I came at last to the first chapter. As in the rest of the manuscript, it was divided into several sub-chapters, each of which was numbered. I retyped the first sub-chapter, correcting grammatical errors, breaking up some of the longer sentences and undoing the results of my penchant back then for inserting unnecessary adjectives. I grew angry when I reached the middle of the opening paragraph. I had originally written tall elms and squat sycamores. Bill had pointed out politely that it should have been the other way round sycamores were tall and elms were squat but I had ignored him, as usual. What a tosser I had been! It had taken me thirty fucking years to make that correction! And I was sure that I would come across many other instances like it.
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1
The warm midmorning sun sparkled and glistened on the calm, crystal waters of the small bay. The water gently, almost inaudibly, lapped against the near-white beach. Somewhere, far in the azure distance, could be heard the lone cry of a wheeling gull. It was a beautiful June morning! The air felt clean and fresh, and a soft, balmy breeze rustled through the tall sycamores and squat elms around the shore. A drowsy warmth was beginning to emanate from the pale sands, creating an almost imperceptible haze along the opposite shoreline of the estuary.
Jeff Wheeler stretched luxuriously on his elbows on top of a grass-covered dune overlooking the beach, his gaze fixed on the snail-like progress of a tiny tugboat as it made its leisurely way along the estuary towards the sea. After some time, he turned on his back and stared thoughtfully into the blueness above. Scattered around him on the turf were a number of textbooks and a pile of dog-eared notebooks. Jeff was a second-year Economics student at Edinburgh University. His final examinations for that year were due in early July, and he had decided to evade the hustle and bustle of varsity life for a few days by coming along to this quiet haven on the Firth of Forth to enjoy some peaceful study. Since his arrival there an hour or so earlier, however, he had felt reluctant to mar the fineness of the day with irksome study, and instead he could only marvel at the early summer beauty around him.
Now, as he lay relaxing in the sun, he thought of the coming holiday period, when he would be able to return to London: back to Wimbledon to his parents and Sis and brother Tom; back to the small semi-detached cottage overlooking the Common; and, most importantly, back to Deborah sweet, lovable Debbie! He smiled wistfully as he recalled the soft fragrance of her nearness, the bubbling exuberance of her enthusiasm for life. Lightly tapping the breast pocket of his shirt, he felt the reassuring outline of the neatly folded six-page letter which he had received from London that morning.
Two whole months with Debbie! he thought happily, rubbing his hands together. Two whole months right after these bloody exams.
Exams! His thoughts rushed back to the present and to the task that lay before him. Grudgingly, he resolved to tackle it right away in the next ten minutes, anyway. Then, reaching out for his cigarettes, he lit one, inhaled deeply and blew a long stream of smoke directly into the air above him. Turning back onto his stomach, he again contemplated the vista before him.
After a few minutes, having extinguished the cigarette, Jeff stood up and stretched out, yawning loudly. At that precise moment, a near-blinding flash streaked through the sky above the sea, like lightning during an electric storm. Seconds later, the quiet air was split asunder by a series of prolonged, booming, deafening explosions, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to shake and rumble momentarily.
Completely startled, his mouth still agape, Jeff glanced quickly along the coastline, trying to pinpoint the origin of the explosions. His eyes finally came to rest at a point on the far left of his vision and opened wide in utter horror and disbelief as they watched the giant superstructure of the Forth Rail Bridge sink slowly and gracefully into a steaming sea; large orange flames licked around those parts not yet submerged.
Believing that he had been caught up in some weird daydream, Jeff closed his eyes tightly for a few moments and then opened them again, only to find that the whole bridge had now disappeared, leaving immense clouds of hissing steam in its place. In the same time, columns of dense black smoke had spiralled far into the sky all along the coast, casting dark shadows over the brightness of the day.
Looking out onto this awesome spectacle, Jeff had grown pale and afraid. His stomach was lurching and his heart had begun to pound; a small muscle below his left eye twitched and jerked.
Jesus Christ! His voice sounded hoarse and forced, the words hardly audible. Somethings gone wrong terribly wrong.
