There were hints of daylight coming from what must have been overhead airshafts along the tunnel’s length and at the far end we could just make out a greyish hue that might have been the sloped entrance/exit. As our eyes grew accustomed to this new level of darkness we began to discern other forms lying in the roadway and across the sunken tracks, small black mounds, hundreds of them, and we were aware that they could only be the remnants of those who’d perished down here. Many, we assumed, were the remains of Civil Defence workers, laid there by Potter, himself.
Stern and the two girls lingered in the oasis of light, as if frozen there, afraid to move on. One of the girls – Muriel, I think, began to weep. What lay around us was no more horrific than anything we’d found inside the Underground station and tunnels – far less so, in fact – but the quietness of the place must have stirred something deep within them – sorrow, dread, an interweaving oppression of emotions – that held them there, shocked and grief-stricken. I guess the fact that they suddenly had time to reflect had a lot to do with their paralysis, but it was nothing new to me, nor to the old warden.
His gruff East End voice cut through the mood. ‘It’s as good a tomb as any,’ he said, no pity, no remorse, in his tone, only a sepulchral hollowness caused by the high walls and ceiling lending any reverence to his words. ‘I’ve said a prayer over ‘em,’ he went on, ‘which is more than most of the world’s dead ever got, I expect.’
‘Let’s just find our way out of here,’ said Muriel quietly, and the calmness in her voice surprised me. In the dim light I could see the glistening of tears on her cheeks.
Cissie, on the other hand, had channelled her sadness into anger. ‘Bloody well right! I can’t breathe down here!’ She looked towards the distant light and took a fierce step towards it, ready to march off in that direction. I caught her arm.
‘No. It’s too close to Holborn Station that way.’ I’d figured it out, finally got my bearings. The incline had to be the northern approach to the under-passage and I remembered how near that was to the station. ‘The Blackshirts could have left the entrance guarded, just in case we came out that way,’ I explained quickly as Cissie tried to pull herself free.
‘He is right,’ Stern agreed. ‘They will be waiting.’
Cissie ceased struggling and turned her head, looking in the other direction, towards a stifling blackness that seemed to go on forever. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said warily. ‘You’re not suggesting…’
‘There’s no choice,’ I told her, not for the first time. And when I followed her gaze towards that eerie inkiness, I knew the day’s nightmare wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
6
SO WE WALKED through that nightmare, keeping close together, a tight bunch, the lamplight defining the soft borders of our world, none of us caring to look beyond and none of us focusing on what lay within. The warden kept us to a narrow sidewalk and every now and again we had to step over rag bundles, clothes that had become shrouds. There were other doors set along the wall, but we weren’t curious about them, not even a little bit – we’d got to the stage when all curiosity was numbed and we were only interested in getting to the end of that goddamn tram tunnel. If Potter knew what lay beyond those doors, he wasn’t saying. As a matter of fact, he’d fallen into a sulky silence since we’d started off, his way of letting us know he wasn’t happy about our continued association. To tell the truth, he’d wanted to leave us right there outside the bunker door, deciding he’d done enough for us already and that he would go in the opposite direction, towards the light, Blackshirts or no Blackshirts. He’d easily sneak past ‘em, he assured us, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance. As far as the goons were concerned, we were either dead or still trapped down there in the Underground, and I didn’t want anybody persuading them otherwise. Potter might be gabby if he got caught and anyway, he was more useful leading us out of that place. The barrel of my Colt pressed against his plump belly won the day, and he figured it’d do no harm to stick with us a little longer.
We passed more trams with death cargoes and soon learned to avoid looking at the windows. It was weird though, because although we didn’t look at them, each one of us felt those corpses behind the glass were watching us. We felt like intruders in some private purgatory, a kind of halfway stage where the dead passengers waited for the current to be switched back on so they could continue their journey towards oblivion. Okay, so maybe now and again our eyes strayed towards skeletal arms hanging over the sides of open-top trams or eyeless skulls leering out at us, but mostly we fixed our gaze on the warden’s light, following the beacon like pilgrims following a cross.
