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Maitland shrugged. "A slight east wind blowing up." He took a cigarette from
the silver case Avery passed to him. "I've been over at the Russell most of
today. Not too pleasant. Looks like a foretaste of things to come. I hope
everybody knows what they're doing."
Avery grunted. "Of course they don't. Reminds me of Mark Twain's crack about
the weather--
everyone talks about it, but no one does anything." He rolled over and
switched on the portable radio standing on the floor below his bed. A fuzzy
crackle sounded out eventually, almost drowned in the noise of people
continually tramping up and down the corridor.
Maitland lay back, listening to phrases from the news bulletins. The BBC was
still transmitting on the Home Service, half-hourly news summaries
interspersed with light music and an apparently endless stream of War Office
orders and recommendations. So far the government appeared to be tacitly
assuming that the wind would soon spend itself and that most people possessed
sufficient food and water to survive unaided in their own homes. The majority
of the troops were engaged in laying communications tunnels, repairing
electricity lines and reinforcing their own installations.
Avery switched the set off and sat up on one elbow for a moment, staring
pensively at his wrist watch.
"What's the latest?" Maitland asked.
Avery smiled somberly. "London Bridge is falling down," he said quietly. "Wind
speed's up to 180. Listening between the lines, it sounds as if things are
getting pretty bad. Colossal flooding along the south coast--most of Brighton
sounds as if its been washed away. General chaos building up everywhere. What
I want to know is, when are they going to start doing something?"
"What can they do?"
Avery gestured impatiently. "For God's sake, you know what I mean, Donald.
They're going about this whole thing the wrong way, just telling people to
stay indoors and hide under the staircase. What do they think this is--a
zeppelin raid? They're going to have the most fantastic casualties soon. Let
alone a couple of typhoid and cholera epidemics."
Maitland nodded. He agreed with Avery but felt too tired to offer any comment.
There was a familiar tattoo on the door, and Andrew Symington put his head in.
He was off duty at eight, and came over in the communications tunnel across
St. James's Park to take his meals in the civilian mess at the depot before
going over to the Park Lane Hotel. His wife's baby had still not arrived, at
least a fortnight overdue. Dora was unconsciously holding the child to
herself.
"We were just cursing these damn silly bulletins you people are putting out,"
Avery said.
"Are you trying to convince yourselves it's a calm summer's day?"
"What's the real news, Andrew?" Maitland pressed. "I got in half an hour ago
and it sounded as if the Russell wasn't the only place coming down."
"It isn't," Symington told him. His face looked drawn and tired. He lit a
cigarette, inhaled quickly. "Everything I've heard indicates that we can
expect the wind strength to go on increasing for several days more at least.
Apparently localized areas of turbulence have to appear first, while the
over-all wind strength continues to increase, and they've shown no signs of
doing so. Whatever happens, it's bound to go up another fifty at least."
Avery whistled. "Over 230! God Almighty." He tapped the wooden wall partition
which was springing backward and forward as air pressed its way past. "Do you
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"This building probably will, even if it loses the roof, but already most of
the domestic houses in the British Isles are starting to come down. Roofs are
flying off, walls caving in--not all that many modern houses are fitted with
basements. People are running out of food, trying to leave their homes to
reach the aid stations. They're being sucked out of their doorways before they
know what's hit them, carried half a mile within ten seconds." Symington
paused. "We aren't getting much news in now from the States and western
Europe, but you can imagine what the Far East looks like. Governmental control
no longer exists. Most of the radio stations are just putting out weak local
identification signals."
For half an hour they talked, then Symington left them and Maitland slipped
off to sleep, still wearing his wind suit. He was vaguely aware of Avery's
getting up to go out on duty, then sank into a heavy restless sleep.
Six hours later, as they listened to their briefing in one of the lecture
rooms at the far end of the depot, the sounds of collapsing masonry thudded
dimly in the distance. The walls shifted uneasily, as if one end of the depot
were seized in the mandibles of some enormous insect.
An outside wall carrying the stairway up to the roof at the windward end of
the barracks had collapsed, dropping the stairway like a pile of plates.
Luckily the internal walls that divided the stairway from the remainder of the
barracks held long enough for them to extricate themselves and most of their
luggage, but five minutes after they retreated to the adjacent building the
barracks toppled in a whirling cloud of dust and exploding brickwork.
The captain up on the dais raised his voice above the approaching rumble.
"I'll keep this short so we can get out before the place comes down on our
necks. Wind speed's up to 180, and frankly the overall situation is grim. The
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