Vampires Overhead

by Alan Hyder

  ‘I’ll be along soon after ten. That do? How can I find you?’

  ‘That’ll do fine. There’s a night watchman. He’ll let you in if I’m not there, but I’ll be there. A wicket in the entrance gates under the lion. You can’t miss it. If I shouldn’t be there the watchman’ll fix you up. Old Garrison man he is. That beaky-nosed Jew in a boiled shirt on the steps your boss? He’s got an eye on us. I’ll be getting along. See you tonight then, and we’ll make it a wet one. Old times all over again. S’long, Garry.’

  ‘S’long ’til tonight, Bingen. See you at the brewery. Gosh! What a rendezvous! Could we pick a better? I’ll say we couldn’t!’

  Bingen’s whip caressed plump dappled flanks, and his team stiffened into their traces; the van-boy, who had been craning over the piled crates interestedly, jerked fingers in a cheeky caricature of a military salute, and I returned it with a grin; the dray swung into the traffic stream, and Bingen turned to wave a smiling farewell. Cap tilted over one eye, I went happily back up the steps to my job. It was great to see one of the old hands again, even if it were Bingen. But then, he’d a lot of good points about him, despite his two bad ones, women and beer. Anyway, we’d make a night of it tonight. A night worth remembering. I felt bucked enough to walk across the vestibule and rub my back soothingly on one of those tempting mermaids. I almost cake-walked across the steps, had to take a firm hold on myself to avoid turning and staring defiantly at the manager. For a while I could feel his eyes following me disapprovingly, then he went away.

  The rest of the afternoon and the evening dragged slowly, but how quickly the time flew, for in between glancing at the ornate clock over the box-office, and scowling at the motionless hands, I was going over the old times, remembering incidents in preparation for the yarning with Bingen.

  Due that night, by a lucky coincidence, to leave early, I was hurrying down the narrow slope of a back exit from the cinema shortly before ten-thirty. Queer, I felt younger, fitter, thinner out of that stifling uniform. Queer also, as I write, how trivial little incidents come jumping to my mind. Sitting here in the cottage with Janet nursing the purring cat, busy with clicking needles upon a pair of socks, I remember, as though it were but a few short hours ago, instead of eight months.

  A crowded bus carried me along the Strand, across Waterloo Bridge—fallen so much sooner than the most pessimistic of engineers had prophesied—and a hurried walk through squalid streets by the riverside brought me to the brewery.

  From the far pavement of the narrow street I stood awhile to stare up at the huge stone lion surmounting the entrance gates; blackly it loomed against the sky. Crimson glow from the comet tinged the moon’s pale lustre and the sky was clear, dusted with yellow stars, with light haze from the City merging into its vastness. But it seems now, when I go over everything again and again, I saw, up there in the translucent heavens, a barely discernible cloud. Since beginning this description, I have mused over details of those first nights, and the more I dwell upon them the less sure I am, that while I stared up at the lion silhouetted against the night sky, I glimpsed the first Vampires. But a faint thought will persist that I saw then something which should have warned the unsuspecting country of peril. Who else searched the heavens that night?

  Crossing the street at last, I banged upon the great gates, the sound reverberating loudly in the deserted street. Footsteps clattered over cobbles and, after many creakings and squeakings as though the tiny wicket were seldom opened, it swung wide to let me stoop and enter. Bingen locked the gate behind me.

  ‘Won’t do for anyone to come along and catch us in here,’ he said, after we greeted each other. ‘Old Dad, the watchman, tells me the manager left his car here tonight. Said he won’t be wanting it until the morning, but one never knows, and I shouldn’t like to lose the old fellow his job any more than I’d like to get the sack myself.’

  ‘You’re sure it wouldn’t be better to come along out to a pub in the Waterloo road,’ I suggested. ‘There’s still half an hour to go before they shut.’

  Curiously, the closing and locking of that wicket set in the great gates towering between pillars, vaguely disturbed me. It was as though I were being imprisoned. The place gave me a presentiment of evil. The yard, large as it was, seemed hemmed in by tall, surrounding buildings. Black and eerie shadows stained the cobbles, and little barred windows, glinting darkly in the blank walls, were as those of a jail. I glanced up at the stars again with a weird sensation of being smothered.

