Orphans of the Storm (30 page)
‘I’m Australian,’ Pete said briefly. ‘My mam and Mrs Ryan nursed together in the last war. My mam asked me to make sure her pal was all right; that’s why I’m here.’
‘Oh aye? Look, lad, one of the shelters along the Scottie took a direct hit last night. I’m awful sorry, mate, but if she were in that shelter . . . well, as I said, it were a direct hit, so they’re not expectin’ many survivors. They’ll be bringin’ bodies out once they’ve made the site safe – cut the electrics and gas off – so if she’s still missing you’d best go down there.’
Pete read pity in the older man’s eyes and swallowed uneasily. He had seen death, of course, but he didn’t fancy watching bodies being brought out and perhaps being asked to identify a girl he had never laid eyes on, save in a blurred snapshot taken half a dozen years ago. And the thought of having to tell Jess that her daughter was dead horrified him. The warden must have read his expression for he gave Pete a heartening thump on the back. ‘Mebbe I’m wrong, mebbe they’ll find dozens of survivors, or mebbe young Debbie weren’t in that shelter,’ he said. ‘But you’d best cut along now.’ He looked Pete over shrewdly. ‘Once they’ve made the site safe, they’ll need as many husky young fellers as they can lay hands on to help ’em move the rubble. They’re afraid of using machinery in case they cause more damage, like. When they’ve moved the loose stuff, then it’s a matter of burrowing through at some spot where it’s safe to do so.’
‘Thanks very much,’ Pete said gratefully. ‘But the thing is . . . well, I’ve never actually met Debbie, or not for years,’ he amended, not wanting to admit that he did not know the girl. ‘I doubt I’d recognise her. This Uncle Max . . . is he around? He might want to come with me . . .’
‘No, he went off to work; he’s something quite important in one of the ministries, I believe,’ the man said vaguely. ‘He thought Mrs Ryan was working her usual shift at the hospital, so naturally he assumed she was all right, knowing the hospital was still standing. But it’ll be evening by the time they begin to bring people out, so if I see him I’ll send him along to the Scottie. You don’t know which cinema they was at, I suppose?’
Pete admitted he did not, whereupon the warden said thoughtfully: ‘Two young gals out on the spree . . . what would they want to see, d’you think?’
‘Something all lovey dovey and romantic,’ Pete said promptly. ‘What was showing last night?’
The warden shrugged. ‘Not sure, but the Forum is a popular cinema. It’s just been reopened and I believe it were showin’ a romance, so likely they went there.’ He cocked a grizzled eyebrow at Pete. ‘And don’t you go lookin’ for the Metropole ’cos it were burned to the ground last night,’ he added gruffly. ‘But they got everyone out as soon as Moaning Minnie started, so no one were hurt in the blaze.’
‘Thanks very much,’ Pete repeated. To himself he added, as he walked away, crunching over broken glass and skirting mounds of rubble, I’m going to find that kid whether she’s dead or alive, but I reckon she’s alive. I’ve seen the mothering instinct at work on the cattle station . . . oh, countless times . . . and if Jess says her daughter’s alive and alone in the dark, then I reckon she’s right and I’m the feller to find her.
Debbie awoke to total darkness once more, but this time she knew at once where she was. In her arms the baby slumbered though she was soaking wet, and the dog was curled up beside her. She thought he was asleep but he woke moments after she did, and somehow there was something comforting in the fact that he stretched and yawned hugely before getting to his feet and nuzzling her hair aside so that he could lick her ear.
‘Oh, Dusty, I do love you,’ Debbie said gratefully, and was oddly heartened by the sound of her own voice. It was steady and showed no sign of the awful panic which had beset her on her previous awakening. In fact, she realised that she felt a little better, though she could not imagine why. The darkness was still absolute, and the silence . . . the silence was different! In fact it was not silence at all. She could hear a distant rumbling and, when she strained her ears, even more distant shouts.
She felt the dog’s head turn and knew he was listening intently, as she was herself. Moving carefully, she reached out for the enamel jug, took a small drink of water, then tipped it so that the dog could drink too. She moved her hand over the baby’s face with infinite care, but the child still slept, so cradling the small warm body she shuffled carefully across the floor and pressed her ear to the concrete block that she imagined separated her from the rest of the shelter. Softly, so as not to wake the baby, she began to call her friend’s name. ‘Gwen? Gwenny? Are you there? Are you hurt, queen? Only me and the baby and the dog, we’re trapped like and it seems as if the roof’s fallen between us and we can’t get out. Gwenny?’
