Let’s go wide across the city, spooling back through time by a matter of minutes, and restart this story with a drifter. The one bedded down with his dog on the bank under Millennium Bridge. The coals in the brazier are still glowing, and pop and fizz on occasion. It provides just enough heat for this homeless soul to stay warm until sunrise. He’s slumped there with a sack of belongings for a pillow, snoring noisily. In his hands is a near-empty bottle of whisky, which he clutches to his chest like an age-old teddy bear. The dog lies at his master’s feet, obedient to the last but clearly wishing he could get some peace and quiet. Sadly for the mutt, that’s not going to happen now. For we join this down-at-heel duo just as Big Ben heralds the midnight hour.
Across the churning water, somewhere behind all the buildings overlooking the river, that opening volley of rockets score the night sky. The dog is quick to bark and yap, but some chop-socky celebration isn’t enough to persuade its grumpy, grizzled owner to pop open more than one eye. The drifter sees this kind of thing year in year out, after all. Living as he does on the streets, there is nothing in this city that could surprise him, so he believes. Which is why he’s up on his feet at what follows the first of the fireworks. Such sky-high pyrotechnics may have failed to rouse him, but the sideshow leaves him slack-jawed, bug-eyed and dumbfounded.
“What in the world is going on here . . .?”
He rubs his eyes, blinks for focus, but this is not some hangover from his dreams. It really is a jet of water, punching into the air several blocks away from the fireworks. He can just about make out the manhole cover, flipping like a coin as this furious spout blows it higher than the surrounding scrapers. He’s up on his feet when another one goes off just behind the British Museum, followed by a third down at the old dockside.
A moment later, the first manhole cover comes sailing out of the night sky. With an almighty splash it hits the river close to the drifter and his dog. The pair scramble for cover under the bridge. Even so, nothing can stop their eyes snapping back across the Thames. This old drifter hasn’t seen such a dramatic skyline, in fact, since his days as a boy in the midst of the Blitz.
This must be one very broken ring main, is all our man can think . . . until several spikes of fire rise up around the city like the waterspouts, and take his breath away. Even his dog stops barking, and cowers behind his legs. From Bloomsbury to Spitalfields, he counts four towering flares, like burn-offs from an oil rig. But just as quickly as they had risen, so each one sizzles malevolently into nothing. At the same time, the three giant waterspouts drop down and disappear. Meanwhile in Chinatown, there in the midst of it all, the fireworks continue to enchant the crowds. As for the drifter, he is fit for nothing now but to simply gawp at his dog, and at the bottle in his possession.
“Are you playing tricks on my eyes?” he asks the demon drink, then takes another swig just to check. With the whisky still hot on the back of his throat, the drifter considers reporting the incident to the police. The last of the rockets detonate just then. Judging by the distant oohs and aaahs that drift across the water, it’s clear even to him that nobody watching the aerial display had noticed the surrounding spectacle. Otherwise chaos would’ve followed, with sirens and screaming and all sorts.
The drifter exchanges a look with the mongrel at his feet, and once more scans the skyline for some evidence of what he’s just seen. But there’s nothing. Just the same old urban jungle under a mothball moon. Then he thinks about what a shaggy dog story it’s going to sound like to the duty sergeant’s ears, and casts the bottle into the river.
Who would believe him, he thinks? An old soak in the gutter of his life. No. What he had witnessed seemed just too chaotic for words. Perhaps, then, an event of this nature and scale might only make sense if viewed from the heavens.