Thursday

by David Ridgway

  “Listen up!”

  As soon as he had their attention, he began to issue instructions to the teams for the immediate protection of London. Links were to be established at once with the office of the London Mayor and the various Borough Councils; details were given for the patrols to seek out and extract people in danger; above all instructions were given for their own protection.

  "We need to assess the damage to the river banks as quickly as possible. Where there is obvious damage, the breaches may well have to be shored up before the next tide. This is not, I repeat, not a time for following all the normal protocols. This is a time for action, for using your initiative to make immediate decisions based on the facts as presented at the scene; for the saving of lives; and for the protection of property. Requisition whatever you need and, for the love of God, keep as complete a record as you can of all that you do and see.

  "Report back here by radio and mobile phone as often as possible. A log will also be kept of each and every conversation.

  "Make no mistake, as soon as they realise that there are easy pickings out there, every towrag in London will be on the streets, nicking, looting and causing problems.

  "I cannot tell you when you will next get off duty but, rest assured, you will be joined by as many other officers as I can muster. A complete record will be kept of all the hours that you do and I will ensure that no one will be out on patrol longer than is necessary before being relieved. I will also despatch to you any relevant information that is received here.

  "You’ll have to do all this on foot, of course. All the vehicles parked on Richmond Terrace have been smashed up against the Whitehall gates and I expect that all other vehicles in the garage will be flooded. Teams will be sent down to extract them and make them roadworthy as quickly as possible.

  “Finally, I don’t want to lose any of you. Do not work alone. Stay in pairs and watch each other’s backs. Be careful! This flood will have left weakened walls, unsafe road surfaces, as well as undermined buildings. Log them all, however insignificant, and report them back here.”

  Forty officers left immediately, using the stairs because they were still unable to trust the lifts. Outside, two teams of fifteen turned down Richmond Terrace towards the river, while the third team of ten turned left towards the cars piled haphazardly against the gates leading into Whitehall. After exiting Richmond Place, that team turned then left down Whitehall, walking swiftly towards Parliament Street and the Houses of Parliament.

  As the last officer left the room, Chief Superintendent Bleasdale returned to his office, thinking, I wonder where on earth Liz has got to. She would have been on her way back from Soho when the wave struck. I hope to God that she’s OK.

  The tide continued to ebb, leaving in its wake stranded containers, beached vehicles and tons of unidentifiable debris. As the water drained from the housing estates of Fulham, Chiswick and Pimlico, the devastation caused by the floating containers became frighteningly clear. Slowly, area by area, power returned to the street lights and, as the survivors opened their doors, they witnessed scenes more in keeping with Dante’s worst nightmares. In the stark street light, they could now see the indiscriminate nature of the destruction. In one particular street, all the houses on the left hand side were completely demolished from one end to the other, while on the right hand side there was no damage at all. In another, two containers had been swept across all the side roads that lead towards the river from the New King’s Road in Fulham. The destroyed houses were completely missing with no sign of any household goods, or even rubble, as it had simply been sluiced away. Some of the remaining houses were in a precarious state, having received side swipes from passing detritus, bringing down parts of their walls. All the cellars and basements were flooded. Two containers had even come to rest in the gardens between Foskett Road and Cristowe Road, Fulham, ironically next to the office of Kensington and Chelsea Property Maintenance.

  On the south bank, as the wave arrived carrying the heavy sea containers from the docks at Tilbury and Thames Haven, it caused great devastation to the housing estates around Abbey Wood, where the housing is a mixture of traditional terraced streets and more modern brick homes. The water inundated the land from Erith to Thamesmead, as far south as Abbey Road and the railway line. As in Fulham and Putney, the heavy containers, turning over and over at the front of the wave, had mown an indiscriminate swathe through the housing estates, leaving some houses completely untouched whilst others were totally wrecked.

  Now that the water was receding, in the moonlight the damage was plain to see. There are many tower blocks on the south bank, some of which were built years ago, in the 1960s, as part of London’s slum clearance programme. Their foundations were not as strong as might be expected today. Over the years, many of these towers had been poorly maintained and, as a consequence, they were unable to resist the power of the flooding water and the continual pounding of heavyweight detritus. Several collapsed completely while others, after their ground floors were compromised, collapsed slowly around the central column.

  Further west, however, the disastrous effect of the floating containers was considerably diminished by the main railway lines coming into London from the south east. The Thameslink line, from Bromley and New Cross, joins the main line from Bexley just to the east of The Den, home of Millwall Football Club. The lines are already elevated from ground level and they cross innumerable road bridges as they approach London Bridge and Cannon Street stations on the north side of the river.

  After passing Deptford and leaving it predominately unscathed, the surge swept across Southwark, Walworth and Vauxhall. The railway line, however, effectively filtered out many of the heavy containers, leaving them scattered, with no sense of order, on top of but mainly alongside the embankment from Tooley Street in the north to Deptford Park in the south. The wave, however, was high enough and strong enough to wash a few over the railway lines themselves, but much of their destructive momentum was diminished and they sank.

