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 signaclass="underline" 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.
Chapter Eighteen
The undercarriage of the Flying Eye touched down at last in Stapleford Aerodrome in Essex. As Mike slowed the plane to taxi speed, he and Meena both felt they’d come to the end of a long journey. They were lucky the airfield was still there; quite a lot of the surrounding countryside was underwater and the nearby river Lee had burst its banks. But everything at the airfield looked normaclass="underline" the control tower, the hangars, the sprinkling of cars in the car park.
Meena unbuckled her seatbelt and looked through her pictures.
‘Did they come out?’ said Mike. ‘You owe me a drink for those.’
Meena grinned at him. ‘When I collect my Press Association award, you can be my guest at the ceremony.’ She heard a crackle coming from her headphones on the dashboard. ‘Hey, Capital’s transmitting again.’ She lifted the cups to her ears, then frowned and routed the radio through the plane’s speakers. ‘Listen to this.’
It was a strange serious-sounding voice, like a BBC news reader’s. ‘… important to turn off gas and electricity, if it is safe to do so. If you are stranded in a building and your exit is flooded, you can alert the rescue parties by hanging a sheet or large piece of cloth out of the window. Do not go out unless it is absolutely necessary.’
‘That’s not Capital,’ said Mike.
Meena checked the tuning. ‘It’s on the Capital frequency.’
‘Do not try to wade through the water or swim as the current is dangerous. Even twenty centimetres of water can knock you off your feet. Do not try to improvize boats with paddling pools or other items, or use recreational swimming toys such as lilos or air beds. You are much safer staying where you are and waiting for the rescue services to come to you.’
‘Where did they get him?’ said Mike. ‘He sounds like he came out of a time warp.’
Meena tried twiddling the dial. ‘LBC’s out. Oh — Radio One’s on. But it’s playing the same thing.’
‘The emergency services must have taken over the transmitters.’
‘How do they do that, then? The Capital offices were abandoned.’
‘They’ve probably got a way to cover a range of frequencies. Or something. I don’t know. I’m only a pilot.’
‘If you are in a building whose lower floors are flooded, try to dress warmly: if your building is flooded, the water will cool it down. Try to find loose-fitting, comfortable garments and good walking shoes. If you need medicines, make sure they are close at hand. You can make sandbags to stop water coming in under doors, using pillows or cushions or heavy material such as blankets.’