What had gone wrong, he couldnt even begin to think about. His mind was in too much of a turmoil to reason out calmly the cause of the wanton destruction that he had just witnessed. The wonderful peace that he had been savouring had been suddenly shattered, leaving him pale and shaken and devoid of any coherent thought. One thing was absolutely clear, however: he wouldnt find out what was happening by just standing there.
Quickly, he stooped down and gathered up his belongings. Then, as if gripped by uncontrollable panic, he threw them down again and began to sprint away from the beach towards the footpath behind the trees.
The tall pines which grew on either side of the path reached upwards to form a natural canopy, blocking out the sunlight, and seemed darkly menacing to Jeff as he thudded along below them. His breath was now coming in short, sharp gasps, and he could feel the blood pounding in his ears. Suddenly, the muted stillness around him was pierced by the wailing of a siren. Trying to turn towards the source of the noise and at the same time to keep on running, he was taken off balance and sprawled awkwardly onto the footpath. Covering his ears, he attempted to drown out the relentless clamour. But, just as abruptly as it had begun, the siren stopped. Jeff, panting, scrambled up and continued to run.
The steady, rhythmic padding of his footsteps along the dark, narrow pathway gradually began to regulate Jeffs breathing now. The fast pace that he had set himself had slowed to a mere trot. The panic that had fleetingly occupied his mind was gone, and in its place calculated reasoning had taken hold. Answers to the numerous questions he had asked himself were now beginning to form. Who or what had caused the devastation along the estuary? How had it been done? Was this the start of some terrible terrorist revolution? Why had the siren sounded? And into what kind of situation was he running at this very moment?
He guessed that the extent of the destruction was too great to be the work of any of the terrorist groups that he had read about. Was this, then, the first horrendous stroke of another World War? Could it be possible? It seemed ominously likely. And it would explain the siren.
Jeffs heart began to pound furiously as his logical reasoning reached its foreboding conclusion. Icy fear seemed to chill his very blood, and he shuddered visibly. Sudden panic again seized him, but this time he resisted the impulse to run on as fast as he could. Instead, a cold discipline that he had not known before forced him to remain at the same steady pace.
Keep cool! he muttered. Christ Almighty! Keep cool!
*
Had he but realised the full, horrifying implications of his explanation to the explosions, Jeff might not have wanted to continue with his journey. Instead, he might have decided to remain where he was, safe in the quiet solitude of the woodland, far from death and destruction. If he had been able to witness some of the events that had taken place only minutes before in the heart of the city of Edinburgh, he might have recoiled in terror, shrinking away from any thought or memory of such happenings.
For, at the very moment when he had heard those thunderous explosions echoing around the shores of the River Forth, the thronging thoroughfare of Princes Street was brought to a screaming, tearing standstill. Here also explosions could be heard, but these were much closer and far more frightening: so terrifying, in fact, that shoppers, tourists and businessmen alike were brought to a sudden halt, immediately aghast and speechless. The drivers of the many vehicles which choked the street were affected by this sudden fear, too, and, as buses, cars and lorries came to a screeching, grinding stop, the whole place was filled with the sounds of skidding tyres, blaring horns and metal crashing into metal. In seconds, the formerly well-ordered lines of traffic had been thrown into a melee of crumpled bonnets and shattered windscreens.
Moments later, even more confusion arose as large store windows all along the street suddenly burst apart in one crashing, cacophonous stroke. Long, dangerous spikes of broken glass were propelled into the now panic-stricken crowd. Terrified men and women clawed at each other in an effort to escape these jagged projectiles. Small children began to howl in fear and bewilderment, and many were trampled by the shouting, frenzied mob. One small girl, only six years old, lay writhing and screaming in horrible agony, clutching futilely at the large sliver of glass which protruded from the gaping hole in her face that had once been her left eye.
And, in the midst of the mingled cries and curses of the crowd, the sirens had begun to wail almost unnoticed.
