Flash Flood

Chapter Two

The groundsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in northwest London looked miserably into the grey sky. The rain pounded on his umbrella as if it was a drum; the water ran off the edges like a cascade. Most of the summer had been like this. The Wimbledon tennis championships had dragged out to four weeks instead of two, in order to get enough dry days to play all the matches. If the weather didn’t improve, it looked as though the summer’s cricket might never start at all.

He put the collar of his Barbour up and stepped onto the pitch. The grass was so soggy, his feet sank in; it was like standing on a wet sponge. Even if the rain stopped, it would be a good few days before play was possible. But there was no let-up forecast.

The drumming on the top of his umbrella became louder, as though the clouds had detected his thoughts and were offended by them. Thunder rumbled out of the glowering sky. Now a storm was coming too.

He decided there was no point in staying. There wasn’t any work he could do today. He squelched off the grass, grateful when his feet met the solid tarmac of the car park. The rain was so hard it was hopping off the asphalt like jumping beans.

The groundsman opened the door of his car, pulled his Barbour off and bundled it, dripping, into the passenger seat, then scrambled in.

He couldn’t see through the windscreen. The rain was so hard it blurred it as though the glass was melting. He started the engine and put the wipers on. Even on extra fast they struggled to create a clear space he could see through. He edged along the drive and pulled out into St John’s Wood Road.

The engine stalled, which it often did. His car didn’t like wet weather. As he pulled the handbrake on and turned the ignition key again, he caught a glimpse of looming headlights behind. There was a wail of a horn and a screech of tyres. A big silver saloon, travelling too fast, aquaplaned on the road and hit his rear bumper with a dull crunch.

For a few nanoseconds he got a clear view through the rear window of the driver of the car getting wearily out, then the rain blurred the glass again.

Great. Just what he needed.

Ensign Henrik peered through the windscreen on the bridge of the ship. The wipers could barely keep up with the volume of water streaming down the glass.

Outside was the grey choppy surface of the river Thames. It blended into the brooding grey of the sky. From time to time he could see the lights of boats in the distance, pinpricks of red bobbing up and down on the choppy waters.

‘You’re doing fine,’ said a voice behind him. The captain leaned back in his chair and took a drag on his cigarette. ‘Just keep her steady. Remember you’ve got a full load.’

The Agnetha was a big ship, about the length of a football pitch from bow to stern. She was also old and took some careful handling. Particularly with several hundred tonnes of aggregates in the hold, which slowed down the responsiveness of the controls so much it was as if the ship had gone to sleep. Henrik had piloted her before, but that was only on the return journey, when she was empty. Today he was taking her all the way from the port of Hango, on the southernmost tip of Finland, to the deep-water terminals at Greenwich docks.

What a day he’d picked. This weather was terrible; he could hardly see a thing. At least it wasn’t far now to their destination.

He looked to the shores of the Thames on either side of him. They were virtually invisible. There were lights on the banks but they were blurred, as though the windows had been smeared with Vaseline. His own masthead light, the length of a football pitch away at the front of the boat, had disappeared into the murk. Even the sound of the engines, usually a low throbbing hum, was drowned out by the relentless quantities of rain drumming on the metal roof of the bridge.

‘Watch out! Hard right!’ Henrik saw a pinprick of light right at the very corner on the radar display. Instantly the captain was standing over him, pulling the steering column hard to the right. The boat outside looked as if it was still some distance away. On the radar, it blipped slowly to the edge of the display and disappeared as the Agnetha turned. The captain stepped back again but he watched the radar closely for a few more anxious moments. Then he sank back into his chair.

‘You need to give her far more time to turn when she’s loaded like this,’ he said.

Henrik nodded, chastened. ‘But we didn’t hear the collision alarm.’

‘If we hear the alarm when we’re fully laden it’s too late,’ was the acerbic reply.

The captain was looking tired, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, his forehead resting on his hand. The cigarette lay forgotten, its smoke curling into a grey column in the air while the captain recovered from the shock. Henrik felt ashamed. They must have had a close call.

Henrik turned back, checked the instruments, looked at the radar very closely. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. The river was still wide at this point, almost like a big lake. But the closer they got to Greenwich, the more it narrowed and the more hazards there were to navigate. This journey would only get more tricky.

When he next looked round at the captain, he got a shock. The captain was slumped in the chair, his right arm dangling on the ground like an ape’s. He was twitching as though he was trying to get up but had no control over his body.

The cigarette fell from the fingers of his left hand. He didn’t move to pick it up.

Henrik moved quickly over to him. ‘Sir? Sir, are you all right?’

The captain tried to move. Again he only managed a fitful jerk, as if the swinging arm was a lead weight keeping him down.

‘Sir, what’s the matter?’

‘I can’t move. I can’t see. Help me.’

Henrik wasn’t sure if he’d heard him right. The captain’s voice was slurred, as if he’d just been to the dentist. ‘You can’t see?’

The captain was staring ahead. He blinked as if he was trying to clear his vision. ‘I can’t see.’ He tried to shake his head but he only managed another twitch. One side of his mouth didn’t seem to be working.

Henrik suddenly realized that the captain’s strange behaviour reminded him of his grandmother after she had had a stroke.

He reached towards a big button on the console. ‘Emergency, emergency, first aider needed on the bridge! Hello?’

And then he heard a sound he didn’t want to hear. A wail like a siren.

The collision alarm.

Henrik looked at the radar. A big glowing blob showed at the top of the screen.

A voice answered him. ‘Henrik? What’s the matter?’

‘Captain needs help. I think he’s having a stroke.’ Henrik steered hard right. It didn’t stop the collision alarm. Maybe it would stop in a moment. He peered out of the window but could see nothing — just the grey rain and the far-off twinkle of lights through Vaseline.

‘Keep his airway open,’ said the medical officer. ‘I’m on my way up.’

Henrik dropped down on one knee beside the captain. The captain stared at him, his watery blue eyes big and scared. He was breathing fast, like he’d run a race. But he was still breathing.

Henrik patted him gently on the shoulder. ‘They’re on their way, sir.’ He went back to the radar again. The big glowing blob looked closer.

Another voice came out of the console. ‘Henrik? What’s going on up there? The collision alarm’s going off. That’s the Thames Barrier out there.’ It was the guys in the radio room.

‘Can you get me a helmsman?’ said Henrik. ‘We’re in trouble up here.’

The hatch from the stairwell opened. ‘Where is he?’ It was the medical officer.

Just as he was starting to examine the captain, they heard a great grinding crash. Henrik was thrown to the floor and rolled into a corner. He stopped when he hit the wall and looked up groggily. The floor was at a crazy angle and the control panel was alive with red lights like a Christmas tree. The captain had tumbled out of the chair and was lying on the floor, mumbling. The medical officer had been thrown into the wall. His head was gushing blood. Alarms and sirens wailed around him like wounded animals.

In the Thames Barrier control centre on the south bank of the Thames, the air was also wailing with alarms. Looking through the window, the engineer could scarcely believe what he had seen. Everything had been normal, the row of silver metal shells containing the machinery that raised the flood gates stretching across the river like a chain of silver hoods. A large container ship had been coming towards them, but these vessels usually judged the width of the navigation channels just right.

However, this one had rammed into the concrete plinth at the waterline, ridden up it like a car mounting a pavement, and penetrated the barrier like a spear.

The engineer was so stunned that for a few moments he stood looking at it, at the metallic hood buckled like tinfoil, the sparks spewing like fireworks into the rain and the hulk of the ship still shuddering from the impact.

Then he snatched up the telephone. ‘Code Red! Code Red! The Barrier is out of action!’