After the Explosion
(i)
For over a week after the explosion
a vast cloud of dense brown smoke
drifted above the northern counties of England,
seeming to envelop every town and village
north of York almost to the Scottish border.
As the nature of the disaster became evident,
the Government placed two protective barriers
of troops across the country from Blackpool
to Scarborough and from Carlisle to Berwick.
This ensured that nobody ventured
into the Zone and, owing to the likelihood
of contagion, that nobody came out.
(ii)
Incredible as it may now seem, owing
to the problems experienced by the troops
in preventing hordes of frightened people
from breaking through their protective cordons,
two weeks elapsed before the Special
Emergency Force entered the stricken region.
When they were finally able to do so
they found that much of the countryside
had assumed a strangely lunar aspect.
A substance rather like grey snow
had settled evenly upon the landscape,
providing a sombre and eerie backcloth
for the long queues of desperate survivors
slowly moving along the main roads.
Page(s) 21
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