That stopped it long enough for Guy to grab Dorothea’s arm and try to pull her away. She struggled, screaming at him to let her go, she was going to deal with the bloodworm herself, while over her shoulder he could see it menacingly towering over both of them. Again he squirted the chemical at it.
‘Guy, get clear!’ Evan’s voice came at him from somewhere out of the confusion. ‘Stand back!’
Then he was there beside him, the shotgun in his hands, but Guy knew that to shoot was the worst thing he could do. The bloodworm would break up into a multitude of vicious little maggots; none of them would stand a chance.
‘No!’ he roared.
The mask over his mouth muffled the sound and the heavy beat from the cassette drowned its meaning. Evan fired. The explosion echoed around the room; its shock waves stabbed painfully into his ears, leaving him deafened and numb.
In place of the single bloodworm he now had to face a crawling heap of wriggling, hungry larvae. Already they were beginning to reach out towards him.
He forced Dorothea back, gripping her with a hold which could break her arm if she resisted, but still she struggled, still she tried to fight back, as if determined to die. Letting her legs go limp, she sagged down to the floor, where the maggots were waiting in their hundreds.
It was hopeless, he knew. However much he used the spray to keep them back, he couldn’t kill all of them Many got through to investigate her body, squirming over her bare fore-arms, penetrating her sleeve, inserting themselves between the folds of her clothing. He deadened them with the spray, he tugged them away with his gloved fingers, but always more came.
She was quieter now, semi-conscious from breathing the chemical, and he was on his knees beside her desperately fighting to save her from those eager, hungry worms. One bit agonisingly into his leg; others were creeping over his sleeves., over the backs of his gloves
Vaguely he was aware of hands dragging them across the floor, and of Evan bending over them, spraying them both, and of one of the black-clad bikers pouring petrol on to the squirming mound of pale worms which had — only seconds earlier — been part of that monster bloodworm.
More pain, like sharp knife thrusts.
His eyes became misty. Voices retreated into deep echoing caverns. Everything was going so far away, he thought comfortably.
It was so relaxing, those ripples of water over the smooth sand.
‘Who is that?’ he asked.
He had come to suddenly, his mind alert, telling him that he was on a stretcher in an Army ambulance with a strap across his chest to hold him steady. They had stuck a tube in his arm; turning his head, he could see the plastic bag containing the fluid. Someone else was on a drip too, on a stretcher at the other side of the ambulance. Dorothea, he guessed — but he had to be sure.
‘Who is that?’ he asked again.
‘Awake now, are you?’ Evan sounded cheerful enough; but then he usually did. it’s a miracle how you did it, but you’ve both come out alive. That’s your wife, boyo.’
‘How bad is she?’
‘Oh, I think she’ll be all right. The two little girls are safe as well — that’s something. As for me, Fm what they call a walking case. It means I have to use my own two legs while you have the luxury of being carried.’
Evan’s voice was slipping away again, dissipating like smoke on the wind. Dorothea, Guy thought drowsily as the motion of the ambulance rocked him into unconsciousness.
He came to again when the ambulance stopped at the casualty station and they were carrying him out. Some argument seemed to be going on, with Evan’s Welsh tones insisting that Guy and Dorothea should be put close together. Good old Evan, he felt when he heard him, not at first fully understanding what it was all about.
But the doctor — a woman — agreed.
They were taken into a large bleak room with a stage at one end and climbing ropes looped beneath a steel girder; it was obviously a school hall; already it stank of kids’ sweat, despite being a new building. About half the beds in it were unoccupied but the stretcher bearers were directed past them to a comer beside the stage which offered at least some kind of privacy.
Dorothea lay on the bed next to his, still unconscious, her mouth slightly open but her expression serenely peaceful as though she were enjoying some pleasant dream.
‘Captain Archer, your wife is very weak and she needs a blood transfusion,’ the woman doctor told him. ‘We don’t have blood of her group available at the moment. I expect a delivery by helicopter within about half an hour.’
‘But a donor here…? There must be somebody.’
‘It’s a question of the right blood group. Believe me, we are trying.’
He sank back on to the pillow. His blood didn’t match her group, he knew that from years ago; nor did Kath’s. She was frowning now, her lips puckering restlessly, and he wondered what was going through her head. Nothing had gone right since they had moved to London. He’d usually arrived home late and tired; she had often been on edge about something in the house, or else she was with that crowd in the Plough. Maybe now ail that was gone they could start again somewhere. Do something different.
Suddenly she opened her eyes and looked at him in astonishment. He leaned up on his elbow and was about to say something, when she relaxed and smiled.
‘Guy, love?’ she murmured.
He stretched over — the beds were only about a foot apart — and touched her hand. Her fingers closed around his.
‘Oh, Guy.’ A deep sigh; then, almost in a whisper: ‘Guy… Kath…’
Her eyes stared past him as if she were far away in her own thoughts and her fingers slackened, though he still held them until the woman doctor came back and gently took his hand away.
i’m afraid we’ve lost her,’ she said, i’m sorry.’
High above the casualty station Royal Air Force jets screamed across the sky in the direction of Whitehall to recce their targets for Sunday morning’s raid.
16
The web stretched across the narrow gap between the fence and the tumbledown old tool-shed. Backing out with the garden fork in his hand, Guy caught sight of it and stopped dead. In the autumn sunshine its delicate silk threads glistened richly; perhaps stimulated by the sudden warmth, the fly trapped in its mesh began to struggle again.
‘Oh, the poor fly!’ Kath exclaimed, joining him.
‘The web must have been in shadow and the fly didn’t see it in time.’
‘But can’t we help it somehow? Set it free?’ i doubt if it could fly again if we did. Probably damaged its wings.’
‘The poor thing!’
‘Oh, and what about the poor spider who is looking forward to his dinner?’ Guy retorted, ‘What about that, young missie?’
‘Huh!’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’m going, Daddy. See you!’
She ran lightly down the path skirting the vegetable beds and seconds later he could see her head in its black peaked hat as she rode off on the pony he had bought for her.
Six months had passed since he was allowed out of hospital and Evan suggested they should pool their resources to buy this smallholding in the depths of Waies. Free-range hens and vegetables, that was his idea; somewhere as far away from the city as they could get. It was perhaps the best decision he had ever made, Guy felt. No profit yet, that was too much to expect in such a short time — though the place was a going concern when they took it over — but they were breaking even on running costs, as well as being self-sufficient for most of their own food.
Kath came to see him more often now too, which was a clear sign that she was beginning to recover from all she must have been through. She had witnessed more death and dying during those terrible days in London than most people encounter in a lifetime. For the first few weeks she had hardly spoken a word, except to Susi. In fact, Lise had been the only person able to get through to either of them.