We’d travelled some distance before we started to notice shadows moving along the opposite wall, a black shifting against black, and it was the German who brought us to a halt by raising his hand and pointing. Potter, in front, realized we had stopped and when he saw Stern indicating he raised the paraffin lamp, stretching his arm out. Tiny yellow lights shone back at us.
Muriel, close to me, whispered, ‘What are they?’ The reflected lights were quite still now and I guess she thought if she spoke too loudly she’d set them moving again.
I’d already realized what was out there, but it was Stern who gave them identity. ‘Dogs,’ he said quietly. ‘I have witnessed’ – vitnessed – ‘such packs roaming the ruins of Berlin, scavenging for any morsels they can find in the bomb debris. Often they would turn on their own weakest, then devour it. I have’ – haf – ‘even seen them attack a lone child. If these animals are hungry we must be very careful.’
I stared at him for a moment before turning back to those strange yellow globes that glowed like twin moons in a black velvet sky. Neither they, nor we, moved.
Without warning us, Potter produced the flashlight he’d used before from his overalls pocket and aimed its beam across the broad roadway, bleaching the mangy pack with its powerful light. They remained motionless under the glare, the sorriest bunch of skin ‘n’ bone curs you’d ever see outside a Bowery soup kitchen. They skulked, shoulders hunched, heads bowed, their coats dry and matted, and returned our gaze, those eyes now mean, jaws open just enough to show us their ochre teeth.
There might have been others hidden out of sight in the shadows or behind a couple of nearby trams, but I counted seven in the light. The closest one began swaying its shabby old head to and fro, near to the ground, and a low keening came from its throat. The dog wasn’t pleased to see us and, considering what mankind had done to the planet, I couldn’t blame it. One of its pals took up the note, only this one didn’t wave its head around; no, it wrinkled its snout and showed us some more of its discoloured teeth. Its keening descended to a growling and a thick stream of drool sank from its jaw onto the concrete floor. But it was the frothy liquid that bubbled between its teeth that bothered me more.
These animals were sick, and it wasn’t from starvation. Sure, they were rangy, bones jutting like iron tools in canvas bags, but they’d been on a poor diet, eating the wrong things – and I didn’t want my mind to linger on what. I could see the madness in each and every one of them, a catching thing that came from living in the new wilderness.
‘Let’s walk on,’ I suggested to the others, keeping my voice calm and the gun aimed at the pack. ‘Just slide away, smooth ‘n’ easy, no noise and no running. Let’s not get ‘em riled.’
We started to file away, one by one, Potter leading, me taking up the rear, half-turned so that the Colt was still levelled at the animals, a veil that was shadow coming down on them as the light drew away. But that first mutt crept back into the light, following it, crazy old faded eyes never leaving mine. Was it salivating because it was hungry? I wondered, or was that just madness drooling out? It gave a long growling moan and another dog joined it in the retreating light, this one all bristling fur and quivering ears. Then another came back into view, padding past the first two almost to the centre of the road. It sat on its haunches for a moment or two, sized me up, then trotted even clos
er. It looked as unhealthy as its companions, but was bolder, hardly scared of me at all. Only a couple of yards away, it began stalking me.
I caught more disturbances among the shadows as others sneaked forward. Maybe they wanted a better look. Maybe they were working up the courage to charge. More padded footsteps, still quiet but swifter now, and when I looked to my left I saw a dog descending the winding stairway of a tram just three or four feet away.
I was walking backwards now, gun arm extended, and Potter and the others had made some distance on me, so that I was barely within the wide circle of light, the dogs on the soft fringes. Every time I took a step back, so the lead dogs took a step forward.
