coming under attack from the creatures, blocking the narrow stairway in a melee of furious bodies. Giving Culver time to run through the door and slam it shut.
His foot struck the padlock that had held it closed and sunlight stung his eyes as he desperately looked around for another method of keeping the door shut. He was on a wide stone stairway, the steps rising beyond the small structure he now pressed against. Behind him was the walkway along the Embankment and in the near distance stood the rectangular blockhouse they had used to enter the shelter.
Rain-battered litter lay scattered around the steps and walkway, scarves, hats, bags - items discarded by tourists at the first sound of sirens so many weeks before. There was nothing among them that would hold the door closed.
'Culver!' Dealey called from the Embankment wall. There's a small boat down here. We'll be safe on the river!'
It was a chance. The only chance they had.
'Get Kate onto it!' he shouted back. ‘Ill hold them as long
as I can.' He could still hear the rats tearing their fellow creatures to pieces inside the small building.
Dealey struggled with Kate down the ramp leading to the pleasure-boat jetty, water lapping over onto the landing stage. Culver waited a few moments, giving them time to get aboard the craft there, then pushed himself away from the door, leaping down the steps two at a time, trusting in God that he would not slip. He raced to the ramp and looked back in time to see the door swing open and the rats come surging out. Absurdly, he noticed something else: the building they had just fled from was the base of a monument; above, still proud although headless, Boadicea rode her stone chariot, her outstretched arm left intact, continuing to wave her spear defiantly at the collapsed Houses of Parliament.
He ran down to the jetty and looked in dismay at the large, empty pleasure boat still moored there, moving listlessly on the swollen river.
'Over here!' came the shout and he saw Dealey standing in a smaller boat further down towards Westminster Bridge. He made for it.
'Cast off!' he called out, aware that the vermin were scampering down the ramp, several leaping through the railings to get at him.
The boat would have accommodated no more than fifteen to twenty people on the benches set around its interior. A tiny white-topped cabin covered the bow, its paintwork scorched and bubbled, protection against the spray or foul weather for those tourists lucky or quick enough to find a place inside. Steering was from the stern, a simple but no doubt effective rudder fixed there, its bar ending close to an equally basic gearstick. In front of both was a pale green box that covered the engine. Not the most gracious looking of boats, it seemed to Culver in those desperate moments the handsomest craft he had ever laid eyes on. It was already a few feet away from the quayside, drifting lazily out into the current, and he had to take a running leap to reach it.
He landed on the small area of deck, sprawling over the engine box and quickly turning to face whatever followed. Two rats leapt at the same time. One just reached the side and tried to clamber over.
Culver dislodged it easily with a slashing stroke of the axe. The other had scuffled over onto the bench, jumping from there onto the engine covering. It skidded around to face Culver, hissing venomously.
Culver struck and missed as the quivering animal ran to one side. It came at him as a bundle of powerful, squirming fury, knocking him back onto the bench, rending his face with needle-like claws.
Culver sank down, the weapon falling to the deck. He pushed upwards and over, using the animal's own momentum. The rat flew over the side, splashing into the muddy water.
Culver was on his feet immediately and at the rudder and gearstick in two quick strides. Kate lay huddled on the deck, her eyes closed, her face white with shock. He knew she would not yet be in pain -
the nerve ends had been cut away and shock was its own analgesic - and was relieved to see her arm was now only seeping small amounts of blood.
From the quayside, the vermin plunged into the water and glided towards the drifting craft.
'How do we start it?' Dealey was close to weeping. There's no key, there's no damned key!'
Culver groaned, his shoulders sagging. There was now hardly any mist on the water, although the sun was hazy-bright above, and he could clearly see the sleek black shapes smoothly moving towards them.
Given time, he might have been able to open up the engine and bypass the ignition; but there was no time - the leading rats were already sinking their claws into the boat's hull.
He stooped to pick up the axe and spotted the boat-hook lying beneath the bench. 'Dealey, use that to keep them off. We may get away yet!'
Leaning over the side, he swiped at a body in the water. The distance to the water level was frighteningly short, but at least the current was taking them away from the quayside. Red liquid stained the river as the axe found its mark. Dealey had picked up the long, stout pole and was just in time to push back a rat that was clambering over the side. Another appeared in its place and snapped at the pole, sinking its teeth into the wood and refusing to let go. Dealey had to use all his depleted strength to shake off the rat, shoving it back into the water where it thrashed the surface into a foam, still refusing to release its grip. Only as air escaped its lungs did the animal relinquish the hold to swim back to the surface.
Meanwhile, other vermin had taken advantage of the struggle.
They scrambled up the side of the boat, using their powerful haunches to thrust themselves from the river.
Culver moved backwards and forwards, never stopping, knowing if he battled with one rat for too long, then others would quickly steal aboard. He thrust, cut and hacked, his face grim and a part of his mind cold, almost remote from the action. Dealey helped him, his movements more clumsy, less swift. He had learned a lesson, though, and that was to keep his jabs with the boat-hook sharp and short, never allowing the vermin to gain a grip.
The river bank drew further away, but still they came, a skimming black tide of them. The boat was drifting upriver with the tide, moving towards the bridge with its missing span on the opposite side of the river. Beyond he could see
rising from the river the peculiar rockface that was the fallen section of the ancient clock tower.
Culver realized that if the current took them fast enough they might just outdistance the swimming vermin. If only they could keep them off the boat, if only...
He froze.
He had looked up, just for a moment, a quick glance at the bridge itself. Black shapes were darting along its balustrade and the pavement below - he could just see the moving humped shapes. Many were peering through the ornate mouldings. They were lining up above him, bustling, jostling each other for position, long snouts descending, front paws already stretched downwards, balancing themselves.
Tensing themselves. Readying themselves to drop down as the boat passed under the bridge.
It was hopeless. They had no control over the small craft as the current lazily carried it towards the bridge. Still warding off boarding vermin, Dealey caught sight of Culver and wondered why the man was not moving, why he was staring ahead of them, regardless of the danger they were in. He followed the pilot's gaze and he, too, became still.
He could not speak, he could not curse, he could not even weep. Dealey had become too numbed by it all. To survive the holocaust, to struggle through the terrible aftermath, to thwart disaster at every turn -
and now this. To be destroyed by creatures that skulked in filth. A bitterly ironic death.
Culver turned, as if to warn him, and saw that he already knew. Something passed between them. A recognition of shared, impending death? That, and something more. A sudden, cognizant touching of spirits, a startling and rare knowing of each other. For Dealey, who was and always had been a pragmatist, it was a spontaneous and staggering insight not just into another's psyche, but also into his own, giving an acute awareness of his own being. The moment passed, but the sensing was indelible.
A dripping, sleek-furred rat appeared over the stern, and Culver attacked it with a grim deadly ferocity, slicing its skull in half and pushing the broken body back into the river with the end of the axe.
Feeling that same chill rage, Dealey
