Lambert watched the last of the lorries disappearing through the village towards the Bodmin road and then turned to Sergeant Jones.
“No,” he said adamantly. “No, I am not coming.”
“Don’t be a fool, man,” cried the RAF sergeant. “You’ll be killed either by those creatures or by the bombs.”
Lambert sniffed.
“I do not propose to get myself killed by either consideration. I am a scientist, Jones. It is my job to get as much information about those creatures as I can. I shall stay in The Morvren Arms, near the telephone, with your field glasses and make as many observations as I can. Also, if the communication is kept open, I can be of some assistance to the aircraft who are going to bomb the creatures.”
Sergeant Jones shook his head.
“You’re daft, man,” he said but held out his hand.
Lambert let his mouth droop before taking the hand and shaking it.
“Good luck, then, Doctor!” cried Jones, climbing into the RAF jeep.
Lambert watched the jeep race after the disappearing lorries. For a moment he had a strange sense of loneliness. Then he sighed, turned and went into The Morvren Arms. He picked up a bottle of whisky and a glass and wandered through the deserted inn to an upstairs room whose windows looked out across the village towards the hill of Bronbucca. Lambert tested the field glasses and then placed a chair by the window and reached for the telephone.
“Just checking,” he said to the voice that answered. “This is Dr Lambert. I am remaining in Bosbradoe to observe the creatures as long as I can. I can also be of some assistance with your air strike.”
There was an exclamation at the other end.
After a pause a heavy voice echoed down the telephone.
“This is General Mundy here, Lambert. We want no theatrical heroics. Get out of there at once.”
Lambert smiled.
“Too late, general. All the vehicles have left. And I don’t indulge in theatrics. I deal in facts. I am a scientist and it is my job to get what facts I can about these creatures. I plan to stay here as long as I can. Keep this line open.”
He put down the receiver and focused his glasses on the hill.
The creatures were moving slowly in all directions.
“At least those things are not sentient,” muttered Lambert. He picked up the receiver. “Do you have a tape recorder there? I want to dictate some observations.”
After a pause, Lambert began to make some comments.
“We are simply dealing with oversized worms. I suggest you get someone with a knowledge of these creatures, their habits, weaknesses, life expectancy and so forth. It will be easy then to discover by which methods they can be destroyed…”
Lambert paused.
There came to his ears a creaking sound. Dust began to
sift through the room as the floor trembled. Plaster cracked. The window panes split. Lambert leapt to his feet. The whole building seemed to be moving. Then it disintegrated into a million fragments.
The great black creature tunnelled its way out of the rubble and sprawled itself over the ruins.
“Can…can it see us, Bill?” whispered Claire.
“I honestly don’t know,” replied Neville, in a similar pitch of voice. CI think worms sense rather than see.”
“What shall we do?”
Abruptly the head, or maybe it was the tail, they had no way of telling, of the giant creature thrust forward towards the cottage. They could hear the clatter of slates falling off the roof as the tip of the awful slimy body made contact with the building.
“Run for the car, Claire. It’s our only hope. We can outdistance the damn thing.”
As quietly as he could, Neville, holding Claire’s hand, moved across the floor towards the cottage door.
The whole building seemed to shudder and creak and there was a cascade of plaster, dust and debris from the stairs and roof. Part of the roof itself had caved in.
Neville tried to unlatch the door. It was jammed.
The creature’s weight banging into the cottage had caused the timbers to go out of alignment and jam the door.
Neville swore as he tried again.
“The window,” suggested Claire, just as the cottage received another shuddering jar.
Neville looked round in desperation. He seized an old wooden chair and swung it with all his might against the window which shattered into a million pieces.
“Easy, Claire. I’ll go first.”
He climbed over the sill, cutting his hand on a jagged piece of glass and cursing under his breath.
“Quickly now,” he cried, turning to help the girl through. “Mind your hands!”
She scrambled after him and succeeded in getting out without cutting herself.
“Into the car, quickly!”
Neville threw himself into the driver’s seat as Claire raced to the passenger side. She was halfway in when she glanced up.
Fear froze her to the spot.
High above them towered the monster, rearing up nearly thirty feet into the air, swaying like a snake about to strike.
Neville stretched across and yanked the girl unceremoniously into the car. At the same time he reached for one of the grenades which Sergeant Jones had given him, drew the pin and hurled it at the creature. Without waiting further he jerked on the ignition. The engine failed to fire. He pulled out the choke, nearly flooding the carburettor, and switched on again, his hair standing on end as the seconds ticked away. The engine fired.
He accelerated away just as the grenade exploded. The rear window of the car shivered into fragments and the tom gigantic body of the creature slammed down in the spot where the car had stood.
CHAPTER XXIII
Bill Neville swung the car to a halt beside a group of army vehicles which had been drawn up on a hill by the village of Trewassa. He could see Sergeant Jones and the Reverend Pencarrow talking to some RAF and Army officers and there were signs of other people from Bosbradoe standing in groups. He helped Claire out of the car and hailed Jones.
“Did you find Mrs Polruan?” asked Pencarrow as they came over.
Neville shook his head.
