miles from where I now stood, a place where troops wailing to be shipped overseas had been billeted, equipment and all, until time to go. Unfortunately, the last lot hadn't gone anywhere - the Blood Death had seen to that - leaving the depot well stocked with all kinds of weaponry and tackle. It wasn't pleasant searching the stores down there, and only a deep seething rage that overwhelmed all else got me through it.
Oddly, I was no longer trembling. It'd been a bad night, I'd hardly slept thinking of what I had to do, and laying there in the dark, my hands had started to shake and my throat had tightened up so that it was difficult to breathe. My mouth had dried too, and there was a dread in my gut that felt like a physical lump. It was a relief to leave the bed while it was still black outside and set things rolling. And now, after a lot of hard work and some travelling, my hands were steady and my mouth wasn't at all dry. There was a grim determination in me, a kind of dark coldness that had taken over from the rage to stifle any other emotion. Sure, I was scared, but for the first time in three years I felt I was in control.
With one last sweeping inspection of the old castle and its battlements, I moved out 24
AS I WALKED DOWN the cobbled hill towards the castle's main gates I remembered the first time I'd visited the Tower of London. It was in '43 and, because this tourist attraction was closed to the public for the duration, I went along without Sally. The British government encouraged US and other Allied Forces to visit its country's historic places and monuments - it was a great exercise in public relations - and I was just one of thousands of American servicemen stationed over here to drop in on the Tower. I was among a small group of flyers, about half- a-dozen if I remember right, two of 'em English, and we had a guide -
one of those scarlet-tunicked Beefeater guys - all to ourselves. He was thorough, enjoying his own country's history and traditions, but I'd forgotten most of what he told us, although I still retained a fair idea of the layout of the place and had a vague notion of its past glories (and infamies). Last night I'd been puzzled as to why Hubble and his not-so-merry band of blood thieves should choose the castle as headquarters when they had the choice, like me, of London's finest mansions or hotels -those still left undamaged by the Blitz and unchecked fires, leakages and gas explosions, that is - but I eventually came to the conclusion that the Tower of London, with all its historical associations and grandeur, suited Hubble's own vision of himself. His crazed mind considered himself the new overlord of civilization, the baron of rebirth, if you like, military master of the New Order - why else the martial uniforms and his sham, jackbooted army? - so what better centre of command than the fortress of England's most famous conqueror, William? Hubble had an acute sense of destiny. Besides, there were comfortable enough living quarters within the walls and I was willing to bet old Sir Max had claimed the best for himself. And that was where I hoped to find him this morning.
Carcasses and a few abandoned vehicles, some of them military, littered the road and broad pavements of Tower Hill, and halfway down I passed the remains of a carthorse still attached to its wagon's shafts, the body almost picked clean, the bones yellowed by the sun. The cart, laden with boxes, had its rear against one of the many short iron posts (small French cannon captured in the Napoleonic Wars, like the one at the end of the alleyway in Tyne Street, set upright in concrete and painted black) and I remembered being informed by that fancy-decked guide on my previous visit how the carters from Billingsgate fish market (just down the road and not far from where I'd moored the motor launch two nights ago) would back their wagon's tailboard against a post whenever their horse got too weary hauling its load up the hill. Of the driver there was no sign - had he been one of the lucky ones, or just a Slow-Dier? - but the fish boxes on the cart had obviously been attacked for their contents at some time in the past - the marks and scratches on the wood were aged - although they remained unbroken. Still walking, my gaze went back to what was left of the horse and I suddenly understood what had happened here: unable to get at the fish packed inside the sealed boxes, the birds - had to be birds, judging by those marks on the wood - had eaten the horse. But what kind of bird could strip an animal that size of all its flesh? I thought of the lone seagull that had flown through the bridge minutes earlier and wondered, but it was a distraction that disappeared when I drew nearer to the tall, bomb-scarred gates at the bottom of the hill.
