Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page A

ship everyone from here to the island. Besides, if they were right and the radiation was spreading, I’d rather not start a trek through England and Wales if everything west of Dartford is radioactive.”
    “Won’t he be able to tell?” Jay asked, and Nilda noticed that his hands moved as he spoke, and he was looking at Tuck for an answer. Nilda quelled an unfair swell of jealousy as the soldier’s signed a reply. It wasn’t Tuck’s fault. She truly had kept Jay safe over the past months. Even so, it was hard to suppress bitterness at how her son had grown up beyond all expectations under the tutelage of someone else.
    “She says,” Jay summarised, “that the fields won’t be glowing in the dark, so we wouldn’t know until it’s too late.”
    “Which is why we need the Geiger counter,” Nilda said.
    “What we need,” McInery said, “is a smaller boat. If we had one, I could lead a group to search Westminster while you take the lifeboat down to Kent. Are you sure that all the small boats were removed from HMS Belfast?”
    Nilda’s eyes moved to the old World War Two museum ship moored on the other side of the Thames.
    “You can look at the recording again if you want,” Jay said. “But we couldn’t see one, just the undead. I counted seven, and who knows how many more are below decks. What we really need is food. And for that we need to go to Kent. That means we need a Geiger counter. And that means going to City Airport.”
    “We need time,” Tuck signed. “There’s too much to do and too few people to do it.”
    “Right, well,” Chester said after Jay had finished translating. “Call it need or want, but whichever it is, there’s little point sitting around here. We can’t get to Westminster, but we can get to the airport. So I say we go there now while the tide is in our favour. Agreed?”
    Nilda took one last look at the screen showing the undead clustered around the lorry on the bridge. One at the edge of the pack waved its arms, and the motion caused it to stumble out into the roadway. It tripped, fell through the broken balustrade, and tumbled head first onto a jagged outcrop of half-submerged concrete. Skin split, skull broke, and the stone was tinged dark brown for a moment before a wave washed away both creature and stain. Nilda made a mental note to remind everyone why they spent so much time boiling and filtering the water.
    “Look at the battery,” Nilda said, pointing at a small window near the top of the screen. “It’s running low. You better bring it back.”
    Jay tapped at the controls. As the drone slowly rotated, the screen displayed a panorama of south London. There was the Shard, and seven miles to the south, the Crystal Palace transmitter sitting on top of Sydenham Hill. That was replaced with empty streets and ruined buildings, then with the Thames, and then Tower Bridge and the Tower of London itself. The image of the ancient fortress grew as Jay piloted the drone back towards them.
    “If we could get a boat close enough,” McInery said, “we could survey Westminster with the drone.”
    “If. But we still need that smaller boat,” Chester said.
    “Indeed. And the solution to that problem will not be found at an airport. You won’t need my help for that trip, but helping to secure that gift shop is a task for which I know I can be of use. I can see Graham on the ramparts, excuse me.”
    Nilda kept quiet as McInery left the boat and headed over to the walls.
    “And there’s nothing stopping us from leaving,” Chester said. Nilda followed him down the steps to the lifeboat.
    “Do you think Mrs McInery might try to get to Westminster on foot?” Jay asked, as with drone in one hand, laptop in the other, he nimbly jumped from the wall down onto the rocking boat.
    “Maybe,” Nilda said. “We can’t stop her if she does.”
    Tuck untied the ropes, and the lifeboat drifted out into the river.
    “She’s right about the boats,” Chester said. “If there’s