An Empty Death (2 page)
Authors: Laura Wilson
There was a tense silence while they pulled on their clothes, and then they were through the front door and into the street. They could hear people arriving at the incident, vehicles and running feet, the distant clang of bells. The air was full of the raw, brutal stink of destruction - a mixture of high explosive, coal gas, brick dust and burnt earth.
Stratton held Jenny by the hand and they walked as fast as they could, following the torch beam, to the end of their road. Rounding the corner, they passed the end of another street, then another, and then—
‘You were right,’ said Jenny.
The two houses at the end of Larkin Avenue had disappeared. In their place was a mountain of debris and a crater some thirty feet across that stretched into the road itself, where there was a scattering of lumps of clay mixed with macadam surface, and, here and there, a piece of kerbstone. The third house down now consisted only of a front door and half a passageway, a gaunt, bare chimney-breast, and ugly, tileless rafters jabbing skywards. An Anderson shelter, which must have been in one of the gardens, had been uprooted at one side, and its curved, corrugated iron roof was split open so that the ragged ends made it look like a huge sardine tin peeled open by a giant key. In front of it, a broken gas main flared, sending little rivulets of fire along the ground. ‘Watch where you’re treading,’ Stratton said, as they went over to join the band of onlookers who were being held back by several wardens.
The clanging noise grew louder and then stopped abruptly as a fire engine pulled up and AFS men jumped off and began scrambling over the rubble, shouting to each other as they tried to locate the source of the gas leak.
‘Ted!’ Jenny’s sister, Doris, and her husband Donald appeared, looking dishevelled.
‘You two all right?’
‘Fine. That was a near one. We thought it might be you.’
‘We thought the same,’ said Stratton. ‘Who got it?’
‘I don’t know who lives at One or Five,’ said Doris, ‘but it’s the Lightollers in the middle. You know her, Jen. Big woman. Works in the bakery.’
‘Yes. And they’ve got a son. He was—’
‘Quiet, please!’ All chattering ceased as the rescue party appeared and began scrambling and tapping their way up the mound of debris, pausing in their ascent to listen for the voices of survivors under the rubble. One of them had a searcher dog, who was scrabbling about, zigzagging through the muddle, pulling its trainer unsteadily behind it as it sniffed for bodies. Recognising a local bobby, Stratton presented himself and asked if he could help. ‘Best wait till the dog’s done its stuff, sir,’ said the constable. ‘Let’s hope it’s quick,’ he added, grimly.
Stratton, who had seen more than his share of mangled, broken and suffocated bodies, nodded. ‘Do you know how many people are under that lot?’
‘Four. That house,’ he pointed to the ruin, ‘was empty. We’re checking the rest of the street.’ He pointed further down to where a couple of wardens, identifiable by the glint of moonlight on their white tin hats, could be dimly seen knocking on doors and chalking walls if the occupants were present and unharmed. Stratton wondered about the efficacy of this - most of the street appeared to be gathered around the crater - but said nothing. Donald appeared at his elbow.
‘A Mrs Ingram at the end, apparently. Neighbour said she’s not been there long. Can we do anything?’
‘Wait for the dog, they said.’
Just then, there was a single, sharp bark.
‘Down here!’
‘They’ve found someone. They’ll have to dig a shaft,’ said the constable, ‘and bloody quick, too.’
The dog was removed, and the rescue squad retreated from the rubble to fetch baskets before forming a chain. Some of them, on the opposite side to the crowd, didn’t bother with the baskets, but simply threw the bits of debris back between their legs, as rabbits do. There was a tense silence, broken only by the thud of bricks hitting the earth and the panting breath and curses of the men as they worked.
Stratton went to find Jenny, who was standing with Doris. ‘Do you know a Mrs Ingram, love?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘The people down there,’ she whispered. ‘They’ll die, won’t they? They’ll be crushed.’
‘Don’t, Jen . . .’ Doris laid a hand on her sister’s arm. ‘They will save them, won’t they, Ted?’
‘If they’re quick,’ said Stratton. Not wanting to pursue the subject, he said, ‘Do you know Mrs Ingram, Doris?’
His sister-in-law shook her head. ‘Someone must, though.’
A stout, elderly woman standing behind them, wearing a shawl and, bizarrely, a straw hat, said, ‘She’s only been here a couple of months. Husband’s in the army. Very quiet - not seen much of her.’
