The Night of the Triffids (27 page)

    We weren't without sharp teeth of our own, however. From various points on our shore artillery pieces barked, sending shells streaking out over the river. Some of these found their mark. Three enemy launches erupted into fireballs, sending burning crewmen leaping into the water.

    Gabriel jumped up and down on the metal back of the Jumbo, cheering. However, a timely machine-gun round, ricocheting from the armoured side of the triffid-killer, reminded us that our position was somewhat exposed. Quickly making our way to the ground, we watched the unfolding battle from behind the vehicle.

    It wasn't going well. Despite our side's spirited counter-fire from dugouts, artillery placements and watchtowers, more than a dozen launches had reached the shore. Then, from under a blistering cover of machine-gun fire, Torrence's troops stormed up the hill. They fired as they went, some hurling grenades into dugouts. My heart sank. Torrence had launched a dedicated attack, using crack infantry. Foresters were dying by the dozen.

    Somehow at times like that the incongruous often shows its hand.

    From speakers mounted on poles around the camp music began to play. A lilting female voice sang a slow ballad that echoed across the hillside. Even gunfire intermingled with the agonized screams of the dying failed to drown out the beautiful melody.

    A hand shook my shoulder. 'That's our signal to get out.'' Gabriel pulled open the hatch of the Jumbo. 'Move it!' Quickly I scrambled inside, taking one of the front seats. I saw a young Hispanic man slip through the hatchway into the driver's cabin below my feet. A second later the engine rumbled into life.

    The vehicle had already started to roll forward on its caterpillar treads when Gabriel scrambled aboard to sit in the seat beside me.

    'Have you seen Sam?' he called.

    'The last I saw of him he was heading across to his office.'

    Gabriel twisted round in his seat to get a better view of the control block where Foresters loaded the more sensitive documents into waiting Jumbos.

    Suddenly, the clanging of bullets hitting the side of our vehicle drew my attention back towards the river. More launches had appeared, packed with men in green battledress. Some of the launches tried to run aground where the banks were too steep, leaving the invaders to leap ashore there. But the angle of the mud banking meant that they slipped back into the water where they drowned beneath the weight of the equipment that they carried.

    Nevertheless, many of the invaders were making it to dry land - although not all made it as far as the camp. From the lookout towers our machine-gunners raked the. earth with bullets, dropping many a soldier in mid-stride. And all the time there came the cacophony of gunfire, exploding shells and the high screaming of rocket launchers. Smoke rolled across the camp with all the density of an autumn fog.

    I called to Gabriel. 'What about Sam?'

    'He'll hitch a ride on a Jumbo… we're getting out of here.'

    'Where?'

    He jerked his head towards the nearest triffid fence. 'Out there. Where Torrence's men won't follow.'

    By now our vehicle had fallen into line behind others thundering across the grass; one clipped the shower block, bringing the roof down onto its metal back. It carried on regardless, chewing turf to mud. From some vehicles heavy machine-gun muzzles jutted; these were brought to bear on our attackers to spit lethal streams of bullets interspersed with brilliant red tracer rounds that cut down whole swathes of invaders.

    At that moment, I did harbour a distinct hope that the tide of battle could be turned in our favour. Yet a clatter of bullets on our armoured side told me otherwise. More of Torrence's men had worked their way round inside the triffid fence in an encircling movement to trap the Foresters within. Now our only hope was retreat.

    What seemed at first a chaotic flight soon became a well-ordered withdrawal. Our line of vehicles split up. They each drove singly towards a designated section of triffid fence. Vehicle after vehicle crashed through, snapping wire, crushing posts to matchwood.

    Gabriel flashed me a grim smile. 'This is where we leave the job of defence to the big green guys.' He nodded towards the waiting triffid plants. 'We figure that Torrence's men won't have the stomach to take on all those.'

    As if on cue the first triffids moved through the breaks in the fence, eagerly seeking their prey within the camp.

