start right up again and everything would get going, engines rumbling, car horns honking, people jerking into life. Last time Sally had brought me here - she was like an excited kid showing me the sights - the square and the sky above it had been full of grey pigeons; now even they were gone. The dry fountains with their silent sirens under Nelson's Column were surrounded by wooden barricades and where sections were broken or had fallen flat I could see brick shelters inside. I had it in mind to take refuge in one of them, or even hide behind a barricade, but as I dodged between cars, taxicabs and buses, something moving caught my eye.

I'd never quite worked out how many survivors Hubble had recruited into his Fascist army - the Blackshirts had always appeared in small groups before now - but had figured their numbers to be maybe a hundred or so, and today they seemed to be out in force. Right then another vehicle was heading towards me and from its camouflage marking this one also had to be military. I paused long enough to establish it was a Humber heavy utility, a four-door station wagon that could carry at least seven passengers over heavy terrain. Like the Matchless I was riding, it was probably intended for the North Africa Campaign but never made it overseas. The Humber was entering the square from the Strand and as I watched it nudged a black cab aside, then swung round a double-decker bus.

I took off in the opposite direction, weaving through the still traffic and catching a glimpse of the Bedford pushing its way past the barbed-wire barricades of Admiralty Arch as I did so. The Humber and the Bedford had to be in contact with one another by radio, maybe by one of those walkie-talkies, but I was confident I could outrun 'em both, the bike ideal for slipping through blocked roads and over debris. If it hadn't been for gasoline rationing during the war years, the roads would've been a lot more crowded, which would've suited me fine. No matter, I still had the advantage.

A bus poster wanted to know if I'd Macleaned my teeth today, while a board at the base of Nelson's Column said that England expected me to enlist today. I went on my way, steering around a quaint little English taxi that looked like an upright piano on wheels, its headlights masked to narrow crosses, and past a Dodge van with a loudspeaker mounted on its roof, then squeezing by a platform truck carrying huge casks of God-knows-what, all of these vehicles abandoned by their drivers and passengers three years before, Blood Death victims who had not understood what was happening to their bodies, why their arterial veins were suddenly hardening and swelling, becoming rigid beneath their skins, why their hands were darkening, extremities filling, why smaller veins were becoming engorged, bulging then popping beneath the surface, blood beginning to trickle, then stream, from every orifice, their ears, their eyes, their nostrils, their mouth, from their genitals, their anus, from the very pores of their body, not realizing that their main arteries had begun to coagulate, their body's clotting factors all used up by their major organs, the brain, the heart, the kidneys, causing instantaneous haemorrhaging and necrotic bruising elsewhere, their chests and limbs cramping with agonizing pain until their skin split and everything vital stopped functioning, their curiosity, their awe, their fear and panic lasting mere minutes because the Blood Death held no patience and no pity, each of them dying wherever they happened to fall.

Yeah, and they were the lucky ones - their horror was short-lived, literally, and their suffering only transient; although few in number, the really unfortunate victims took longer to die, some even years. And then there were the rest of us, the minority, those left to grieve.

I kept pushing on, blocking thoughts, concentrating on escape. The idea was to get lost in the dead city, then hole up in some dark place and wait. That was the idea. The reality was something else.

A black Ford was heading towards me from the direction I'd intended to take, making me wonder if Hubble had every exit to the square covered. It seemed in no hurry, but was making good progress anyway, dodging in and out of frozen traffic as if the driver was enjoying the caper. It disappeared behind a bus marked EVACUATION SPECIAL, then its roof appeared among the jumble of other car roofs, threading its way through, coming closer all the time. Someone behind me blasted their horn hard and mean, a signal to the others maybe that I was outflanked. It was easy to picture their grinning faces.

But the game was a long ways from over. I had two choices: I could either evade the approaching Ford, using other vehicles as shields against the potshots they were bound to take at me; or I could cut across the square itself.

There were no breaks in the barrier closest to me, but those boards looked fragile enough - several winters of wind, rain and snow, with no one around to maintain them, must have left them rotted and feeble. It didn't take long to make the choice.

I stood loose-legged on the footrests, helping the bike hop the kerb, then sat firm, shoulders hunched, head tow, as bike and I flashed past the bronze lions guarding the giant column holding the old one-eyed sailor. I hit wood and it offered minimal resistance, splintering into mouldered pieces, my speed taking me through too fast so that I only just missed the waterless fountain on the other side. I zoomed around one of the redundant brick shelters behind the barrier and, hardly slowing, I made for the broad set of steps that led up to the square's higher level, a road that ran past the great art museum, praying the Matchless would be able to take them, an insistent little voice inside my head telling me I was crazy, that those steps might not be steep, but they were hard, bone-breaking hard, with no carpet this time to soften the impact.

I stood on the "stirrups' again, pulling at the handlebars, trying, I guess, to coax the bike to fly. We hit the steps...

... too fast, too hard...

The Matchless rose up several of them, but the front wheel reared out of control, the handlebars bucking and twisting in my grip. We toppled backwards, machine trying for a backflip with me doing my best to dissuade it. I had no real choice though, I had to let go. The engine whined as I slid down the seat and tumbled back, away from the steps and falling machine, arms raised over my head to protect myself.

The bike keeled over, falling at an angle and hitting stone with a crash of metal. I rolled clear as it bounced down after me and, with a moan of engine and a jingling of busted parts, the bike settled in the space I'd just occupied. I knew better than to try and start it up again - it was finished and I was in even more trouble.

I forced myself to a kind of crouch, groaning at fresh pains in my left leg and back, but wasting no time on them. I hauled myself up those steps, using hands as well as feet, then round and up the next, lesser, flight, standing upright only when I was at the top.

More screeching of brakes told me what I really didn't want to know. The station wagon had turned up from the Strand, going the wrong way round the square, aiming to cut me off. Even as it rocked to a halt, doors were opening and black-garbed figures were piling out. One of them raised a rifle in my direction and I ducked back behind the parapet wall beside the steps, reaching inside my jacket as I did so.

I whipped back again, kneeling though, offering a smaller target, and sent off a shot towards them. They scattered, two of 'em taking cover behind a St John Ambulance van, three more scuttling back to the other side of their own vehicle. I broke cover, running low, gun hand pointing in their direction just to give them something to think about. They knew well enough not to take chances, so they kept out of sight, a head bobbing up occasionally to check on me. I sent another bullet their way to let 'em know they were behaving sensibly.

I didn't have much of a plan 'cept to keep moving, using all the cover available to me. A bullet whanged off metal close to my head and I almost dropped to all fours. Another shot shattered the windshield of a nearby taxi. Traffic on this side of the square was thin and I knew I'd soon be running out of cover. Some of the Blackshirts were growing bolder, slinking through metal alleyways like beads of oil through conduits.

A wide expanse of emptiness opened up ahead of me, beyond it the steps to the National Gallery, a museum that at one time had contained some of the world's finest and most valued works of art. Most of the paintings and sculptures had been shipped out to less vulnerable places than a building in the heart of war-torn London, although some had been returned when the battle (or so it was thought) was almost over, and I'd been in and out of there plenty of times, so knew it was a maze of rooms and corridors, just like the palace. I'd thought that one day it might come in handy as a means of escape; it looked like that day had come.

So there was my plan: get inside, lose these neo-Nazi clowns, find a way out on the north side. No problem -as long as I could make it inside without having my legs shattered by enemy gunfire when I sprinted across open ground.

I waited until the Blackshirts had discharged another volley before setting off again, firing back at them just as wildly, but maybe a bit more effectively. They kept out of sight, aware that any kind of wound could prove serious without the right medical attention, and medical attention was just what the whole fucking world lacked.

I pounded road, running towards the flight of steps leading up to the gallery's entrance, which was behind a facade of high pillars (the English liked their pillars). A ragged line of bullets raked the wall ahead of me and I fell back, losing balance and going down on my butt. I swung the Colt round, holding it with both hands, and returned rapid fire, sweeping the area from a sitting position, trying to at least scare the bastards if I couldn't kill 'em. Again, the ploy was effective - they hid, afraid to show an inch of flesh as glass exploded and metal punctured around them. Effective, that is, until the firing pin hit empty.

The clip was all used up and I couldn't reload sitting there in the middle of the road. I had to get into the shelter of the gallery before they realized I was theirs for the taking.

Ears deafened by gunfire, I scrambled to my feet and rushed the last few yards to the steps, stopping dead when I saw the figure watching me from the top.

Hubble had never been handsome, but I guess he had that arrogance of features that had some allure for the weak-minded. Pencil-thin moustache, beaky nose, he could have been a shorter version of his own hero; Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of England's very own Fascist party, a megalomaniac who'd spent most of the war years locked away in Holloway Prison. No, Max Hubble - Sir Max Hubble - was never handsome, but on this summer's morning he looked a thousand times more unattractive, as though he were only a short distance from death. His stance, once stiff-backed, shoulders squared, chin jutting, was now bent, shoulders hunched, jawline sunken into a loose neck. The swagger-stick he had once used for Field-Marshal effect had been replaced by a stout walking cane, which he used like a third leg, and the uniform - black shirt and jodhpurs tucked into knee-length boots - seemed two sizes too big for him. The smudges beneath his eyes, the drained paleness of his skin emphasized by patchwork areas of broken veins, the swollen darkness at the ends of his fingers, confirmed what I'd already guessed. The disease in him was accelerating.

We exchanged looks but nothing more. I understood the all-out effort to capture me that day.

I was Hubbe's last-chance saloon. His final throw of the dice. His only hope. That is, my blood was his only hope.

One of his men stepped from behind a large poster advertising a Myra Hess piano concert (a regular event at the gallery during the grimmest days of the war), just outside the entrance, carrying with him a portable radio transmitter. I guessed that Hubble had used the gallery as his HQ that morning, directing operations from there, trying to drive me in this direction. Well, it couldn't have worked out better for him.

Others emerged from the entrance and from behind pillars, a ragbag army of the damned. Jew-baiters, nigger-haters, corrupt in their minds and now corrupt in their bodies. These days they had someone else to hate. Me, I was their Jew and their Black all rolled into one.

Okay, I was stunned seeing Hubble standing there, sick and hunched up, but I hadn't lost all sense. I pointed the gun at them and they all ducked, including their leader, who practically sank to his knees. I hadn't forgotten the Colt was empty, but it seemed they had - unless they hadn't even noticed. Waving it in the air gave me the chance to start running again. I managed no more'n three, maybe four, steps though.

Bullets from a Sten gun bit into the road before me, forcing me to leap back, a hasty two-legged hop, arms in the air as if in surrender. I just caught sight of a Blackshirt launching himself from between two pillars of the entrance terrace above me, swooping like a bat from rafters, expecting me to cushion his fall. I sidestepped, but he caught my shoulders, bringing me down with him. He must've winded himself, but even so, he managed to get me in a neck-lock. He squeezed tight, attempting to choke me into submission.

First I used an elbow, driving it hard into his stomach, then, with the same arm, I clipped his face with the gun barrel, bringing it up like a smart salute. Spittle dampened my cheek and neck as he blew a forced breath, and his grip relaxed just enough for me to break free. I twisted, swiping him with the gun barrel once more so that all opposition left him. He collapsed sideways and I scrambled to my feet.

His friends were hurrying through the vehicle alleys and more poured down the gallery's steps, all of 'em hollering banshee-like, eager to get at me and teach me a lesson or two. So what if Hubble wouldn't let them kill me right off? I'd be dead sooner or later, and all in all, I think I preferred sooner. It looked like I'd have to force the issue.

I reached inside my jacket pocket for another clip, ejecting the used one from the automatic in my other hand as I did so. I noticed some of the Blackshirts were already pausing to lift their weapons and take aim. This was it, then, I told myself. The moment had been a long time coming, but I was more than ready. What was so good about living anyway?

A goon had already reached me as my hand came out of my pocket with the spare clip, screening me from the others. I regret to say it was a woman, hair cut nastily short, face and teeth smeared with grime, eyes red with shot blood vessels; regret, because I whacked her hard, fist wrapped around the metal clip, and I don't like hitting women, never have. Hell, I never had.

Her teeth broke under my knuckles and she crumpled without a murmur. Her place was immediately taken by another Blackshirt and I knew it would take more than a punch in the mouth to deal with this mean-looking bruiser. Yeah, we'd tangled more than once before and one time he'd even introduced himself. McGruder was his name and he was Hubble's first-lieutenant or captain of the guard, or whatever fancy and meaningless title Hubble had bestowed upon him. He was tall, six-three or more, built like an ox and, as far as I could tell, a long way off from the Blood Death. Big hands reached for me.

I moved back against the terrace wall, afraid to take my eyes off him, Colt and new clip of ammo still separated because of the previous distraction. By staring into his eyes I seemed to be delaying the final rush; taking my gaze away to reload would break whatever goddamn spell we were both under. He, and the others, drew closer.

The black Ford I'd seen earlier came out of nowhere, tyres squealing, brakes screeching, one of its four doors open wide so that it hit the big man with a force that sent him sprawling. I caught sight of two faces peering out at me from the open car door and a female voice yelled:

'What are you waiting for? Get in, you daft bloody ape!'

The passenger, a man, had already slammed his door shut again but was indicating the rear door through the open window. The scattered Blackshirts were already moving in, some of them thumping on the Ford's triangular hood with their guns and fists.

'Get bloody well in!' came the woman's voice again and I guess it was her cursing that shocked me out of my stupor.

I yanked open the rear door and the Ford immediately took off, giving me a split second to hop onto the white-painted running board. I looped an arm through the lowered front window, gun still held tight in that hand, the other quickly tucking the clip into my pants pocket before grasping the top of the open door, and hung on for dear life as the Ford's rush dispersed the Blackshirts again. A hand reached out from inside the car, grabbing my belt and trying to pull me in. That became more difficult as the Ford gathered momentum and the open door pressed against me, trapping me on the running board.

One of the goons had decided to stand his ground and I groaned when I saw him raising his Sten gun as we sped towards him. It was a stupid move on his part, taking his time to get a bead on me when he should have shot from the hip, because the car was on him before the gun was even chest-high.

Self-preservation gave me the strength to push the door wide again and it caught the Blackshirt straight on, lifting the Sten and sending him spinning round, bullets spraying the air and busting the top windows of a nearby bus. The door's recoil crushed my chest, the sudden pain causing me to drop my right arm and lose hold of the Colt. It fell somewhere inside the car.

'Will you get in here!' came the woman's voice again, frustration more than anger giving it its pitch.

Instead I almost lost my grip and tumbled into the road as she steered onto a kerb to avoid a truck blocking the way. I forgot my own manners, aiming a cuss at her that would've turned her cheeks red under any other circumstances. I hauled myself up and threw myself onto the back seat, the door slamming shut behind me of its own accord. Wheezing from the pain in my bruised chest, I sprawled across the lap of the other person sharing the back seat with me, the owner of the hand that had grabbed my belt moments earlier.

I noticed her sweet scent first, and then her gentleness as she tried to hold me steady. Breathing hard and shaking some, I looked up into her shadowed face. Her smile was as sweet as her perfume, and kind of, well, demure too. Leastways, that's how it struck me. A line of sunlight through the window on her side shot sparkles of gold through her light brown hair.

The car bumped again as it left the kerb and I was jolted against her small breasts. Just as quickly I was pitched back into the other corner. The girl held on to the front seat, looking ahead over the driver's shoulder, her face anxious.

As I steadied myself I took note of my fellow travellers. Oddly, the man in front of me wore a brown trilby and a tweed jacket despite the heat of the day. His attention was on the road ahead too, so there was no chance to catch his features. I noticed, though, that his straggly hair (with no barber shops around any more we all had bad haircuts, although I kept mine reasonably short with sharp scissors and guesswork) did not quite manage to cover the burn scars that fingered their way up the back of his neck from beneath his shirt collar.

My angle was better to take in the woman - the girl -driver, and as I studied her she threw a quick glance my way.

'Who are you?' she said, her voice raised, but no longer shouting. Her accent was pure London, but not from the smarter end.

Before I could answer, something - debris of some kind, I guess - struck the windshield, cracking the glass. The girl wrenched the steering wheel round, hissing something tight and nasty as she did so, and the Ford executed a squealing curve into the broad, littered and ruined street that was the Strand. Past taped shop windows we sped, avoiding small craters or foetal bundles that were carcasses in the roadway.

Bullets thunked into metal behind us and I felt the girl beside me flinch. I took a peek out the rear window and saw the Bedford truck was back in the game; the Blackshirts in the rear section had lifted the front flap of the canvas roof so that they could lean on the cab's top and take potshots at us. Luckily, the metal-encased spare tyre fixed to the Ford's trunk was taking most of the strikes.

