Squelch (12 page)

Mrs Martinson stared at them horrified, her mouth dry, her stomach rising in protest.

A girl in jeans and a halter top reeled crazily in front of her, her shoulders a mass of raw wounds like battlefield craters; she fell across the first two and more caterpillars appeared, busily setting to work like bees gathering pollen.

Ignoring the clamour around her, Mrs Martinson marched directly to the Church Tower Tombola, requisitioned the quart of whisky, and twisted off the metal screw-top. She hadn’t been in the army for nothing, she thought grimly. No use standing and screaming when she could do something to help.

She seized the girl’s foot, dragged her clear on to the gravel path, rolled her over and proceeded to splash whisky over any caterpillars she could find, hoping it would kill them. Without waiting to see the result, she began to do the same to Mrs Jones but stopped when she realised the woman was dead.

Still, plenty of others needed help too, so she carried on like someone possessed until the bottle was empty. It was only then she became aware that none of the caterpillars had died after all but were still actively chewing into their victims like obscene, hairy maggots. At the sight of them she broke down and cried.

Useless. It had all been useless.

She fell to her knees beside the girl with the halter top,
wanting to fold her in her arms and comfort her. Instead, she began concentratedly to pick the caterpillars off her, two or three at a time.

Their furry bodies stung her fingers as she touched them; their mean little heads swung around to bite through her wrinkled skin: but what else could she do? She couldn’t just let the girl die, could she?

Around her – she only vaguely noticed – screams were subsiding into moans. A voice shouted orders. A child sobbed hysterically. Yes, it was war again. It all had a puzzling familiarity. She was not surprised to feel that sharp pain in her upper arm, shooting through her armpit into her chest. Shrapnel, it had been that first time. Now caterpillars, eating a tunnel into her.

It was her voice screaming. Was she going to faint? You stupid cow, Dottie. Never could stand pain, could you?

What a boring husband Henry had turned out to be! If only she’d known in time! Riding on his tank when she first saw him, a modern Lancelot on a charger she’d thought. Angry, too. Yelled at her. As an ATS lieutenant with a signals unit she should never have been anywhere near the front line. Tell that to the Germans, she’d bawled back. Perhaps they don’t know the rules!

That sergeant, he’d have been more fun. Slipped a hard hand up her skirt one dark night behind the mess, regardless of rank. Took her by surprise. Wouldn’t get far these days, not with tights.

She giggled. Henry had never touched her outside the marital bedroom, and not often there.

‘Aa-aaah!’

The shrapnel shifted. Excruciating pain stabbed through her lung like a saw-edged bayonet. Was this it? Was there nothing more to life? After all those years?

Oh God, why did you curse me with Henry?

Why?

*

Ginny had really lost her temper when she heard that woman shouting that there was a caterpillar on one of the little girl’s dresses. Of all the stupid jokes! She’d swung around, searching the faces to discover who was responsible. Then she heard the second yell, ‘It’s on Caroline! The doctor’s girl!’ It was like a cold, clammy hand clutching her stomach.

‘Stay there!’ she shouted to Lesley, who had Frankie with her. ‘I’ll get her!’

‘Caroline!’ Lesley shrieked simultaneously, rushing forward despite her limp.

‘Lesley, let me get her!’

But everyone had the same idea, all wanting to snatch their own children to safety, only that idiot policeman stood in the way trying to stop them, actually holding out his arms as though directing traffic. Before Ginny could prevent it, her sister was caught up in the crowd. She was tripped or pushed – it was impossible to say which – and fell face down under their feet.

Then the rush stopped, everyone paralysed at the sight of the teenage boy cautiously lifting the giant caterpillar from Caroline’s dress and bearing it away. The sigh of relief was audible and followed by a sudden round of applause as he reached the wooden fence, then fainted.

‘You can stop crying, it’s all over now,’ she overheard a mother tell her weeping son.

If only it were, she thought grimly. She had a gut feeling it was only just beginning.

While Phuong helped Lesley to her feet again, Ginny elbowed through the crowd to collect Wendy and Caroline who were gazing wide-eyed about them, bewildered and frightened. The moment she reached them Caroline began to cry, but Ginny told her roughly to stop it. That was one complication she just couldn’t face.

