James Herbert - ‘48

Perhaps the biggest question though, because all the others meant nothing as far as the future was concerned, was this: How many of us were left? Just how many ABnegs were there in the world? Muriel said someone at the sanatorium had told her that AB negative blood types amounted to only approximately three per cent of the global population, and it might be that their Rhesus Factor (whatever that was) was hostile or non-submissive to the virus or gas released from the rockets. The problem, this person had gone on to say, was that not enough was known about different blood types and time itself was running out too fast for new research to be mounted, intensive though that research might be. The truth was, doctors and scientists were a swiftdying breed, along with the rest of mankind, and no matter how concentrated their minds, oncoming death brought about certain disabilities.

There was a silence for a while after that, all of us lost in our own thoughts. Cissie collected the dirty plates and dumped them in the bathroom sink; then she was back in the doorway, yet another question in her eyes. She voiced it: ‘Does anybody know what happened to the Royal Family?’

Potter made a sound, a kind of heavy rumbling sigh, as he poured the last of the Grouse into his glass. His rheumy eyes watched the liquid, but I don’t think he saw it; his mind was on other things. We waited for him to speak, aware he was preparing to tell us something that we wouldn’t like. Well to me one tragedy was as bad as another, and they were all part of the grand catastrophe; all except my own, that is. The German was of the same mind, because there was only interest in his cold expression and none of the fearful apprehension revealed in the eyes of Cissie and Muriel.

It was Muriel who prompted the warden. ‘Did they die of the disease, Mr Potter?’ she said.

‘I suppose so,’ he replied, ‘but not in the way yer might think.’ He took a long swallow of whisky and wiped his shiny lips with the back of his hand. ‘Yer know, Queen Elizabeth, Gawd bless her poor soul, was never more pleased than when the bombs fell on Buckingham Palace durin the Blitz. She could look them poor people who lived down by the docks in the eye and say, “We’re takin it too, we know what it’s like.“’

He let the empty whisky bottle slip to the floor as he drained the glass. Shaking his head as if in both admiration and regret, he continued, ‘Do y’know, them little girls, them little princesses, used to knit socks for the Red Cross in the evenings. Princess Elizabeth – Lilibet she was called by the family – she joined the ATS, like this lady said.’ He gave a nod towards Muriel. ‘Worked as an engineer, got her hands dirty on engines and suchlike. And King George, he spent evenings makin parts for RAF aeroplanes, just like a common man. The King and Queen never left us, not even when the Blitz was at its worst, never even thought of sendin their youngest, Margaret Rose, out of the country to some safe place. They stayed together and stuck it out, an example to us all.’

I studied the faces around me, curious to see their reactions. Muriel’s expression was rapt, a mixture of emotions like the warden’s; both pride and sorrow shone in those grey-blue eyes as she waited to hear the tragedy that was about to unfold. Cissie’s eyes were a little unfocused, as if tears were about to roll.

‘The public didn’t know for sure,’ Potter went on, ‘but the rumours spread almost as fast as the plague itself. Some said the Royal Family was dead within the first hour of those rockets landin. Others said the whole lot of ‘em, includin old Queen Mary, was given cyanide pills by the King’s Physician when reports came in of how horrible the Blood Death was and how fast it was spreadin. But I’d got into the Kingsway shelter when I found out what was happenin out there, and I heard the true story first-hand, because even though the Civil Defence personnel were droppin like flies all round us, reports were still comin through on the wires.’

‘You really know?’ Muriel was leaning forward, hands clasped over her knees.

‘Yes, miss, I think I do. On that terrible day the Royals was rushed down to Windsor and as soon as the authorities knew what was goin on, a single-engine aeroplane was sent to take ‘em out of harm’s way. There’s a wide and very long road that runs through the park up to Windsor Castle itself; the public was never aware, but it was there as an emergency runway in case the country was ever invaded.

‘They got on the plane all right and, so we heard, they even took the Crown Jewels wrapped up in newspaper with ‘em. But the plane had barely took off when it came crashin down again, explodin into houses outside the town.’

There was a tiny, shocked gasp from Muriel and I saw that Cissie had closed her eyes.

‘Radio contact broke off just as the pilot was reportin a safe take-off, and the authorities reckoned he’d been struck down by the disease right at that moment. No other explanation, y’see. ‘Course they was all killed, bodies burned in the wreckage, but there was no public announcement Hell’s bells, there was enough occurrin without demoralizin the people completely.’

I could’ve smiled, I could’ve wept, at the absurdity of his last remark. But it was Stern who broke the silence that followed.

‘Do you know what happened to your Winston Churchill?’ he said, and I could see the ‘ V inston’ annoyed Potter as much as it did me. He glowered at the German.

Then he raised his empty glass in salute and said, ‘Old Winnie.’ He shook his head, looking down at the floor. ‘They say he topped hisself, shot hisself dead. All too much for him in the end, y’see. He’d put everything into winnin the war for us, and he’d finally done it, it was almost finished. Then Hitler sent his secret weapon over and had hisself the last laugh. It would’ve been too much for any man.’

And that quietened us a whole lot more. Tears were running down Cissie’s cheeks and Muriel had her head bowed. Potter rummaged among the bottles on the coffee table for fresh whisky and Stern sat stiff-backed, his face a mask. Me, I just poured another Jack Daniel’s.

Grief is only finite, you know? Sure, over the past years I’d thought a lot about death and those I’d lost, about the major players, the little guys too, friends, acquaintances, kids I’d gone to High School with, good pilots I’d fought battles with. You don’t forget, but you hold down the memory; or at least, the emotion that goes with the memory. After a while it fades, the emotion, because the soul can only take so much. The numbness eventually sets in, although, if you’re really lucky, that can happen right away. Generally though, it’ll take months, maybe years, before you begin – and only begin – to pull through and start to think straight again. In my case I only had two people to really grieve over, because my folks were dead before the war even started, Ma in ‘38 of cancer, Dad soon after in ‘39, of heart disease. I had no brothers or sisters, and other relations were too distant to cause much concern. Those two people closest to me, wiped out by the Blood Death, took up most, if not all, of my mourning.

As I looked at the strained faces around me, I realized my new and unwanted companions were still in a state of shock. The girls had been cloistered from the worst excesses of the disease for some time, and the warden had taken his own mental route for dealing with the situation. Now Cissie and Muriel had ventured beyond the confines of the sanatorium and local villages to witness the full horror of the V2s’ legacy for themselves, and Albert Potter had finally come into contact with other survivors, and their sanity, such as it was, had to be nagging at his own delusions. As for the German, well, even he had to have had family, people to weep for, so he had to be suffering too. Maybe guilt – it was his countrymen who had unleashed the final holocaust – figured in his emotional state also; race responsibility for such annihilation would have to lay heavy on any man. Unless, of course, the only person he really mourned over was his Führer, whose actions he considered to be both appropriate and heroic.