I’d come upon packs like this before in my travels across the city, starving creatures made wild by circumstances, and more than once it had been Cagney who’d frightened them off, standing his ground and ready to take on the leader if not all of them. By comparison, he was pretty fit, you see, and a lot stronger than his half-starved city cousins, so a few ferocious barks and a couple of threatening lunges were enough to see them off, no matter how many were in the pack. I can’t say he was braver than those other curs, because some of those wild things had guts born out of desperation; but he was kind of arrogant, like he was superior, you know? Not because he was with me, he had a human and they didn’t; no, my guess was that he’d always been that way.
First time we laid eyes on each other was a year and several months after the first V2s landed. I’d spent the morning working on my back-yard allotments – these little suburban crop plots had always been popular in England, small pieces of land or gardens used for growing fruit and vegetables, becoming almost necessary during the war years when the authorities had even allowed a few public parks to be cultivated for food – and was boiling up some tinned sausages for my lunch on an open fire. Tinned food was my usual diet – easy to find, easy to cook – but I needed fresh vegetables if I was going to stay healthy. When I looked up from my digging to check on the sausages. I found the dog watching me from a bomb-site across the street.
Maybe I was feeling more lonely than usual on that particular day. I’d kept to myself after the Blood Death, you see, avoiding the crazies I met roaming the city, aware that the normals – those that were left – had abandoned the place for fear of epidemics breaking out, or just to get away from all those dead bodies, but there must have been something about that mutt that appealed to me. Sure, there were plenty of strays around, and not just dogs. Cats, chickens – unfortunately for the chickens, they didn’t last long once I’d set eyes on them – pigs – yeah, same thing if I could catch ‘em – horses, and I’d even observed a cow or two wandering along the roads. ‘Cept for releasing horses from carts, putting any injured creature I came upon out of its misery, and slaughtering those mentioned for food, I’d ignored any surviving animals or birds, and mostly they’d ignored me. Oh, and there was one I’d hidden from. From a distance I’d watched a leopard loping along Regent Street – just once, I’d never seen it again – and I’d stayed out of sight in case it got hungry for warm flesh. Like I said earlier, the London Zoo had evacuated most of its dangerous animals, even put some down, at the beginning of the Blitz, so I had no idea where this cat had come from, and still don’t
Well, I must have been feeling pretty lonesome that day, because I called out to the dog. It was wary, though. Cocked one ear, angled its head, and kept well away. I guess it became a kind of game then, a challenge, me and the boiling meat against the canine’s canniness. It looked interested enough, squatting there amid the debris of flattened houses, blackberry and elder poking through the dry earth and bindweed adding some colour to the greyness of it all, but the interest was in the sweet smell of cooking rather than me. I’d noticed by then that all the animals who’d survived the holocaust had become ‘un-used’ to humans, suspicious of us – or at least, of me – as if somehow they knew humans were responsible for the big foul-up. And who could blame ‘em for that? But this run-down, red-haired mongrel’s belly was ready to forgive all, because although it kept its distance, its nose was sniffing the air and one paw was raised as if to take that first step towards me of its own accord. And then an odd thing occurred.
It was a warm day, early in the year, May, I think. The winter of ‘46 had been real nasty (but nowhere near as bad and as scary as ‘47’s), killing off most of the allotments and weaker wildlife, and it was obvious that this mutt had had a hard time of things. Ribs protruding, coat kind of threadbare, this old boy looked pretty beat up, and when I dipped into the can and pulled out a steaming sausage it became even more fascinated. And as I tossed the meat from hand to hand to cool it, then broke it in half, that timid paw touched the ground, taking the first nervous step towards me. I allowed a grin, but it froze on my face when something black and awful fell from the sky to land on the dog’s back.
The heavens had been unblemished, not a cloud in sight, a gentle breeze the only interruption, but I’d neither seen nor heard the bird overhead and, so it seemed, neither had the dog. This was a huge bird, dark and ugly, with a wingspan of three feet or more. A goddamn great carrion crow, with claws like hooks, and a long powerful-looking black bill, sharp as a knife. Those claws dug into the poor mutt’s flesh, while the beak stabbed at its head. The dog howled, but fought back, twisting and turning and snapping all at the same time. Blood was already beginning to flow from its wounded back, though, and it yelped between howls.
