Tim felt nauseated by the whole business, though maybe that was what the Ministry wanted from him: full emotional commitment. Christ, as if he weren’t up to his throat in it already.
The major returned and Tim sensed immediately that something was wrong, although it was impossible to judge the man’s expression behind that mask.
‘Sorry about the delay,’ he apologised abruptly. ‘Bit of a bad show really. More casualties.’
‘What happened?’ Jocelyn asked.
‘A truck skidded and overturned. In normal circumstances the men in the back might have had a chance, but as it was they landed in a patch of jellies. Five dead. Four badly injured; one with minor grazes.’
‘It skidded on the jellyfish?’
‘On the slime.’
‘It doesn’t do to underestimate them,’ she said with obvious bitterness in her voice. ‘Oh, those poor men…’
‘What else?’ Tim asked the major grimly, knowing in his bones there must be something more.
‘We’re operating on a ten-mile front to clear this stretch of coast, with all our forces concentrated here, yet the jellies must choose today to mount their own offensive to the west of us. Devon. One town completely surrounded; cut off, in fact. Luckily, most of the population was evacuated in time, but a couple of dozen are still there, marooned in the local hospital.’
The major paused. His eyes, through the slits in the rubber mask, regarded Tim sympathetically.
‘Where?’ That dryness in his mouth was already warning him what the answer must be.
‘Totnes,’ the major confirmed. ‘We’re sending in a helicopter force, though whether they’ll be able to land is open to question. The weather’s against them. The colonel wants to know if you’d like to go with them.’
‘My wife?’
‘She was still all right up to about an hour ago. Then the telephone was cut off.’
‘She’s at the hospital?’
‘That’s right. Not as a patient, as far as we can gather. Visiting, I think. She seemed to be taking charge up there — at least, she was the one who did the phoning. Of course, the patients were among the first to be brought out, together with most of the medical staff. I take it you do want to go? The Ministry agrees.’
‘Too right I want to go!’ Tim answered vehemently.
‘Then we’d best get a move on.’
As they were about to leave, a lorry passed them, its canvas cover flapping in the wind. It drew up in the village and another fifteen or twenty soldiers jumped out. An NCO barked at them through his face-mask, ordering them to hurry along. They unloaded more flame throwers and hoes, then took up positions near the churchyard wall.
A little distance away, from the top of a small armoured vehicle, an army cameraman was busy filming the operation. And from the graveyard itself came the sudden chilling scream of a man in extreme pain.
20
Sue hung up the phone despondently. She’d hoped they would have repaired the line by now, but it was still dead.
Outside, the rain was beating down relentlessly. The wind whined through the now-useless telegraph wires which for the first couple of hours had kept them reassuringly in touch with the rest of the world. An eerie, greenish light hovered over the ground, emanating from the masses of jellyfish which surrounded the hospital. They drifted menacingly in the shallow flood-water covering the drive and lawns.
She shivered and drew the curtains. Now that everyone had settled down the ward seemed cosy enough. The electricity was off but the two nurses had found some oil lamps which made the place look more cheerful. One of the boys had a transistor radio.
Of course, it was her own fault she was there at all. She could easily have got away on one of the earlier buses. Adrian and Tony had kept a seat for her, as well as one for the young lad from the theatre; her nice landlady had gone too, first putting out the empty milk bottles and checking the fridge, convinced she’d only be gone a day or two.
But she’d insisted on seeing Mark. Not that he would have known: the dead recognise no visitors. No, it was simply an obscure feeling that she owed him something. She felt guilty towards him. Mark had always been so honest and straightforward with her, whereas she’d merely used him in an attempt to solve her own problem. When they’d telephoned her early that morning to say he’d died, she’d known she had to go. It was the least she could do, and if she’d opted out she’d have had to live with it for the rest of her life.
At the hospital she’d found everything in chaos. They had left her alone in the mortuary, being too busy to attend to her. When eventually she drew the cloth back over Mark’s wasted face and made her own way out, they had grabbed her and pushed her on to the evacuation coach, shouting that she was one of the last, she was lucky not to be left behind.
She’d tried to protest that she had her Mini and could make her own way. Then she caught a glimpse of it in the car park — up to the sills in water already, with jellyfish everywhere, including one squatting over the windscreen. Twice on the drive there she’d felt herself skidding over them as they lay on the road, her tyres failing to grip.
The coach driver had revved impatiently, wanting to get away, but the nurses were still bringing out old people from the geriatric wards. Sue went to help them up the steps and settle them in their seats. But at last they shouted he could close the door.
They were ready.
By now the rain had started again, whipped against the bus like water from a tap. Soon the windows were obscured by a film of wetness tinged pale green from the jellyfish phosphorescence. The bus moved steadily down the drive; he was taking it carefully, she’d thought, probably unable to see clearly through his windscreen.
Suddenly he stopped.
‘Well, that just about does it!’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘Road’s blocked!’
The nurses had still been busy, so Sue had gone up front to see for herself.
‘Just look at that!’ the driver exclaimed in disgust as she joined him. ‘There’s no way past it. We’re stuck here.’
A lorry lay on its side wedged into the stone gateway. Nearby lay the body of a white-haired man in overalls. Several jellyfish were feeding on him already.
‘You can’t shove it out of the way?’ she asked.
‘And drive over that geezer on the road?’ He turned to her, obviously shocked.
‘He’s dead. Oh, I know it doesn’t seem right, but we’ve got to get out of here somehow. Is there a rear entrance? Any other way?’
He shook his head. ‘Bad flooding down by the back gate. It’s where the road was washed away. Call it a road? It was only a lane at the best o’ times.’
His eyes were troubled. He leaned forward to wipe the steam off the windscreen and stared through it at the overturned lorry. About her own age, he’d be; long, straight hair, cowboy style; a blond moustache and a turned-up nose. He bit his lower lip as he tried to make up his mind.
‘Even if I drove over him, I don’t know if I could shift that thing. This is a holiday coach, not a tank. There’s not much strength in all this fancy metalwork.’ He looked at her doubtfully. ‘To be honest, love, I don’t think I could stomach driving over that. As if he isn’t in enough trouble already.’
‘He’s dead,’ she repeated.
So is Mark, she thought. And Mrs Wakeham. And that cyclist boy. Oh, and so many others…
‘I couldn’t live with the thought,’ he decided, revving the engine again, then beginning to reverse at a tortoise pace up the drive. ‘An’ I reckon that lorry’d cause us more damage than anything, an’ we’d be stuck here. We’ll ring up from the hospital, get someone to shift it.’