    'It's the music,' I called over the bellowing roar of the motor. 'They're homing in on the sound of the music'

    Gabriel nodded, his face showing grim satisfaction. 'That's why we're playing a song rather than instrumental music. Those things love the sound of a human voice.'

    As we lumbered towards our breakout section of fence I glanced back. Torrence's men had perhaps three-quarters of the camp under their control now. A ring of figures in battledress was encircling the Command block. The last of the Jumbos were leaving with their precious cargo of Foresters. One vehicle, however, remained. This was a monster of its kind. Twin turrets with machine guns dealt fiery death and destruction. Torrence's men charged towards it but were driven back time and time again.

    At that moment I saw Sam Dymes run from the office. In one hand he held a satchel bulging with documents that were too sensitive to be left for the invader. Beside him, firing a submachine gun, ran Jazmay.

    
Come on, come on…
I willed them to leap into the monster vehicle and roar away up the hillside to safety. Even as I silently urged the pair to run faster I saw the invaders manhandling a long black tube into position some thirty paces from the vehicle. Within a moment it was all over. With a burst of smoke a missile flashed from the tube directly through the Jumbo's metal flank to burst inside its valiant heart.

    The explosion blasted the twin turrets clean from the machine. Burning wreckage tumbled across the grass.

    I stared in disbelief. The blast had knocked Sam and Jazmay to the ground, but they were on their feet like lightning, sprinting towards the canteen building for cover. Any respite they found there would be short-lived, though.

    Turning, I struck Gabriel on the arm. 'We've got to go back!'

    'No can do. We're nearly home and dry.'

    'Sam and Jazmay are back there. They're trapped.'

    His dark eyes swiftly read the situation and he thumbed the intercom button. 'Driver. Make a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn… be ready to take on passengers.' He looked at me. 'OK, David. I think it's time to say a little prayer. We're just about to shove our heads into the lion's mouth.'

    

    

    

    CAREERING downhill, faster now, much faster, the Jumbo thundered towards the canteen building. Jazmay was firing from a window with her sub-machine gun. From behind a door Sam aimed his revolver.

    The situation didn't look good. Perhaps thirty invaders were closing in on the building, peppering the walls with shots from their carbines.

    'We got to move fast,' Gabriel shouted. 'When we pull up alongside the building open the hatch, then get those two in as fast as you can. Got it?'

    I nodded, holding on to the grab rail in front of me.

    We seemed all too vulnerable, sitting high in those cabins at the front of the Jumbo. There seemed to be nothing but glass surrounding us. While I knew it was toughened I didn't want a bullet to put it to the test.

    Our Jumbo hit level ground, its nose dipping just enough to gouge a yard of blacktop from the roadway, and then we were powering towards our target.

    Success or failure was a hair's-breadth matter. It only needed an enemy soldier to roll a grenade through the canteen doorway. Meanwhile, the number of invaders in front of us grew. Our driver slowed.

    Gabriel was having none of that. He stamped on the cabin floor to emphasize the order. 'Damn well drive!' he shouted into the intercom. 'If they don't move, run the swine down!'

    The swine did move.

    They leaped aside as the Jumbo roared towards them, engine bellowing, muck flying from the caterpillar tracks.

    'Get ready with that hatch!' Gabriel yelled at me before returning to direct the driver closer to the canteen building.

    I watched as the enemy throng parted like the Red Sea before Moses. There seemed an impossible number of them crowding the area in their drab green uniforms.

    I glanced round quickly. The camp had fallen into enemy hands. No doubt about that now. Although its capture might turn out to be short-lived. Already I could see triffids moving with that jerky gait of theirs that caused the upper stem and cone to whip violently back and forth. They lurched through the smashed fences, making beelines for the dead of both sides. There'd be nourishment galore for the plants tonight.

    'Damn!' Gabriel swore bitterly.

    Looking forward through the glass I saw a knot of men in front of us. This time they weren't running away from our machine. Two of them aimed the long black pipe straight at us.

    Gabriel's eyes blazed. 'Bazooka! Get ready to bale out.'

