lapped a grey embankment; the trees had gone, and, behind, rose a solid wall of white-heat. Above, rose the steel framework of burned buildings; below, drifted lifting clouds of grey ashes. As we watched, some half-burned houses fell, bursting into red flames. Fire shot skywards. Smoke intensified, billowing into the blue sky. To the east and the west, so far as we could see, peering first from one side of the gate and then the other, it was the same. A fiery desolation. London had gone in flame and smoke. There was nothing but glowing ash, broken here and there, where long scarlet fingers quivered upwards from the gutted framework of a building which burned slowly, with less combustion than its surroundings.
To our left, the girders of Hungerford Bridge twisted and dropped to the water about the caissons. Red and black, the burned-out carriages fell downwards, tethered together—empty, I thought as I looked up at them, but they were full of people. Corpses drained dry by the muzzling of Vampires and cindered by leaping flames. Barges on the flats, burned to the water’s edge, lay broken, gaping, and about those close at hand I could see little saucer-like depressions in the mud where melted rivets and bolts had fallen.
It was a dead world we two survivors stared into from our rat-hole.
A crashing tearing roar pulled our eyes to the east, and we saw a wall of dust and smoke rise slowly about the looming bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral. The huge dome tilted, swayed in the climbing flames, rose, flattened. A crackling of innumerable explosions, a great spurt of fire, and the dome was gone. But my thoughts were not on the destruction of London’s great buildings. My eyes were searching . . . searching for those terrible scavengers, the grey clustering Vampires. And as I looked for them, Bingen called vibrantly.
‘There they are! Look! There’s some of them.’
They had gone from the flats, the bridge, the embankment opposite, and in the flames we could find none. The blue sky was free of them, I thought; but Bingen saw them.
Away to the east, a cloud of Vampires rose slowly from a towering plume of smoke. At first I thought the cloud was smoke, for straight into the air they rose, flying like nothing I have seen fly before.
Later, at close quarters, I have examined their flight, and it is strange, for instead of lying parallel to the earth, they are upright, and twisting wings spiral into the air, cork-screw fashion. Those we stared at now did not seem to be moving very quickly, but they must have been travelling at an immense speed, for even as we watched they were disappearing into the west. We spotted others then. Far away over Westminster Bridge beyond the tower of Big Ben, standing like a blind man with an eyeless black cavity whence the clock had fallen, we saw a great grey cloud rise into the air. A tremendous cloud, spreading many a mile across country, and about that cloud there could be no mistake. They were Vampires. So far as I could judge, this edge of the flying millions must have risen from somewhere near Highgate, and they stretched away past the horizon! We saw isolated smaller groups coming faintly out of the sky, merging into the main body, and the vast cloud flew up, up to the blue of heaven, grey faded to blue, merged totally. But for hurrying little overtaking groups the sky was clear of them.
‘What now?’ I asked Bingen, and tried to move the stiffness from my neck. ‘Shall we risk making a dash for it? If those things drop on us out in the open . . . we’re done. Perhaps we ought to stay here a bit longer. Make sure they don’t come back. But we must get out soon. I’m hungry.’
‘We’d better wait,’ Bingen said after a while, his eyes still in the air. He shivered. ‘I daren’t get tangled with one of them again. I daren’t! Ugh! I can feel it on me now.’
‘What about seeing the brewery again? We ought to see to that.’
‘If we could get some beer out of it. I want
To our left, the girders of Hungerford Bridge twisted and dropped to the water about the caissons. Red and black, the burned-out carriages fell downwards, tethered together—empty, I thought as I looked up at them, but they were full of people. Corpses drained dry by the muzzling of Vampires and cindered by leaping flames. Barges on the flats, burned to the water’s edge, lay broken, gaping, and about those close at hand I could see little saucer-like depressions in the mud where melted rivets and bolts had fallen.
It was a dead world we two survivors stared into from our rat-hole.
A crashing tearing roar pulled our eyes to the east, and we saw a wall of dust and smoke rise slowly about the looming bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral. The huge dome tilted, swayed in the climbing flames, rose, flattened. A crackling of innumerable explosions, a great spurt of fire, and the dome was gone. But my thoughts were not on the destruction of London’s great buildings. My eyes were searching . . . searching for those terrible scavengers, the grey clustering Vampires. And as I looked for them, Bingen called vibrantly.
‘There they are! Look! There’s some of them.’
They had gone from the flats, the bridge, the embankment opposite, and in the flames we could find none. The blue sky was free of them, I thought; but Bingen saw them.
Away to the east, a cloud of Vampires rose slowly from a towering plume of smoke. At first I thought the cloud was smoke, for straight into the air they rose, flying like nothing I have seen fly before.
Later, at close quarters, I have examined their flight, and it is strange, for instead of lying parallel to the earth, they are upright, and twisting wings spiral into the air, cork-screw fashion. Those we stared at now did not seem to be moving very quickly, but they must have been travelling at an immense speed, for even as we watched they were disappearing into the west. We spotted others then. Far away over Westminster Bridge beyond the tower of Big Ben, standing like a blind man with an eyeless black cavity whence the clock had fallen, we saw a great grey cloud rise into the air. A tremendous cloud, spreading many a mile across country, and about that cloud there could be no mistake. They were Vampires. So far as I could judge, this edge of the flying millions must have risen from somewhere near Highgate, and they stretched away past the horizon! We saw isolated smaller groups coming faintly out of the sky, merging into the main body, and the vast cloud flew up, up to the blue of heaven, grey faded to blue, merged totally. But for hurrying little overtaking groups the sky was clear of them.
‘What now?’ I asked Bingen, and tried to move the stiffness from my neck. ‘Shall we risk making a dash for it? If those things drop on us out in the open . . . we’re done. Perhaps we ought to stay here a bit longer. Make sure they don’t come back. But we must get out soon. I’m hungry.’
‘We’d better wait,’ Bingen said after a while, his eyes still in the air. He shivered. ‘I daren’t get tangled with one of them again. I daren’t! Ugh! I can feel it on me now.’
‘What about seeing the brewery again? We ought to see to that.’
‘If we could get some beer out of it. I want
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