“I think the old woman is dead.”
He took out the note and handed it to the vicar. Pencarrow read it through and sighed.
“Looks like you’re right.”
“She was mad,” said Neville.
“Who’s to say?” replied Pencarrow sadly. “Mad or even more far sighted than the rest of us?”
A young army captain came over.
“Are you the last evacuees from Bosbradoe?”
“The last we’ve seen on the road anyway,” replied Neville.
“If you just tell me your names and so forth then you will find a NAAFI wagon over there. You can both get some refreshments.”
Claire and Neville filled out the information. Jones guided them across to the refreshment wagon.
“What’s going on?” asked Neville with a nod to where a group of apparently senior air force and army personnel were clustered round some military vehicles.
“The military cordon is now being closed in around the area. Everyone has been evacuated safely…except Lambert.”
“What happened to Lambert?”
“He insisted on staying behind. Said he wanted to observe the creatures. They,” he nodded towards the officers, “were speaking to him until half an hour ago and then the line went dead.”
Neville bit his lip.
“Was it that the line broke or…?”
“Can’t say.”
“What’s happening now?”
“They are waiting for some air force planes to strafe the area.”
“God, what a mess!”
“Well, sir, we seem to be getting on top of the situation. We usually do, eventually, don’t we?”
Neville turned to Claire.
“Come on, love. Let’s get a cup of tea under our belts.”
A little further on from the NAAFI van they co
uld see the BBC Outside Broadcasting van with Adam Taylor and his crew bunched around it. One of them was fiddling with the broadcasting antenna on the roof of the van.
“I suppose that lot will be happy with a good story,” muttered Neville.
“Why so bitter?” asked Claire as she sipped at her tea.
It was hot, sweet and strong.
“Because this will probably wind up as a tale of man’s ingenuity in overcoming those monsters. Instead it should be a tale of man’s arrogant stupidity in creating them in the first place.”
Janice Leicester, Jan Leicester to the millions of viewers who tuned into the BBC”s State and People magazine programme, settled herself in her swivel chair, carefully crossed her legs, positioned them to their best advantage before the camera, and carefully adjusted the lavalier microphone suspended from the cord around her neck. On the studio monitor she could hear the faint sounds of the programme’s signature tune. She glanced at the cue board resting comfortably on her lap and ran through the ritual opening lines. As “anchor man” for the most popular early evening magazine programme on television, Jan Leicester had become a household celebrity; people tuned in to see her latest hairstyle, dress or make-up. The day’s news and events took secondary place to the colour of her eyeshadow or blush-on.
“Ten seconds, Jan!” called the studio manager.
Jan moistened her red lips.
“Five seconds. Cameras on.”
The studio manager waved to camera no. 3. It glared at her with the baleful cyclops eye of its twenty-to-one zoom lens. The Philips colour camera moved menacingly towards her. She smiled back, the smile for which she was known across the country.
Up came the green light.
“Good evening. This is Jan Leicester from our Thames Studio, London, on State and People, the programme which links the nations of the United Kingdom. Tonight we have an exclusive interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the recent high leap in inflation. Will the Government be forced to resign having failed in their election promise to bring inflation down to a single figure by the end of September or will they continue in spite of widespread protests from industry? From Scotland comes news of industrial unrest on the North Sea oil rigs. From Wales our roving reporter Clem Stokes discovers the quickest way up Mount Snowdon, while from Ireland we hear about the controversy raging about the All-Ireland Hurling Championships. Were officials bribed? But first, from Cornwall, we have a special item direct from Adam Taylor with our outside broadcasting unit.”
She dropped her smile as Camera 3’s green light flicked off and Camera 1 closed in on the programme’s titles while a few bars of the signature tune were repeated.
The studio manager flicked his hand.
Jan Leicester swivelled slightly in her chair to smile at Camera 2. On came the light.
“Now, direct to the village of Trewassa where Adam Taylor is waiting to speak to us…”
The picture on the studio monitor jerked for a moment and then resolved itself into clarity. Adam Taylor’s face peered seriously at the camera.
“This is Adam Taylor speaking to you from a village on the lonely Bodmin moors, not far from the village of Bosbradoe on the north Cornwall coast. Today terror erupted in this tiny Cornish fishing village. The entire area has become threatened with destruction by…”
There was a buzz and crackle of static and the picture flickered off.
The studio manager waved frantically at Jan Leicester.
She forced back her smile and peered at Camera 3 whose green light had flickered on.
“We seem to have lost Adam Taylor for the moment. A slight, er, technical hitch but we will return to Cornwall for more news shortly. Now we will go directly to our Westminster Studio for our exclusive interview with the Chancellor…”
As the light flicked off, Jan Leicester turned to the studio manager.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” she demanded angrily. “If your technicians can’t retain a link with a unit in Cornwall…”
A studio telephone buzzed softly.
The manager listened quietly and put down the receiver.
“Taylor’s broadcast was stopped by the military and we’ve just had a D-Notice slapped on us to prevent any reference to the item,” he said to the astonished presenter. “Just make an announcement at the end of the programme that the technical hitch has stopped the broadcast from Cornwall.”
