Storm Surge

by David Rees

  About three-quarters of a mile out of Oozedam the train seemed to collide violently with something. Their carriage tilted half over, then fell back into place on the rails. Aaron was thrown off his seat onto the floor, hurting his back, and burning his hand on the cigarette. He scrambled to his feet, dazed, and looked at John, who was sitting up, complaining of the pain in his leg. Aaron opened the window. All he could see was a mass of swirling water and debris rushing past, already level with the bottom of the door. He could hear people in other carriages shouting for help. His feet felt wet, and looking down he saw water oozing in between the bottom and sides of the door. He slammed the window shut.

  ‘My God! I think the wall’s burst!’

  The water rose rapidly to window-level. Then a large lump of stone smashed the glass in. Both boys were hit by pieces of flying glass; Aaron had a cut on his cheek, John on his mouth. Water poured in, filthy and icy cold.

  ‘Quick! Get on the luggage-rack!’

  Aaron pulled John to his feet. John clung to the edge of the rack, heaving himself up, Aaron lifting his plaster-of-Paris leg as gently as he could. The water was above Aaron’s knees when he pulled himself up onto the opposite rack. The lights grew dim, then went out. The water rose steadily beneath them.

  ‘What are we going to do, John? How can it come in so quickly?’

  The land rises a bit on the other side of the lines, so the water can’t spread out.’

  ‘My God. And I’ve never had a chance to love anybody.’

  He stretched his arm down. His hand went into the water up to his wrist; he held it there a minute to see if the level rose. It soon came up to his cuff.

  ‘John, we’re moving out of here.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m going to open the window and swim out. Then, when I’m outside I’m going to pull you through.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘It’s the only way. Get undressed.’

  Aaron began to take his own clothes off. This was not easy as the roof of the carriage was only an inch above his head, and the buttons on his shirt kept catching in the net of the luggage rack. His sports bag was just by his face, and one by one, he carefully put his clothes in it and zipped it up tight, then he slowly lowered himself into the water. It was so cold the shock of it made him feel faint, and he struggled for breath.

  ‘Bloody hell! It will freeze me solid!’

  He gasped, then at last plucking up courage, dived down and fumbled for where he thought he would find the window catch, He failed, came up for air, choking and cursing, then dived again. This time he found it and pushed down with all his might. It opened. He swam through and came up for air on the outside. He was dimly aware of other people further up the train doing the same thing. He could just make out the line of the top inch or two of the wall above the water beside him. He swam to it and heaved himself up. Further along a whole section of the wall seemed to have given way, and where it should have been a surging torrent of water was pouring through inland. There was no sign of the front carriage of the train; it must have been knocked sideways by the force of the broken concrete and was now totally submerged. He swam back, and carefully lifted out his sports bag and pushed it onto the train roof. ‘John. Are you all right? Are you undressed?’

  ‘As much as I can manage.’

  ‘Can you lower yourself into the water? ’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Keep one hand on the window-frame. Are you all right?’

  ‘It’s cold!’

  ‘Come on. Put your head out. That’s right. No. Don’t hold on to the window-frame. Hold my hand. I’m going to swim away from the carriage and pull you.’ They both sank, and came up, spluttering. ‘That won’t do. Turn round and try and come out backwards. That’s right. Now grip the edge of the roof and heave,’

  John did as he was told, but the broken leg was the problem. ‘I’m stuck. I can’t move my right leg.’

  ‘I’ll climb on the roof and lie flat and haul you up.’

  Aaron did so; the biting wind on his wet skin was even colder than the sea. He pulled John’s arms with both his, but John was still stuck. He felt himself slipping head first over the edge, and in righting himself he accidentally kicked his sports bag off the roof. He cursed as he watched it spin away on the water. He turned back to John, and thought the water had stopped rising, though the violent movement of it backwards and forwards between the train and the wall as each succeeding wave through the breach pushed it towards them or sucked it back made it very difficult to be sure. It broke over John’s head, then fell away leaving half his body visible, then swept over him again.