  ‘It’s gloomy in here, Bingen. You’re sure you wouldn’t rather come out to a pub?’

  ‘It’s gloomy enough. The stables at the back are cheerier, but it’s cosy in the watchman’s hut. Old Dad’s been on the job for twenty-four years, and he’s made himself comfortable. There’s hardly time to have more than a couple if we go out. It’s free here, and I’ve got some of the real stuff at that, baksheesh from Dad. Not often anyone can get baksheesh from him. Come on.’

  I followed across the yard, with the pungent odour of hops filling my nostrils, to where a golden oblong of light splashed on the black cobbles from the open door of the watchman’s hut, and turned once more to stare back, almost apprehensively, at the shadows in the yard, before stepping out over the threshold.

  Despite the strangely tropical weather, a large fire burned brightly in an old-fashioned hob and flickered upon a warlike display of weapons hanging on the walls. Bayonets, cutlasses, swords, lance and spear heads arranged in symmetrical designs, polished and burnished from the care so evidently bestowed on them. The watchman apparently lived here, for in one corner, neatly ‘made-up’ barrack-room style, were brown army blankets folded with scrupulous exactness upon a low iron bed. Fronting the fire stood a wooden table. Scrubbed to a pristine whiteness, it supported, smartly in double file, what I presumed to be the ‘baksheesh’ ‘scrounged’ from Old Dad; a double or so tall black bottles with dust from a cool cellar still thick upon them.

  ‘Here y’are, Dad, meet Garrington. Out of the old Battery. Weren’t exactly bosom pals were we, Garry?’ Bingen eyed the table affectionately and smiled. ‘But there, times have changed. There aren’t many of us left. When any of us do meet, well, it’s up to us to have one, and be glad we’re here and able to have one. Set ’em up, Dad.’

  The night-watchman, a thin old man, showed pink toothless gums in a smile of welcome, shook hands with me, and busied about the bottles. His spare shoulders, even yet, showed evidence of drilling, and his wrinkled brown face told of acquaintance with tropical suns.

  ‘Well, Garry, here’s to you. Seeing you in Piccadilly standing on those steps like a cast-off Mexican general was the surprise of my life,’ said Bingen, lifting his glass towards me and gulping thirstily. ‘Phew! I’m thirsty. It’s hot for so early in the year. Must be over a month since we had rain.’

  ‘Six weeks tomorrow, and that blasted comet’s been here nearly as long,’ the watchman said. ‘But it’ll rain tomorrow. It can’t go on like this. Why, even when I was in Aden we . . .’

  ‘When you were in Aden, Garry and I weren’t pupped,’ Bingen interjected rudely. ‘Tonight is our night, Dad. Some other time we’ll listen to all your yarns of ten-sixty-six. Tonight Garry and I are going to hold the fort.’

  ‘We are that,’ I agreed, taking the glass Bingen offered me. I toasted them. ‘To you, Bingen, and to you, Dad. To the old times and the times ahead.’

  The times ahead! We didn’t think much about the times ahead that night. Old times . . . they occupied our thoughts, and, as the beer loosened our tongues, we yarned of the Menin Road; Cairo; Karachi; Poona; the ‘Shot’; old friends. Who knows of what we talked that night!

  Bingen opened bottle after bottle with all his old expertness, and Old Dad, despite protest, was driven to the cellar once again for more . . . and outside, high in the heavens, those blood-seeking, fire-breeding Vampires must have been dropping silently, nearer and nearer to earth!

  Bingen and Dad began to be triplicated before my wav
ering eyes. The black bottles on the table swayed so that I watched them seriously against their falling. Bingen’s voice began to acquire, as usual when in drink, a pugnacious note. The watchman grew worried that someone might hear the sounds of revelry, and Bingen wanted a lot of persuading before he allowed the old man to proceed on his bi-nightly patrol of the brewery. But eventually Dad got away with his lantern and his knarled stick, and when we were alone Bingen resumed his narrative of the divisional Sword v Bayonet contest out of which he had been so foully cheated.

  ‘. . . it was like this. I cut, and then to my surprise the judge he whips across and disqualifies me on the spot,’ growled Bingen. He had lurched from his chair and was illustrating the fight with bare hands, when his gaze fell on the weapon-decorated walls. He lifted a sword and a bayoneted rifle from their fastenings. ‘Good! I’ll be able to show you better with these. Take this gun and get over there, and I’ll show you ’zactly how I got dished out of the championship.’

