'48, Page 2

  On either side, two arms of the grand staircase swept up to a balcony overlooking the next set of steps I was about to take, the doorway at the top leading to the long picture gallery where they thought they’d had me trapped; the Blackshirts had cut back and were pouring through that doorway. The lead goon just had time to raise his gun over the bronze balustrade and fire a wild shot before I opened throttle and took off, sailing over the second set of steps without touching one. My extended whoop came dangerously close to a scream as a bullet clanged off the bike’s pannier rack.

  The shock of landing nearly threw me off, but I rode the bounce, tyres scorching carpet as I braked and fought to keep the machine in a straight line. We screeched (yeah, bike and I) to a stop inches from the opposite set of rising steps in the great entrance chamber.

  I grabbed a breath, then dug my heels into the deep pile, hauling the Matchless back to give me room to swing round. Shouts and footsteps behind told me the mob was descending the curved staircase. Someone released a burst of fire that could only have come from a Sten gun and as I turned I saw holes puncturing paintings around the walls. Maybe the shooter was trying to scare me into surrender; or maybe he was just pissed off, as the British say.

  I’d cleared enough space when I heard a yap from close by. I did a quick scan for Cagney, but he was nowhere in sight Well the mutt could take care of himself – hadn’t he let me grab all the attention while he’d sneaked down another way? I opened up again, and the Matchless spun a smart turn, scuffing the bottom step of the four leading to a marble hall beyond the entrance chamber. That was where Cagney finally showed, loping along the royal gathering place, avoiding the marble on either side of the red carpet which presumably was too cool or too smooth for his dainty pads. He lingered to wag his stumpy tail at me and I yelled at him to get the hell out He took the hint and streaked past me towards the entrance doors.

  My circle was taking me close to the staircase I’d just sailed over and the sight I caught was not an encouraging one: three of my pursuers were leaning over the stair rail aiming their weapons at me while still more scurried down behind them. The angle was too awkward for the marksmen and anyway, I didn’t wait for them to get a bead on me. Their shots chewed carpet and chipped marble columns, but I was out of there, hunched over the handlebars, already passing through the entrance doors to the classy porch outside.

  With my right foot scraping concrete, I skidded around the double portico’s stone columns and was soon out in the open; left again and a quadrangle surrounded by the four blocks of the ancient building itself spread out before me. Across the broad expanse of concrete and directly opposite the portico was a narrow archway, with even narrower pedestrian passageways on either side, leading through to the forecourt and open gates. In better times the ceremonial coach had used that archway, but now it was going to accommodate just one man and his dog. Cagney was already halfway across and I was catching up fast. when I spotted the Bedford OYD tucked away in the far corner of the square. The army truck hadn’t been there the night before, nor the night before that, so I figured the Blackshirts had arrived in it earlier that morning – a military vehicle suited their martial games just fine.

  One of them, on his own and presumably the driver, straightened from the snub-nosed hood he’d been leaning against, his jaw dropping open, cigarette falling from it. His weapon must have been inside the cab of the truck, because he was soon pulling at the driver’s door. He’d guessed my intention and by now I was too committed to change direction. He heaved himself up into the driver’s seat.

  Cagney had already disappeared into the shadows of the arch (which, incidentally, was beneath the balcony room I’d holed up in for the past few days – I’d run full circle, you see) and I accelerated, anxious to join him.

  The Bedford quivered as the driver started her up, and then began to roll forward. Yeah, he’d guessed my game plan all right and now I understood his: he was gonna plug the exit Just to tighten things an arm appeared through the open cab window and the black metal of a gun barrel pointed my way.

  Maybe I could have tried for a different route at the last moment, through a courtyard behind me on my right and out into the street beyond (the two other archways directly ahead were sealed by sandbags), but like I say, I was committed. Besides, that would’ve meant slowing down, then offering my back as a target; even if he’d missed with the first bullet, he’d have taken me with the second. No, there really was only one choice and anyways, I was already two-thirds across and going a pretty fair lick.