    At times like this it's astonishing how sheer survival instinct can make one move with lightning speed. Without thinking, I grabbed the control stick in front of me, my thumb hitting the red button.

    A giant flame burst from the tube at the front of our vehicle. Spitting and roaring, it was an incandescent mass the colour of hellfire itself.

    Before the enemy soldiers could fire the bazooka they were bathed in flame.

    I released the trigger. The torrent of hellfire stopped. At the same moment I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the aftermath of my action.

    Nor did I have to. Seconds later our vehicle passed over whatever remained of the soldiers.

    'David. Open the door.'

    The vehicle had stopped alongside the canteen building, just half a dozen feet from the doorway. Sam Dymes, carrying the document bag, ran from behind the now bullet-ravaged door. At the hatchway of the vehicle he stopped, beckoning to Jazmay who had slipped nimbly through a window.

    She'd reached the hatch. Her gaze locked on mine, dark and intense. That was the moment the enemy bullet found her. She crumpled to the ground, her beautiful hair turning a sodden crimson, her staring eyes sightless, the light of life passing instantly from them.

    Sam looked down at her with a kind of pained outrage. He snatched her sub-machine gun from the ground and at that moment he looked as if he'd run after Jazmay's killer in sheer vengeful fury.

    I shouted at him. 'Sam. It's too late. Get in!'

    His lanky frame swayed with indecision. He burned for revenge. Then, with a glance at the still form of Jazmay, he gave a regretful shake of his head and climbed on board.

    'Go, driver. Go!'

    With the hatch closed Sam scrambled up into the cabin behind me. His expression was like an open wound. Grief, anger, outrage inflamed those normally placid blue eyes, changing his stare into something that chilled my blood.

    Thanks,' he said in a surprisingly low voice. Then he stared forward through the window, locked into some distant place with his own thoughts.

    This time I displayed no qualms as the Jumbo lumbered up the hill. When any invader crossed our path I played merry hell with them with the flame-thrower.

    By the time the Jumbo at last broke through the fence a burning pathway stretched back as far as the place where Jazmay had fallen. Squirming, smouldering things littered our trail. But this time I kept my eyes
wide
open.

    

    

    Nightfall saw the surviving Jumbos parked in a circle, nose to tail. We were some ten miles from the army camp on a plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. Triffid plants lurched in the direction of the faraway camp.

    Clearly word was out on the triffid grapevine.

    
Come to the feast.

    One after another they determinedly made their way north.

    A headcount informed us that little more than a hundred Foresters had escaped from the battle. Decidedly melancholic about our defeat, we built a fire inside the triffid-free zone created by the protective circle of Jumbos. Dried-food rations and water bottles were broken out for a rather dismal supper. Then, with the guards armed with powerful flashlights as well as with carbines, we attempted to make the most of the sleep available to us.

    I lay on the grass, looking up at the stars. Orion, my favourite constellation as a child, looked a dull thing these days. His once sparkling belt no longer sparkled. Whatever was out there creating the foggy barrier between Earth and the wider cosmos still ebbed and flowed in some great space-seas tide. Sometimes it dimmed the sun to a blood-red disc. At other times it thinned, allowing near-normal sunshine through. Now it drew a grim veil across the stars, allowing only the brightest to gleam dismally through with all the allure of teeth in a dead skull.

    I lay there for a long time, gazing up at a sadly diminished night sky, before I drifted off to sleep, my dreams populated by burning men, screams, terror-stricken faces. Looping images of Jazmay falling to the ground. Instead of blood, triffid fronds sprung from the head wound, growing out and out in endless tendrils of green that swarmed ivy-like over buildings, consuming whole countries to enshroud the whole world…

    I woke with a jolt. A figure sat beside me in the near-dark. Smoke trailed from a cigarette held between his fingers. So preoccupied was he that he'd forgotten to knock the ash from the cigarette; it crumbled away in grey flakes across his knuckles. Sam looked as if he had the troubles of the world crushing him.