Take Back The City - Part One of the 'Life in London Town' series

27 - The Attack on Embankment

It was at about six-thirty in the morning when I received word of the impending attack. Just as I had been for most of the year following the blockade of Central London, I was, at that time, camped in the marble rotunda of Leicester Square Station, eating a meal of whatever could be swiped from the fast-food joints around the Square itself and awaiting orders to attack that simply were not issued; apparently there were, unfortunately enough for the lot of us stuck in the West End, more than enough people on the offensive movement which was advancing forward towards St Paul’s which, as you seem to believe, could have won us this war had you been able to find this red-brick building you were going on about earlier...

Behind the varnished wooden door and blocked window of the left-hand side of a ‘period’ ticket booth, which looked as if it had been cryogenically frozen on the day it had been opened in the nineteen-hundreds, Victor was interviewing Will. Behind the door on the right-hand side of the same booth, in a separate but visually identical room, Jamieson was attempting to do the same to me.

“So,” began Jamieson serenely, as if he were a guidance counsellor, “tell me. What’s your version o’ the events that took place between ye and Will that night at Embankment?” I took about half a minute to develop a response, in which time it had become more and more evident to me that Jamieson’s opinion towards me had shifted completely since his conversation with Victor about the red-brick building by St Paul’s and his discovery of Lyle’s true identity. His demeanour was far kinder and his voice far smoother than the harsh, permanently-ballistic one that used to smash its way out of his mouth. For the first time in my life I realised that underneath that bloated body there was an actual human being.

“I was posted at Charing Cross on the day of the attack on Embankment,” I answered monotonously, as most people involuntarily do during interrogation. “I had been posted there ever since my parents attempted to flee Central London. I didn’t know Victor or Will at the time, nor did I realise that Patrick had stayed in London – I didn’t meet any of them until the Embankment attack itself occurred that night – and I didn’t really know anyone at Charing Cross either; I spent most of my time camped downstairs on the Jubilee Line platforms, bored out of my mind because we had nothing to do – all the action was taking place with you and Victor in the east – and frightened that I might never see either my parents or the Oxendons again. I think,” I said quickly, trying to remove my thoughts from my parents to avoid thinking about the fate of my mother, “that news of an impending attack reached Charing Cross at about seven a.m.. I remember thinking...”

...About bloody time, too, said Will from the other booth. Being stuck in Leicester Square for a whole year would be enough to turn anybody mad, I’m telling you. I think everyone wanted a piece of the action by that point. Half the men didn’t even care if they died, so long as they were contributing somehow – life in Leicester Square was just that dull.

A wave of attacks hit Leicester Square from both the Piccadilly and Northern Lines at about eleven o’clock. Holborn had been overrun, meaning that the Faceless had the option of attacking either the Central or the Piccadilly Lines, but the operatives at Tottenham Court Road had managed to keep them making progress any further west. The only way was down for them – down the Northern Line towards us.

We managed to keep the Piccadilly Line attackers from going any further west, but couldn’t keep out the Northern Liners. By the time the Piccadilly Liners had been pushed backwards, we were all too tired and fatigued to carry on. We were pushed to the surface, and we ran to Charing Cross; unfortunately, by the time we reached Charing Cross, we were too late...

“By about twelve-thirty,” I continued, my eyes’ focus captured by Jamieson’s hazel iris-discs and my voice still refusing to change pitch, “the Faceless came storming through the Northern Line section of the station. We tried to scramble operatives to the Northern platforms, but we couldn’t assemble enough of them quickly enough; Charing Cross is a difficult station to control; it’s like Bank in miniature, with all its long, winding passageways and the sheer distance between the Bakerloo and Northern sections.”