‘He’s away now, is he?’ asked Stratton.
‘I think so. Tell you the truth, I’ve never seen him. She was on her own when she came here.’
Donald weaved his way through the crowd and clapped Stratton on the shoulder. ‘Come and give a hand. They need to widen the hole at the top of the shaft,’ he explained, as they went to collect picks from the rescue squad truck, ‘so the weight doesn’t cave it in.’
Stratton got stuck in, chipping steadily at the strange mixture of brick and plaster rubble, shattered joists and beams, pieces of broken furniture and crockery, rugs and curtains, all pressed together, until it was loose enough to be shovelled away. It was easy at first, and they made good progress, but then they began to hit London clay - the subsoil, thrown up by the blast, was mixed in with the rest of the mound, making it harder to shift. Picturing what was below all too clearly - crushing weight caving in fragile human ribcages so that they punctured the lungs beneath - he redoubled his efforts. His back and arms soon began to ache as if they were on fire, and he was glad of the brief break every time the man at the bottom of the shaft yelled for quiet.
Eventually, he heard, ‘That’s enough! I’ve got something down here. Hold that bloody torch still - I can’t see bugger all.’ The crowd, who had been talking amongst themselves, were quiet. ‘Right,’ said the man. ‘This one’s had it, but I can hear someone else further on. Faint, but it’s there.’ Stratton put down his pick and went to look down the shaft. It had been dug to about eight feet, and he saw, by the light of a torch, that it would have been impossible to use a pick or shovel down there - there wasn’t enough room, and joists and other woodwork criss-crossed the narrow space. The man who had wormed his way down there was kneeling, pointing to what appeared to be the end of a stair post.
The foreman beside Stratton asked, ‘You sure?’
‘Course I’m bloody sure!’ Then Stratton saw that what he thought was a knob was actually a plaster-coated fist and an arm, bare to the elbow, protruding from the side of the rubble.
‘Right, start tunnelling.’ The foreman turned to Stratton and looked him up and down. ‘You got a long reach - get down there and help Smithie clear the stuff out.’ He appeared not to have noticed - or, if he had, not to care - that Stratton wasn’t a rescue worker.
As Stratton took the proffered hard hat he heard shouts behind him and turned to see Jenny scrambling up the mound, her eyes wide with panic. ‘Ted! Please . . .’
‘It’s all right, love.’
‘But what if it all falls on top of you? You could be buried, you could—’ She was silenced by a bellow from the bottom of the hole as an avalanche of earth and bricks, loosened by their feet, plummeted downwards.
‘It won’t,’ said Stratton. ‘It’s under control. I’ll be fine.’
Jenny shook her head rapidly, blinking, and Stratton could see that she was trying not to cry. ‘It’s all right,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be back in no time. There’s people down there, love.’
Jenny shook her head again. Then, standing on tiptoe, she gripped him fiercely round the neck and, kissing his cheek, whispered, ‘Be careful. Please . . . just be careful.’ Letting go abruptly, she picked her way back down to Doris and Donald on the pavement, her nightdress flapping beneath the hem of her coat.
Stratton watched her for a second, then clambered down the shaft, lit by torches from above, and a basket was handed in after him. The two men scrabbled with their hands, trying to free the debris from around the body, grunting as lumps of earth crashed down on their heads and shoulders. Stratton piled the stuff into the lowered baskets and raised them to the workers at the surface, trying to dodge the constant showers of muck that made his eyes smart. Slowly, from the hole they’d made, a head, and then shoulders, began to emerge. ‘It’s a boy,’ said the man, in what seemed to Stratton a horrible parody of a doctor attending a birth.
‘A boy,’ he shouted up to the foreman. ‘Fifteen or thereabouts.’
‘There’s something pinning the legs down,’ said Smithie. ‘I can’t move it. Get them to give you a torch.’
When Stratton shone the light into the narrow crevice that they’d dug out round the corpse he saw, lying on top of the boy’s legs, the back of a dog. It appeared to be curled up, as if asleep in a basket. He touched it and discovered, under the coating of plaster, long black fur. Running his hands in both directions, he located a tail and a head with a long nose. ‘We should be able to pull it out - it’s not that big.’