  The water itself, of course, was forced through the bridges under such considerable pressure that many of the uprights were simply washed away and, in some cases, this allowed the actual weight of the bridges to sag, fall in on themselves and break up. Cars, vans and other debris were then swept through the gaps, where they caused considerable damage to the infrastructure in and around the Elephant and Castle.

  Water was now draining rapidly from the flooded areas on both sides of the river, leaving behind a trail of devastated buildings, dumped vehicles and abandoned containers. In addition, there were thousands upon thousands of drowned bodies.

  Chapter 16

  Friday Morning – Before Dawn

  The weather, after the high winds, snow and rain of the previous few days, was now calm. An anticyclone had formed over much of the British Isles, although the country was still being affected differently in Scotland and in England.

  The temperature across Scotland was cold, with a gentle northerly breeze bringing with it cold Arctic air. This was resulting in ice and frost in all exposed areas. In England and the south, however, the anticyclone was drawing warm air from the Mediterranean and North Africa. The temperatures were unseasonably high and all the lying snow was rapidly melting. From Yorkshire in the north to the Channel coast in the south, there was local flooding as rivers were simply unable to cope with the amount of melt water. They burst their banks, making local roads impassable and many low lying housing estates were inundated.

  Huddersfield experienced its first major flood in over 100 years. The breach in the Butterley Dam in Marsden created a flood wave which left behind severe structural damage in the centres of Marsden, Slaithwaite and Milnsbridge. All the bridges crossing the river Colne were damaged, as well as many of the bridges crossing the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. The water flooded the cellars of shops, offices and houses along the length of the river from Marsden, through Huddersfield and to its confluence with the already swollen river Calder at Cooper Bridge near Bradley.<
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  Where the river Colne turns north and skirts the east side of Huddersfield, the engineering works on St Andrew’s Road were overwhelmed, as was the relatively new football stadium, home to Huddersfield Town Football Club and the Huddersfield Giants. The surge water followed the river valley north easterly until it reached the river Calder, which was already in spate from the melting snow on the hills above Halifax, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden. The conjoined rivers now flooded all the low lying land from Mirfield, as far as Dewsbury and Wakefield.

  In London, Low Tide arrived just before midnight, with the next High Tide scheduled for six in the morning. The sun would rise just after seven o’clock.

  Martin Havers, with his children, neighbours and friends, laboured throughout the night. The breach was finally closed at just after half past three in the morning. Glistening in the moonlight, Martin could see the tide returning. It was already washing over the mudflats below the breach and creeping inexorably towards their puny row of stakes and metal sheets.

  Soon after the breach was closed, Charlie called his father. “Dad! There are five or six more vehicles coming down the track.” Martin turned to see the first set of headlights disappear below the railway embankment. As he watched, he saw the headlights reappear through the arch of the bridge. In the stillness of the morning, they could all hear the throbbing of the diesel engines, but the lead vehicle didn’t appear on the near side of the railway line. For some reason it had stopped.

  Martin stared and tried to make sense of what was happening. James walked up to him.

  “I think these must be the trucks with the hard core.”

  “Yes,” Martin replied. “But why have they stopped? And why is the driver revving his engine so much?”

  “It looks as though he’s stuck. But how?”

  Suddenly it all became plain as, with a terrifying rumble, the rest of the bridge collapsed onto the truck. The obstruction to the truck was obviously freed, because the driver was now able to drive out from under the tracks. He came through slowly but steadily. As the dust cleared, they realised that there was a new, wider gap in the embankment, through which Martin and the others could see all the other trucks lined up, waiting their turn to come through.

  “Come on, James. We’ll have to get up there to see what’s happened.”

  Martin turned to the nearest Landrover and got in behind the wheel. James was only just able to slam the passenger door before Martin set off. After his earlier inspection of the sea wall, the vehicle was already facing towards the bridge across the ditch. Once back on the landward side of the ditch, he turned right and crossed the bridge over the stream before turning left up the track to the railway line. A couple of minutes later, the cause of the problem was clear to them both. The top of the jib of the truck’s crane, used for lifting bags of material on and off its flat bed, had caught the roof of the bridge. Not realising that it was already unstable, the driver had simply tried to force his way through, only to get stuck. As he revved his engine, at first the crane only dislodged a couple of bricks, but these made the roof that much more unstable so that more bricks were dislodged until, finally, the whole bridge collapsed.

  Martin and James got out and hurried over to the driver’s cab. The driver was already pulling the truck clear of the destroyed bridge, leaving behind a huge pile of rubble, effectively cutting off all the other vehicles.

  “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Nope. My cab was already clear this side. Mind you, it took some effort to get through, with all that rubble. And it’s now blocking access for all the other trucks.”

  “Is Wayne with you?”

  “Yeah. But he’s still on the other side, mate.”

  Martin turned to James. “Get hold of Helen. We need her digger here, right now, to clear all this rubble.”

  “OK, Dad.”

