Vampires Overhead by Alan Hyder Page A

across the river I could feel the cold bleakness of its unwinking eyes. We wondered what kept it there. Perhaps it was hurt. A bend in the river hid it from sight.
    ‘With the fires nearly cold, I’ll pull nearer the bank so that we can shout anyone we might see,’ I said, and rested on the oars awhile to let the dinghy drift closer ashore. ‘We seem to be getting away from the worst of it now.’
    Rounding blackened stanchions protruding from the water, we almost barged into another fire reaching into the river, but by now Bingen and I had discovered the art of rowing and steering in harmony, and we got safely out of danger, and sweeping into the stream again we caught sight of the barge!
    A fleet of them lay moored together, burned, like other shipping on the river, to the water’s edge, and but for swerving to avoid the heat from that jutting warehouse, we should have noticed nothing extraordinary about them. Moored closer to the north bank, they were yet some distance from the shore, and amongst them one seemed strangely whole.
    ‘See that barge over there, Bingen?’ I cried. ‘It hardly looks as if it has been burned at all. There might be someone aboard her. And there might be something to eat. Can you shout? My mouth’s too dry.’
    ‘Ahoy there!’ Bingen’s cupped hands sent the hail booming across the water. ‘Hi! Anyone there?’
    The cry, reverberating over the dead river, sounded weird in the silence, for, despite the dull roar of the flames, it was silent, with a silence which could be felt. The silence of a total lack of humanity. So strange did that cry sound that Bingen shrank back to his seat and we pulled towards the barges in quiet. Almost, I wanted to pull on down the river, but that barge attracted me. Perhaps it was the thought there might be food aboard, perhaps the working of Providence. The dinghy heaved through the cross currents and soon we were alongside. I pulled the oars inboard.
    ‘Will you go up, Bingen? I’ll give you a back. There’ll be grub of some sort there. Come on, man. There’s nothing there to hurt you,’ I said angrily as he hesitated. ‘None of your friends there. Go up and see what’s on her.’
    ‘I’m not so sure.’ Bingen demurred. ‘Why so anxious for me to go? What about you having the climb?’
    ‘Ah! Get on, you swab. After this row I’d never pull myself up there in a month of Sundays,’ I growled, glancing at the steep side of the barge. ‘I’m just about beat now, but I’ll try to give you a lift up. Lift me up, damn you, and I’ll go.’
    Bingen toyed with the idea of lifting me the seven or eight feet up to the barge, and then stood sulkily upright.
    ‘All right then. Give me a hand. But remember, I want this boat kept here so’s I can jump for it if there is anything there.’
    ‘If there is anything there, you fool, bring it down and we’ll eat it. Come on.’
    Steadying the dinghy, I gave him a thrust which helped him on his way, and sat back in the stern exhausted, tired out, hungry. Examining the barge, I saw why it had not burned with the others. It was built of concrete. One of those, I imagine, built during the war as an experiment—unless they built boats of concrete afterwards—and her load was, I understood even more why she had not burned, asbestos boards. Piled above her sides, they were untouched but for blackened spaces where, I suppose, tarpaulins had burned away. The whole of the barge was littered deeply with ash blown from the adjoining boats.
    ‘Bingen! Bingen!’ He seemed a long time gone, and did not answer my call. ‘Bingen, are you all right?’
    I scanned the sky for Vampires and, far away, could see a faint cloud moving at rapid speed.
    ‘Bingen!’
    ‘Righto! Be with you in a minute,’ came his reply, and I heard him climbing from below.
    ‘Come now, damn you.’ His face appeared over the barge side, and I swore at him angrily. ‘You . . . You’ve found food and stopped to eat it. Why the devil