  A bright flash of gunfire came from the truck and even over the noise of the bike’s 347cc engine I swear I heard the thiddd of displaced air as the bullet passed by.

  I rocked a little to spoil his aim, mighty glad that driving and shooting at the same time wasn’t this particular hero’s speciality. That small pleasure lasted no more’n a heartbeat – it was plain the truck was going to reach the archway ahead of me. Another shot cracked out, just as wild as the first one, but it struck metal; the blackout shield over the front light whipped away. I tried a fancy swerve, but with every second our common objective was drawing us closer together and soon he’d have a target he couldn’t miss. I hissed a curse – I mean, the beginning of one – when the Bedford’s hood moved across the first passageway; that curse changed to a rage-roar as the truck stole some of the archway.

  The rattle of gunshots from behind reminded me the truck driver was not the only contender. A hail of badly aimed bullets flailed the wall ahead. The Blackshirts chasing me were too far away and maybe too excited to get off any decent shots as they came out of the double portico, but they sure as hell didn’t help the situation any. Luckily they were keeping their fire to the right to avoid hitting the moving Bedford and from their angle truck and bike must’ve seemed pretty damn close. More puffs of plaster powdered off the wall beside the second passageway and at any moment – we’re talking split seconds here – I expected to feel bullets thudding into my back.

  Goddamn, the truck had covered the archway and the driver was slamming on his brakes to keep it that way. It slid onwards though, bellying across the passage. Another gunshot, the crack clear as a bell this time – hell, I was close enough to see the joy in the driver’s eyes – and I felt leather rip at my shoulder. No numbness, no pain – no real damage.

  I twitched the handlebars, no more’n a shrew’s shrug, as the hood closed the gap, knowing I couldn’t stop now even if I’d wanted to.

  I kept up the roar, jaw straining, eyes narrowed, hands clenched tight around the grips, bullets spewing into the wall above and beside the passageway, truck still sliding, the hand with the gun waving at me, the gap closing down, tighter, tighter –

  And then I was through, elbow skimming along the truck’s hood bar, leather sleeve on the other side scuffing plaster. I was in the cool shade of the short passageway, my roar hollow-sounding, and then I was out again in bright, glorious sunshine, tearing over the wide forecourt for the open gates, their gilded ironwork rotting to rust, the tall railings on either side worthless protection against the death that had claimed almost all, bloodline having no privilege over blood type.

  Through the gates I sped, and around the old queen’s memorial, past the statues of women and children I’d gazed at from the balcony room less than ten minutes ago, round to the other side where Victoria herself sat facing the long, elm- and lime-lined Mall. I swear I could feel her mournful eyes on my back as I fled Buckingham Palace, heading for another sanctuary in the dead city. Half a century ago she’d been proud mother to a fabulous empire and a great country; now there was nothing left of empire and precious little of country. Better then those eyes were only of stone.

  Gunfire broke the thought that was fleeting anyway. I had a straight run ahead of me and I took full advantage: the Matchless approached seventy and I knew I could coax more out of her.

  If I was gonna lose those bastards behind me I’d have to.

  2

  ST JAMESS�
�S PALACE and Clarence House to my left, the overgrown park and lake on my right. Sally and me, we’d fed the swans in that park and laid together on the moist spring grass. But that was another lifetime, a different age, and this was now. Crazy that memories should override all other considerations, even at moments like this, choosing their own time, it seemed to me, with a mercilessness that suggested self-torture. But they were my link with the past, and the past was all I had left.

  I avoided the few cars parked along the road, some of them askew, doors wide as if the drivers had skidded to a halt and attempted to flee before the Reaper finished his job. Probably there were bodies – rotted corpses or loose suits of bones – still inside some of them, but I wasn’t looking, I had other things in mind.