  Taking the rifle I began to parry at Bingen’s instructions, and the wildly thrusting sword would soon have sobered me had it continued for long. The watchman’s hut resounded to the clang of weapons and the stamp of our unsteady feet. Breathless, I was glad of the interruption when it came.

  ‘Stop! Be quiet,’ suddenly came a voice from the door. ‘Stop, you fools. Stop!’

  I remember hazily, for I was intent upon Bingen’s dangerous sword, the return of the watchman, but I know that we ignored him until he pushed his meagre figure perilously between us. Bingen tried to wave him away, but I leant thankfully on the rifle, glad of a respite, watching them dizzily.

  ‘Get away out of it, Dad,’ Bingen said surlily. ‘We aren’t going to hurt your rotten old collection. Just going to finish showing Garry how I lost, then we’ll hang ’em up for you again.’

  ‘S’not that, you idjuts. It’s someone at the gate . . . the manager!’ the old man stuttered, stammering breathlessly. ‘He’s out there at the gate banging away like hell. Come back for his car, I s’pose. Said he wouldn’t want it ’til morning, and here he is now, the skunk.’

  The old man danced nervously between us, shook angry fists at Bingen, and turned to me.

  ‘If he finds Bingen here, let alone you, I’m sacked. What are we going to do?’ Dad gasped and then shook a clenched fist excitedly. ‘I’ve got it! Bingen, you know the tunnel down to the hard, both of you get in there, out of the way until he’s gone. Go right in and down, round the bend. Keep quiet. Then, as soon as I’ve got rid of him, I’ll come along and let you out. Make Bingen go, and keep him quiet. Stop him making a row.’

  This last was to me, and the old man gesticulated agitatedly for silence and expediency.

  ‘N’mind about them,’ Dad whispered hoarsely as we started to replace sword and rifle. ‘Take ’em with you if it pleases you, but for Gawd’s sake come out of here. Get a move on.’

  Foolishly, I followed Bingen out into the darkness of the yard, and with the night air, cool after the warmth of the room, playing about my temples, giddiness overcame me, for I had drunk more than I was accustomed to these days. In front, Bingen rolled ever so slightly as he tiptoed exaggeratedly over the cobbles. He carried the sword and a bottle, while the rifle dangled in my hand. Past the shadowed buildings to where a gate, looming darkly even in the surrounding murkiness, showed bars glinting blackly. I leant against the wall while the watchman fumbled cursingly with the padlock.

  ‘This ain’t been opened in years,’ he whispered, and when at last the gate swung creaking on rusty hinges, motioned us eagerly into the blackness of a sloping tunnel. ‘Quick! Get in there out of sight.’

  Taking Bingen’s reluctant arm, I led him forward while Dad pushed the gate softly to behind us and padlocked it. We turned to see him dimly in the dark, indicating that we were to go further along out of sight, and then he went off across the yard to the main entrance, his figure casting long dancing shadows from the lantern bobbing by his side. We stared, rather apprehensively, down the tunnel.

  ‘Nobody’ll be able to see us here by the gate,’ Bingen muttered angrily. ‘We’ll be all right here. S’no use going down into that black hole.’

  ‘We’d better go down a bit farther, like the old boy said,’ I whispered into the darkness. I could not see Bingen, even though he stood within reaching distance. ‘I shouldn’t like him to get discharged through us being here. If anyone came close to the gate with a light we’d be seen. Let’s go down a bit. There’s a corner, isn’t there? We’ll go round it like he wanted us to.’

  The tunnel descended sharply; there were steps, down which we fell, and then a steep descent, into a gloom that could almost be felt, and I stumbled after Bingen, dragging the rifle and sword he had leant against the wall outside. From side to side of the tunnel I staggered, then wavered round a corner unexpectedly to bump into him.

  ‘Ouch! What the devil you doing with that sword?’ he grunted. ‘Put the blamed thing down where it’ll be safe. Got a match? We’ll have a drink and a smoke until that blasted manager’s gone.’

  Furtively, between cupped hands, I struck a match, and, after we had lit cigarettes, glanced about the tunnel in which we stood. Some seven feet high by six broad, the arched roof and walls of brick were damp and green with fungus. Farther down out of sight I could hear the soft lapping of water.