Beside her, she felt the dog’s body tense, felt his excitement, and knew that his ears, so much sharper than her own, had heard something or somebody either stirring in the other part of the shelter or beginning a rescue attempt somewhere above them. She put her free arm round the dog’s shaggy shoulders. ‘What can you hear?’ she murmured into his flapping ear. ‘What is it, Dusty? Has Gwen told ’em where we are? I dare say there’s a lot of digging to be done to reach us, so we must be patient, but as soon as they get near enough you must bark your head off, and I’ll shout, and we’ll give Baby a little shake so she screams. Until then, we’d best preserve our strength.’
When Pete had first seen the jumble of masonry which he had been told was once a great six-storey department store, and knew it had fallen on top of the shelter, he almost gave up hope of ever seeing Debbie Ryan alive, but he had come here to help, so as soon as the engineer in charge said it was safe to begin moving some of the rubble he joined the human chain. They worked for hours, stripping down to trousers and singlets as the heat of the day increased. Soon they grew so grimed and filthy that Pete wondered, apprehensively, whether he would ever be able to wear his uniform again.
One young man who toiled beside him informed Pete that he had had his call-up papers and would be joining the air force himself in a couple of weeks. ‘Me name’s Dicky. I drive a delivery van and last night I dropped a couple of girls off at a cinema in the city centre,’ he explained. ‘I knew they’d be walking home about the time the raid started, so when I heard a shelter had been bombed I come straight down. You can imagine how my heart sank, only I’m tellin’ meself these shelters is built to withstand all sorts, tellin’ meself they’re goin’ to come out of it alive, if not exactly laughin’.’
‘I’m telling myself the same,’ Pete said grimly as, between them, they staggered to the roadway bearing an enormous chunk of solid concrete. ‘But you can’t be sure your girls were in this shelter, can you, any more than I can? I mean, all sorts of things could have happened. They could be anywhere.’ A thought struck him. ‘These two girls, the ones you dropped off, is one of them called Debbie, by any chance? Do they work at a factory on Long Lane, assembling radio parts?’
He had asked the question as the two of them bent to pick up another chunk of concrete, but at his words the other straightened, staring at him round-eyed. ‘Yes, she bleedin’ well is,’ he said slowly. ‘And my girl’s Gwen; Gwenny Soames. I don’t know Debbie very well – met her for the first time yesterday morning. I gave them a lift to the Seffy ’cos they were going there for a picnic. Then I picked ’em up and took ’em back to the Forum.’
‘Have you checked the factory?’ Pete said suddenly, as they bent to their task once more. ‘I couldn’t ’cos I don’t know where Long Lane is, but you’ve got transport. God, wouldn’t it be a relief if they were both in work?’
But even as he spoke Dicky was shaking his head. ‘I thought of that first go off. Checked Gwen’s house – no one were there – then went to Long Lane, only they’d not gone in today. I couldn’t check Debbie’s house ’cos I don’t know where she lives, but I reckon you’ve done that, eh?’
‘Yup,’ Pete said briefly. ‘The house has gone and her ma is in the Stanley Hospital, pretty badly injured. So we’d best get this lot shifted as quickly as we can while I tell you what Mrs Ryan said to me – that’s Debbie’s mother – when I visited her this morning.’
The next time Debbie awoke it was because her chest was so tight that it hurt her, and also because she was suddenly conscious of a scraping noise. Wildly, she felt around, and her hands met Dusty’s rear end. As he felt her touch, his tail wagged quickly twice, but then stopped, and Debbie realised that he was digging. Even as the thought occurred to her, she felt something cool against her cheek. It was fresh air, penetrating into their tiny prison cell, from somewhere outside. So there were people trying to dig their way down to them! She longed to lay the baby down so that she might help the dog in his efforts, but she was afraid either she or Dusty might inadvertently step on her and do her some mortal harm. However, she moved the child from her right arm to her left and tried to discover exactly where the dog was digging. The baby gave a little choking gasp and moved her head, and Debbie thought, fearfully, that they simply must get out soon. She remembered her mother telling her that babies are tough little things, but she also remembered that even tough little things need food and fresh air to stay alive. Carefully, she resisted the urge to hold the baby even tighter, and moved her free hand back to Dusty. He had discovered a seam of earth, no more than six inches wide, between two concrete blocks and was scraping away vigorously, and now Debbie could hear, faint and far away, men’s voices and, once, a distant shout.