  The mutt, his sandy-brown coat glistening damp gold in the sunlight, looked over his shoulder as he heard me coming up. He didn’t break pace any, but seemed pleased to see me.

  ‘Lose yourself, stupid!’ I yelled at him as I drew level. ‘Get off the road!’

  I swerved into him to give him a fright and he veered away, making for a flight of stone steps leading off the main hike. I watched him go and returned my attention to the road just in time to avoid a Wolseley parked sideways across the Mall’s centre. Its passenger window suddenly shattered inwards and the metalwork of its doors punctured as bullets tore into it The shots were wild, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get lucky. I straightened up, keeping the Wolseley at my back, using it as a temporary shield. Those Blackshirts were acting like good ol’ boys from down South out on a nigger hunt, rednecks on a roust, the local sheriff one of ‘em. Back home we’d pretended that kind of bigot didn’t exist – theirs was another state anyways, a foreign country almost – and when the news informed us otherwise, we’d be pretty damn certain some black buck had raped another white girl so he, along with all his blackass cousins, was getting exactly what he deserved. You might say these days my opinion on such things has changed a little, ‘specially now I’d kind of taken the place of that black boy.

  Admiralty Arch loomed up, sandbags piled high in front of the doorways and windows of buildings around it, red London buses and other vehicles clearly visible in the square on the other side. I kept the Matchless on a set course, building speed, putting distance between me and the truck behind. The roads through the arches had been narrowed some by barbed wire and guard boxes, but that was no problem for the bike – I was through in the blink of an eye and into the great square beyond.

  With its loose jumble of immobile vehicles, Trafalgar Square looked like one of those frozen pictures you used to see sometimes on a movie screen, as if at any moment the action would start right up again and everything would get going, engines rumbling, car horns honking, people jerking into life. Last time Sally had brought me here – she was like an excited kid showing me the sights – the square and the sky above it had been full of grey pigeons; now even they were gone. The dry fountains with their silent sirens under Nelson’s Column were surrounded by wooden barricades and where sections were broken or had fallen flat I could see brick shelters inside. I had it in mind to take refuge in one of them, or even hide behind a barricade, but as I dodged between cars, taxicabs and buses, something moving caught my eye.

  I’d never quite worked out how many survivors Hubble had recruited into his Fascist army – the Blackshirts had always appeared in small groups before now – but had figured their numbers to be maybe a hundred or so, and today they seemed to be out in force. Right then another vehicle was heading towards me and from its camouflage marking this one also had to be military. I paused long enough to establish it was a Humber heavy utility, a four-door station wagon that could carry at least seven passengers over heavy terrain. Like the Matchless I was riding, it was probably intended for the North Africa Campaign but never made it overseas. The Humber was entering the square from the Strand and as I watched it nudged a black cab aside, then swung round a double-decker bus.

  I took off in the opposite direction, weaving through the still traffic and catching a glimpse of the Bedford pushing its way past the barbed-wire barricades of Admiralty Arch as I did so. The Humber and the Bedford had to be in contact with one another by radio, maybe by one of those walkie-talkies, but I was confident I could outrun ‘em both, the bike ideal for slipping through blocked roads and over debris. If it hadn’t been for gasoline rationing during the war years, the roads would’ve been a lot more crowded, which would’ve suited me fine. No matter, I still had the advantage.