Smithie shouted instructions and a length of rope was lowered. They managed to secure the rope around the dog’s midriff, chest and bottom, as though the animal were a parcel, and pull it away from the boy. It was a black spaniel, its rib cage and front legs crushed. ‘Poor beast,’ said Smithie. ‘I hope it went quick.’
Stratton held the free end of the rope up to the men on the surface, and they hauled the dog up and took it away. After that, freeing the boy’s body proved not too difficult, and, by the time they’d done that, they’d made enough space - horizontally, at least - so that another man could join them, forming a chain. As he slid, clumsily, to the bottom of the hole, he brought down what seemed like a ton of earth, so that Stratton was completely blinded. There were yells and curses above, and he could hear gasps from the women watching. ‘Fucking hell!’ shouted Smithie in fury as they pawed at their faces. ‘Watch it!’
‘Not my fault,’ said the man, plaintively.
‘Never mind whose fault it was,’ yelled Smithie, ‘dig, can’t you? We need this lot out of here now, or no-one else stands a chance.’
Wiping the dust from his eyes, Stratton found himself waist deep in rubble, scarcely able to move. Coughing and spluttering, the three men began digging once more, piling the stuff into baskets until they had more freedom, Smithie urging them on with curses. ‘Bleeding hurry up, you fuckers - we’re running out of time.’
Stratton could see, every time he looked up, the face of the foreman peering down at them, strained beneath its coating of dust and plaster. ‘Can you hear anything?’ he called.
‘Give us a chance, mate.’
‘Ted!’ Jenny’s voice, loud and frightened, from the pavement. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, love,’ he bawled back. ‘Don’t worry!’
Eventually, they cleared enough space to start crawling forward again. Smithie kept stopping the digging to listen; at first, Stratton thought he must be imagining things when he said he could hear something - all he could hear was the ominous, steady trickle of falling earth - but when, after a few times, he moved to the head of the chain he heard a wailing noise, very faint, like a small animal - a cat, perhaps - in pain. He turned back to Smithie and nodded.
‘Told you. Get on with it, then. I’ll shine the torch in behind you.’
Stratton, crawling forward in virtual darkness because his body was blocking the meagre light from the torch behind him, was suddenly aware that his hand was on something that wasn’t rubble. It was soft, giving, yet somehow more solid than the debris. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘You trod on one?’
Stratton turned, with difficulty. ‘Don’t look like that,’ said Smithie. ‘It can’t be helped. Come on, let’s have a shufti.’
‘Do you think,’ asked Stratton, trying to move his knees enough for Smithie to crawl past, ‘that our one is behind this one?’
‘These ones,’ said Smithie. ‘There’s two of ’em. Hold up.’ They listened again, and heard the faint wailing. ‘Must be,’ said Smithie. ‘Can’t dig another shaft, though - too risky. Have to carry on here.’ Peering over his shoulder Stratton could see two bodies, covered in dust, their arms and legs entwined, discoloured pyjamas blending with the rubble as if they were just another part of the debris.
‘A man and a woman,’ said Smithie.
To Stratton, they just looked like human-shaped lumps of clay. Earth to earth, he thought. ‘How can you tell?’
Smithie shrugged. ‘You get used to it, mate. Besides,’ he gave Stratton a wink, ‘that’s what they said. A boy, a man, and two women. Come on.’ He took hold of the nearest limb - an arm - and tugged at it with difficulty. ‘Going stiff,’ he said. ‘Must have died before the boy did. We can’t separate ’em, so we’ll have to get ’em out before they’re rigid, or we’re in real trouble. Get some more rope - tell ’em we need lots of it.’
Stratton passed the message back, and was duly given a coil of rope. He handed it to Smithie and watched, amazed, as - despite the confined space and with minimal help from Stratton - he proceeded to make a hoist, passing it under the buttocks of the corpses and knotting it into a harness, so that, when finally aloft in the shaft, the two bodies seemed locked in reluctant intercourse. The man - handling them had made the sexes obvious - was missing a foot, and as the woman’s head lolled backwards Stratton could see, beneath the plaster that coated her face like a thick layer of ill-applied cosmetic, that she had bled from the mouth. As the bodies emerged at the top of the shaft, he heard the gasps and groans of the crowd and a single scream, followed by low, agitated murmuring.
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