  ‘Once more, John.’ Aaron heaved with all his strength, but his hands were beginning to grow numb, and though John shifted slightly, Aaron could feel him slipping slowly out of his fingers. John fell back with a cry, and disappeared under the water. Aaron waited for him to emerge, five seconds, ten. No sign. He jumped back in the water, could feel him frenziedly struggling, could feel the bubbles of air coming from his mouth. He put his arms round John’s arm-pits, pulled and pulled again, but he could not move him. The plaster-of-Paris leg was stuck in such a way that it was preventing the rest of his body from surfacing. Aaron came up, swallowing great gulps of air, John hanging onto his leg; and shaking his hair back from his eyes and mouth, he shouted ‘Help! Help me! My friend’s drowning!’ A man came running, along the roof towards him and jumped in. John’s grip on his leg was weaker. He kicked himself free with his other leg, for he could not help John while be was held like that. ‘His leg’s broken,’ Aaron shouted. ‘It’s the plaster-of-Paris. It’s stuck in the window somehow.’ They managed to free him at last, and pull him onto the roof. The plaster was cracked in several places and beginning to go soggy. The leg stuck out at the wrong angle below the knee. But it was too late. He was unconscious.

  They placed him as gently as they could along the line of the roof. Aaron lay on top of him, giving him the kiss of life. Nothing happened. He tried again. Again and again and again. The man crouched, watching.

  ‘Let me try,’ he said. Aaron moved over. After about ten minutes the man said, ‘It’s no good. He’s drowned. There’s no heart-beat at all.’

  ‘No!’ Aaron cried, and pushing the man away, he tried again himself. He went on and on, refusing to give up, but it was no use. John was dead.

  He pulled John round so that he lay across the roof, then turned him over so that he lay on his front. There was less chance now of his being washed away.

  Aaron sat shivering, cold to his very bones. The wind soon dried him, but left him even colder. He was wearing only his underpants, a smart new pair they had been, purple with fancy decorations in gold and silver. He had thought they looked sexy. He had never been so cold in his life, but it was nothing compared with the chill that had entered his mind and heart. Someone came towards him along the roof and put a jacket round his shoulders, but he hardly noticed.

  As Grandpa opened his front gate he could hear the strains of the harmonium and Bess’s reedy voice singing one of her favourite hymns. ‘Looking this way, yes, looking this way, Dear ones in glory, looking this way.’ It might be one of the tunes she liked best, Grandpa thought, but she never got the words right. ‘Oh dear Lordy me,’ he said aloud. He timed his entry so that he could throw open the front door and shout a stentorian ‘Yes!!’ after the second ‘Looking this way.’

  ‘Be quiet, Fred,’ said Grandma, who had nearly jumped out of her skin in fright, and was now playing a sequence of discords. She was wearing her best hat. ‘There, you’ve made it go all wrong.’ She played a loud ‘Amen’ in F major and closed the lid with a bang. ‘Now then,’ she said, turning to him, ‘where do you think you’ve been?’

  ‘You know quite well where I’ve been. I’ve been there nearly every night for the last sixty-nine years. I don’t know what you ask for.’

  ‘One of these days, Fred Brown, I’m going to sue you for divorce.’

  Grandpa roared with l
aughter, or tried to; it ended in a terrible burst of coughing, his eyes nearly falling out of his head. ‘I shall defend it, my love,’ he wheeled. ‘My defence shall be that I love you more than ever. Fifty-one years we’ve been married, and I love you more now than the day! I married you.’

  ‘You’ve never loved anyone but yourself. Certainly not me. I sometimes think I’d have been better off if I’d never set eyes on you. I’m going to bed, and you can sleep down here.’ She picked up their battery radio.

  ‘Why, what do you think I’m going to do at my age?’ She shut the door behind her, unpinning her hat as she went. ‘Silly old cow.’ he muttered.

  He went out to the kitchen and made a pot of tea, then filled two hot water bottles.