‘We’re getting out of here,’ Ginny announced when she
got back to Phuong and Lesley. By that time Frankie had joined them, clinging to her mother’s skirt. ‘Quietly now. No fuss.’

It was like one of those still periods before a storm. A holding of the breath.

‘Let’s all have a cup of tea!’ Lesley announced cheerily, forcing a smile. Her face was strained and there were traces of dirt on her cheek where someone’s shoe had grazed her. ‘They’re probably not serving yet, but I’m sure they’ll make an exception. And they’ve got lovely ice cream.’

Her words calmed the children down a little.

Ginny shepherded them towards the marquee, taking hold of Caroline’s hand while Phuong carried little Wendy. Frankie walked with her mother. Following the arrows would have led them past the old oak, but she deliberately made a detour to stay well clear of it.

A sudden fearful screaming started from the direction of the avenue of beeches near the churchyard wall. Lesley stopped and turned, clutching her arm.

‘What’s that?’ asked Frankie innocently.

‘Oh, they’re probably playing some game,’ Ginny answered hurriedly, glancing back. ‘Let’s find that ice cream before everybody wants some.’

In the marquee the trays of sandwiches they had cut that morning were set out on long trestle tables, ready for the first stream of customers. One of the women serving, someone Ginny didn’t recognise, asked what on earth was going on with all that screaming. They made some answer and paused long enough to buy the children an ice cream each to keep them occupied before taking them out into the lane at the back which led directly up the hill to the doctor’s house.

It was then that Caroline – backed up by Wendy – demanded to know why they were going home already and when they were going to do their playgroup dance.
Only Frankie seemed to grasp that something was seriously wrong.

Lesley bent down to talk to her. ‘You
are
going to be a big girl and help Mummy, aren’t you?’

She nodded, tight-lipped. From the field they could hear shrieks of terror, with men shouting and someone moaning gibberish over the loudspeaker.

Leaving Phuong and her sister to get the children back to the safety of the house, Ginny ran back through the marquee, heading for the field. The scene was indescribable, like some Hieronymous Bosch nightmare: a mother piteously clutching her small son whose face and neck were torn open by one long, raw wound; a girl of Ginny’s own age lying with her back unnaturally arched over the debris of a broken white elephant stall while fat green caterpillars explored her legs; the barman from the Plough in agonising convulsions on the grass, his face purple as he choked on the caterpillars eating into his throat; oh, and many others, the lucky ones dead already. One thin grey-haired woman was on her knees, holding up her hands clasped together in prayer in the midst of the carnage, her voice penetrating the din from the crazed people dashing about in search of escape:
He hath put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble and meek; He hath filled the hungry with…
The spot of blood on her blouse grew larger, spreading down her side. Her voice faltered. She sat back on her heels, a look of surprise on her face, then crumpled into death.

‘Get some gloves and lend a hand, will you?’

She recognised the woman from the Garden Centre, her thin, harassed face now streaked with blood. Probably she’d had those gardening gloves with her when she’d set up the potted plants stall. Leaning over one of the girl casualties, she plucked the caterpillars off her – two which were already eating into her leg – and killed them.

‘Here, get her over to the First Aid tent,’ she instructed crisply. ‘Make yourself useful.’

Ginny picked her up, staggering under her weight though the girl could be no more than twelve years of age, and carried her back to the St John’s Ambulance tent, only to find it in a shambles with one of the uniformed men dead and another moaning on the ground among the spilled equipment. She went on to the marquee.

Laying the girl carefully on one of the tables and leaving it to the tea servers to try and staunch the bleeding, she dashed through the back of the marquee to the washing-up area to find some household gloves. She was in luck, spotting two or three new pairs in a helper’s shopping bag.

She pulled a pair of them on, then sprinted back to the field praying they’d be strong enough to deter the caterpillars. On the way she passed the local policeman grimly carrying an injured woman over his shoulder, his shirt drenched with sweat and blood.

‘In the marquee!’ she yelled at him. ‘We’re putting them in the marquee!’