'And just who the hell are those people?'

The driver wasn't looking my way - she was too busy avoiding a Griff Fender removal van and a Shank's open-back truck that had collided with one another years before and had remained locked together ever since, blocking most of the road's centre - but there was no doubting who she wanted answers from. Before I could say anything a bullet shattered the rear window, whistling between the heads of me and the girl I shared the back seat with and finishing the job on the windshield in front. I pulled her down into my lap and crouched over her. The driver let loose some more curses as fresh air rushed through the car.

'We'd have pinched an open-top if we'd wanted the wind in our hair,' I heard her shout over the noise.

'Keep going!' I advised, my own voice a little louder than hers.

She said something that I didn't catch.

' Isaid, any idea where we should go?' she yelled when I leaned close and pressed her.

'Keep heading east. We'll lose 'em if you can pick up speed.'

'Hey, you a Yank?' She risked a glance over her shoulder, and I got a better look at her face.

Her eyes were a hazel-brown and she was pretty enough, although the thinnest of scars cut diagonally across her cheeks, rising over the bump of her nose. Her lips were unrouged, but still nicely shaped, and her jawline was firm, indicating some stubbornness in her nature. Her dark hair, curling over her forehead, was tucked neatly into a snood at the back of her head. Why I was noticing these things about the two women at this point of time, I had no idea; maybe I'd spent too long on my own and their effect on me was overriding more urgent considerations. I don't know; but that's how it was though.

'Watch the road,' I told her and she turned away, only just managing to pull round a two-toned Austin.

When she'd straightened up again, I said, 'D'you have any weapons?'

At that time I had no idea of what had happened to my Colt.

Now the man with the trilby, its brim slouched low and shading his eyes, craned his neck to look at me.

He shook his head, saying nothing, and his appraisal was cool.

'Why would we need weapons?' the girl driver called out 'The war ended three years ago.'

I didn't answer her. We were passing the narrow street that served as forecourt to the Savoy and I was tempted to tell her to pull into it. We could have left the car and run through the hotel to its riverside entrance, easily picking up another vehicle parked on that side (I kept several there, keys in the ignitions).

It might have been too risky though: our pursuers were close and probably would've caught up with us on foot. Besides, the Savoy was one of my 'home bases' - I had my own grand apartment right up there on the third floor overlooking the Thames - so I was reluctant to bring the enemy so close to a sanctuary.

Better to lose the Blackshirts before going to ground.

We passed blitzed buildings, some of them destroyed by the Luftwaffe's bombs, others ruined later by gas explosions and electrical wires burning, still more by fallen cigarettes, lighted candles, or any manner of domestic accidents caused by victims of the Blood Death dropping dead in their tracks. The damage to the city was not yet over: gas mains still blew, waterpipes continued to burst, and bomb-hit buildings still toppled long after they'd been struck. London was a dangerous place, even without this army of lunatics roaming the streets.

Strangely, no epidemics had spread after that black day of Vergeltungswaffen - vengeance - despite all the rotting corpses left lying around, but maybe that had something to do with the nature of the Blood Death itself and its effect on human and animal body systems. An attempt to clear up the place had been made by those who had the Slow Death (and didn't realize it) until eventually even they were gone.

Leaving just the crazies behind.

Oh, and there was one other danger, but that hadn't happened for a little while, so maybe it was over.

We entered the Aldwych, the gutted shell that had been St Clement Danes just visible beyond the logjam of traffic ahead.

'Swing left!' I ordered, checking on our pursuers as I did so. The Humber station wagon was catching up with the Bedford truck, but both were having a tougher time than the smaller Ford finding their way through the tangles behind us. The girl did as she was told, sweeping round into Kingsway, tyres bumping over tramlines. She had to reduce speed to work round a huge crater in the road.

I turned in surprise as the girl next to me spoke, her voice quiet but easily heard now that we were travelling more slowly.

'Are you the same as us?' she said.

I knew immediately what she meant. The man in front looked at me again, his eyes full of interest beneath the brim of his hat, and the driver stopped muttering curses for a moment to hear my reply.

'AB negative? Yeah, I'm one of you,' I said.

'Well, welcome to the club.' The driver tossed me a quick grin. 'And how about these loonies chasing us?'

I shook my head. 'Slow-dying. They're finished, but they won't accept it'

'Is that why they're pissed off with you? Yknow - why them and not you?'

Once more I was a little taken aback by her language -girls in Wisconsin are not, were not, quite as loose-lipped -although it didn't seem to bother her companions. Probably they were used to it

'They seem to think I can do them some good. At least, their leader does. When you come to the traffic lights up ahead, go right. Keep heading east'

'He wants you as a guinea pig, to do tests?' It was the girl next to me who spoke.

'No. He wants me as a refill.'

'Blood transfusion?' It was the man in the hat and I thought I detected an accent Polish? Not French.

Maybe Czech.

'Yeah. He's a fool.'

'But they tried, they proved it could not work. Blood types do not mix.'

'He refuses to believe it.'

The foreigner shook his head in pity, in disbelief, I don't know which. The car lurched and I wedged myself in, one arm against the back of his seat, the other against my own.

'Where you've come from,' I said to the girl next to me, 'were there many of you?'

She wore plain utility clothes. A pale blue dress with puffed shoulders, brought in by a belt at the waist, no stockings, brown shoes that were sensible rather than stylish. On her it all looked good.

'Not too many. AB negative is rare.'

Yeah, I know it, I thought. Too goddamn rare.

The driver, still carefully guiding the car around obstacles, cut in. 'They took us away to a secret location after the plague struck and they discovered our type wasn't affected. It was down in Dorset, a sanatorium of some kind. They did tests, all kinds of things, trying to find an antidote for everyone else, but they failed. I suppose they were doing the same all over the country - all over the world.'

I watched her profile. I guess I expected tears, but none appeared.

'Most ABnegs took off,' she went on, 'when what was left of the medical staff started dying.' For a few moments she concentrated on squeezing through the middle of two tram-cars stopped adjacent to each other on the broad street, then she said, 'Hey, what's your name? As we seem to be saving your life it's only right we be introduced.'

'Hoke,' I told her.

'Hi, Hoke. Anything to go with that?'

'Eugene Nathaniel.'

'Christ, you Yanks. Okay, I'm Cissie and the beauty sitting beside you is Muriel. Muriel Drake.'

Despite her anxiety, Muriel managed another smile.

'And the chap in front of you is Willy,' she said. 'We picked him up when we found him hiking along a lane after we left the sanatorium. Only it's not really Willy, is it, Willy?'

He, too, managed a smile, but it was stiff, no warmth to it. He had a strong face, a prominent nose that I think must've been broken at some time, and eyes that looked beyond your own, eyes that kind of rummaged around inside a person's head, maybe seeking out their own information.

'No,' he said. 'My name is Wilhelm Stern.'

The w sounded like a v and there was almost an h between the s and the t .

'German?' My voice was soft.

He nodded, and now his scrutiny of me had retreated, had drawn back swiftly, a flicker of alarm in his eyes.

I lunged forward, grabbing his neck with both hands, thumbs digging in, trying to join with the fingertips on the other side. He pulled away and I went with him, leaning over the back of his seat, jamming his head against the dashboard. His own hands tried to grab my wrists, but the angle was awkward, and I felt the girl called Muriel tugging at my shoulders, trying to haul me off him.

The driver, Cissie, struck out at me, battering my head with her fist 'Leave him be, you bloody fool! It's all over now, there's no point!' she yelled.

It was no use though - in my hatred I was oblivious to either blows or entreaties.

Stern fought back, but I had the advantage. He pushed at me, but could get no leverage, while Cissie continued to beat my head and arms, now with the heel of her fist.

In her rage Cissie was paying more attention to me than the road ahead and the Ford hit something, something solid and immovable - maybe another tram - and we were spinning round, screeching a dry skid, engine whining while the tyres burned off rubber. Then we struck something else and the girls screamed and I shot forward, losing my grip on the German, hurtling through the broken windshield, taking whatever glass was left with me. I sprawled on my back on the Ford's long, triangular hood, the rest of the world spinning round me, too soon to know if I was hurt and too dazed to care. Then I slithered off the hood and down the white-painted fender, a slow-motion drift that ended on the road's hard surface. I was vaguely aware of doors opening and legs gathering around me. One of them kicked me, but it wasn't vicious enough to do any damage; more likely it was meant to rouse me. I blinked, more than once, and saw Cissie glaring down at me.

'You stupid bastard,' she said, more in pity now than rage. 'I told you, the war's over. We can't go on killing each other any more.' Her eyes were softened by the beginning of tears.

The other girl, Muriel, knelt close to me. 'Are you all right?' She touched a hand to my shoulder.

Stern, the goddamn Kraut, was pointing my own gun at me.

I struggled to get up, anger beginning to replace dizziness. I feebly attempted to reach for him, but Muriel shoved me back down against the crashed car. Her voice was quiet though.

'It isn't worth it, don't you see? Your kind of hatred brought us to this.'

My hand was shaking as I stabbed a finger towards the German. 'No, it was his kind of madness.' My words seemed to be squeezed from my chest.

'My friend, if we do not get away from here right now, it will be their kind of madness that will kill us all.'

Stern waved the gun in the air, indicating the general area behind us.

'Oh my God, they're almost here.' Cissie bent down and started pulling at my arm. 'We ought to leave you here, you big dope.'

Muriel tugged at the other arm and I was up, looking over their shoulders at the advancing vehicles. The Humber was having difficulty squeezing through the gap left between the two trams further down the road, while the Bedford truck was closer, but having problems with a lamppost on the kerb it had just mounted. The truck scraped by though, and began to gather speed again, the gunmen leaning on the cab roof pointing excitedly when they saw we were easy prey.

Parts of me were beginning to hurt like hell, my body by now having accumulated a fair share of cuts, bruises and plain hard knocks; no bones broken though, nothing seriously torn - even where the bullet had ripped the shoulder of my leather jacket there was only grazed skin - so I knew I could function okay. I was still a little dazed, a bit numbed, but it wasn't a problem. I quickly scanned the immediate area, searching for another vehicle to get us away from there, and all I saw was a jumble of snarled wreckage. There'd been a mighty accident here at some time, no doubt caused by panic when the population of London had tried to flee the Blood Death. We might have made our way through, found a car on the other side, hopefully with the key still in the ignition, but the Bedford was almost on us, its occupants whooping with glee. We were shit out of luck.

And then I knew what we had to do. And I felt the blood drain from my face. And my hand was shaking a whole heap more than before when I raised my arm and pointed.

3

MURIEL WAS WATCHING ME as the others turned in the direction I was pointing. Our eyes locked and a faint line appeared in her otherwise smooth brow. There was a question in her gaze.

It was Cissie who put the question though. 'The Underground? You want us to go down there?'

Stern was looking puzzled too.

They'll never follow us,' I said, already moving towards the entrance.

'Of course they will,' Cissie snapped back. 'And then well be trapped.'

I paused, taking in all three of them. 'Believe me, they won't come after us.'

A crash of metal against metal as the Bedford barged past a black Austin, tearing off the little car's white-painted fender in the process.

'If you want to stay alive, get moving!' I yelled, and I guess the urgency - and the fear - in my voice convinced them. A single gunshot from the approaching truck was the only other encouragement they needed. They ran, following me.

Although limping slightly, I was in no serious pain, and was soon inside the cool, twilight ticket hall of Holborn Underground Station. I let the others pass me and took a peek out into the street. The army truck was only twenty yards or so away, now pulling to a screeching halt. I ducked back into the shadows and made my way towards the ticket office, stepping over dark shapes lying there in the half-light, ignoring them and hoping my new acquaintances were doing the same. The ticket office was a solitary booth erected in front of the opening to the escalators and as I reached for the door I called out:

'Grab a mask each. You're gonna need 'em.'

The two girls just gawked at me as I yanked open the door, but Stern had caught on; he'd already picked up a small cardboard box from the floor and was busy opening it. He pulled out a gas mask and handed it to Muriel. As I went into the booth he was looking around for more.

A suit of bones sat slumped on a high stool inside the ticket booth, the skull with its leathery skin and empty eye sockets resting sideways on the narrow counter in front of it, thin, mummified hands stretched towards the small pay-window as if reaching for fare money. Long strands of greyish hair hung loose from the tan-coloured head and yellowed dentures lay on the shelf at the entrance of the open mouth, this itself guarded by the few remaining teeth, exposed and gumless, like crooked tombstones before a black vault. I was glad the light was poor, everything muted, hard to see.

I'd expected the stench to be worse, but I guess the corruption had run its course long before, the smells of that decay slowly fading, escaping through the ticket window and vents, until only a staleness remained, unpleasant, cloying, but no big deal. I'd say this ticket clerk had been one of the lucky ones: the Blood Death had hit him fast, killing him where he sat while others fled around him, so that the booth had become his personal mausoleum, his solitary, unviolated sepulchre. His mouldering had been his own private affair.

It didn't take long to find what I was looking for. I knew the clerk would have kept a flashlight or lamp close at hand for emergencies and, of course, the Blackout itself. It was a heavy chrome flashlight and I found it in a small corner cupboard just inside the door. I wasn't surprised when I flicked it on and nothing happened. Okay, new batteries. I started pulling out drawers, opening more cupboards, and soon found a whole box of unwrapped Ever Readys. It took only seconds to eject the old ones from the flashlight and push in the new, and I held my breath as I switched on. A dim circle of light appeared at the other end of the ticket office and I let my breath go in a quick sigh of relief: the batteries were weak, but they'd do. I was out of the booth and shoving the flashlight into the German's hand in an instant.

In the street outside I could see the Bedford truck, Blackshirts jumping down into the road from its back.

'Gimme the gun,' I barked at Stern and for a second he pulled away, holding the Colt out of reach, the flashlight in his other hand.

'It's not loaded, for Christ's sake!' I grabbed it from him.

By the time the first Blackshirt had reached the kerb just yards from the entrance I'd inserted a new clip and fired off a warning shot. The Blackshirt, and the others following him, ducked instinctively and changed direction, spreading out to take cover behind the walls beside the entrance. Because the Underground station was on a corner there were two accesses, and I hoped they wouldn't have the sense to use the second, smaller one to our right. Two flanks I didn't think I could handle.

'Take the girls down!' I shouted, indicating the escalators behind the barriers. 'Get 'em in the subway and wait for me there.' I gave the Blackshirts another blast to keep them occupied.

'Come with us,' begged Cissie as Stern began pushing her and Muriel towards the escalators.

'Soon as I can!' I shouted back, then dodged behind the booth to fire off another couple of shots. The Blackshirts started to return fire, but they weren't taking time to aim, afraid of exposing themselves for more than a split second. Funny thing when you're living on borrowed time, as these goons outside were

- life becomes even more precious. I knew they weren't going to rush me, that I could hold 'em there for a while; but sooner or later they'd figure a way to flush me out.

I took some well-spaced potshots, just enough to keep their heads down without wasting ammunition, giving the German and the girls time to get downstairs (hoping they'd have the nerve to carry on once they realized what they were descending into). After that I'd have my own problem: making a break for it with no one to cover me.

Well, that problem kind of solved itself.

It happened fast, and it happened without warning. One minute the Blackshirts were keeping out of sight, taking turns to spray bullets my way, filling the ticket hall with thunder, the next the black Humber Estate was roaring through the entrance, hurtling towards me, guns blazing from its side windows like in one of those gangster movies.

I backed away fast, firing from the hip, turning when the Humber crashed into the ticket office and limping towards the barriers, leaping over the nearest rail, using my left hand for support, barely breaking stride on the other side. The Humber had lurched sideways when it hit the solid booth, swinging round and throwing its passengers against one another. Its bodywork hid me from more Blackshirts pouring through the entrance after it, giving me time to reach the top of the frozen stairways.

I didn't need to look to know what lay on those stairs -I'd used another subway as a means of escape almost three years ago and had never wanted to repeat the experience. I also knew the Blackshirts wouldn't follow me down there -they didn't have the balls for it. But the human debris that littered the escalator - all those dead, rotted corpses of men, women and children who'd tried to flee the Blood Death, thinking that the disease, the toxins, the chemicals, the goddamn visitation, whatever it was that Hitler had sent over in his revenge rockets, would never reach them in the tunnels beneath the city - I knew they'd be blocking the stairways, that they'd perished as they ran, and their skeletal limbs would now snag me as I went by, their heaped bodies would bar my way, forcing me to stumble through or to climb over them, giving the gunmen above time to find me in the darkness with a lucky bullet, or a hail of lucky bullets, and slow me down for good. So I forgot about taking the stairs.

