shoulder and pointed.
Culver looked up at the giant shadow that filled the sky above them. A man was being lowered down to them.
Culver thanked God that the Puma helicopters had been fitted with both machine guns and winches.
Feet dangled just above their heads, and then the man was down, Culver and Dealey helping to steady him.
'Not a great time for a pleasure-boat ride' the winchman yelled, and saw the two men were too weary to speak. 7 can only take one...' He noted the rats below, the man with the axe still striking at those trying to reach the cabin roof. 'Okay, I can stretch it to two, but we'll have trouble up top! Let's get the girl into the harness!'
They could hardly hear his words, but guessed his meaning. Together they lifted Kate and secured her in the harness loop, the helicopter maintaining a steady hover above them, skilfully following the motion of the boat. 'All right, one of you get behind and put your arms around my shoulders! You'll have to hold tight, but we'll soon get you up there!'
Culver indicated at Dealey to do just that. Dealey shook his head.
'You go!' he yelled.
'Don't be bloody stup—' Culver began to say.
7 don't have the strength to hold on! I'd never make it!'
'Come on, either one of you,' the winchman shouted impatiently. 'One of the other choppers will pick up whoever's left. I'm signalling for lift now before those bloody monsters start chewing my toes!'
Dealey slapped Culver's shoulder and took the axe from him. He even managed a weary smile.
Culver barely had his arms gripped over the winchman's shoulders before a thumb was offered skyward and their feet left the cabin roof. They soared upwards, moving rapidly and steadily away from the boat. He looked down anxiously and held his breath when he saw the black shapes swarming onto the white roof. Dealey was standing, swinging the short
axe with both hands, knocking the vermin aside, sweeping them overboard or back down onto the deck. But for every one ejected, another took its place. He saw Dealey's ever diminishing figure go rigid with pain as his thigh was bitten into. Another rat scurried up his back, forcing him to reach behind to dislodge it, the weapon falling from his grasp.
'Dealey!’ Culver shouted uselessly.
The second Puma swooped in, a winchman already swinging at the end of the wire. His feet never touched the cabin roof; he scooped up the blood-soaked man and pulled the rat from his back all in one movement. They swung away from the craft, two black forms still clinging to Dealey's legs. Their own weight sent the rats crashing back into the river, flesh and material stretching then parting under the pressure. Culver closed his eyes as the two figures were winched upwards. The third helicopter hovered low, using up its ammunition on the vermin. Gunfire ravaged the boat and the mutant rats that filled it, and when the bullets burst through its fragile hull, reaching the fuel tank, the little craft exploded into a thousand pieces. Culver opened his eyes in time to see the pall of black smoke billow up into the air, a miniature replica of the explosions that had destroyed the city so long, so very long, ago.
Reaching hands helped them into the helicopter, Culver hauled in first, then the girl, the winchman climbing in last.
Culver was quickly guided to a seat and he sank down gratefully into the cool shade. The big door slid shut, the interior of the helicopter still noisy but less than before. He watched as Kate was carefully lifted onto a fixed cot-stretcher and another officer, a medic he assumed, examined the stump of her arm. The man did not flinch; he had obviously treated worse injuries during the past few weeks. From a case, he swiftly took out a small phial which he broke open
to extract a syrette. Expertly, and without cutting away her jeans, he plunged the needle into a muscle in Kate's thigh, holding the syrette there for a few seconds while its fluid drained. He noticed Culver watching.
'Morphia,' he explained. 'She's lucky we got to her before she came out of shock. Don't worry, she's going to be okay - it looks like a clean severance. I'll dress it and release the tourniquet for a while. Does she have any other wounds?'
Culver shook his head, tiredness beginning to overtake him. 'Cuts, scrapes, that's all. Oh yeah ...' he remembered, '... we've been exposed to pneumonic plague.'
The medic raised his eyebrows in surprise. 'Okay, I'll give her a quick once-over. How about you?
Need some sedation?'
Again Culver shook his head. He gazed at Kate's wan face, its lines softened already as the drug began to take effect; he wanted to go to her, comfort her, beg her forgiveness for what he had had to do, but she would not hear. There would be time later. He knew there would be much more time for both of them. He turned away, looking at the tiny windows in the door, the hazy blue beyond. Another face appeared before him: the winchman.
'Flight Sergeant MacAdam,' he introduced himself.
Culver found it difficult to speak. Thanks,' he finally said.
'Pleasure,' came the reply.
'How...?'
'You were spotted early this morning.'
The plane?'
The winchman nodded. We thought you might have been from government HQ. Were you?'
'No ... no, we were trying to get into ... into it.'
The man looked keenly interested. 'Did you manage to? Christ, we've had no word from headquarters since this whole bloody mess started. What the hell happened down there?'
'Didn't... didn't anyone get out?'
'Not a bloody soul. And nobody could get to the HQ from the outside - all the main tunnels are down.
Those bastards hit us harder than anyone expected. Some of the survivors may have got out into the city, who knows? We haven't been able to search, first because of fallout, and then the freak rainstorms.
We've been patrolling this stretch of the river ever since word got back that your party had been seen.
But there was supposed to be more of you. Where're the others?'
'Dead,' Culver said flatly, thinking of those who had escaped the Kingsway shelter as well. He suddenly remembered Ellison. Torchless, weaponless. Inside the shelter. 'All dead,' he reaffirmed.
'But what did you find down there? What was inside?'
The medical officer intervened. 'Let him rest, Sergeant. He can be questioned when we get back to Cheltenham.'
The winchman still looked questioningly at him.
'Rats,' Culver said. 'Nothing but big bloody rats.'
MacAdam's face was grim. We've heard stories...'
'People managed to get out of London?'
'Oh yeah, plenty got out.'
Culver sank further back into the seat. 'But where to? What to?'
The winchman's face was still grim, but it held a humourless smile. 'It isn't quite as bad as you obviously think. The lunacy was stopped, you see, stopped before everything was destroyed. Sure, the main capitals are gone, the industrial cities, many of the military bases; but total destruction was brought to an abrupt halt when the separate powers realized the mistake ...'
'Sergeant,' the medic warned.
What mistake?' Culver asked.
You rest now; you need it. We'll soon have you back at
