the noise.
She paused for a minute but her grip on my arms didn't lessen. She continued:
'He was suffocated. The air was so hot when it came through the ventillators we just couldn't breathe.' 'No oxygen,' I interrupted. She just nodded.
"The wind was next. I never knew there could be such a wind. It blew the roof off. Except, waking up, on fee next. what happened I tried to move away from her, but she kept on talking.
I thought I would tube, get the underground.
got there, there underground left. Yet I remember those handbooks. underground they said"?
I explained it to her. 'It would have been the blast wave. Probably travelled along underground tunnels. The experts predicted it would travel along them and kill people up to 20 miles away from the centre of the blast.' When I uttered the word 'experts' she let me go. She mumbled the word back at me with contempt, turned around and walked away.
I think they must have bleeped me after the first Cruise had been fired. Later I was told it had been launched from Greenham Common, near Newbury. I remember going to the horse racing Newbury once, it was so peaceful and colourful then.
got to the shelter in 13 minutes. The nearest one was on don't When was "Go to the the other. was just being scorched. the outskirts of Watford, just two miles away. Nobody knew about it of course, just those of us who had been given the bleepers. It was in the basement of a large mansion, owned by some Earl or going into the shelter when it happened. I don't remember now which came first, the horrendous noise or the bluewhite flash which filled the whole ask. sky. The retinas of my eyes felt as though they were on fire. I could see nothing, I could feel my skin I regained my sight just as I was being shoved into the shelter. I remember looking back and seeing the huge fireball on the horizon. I remember seeing the rubber on the front left hand wheel of my car burst into flames. How strange, 4. thought. Its funny, the peculiar thoughts you get when they drop a nuclear bomb.
The first couple of hours inside the shelter were like a collective numbness. Only the Army officers gave any appearance of activity: telling people that the Army was in charge now, that the government had been suspended "for the duration', although the duration of what, nobody liked to I explained to them there was little I could do without my supplies and equipment which were still at the hospital, if the hospital was still there. Already some in the shelter were vomiting, the first sign of radiation sickness. Others had burns, of varying degrees Some just sat there, on the floor, weeping with the pain of it all.
Amazingly, the only Outside, everythng was barren, doomed and silent. Inside it was all noise and chaos. went in a couple of nurses grabbed me as if I had brought them salvation. There were so few doctors there. I suspected most of them were in somewhere. Once or twice I tried to explain that I couldn't stay, but I hadn't the heart to finish the explanations. round the hospital, trying to do what I could for the patients who had managed to get there before the cordon Friends and strangers grabbed me to tell me what they had seen, or to ask me what was happening outside, what hope there was for those nearer the centre of the blast. I hadn't the spirit to lie. I told them, as clinically as I could.
I felt hopelessness. could really do in the hospital. After all, radiation sickness can't really be cured, not permanently. And even if there was some help I could bring there was no electricity in the hospital and no running water.
Then someone tapped me on the shoulder. totally incongruous to what was happening around me. wearing a uniform, a flat cap with red ribbon around it. He called me by my name and I nodded.
'We need you,' he said they think', I replied. boy. I'm told you're NDP, so I wouldn't want any harm to come medical to you.' vice'.
As soon as I left, even phones.
our shelter mentality.
Instead, I wandered shelter. had been set up I suppose expected it.
don't know sense of utter There was nothing!
It was so polite, aren't you He was you're the spotless, and "They do here as well, or so 'Better do as we tell you, old And at bomb fell. telephones left to 'phone the serThere was no fire service if there had been 'Not too pleasant', he said to me. 'But don't worry, a couple of missiles got them first. Moscow is no place to be these days, I understand.' I just looked at him, unable to comprehend his 'Where are you taking me?' I asked, for it was clear now that I was not on the way back to my 'Well it's really top secret, but you'll know soon enough. It was the bloody Rolls Royce. I mean who would have The bloody thing broke down on the way to the shelter. I mean a Rolls Royce. I what the world's coming to these days. When they can't even make a Rolls Royce that won't break down?
It seemed as if a car breaking down offended him more than anything else that had happened in the last few hours. But I didn't comment. I just asked him what Rolls Royce he was talking about "The PM's old boy. Broke down on the way to the shelter, listening? Anyway, expert they tell me.
PM's a bit ill, I'm afraid. Up to you to set things to right. Can't let morple 8o. Bad for the nation's I came near to strangling him then. Or screeming at him, nation, what bloody morale'. But he wouldn't have understood, so I just laughed. It was a great relief.
that instant the second
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