I leapt up onto the centre ramp between the escalators and slid down on my butt, kicking aside any stiffs slumped over the rail as I went, gliding down like a kid on a sleigh, slowing myself by grabbing the middle lamp columns, controlling the descent just enough to keep me from taking a tumble.

Below I could see the dim light of the flashlight, the others waiting for me, the German having horse sense enough not to direct the beam at me. Glass from one of the dead lamps exploded as I swept by, showering me with fragments, and the light at the bottom of the stairs instantly vanished. I hoped Stern hadn't been hit (I had my own plans for him), but had taken the two girls into the safety of one of the platform entrances. I lost control then, plummeting faster than I could cope with, my trunk trying to overtake my legs so that I began to turn. More bullets split the air, keeping me company, but I must have been just about invisible as I slid further into the blackness. The automatic was back inside my jacket holster, where I'd shoved it before the ride, and I clamped a wrist against it as I began to spin off the ramp. The next thing I knew I was falling, toppling off the slide and onto the stairs, soft (but brittle) things there breaking my fall, cushioning the rest of my uncontrolled descent.

Probably I cried out -I don't recall - as I tumbled down, rolling onto things that seemed to collapse at my touch, until I arrived at the bottom in an avalanche of corpses.

I lay there, breathless and dizzy; and horrified. Something scratchy brushed against my cheek and I didn't like to guess what. The thought came to me anyway and I panicked, thrashing out at the darkness, pushing the dried husk away and kicking at anything within kicking distance. The smell whacked me then, and I choked, gagged, fought back the swelling nausea. Until I realized it was all in my mind.

Sure, the air down there in that huge mausoleum was foul, but it had more to do with staleness than rotting bodies. The corruption had run its course, you see, and the corpses had deteriorated as much as they ever would under these dry and stagnant conditions. When I'd first ventured into one of these places it had been in the early months after the holocaust and the dead were still decomposing, the stench unbearable; I should have understood by now that once the organs and internal body tissue have putrefied and finally disintegrated, there's little else that can happen - the body can only become a mummified shell. No, the stench had been in my mind, what I'd expected. And the horror was not in the atmosphere, but in the presence of so many cadavers gathered together in this black void.

'Hoke. Can you hear me? We are over here.'

It sounded like the German's voice, but it was muffled, distorted by the gas mask the speaker was wearing. The light, dim and comfortless, was coming from a passage not far away.

'Are you hit?'

Ignoring him, I picked myself up and, still crouched, peeked over the curved stair rail at the light from the top of the escalators. Bright flashes and ear-deafening explosions sent me scrabbling towards the light, the sounds amplified by the tiled walls. Vague heaps on the floor did their damnedest to trip me as I went and other bundles I knocked into, carcasses locked tight in sitting or kneeling positions, toppled over to lay there in those same attitudes of rapid death. Bullets ricocheted off walls or found softer targets around me and, with only a few feet to go, I took a desperate dive into the passageway where the German and the two girls were hiding. I lay there sprawled and gasping bad air and would have stayed that way a lot longer if Cissie hadn't knelt beside me and pulled at my shoulder She said something, but it was difficult to understand because of her mask. She tried again and I shook my head.

'No, they didn't hit me,' I told her. I heaved myself up and the effort seemed to be getting harder each time I made it.

The light, weak though it was, hurt my eyes and I pushed the flashlight away. In its beam I could make out more bodies filling the passageway and I wondered if the girls would have the nerve to journey among them. Even though the stench was nowhere as bad as I thought it would be, I decided not to tell them they didn't need the masks. Their vision would be restricted through the lenses, especially in this poor light, and the gas masks might even make them feel insulated from what lay around them. I had no idea if my thinking was correct, but what the hell, it didn't matter.

'Let's get away from here, fast as we can,' I said to Stern, taking the flashlight from him. Like before with the gun, there was some resistance, but it was minimal and quickly over.

'Are they following us?' he asked, his mask, with its stubby filter unit and big circular eye-pieces making him resemble a creature from another world.

'No, they won't come down here,' I said, looking at the two girls.

'How can you be sure?' His voice was distant behind the mask, but his anxiety was plain enough.

'Maybe they're afraid of ghosts,' I replied. Stupid. The girls clutched each other. 'Come on,' I added hastily, let's get away from the noise.'

In fact, the Blackshirts had already given up shooting, although we could hear their shouts, hollow and mocking, drifting down and finding us where we hid. I moved on, the others in tow, negotiating a passage through the tangled heaps and ignoring the noises from behind us. We soon came to a steep stairway, more bodies strewn over the steps.

'Where are we going?'

The question might have come from Muriel, but it was difficult to tell with the masks. Besides, I was ahead of them, concentrating on finding space for my feet on the steps. For the moment I didn't want to answer her.

When I reached the bottom I shone the light back at the trio, keeping it at their feet so they could find a way through. A leathered head, shrunken and brown, seemed to follow their passing with empty eye sockets; an arm, only remnants of dried gristle clinging to its hand and wrist, slithered down a step or two, disturbed by their progress, a single grey finger pointing the way. I tried to keep these sights from them, but they needed the low light so they wouldn't trip, wouldn't fall headlong into the human garbage around them.

Cissie was in the lead, sensible flat-heeled, crepe rubber-soled shoes shifting through the debris, arms raised and fists clenched for balance. For the first time I noticed she was wearing dark slacks - blue, I think - and that while not as slim as the other girl, her figure was trim enough, attractive even. Jesus, I had been too long on my own - this was hardly the moment for that kind of appreciation. I guess I must have lost concentration, because the light wavered and Cissie lost her footing. With a tiny yelp she came toppling towards me.

I caught her easily and held her there in my arms until her panic subsided. She held on to me too and seemed reluctant to let go.

She touched my face. 'Why aren't you wearing a mask?' she asked, voice muffled and eyes vague behind the misted glass of her own mask.

I made a decision. It'd be tougher for them, but we'd all make better headway if they could see more clearly. 'You can take your gas masks off,' I said, pulling her aside so that I could direct the beam back onto the stairs. I still held on to her with one arm.

'What did you say?' Muriel was frozen there in the light

'I said you can take off the masks,' I repeated more loudly.

'But the.. .' Cissie shook her head.

'It isn't so bad. These bodies decomposed a long time ago.'

She pulled off her mask and stiffened when she breathed in the stale, tainted air. The snood at the back of her hair had come loose with the mask and she pulled it away entirely, shaking her head so that her locks swung free around her face. By the time Muriel joined us, Cissie had become more used to the atmosphere; or at least, had become less tense. Fortunately, beyond the circle of light from the flashlight it was too dark for her to take in very much. Muriel tugged off her mask as well and I watched her face wrinkle as she gasped in the air.

'Some light would be helpful.' The German, his gas mask already removed and hanging by his side, was watching us from midway down the stairs. He came down swiftly when I swung the beam in his direction.

Close to me, he said: 'What is your plan? Do we wait here until they are gone?'

His English was almost perfect, but again that v instead of a w, so aggravatingly consistent, had the muscles in my chest tightening, my anger boiling towards eruption. I barely held it in check.

But it wasn't only hatred for this German, this relic of the Master Race, that kept me silent I didn't want to make decisions for these people. I was too used to being on my own, making choices for myself (Cagney was of an independent kind of nature). I didn't want anyone depending on me.

'Hoke, come on, tell us what we should do.' Cissie was tugging at my jacket.

I mentally cursed them for coining into my life, even though they'd saved it 'We could wait them out,' I said finally, 'or we could go into the tunnels.'

'No!' Muriel's reaction had a lick of hysteria to it 'We can't go any further. I won't. The platforms...'

We all knew what she meant

'I'm with her,' Cissie agreed. 'God, this is bad enough, but what else could be in there?' She indicated the platform entrance.

Only plenty more of the same, I was about to say when something happened that took away any choice.

From a distance, up the stairs and back along the passageway, there came the sound of breaking glass instantly followed by a kind of muffled whoomph. Then another same sound, smashed glass followed by that shushed explosion of air. As soon as a bright orange glow lit up the top of the stairs I knew what those sounds were.

'They're using gasoline bombs,' I said almost to myself.

The Blackshirts had tried to flush me out before with these home-made bombs of bottles filled with fuel, a rag stuck into the neck, then set alight, but I'd always been lucky - and too fast. They'd either made them quickly, scavenging bottles from the street or shops, syphoning off gasoline from fuel tanks of vehicles, or they'd brought the cocktails ready-made with them. I thought I heard their taunts, their voices carrying easily down the funnel of the stairway, but the fire had already taken on its own life, passing from one dried husk-like body to the next, incinerating each one as it went along, its muffled roar coming our way. Popping sounds reached us, sharp, explosive reports, as bones cracked and gases ignited. The fire had an abundance of fuel to feed on, a trail of kindling that led directly to us.

'Okay, there's your answer,' I told them. 'We can't stay here.'

'But where can we go?' Cissie wasn't fooling anybody -we all knew where.

'Like I said, into the tunnels.'

I turned away, tired of the argument It was their decision now.

A huge billow of black smoke swept down the stairs towards us and as I glanced up I saw the flames were not far behind. Reflections flickered on the walls and waves of heat washed over us. Almost as an afterthought I checked the big enamel route map at our backs, the flashlight hardly necessary, and it told me what I needed to know. The girls began coughing as more smoke spilled down the stairway, rolling off the ceiling and curling down the walls.

'Put your masks back on,' I ordered, and they did as they were told, following me as I backed out onto the platform. But the German had dropped his mask on the stairs and instead of finding another - there were plenty of masked corpses around us - he went back to retrieve it. A few strides took him halfway up the stairs, and as he grabbed it the first real flames appeared above him. Bodies around him appeared to twitch and flinch in the unstable light as if the advancing firestorm was making them uneasy. An illusion, though; macabre, and scary, but no more than a trick of the light. Their clothes began to smoulder.

I gave Stern a warning shout, but it was already too late. As he straightened, pulling on the gas mask as he did so, there was an explosion of fire behind him, trapped gases and flammable material joining forces to give the inferno a special boost. I'm not sure if the German jumped instinctively, or the blast of scorching air threw him forward, but suddenly he was airborne, arms outstretched, back arched.

He was lucky - the flames never got the chance to engulf him completely. He landed on the floor, his jacket alight, and I rushed forward to roll him over, pinning him against the tiles and smothering the flames. Stern didn't struggle; he seemed to know exactly what I was doing. If he hadn't been a Kraut, I might have admired his nerve.

The heat from the stairs was unbearable as I dragged him over bodies out onto the platform, the flames above us spreading under the roof, rolling down like a raging river of fire, the ceiling its bed, its torrent of boiling yellows and reds and blacks fierce enough to scorch the eyeballs. It had a kind of terrifying beauty as it hit the wall at the bottom of the stairs and curled to the floor, devouring the dead things lying there before rearing up again in a huge fireball that ballooned outwards.

'Get back! ' I yelled, and we all hit the deck together as the flames poured out at us.

I felt my hair crackle as I sprawled among the corpses filling the platform. Smoke created its own menace, blinding and choking, billowing from the opening as the flames retreated for the moment, falling back to consolidate, to feed before progressing. Now it was Stern helping me, pulling me up and away from the worst of the smoke, his mask giving him the advantage. I was retching, lungs filled with the black stuff, eyes streaming, and I felt other hands grab me.

A gas mask was tugged over my head and, although still coughing smoke dust, I caught the faint whiff of old disinfectant under the stink of rubber. I blinked my eyes rapidly and saw the blurred image of Cissie standing in front of me. She was pointing down the platform, her other hand on my arm, and I nodded in an exaggerated way, bowing my shoulders as well as my head. We moved off awkwardly, me still limping, going as fast as we could, like survivors of a subterranean battlefield, the conflict long over, only smoke and the dead left behind. We passed by cots pushed close to the curved platform wall, and bedding laid out on the concrete floor itself. Among those rumpled rags, filling every space, was all kinds of domestic stuff: kettles, fold-away chairs, suitcases, books, even a wind-up gramophone. A small wooden clotheshorse still stood, its hanging rags once a screen for some modest family and probably, like other carefully placed items along the platform, a marker for regular users of the shelter, a sign of territorial claim. A kid's doll, eyes wide as if still terrorized by the carnage around it. A crushed bowler hat a single boot lying on its side, a pair of spectacles, lenses still intact. There were even one or two tiny portable gas or paraffin cookers, the kind used for 'brew-ups' or warming babies' bottles, smuggled in by families who enjoyed their home comforts. An accordion propped up against a cot bed, a baby's gas mask, oversized and ugly, like a deep-sea diver's helmet, lying empty on a blanket next to it.

Newspapers strewn across huddled bodies, faded headlines as irrelevant as the advertisements for gin or Brylcreem they shared the page with.

And the corpses. Avoiding them, stumbling over them, pulling them aside when they blocked our way.

Thousands of them it seemed, there in the flickering light. Empty shells that had once been living beings, most of these people fleeing here when the rockets fell from the skies and others around them - in the streets, the cafes, the offices, the buses and trams and cars - started dying before their eyes. A good many had probably neither seen nor heard the vengeance weapons fell, but the Blitz had conditioned them to seek shelter whenever the sirens sounded. Yet when they did, when they sought refuge in the street shelters, the park trenches, and even deep down in the subways, the Blood Death had followed, hunted them out, touching every one and poisoning their life's flow so that it hardened, congealed, became like concrete in their veins.

Only a special few escaping. Others living on, but for a limited time; succumbing, just taking longer to do so.

We hurried through all this, each of us holding on to our emotions, following the dim white safety lines painted along the platforms, four feet and eight feet from the edge, all of us observing but cold to the horror, more than just panic overriding our compassion. Skull faces, eyes long since liquefied, the skin tight and dark like stretched parchment, torn in places - we saw it all, but quickly learned to focus on nothing.

I led the way, never allowing the weak flashlight beam to linger in one place too long, moving it away from the worst sights, finding a path through the slaughter, always aware that the fire was stealing up on us, progress helped by the body heaps. Its advance scout, foul, swilling smoke, threatened to overwhelm us despite our gas masks and I quickened the pace, aware that the train tunnel was not far. The smoke would follow us into the tunnel, but there would be fewer corpses to slow us down (and less material to burn). The flashlight showed more bodies lying on the tracks below and I quickly gave up the idea of using that level as an easier route.

Right about then a scream grabbed my attention.

I turned, swinging the flashlight around, and found Muriel on the floor, body stretched out but head and shoulders raised, supported by her elbows. She wrenched off her mask and began to scream even louder.

I was an idiot, but I guess it was a natural reaction: I shone the light on the cause of her hysterics.

The small body was lying beside a suitcase - I think the case must have concealed the child as I'd walked by, Muriel's outstretched arm knocking it over when she fell - and only tattered rags still clung to what was left of it. It was easy to tell that the little girl's eyes had been pulled out rather than dissolved, because hard ridges that were the remnants of tendrils trailed down her sunken cheeks; and where her belly should have been there was only a gaping, empty hole, all the organs gone, and although I didn't look too hard or too long, I couldn't help but notice that other parts of her were missing too, only stained bone left behind. I closed my eyes for a second or two, but the sight was replaced by a memory - a terrible, sickening memory - and I opened them again.

Oddly - Jesus Christ, bizarrely - Muriel reached forward to touch the long dull, hair that lay around the remains of the child's face, as if to stroke it, a gesture of pity and regret, I guess. But the hair came away in Muriel's hand and that was when her screams became wilder and her body began to shudder.

Taking her by the arm, I eased her away, lifting her so that Cissie could hold her, comfort her, and as the cries echoed around the Underground station I tore off my mask and quickly ran the light over the mounds of human remains nearby. I saw what I had dreaded.

Partially consumed corpses were nothing new to me, yet revulsion - and yeah, hatred, sheer bloody hatred for the scavengers who'd done this thing - filled my gut and set my own body shaking. I controlled it though, controlled my emotions and my shivering limbs, despite what lay around us, despite those torn and mutilated victims, their wounds - their ruptured skins and absent parts - not at first obvious in the altering light of the fire and swirling smoke, so easily missed among the shifting shadows.

Shifting shadows... At first I thought that's all they were. Little movements among the human remains and the litter. But they were too furtive, sometimes too brisk. And here and there tiny bright reflections shone back.

'Come on, we can't stay here!' I shouted at the others, jerking the light away, aiming its beam towards the end of the platform. 'D'you hear me? The fire's getting closer! Let's move on!'