*
Soon, Jeff came upon a fork in the footpath. Here the trees grew less closely together. Looking upwards, he could see that bright daylight still prevailed, but, at that moment, as if to serve as a dark reminder, a large cloud of dense smoke passed swiftly across the aperture between the tops of the trees. Here also Jeff paused for a brief respite. He was now faced with the dilemma of which way to turn. To the left of the fork, the footpath ran for a mile or so to the boathouse, where he could be ferried across to Cramond and could then make his way into Edinburgh. To his right, only a few hundred yards further on, lay the gatehouse and the road leading into Queensferry, the apparent source of the explosions. On the one hand, there was an escape route into the relative safety of the city if, indeed, there was a need to escape from anything while, on the other, he might be running into some kind of danger. There, at least, however, he might be able to help if help was neede d. Choosing the latter course, then, Jeff resumed his journey with a renewed urgency.
The path, much wider now, ran on downhill towards the sea. Very soon, Jeff was able to discern the shore again and the small cottage which served as a gatehouse for the estate on whose land the path lay. But, as the whole estuary came into view, he stopped short, almost in mid-stride. For the second time that morning, he gaped in horror at an incredible panorama.
The landscape before him was Dali-like in its grotesqueness: a landscape strewn with broken concrete and twisted metal; highlighted by the tall, dancing flames of a multitude of fires; and shrouded in places by black, belching smoke. The immensity of this ghastly sight was terrifying. What had once been one of the most sought-after beauty spots in Scotland was now wrecked and maimed beyond repair. Only mangled girders of steel, jutting wildly into midair at each side of the river, remained to prove that the Forth Rail Bridge had ever existed. Nor had the Road Bridge escaped this maniacal destruction: it now lay in total ruin, dangling helplessly into the sea, as if torn apart by some force so powerful that it was beyond human comprehension.
Completely numbed by this nightmarish spectacle, Jeff began a slow, faltering walk down towards the gatehouse. The distance to the house was a mere hundred yards, but to Jeff it now seemed like a long, torturous and despairing journey. When he eventually arrived at the trim white fence which surrounded the cottage, he paused for a moment, staring vacantly around him. A coldness had penetrated his body, a coldness that made his limbs shake and his teeth chatter. He felt sick and empty inside. The darkness of the sky above him seemed to mingle with the blackness that was forming in his mind, until he was finally enveloped, lost in unconsciousness. He pitched forward, automatically reaching out to grab at the spars of the fence.
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I had always been told that the opening the first one or two paragraphs, the first sentence even was the most crucial part of any novel. Its job was to grab the readers attention, to make him or her want to read on. If that was the test of a good novel, then my one failed miserably. I seemed to have been more interested in describing the scenery and the character in it than in getting on with the story. And my style of writing was so old-fashioned, so melodramatic, so Victorian. But perhaps I was being too hard on my younger self: at least the action did come six paragraphs in before I had the chance to doze off. And I did like some of the descriptions; I thought that Dali-like in its grotesqueness was a particularly good phrase.
The beach that I had described was a real one. Known locally as the Shellbeds, it was, and still is, part of the Dalmeny Estate, which is owned by the Earl of Rosebery and which lies a couple of miles to the east of Queensferry, my hometown. I had set that first scene in very familiar territory, therefore.
Jeff Wheeler, on the other hand, was not based on anyone known to me. It seemed to me now that Jeff was unreal, a stereotype a cardboard cut-out, if I wanted to be unkind. I had no idea why I cast a nice, middle-class boy from London as the central character. What was wrong with a rough, local, working-class lad, like me? Perhaps I had lacked the confidence to base the hero on myself. Or perhaps I had fallen into the same trap as the writers and producers of television dramas in those days (and often even nowadays), making the assumption that London was the centre of the universe and that all stories had to revolve around people in middle-class occupations who lived there. But then again, maybe I had been a lot shrewder than my older self was giving me credit for, creating the type of hero who would be more familiar and acceptable to the large majority of the novels readers. A commercial decision, then? I asked himself. Who knows? But this Jeff character was coming over as a bit of a wimp so far, throwing down his belongings in panic, tripping over his feet, fainting. Hopefully, he would toughen up before long, developing one of those stiff upper lips that his ilk are prone to show.
How would that first sub-chapter fare today? I wondered. If I had picked up the novel, unknowing, would I want to continue reading it? I didnt know. I was too close to it, I supposed.
Click here to continue to Episode 4.
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