  ‘Here you are, my dearest,’ he said. She was sitting up in bed reading the Bible, and took the hot water bottles and the cup of tea from him in silence. Hymns came from the radio. He undressed and got in beside her.

  ‘ “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth let him understand : ) then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains : let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house.” Matthew, Chapter Twenty-four, verses fifteen to seventeen. Them’s good words, Fred, worth remembering. Listen to this : “But pray ye that your flight be not in winter, neither on the sabbath day : for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” ’

  ‘Leave off, Bessy, do.’

  She clapped the Bible shut, turned out the bedside light, and with great heavings and shakings settled down for the night. She had not been long asleep when something woke her. Something was wrong. The air in the bedroom was unusually cold, and she could hear a tap dripping. Several taps dripping. The wind was still howling round the house, but the gurgle of water seemed to be inside. Also the moonlight was much brighter than it should be. ‘Be quiet, Fred,’ she whispered, as he snored like a furnace, and turned over, muttering something about the walls giving way. She looked out of the window. Everything was white, as if there had been a tremendous blizzard; but it couldn’t be snow, not in that short time. Frost perhaps. She could hear cows roaring, in distress she thought. And wasn’t that faint cry a human cry, the word ‘Help!’?

  She prodded Grandpa awake. ‘Fred,’ she whispered, ‘get up. There’s been a great frost or something. Someone’s in trouble; I can hear them.’

  ‘What are you whispering for, woman? Go back to sleep, and stop dreaming. I do wish you’d learn not to eat cheese of an evening.’

  ‘Get up, get up! Someone’s calling for help! There! There it is again.’

  Grandpa too heard it. He got out of bed, grumbling and muttering, scratching his bottom. He switched on the bedside light, but nothing happened. ‘Bulb’s gone.’

  ‘Funny. I only replaced it yesterday.’

  He went to the window. ‘Bessy. O my Lord. Just look out there! That’s never a frost! You’re getting to be mope-eyed as a bat. That’s the sea! It has come over the walls, then. Oh what shall us do?’

  ‘The sea!’

  ‘All that whiteness is moonlight on the water. Why, there’s . . . there’s . . .’ ― he rubbed his eyes, disbelievingly ―‘hardly . . . not a single blade of grass! That’s a tree sticking up! And it’s up to the house. Look! It’s all round the house! It’s half-way up the walls!’

  He turned to her and in the moonlight saw the fear in her eyes. Then he shuffled out onto the landing, Grandma following. The electricity was not working there either. But what they could hear made them stand still in dismay. Grandma had thought it was a tap dripping, but it was the sea in the downstairs rooms, breaking gently on a step halfway up the stairs, clinking saucepans and jugs and cups and vases in a dance on its surface.

  ‘Is it rising?’ she asked. He started down the stairs. ‘Be careful, Fred. Don’t fall in! Oh do be careful!’

  This step’s wet, and the next one. And the one after that. Tide’s turned, it’s going down. Ow!I put my foot in it, Bessy. It’s perishing!’

  ‘The abomination of desolation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Spoken of by Daniel the prophet. Pray ye that your flight be not in winter, neither on the sabbath day. It is winter. It is the sabbath.’

  ‘Stop gibbering, girl, and tell me what to do.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  She sounded lost and helpless. He dragged himself back up the stairs, and went into the spare room at the front. From there he could see some of the other houses on the island, all drowned to the first storey. There was candlelight flickering behind some of the windows, and heads looking out. Again there came the cry of ‘Help!’ but it was fainter, and as he listened he heard a distant splash. Someone falling from a tree or a roof? There were no more shouts. He shivered.

  Not far off stood The King’s Head. Like the other buildings it was half-submerged. A dead horse floated in the water. He remembered his chickens, but with a lurch in his heart. They would all be drowned. He strained his eyes in the direction of the pub, hoping to see a candle in the nearest window, Peter’s bedroom, but though he stared and stared he couldn’t be sure. Like Bessy’s eyes, his were growing dim with age.