I grabbed Muriel's wrist and pulled her away from Cissie, leading her onwards, not gentle at all, but let's say determined, channelling my horror into anger. I held the flashlight high, keeping its light off the floor, stumbling through the wreckage, but still catching those little, scurrying movements in the corners of my eyes. The girl was limp, so I had to drag her along until Cissie caught up with us and supported her, making the going easier. Soon the smoke was blurring my vision, its acrid smell scraping at the back of my throat. Behind me, Muriel was choking, her body bent over, but I wasn't gonna ease up, I wasn't gonna hunt around in that mess for more gas masks.

I threw a hasty look over my shoulder, but there was too much smoke and my eyes were too teared-up for me to see any more than a blustering hellfire filling the station. By then we were nearly at the end of the platform and obstacles were fewer. Dense smoke curled against the facing wall, but I could see the black hole of the tunnel next to it, a ramp leading down. Letting go of Muriel I wiped my eyes with the grimy fingers of one hand, then squinted into the dark. There were bodies blocking the ramp, more of them lying between the tracks below.

'Help me with her,' I shouted at Cissie as I stood at the platform's edge. I shone the weak light into her face for a moment, and beyond the windows of the mask her eyes widened. I thought hysteria might overwhelm her too, but she just nodded, steering Muriel closer to the tracks, then holding her there.

Hand on the platform's lip, I hopped down, trying not to land on anything mushy, wincing when I landed on my damaged leg. There was less smoke at that level and, before reaching up for Muriel, I aimed the beam into the tunnel. The light didn't stretch very far, enough only to reveal more victims scattered there, dim heaps that were more rags than human remains.

Cissie guided Muriel into my upstretched arms and I lowered her onto the tracks. She leaned against me, her slim body racked by coughing, as I turned back for Cissie, who followed without hesitation, first sitting on the platform and swinging her legs over before dropping down next to me. The German was crouched on one knee, looking even more alien behind his mask, and he held something towards me, something he'd found among the platform clutter.

I took the oil lamp from him, a red thing with four windows and a stiff hook at the top to hold it by. It must've belonged to a station guard or someone who used the place as a regular shelter during the war, and the question was, would it still function or was it dry and useless? Although charred a dark brown, the wick looked okay, and I gave the lamp a shake close to my ear, listening for oil. Liquid slurped around inside.

Okay. No time to try it now, but it'd come in handy later. Stern had joined us and as I returned the lamp to him the station brightened and sharp, fresh heat washed over us. We all ducked, but the flare-up was short, as if maybe one of those portable cookers had exploded, adding to the conflagration. The smoke went crazy for a while, billowing down the curved walls in murky waves, swirling around us so that Muriel and I were left blinded and reeling around in its choking thickness.

Something caught hold of me and started pushing, and it took a moment for me to realize it was either the German or Cissie, both of them protected from the worst of the smoke by their gas masks. Bent double and half-suffocated, I allowed myself to be led. We staggered into the tunnel, using the rails at our feet as guides, the hand at my elbow firm, supporting, keeping me upright when I stumbled, dragging me onwards when a coughing fit threatened collapse. From the strength of the grip I guessed it was the German holding on to me and would've shrugged him off if I hadn't been too busy retching.

Then the smoke thinned out and I could see again. I rubbed my eyes and realized it was darker, much darker here, and cooler too. We were well inside the tunnel and up ahead it was so black we could have been on the slip road to Hades. It was damp too, as if water was seeping through the old, neglected brickwork, the dank, musty smell strong enough to compete with the drifting smoke and fumes from the station.

I leaned on my knees and coughed up the dust I'd swallowed, blinking my eyes to get rid of the sting, wishing I had a gallon of beer to soothe my raw throat

'Are you ready to walk on?' The German had removed his mask once more and was squinting anxiously at the tunnel's arched entrance and the advancing flames beyond.

'Sure, I'm okay,' I said, running a sleeve across my mouth, no gratitude implied.

Cissie ceased tending her friend for a moment to say something. She, too, took off her mask when she realized we hadn't understood a word, and tried again.

'I said, where does this tunnel go to?'

'What the hell does it matter right now?' I replied. 'You think we should wait for the fire?'

The light was shining right on her and I watched her lips tighten, her eyes blaze.

'Who the-'she began.

'Cissie, he's right. We must keep going.' Muriel was still sagging slightly, one hand on Cissie's shoulder for support She held a tiny handkerchief not much bigger than a Wills cigarette card, to her mouth, and she was still shaking, little cough-spasms hunching her shoulders.

Cissie clamped her jaw tight, but the annoyance was still there in her eyes. When she spoke again, she barely parted her teeth. 'All right. But, mister, you and me are falling out fast'

I couldn't help it, it wasn't the time, but I grinned back at her. She looked good and mad, her face all sooted up, big hazel eyes glaring, but I saw now she was young, maybe twenty, twenty-one, and at that moment she had the angry-stern look of a mother whose kid was gonna get one hell of a beating when she got him home. I guess my grin got her more riled, because she stomped off into the shadows ahead without waiting for any of us.

Muriel threw me a reproving look and set off after her. The German followed without comment, lamp in one hand, mask in the other.

My shrug was for my own benefit - there was no one else around - and I limped after them, shining the dismal light into the darkness ahead to help them find their way. I was soon in the lead again, warning the others of the 'obstacles' laid between and across the tracks whenever I came upon them. The atmosphere this far along wasn't healthy, but it was breathable, and I assumed some of the smoke was escaping through airshafts that we couldn't see. The ground began to dip and it wasn't long before we were treading through puddles, and then what felt like a shallow, stagnant pool, the water filthy black and oily in the light from the flashlight. A lot of these tunnels had been flooded during last year's awful winter and I guess we were lucky most of the water had drained away from this one. In the distance behind us we could hear the muted rumple of the fire, but when I looked back I could only see a dull, reddish tinge to the darkness, a soft kind of hue that pulsated almost benignly; somewhere along the way we had rounded a slight curve in the tunnel.

Abruptly, the flashlight dimmed even more, revived, then settled at a weaker level than before. The batteries were fading fast. I brought my little troop to a halt

'Let's take a look at that lamp,' I said to the German.

'By all means.' Stern came forward and passed me the square-shaped oil lamp. 'And perhaps you will now tell us where this tunnel leads to and how long our journey will be.'

His English was almost perfect, but the will sounded like vill and the where like vare - he spoke like Conrad Veidt in one of those Nazi spy propaganda movies - and it steamed me up plenty. I held tight though, biding my time.

Lifting one of the glass windows at the side of the lamp I shone the light directly at the wick inside. It looked okay, enough there to burn. As I passed the flashlight over to Stern and searched for my Zippo with my free hand, I told them about the tunnel and where it would take us.

'And how do you know these people who chased us will not be waiting there for us to emerge?'

Vaiting there. My jaw muscles clenched.

Cissie surprised me by speaking up. 'They wouldn't know which tunnel we took. Plenty of Tube lines run through Holborn - we could come up anywhere.'

'She's right' I found the lighter and flicked it on. 'Besides, they probably think they got us with the fire.' I held the small flame up to see their faces. Muriel looked about ready to fold.

'But how long is this tunnel?' she said in a quiet voice. 'I don't know if...'

'You'll make it. It's the shortest route we could've taken.'

'For a Yank you seem to know your way around.' There was still some resentment in Cissie's voice, as well as some breathlessness.

'I had a good guide once. Someone who was proud of her city.'

Silence then from the girls; I guess they'd caught something in my tone. But the German was becoming agitated.

'Then, as you say, we must keep moving. This place is not good.'

I ignored him, tilting the lamp and touching the lighter flame to the wick. Before it had the chance to ignite, faint sounds came to us, too distant to make out what they were. The sounds were growing louder though.

We all looked in the direction of the fire.

I'd heard this kind of noise in the past, but couldn't remember where or when. The volume was turning up, as if the source was drawing closer. A hand closed around my arm and I found Muriel beside me, body tensed rigid, the whites of her eyes shining dully in the gloom. Then it came to me, where I'd heard such a racket before.

Although there were fewer animals kept in the London Zoo during the Blitz years of the war, the more dangerous kind even being put down in case they escaped while an air raid was in progress, Sally had taken me there more than once when I was on leave, enjoying the sight of some of those exotic creatures more than I did, I think. One time we'd wandered into an aviary and something had set the birds off - a low-flying aircraft, as I recall. The explosion of noise was incredible, all those different species of bird splitting the air with their gabble - a bedlam medley of panic, anger, fright, and maybe just plain comfort calls to their partners, who knows? We'd clamped our hands over our ears, but the hullabaloo had still come through, so we ran out of there laughing - we laughed at a lot of things in those days - leaving the birds to their riot. Even from a distance we could hear them, kicking up hell, screeching their tiny lungs out.

And that was the kind of sound I was hearing now. Not the same, because birds didn't live in underground passages, never did, never would. No, these sounds were similar, but different. Someone ran an ice cube up my spine.

Muriel pressed against me and I felt her draw in a sharp breath. Cissie moved closer to the both of us.

Squealing, that's what it was. Not birds' chittering. Squealing. Like high-pitched screams. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them.

The light down the tunnel grew brighter. Fluttered, kind of. And then the first few appeared.

Small fireballs coming our way. Little units of run-amok blazes. Lighting the darkness as they came.

4

'WHAT ARE THEY?'

Muriel's hold on me was painful, but I ignored it 'Move back!' I yelled, following my own advice and dragging the girl with me. It was hard to take our eyes off the fiery horde - there was something mesmeric about these miniature infernos, some of them rising up the walls and falling back when they got so far, others spinning in the air to land on the tracks where they burned like tiny beacons, but most streaking towards us as if launched from some ancient war machine - and soon we were tripping over the human remains hidden in the darkness. That's when we wised up and ran like hell, with Cissie and the German in the lead. An anxious backward glance told me it was a race we could never win - the fireballs were nearly on us. I'd thought we could outrun 'em, that they'd be consumed by the fires that rode their backs long before they could catch up with us, but I was wrong, they kept coming and we kept running.

Dirty water splashed at our feet as high-pitched squeals mocked our flight. In the unsteady and almost useless light of the flashlight carried by the German I could see shadows here and there along the tunnel walls; it didn't take long for me to figure out they were safety recesses used by Underground workers to slip into whenever a train went by. Stern had noticed them too; he suddenly stopped and threw himself into one.

It would have left us almost blind if the other lights hadn't closed in on us. I reached forward for Cissie, caught hold, and pushed both her and Muriel into the nearest opening, crowding in with them and pressing them against the back wall. I could feel them trembling, and Christ, I was shaking some myself.

The little burning creatures sped by, screeching their agony, the water they rushed through too shallow to douse the flames on their backs. Some of them rolled over so that steam and smoke hissed from their hides; they squirmed in front of us, shrieks echoing around the brick walls, until their roasted bodies gave up and lay still, the occasional twitch nothing more than their final death-throes. Muriel turned away and Cissie buried her head into my shoulder when they both realized what these creatures were.

But I took pleasure in watching the rats burn. I may have even smiled there in the flickering shadows as their fire-ravaged bodies writhed and their thin screams tore through the darkness, and their sharp, ugly snouts stretched and their jaws yawed, exposing razor teeth, and their clawed limbs quivered until they crisped and flamed and became twisted, blackened stumps. Yeah, I'm sure I smiled, and I remembered too, remembered what these surviving scavengers had done, what they'd fed on all these years...

Some died in front of us, others scurried onwards, still aflame, dying as they ran, lighting the tunnel ahead as if showing us the way. I kicked out at one that came too close, sending it toppling backwards, flames turned to smoke by the black water, but extinguished too late to save it. The rat spasmed, twitched, and I wanted to blast it with the Colt -I wanted to blast all of them - not out of mercy but out of revulsion, loathing, hating the creature in the way I hated the German, both of them species of the same kind, vermin who'd lost the right to walk this earth.

But I held still, closing down my emotions. It wasn't easy - it never had been - but I coped.

Pretty soon the rats' death-wails became fainter, faded altogether, and their thrashing lessened, finally stopped. Their bodies lay scattered along the tracks, small funeral pyres that slowly dimmed, burning themselves out until only a few feeble blazes sputtered there in the dusk. We could still hear the distant sounds of those which had fled further into the tunnel, but eventually only the stink remained. Hell, the air down here was foul enough, all ventilation systems long since quit and no trains left to push out the staleness as they passed through; now, with drifting smoke and the stench of cooked meat, the atmosphere was almost unbreathable.'

I felt Muriel sobbing behind me, the sounds suppressed but the body jerks uncontrolled, and the other one, Cissie, lifted her head from my shoulder and leaned back against the side of the alcove.

'It's all right, Mu,' she said, rubbing her friend's back with a comforting hand. 'We're safe now, it's all over.'

There was no point in persuading her otherwise.

The German stepped back into view, the flashlight in his hand not much more than an orange orb,' its beam barely penetrating the darkness. I heard him coughing and watched as the dull ball of light danced in the air.

Joining him on the track I fumbled for the Zippo, found it and crouched, balancing the lamp on a rail as I did so. I lifted the lamp's glass side and flicked on the lighter.

'We cannot linger here,' the German said between coughs. 'We shall be overcome if we do not find a way out soon.'

There's only one way, and that's straight ahead,' I answered, putting flame to wick. It didn't catch at first, so I held the lighter there, concentrating hard, as if serious contemplation would encourage the waxed cord to kindle. Eventually the flame took and the light grew bright. I grunted, glad that something was going my way; it'd been an untidy day so far.

The sound of Muriel's weeping distracted me and I held the lamp towards the nook where the two women still sheltered. Cissie was holding her weeping friend in her arms, patting her back soothingly and murmuring comforts.

' Please tell them there is no time for this.'

The German obviously believed they would take more notice of an ally than a foe. Probably - I wanted to think so - he was right.

' Listen,' I said, calmly as I could, 'we gotta go. The fire might not reach us here, but smoke's gonna draw through the tunnel like a chimney, despite any unblocked airshafts along the way. It's not far to the next station - twenny minutes' walk at most, I figure, maybe less - so let's get going and save the bawling for later.'

I hadn't meant that last remark to sound harsh - really -but I guess it came out that way. Cissie fixed me with a stony look.

'Can't you see she's had enough?' she said to me and I nodded in agreement

'Lady, the whole goddamn world's had enough, but still it goes on. Now you can decide for yourselves -

stay here and choke to death, or follow me. 'S up to you.'

I turned away and stepped over a smouldering rodent in the water at my feet, passing by the German, who stood there, stiff-faced and hard as rock, I soon heard his footsteps splashing after me.

'You bastards.'

It was coldly said, no anger and scarcely a trace of resentment in Cissie's voice. Just a statement of fact, I suppose you'd say, and not far wrong at that.

I kept going, holding the lamp high, eyes fixed on the way ahead, or at least as far as I could see. There were still small flames moving away from us in the distance, some of those vermin refusing to lay down and die, and I couldn't help wondering how many of these creatures had survived the Blood Death, living on to enjoy the easy pickings of the aftermath. The medics and scientists had known the blood groupings of animals were not the same as humans, yet still the death rate was comparable to that of mankind's; some research on our differences might have helped, but there'd been no time, no time at all.

I snapped back into the here and now when I heard the two women plodding through the water behind us. To my relief the sobs had stopped and Cissie was keeping her opinions of me and the Kraut to herself. The flashlight finally gave up the ghost, its light fading to nothing, and Stern tossed it away with a muttered comment that was probably a curse in German. The clatter the metal flashlight made as it bounced off the wall caused us all to jump and although the thought of shooting him there and then was appealing, I kept the Colt tucked inside the jacket holster and waded onwards.

Pretty soon the water level had dropped away and only separate puddles spread before us, but the atmosphere itself had become even more foul. Smoke had been with us all the way but in the main had stayed close to the roof; now it was curling downwards, even coming back at us as if something was blocking the tunnel up ahead. It became harder to breathe and I told Stern to give his gas mask to Muriel, advising Cissie to put hers on too.

'I lost it back there,' she informed me stiffly as though really it was none of my business. 'I don't think they help very much anyway,' she added, just to let me know she felt no remorse.

Well, they were pretty handy when we were in the station, I thought, but I wasn't going to argue. I didn't have the energy.

Stern waited for Muriel to catch up, then handed her his mask. 'If the smoke becomes too much...' he said, and she nodded gratefully.

I looked to the front again and had gone no more'n a couple of yards before I saw what was blocking the tunnel Some of the smoke was rising over the top of the train, more seeping around its sides; but a lot of it was coming straight back at us.

Waving a hand in front of me in a vain attempt to clear the way a little, I told the others about the blockage. It took a few seconds to reach the train and I stood on tiptoe to peer up into its closet-sized cab, debating whether or not to climb inside and use the carriages themselves to travel through the next part of the tunnel. The others gathered behind me and I went round to the side, holding the lamp high enough for me to see into the windows.

