Free Vampires Overhead by Alan Hyder Page B

from where we stood.
    ‘It’s broken loose,’ Bingen said. ‘It’s floating away.’
    Wading into the river, I swam towards it and, foolishly, for some time, tried vainlessly to heave myself over the side, failing through sheer weakness until Bingen called to me to push the boat ashore. He waded out to meet me.
    ‘The water’s hot,’ he said, as he pulled both boat and myself to the bank. ‘It’s hotter than hell, and gets more like hell every time I look at it.’
    ‘I must have a rest before I pull this out in the stream. Unless you can row, Bingen?’
    ‘Not those kind of oars!’
    But for a deep burn in her gunwhale, where something had dropped and flamed before falling into the river, the dinghy was intact. Astern floated a burned rope. It was Providence that rope had held, to sever at the very moment we wanted her.
    ‘Downstream with the tide. The rowing’ll be easier and we might as well go this way as the other,’ I said, after shipping oars and pulling out to midstream. For a while I sat panting, resting, then recovered my breath to pull away from the tunnel and Hungerford Bridge. Bingen crouched in the stern staring around dazedly, shooting quick nervous glances skywards. ‘Get hold of the rudder lines and keep your eyes on the clouds as much as the banks.’
    The rowlocks creaked noisily, and we went steadily along the river of the dead between the fiery banks.
    ‘I’ll have my work cut out to row this thing very far unless I get some grub. I feel just about dead beat.’
    ‘Oh, we’ll soon get somewhere where there’s grub,’ replied Bingen offhandedly, anxiously scanning the sky. ‘We’ll soon get amongst people now.’
    ‘I’m not so sure.’
    ‘Look out!’ he shouted, and leant to heave frantically on a rudder line. ‘God! We’re going right into the flames.’
    With my head over my shoulder, I loosed one oar to heave on the other with all my might, but still the boat drifted towards the flames, until I saw that Bingen was tugging idiotically on the wrong line.
    ‘Let go that damned rudder and leave it to me!’
    With heart bursting in my breast, I pulled the boat away from a line of barges with cargoes blazing terribly on the water. We missed them by no more than a foot, and I had to shield my face with one arm while pulling with the other. Bingen crouched helplessly in the stern, his arms about his head. A tongue of flame licked a blistering weal across my shoulders, as we passed.
    ‘For Heaven’s sake don’t trouble so much about things in the sky,’ I enjoined him. ‘Leave the rudder be, but watch where we’re going and tell me the direction.’
    ‘Pull us out of here.’
    ‘I’ll pull us out all right so long as you don’t let us run into anything else like that.’
    From both sides of the river came a white heat which made the distance dance and shimmer. Ash eddied about in whirling columns, sparks burned in the air, now and then came explosions to stay the oars momentarily and set me pulling with renewed vigour. And, eternally in our ears, was a thundering crackling roar, as the ruins of London burned away.
    Under the one remaining arch of London Bridge we spurted, for it was hot, and a great mass of stuff flamed fiercely, sending out streamers of fire to drop about our boat. Then we were in the Pool, where great vessels’ burned red sides leant drunkenly against smouldering wharves, and mast-heads pointed from the water, marking sites of sunken ships.
    ‘Garry!’ Bingen’s voice yelped at me, vicious with fright. He leaned across the boat to clasp my arm. ‘What . . .’
    There was a roar, and from the shore came hurtling, for all the world as though it were thrown directly at us, a glowing length of wood. It dropped across the dinghy with a thump, and one end steamed, sizzled in the river.
    ‘What the hell!’
    I stood erect, searching the bank to see who had thrown it until I understood. Then I went on rowing.
    ‘It’s all right, Bingen. It must have