  “And it’s really important that this truck and its hard core get to the breach to offload, as quickly as possible. The extra rubble on the truck can also be used as extra hard core. This truck must come back straightaway to get loaded with more of that rubble from the bridge.” He pointed at the remains of the bridge. “Hopefully, that’ll soon allow the other trucks to get through. Go with this driver and make absolutely sure that he gets over the ditch OK. After that, you must stay to supervise the offloading. I was hoping to start off loading in the middle of the breach but, with this lot here, we’ll have to start at the near end because I need this truck back here as quickly as possible.”

  “Right, Dad.” He raised his hand. “Helen’s answering now.” James repeated all the instructions to his sister and they heard, while he was still talking, the digger start up and they watched it move towards the bridge. “She’s on her way. I’ll get off.” With that, he climbed up into the passenger seat of the truck.

  Martin began to make his way through the dusty destroyed bridge. Only the railway lines, with some sleepers still precariously attached, remained and they were sagging rather disconcertingly. As he emerged on the other side, he saw Wayne Maltravers.

  “Wayne.” Martin shook his hand. “I can’t thank you enough for turning out.”

  “That’s OK, Mr Havers.” Wayne turned to look at the gap where the bridge had been. “How the hell are we going to get through there?”

  “My daughter, Helen, has been using a digger to scoop up earth to back fill the temporary sea wall that we’ve built across the breach. She’s now on her way back here. She’ll dig her way through the rubble, dumping it on the back of the truck that’s already got through. The truck should nearly be at the wall by now. One way or another, we’ll get all your trucks through here and, into the bargain, we’ve gained all this extra rubble.”

  Wayne chuckled. “You certainly know how to look on the bright side, Mr Havers.”

  “It’s Martin. Call me Martin, Wayne.” He smiled grimly. “The problem we’ve really got is time. The tide is already coming in, so we’ve only got a couple of hours at most to shift this lot.”

  “Well I’ve got a digger coming as well.”

  “Really? How far away is it?” Martin looked up the hill towards the ruined castle,

  “I expect it’ll be another ten minutes or so.”

  The dust had now dispersed and one of the other drivers, who had climbed up the embankment, called down, “Jack’s on his way back, Wayne.” At the same time they heard the engine of Helen’s digger as she arrived back at the bridge. She immediately assessed the situation and began to clear the pile of rubble, dumping it behind her on the field itself. She also used the shovel to knock down and break up the concrete sleepers.

  As soon as Jack returned with the flatbed truck, he turned it round ready to be loaded before the return trip to the seawall. Helen now loaded the rubble onto the truck, trying to spread the load as evenly as possible. The rubble was a mixture of broken bricks, old black cement and the coarsely crushed limestone from the rail track. It seemed to be an impossible task to complete before the tide was back. However, Jack had also come back with three of the Martin’s neighbours, together with their shovels.

  As soon as Jack’s flat bed was full once more, he set off back to the wall. While the shovellers enjoyed a brief rest, they heard Wayne’s digger arrive. The driver started to work at once clearing rubble from the north side and began to make an immediate impression because his digger shovel was twice the size of Helen’s. Within twenty minutes, he was able to drive through the shattered bridge, with a load ready for Jack’s next return. Behind him, one by one, the other trucks drove through the cleared bridge and made their way down to the sea wall.

  Martin looked at his watch. It was quarter to five and High Tide was due in an hour. He scratched his head and phoned James.

  “Where’s the tide?”

  “It’s already part way up the temporary wall, Dad. We need more hard core, urgently. The other trucks are just arriving. They will offload from the centre to the far end.”

  “OK.” Martin turned to Wayne. “I’ve got t
o get back to the wall. James says they need more hard core. Is there any chance that your guys can get more down here? If we can keep the sea water flowing over the top to a minimum, we’ll still be able to keep dumping more rubble, even as we approach High Tide.”

  “Thought you might ask that, Martin. My depot at Benfleet is already cleaned out, so I called my mate at Chelmsford. He’s rousted out at least eight more trucks and they should be arriving very soon.”

  As he was speaking, they all heard a truck’s bull horn from further up the hill, beyond the ruined castle. They could see the lights of a new convoy on its way down the track from the farm. Martin put his hands to his head and muttered, “Thank God for that.”

  Just after ten o’clock in the evening, the two military columns entered London one from the M3, the other from the M4. They were in constant radio contact with each other and with their bases. Arriving at broadly the same time, they were confronted with no street lighting nor traffic lights. It was rather fortunate that virtually all of the civilian traffic was driving out of London, so neither column had any real obstruction until they reached their initial objectives.

  The column from the M3 was deployed to the southern bank and instructed to assess the damage to the river defences from the Thames Barrier westwards to Waterloo. The column from the M4 was deployed to the northern bank and instructed to assess the damage from the Thames Barrier westwards to the city.

  The two commanding officers, already in close contact with each other, could see each other’s columns across the river as they set up their temporary headquarters, one on the north side in the now ruined Thames Barrier Park, with the other on the south side at the Barrier Control Building. The Barrier itself was still in place. Both HQs were up and running by 02.00 hours and their work was considerably eased when, within an hour of arrival, power was connected.