Nothing should have shocked me by now - three years of living among sights that were the stuff of nightmares should have conditioned me - but the skull-head that returned my stare, with its black hollow eyes and gaping grin, made me jump back in fright. Stupidly, I'd expected the train to be empty. Of course passengers had been travelling on the Underground network all over the city when the disease had struck, the Blood Death drifting down into the tunnels, seeking out its victims like some predator roaming the burrows of the earth, and the Dead Man's Handle had jammed on as soon as the train driver had slumped over, cutting the circuit so that the carriages had come to a halt, to remain locked there in the darkness as one by one their occupants keeled over. How many had escaped? I wondered. How many of the ABnegs - if there'd been any on board -had managed to crawl out into the tunnels and make their way back to the surface, only to wish they'd died with their fellow travellers below?

The skull resting against the window still wore a driver's cap, its peak tilted by the glass to a rakish angle so that, with its unrestricted grin, the skeleton appeared to have kept its sense of humour. I didn't get the joke though, and was ready to unravel as I went back to the others. I was about to tell 'em to keep their eyes low when they passed by the carriages, but I never got the chance.

The flash that swept through the tunnel was like sheet lightning, its glare bleaching everything white before blinding us with its brilliance, the thunderclap that followed a split second later shaking the walls and deafening us all. Searing air blasted around us, but we were protected by the carriages we cowered behind, only our legs feeling a deflected part of the heat. The world may have become silent to us as we fell to our knees, but it continued to spasm and shake, causing us to sprawl between the tracks, bodies stretched, hands over our heads.

I'm not sure if I felt or sensed the train lurch, but an instinct sent me scrabbling forward onto the girls, using my weight to hold them still until the wheels shuddered to a stop. As I blinked to clear my dazzled eyes, I became aware that the air was suddenly cleansed, the smoke and filth pushed back by the blast; but even as I rubbed at my eyes and my hearing began to return, grime and dust, along with brickwork, started to fall from the ceiling and walls. Head still reeling, senses floating, I guessed what had caused the explosion further down the Tube line, but now was not the time to mull it over - although we'd been shielded from the full force of the blast, we were now in a worse predicament than before. And unfortunately our chances of survival were getting slimmer by the second.

I staggered to my feet, grabbing the fallen but still-burning lamp as I rose, then swung round to squint into the flickering shadows behind us. The shadowy figure of the German was leaning against the train, his head jerking from left to right as if he were trying to shake some sense back into it; and beyond him the train itself was burning, the flames further along the carriages contained by the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, but spreading fast towards us. Stern was swiftly lost from sight as great clouds of smoke swept between us.

The very air felt scorched, dried out, and suddenly it was hard to draw breath.

'Back!' I managed to squawk, but I doubt any of the others heard me.

I pushed the girls, herding them away from this new threat, and Stern wasn't slow in figuring it out for himself. He was soon alongside us as we staggered through the smoke and falling dirt. He held Muriel's arm while I hung on to Cissie, and as a tight group we stumbled back along the track, not thinking ahead, fear and heat forcing the retreat, the thick, choking smoke swilling around us, increasing our panic, until it was exhaustion, not common sense, that slowed us after a hundred yards or so. Muriel dropped to her knees first and Cissie followed her down.

Stern attempted to drag Muriel up again, but she was bent double, gagging on fumes, her body a dead weight.

I crouched close to Cissie. 'Come on, we'll choke to death if we stay here.' Even to me my voice sounded faint after the explosion, kind of trapped inside my own head, but I think she heard me. She tried to tug herself free.

Her voice was distant too, but I caught what she was saying. 'Where can we go?' she asked. 'We're between two fires, you bloody fool, and it's your fault You made us come down here.'

She had a point. But hell, what other choice had there been?

I looked around, up the tunnel, down the tunnel, and wasn't encouraged. Out of the fire and into the inferno, I told myself. Some days were like that.

The German, his back against the wall, was coughing so violently I thought his gut might burst, and Muriel's arched figure was heaving, her throat rasping as she fought to draw in poisoned air. Back there the whole tunnel was alight, clouds of rolling smoke softening the blaze, and in the other direction, towards the station, even more smoke tumbled towards us, a thick, curling torrent of it, so dense it looked solid.

I hauled myself up, but my legs barely supported me. My energy was sapped and my head was dizzy from lack of pure oxygen. A veil seemed to be drawing over my mind, and it wasn't unpleasant; no, it seemed like an escape, a retreat from the horror all around us in this black stormy hell. I fought it though, because fighting against things that were not right, legal and fair was in my nature, always had been. That was why I'd gotten into the stinking rotten war before most of my compatriots in the first place. Sure, I was a fighter - life, and death, had made me that way - but this looked like the final battle.

I raged against it, even lifted a weary fist in defiance, but I knew I'd lost. There were no options. Like the girl said, I'd led them into a trap of my own making, and the price of that foolishness was death. We were gonna die alongside the scorched vermin.

And as the black smoke closed in and that flimsy veil floating across my mind thickened, something happened that sent a last reserve of adrenaline rushing through me.

5

EVEN THROUGH THE SMOKY mists this new light was bright enough to dazzle. It seemed to come straight from the tunnel wall itself, only a few yards away, and it swept over us, taking us all in, its beam defined by the smoke. The speaker was invisible behind the glare, but his voice was clear enough.

'You're a sorry sight, the lot of yer.' The voice was low, gruft a little peppery, as if the guy wasn't excessively pleased to find us. 'You'd better get yourselves inside,' it went on in that growly way, 'unless you want to choke to death. Come on, in 'ere, ladies first'

The German was on his feet, but the two girls remained sprawled across the tracks, heads raised and looking towards the light I figured we were being offered sound advice so I dragged Cissie up by her armpits, croaking out to Stern to help Muriel at the same time. Every muscle in my body ached and my shoulder stung from the nick it had taken earlier, but I managed to haul Cissie over to the light source, the lamp I'd been using left by the tracks. We must have looked quite a sight, covered in filth, clothes a mess, faces blackened and tear-stained, all of us coughing so much smoke we could hardly speak. Blasts of heat swept over us in waves and we could hear the sound of popping glass as the train's windows fractured. There were other noises too

- the roof over the train falling in, old brickwork crumbling with the heat, and a deep rumbling, like an earthquake, going on way below our feet. Between coughing fits, the girls were crying out, floating ash and smoke creating a storm around us, and I swallowed hard before lending my own voice to the racket by shouting at the man behind the light to quit blinding us.

When we didn't seem to be getting any closer I realized the light was pulling away, its spread becoming confined and outlining a doorway in the tunnel wall. I realized the door must have been in shadow when we passed it before and we'd been too busy running from those fireballs to notice. Possibly it'd been locked from the inside anyway, so it would have been useless even if we had spotted it. None of that mattered now though: the door was open and this surly guardian angel was inviting us in.

The light retreated along a bare-bricked corridor and we tumbled after it, collapsing inside the doorway in a tangle of bodies, too exhausted and overwhelmed by our escape to move another inch. As we lay there gasping air like decked flounders I felt something, someone, shuffling around us, back towards the entrance. I caught a glimpse of baggy, dark-coloured overalls before the iron door clanged shut behind us.

Although there was still a faint rumbling somewhere off in the distance and a weak vibration running through my hands and knees from the concrete floor, it suddenly became quiet, peaceful, as though the mayhem had been left far behind. I could barely move, and thinking was too much effort; I just wanted to lay there and convalesce. The others were coughing up smoke, their breathing scratchy and difficult, and I wasn't much better off: my throat was raw and my thoughts were disassembled. It took a great effort of will to roll over from my knees and press my back against the wall so that I could look around.

The corridor was long and narrow, and at the end of it was a stone flight of stairs leading upwards. A softer light than the one carried by our guardian angel came from a paraffin lamp set on the second step, and when the flashlight switched off I turned my attention towards the door and the man standing before it.

I guessed him to be in his late fifties, maybe sixty even, a stocky little guy wearing dark blue overalls and a flat, white tin helmet with a large black W painted on it. It was the uniform of an Air Raid Precautions -

ARP - warden, and I wondered why nobody had bothered to tell him the war had ended three years ago, back in '45. His face was kind of flabby and hard at the same time, a working-man's, used to fresh air and tough labour, a network of purple veins colouring his jowly cheeks; bushy eyebrows, stubby nose and small, gimlet eyes completed the picture. He looked us over and didn't appear happy with what he saw. He gave a disapproving shake of his head.

'All right, you lot,' he said, 'on yer feet I don't know what you've gone and bloody well done, but even this place ain't safe any more.'

As if to reinforce the message, a muffled explosion came from somewhere close by.

'Oh, good Gawd,' he said, more to himself than us. He stepped over our legs, making his way towards the concrete stairs, but pausing when he reached me. He bent closer, squinting his eyes, then nodded as if confirming something he already knew.

'Always reckoned you'd be trouble one day,' he murmured before moving on to the steps. He scooped up the lamp and turned in our direction again. 'Listen, I can see you're all done in, but you can't stay 'ere.

You're still in danger, see? Somethin you set off in the tunnel has ruptured gas mains that feed into this bunker, an' that's caused fires that're spreadin right through the place. We're safe where we are for the minute, but that won't be for much longer. So unless we get movin right now, well be stuck. Understand?

Get me? Stuck.'

He was talking to us as if we were sapheads, but I guess we were all wearing dumb expressions, relief and exhaustion taking its toll. I was stiD wondering why I'd been given the double-take. The little guy was getting impatient. 'When somethin blows under the streets, it can cause an upset somewheres else.

Then that starts a nuisance in another place, a fire or explosion or somethin. Chain reaction, y'see.

Build-up of gas, pipe gas or sewer gas, all bleedin lethal. It's a wonder the whole city's not in ruins by now.'

'It was a gas pocket in the tunnel.' The words hurt my throat

'Whaf s'at?' His beady eyes set on mine again.

'Burning rats ran past us in the tunnel. I think they reached some trapped gas further along the line.'

He sniffed and brought out a grubby spotted red handkerchief from his overalls pocket to mop his face and plump neck. 'Yeah, that was probably it, not that it bleedin matters right now.' He nodded his head a couple of times, considering me. 'So you are a Yank then? Thought you was from the Yank flying jacket you always wear.'

'You know me?' My brain was beginning to function again.

'I've seen you about, son. And this mornin I saw yer bein chased by them Blackshirts, you and these others 'ere. Yer didn't see me though, none of yers did, I made sure of that. I watched you duck into the Tube station and reckoned on where yer'd be headin if yer got the chance.'

I struggled to my feet and gaped at him, one elbow resting against the wall, every muscle in my body stiff. The German and the two girls were beginning to stir themselves, but I wasn't sure if they'd been following the conversation.

'How did you know which tunnel to find us in?' I asked the warden, curiosity overriding the tiredness.

'Like I says, I thought I knew where yer was headed. It was a chance, but yer struck lucky, son. Now then, yer got the strength to help your friends?'

I barely had the strength to stand upright, but I nodded anyway.

'Right, follow me.' He began climbing the stairs, boots noisy on the concrete.

'Who is he?' Cissie asked in a hushed voice as she used my arm to drag herself up.

'No idea,' I replied, giving her some help. 'But I could kiss his little fat head.'

The German helped Muriel to her feet and she caught my anxious look.

'I'll be okay,' she said quickly, her voice strained. 'Once I get into better air I'll be fine.'

'You lot comin?'

We could only see the glow of the lamp shining down the stairs, the corridor we were in now darkened, full of our own shadows, and without another word we set off after the warden, the girls behind me, Stern following at the rear. The old guy was waiting for us by another door at the top of the stairs, this one also made of iron.

'What is this place?' I asked when I reached him.

'Civil Defence shelter. There's a whole complex of plannin rooms on the other side of this door, all underground, too deep for any bombs to reach. They never counted on the poison though, never thought anythin could touch 'em down 'ere. All very hush-hush and all bloody useless.'

'If it was so secret how did you find it?'

'It was on my beat, son. As a warden it was my job to make sure none of the street entrances was blocked.'

He peered over my shoulder to make sure we were all together, then twisted the handle and pushed open the door. It was heavy, judging by the effort he put into it.

I touched his arm, moving closer. 'You said you knew where I was making for. I'd like to know how.'

My hand stayed on his arm and he looked down at it, then up at me. 'I know where your base is, so it stood to reason you'd use the Tube line going back to the Aldwych, which is near the hotel you've been usin. I've watched yer goin in and out of the place plenny a' times. Sometimes yer disappear for a while, but yer always come back to it. Yer like yer bit of luxury, don't yer?' He even gave a little chortle.

'You've watched me?'

Any humour vanished from his broad, ruddy face. 'Yeah, I've watched yer, son. And I know what yer do.' He turned away, but not before I'd caught the unease in his eyes.

Hoke?' Cissie was pressing against me, her breathing shaky, coming in gasps. 'What are you two - ?'

'Forget it. Let's just concentrate on getting outta here.' I took her hand and surprisingly -I thought she was still mad at me - she allowed me to guide her.

Once through the door we found ourselves inside another corridor, this one wider though, with openings along each side. Water covered its concrete floor and at the far end a carbide lamp burned, its white glare harsher than the warden's paraffin lamp but more effective. On the wall outside one of the open doorways was a yellowing poster, an upper corner drooping over, and as I passed by I saw there were two pictures of Adolf Hitler on it, front and profile, WANTED writ large at the top, smaller headline type explaining why.

FOR MURDER ... it said. FOR KIDNAPPING . . . FOR THEFT AND ARSON. It should've added FOR WORLD GENOCIDE. Our breeze caused the opposite corner to curl over so that the paper folded and the mad Fuhrer was out of sight. The floor shook beneath our feet and Cissie's grip tightened in mine.

I took a peek through a doorway and saw a plain square room inside, pipes running round the walls close to the ceiling. One of the smaller pipes was leaking in a couple of places, thin jets of water arcing onto the bare floor. The only furniture was an iron table with four straight-backed chairs around it; a black telephone sat on the tabletop. It was a relief to see there were no human remains in there.

Other rooms were similar but with more furniture; two or three tables, green filing cabinets and cupboards. The pipes ran through every room, and there were more leaks, some pretty bad. There was another stairway at the end of the corridor, broader than the last and turning back on itself as it rose to the next levels. We used its iron handrail to drag ourselves upwards, the warden urging us on and getting mighty agitated with the ladies for holding us back. We'd just reached the next level when an explosion beyond a set of doors to our left shook the walls.

The warden clung to the stair rail until the world had settled down a little. 'It's the gas cylinders!' he shouted at me accusingly, as if it were my fault, I'd arranged the whole thing. 'They're kept 'ere for emergency power and now your bloody fire's got to them!'

My bloody fire? Yeah, sure. But you had to wonder what kind of genius built an underground bunker vulnerable to explosions beneath the city streets. We were both distracted by smoke curling through the gap beneath the heavy double doors.

'Which way do we go?' I asked as Cissie sank down next to me. Muriel stood with her back resting against the wall, the German supporting her, his impatience to get moving plain in his quick-shifting eyes.

'Upwards!' the warden shouted back at me. 'There's sleepin quarters and plannin rooms on the next floor, and we can get out through there.'

'Doesn't this stairway lead to the street?'

'It does, yeah, but the buildin over the exit collapsed and blocked it a long while ago. Thank Gawd there're others.'

'No point in hanging 'round then, right?' I kept my voice calm - shouting would have only hurt my throat even more anyway.

'You're not wrong there, son.' He'd calmed down a little himself, but he still looked scared. Letting go of the rail he bustled round to the next flight of stairs.

'Hey,' I called after him, the stab to my throat making me wince. 'What's your name?' I finished more quietly.

'Potter. Albert Potter, ARP warden for the Kingsway and Strand area.' He seemed proud of the title and I almost expected a smart salute. He started climbing again, but I just caught his added remark.

'Can't say I'm pleased t'meet you at last'

My limp was getting worse as I followed him, but I knew I'd only bruised the ankle - anything more severe and I wouldn't have been walking at all by this time. But tiredness was slowing us all down, I guess only our last reserves of adrenaline keeping us going. I'd learned a lot about that during the war, because flying a Hurricane at more than 300 miles an hour with a couple of superior Me 109s on your tail, it's the old energy-juice that takes over, overrides the fatigue that comes with too many sorties and not enough sleep, keeps your brain razor-sharp, until maybe a Spitfire can get to you and cover your back. Even if you got shot up, it was the adrenaline pumping that got you through the shock, helped you function until you'd baled out. Yeah, I'd learned a lot about what adrenaline could do for you in times of crisis, and I also knew that eventually it dried up, it could only take you so far...

The German surprised me by drawing level and taking me by the elbow. 'Do you need help?' he asked.