How many they managed to rescue between them she’d no idea. The work seemed endless, the sun burned fiercely in a pure white sky and for every caterpillar they killed, more appeared from nowhere. At one point, pausing to snatch in some deep breaths, she counted five or six helpers, not including the constable; but the numbers varied. Ginny herself concentrated on the children, even those on the point of death; she knew she’d never be able to carry anyone heavier.

Then she spotted Mrs Martinson lying spreadeagled across a heap of bodies, but still alive. Her face looked almost angelically young. Ginny lifted her bleeding arm, searching for the caterpillars.

‘Don’t waste your time there!’ the Garden Centre person snapped, just behind her. ‘She’s half-way through
the pearly gates already – can’t you see? Stick to those we
can
save. That’s all we can hope to do.’

But how many were there yet, she thought desperately. Over by the lucky dip lay the vicar, his face distorted into a hideous death mask, his throat torn open. Why did they so often go for the throat, as though they knew that was where humans were vulnerable? Then, a few yards away, she heard the terrible trumpeting voice of a man caught in the very extremes of pain and fear. Reaching him, she almost fainted with shock at what she saw.

The constable lay on his back, his body twisting as though in a fit, caterpillars probing every part of him. Over the groin the blue serge of his uniform trousers was soaked in blood. Two caterpillars had eaten their way through it – from the
inside
, she realised sickeningly. But they were everywhere: around his ankles, poking under his rolled-up sleeves, chewing through his sweated armpits, investigating his eyes… his ears…

Again he roared out his agony, his whole body shaking, but there was nothing she could do to help him.

A knife?

Perhaps there’d been a knife on one of those stalls. At least she could put him out of his misery… spare him some of the pain…

The end came of its own accord, worse than anything she’d yet witnessed. One last roar shook him, but the voice died within seconds to become a deep-throated rattle which went on and on, chilling her ice-cold to hear it. When at last it ceased, trickles of blood appeared at the corners of his mouth, as well as from his dead eyes and nostrils.

From overhead came the sound of a helicopter, first circling, then hovering before slowly coming down to land in the neighbouring field. She stood by the policeman’s body watching it, unable even to think of what still had to be done. If only, she felt, she could allow
herself to collapse into some rescuer’s strong grip. Let someone else take it all over.

A caterpillar began lazily to investigate her boot.

‘Urgh!’

In alarm she managed to step back, then scraped it off against her other foot and ground it till it burst. Another approached her from the side. And a third. As though they could sense her exhaustion and were marking her out as their next victim. She wanted to cry out, but her words died in her throat. She could hear the woman from the Garden Centre calling something, but didn’t know what.

She was next, she could swear to it.

Again she stepped back, almost stumbling and falling over a teenage girl’s mangled body. Was it imagination, or did those caterpillars actually stop eating to raise their heads and gaze darkly at her with their nasty little eyes? Was it fear – or were they really moving closer to her from every side?

Her chest tightened. The saliva in her mouth dried, tasting of dust. She wanted to scream. Oh God, she needed help more than these other people, didn’t she? Wasn’t she still
alive
? With everything still ahead of her?

Send someone to help me, PLEASE!

That whimpering sound puzzled her. Not her own voice, she could swear to it, but nearby. The fear suddenly snapped within her, leaving her cold and rational. It was a child she could hear, somewhere among the remains of a smashed-up stall.

In two steps she was there, defying the threat around her. Scorning it.

She tugged the fallen trestle-board aside to reveal a small boy of about four lying curled up, his thumb in his mouth. Miraculously, the caterpillars had ignored him. Hastily she checked his limbs: not a scratch or a bite anywhere. His mother – wherever she was now – had
obviously dressed him up in his best for the All Saints Spring Fête, Ginny noticed with bitterness in her heart.

His big eyes regarded her wonderingly as she swung him to her shoulder and began to pick her way across the field, heading for the marquee.

Two men from the helicopter, masked and in boiler suits, with canisters secured to their backs, were spraying the vegetation along the approach to the marquee. To allow her to pass, one turned off his spray for a couple of seconds. She was uncomfortably aware of his eyes staring at her through the goggles.