Doctor Who_ Island of Death - Barry Letts [97]
A few moments later, the ship was treated to an all-too-brief Guy Fawkes display, as the two missiles soared into the sky and exploded in midair with a satisfying display of smoke, followed by a couple of equally satisfying bangs.
This resulted in an even louder cheer than before. The Brigadier laughed out loud and Pete Andrews almost clapped his hands with delight.
He looked ahead. They could see the island quite clearly now. Funny. He could have sworn that when they’d been doing the missile drill... of course, that’s what they’d been doing! A mock firing, just to keep in practice...
Then why had they actually fired them? If it was only a drill...
What the hell did it matter? After all, they could always get some more when they reached Chatham. The Irish Navy wouldn’t go without.
He took another puzzled look at the island. Surely they’d been only a cable’s length from the cliffs - two hundred yards. His memory must be slipping. The ship was at least four times that distance if not more; getting on for half a mile.
‘Well, bless my soul,’ said the Brigadier, gazing through his binoculars at the shore. ‘How the devil did we miss that?’
What was he on about? Pete lifted his own glasses. How indeed!
Even at that distance - amazing how clear the tropical air was - he could see the little town, with its welcoming shoreline: the row of bars and restaurants; the beach with its thatched umbrellas and sun-loungers; and the tourists in their brightly coloured summer plumage.
Things were getting better and better!
‘I think we all deserve a run ashore, eh, Cox’n?’ he said.
‘Count me in, sir!’
‘Right! Full ahead, both engines. Steady as she goes!’
The sooner he was sitting under one of those palms, with a tall glass of gin-and-tonic tinkling in his hand, the better.
At first there was just surprise, and a babble of voices. But when the second missile landed, and part of the volcano wall collapsed not so very far away from them, the disciples at the front of the queue panicked, and tried to run for it, with catastrophic results.
Two young men from Cambodia, friends who’d joined up together, were thrown off the path by the sudden crush of bodies coming downhill. One landed on his head and was killed outright, and the other fell over two hundred feet, breaking an arm and three ribs.
A small girl of sixteen from Alabama, known to her friends as Little Nell, was near the bottom of the path. She didn’t have time to turn as the tidal wave of bodies came down. She was crushed underfoot and died, her neck broken.
The panic, out of all proportion to the real danger, spread rapidly, in spite of the efforts of the guards in charge, and by the time all those fleeing reached the clearing at the bottom of the path to join the ones who were waiting, chaos had taken over.
To Jeremy and the others right at the back, the explosions had been remote enough to make the reaction of the others more of a surprise than anything.
But Jeremy had a strong sense of self-preservation, developed at Holbrook, partly from working out strategies to keep out of the way of the known bullies, and partly from learning how to avoid the more unpleasant demands of school life, such as the compulsory cross-country run.
So when he saw - and heard - the wave of terror coming towards him, he quietly moved away from the growing turmoil into the shelter of a group of shrubs nearby, and stood watching, poised to take off if it came anywhere near him.
In the event, the whole crowd streamed past towards the comforting familiarity of the village. He was left alone, apart from the dead, the injured, and some of the guards who’d kept their heads.
He came out of hiding. ‘Excuse me...’ he said to the nearest guard.
The guard, a tall Dubliner, who had been staring open-mouthed into the sky, turned to him. ‘What?’
‘Does this mean that we’re not going to get our rewards?’
The guard stared at him. ‘How the feck would I know?’ he said, and turned away to survey the disaster left behind.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ he said.