His face was black with dirt - hell, all our faces were black. 'Cept the warden's - his was just getting redder by the second.

I paused just long enough to pull my arm away. Take care of the girl,' I told him, my voice low and full of warning. I climbed on, leaving him there, but he was close to me again, this time with an arm around Muriel's waist, her own arm over his shoulder. I let them go on past and then it was Cissie who was by my side.

'You're slowing down, Yank.'

'It's been a busy morning,' I managed.

Her teeth flashed through the dirt, and I appreciated the smile.

'If you need a shoulder to lean on...'

'You're not sore at me any more?'

'Anyone can make a mistake. Besides, if those Blackshirts are as nasty as you say-'

'You had a taste of 'em.'

Trying to roast us alive wasn't very civilized. As for wanting our blood, well, we only have your word for that I mean, for all we know you could be a criminal of some kind and they could be the only law and order left'

'You got a point When you see 'em next, march right up and introduce yourself. Tell 'em about your blood type. They'll be pleased to get acquainted, wait and see.'

She gave me a long look, then grinned again. 'I'll take my chances with you - for the moment Not that I have any other choice.'

The banter might have continued - we were both dog-weary and this was a way of keeping each other going -but the next explosion that ripped through the underground bunker was the fiercest yet.

Although the blast was somewhere deep within the complex, the walls around us shuddered violently and debris began to fall through the stairwell from above. Brickwork caught the rail and shattered, throwing out pieces like shrapnel. Cissie yelped as she was struck on the forehead and she fell back against the wall. I grabbed her when she staggered down a step, and pinned her there while rubble and dust rained down.

'It's the ceiling at the top!' I heard Potter shout back at us. 'The whole lot's gonna break loose in a minute!'

With Stern and Muriel just ahead of us, we clambered up to the next landing, spitting dust and blinking grit from our eyes.

'This way - quick!' The warden was holding one side of a double door open and we scooted through, the deluge behind us increasing, becoming a cascade of bricks, masonry, timber and powder. Once inside the door we could barely see, even though there was another carbide lamp on the floor - the warden must have placed these lamps in strategic places along our escape route - because it was like running into one of those famous London fogs the guidebooks told you about, 'peasoupers' I think they called them in those days. The fog was smoke, and it swirled everywhere, thicker in some parts than others.

Potter hurried past us, his tin helmet knocked askew, and we followed after him like lost souls, afraid of losing sight of his broad back. Luckily, the smoke soon thinned out and we were able to see our way more clearly, although every so often we had to wipe our blurred eyes with sleeves or knuckles. We found ourselves in a huge open room filled with desks and large tables with street maps set on them, the maps marking out various divisions of the city and outlying areas. There were more maps around the walls, coloured pins indicating what could only have been other Civil Defence centres and contact points; metal lightshades, disr turbed by the eruptions, swung low over the desks and map tables. As well as a phalanx of telephones, still in neat formation along the desktops, I glimpsed a whole battery of radio transmitters against a side wall. Only one thing was missing, but now wasn't the time to ask the warden.

We reached another set of doors on the far side of the room and beyond them was a broad hallway. But even as we staggered through, yet another blast rocked the floor, sending us stumbling forward. On my knees, I watched great cracks snake across the long expanse of concrete before us.

I had no idea what had gone up on the floor below this one - more ruptured gas pipes, drums of fuel stored there for emergencies, chemicals, who the hell could guess what was stored away in places like this? - but I realized this whole complex was now on self-destruct. Potter had been right about chain reactions. German bombs had inflicted the initial damage, but the demolition had continued long after the war had ended, a fault causing a fire in one building, which spread to the next, one explosion kicking off another, then another, a collapsing building bringing down its neighbour, that one in turn wrecking or weakening the building next to it. And so it went on, with no one left to contain the damage, or repair the faults. Like the man said, it was a wonder the whole city wasn't in ruins by now.

I had a nasty feeling about that floor ahead of us, and I guess that was what made me hesitate while the others picked themselves up and sped on. I saw a whole section shift, kind of tilt, and I knew what was going to happen next. So I moved, I moved so goddamn fast I could have been shot from a cannon. But it wasn't fast enough.

Even as I gained on the others, who by now were almost at the far door, I felt the ground beneath me start to give. For a second or two it was almost like racing downhill as the floor inclined, and I picked up speed, despite the limp. It was a curious sensation, the world falling away from me in slow motion, and I think I may have screamed or yelled or whined to showcase my terror as I began to slide. Then came a massive and sudden lurch and the section of floor I was on dropped away from me.

Instinct rather than calculation made me throw myself to one side, towards the nearest wall and the sturdy old iron radiator fixed to it. My hand caught the valve pipe at its base and my fingers wrapped around it. The pipe loosened in the wall, jerking out at least an inch, and for a moment I thought the whole thing was gonna dislodge itself; but it held and I hung there as the broad section of floor crashed down to the level below, sending up a huge cloud of smoke and dust and a sound like thunder.

Flames and sparks followed, licking at my heels as I dragged myself up, and someone far off was screaming. My hand curled over the top of the radiator, but I could feel my strength slipping away, the effort of holding myself there becoming too great. I groaned, too feeble to pull myself towards the jagged ledge where the others waited, their hands stretched towards me, their voices raised over the crackle and fire rending noises.

I took a look down and didn't like what I saw: if the fall didn't kill me, the fire below would. Already I could feel the soles of my boots heating up and I guess the thought of a nasty death, one way or the other, encouraged a last burst of energy. I slid my left hand across the curved top of the radiator, taking the strain with my right. But when I tried to grip with my left hand again, the sweat on my palm caused it to slip, slowly at first until it fell away completely, leaving me hanging there by one hand, my body swinging round helplessly.

Then Stern was peering down at me, his face only a couple of feet away, smoke billowing around him so that for a moment his head seemed disembodied, floating in space. I realized he was leaning forward from the ledge, one hand on the end of the radiator, the other reaching out for me. It was a dangerous move on his part, but I saw no fear in those colourless eyes of his. For a split second though, a moment gone by so fast I may have imagined it, I thought there was a shift in those eyes, a kind of cold mocking that vanished as soon as I'd noticed it. His hand stayed just beyond my reach, then edged forward an inch or so as if he'd only been tormenting me. Maybe I'd got it wrong, maybe I'd misread his expression; that look might have been his own fear, because now he was risking his life even more by leaning closer.

I just couldn't be sure.

Take it,' I heard him say over the roaring from below and the shouts from the others behind him. There were no hints in that gaze right then, only a blank - and equally as unnerving - coolness.

I hesitated. Would he let me go, pretend to the others I'd slipped from his grasp? There was no way of knowing and anyway, I didn't have time to consider. My hand slapped into his.

Then he was pulling me up, the movement strong and smooth, as though it was hardly any effort at all for him. I managed to hook a heel over the ledge, and then other hands were dragging me to safety. I rolled over onto what was left of the floor at that end of the hallway, my rescuers shuffling back to give me room, and I lay there on my back, drawing in great lungfuls of filthy, broiling air. They wouldn't let me rest though; I was pulled to my feet even as I choked on the smoke I'd sucked in, and the two girls stood on either side of me, steadying me until my head stopped reeling and some life returned to my arms and legs.

'Yank, you've got enough lives to keep a dozen cats happy.' Cissie was thumping my back, helping me get rid of some of that smoke.

'Are you all right?' Muriel's touch was more gentle as she cleared soot from my eyes with her fingertips.

The warden had no patience for any of this.' Yer can make a fuss of him later, ladies. If we don't leave right now all our gooses'll be cooked, and I ain't kiddin yer.'

He ushered us towards the door and when I gave one last glance back at the pit they'd hauled me from, it was filled with fire, the flames touching the ceiling above. Potter hauled open the iron door and we piled through into a welcoming coolness. The door made a satisfying clunk when the old warden pulled it shut behind us, and because of its metal flanges everything suddenly became hushed. The girls collapsed on the narrow concrete stairs that disappeared into the darkness above and the German went down on one knee, his shoulders heaving as he gasped in the cold dank air. It gave me some satisfaction to see he was as pooped as the rest of us, even if he'd disguised it a few moments ago. I watched those deadpan eyes, eyes that had seemed to be looking inwards rather than out, and wondered why I felt no gratitude.

Leaning back against the rough brick wall, I slowly sank to a crouch, wrists over my knees, eyes closed, taking deep breaths to control the trembling that ran through me.

Potter interrupted the moment of peace. 'Sorry to disturb you folks, but we're not in the clear yet.'

He sounded angry, as if he still blamed us for the destruction of the Civil Defence shelter, and when I opened my eyes again I saw his mouth was set in a grim line across his round reddened face. Then I understood.

'You lived down here, didn't you?' I said.

'What?'

'I said, you lived in this shelter.'

"Course I bloody lived 'ere. Safest place in London with you and those Blackshirts runnin all over the place, shootin off guns at each other. I just got on with me job and kept well away from lunatics.'

His job? I let it go for the moment 'Why did you rescue us today, then?' I said, keeping my voice mild, just making conversation.

He gawked down at me in surprise, as if I'd asked something dumb. 'You had those two ladies with you, didn't yer? I couldn't see them come to any 'arm. What kind of bloke d'yer think I am?'

I liked that about the British. I'd learned a lot about old-style manners and chivalry from the English pilots I'd flown with, and I can't say it'd come as too much of a surprise -I'd spent most of my life hearing stories about England and its people. Sure, much of it was romanticized, I knew that, but the person who taught me was someone you could believe in, someone who missed her home country but allowed nostalgia to colour her memories only a little. She was one of the reasons I'd come over at the beginning of the war, when England was crying out for trained pilots because the Krauts were kicking at the door.

And if she'd still been alive at the time, she'd have been proud, proud as hell.

I didn't realize it, but I was smiling at the warden.

'Nothin funny about it, mister. Yer could've got these young ladies killed takin them down into the tunnels. The most precious things we've got left and you go riskin their lives.'

He was still riled, but his eyes had softened, become tear-blurred. I didn't know what he was talking about and my expression must have shown it.

It was the German who put me in the picture. 'Women are now the world's most precious commodity, my friend,' he said.

Vimmen and vorld. That just irritated me (and I noticed Potter giving him an odd, sideways look) but the

'my friend' bit really got me hopping. If I'd had the strength I would've been at his throat.

But it was Cissie who was really stomping. 'Oh, sure we are! Who else is going to give birth to more chumps like you two so they can grow up and start a whole new war just to finish off what's left of the human race?' She'd been sitting upright on the stairs, stiff as a board, and now she pushed herself to her feet 'I don't want to stay here any longer. I want to see sunlight again.'

The warden hurried over to her, his face big and anxious. 'Don't you worry, miss, well get you out of here. Once we've climbed these stairs well be safe.' He stooped to help Muriel rise, but held on to her when she turned to climb. His other hand gripped Cissie's wrist 'Look now, you ladies,' he said almost apologetically. 'You're not goin to like what well find up there, but try and close your minds to it. I had to put 'em somewhere, y'see, and I couldn't bury 'em all. 'Sides, there was others out there already, people who'd tried to get away from the poison. There's hardly any smell now, so that won't bother yer, and you can keep your eyes closed if yer like...'

'What are you talking about?' Muriel was shaking her head, too tired to understand.

I picked myself up and walked over to them, explaining as I went 'He dumped the dead bodies from this place outside the back door. I wondered what was missing from inside the shelter.'

'I had to, you can understand that,' said Potter, appealing to me. 'I had to make this place fit enough to live in.'

'Listen, you did right,' I reassured him. 'And nothing could be worse than what we found inside the Underground station.'

'At least there were no flies,' he said as if it made a difference. 'The bodies just rotted away, like. No maggots and not much stink after the first few weeks.'

Yeah, no flies and no maggots. In fact, hardly any insects at all. I suppose we had to at least be grateful for that small mercy. God knows what kind of diseases could've wiped out the rest of us in the aftermath.

Distant rumbling from beyond the iron door and dust drifting down from the stairway's slanted ceiling got us moving again. Potter went first, lighting the way, and Cissie and Muriel followed close behind. I guess both were eager for that sunlight. The German, who'd remained on one knee, stood erect, the motion almost fluid, as if his steam had already been restored. I let him go on ahead of me - enemy at my back, and all that - then got going myself. Something heavy slammed against the door behind us, but none of us bothered to look back.

Christ, it hurt to climb those stairs - every muscle in my body was now stiffening up - and I favoured my injured leg, using the rough wall to lean on. My shoulder didn't bother me that much but the rest of my arm felt like a lump of lead. Nothing was broken though, I was sure of that, so considering the punishment I'd taken that morning, I figured I'd gotten off lightly. If these strangers hadn't picked me up in the square when they did I'd've been not just dead, but dried meat, by now. And if the old guy, Albert Potter, hadn't rescued us from the burning tunnel, we'd all be cooked meat - yeah, choked, smoked and goddamn coked.

At the top of the stairs Potter was dipping into his overalls pocket, the others squeezed up behind him, so I waited further down, rubbing some life back into my arm. I heard a clink as he drew out a large metal ring, at least a dozen keys attached to it. The one he chose unlocked the door immediately and he pulled it inwards so that a gust of air rushed through. He disappeared outside and I wondered why it was still dark up there. I soon knew the answer.

The almost pitch-black place we stepped out into was bigger, much bigger, than the Tube tunnels further below, and huge, monolithic shapes loomed over us in the gloom. When the light from Potter's paraffin lamp fell on the nearest one, I realized those shapes were passenger vehicles, tram-cars that ran on embedded iron tracks with electric cables overhead supplying the power, and the hangar-like place we'd escaped into was a large tunnel, a kind of under-passage beneath the city streets. It occurred to me as we stood there that those trams would be full of withered corpses.

There were hints of daylight coming from what must have been overhead airshafts along the tunnel's length and at the far end we could just make out a greyish hue that might have been the sloped entrance/exit. As our eyes grew accustomed to this new level of darkness we began to discern other forms lying in the roadway and across the sunken tracks, small black mounds, hundreds of them, and we were aware that they could only be the remnants of those who'd perished down here. Many, we assumed, were the remains of Civil Defence workers, laid there by Potter, himself.

Stern and the two girls lingered in the oasis of light, as if frozen there, afraid to move on. One of the girls

- Muriel, I think, began to weep. What lay around us was no more horrific than anything we'd found inside the Underground station and tunnels - far less so, in fact - but the quietness of the place must have stirred something deep within them - sorrow, dread, an interweaving oppression of emotions -that held them there, shocked and grief-stricken. I guess the fact that they suddenly had time to reflect had a lot to do with their paralysis, but it was nothing new to me, nor to the old warden.

His gruff East End voice cut through the mood. 'It's as good a tomb as any,' he said, no pity, no remorse, in his tone, only a sepulchral hollowness caused by the high walls and ceiling lending any reverence to his words. 'I've said a prayer over 'em,' he went on, 'which is more than most of the world's dead ever got, I expect,'

'Let's just find our way out of here,' said Muriel quietly, and the calmness in her voice surprised me. In the dim light I could see the glistening of tears on her cheeks.

Cissie, on the other hand, had channelled her sadness into anger. "Bloody well right! I can't breathe down here!' She looked towards the distant light and took a fierce step towards it, ready to march off in that direction. I caught her arm.

'No. It's too close to Holborn Station that way.' I'd figured it out, finally got my bearings. The incline had to be the northern approach to the under-passage and I remembered how near that was to the station.

'The Blackshirts could have left the entrance guarded, just in case we came out that way,' I explained quickly as Cissie tried to pull herself free.

'He is right,' Stern agreed. 'They will be waiting.'

Cissie ceased struggling and turned her head, looking in the other direction, towards a stifling blackness that seemed to go on forever. 'Wait a minute,' she said warily. 'You're not suggesting.. .'

'There's no choice,' I told her, not for the first time. And when I followed her gaze towards that eerie inkiness, I knew the day's nightmare wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot 6

SO WE WALKED through that nightmare, keeping close together, a tight bunch, the lamplight defining the soft borders of our world, none of us caring to look beyond and none of us focusing on what lay within. The warden kept us to a narrow sidewalk and every now and again we had to step over rag bundles, clothes that had become shrouds. There were other doors set along the wall, but we weren't curious about them, not even a little bit - we'd got to the stage when all curiosity was numbed and we were only interested in getting to the end of that goddamn tram tunnel. If Potter knew what lay beyond those doors, he wasn't saying. As a matter of fact, he'd fallen into a sulky silence since we'd started off, his way of letting us know he wasn't happy about our continued association. To tell the truth, he'd wanted to leave us right there outside the bunker door, deciding he'd done enough for us already and that he would go in the opposite direction, towards the light, Blackshirts or no Blackshirts. He'd easily sneak past

'em, he assured us, but I wasn't willing to take that chance. As far as the goons were concerned, we were either dead or still trapped down there in the Underground, and I didn't want anybody persuading them otherwise. Potter might be gabby if he got caught and anyway, he was more useful leading us out of that place. The barrel of my Colt pressed against his plump belly won the day, and he figured it'd do no harm to stick with us a little longer.