I waited a few seconds before entering, looking around first, listening, searching for the slightest sign of life. Ahead of me was the stunted, twin-towered gatehouse, the royal crest cut in stone above its archway: this was the entrance to the Tower itself and I almost expected to find a sentry on guard there, ready to challenge me. I heard and saw no one. But then, who would Hubble expect to invade his fortress?
The Sten gun had been hanging by its sling over my shoulder, and now I took it off, holding it before me, muzzle pointing directly ahead. I went on, feeling exposed, vulnerable, passing through the gatehouse and wondering if anyone had a weapon trained on me behind those arrow slits in its walls.
The air was cooler inside the archway, but it scarcely chilled the sweat on my brow as I studied the stone causeway over the moat. The sturdy wooden gates of the larger, inner gateway towers across the causeway were wide open, but there was nothing inviting about them. I took a look over the low side wall at the dried-out moat below and frowned. During the war, this wide, grassed-over defence ditch had been full of allotments, Tower staff and soldiers digging for victory and supplementing their plain rations with their own fresh vegetables; those same vegetable patches were now unkempt and overgrown, parched by the hot summer. It occurred to me that if the Blackshirts really had taken up residence here, then why hadn't they maintained the allotments? They might be sick, but they still needed to eat. Suddenly I was doubting my own assumption. Had I got it wrong? When Hubble had referred to his 'castle' had he meant something else, using the word as some kind of metaphor for his own grandiose view of himself?
So far there'd been no sign of life, no sounds to interrupt that awesome, dead-city silence, so had I made a big mistake?
And then I spotted something down there that made me think again, a splash of red amongst the green and brown vegetation. Another, and still more. Different colours now, some of them easily camouflaged by the shrubbery around them. Most of those tones were faded, but the red was easily recognizable: they were the uniforms worn by the castle's keepers, the warders, the scarlet tunics of the Beefeaters. I understood instantly what had taken place here.
The inner wards of the Tower had been cleared of corpses by the new squatters, the Blackshirts themselves, those bodies dumped out of sight into the surrounding moat and left there to rot. The less visible carcasses were in khaki, the uniforms of regular soldiers, and the rest, I figured, were the forms of wives, kids and visitors on that fateful day, all dressed in wartime drab. The Blackshirts didn't give a cuss about the allotments and fresh vegetables, not when other food was so readily and easily available, so the vegetation was left to cover the mass grave.
So okay, the game was still on.
I stole from the cover of the archway and dashed across the causeway. Now I was inside the fortress itself.
Once through the next dim passageway, I grew even more cautious, sure I was drawing closer to the hub of things. To my left was a little road called Mint Street, where in the olden days the Tower had its own money-making operation going; there were quaint, tiny dwellings where the Yeoman Warders and their families lived, as I recalled. Part of the street was in ruins, another lucky bomb-hit. In front of me was Water Lane, its uneven, cobblestone roadway dangerous if you were in a hurry; I made a mental note to watch my step when things heated up later on. At the corner where these streets met was another tower, this one with a bell house jutting from its top, and the windows in its thick walls set me feeling exposed again - it was too easy to imagine marksmen watching me from inside, waiting for the right moment to shoot I moved across the intersection in a crouching run, coming to a halt only when I was around the tower and flat against the wall on the other side. From there I made my way along Water Lane, keeping close to the wall, alert for any sound, any movement, not stopping again 'til I'd reached another archway opposite a set of steps leading down to the water-filled entrance known as Traitors'
Gate, where criminals, political outcasts and dignitaries alike had been brought to the Tower by boat.
Sunlight shone through the bars of the massive gate and the grille-work above it to pattern the still waters below, this grim pit partially roofed by a wide sweeping archway carrying a timbered building, whose windows overlooked my position. Yet again, I felt too vulnerable, so I didn't linger.
I scurried into the shadows of the passage beneath the Bloody Tower (yeah, that name seemed about right), going down on one knee at the end of it to survey the wide, open area laid out before me, re-familiarizing myself with the lie of the land before advancing any further.
A broad walkway with a couple of sets of rising steps stretched out ahead of me, the long overhanging
