Flash Flood

Chapter Seventeen

Ben was warmer now, and at least the Burberry stopped him getting any wetter. To his right he saw the water covering the road like a black slick; beyond the buildings the swollen river spread out like a loch.

Above him he could hear a new sound through the beat of the rain. A thrumming, like a helicopter but at the same time not quite like one.

A dark shape was moving across above the river. Red lights winked on its underside and Ben saw short helicopter rotors whirling round at each end. A Chinook. The rescue effort must be starting.

It paused over the water, framed for a moment by the gap between the buildings, then began to descend. Ben dashed across the road and waved, but the Chinook was aiming for the roof of a low building surrounded by water, where a group of people were stranded like penguins on an iceberg. It stopped and hovered about ten metres above the roof, its side door open. Ben could see people moving inside; then a winchman on a harness dropped out of the doorway and swung down to the figures on the roof.

He heard another double-beat of helicopter blades. A second Chinook went over, heading west, upriver. It was like being in a war movie, Ben thought.

And he was still on his own.

He stopped to turn the page of the A — Z. The pages were wet, stuck together like tissue paper. He peeled them apart carefully, worried about tearing them. The printing from the other side of the page was showing through anyway, making it hopelessly confusing. On the opposite side of the road was a high wall with metal spikes along the top. If he remembered correctly that was the grounds of Buckingham Palace. He put the A — Z back in his pocket, decided to keep the wall to his right and started walking again.

Standing still even for that short time had made him shivery, so he hurried along, trying to warm up again. Suddenly, as he looked more closely along a side street, he saw rats scuttling along, away from the water. He shivered. He also noticed manhole covers littering the street and Ben wondered why. They must have been lifted by the pressure of the water as it rose up out of the drains. That made him wish his dad was with him because they would have chatted about it.

Ben’s thoughts returned to Bel. If she could have been a normal mother and stayed at home, Ben wouldn’t be here right now. But she wanted to be mother to the entire planet’s ecosystem, nagging everyone to take better care of it and telling them they’d regret it if they didn’t. Now Ben was trudging through these wet streets with no money and no way of getting in touch with anybody. It was as if her long years of doom-mongering had conjured up the whole disaster. She’d said everyone would suffer and now they were doing just that. He hoped she was out there in the rain too, getting the full benefit. She certainly deserved to be.

The winch operator on the Chinook slowly wound the sling back up. In the harness on the end, the winchman was a soldier, his head encased in a green helmet like a cannonball with his surname painted on the back. He was carrying an exhausted woman, his arms and legs supporting her so that she didn’t slip. The sling swung in the air currents set up by the rotors, and khaki-sleeved arms reached down to pull it in.

As soon as the woman was safely clear of the door, two medics knelt down to examine her. Above the whine of the engines they couldn’t speak, but they didn’t need to. Her blue lips and delayed response to her surroundings were classic signs of hypothermia. One medic spread a khaki blanket over her while another took her pulse.

While they worked on her, a row of people who had been rescued watched as they sat huddled in foil survival blankets against the bare metal ribs of the fuselage. The craft was huge and was carrying about fifty casualties; some of them on canvas stretchers, others clutching warm drinks. Another medic kept an eye on them, taking their pulses, tending to injuries.

The inside of the Chinook smelled of dirty water and worse: sewage. London’s sewers had disgorged their contents into the streets. It wasn’t good news: stopping infection and disease was going to be a big problem over the days to come.

At the door, the winch operator and the winchman were checking their equipment, ready to make another journey, but then the co-pilot tapped the winchman on the shoulder and gave a throat-cutting gesture with his hand. No more rescues. They were full. He gave another hand signal: close the doors. The winch operator nodded and went to secure the sling. As his partner closed the doors, he could see more people down below, waving out of windows, standing on roofs. There was a couple stuck on the roof of their car, the vehicle a tiny red island in a lake of filthy water. As the Chinook gained height, the figures who still needed help dwindled to specks.

As they left the flooded area, London began to look more normal again. But they saw that every street was packed with cars, a daisy chain of brake lights as people tried to escape the city. Some of them had their possessions tied to their roofs, like giant snails. They might as well have been snails for all the progress they were making. The wet air was grey with smog from their chugging engines.

The winchman was looking out of the other window with binoculars. He turned to hand them to his partner and pointed out of the window.

Beside the stationary line of traffic was a grey-brown, moving mass. At first it looked like running water, but it seemed to be grainy, as though it was composed of many small pieces.

He focused the binoculars and realized what it was. Rats. They must have come out of the sewers. They were swarming past the stationary cars.

That seemed to sum up the day. When the rats decided to leave London, there really was no going back.