We passed more trams with death cargoes and soon learned to avoid looking at the windows. It was weird though, because although we didn't look at them, each one of us felt those corpses behind the glass were watching us. We felt like intruders in some private purgatory, a kind of halfway stage where the dead passengers waited for the current to be switched back on so they could continue their journey towards oblivion. Okay, so maybe now and again our eyes strayed towards skeletal arms hanging over the sides of open-top trams or eyeless skulls leering out at us, but mostly we fixed our gaze on the warden's light, following the beacon like pilgrims following a cross.

We'd travelled some distance before we started to notice shadows moving along the opposite wall, a black shifting against black, and it was the German who brought us to a halt by raising his hand and pointing. Potter, in front, realized we had stopped and when he saw Stern indicating he raised the paraffin lamp, stretching his arm out. Tiny yellow lights shone back at us.

Muriel, close to me, whispered, 'What are they?' The reflected lights were quite still now and I guess she thought if she spoke too loudly she'd set them moving again.

I'd already realized what was out there, but it was Stern who gave them identity. 'Dogs,' he said quietly.

'I have witnessed' - v itnessed - 'such packs roaming the ruins of Berlin, scavenging for any morsels they can find in the bomb debris. Often they would turn on their own weakest, then devour it. I have' - haf-

'even seen them attack a lone child. If these animals are hungry we must be very careful.'

I stared at him for a moment before turning back to those strange yellow globes that glowed like twin moons in a black velvet sky. Neither they, nor we, moved.

Without warning us, Potter produced the flashlight he'd used before from his overalls pocket and aimed its beam across the broad roadway, bleaching the mangy pack with its powerful light. They remained motionless under the glare, the sorriest bunch of skin 'n' bone curs you'd ever see outside a Bowery soup kitchen. They skulked, shoulders hunched, heads bowed, their coats dry and matted, and returned our gaze, those eyes now mean, jaws open just enough to show us their ochre teeth.

There might have been others hidden out of sight in the shadows or behind a couple of nearby trams, but I counted seven in the light. The closest one began swaying its shabby old head to and fro, near to the ground, and a low keening came from its throat. The dog wasn't pleased to see us and, considering what mankind had done to the planet, I couldn't blame it. One of its pals took up the note, only this one didn't wave its head around; no, it wrinkled its snout and showed us some more of its discoloured teeth. Its keening descended to a growling and a thick stream of drool sank from its jaw onto the concrete floor.

But it was the frothy liquid that bubbled between its teeth that bothered me more.

These animals were sick, and it wasn't from starvation. Sure, they were rangy, bones jutting like iron tools in canvas bags, but they'd been on a poor diet, eating the wrong things - and I didn't want my mind to linger on what I could see the madness in each and every one of them, a catching thing that came from living in the new wilderness.

'Let's walk on,' I suggested to the others, keeping my voice calm and the gun aimed at the pack. 'Just slide away, smooth 'n' easy, no noise and no running. Let's not get 'em riled.'

We started to file away, one by one, Potter leading, me taking up the rear, half-turned so that the Colt was still levelled at the animals, a veil that was shadow coming down on them as the light drew away. But that first mutt crept back into the light, following it, crazy old faded eyes never leaving mine. Was it salivating because it was hungry? I wondered, or was that just madness drooling out? It gave a long growling moan and another dog joined it in the retreating light, this one all bristling fur and quivering ears.

Then another came back into view, padding past the first two almost to the centre of the road. It sat on its haunches for a moment or two, sized me up, then trotted even closer. It looked as unhealthy as its companions, but was bolder, hardly scared of me at all. Only a couple of yards away, it began stalking me.

I caught more disturbances among the shadows as others sneaked forward. Maybe they wanted a better look. Maybe they were working up the courage to charge. More padded footsteps, still quiet but swifter now, and when I looked to my left I saw a dog descending the winding stairway of a tram just three or four feet away.

I was walking backwards now, gun arm extended, and Potter and the others had made some distance on me, so that I was barely within the wide circle of light, the dogs on the soft fringes. Every time I took a step back, so the lead dogs took a step forward.

I'd come upon packs like this before in my travels across the city, starving creatures made wild by circumstances, and more than once it had been Cagney who'd frightened them off, standing his ground and ready to take on the leader if not all of them. By comparison, he was pretty fit, you see, and a lot stronger than his half-starved city cousins, so a few ferocious barks and a couple of threatening lunges were enough to see them off, no matter how many were in the pack. I can't say he was braver than those other curs, because some of those wild things had guts born out of desperation; but he was kind of arrogant, like he was superior, you know? Not because he was with me, he had a human and they didn't; no, my guess was that he'd always been that way.

First time we laid eyes on each other was a year and several months after the first V2s landed. I'd spent the morning working on my back-yard allotments - these little suburban crop plots had always been popular in England, small pieces of land or gardens used for growing fruit and vegetables, becoming almost necessary during the war years when the authorities had even allowed a few public parks to be cultivated for food - and was boiling up some tinned sausages for my lunch on an open fire. Tinned food was my usual diet - easy to find, easy to cook - but I needed fresh vegetables if I was going to stay healthy. When I looked up from my digging to check on the sausages, I found the dog watching me from a bomb-site across the street.

Maybe I was feeling more lonely than usual on that particular day. I'd kept to myself after the Blood Death, you see, avoiding the crazies I met roaming the city, aware that the normals - those that were left -

had abandoned the place for fear of epidemics breaking out, or just to get away from all those dead bodies, but there must have been something about that mutt that appealed to me. Sure, there were plenty of strays around, and not just dogs. Cats, chickens - unfortunately for the chickens, they didn't last long once I'd set eyes on them - pigs - yeah, same thing if I could catch 'em - horses, and I'd even observed a cow or two wandering along the roads. 'Cept for releasing horses from carts, putting any injured creature I came upon out of its misery, and slaughtering those mentioned for food, I'd ignored any surviving animals or birds, and mostly they'd ignored me. Oh, and there was one I'd hidden from. From a distance I'd watched a leopard loping along Regent Street - just once, I'd never seen it again - and I'd stayed out of sight in case it got hungry for warm flesh. Like I said earlier, the London Zoo had evacuated most of its dangerous animals, even put some down, at the beginning of the Blitz, so I had no idea where this cat had come from, and still don't.

Well, I must have been feeling pretty lonesome that day, because I called out to the dog. It was wary, though. Cocked one ear, angled its head, and kept well away. I guess it became a kind of game then, a challenge, me and the boiling meat against the canine's canniness. It looked interested enough, squatting there amid the debris of flattened houses, blackberry and elder poking through the dry earth and bindweed adding some colour to the greyness of it all, but the interest was in the sweet smell of cooking rather than me. I'd noticed by then that all the animals who'd survived the holocaust had become

'un-used' to humans, suspicious of us - or at least, of me - as if somehow they knew humans were responsible for the big foul-up. And who could blame 'em for that? But this run-down, red-haired mongrel's belly was ready to forgive all, because although it kept its distance, its nose was sniffing the air and one paw was raised as if to take that first step towards me of its own accord. And then an odd thing occurred.

It was a warm day, early in the year, May, I think. The winter of '46 had been real nasty (but nowhere near as bad and as scary as '47s), killing off most of the allotments and weaker wildlife, and it was obvious that this mutt had had a hard time of things. Ribs protruding, coat kind of threadbare, this old boy looked pretty beat up, and when I dipped into the can and pulled out a steaming sausage it became even more fascinated. And as I tossed the meat from hand to hand to cool it, then broke it in half, that timid paw touched the ground, taking the first nervous step towards me. I allowed a grin, but it froze on my face when something black and awful fell from the sky to land on the dog's back.

The heavens had been unblemished, not a cloud in sight, a gentle breeze the only interruption, but I'd neither seen nor heard the bird overhead and, so it seemed, neither had the dog. This was a huge bird, dark and ugly, with a wingspan of three feet or more. A goddamn great carrion crow, with claws like hooks, and a long powerful-looking black bill, sharp as a knife. Those claws dug into the poor mutt's flesh, while the beak stabbed at its head. The dog howled, but fought back, twisting and turning and snapping all at the same time. Blood was already beginning to flow from its wounded back, though, and it yelped between howls.

The Colt .45 wasn't always the only weapon I carried around with me; nearby, propped up against the curved roof of a half-buried Anderson shelter, was my other weapon, a Lee Enfield sniper rifle, picked up from a military barracks in another part of London. It was handy to have around for whenever I caught sight of one of those pigs or chickens -I'd even bagged the odd squirrel in the parks - and I made towards it. Before I'd even picked up the rifle, three more crows had joined in the attack on the dog.

I was surprised and shocked: where the hell had they come from, and why were they picking on this poor old boy? Exhaling my breath, I took a bead on one of the newcomers through the telescopic sight, the original crow too mixed up with the victim itself for a clear shot. It was clinging to the dog's leg with its beak, yanking and twisting, trying to bring its prey down, while its friends swooped in when they got the chance, pecking at any exposed dog-flesh they could find. I squeezed the trigger nice and easy, aloof from all the excitement, and felt the rifle recoil against my shoulder.

The bird I'd targeted thudded to the rubble without a squawk and one of its companions fluttered away, screeching some kind of alarm, heading back to wherever the hell it'd come from. The other two were too absorbed in their work to take any notice.

By now the victim was rolling through the dirt in an effort to dislodge the crow on its back, biting and snarling, no longer howling. It had guts, this skinny hound, but needed all the help it could get.

My next shot clipped a wing and scattered black feathers into the air, stunning the bird but not seriously wounding it. It hobbled around for a few seconds, and that's when I got an idea of these birds' true size.

They weren't carrion crows and they weren't rooks. These were the giants of the species: Ravens. I'd always thought these creatures lived on mountains and moors, or sea cliffs, but I guess I shouldn't really have been surprised: nothing was the same after the Blood Death. Maybe all the small mammals, frogs, lizards, or even dead sheep that these birds usually feed on had all been used up in their natural territory.

Then I remembered I'd seen this kind once before in London, long before the Blood Death rockets had fallen, but I was too busy at that moment to remember where.

I aimed again and took off the injured raven's head with the next bullet.

That left one more to deal with, and this would be the trickiest shot of all. I moved closer, going to the road's edge.

The dog was putting up a brave fight, but not quite giving as much as it was taking. I knelt on the cobblestones, looped the sling around my upper left arm to take the rifle's weight, breathed out, and took steady aim, knowing it was gonna be tight, but what the hell, if I missed the bird and hit the victim, it would be doing the mutt a favour. Without hesitation, I squeezed the trigger with the pad of my index finger.

It was a true shot, square in the chest, and the bird, still clinging to the dog's back, flapped madly for a few moments before flopping to the ground, dead meat before it even landed. But the dog wasn't satisfied: it pounced on the carcass and broke the raven's neck with its jaws, then proceeded to drag it through the dirt, shaking it like a rag doll and tossing it into the air until exhaustion set in. The mutt wandered off a few yards and slumped to the ground, chin resting on its paws, weary eyes watching what was left of the bird.

Leaving the rifle on the cobblestones, I approached the panting dog to see if I could do anything about its wounds, but as soon as I drew near it rose and shied away, watching me all the time over its shoulder.

It settled again immediately I retreated, this time keeping its eyes on me rather than the feathered carcass.

I went back to my lunch and I guess the aroma of those boiled sausages was too much to resist, because the next time I looked up the dog was in the middle of the street, standing on all fours, bloodied but undefeated, nose twitching again. Tossing a whole hot sausage towards it, I went on with my meal, and when I glanced the mutt's way again, the scrap of meat was gone.

This went on for some time, one morsel following another, each throw a little shorter than the last, until the scraggy-haired dog was sitting across the fire from me and we were finishing the meal together. Later I took it into the nearest house and bathed its wounds (there was plenty of water in this row of houses, although elsewhere pipes had been fractured by bombs during the war, or had frozen and burst over the last winter). I found quite a few old scars on its body, proof, I guess, that survival hadn't been easy for it.

So that's how we met. Eventually I called the dog Cagney, because of the red hair (amazing what a scrub-down had produced) and a certain wise-guy attitude, and If became 'he' because now the mutt had a personality. Cagney was a cross between a retriever and God knows what else, and he stayed independent, coming along with me only when he felt like it, disappearing for days, sometimes weeks, always finding me again at one of the several safe places I used all over the city once he knew where they were. I guess we were company for each other, and if he got offended whenever I got soused and ranted at him and the world in general, he never sulked for long. And if I got maudlin and shed a few self-pitying tears, he just let me get on with it, taking himself off to avoid mutual embarrassment. I didn't know his history, and he didn't know mine. We maintained a cool reserve between us most of the time, afraid, I guess, that tomorrow the other might be gone for good. Now I'd have welcomed his company in the tram tunnel as the mangy, slavering dog-pack crept up on me from out of the darkness.

'Hoke? Are you okay?' At least Cissie hadn't forgotten about me. Her voice echoed around the walls and the dogs hesitated.

'Keep walking,' I advised her.

And in a short while I was following my own advice, catching up to the others as they held their hands to their ears, pained expressions on their faces.

The dogs? Oh yeah, the dogs. I'd taken out that first and meanest-looking one with two bullets to its head, the gunshots reverberating like thunder around the confines of the tunnel. Taking my old instructor's sound advice, I'd followed the first shot with a rapid second just to make sure. You didn't need to do that with a rifle, but a handgun is less powerful so you could never be sure if the first bullet had inflicted enough damage.

It'd leapt into the air, then dropped stone dead, without a twitch, without a murmur, and the rest of the pack had vanished into the void, running like hell from the thunderclap. I knew they'd return, and soon, because now they had a warm meal waiting for them, one of their own kind.

My own ears were ringing with the gun blasts and although I saw Cissie's mouth working I couldn't hear a word she was saying. Suddenly I was lit up by the full blaze of the warden's powerful flashlight, so not only was I unable to hear, but I was blind too.

Shielding my eyes with a raised hand I told him to get the light off me.

If he was deafened too he must have got the idea from my angry expression. The light blinked off and we were left in the softer glow of the paraffin lamp again. By the time I reached Muriel the ringing had toned down and I could hear voices once more.

'Surely those dogs wouldn't have attacked us,' she said in her very correct manner.

Things have changed,' I told them all, not just her. 'You can't trust the animals any more. Most of them are half-wild, the rest all-wild. And they're pretty hungry.'

Cissie was pulling at her ear lobes. 'You could've warned us you were going to shoot.'

"Yeah. Sorry. I'll make a formal announcement next time.'

I brushed past her and, taking the flashlight from the warden's hand, kept going, switching on the light again to play the beam along the road ahead. I didn't care if they followed or not, I just wanted to be out of that place and breathing fresh air.

The tunnel swept round in a long gentle curve and soon we came upon many other kinds of vehicles, cars and trucks, cabs, bicycles, even a wheelchair (we didn't examine the slumped bundle inside it too closely), their drivers and riders mistakenly thinking they'd be safe underground, just like the people who'd fled into the Tube stations. Well, they'd been wrong. We'd all been wrong. Every son-of-a-bitch who thought Good always conquers Evil and who'd gone to war to prove the point had been wrong. I couldn't help wondering - then and many times before - how that squared with a so-called 'benevolent'

God.

I trudged on, limping badly by now, exhaustion, mental and physical, exaggerating the effects of my injuries and bruises; I remained oblivious to whether or not the others were keeping up with me, just set on reaching daylight before my legs gave out. And gradually I closed my mind down, shutting out all thoughts that had nothing to do with getting to the end of the tunnel.

Save one, that is. I couldn't stop thinking of when and how I'd kill the German.

7

WE CAME UP on the approach road to Waterloo Bridge, battered, bruised, and shielding our startled eyes against the harsh sunlight. We were all filthy, black from head to toe, even Potter, and although the ramp leading out of the tunnel was gentle enough, our lead-weight legs found the going tough. Our breathing was laboured and old Potter was wheezing badly by the time we reached the surface road.