The Colt .45 wasn’t always the only weapon I carried around with me; nearby, propped up against the curved roof of a half-buried Anderson shelter, was my other weapon, a Lee Enfield sniper rifle, picked up from a military barracks in another part of London. It was handy to have around for whenever I caught sight of one of those pigs or chickens – I’d even bagged the odd squirrel in the parks – and I made towards it. Before I’d even picked up the rifle, three more crows had joined in the attack on the dog.
I was surprised and shocked: where the hell had they come from, and why were they picking on this poor old boy? Exhaling my breath, I took a bead on one of the newcomers through the telescopic sight, the original crow too mixed up with the victim itself for a clear shot. It was clinging to the dog’s leg with its beak, yanking and twisting, trying to bring its prey down, while its friends swooped in when they got the chance, pecking at any exposed dog-flesh they could find. I squeezed the trigger nice and easy, aloof from all the excitement, and felt the rifle recoil against my shoulder.
The bird I’d targeted thudded to the rubble without a squawk and one of its companions fluttered away, screeching some kind of alarm, heading back to wherever the hell it’d come from. The other two were too absorbed in their work to take any notice.
By now the victim was rolling through the dirt in an effort to dislodge the crow on its back, biting and snarling, no longer howling. It had guts, this skinny hound, but needed all the help it could get.
My next shot clipped a wing and scattered black feathers into the air, stunning the bird but not seriously wounding it. It hobbled around for a few seconds, and that’s when I got an idea of these birds’ true size. They weren’t carrion crows and they weren’t rooks. These were the giants of the species: Ravens. I’d always thought these creatures lived on mountains and moors, or sea cliffs, but I guess I shouldn’t really have been surprised: nothing was the same after the Blood Death. Maybe all the small mammals, frogs, lizards, or even dead sheep that these birds usually feed on had all been used up in their natural territory. Then I remembered I’d seen this kind once before in London, long before the Blood Death rockets had fallen, but I was too busy at that moment to remember where.
I aimed again and took off the injured raven’s head with the next bullet.
That left one more to deal with, and this would be the trickiest shot of all. I moved closer, going to the road’s edge.
The dog was putting up a brave fight, but not quite giving as much as it was taking. I knelt on the cobblestones, looped the sling around
my upper left arm to take the rifle’s weight, breathed out, and took steady aim, knowing it was gonna be tight, but what the hell, if I missed the bird and hit the victim, it would be doing the mutt a favour. Without hesitation, I squeezed the trigger with the pad of my index finger.
It was a true shot, square in the chest, and the bird, still clinging to the dog’s back, flapped madly for a few moments before flopping to the ground, dead meat before it even landed. But the dog wasn’t satisfied: it pounced on the carcass and broke the raven’s neck with its jaws, then proceeded to drag it through the dirt, shaking it like a rag doll and tossing it into the air until exhaustion set in. The mutt wandered off a few yards and slumped to the ground, chin resting on its paws, weary eyes watching what was left of the bird.
Leaving the rifle on the cobblestones, I approached the panting dog to see if I could do anything about its wounds, but as soon as I drew near it rose and shied away, watching me all the time over its shoulder. It settled again immediately I retreated, this time keeping its eyes on me rather than the feathered carcass. I went back to my lunch and I guess the aroma of those boiled sausages was too much to resist, because the next time I looked up the dog was in the middle of the street, standing on all fours, bloodied but undefeated, nose twitching again. Tossing a whole hot sausage towards it, I went on with my meal, and when I glanced the mutt’s way again, the scrap of meat was gone.
This went on for some time, one morsel following another, each throw a little shorter than the last, until the scraggy-haired dog was sitting across the fire from me and we were finishing the meal together. Later I took it into the nearest house and bathed its wounds (there was plenty of water in this row of houses, although elsewhere pipes had been fractured by bombs during the war, or had frozen and burst over the last winter). I found quite a few old scars on its body, proof, I guess, that survival hadn’t been easy for it.