  A bus poster wanted to know if I’d Macleaned my teeth today, while a board at the base of Nelson’s Column said that England expected me to enlist today. I went on my way, steering around a quaint little English taxi that looked like an upright piano on wheels, its headlights masked to narrow crosses, and past a Dodge van with a loudspeaker mounted on its roof, then squeezing by a platform truck carrying huge casks of God-knows-what, all of these vehicles abandoned by their drivers and passengers three years before, Blood Death victims who had not understood what was happening to their bodies, why their arterial veins were suddenly hardening and swelling, becoming rigid beneath their skins, why their hands were darkening, extremities filling, why smaller veins were becoming engorged, bulging then popping beneath the surface, blood beginning to trickle, then stream, from every orifice, their ears, their eyes, their nostrils, their mouth, from their genitals, their anus, from the very pores of their body, not realizing that their main arteries had begun to coagulate, their body’s clotting factors all used up by their major organs, the brain, the heart, the kidneys, causing instantaneous haemorrhaging and necrotic bruising elsewhere, their chests and limbs cramping with agonizing pain until their skin split and everything vital stopped functioning, their curiosity, their awe, their fear and panic lasting mere minutes because the Blood Death held no patience and no pity, each of them dying wherever they happened to fall.

  Yeah, and they were the lucky ones – their horror was short-lived, literally, and their suffering only transient; although few in number, the really unfortunate victims took longer to die, some even years. And then there were the rest of us, the minority, those left to grieve.

  I kept pushing on, blocking thoughts, concentrating on escape. The idea was to get lost in the dead city, then hole up in some dark place and wait. That was the idea. The reality was something else.

  A black Ford was heading towards me from the direction I’d intended to take, making me wonder if Hubble had every exit to the square covered. It seemed in no hurry, but was making good progress anyway, dodging in and out of frozen traffic as if the driver was enjoying the caper. It disappeared behind a bus marked EVACUATION SPECIAL, then its roof appeared among the jumble of other car roofs, threading its way through, coming closer all the time. Someone behind me blasted their horn hard and mean, a signal to the others maybe that I was outflanked. It was easy to picture their grinning faces.

  But the game was a long ways from over. I had two choices: I could either evade the approaching Ford, using other vehicles as shields against the potshots they were bound to take at me; or I could cut across the square itself.

  There were no breaks in the barrier closest to me, but those boards looked fragile enough – several winters of wind, rain and snow, with no one around to maintain them, must have left them rotted and feeble. It didn’t take long to make the choice.

  I stood loose-legged on the footrests, helping the bike hop the kerb, then sat firm, shoulders hunched, head low, as bike and I flashed past the bronze lions guarding the giant column holding the old one-eyed sailor. I hit wood and it offered minimal resistance, splintering into mouldered pieces, my speed taking me through too fast so that I only just missed the waterless fountain on the other side. I zoomed around one of the redundant brick shelters behind the barrier and, hardly slowing, I made for the broad set of steps that led up to the square’s higher level, a road that ran past the great art museum, praying the Matchless would be able to take them, an insistent little v
oice inside my head telling me I was crazy, that those steps might not be steep, but they were hard, bone-breaking hard, with no carpet this time to soften the impact.

  I stood on the ‘stirrups’ again, pulling at the handlebars, trying, I guess, to coax the bike to fly. We hit the steps…

  …too fast, too hard…

  The Matchless rose up several of them, but the front wheel reared out of control, the handlebars bucking and twisting in my grip. We toppled backwards, machine trying for a backflip with me doing my best to dissuade it I had no real choice though, I had to let go. The engine whined as I slid down the seat and tumbled back, away from the steps and falling machine, arms raised over my head to protect myself.

  The bike keeled over, falling at an angle and hitting stone with a crash of metal. I rolled clear as it bounced down after me and, with a moan of engine and a jingling of busted parts, the bike settled in the space I’d just occupied. I knew better than to try and start it up again – it was finished and I was in even more trouble.

  I forced myself to a kind of crouch, groaning at fresh pains in my left leg and back, but wasting no time on them. I hauled myself up those steps, using hands as well as feet, then round and up the next, lesser, flight, standing upright only when I was at the top.

  More screeching of brakes told me what I really didn’t want to know. The station wagon had turned up from the Strand, going the wrong way round the square, aiming to cut me off. Even as it rocked to a halt, doors were opening and black-garbed figures were piling out. One of them raised a rifle in my direction and I ducked back behind the parapet wall beside the steps, reaching inside my jacket as I did so.