The girls sank to the ground at the top of the incline, faces turned up towards the sky, like sun-worshippers after a long, hard winter, while the warden took off his helmet and mopped his brow with his crumpled red spotted handkerchief. He muttered something under his breath, complaining about

'lumbago', I think, and he rubbed the small of his back so's we'd get the message. Stern stood aloof from the others, taking in deep, purging breaths, getting rid of the rank, sooty air he'd swallowed back there in the tunnels. I left them to it, going over to the corner of the ramp and peering round the railings back towards the big intersection where the Strand met the Aldwych. The tram tunnel had been built to avoid the traffic congestion at that point, beginning its descent in the middle of the broad bridge road and curving round below ground before straightening again to emerge in Kingsway. Everything looked peaceful enough at the intersection, with only the jumble of motor vehicles we'd weaved through earlier creating its own silent chaos. I sagged then, going down on one knee, shoulder resting against the railing's end post, my face, like the girls', turned up towards the clear sky.

My eyes closed for a second or two, and when I opened them again I saw a solitary seagull sail across the blue, heading downriver, its haunted call as lonely as its image. With a weary grunt I pulled myself up again and crossed the road to the bridge's parapet. Although small craft and floating debris littered the wide River Thames below, its waters sparkled in a way they never had during the war; the old river had cleansed itself and from where I stood I could see shoals of silver fish, swimming free of human effluent and, so it seemed, untouched by the great disease. The breeze was cool here, and somehow placating, soothing the dread that had travelled with me these past hours; only the sagging barrage balloons hanging lazily above reminded me that all really was not well with the world. I went back to the others.

'Listen up,' I said to them. 'We need to get off the streets for a while, at least 'til the Blackshirts have given up on us. The place I've been holing up in isn't far from here, so you're welcome to join me there for a while. When the heat dies down - say, in a day or two - you can do what you like.' I meant that for the girls and Potter; Wilhelm Stern I wasn't gonna let out of my sight.

Muriel's face broke into a tired but almost radiant smile. 'You mean the Savoy, don't you? That's the hotel you've been using, isn't it?' She brought her hands together as if delighted by the surprise, and even dishevelled she looked a princess.

I frowned though, because even if I had decided to let the German go - which wasn't likely - mention of the hotel's name had sealed his fate. He and the Blackshirts were of the same mould, brothers-in-arms, comrades-in-creed, and if I allowed him to wander off, chances were he'd find his British allies and lead them back to me. My fingertips played along the teeth of my zipper, close to the shoulder-holster inside my jacket.

Almost as if he could read my mind, Stern said quickly: 'I would be happy to go with you to this place. I think we all need to rest and perhaps make some plans.'

His expression was serious, stiff even, the good volunteer. His eyes might have flicked towards the hand still lingering close to the gun butt just out of sight under my jacket, but if so it was too fast for me to catch. I knew he'd noticed though.

'It would be so lovely to return to the Savoy,' Muriel was saying, unaware of the tension between myself and the German. 'Even during the war it was a wonderfully exciting place to wine and dine. Do you remember the Lord Woolton Pie?' She had swung round towards Cissie, the brightness in her grey-blue eyes hinting at the sparkle that must have been there in better times. 'You remember, Cissie - potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, leeks. The Savoy's chef created it specially for the Ministry of Food when rationing was so severe.'

'Oh sure,' her friend replied drily. 'I used to hobnob there all the time. You know, with Clark Gable when he was in town, or Douglas Fairbanks Junior. Even good old Tyrone Power used to lie to his wife Annabella just so's he could spend an evening with me dancing to Carroll Gibbons and his band. Now let me see, what were they called... ? They were on the radio all the time.'

'The Orpheans.' Muriel hadn't caught the weary sarcasm. 'Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Orpheans.'

There was something edgy about her delight, as if it might break at any moment, leaving only bitterness to take its place.

'For God's sake, Muriel,' Cissie snapped. 'You know where I'm from. You know I would never have dared set foot in a swanky place like the Savoy, even if I could afford to!'

'I only meant... The recipe was used by housewives all over the country.'

'Oh yes, what a wonderful example you toffs set for us commonfolk. My-oh-my, if you lot could survive on Spam and powdered eggs quaffed down with only the scuramiest vintage wine, then the rest of us peasants could easily get by on good old Lord Woolton's bloody pie. God bless you, ma'am, if I had a cap, I'd doff it'

The shine in Muriel's eyes dimmed. She looked down at her knees, her weariness returned. In a softer voice she said, 'My father used to take me to the River Room for lunch whenever he could find the time.

We used to toast Mother's memory with a glass of champagne before we even looked at the menu...'

Her words trailed off, but she remained in that position, head bowed, distracted, as if memories were continuing inside her head; and then Cissie was kneeling beside her, telling her quietly that she was sorry, hadn't meant to be a cow, her arm sliding around her friend's shoulder as she apologized.

I was impatient to get moving again. 'The water's still running,' I told them, and Cissie raised her head, scowling at me, wondering what the hell I was talking about 'The hotel,' I said. 'There's plenty of water.

And the tubs are big enough for hippos.'

The thought of a bath, cold or not, soon changed Cissie's mood. She examined her filthy hands and arms for a moment, took a token swipe at the dust on her slacks, then beamed a pure white grin from her sooty face.

'Now you're talking,' she said, straightening up and bringing Muriel with her. 'Come on, Mu, snap out of it. I'll let you scrub my back if you promise not to go all ritzy on me again.' She hugged her companion, then looked at me expectantly. Tell me there's tons of food, and not just Woolton Pie. I'm starving.'

'If you don't mind tinned stuff.'

'So what are we waiting for? My tummy's already screeching at me.'

I glanced across at Potter, who was still pulling in short, gasping breaths and looking unreasonably hot in his dark blue overalls. 'You coming with us?' I asked, and he returned my look with some sourness in those broad, sweaty features. 'You mean I don't have to? I can go on me own way if I want?

'Sure. It's every man for himself.'

'Oh, is it? That's good to know, son. I'll remind you of that next time yer stick a gun in me belly.' He mopped the inside rim of his helmet with his red rag, then, with some dignity, placed it back on his head, tucking the strap under one of his plump chins. 'Well, since my little hideaway has gorn up in smoke, I think I'll indulge in a bit of luxury meself. The hotel was on my watch durin the Blitz, so I know a bit about the place. I was quite pally with a few of the staff in there too, 'specially the volunteer ARPs and Red Cross nurses. Even had mugs a tea on the rooftop with the fire spotters. They were quite a bunch, I can tell yer. Heroes, the lot of 'em. Old William Lawes from the Works Department use'ta ponce about in a two-hundred-guinea raccoon coat to keep out the chill when he was patrolling the roof. Left behind by an American guest in the Twenties who couldn't pay his bill, so I was told.' He gave a short nostalgic chortle, then became serious again. "Course, we can duck down the basement to the Lincoln Room when the mad bomber comes over next'

Before I could say anything more, Cissie cut in. 'What are you talking about? What mad bomber?'

'Eh? You know who I mean.' Potter looked at her, perplexed.

'They've been out of London for a while,' I explained quickly, anxious to be on our way. Nostalgia and sunshine was okay at the right time, but this wasn't it: we were still in danger. But Potter had become rattled.

'D'yer think I'm in uniform for the fun of it?'

Both Cissie and I stared at him. Behind Potter I could see Stern was also taking an interest

'I'll carry on me duty until it's all over,' Potter went on.

'Nobody's stood me down yet, and until they do I'll keep on with the job I was given. We old 'uns have got our uses, y'know. We can serve King and Country as well as anyone.'

Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised - this old boy had been living in an underground bunker for the past three years, getting rid of the dead bodies that filled the place to make room for himself, when he could have chosen to live anywhere in the city. He could even have followed other survivors and fled to the hills around London, or beyond, away from the worst of the holocaust and constant reminders of what we had done to ourselves. This guy had gone crazy all right, but only mildly so; he seemed harmless enough -so far - and anyway, I hadn't forgotten he'd saved our lives.

'Okay, let's get going,' I said, unwilling to waste any more time.

Cissie was more than ready and Muriel seemed to have taken a hold on herself. 'You'll stay with us?' she asked Stern, who still stood apart from the rest of us.

His pale eyes took us all in. '0f course. That is, if no one objects.'

Potter shuffled round to regard the German. 'This feller's foreign, ain't he?' he said suspiciously.

'Forget it,' I snapped. There was no time for a new debate. I did my best to sound neighbourly. 'Okay, Willy, you stick with us' - (like he had a choice) - 'for now.' Then to all of them: 'There's a stairway opposite that'll take us down to the Embankment. The hotel's one block away.'

Our footsteps sounded hollow inside the covered stairway and I think none of us liked being in the gloom again. But it wasn't for long and at the bottom I brought them to a halt

'What is it?' whispered Cissie, her eyes wide and searching the road outside over my shoulder.

A finger to my lips quietened her. I stuck my head out and did a swift recce of the way ahead.

Warm air shimmered above the metal roofs of the scant traffic stuck there in the broad thoroughfare that ran alongside the Thames, but that was the only thing that moved. No noise, only our own breathing.

Everything was abnormally normal. I stepped out, gesturing to the others to keep close.

We could see the modest riverside entrance to the Savoy a few hundred yards away, the narrow street it was located in rising gently, a small overgrown garden park opposite; a zigzag wall built during the Blitz to protect the hotel's rear access and river restaurant windows ran along the frontage. Several of the vehicles in the street had been parked there by me, their tanks full, keys in ignitions, batteries fully charged. The MG two-seater was for speed, the black Austin taxi for manoeuvrability, the Bentley for comfort (never used so far), and the flatbed truck, a Foden diesel which took up most of the street's width further down - well, that was for other purposes.

As far as I could tell, nothing had changed since my last visit three days ago - there were no new vehicles in sight and the single board I'd left leaning across the opening to the trench between the barricade and the hotel wall was still in place. But that didn't mean the enemy wouldn't be lurking inside the building itself, waiting for me to return. Until this morning the Blackshirts had never discovered any of my havens, so now I was extra wary. Hubble was stepping up his search, no doubt about that, and you didn't have to be an Einstein to figure out why: I've said it before - time was running out for him and his bunch of blood scavengers. Today, of course, he had even more reason to intensify the hunt: he'd discovered there were three more possible walking blood banks in town.

The sun's heat seemed raw after we'd spent so much time underground and soon the back of my shirt was sweat-soaked. I felt exposed and scared out there in the open, which may have added to the perspiration, but it didn't take long to reach the cover of the barricade. Lifting the plank of wood aside, I indicated to the others to go through, and with one last look around, I followed. The revolving door into the entrance hall was stiff with disuse and while Cissie struggled with it I let myself in by the glass side door.

The others crowded in behind me, nervously looking around the compact, low-ceilinged entrance hall, Muriel walking straight to the short flight of stairs leading to the floor above and peering up them. Cissie finally emerged from the revolving door, her glare telling me I should have advised her. From the relief on the faces of the others I guessed they were pleased to find there were no shrivelled corpses cluttering up the place, and I wasn't about to tell them otherwise, at least, not right there and then. Sure, there were plenty of guests still in residence, all of them dead, but I'd tucked them away out of sight along with members of staff as far as the rooms, stairways and corridors I used were concerned. Like the warden, I preferred them out of sight and out of mind. I had to give these people some warning though, because certain areas I'd left untouched.

'Stay with me and don't go poking your noses into any closed rooms,' I said. 'You wouldn't like what you'd find. And hey...' I paused, making sure I had their full attention. 'There are some parts we have to go through that are gonna upset you. Unfortunately there's no other way...'

Muriel shuddered and turned from the stairs. Cissie held her own upper arms as if a chill breeze had followed her through from the street

'I thought the hotel would be empty,' murmured Muriel. 'I didn't realize.,.' Her voice sharpened and there was enough daylight inside the entrance hall to see the astonished curiosity in her eyes. 'Why would you choose to live in a ... in a... morgue like this? There must be so many other places.'

I brushed past her to reach the stairs. 'This is just one of a few safe places, lady, and one I was already familiar with.'

'I don't understand.'

On the third step, I turned to look down at her. 'Did you ever hear of the 1st American Eagle Squadron?'

She nodded slowly, but it was Potter who spoke up. 'Yanks and Canadians who couldn't wait for their own countries to come off the fence.'

'We joined in your war early, fought with the RAF when you needed all the pilots you could get,' I said, too weary to explain fully, but ready to satisfy this girl's curiosity if it would get her moving again. 'We made our unofficial HQ in this hotel. Suite 618-619. We drank, we caroused, we played poker, we did anything to take our minds off killing and being killed for a coupla hours. The American Bar became our watering hole, though I don't remember any of us ever paying for a drink. Hell, we even got into Tich's Bar with the war correspondents.' I didn't tell them about Sally, how I'd courted her here, my turn to impress her after she'd shown me all the good things in her town, bomb damage or not, how I'd loved her, and yeah, one year before the last V2s had landed, had married her here in the Savoy Chapel.

318-319 was our honeymoon suite, but the hotel had only charged us room rate and had thrown in champagne and flowers as a wedding gift. I didn't explain because there wasn't time and there was no point. Besides, these people meant nothing to me - I didn't owe them a thing. 'Cept maybe the German.

Yeah, he had something coming, and that was why I wanted them all to stay with me for now. I wanted him to suffer just a little before he took his last breath, but I was too beat up to play it out right then.

When I put the Kraut away, I wanted to enjoy the moment. Heck, I wanted to celebrate it.

'So why are we hanging around?' Cissie said, looking from me to the others, then back to me again.

'You mentioned the water's still running, didn't you? And I bet the bar's open all hours, isn't it? So what are we waiting for?'

She joined me on the stairs and when I failed to budge because my thoughts were still otherwise engaged, she prompted me with: 'Mine's a large gin and tonic, easy on the tonic, heavy on the gin. Hey, Mr Fighter Pilot, did you hear me? A girl could die a thirst aroun' here.' Her attempt at Mae West was pretty cruddy - maybe it was the hint of hysteria that spoilt it - but it changed my mood. For a short while, anyway.

I took them up to the next level, through an art deco foyer with dusty chandelier and fountain-etched mirror, then up more stairs into twilight corridors, past doors with fancy names - Iolanthe, Mikado, Sorcerer, Gondoliers - and over thick carpets that smelled of mildew. The further we ventured, the gloomier it became, until after a sharp turn the way ahead radiated a palish grey again. Soon we'd entered that grey.

'Oh dear God.' Muriel's fingertips covered her lips.

'How could... ?' Slowly Cissie had turned her eyes on me, away from the spectacle that spread out before us, away from the vast front foyer where the rich and the gracious and the businessmen on expenses had taken late-morning or afternoon tea, or evening cocktails, in elegant easy chairs or sofas set between brown marble columns and exotic potted palms, surrounded by tasteful murals and high mirrors, ormolu clocks and knee-high tables laid with finest china-ware and tiered cake-stands, served by waiters in tails, with reception clerks in morning dress bustling through it all with courteous calm, the war outside an inconvenience but never a hindrance to the Savoy, sendee as normal even if the building itself had become a little battered and the menus reduced to basic (if stylish) fare; where now rotted figures slumped in those same elegant easy chairs, or sprawled across those knee-high tables amid broken crockery, or lay on carpets thick with dust, the foyer nothing more than a vast emporium of horribly macabre tableaux, each one solidified in death, the plants merely dried stems, the chandeliers grey with dust, and the humans only desiccated husks. And beyond this, through the open doors to the grand restaurant overlooking the park and river, opened only for lunchtime custom in the dark days, the scene was repeated, but rendered even more grotesque by the sun's brightness through the high, broad, taped windows. Cissie had diverted her eyes from this to look at me with ... with what? Not with Muriel's astonished curiosity when we'd first entered the building. Horror, then? Yeah, horror and something more. Dismay would come closest Her sentence might have finished with, 'How could you live in a charnel house like this and remain sane?'

Well, lady, I hadn't claimed to have all my marbles.

I didn't say that, though. I just couldn't be bothered any more. I ignored those bewildered hazel eyes and her unfinished question.

The stairway's along here,' I said instead, moving off to the right towards the Savoy's stately vestibule and entrance hall sensing their eyes on my back, their disgust. I kept walking and knew they'd follow me anyway, like frightened stray sheep in need of a leader.

Up a broad set of steps I took them, past a balcony overlooking the vestibule, then down a high-ceilinged hallway towards the stairs next to the defunct elevator. On the way, but without changing pace, I took a quick peek into a half-open doorway, checking on the Velocette Mk II motorbike I'd hidden away in there. It nestled in the shadows like some great black and fabulous insect, tank full, parts greased and free from rust, spark plugs clean, all primed and ready for a swift start, and just a glimpse of it stirred something deep down in my gut. It was the sudden urge to get away, I guess, to climb aboard that machine and roar out of the hotel and free myself from these people and the liability that went with knowing them. Involvement was something I neither wanted nor needed, because that kind of burden only brought more grief.