  ‘Queer place this. Does it just run down into the river?’

  ‘Used to run down to the old loading hard until the hard got silted over with mud,’ answered Bingen sourly. ‘Years ago you could walk out on the mud to the lighters, and then the river rose to cover the tunnel. It was originally used for loading, but they had to build a loading platform. There used to be a gate at the river end, been underwater for years, but I suppose now, with this weather and the river nearly dry, it’ll be above-water at low tide. The water used to come way beyond here.’

  He stooped to feel the ground.

  ‘It feels dry enough, but there was a box up at the top. I fell over it. I’ll get it for a seat. I don’t want to stand about here all night.’

  Feeling before him in the dark, Bingen stumbled up the tunnel. I watched the pin-point of his cigarette, glowing redly, disappear, and then in a few moments he was back.

  ‘There’s a light moving about up there,’ he whispered after he had felt for and clasped my arm. ‘Didn’t like to go up for the box. Anyway, the ground seems dry enough. Let’s squat until Dad gives us the tip all’s clear.’

  ‘I feel just about tight, Bingen,’ I said, softly lowering myself to the ground. ‘Had more than I usually do these days, but even then, there must have been something extra in those bottles. For the love of Mike, what was it?’

  ‘Drop of the real stuff. Old Scotch ale. Don’t very often get a chance at any. Glad I was sensible enough to fetch a bottle down here with me. Gawd knows how long that blasted manager’ll be. Here, have a sup.’

  The bottle was pushed against me, but I’d had more than enough. I declined, and we sat there silently. Bingen drank again and again, for I heard, above the softly lapping river, the gurgling liquid as the bottle titled. Once water smacked violently in and out of the tunnel from the wash of some boat passing out there in the night.

  A tame ending, I thought, yawning, to what was to have been a hectic night yarning about old times. Bingen was furious at being chased from the light and the bottles of the watchman’s hut, and he smoked surlily, ignoring my attempts at conversation, until I, too, lapsed into silence. I leant with my back against the wall and felt gradually sleepy.

  Curiously, no thought how strange it was the watchman did not come in a few moments to call us back to the light occurred to me. The strong old beer had made me dozily content, and somehow, after yarning about the war, it was quite natural for me to be there in the darkness of a tunnel with a rifle, sword, and Bingen, now snoring loudly, lying by my side. I slid farther down from the wall until I too lay full length upon the floor. The world heaved, whirled for a few seconds dizzily,
and then I was asleep.

  Vaguely, I remember hearing footsteps clumping over the cobbled yard above before I dozed. It must have been that manager or whoever it was had stayed, and I can imagine Old Dad chuckling delightedly to himself that the two of us, down there in the tunnel, kept so quiet. But no one wakened us, and beneath the river we slept drunkenly, while the country burned and died in scenes of indescribable horror. Queer jest of fate that, armed with weapons which were to save our lives, Bingen and I slept unsuspectingly below that inferno.

  Dare I try to imagine what happened in the City above?

  Now that it is over, so far as we know, I have tried to visualize, but the very magnitude of it overwhelms me. London in flames! The population of the country wiped out in a few hours!

  Theatre crowds must have emerged to swarm into tube and train; the brilliance of the City’s lights dimmed, the black intersecting spaces increased in area; unfortunates upon the Embankment twisting, turning wearily on the light-bathed seats, seeking sleep; taxis grown scarce around Piccadilly, and lorries numerous about Covent Garden. And then, the startling silence preceding the dawn! Empty skies enclosing the huddled, brooding houses . . . and then the Vampires!

  I can see them!

  An illimitable cloud of dull-grey cotton-wool, intensifying blackly as it drops silently out of a starry sky . . . nearing earth. At first, as a cloud no larger than a man’s hand, they might have appeared to one who glanced skywards that night . . . and then a filthy fungus enveloping the countryside to obliterate man and his works. From the skies they came. The globe we know could not have bred them . . . from some far planet nearing earth at the outermost curve of its orbit they must have come . . . seeking food . . . bringing fire. Lost souls driven from some Hades in the vast Unknown they might have been . . . who knows . . . who will ever know?

  Silently, hardly disturbing the air, they must have come upon the land.