A few hundred miles away, Adam Taylor was continuing obliviously.
“…has become threatened with destruction by a group of creatures whose species have not been positively identified. Already several deaths have occurred which are directly attributable to these creatures…”
A technician leaned out of the back of the broadcast van and signalled the camera crew to halt.
“What the hell…?” demanded Taylor.
“Sorry, Adam, we are being jammed.”
“Jammed?” his voice was incredulous.
The technician nodded.
“And this is probably the cause,” he motioned to an army officer marching across with a squad of men.
Taylor greeted the man defiantly.
“Did you jam my broadcast?”
The officer, a major, shrugged.
“All unauthorised communications out of this area are being monitored, Mr Taylor.”
“Monitored?” sneered Taylor.
“Mr Taylor, you are being rather obstructive. You press and media people have already attended a briefing from General Mundy. He made it very clear no communications were to be made until after he has given clearance. D-Notices have been served on all press and media outlets in respect of this matter.”
“Censorship?”
“A restriction of information in the public interest.”
“Censorship!” sneered Taylor.
“I regret that you take that attitude. The entire area has been placed under martial law and you must surely realise what that means? I must confiscate your equipment and place you temporarily under arrest. It would have been much easier on all of us if you had followed your colleagues’ example.”
“This is outrageous!” stormed Taylor.
The major motioned to his men.
“This way, if you please, Mr Taylor.”
At ten thousand feet a squadron of nine Harrier jump-jets were circling over Goonhilly airfield, obtaining last-minute instructions from the station commander.
Squadron Leader Len Fleming checked his instructions and flicked his r/t switch.
“Blue leader to blue angels, vector nor” by north west bearing ten thousand. Out.”
Across the static of the r/t came a voice singing “Gone Fishin’ in something approaching a Bing Crosby impersonation.
Fleming switched his r/t again.
“Cut that out, Geoff,” he admonished, recognising the voice of one of his young pilots.
“Acknowledged, blue leader,” came the voice. “But have a heart…how can we take this seriously? I bet it’s an exercise.”
“Maintain radio silence!” snapped Fleming, silently agreeing with the boy. He still wondered whether the station commander was playing a joke when he gave him his instructions. But the live ammunition, napalm and explosives were real enough. Maybe it was some peculiar exercise? Watching his instruments carefully, Fleming checked his position by dead reckoning and then glanced down from the cockpit, picking out Bosbradoe Cove almost immediately.
“Blue leader to blue angels. Circle at ten thousand. I’m going down for a recce.”
“Acknowledged,” came the voices of his pilots.
Fleming eased the controls and side-slipped downwards across the village. A few houses were a mess of rubble and debris but nothing seemed to be stirring there. He was flying fast and had to turn out to sea and circle back again. Something caught his eye on the western side of the village, out towards the deserted mine workings which he had been briefed to centre on. Several long black objects were lying on the ground like gigantic hose pipes.
Jesus!
He cut his horizontal jets and switched to hovering, employing the world famous Harrier technical ability to be both a fast strike-jet and a helicopter. He stared down with distaste and amazement.
The long black shapes were undulating, like slithery serpents, moving across the green sward. He estimated them to be at least a hundred feet long. He tried counting but gave up. There were others, too; varying between fifty and ten feet in length. Were they juveniles and the larger ones adults? If so, what the blazes were they?
He circled round, dropping his height carefully.
Abruptly one of the creatures reared up, like a snake about to strike. It must have risen sixty or seventy feet in the air, almost to the height at which Fleming and his Harriet were hovering. The pilot’s reflexes were fast. He shot the jet forward, released his horizontal jets and sped back to join his circling squadron.
“Blue leader to blue angels, I’ve found them. The briefing officer was accurate in all accounts. Map reference eight-oh-nine.”
“Seriously , blue leader?” It was young Geoff s incredulous voice. “Are there really giant conger eels down there?”
“You’d better believe it,” snapped his commanding officer. “They are there, so shut up. I want us to go in with three separate waves. Area eight-oh-nine is to be napalmed. Understand? I’ll lead the first wave with C-Charlie flight. D-Dog is to follow at a ten minute interval. B-Bertie will be tail-end-Charlie. Break and rendezvous over the area at five thousand.”
There came a chorus of acknowledgements.
His mind trying to fight his utter disbelief of the situation, Fleming waggled his wings and thrust the powerful Harrier jet downwards towards the seemingly peaceful shoreline of Cornwall. He switched on his bomb-release mechanism and peered into his bomb-sight. The large black lines drew nearer. They were writhing and rearing upwards as if they knew they were about to be attacked. Fleming gritted his teeth, watched his bomb-sight and then pressed his release button once, twice, three times.
The aircraft shuddered as the canisters dropped away.
Then he was climbing fast. At his wing tips, his wing men were in perfect formation, speeding with him. They kept radio silence and Fleming wondered what thoughts were passing through their minds. He levelled out at five thousand and swung in a circle with the rest of the squadron. A square half-mile of the hillside was burning with red-yellow flame and black smoke was billowing landwards, impelled by the sea breeze.
The Morgow Rises! Page 18