But when his hand had almost reached my feet, the fingers suddenly wrapped themselves around my ankle, jerking it from under me, so that I fell flat on my back. Sheer reaction made me grab a lower part of the rail again as I started to slide, but it took all the strength I had left - and there wasn't much - to hold myself there as my body stretched, dragged down by McGruder's weight.
My arm trembling with the strain, my back flat against the stone, my spine feeling the vibrations rumbling through the groaning bridge, I raised my head to look down at McGruder. He was on his stomach, the knife angled into his back, and both of his hands were now clenched round my ankle as he tried to drag himself back up the incline. There was no expression on that blackened face now, even though his eyes still stared into mine.
He pulled himself upwards, using my leg as a rope, his shoulders quivering with the effort. And as his head drew level with my knee, that sick, lunatic's grin returned. Oh the eyes were still distant, kind of glazed over as if his mind was off in some faraway place, but those blistered and cracked lips were spread wide, the blood-smeared teeth bared in a grin that was just for me. I raised my other foot and smashed the heel of my boot into his nose.
Blood - bad blood, diseased, coagulated blood - burst from his nostrils like lanced poison, and his hold on me relaxed. Then he was falling away from me, slithering towards that long black narrowing gap at the bottom of the slope, his last gaze fixed on me all the way. I turned over and scrambled upwards, reaching for the top edge of the bascule, dragging myself up onto the apex. I slumped there, riding the summit, one leg and arm roadside, the other half of me over the edge, and I watched McGruder as his fingers raked the roadway and his legs slid into the thinning gap.
His chest rose from the concrete and I realized the bottom of the bascule was angled to join the underside slope of the roadway itself when the bridge was level. The rest of his body was too bulky to go through.
It was terrible, but I couldn't turn away, I couldn't close my eyes to the horror. McGruder screamed and screamed as hundreds of tons of concrete, iron and lead crushed his hips and legs, the sound abruptly cut off by the thick explosion of blood that squeezed through his body to erupt from every opening in his head.
The gap closed completely and the bridge was down. And I was falling, shaken off my perch by the sudden fierce bump as the roadway levelled, tumbling over and over 'til I hit the cool waters thirty feet below.
28
CISSIE WAS YELLING at me and pumping my chest at the same time, and I'm not sure if it was the pain or her shouts that brought me out of my stupor. I retched river water and tried to turn onto my side.
She helped me and began thumping my back. I started to protest, but more water belched from me. I could only moan and gulp in air between heaves, my head jerking off the soaked concrete with every spasm.
'Why?' she was yelling at me, her voice ringing off dank cavern walls around us. 'Why didn't you listen to me? Why did there have to be more killing? You bloody, bloody fool! You nearly got yourself blown to pieces, just like I said you would!' She began to sob, her blows becoming more feeble. 'You never listen and you never talk. I still don't even know why you stayed in this bloody awful city, living with corpses, always on the run, killing just to stay alive!'
She babbled on, weeping and cursing, pounding water from my lungs and generally giving me hell 'til I started to laugh. My chest and shoulders lurched as though I were having some kind of fit, but the laughter expelled the last drops of water I'd swallowed in my swim across the Thames to this tiny quayside underneath the bridge's northern span. Luckily for me the shock of falling into the river had helped put some life back into my exhausted body, just enough to get me fighting again, kicking water, keeping myself afloat on the currents. I knew I'd drown if I didn't make the effort, and that seemed pretty silly after all I'd been through, so I struck out for the shore (the currents had already carried me close to the north tower), swimming through debris and human flotsam thrown from the high walkway by the explosions. I clung to the pier for a while, fingers digging into the cracks between its stone blocks, getting my breath back and working up some strength for the rest of the journey, then inched my way round, every so often my numbed hands slipping off the concrete's slimy surface and my whole body shivering from cold or shock, probably both. On the other side I could see the stone steps leading up to the covert landing stage tucked beneath the first span, and where once they probably dragged suicidal bridge jumpers from the river, it didn't seem so far and, goddamn it, I was gonna try far it What choice did I have? I kicked off my boots, unbuckled the gun holster, and headed for shore.
I think I went under two or three times - it's hard to recall just how many - but on each occasion I'd pop up again, thrashing out with more vigour for a few strokes before settling into a weary but steady rhythm.
When I thought the game was up, only yards from that little hideaway dock, and began to sink, my feet touched something solid underneath me, something I could push against to get me back to the surface.
Another couple of strokes and I was able to stand; I could walk - I could stagger - up the long, sloping ramp towards the two sets of steps leading to the landing stage and, when the water was only waist-high, there was Cissie running down those steps, calling my name. She'd jumped into the river and waded out to meet me, tucking herself under my shoulder, and helping me reach safe ground, weeping and babbling on about how she'd watched me fall from the bridge, knowing it was me even from that distance because I wasn't wearing black, and how, when she'd searched for a boat, she'd found the tunnel leading to the concealed landing stage under the approach road. She had to drag me up those slippery steps and that's when I'd buckled and she'd begun pounding my chest, afraid I was going to drown on dry land.
She didn't understand I was laughing - she thought I was choking - and she beat my back even more, shouting at me not to give in, that I was going to pull through, and please, please, please, don't die, Hoke, don't die. I lifted an arm to ward her off, but I was too weak.
'Cut ... cut it out,' I managed to gasp, and she quit immediately.
'You're all right' She seemed stunned.
'I guess,' was the best I could do. I didn't have the energy to laugh again, but I stoked up a grin.
She just wailed. She just threw herself on top of me and blubbered. Pretty soon I was blubbering with her.
And eventually, when our tears had dried and we both sat shivering in that gloomy, damp, brick cave, my arm around her shoulders, holding her close, I told her why I'd never left the city.
29
THERE WAS NOTHING left for me here any more. Nothing left for me to do.
I eased the military truck through the paralysed traffic as the huge column of smoke and fire rose up over the rooftops far behind me, the funeral pyre only a gesture, a symbolic mark of respect for the passing of so many, those thousands of burning corpses representing the millions that had perished in this city. I'd never had the chance to visit Wembley Stadium in wartime, but now and again, when I'd been unloading all those carcasses I'd collected from the streets, I'd heard -I was sure I'd heard - the ghost-echoes of cheering masses, voices raised in praise of human skill and endurance. They'd never frightened me, those spectral ovations; no, they'd only deepened the sadness, made me even more aware of my own isolation, my own loneliness.