  After Charley and Doris had driven about a mile back into Oozedam, past the pre-war semi-detached houses to where the Victorian terraces started, they found a ‘Road Closed’ sign blocking their way. Charley paused for a moment, then drove round it. A few yards further on they met the water. It was just a pool here, wind ruffling its surface. He drove through it, as he could see the road emerging dry on the other side, only a few yards on. But round the next bend he could go no further. Here it Stretched as far as they could see, a torrent rushing towards them. People were running ahead of it, trying to escape. The rows of houses seemed to shrink the further into the water they were; in the distance only the bedroom windows were visible. Charley reversed the car, turned it, and hurried back the way they had come, looking for a by-road that would take them through the lanes round the back of town.

  At first neither of them spoke. It was exactly what Doris had feared that morning and Charley had ridiculed, and what he had been so anxious about at David’s and she had ignored. They were afraid to speak to each other. The sleet swept down the windscreen; the wipers mechanically swished it aside. Doris sniffed and searched for a handkerchief.

  They’ll be all right, Doris, you’ll see.’ Silence. ‘We don’t know if there’s any flooding at all at home.’

  ‘If it’s covered half Canewdon Road the island will be well under.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ He didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘It’s Ron.’

  ‘Ron? He’s probably safest of the three.’

  ‘I bet he’s on the last train home. It’s probably trapped half-way along the line. Charley, I ―’

  ‘Doris, if the sea had already come in the train wouldn’t leave. And if it hadn’t come in then he’s probably arrived home without any bother. He's probably in bed by now.’

  ‘In bed! He’s drowned, I know he’s drowned. Oh, Charley, I can feel ―’

  ‘Stop it! You’re being a fool! If he got stuck in town he’d probably go to Ann’s. He’s done that before. You know he’s missed the last train a few times, particularly when he’s been taking a girl out.’

  ‘Yes, the little tom-cat. But he wasn’t going out with a girl. I thought you said he was going to the cinema with John.’

  ‘Well, you know what boys of that age are, meet some girls they know at the cinema . . . they wouldn’t tell us, would they? I bet he’s safe and sound at this minute, on a sofa in a front room somewhere with a girl, while her mother’s in the kitchen trying to work out how to get rid of him . . .’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Absolutely certain.’ He knew it wasn’t true. He knew that Aaron was the most likely to be in danger. He had gone out in old j
eans and an old jacket; if he’d had a date he would have come home to change after the match.

  They drove past David’s, down a series of country lanes, then turned left onto another main road which took them back to the outskirts of Oozedam on the south-west side of the town. There was no flooding here, and Doris seemed a little more cheerful.

  ‘Charley, what about Pat?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Her ward was on the fourth floor.’

  ‘I don’t remember the stairs.’

  ‘We went up in the lift.’

  They sped through a maze of back-streets, all dry, and onto the road to Flatsea and the south.

  ‘And Peter, and Martin, and Mum and Dad?’

  ‘Well, the sea may have come in. I’m not saying, mind, it has. But it may have done. It may even be in the house. But it couldn’t in a million years be so high it would cover the house ―’

  ‘Cover the house! ― ’

  ‘― or even reach the top of the stairs. If they’ve got any sense, and they have got sense, Doris, they'll be high and dry in the bedrooms. Unless they’ve done something very stupid, and Peter and Martin aren’t stupid.’

  ‘But suppose one of them went down to the cellar?’ There was no call for anyone to do that. Bar was properly stocked, beer was on, and unless they’ve had about forty people in drinking barley wine all evening, which they won’t, they’ll not have run short of anything. I saw to it all this afternoon when you were watching telly.’

  ‘Getting your tea you mean. Yes, I suppose you’re right.’ The sleet had stopped. They could see the moon behind the clouds. The road ran parallel with the railway, on almost the same level. They could see massive waves out at sea, which from time to time hit the top of the wall with tremendous force, almost like an explosion; huge columns of spray were tossed into the air and dropped back or were hurled over the railway line and the road, hitting the car with a strength sufficient to push it onto the wrong side of the white line.