Hope, which had almost died, reasserted itself and the urge to shout and yell, to make some effort to draw the rescuers towards her, was almost unbearable. Debbie resisted it. No point in wasting what little energy she had left; she would wait until she could see the whites of their eyes – that was what they always said in cowboy films – before beginning to bellow. She did try to help Dusty in his excavations, but this was not a success and he elbowed her aside impatiently, then thrust his nose deep into the hole he was making, and inhaled noisily. Then he sat back on his haunches, panting, and she could imagine the brightness of his eyes and the earth with which his face must be smeared. Tentatively, she put her face closer to the crack between the concrete blocks, and as she breathed in the clean air she felt the tightness in her chest ease, and told herself that rescue would definitely come, that all she needed was patience. As soon as she could make out an individual voice she would start shouting, but until then she, Baby and Dusty must simply wait.
It was late afternoon before the rescuers were able to enter what was left of the shelter and begin to bring bodies out. Grim-faced, they laid their grisly burdens in rows along the pavement and it was not long before Dicky grabbed Pete’s arm. ‘Gwen were wearin’ a pink dress and she had a pink celluloid hair slide,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Can you look for me, old mate? Only some of ’em’s in such a state I wouldn’t be no wiser, if you know what I mean.’
Pete nodded. He went along the road slowly and returned to Dicky within a very few minutes. Dicky’s face was pale and his eyes were haunted by the horrors he had already seen. ‘I think I’ve found her,’ Pete told him quietly. ‘Her face isn’t touched. She looks to be around fifteen and she’s wearing a pink cotton frock – at least I guess it’s cotton – and there’s a pink slide in her hair. Look, old chap, I truly think you should come. After all, someone’s got to tell her parents and you’re the only one around here who can actually identify her.’ He led Dicky over to where the girl lay and Dicky looked down at her, almost with disbelief, for as Pete had said there was no outward sign of what had caused her death; she simply looked as though she was sleeping.
Dicky bent down and stroked the hair from her forehead, then straightened up. ‘Goodbye, old girl,’ he said huskily and Pete saw that he was crying, but he rubbed his eyes with the heels of both hands and then turned his dirt-smeared face to his companion. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he muttered. ‘But she were a good kid and I were fond of her. The other gal . . . Debbie, weren’t it . . . was wearing pink as well, I think. You say you’ve never met her? Well, she had real lovely hair, with a sort of reddish tinge . . . no, now I come to think she were wearing a green frock, that stuff with a pattern of tiny little squares – gingham, ain’t it? And she had a ribbon of the same material tying back her hair from her face.’ He glanced quickly, shrinkingly almost, along the row of bodies. ‘She ain’t here, but there’s still more down below. We’d best keep on helping until they’ve gorr’em all out. One of the wardens said this shelter holds around a hundred and they’ve only brought forty out so far.’ He turned a suddenly desperate face to Pete. ‘Oh, gawd, I’ve just remembered. Gwen’s mam’s spendin’ a few days in North Wales with the little ’uns; someone’s goin’ to have to find her and I reckon it’ll have to be me.’
Debbie sat in the darkness, which was no longer total, and waited. The dog had dug and dug, occasionally whining and coming over to her as though he longed to be able to speak, to tell her what he saw or sensed ahead. But still the voices had not come near enough to make out so much as a single word. Things in the prison cell were better, however, for the prisoners had both fresh air, though it was dusty and smelt of brick rubble and soot, and a little light. It was just sufficient for Debbie to make out the baby lying in her lap and the great tangled mass of reinforced concrete, bricks, pipes and earth that had cut her off from the rest of the shelter. But suddenly the light grew less because Dusty was jamming himself into the impossibly small space between the two concrete blocks. He struggled and whined, and suddenly he barked sharply, twice, and Debbie could almost imagine the words he was saying. ‘Give me a push, you stupid girl; I’m almost there, I just need a bit of help.’ Debbie put her shoulder against the dog’s rump and gave a rather half-hearted push. Dusty barked again, and almost as though she had understood the meaning behind the bark Debbie twisted round, put both hands against his rear, and shoved with all her might. For a moment, nothing happened, then the dog gave a wriggle and disappeared into the cavity he had excavated, doing it so suddenly that Debbie, taken by surprise, fell forward and clouted her head on one of the concrete blocks. Ruefully rubbing what would doubtless turn out to be a tremendous bruise, she sat back on her haunches and let sheer relief wash over her. Dusty was a good dog; she knew he would never desert her and the baby. And he was intelligent; he would make those outside understand that there were people buried in the shelter. He would bring help. She hoped it would be soon, because now that light was filtering into their prison cell once more she could see that the baby was distressed. Carefully, she dipped her slip into the enamel jug – the water was now filthy, or perhaps it always had been – and pushed a corner of the material into the baby’s mouth. The little creature sucked vigorously for a moment, then stopped and stared up at Debbie with wide reproachful eyes. She wants milk and all I’m offering is dirty water, Debbie thought despairingly. Oh, please God, let someone find Dusty soon and come searching. Don’t let Baby and me die down here in the dark!
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