Spook's Gold (31 page)

Chapter Thirty One

He heard the drone of the Typhoon engines, the flattening of the note, the signal that they had settled into their attack trajectory. He was in a field beside the stationary train, stretchers holding mangled, bloody bodies were lined up alongside the track. What had happened?  Had they been attacked already?  He knew that he should help carry the wounded away from the train, away from the approaching menace, but he was alone with no one to help him. How could he carry a stretcher on his own?

The ground shook and just a fraction of a second later he heard the percussion of the explosion. There was almost no gap between the sensation and the sound, so they must be very close. Another explosion shook him. No, no, come on you know that this is just a dream, let it go, let.....

He was awoken by the impact of hitting the floor, flat on his front. He had been lifted and ejected from the bed and thumped onto the threadbare rug in a tangle of hot, quilted bedding. There was an ear-shattering explosion and flash of light, the heavy curtains ballooned inwards. He heard crunching wood and shrieking glass as the entire curtain, its mounting pole and the glass and debris that had collected in the curtain fabric crashed onto the floor beside him. He rose to his feet but a blast of heat and rush of air from yet another explosion hurled him into the door. He heard planes roar overhead, the thud and boom of bombs detonating close by made the walls and floor tremble anew. In addition to that he could hear a different noise, heavy cannons or artillery firing; was that the ground defence firing at the planes?

He yanked open the door and lunged out of his room, colliding with Lemele who was standing on the landing in her nightgown, her hair and eyes wild. They untangled themselves and he took her hand and started pulling her towards the stairs. She protested that she needed her clothes and a coat, but he shouted over the din that there was no time and kept dragging on her hand, overcoming her resistance. Half a flight down they were blocked by a jam of bodies, the stairway now alive and heaving with the other residents in various states of dress and undress, shouting and cursing and punching on the shoulders of those in front in their panic. The queue of people on the stairs had stopped; someone below had stumbled and their legs were tangled through the stair rails. The house trembled with each explosion; plaster dust was falling, creating a crazy effect like powdered snow floating down on a dark night, there being little illumination in the stairway.

Finally they reached the ground floor and a choice; some had gone out through the open front door, others had gone in the opposite direction along the hallway to exit via the kitchen into the rear yard. There was a lull in the noise and he heard the wild whinnying of the panicked horse in the yard and that settled the decision. He turned for the front door, still grasping her wrist. As he stepped across the threshold he felt rubble and stones and shards of glass cutting into the soles of his feet, realising that he was only wearing the thick socks that he wore inside his boots. He whirled and looked down, seeing in the light from fires in the street that Lemele was barefoot. “Hop up into my arms!” he instructed, releasing her hand and settling his arms into a ready cradle.

“What?! Why do I....”

“There’s glass everywhere! You’ll cut your feet to shreds if you try to walk out here. Come on – they’re coming back!”

She too heard the increasing volume of aeroplane engines and leapt up into his arms. The explosions had started again; the planes had gone around and were now coming back for a second run. There was a tremendous bang above their head, the impact of something on the roof of the house judging from the clatter and crunching of breaking roof tiles. The noise grew louder, rising to a deep rumbling from above and he reflexively stepped back into the open doorway, Lemele still in his arms. An avalanche of slates thundered down into the yard outside the house where they had been standing just moments before, smashing into the bare earth of the yard and crushing the iron railings around it. When the chute of tiles ceased, he stepped out into the thick swirling cloud of dust, picked his way through the crust of rubble that was all over the road outside the house, avoiding as best he could the patches of glass that glittered like ice shards in the firelight.

Fires were raging in the vicinity of the station and the buildings around it. Marner looked for a potentially safe direction to go, any building or construction that might give them shelter. Further along the street in the opposite direction to the station, which seemed to be the focus of the attacks, was most logical. He had taken only a few steps when one of the houses fifty metres ahead of them was hit. He saw the flash of the bomb burst through the windows and then a moment later the entire front wall belched outwards like a wave, separating first into individual bricks, then into tiny pieces of stone, then dust, all backlit by the fiery orange flash of the high explosive. Marner spun on his heel to take the blast with his back, sheltering Lemele as best he could in the curvature of his cradling arms and shoulders. As he wheeled around he felt a sharp pain as something dug into his foot, barely had a moment to register before a huge blow struck him on his back, and then all went black.

----

When Marner awoke, he was lying on his back in the road. Looking up at the sky that was semi-dark, he wondered if it was dawn or if he had been lying here all day and it was now dusk again. His head thumped and his vision swam; he could hear nothing except for a ringing that reverberated through his whole head. Gently turning his head to one side to look along the street, he was surprised to see so much activity going on around him, since he could hear nothing of it. People were wandering around dazed; civilians and soldiers in a mix of attire, mostly dusty and dirty nightclothes, some blood-stained. He rose up on one elbow and the world lurched, along with his stomach which was threatening to eject the remains of Madame Pinault’s soup and bread. To quell his head and stomach he resorted to breathing very gently through his nose and fixed his eyes on a lump of rubble, actually an amalgam of several bricks still cemented together, laying just a metre away from him on the dusty ground. Was that what had hit him?  It could not be; that thing would have killed anyone in its path.

Up on one elbow he could now look in the opposite direction along the road, towards the house that he had seen explode. That was now a pile of rubble with a nest of splintered roof beams crowning it. The house adjacent to it had lost the entire front wall; the contents, beds, floor rugs and furniture were spilled out in mid-air, over the ragged ends of the beams and floorboards of the rooms below. There were people, presumably local civilian militia because they were wearing arm-bands, picking through the rubble of the destroyed house. A young woman wept uncontrollably in the arms of another; had she lost someone in the house, or it was the loss of the house itself?

Just as he was considering trying to sit up fully and see how his head and stomach reacted, Lemele arrived at his side. Although he could see her mouth moving, as well as the concern in her eyes, her tangled hair gritty with dust, he could hear nothing that she said. Marner pointed to his ear and shook his head, setting off a wave of pounding and nausea that made it clear that such movements were not to be repeated. She was still in her nightgown but had somewhere found an overcoat to fling over it and a pair of men’s boots, comically large.

She was pushing him back down, apparently wanting him to rest. He felt a faint vibration through the ground and turned his head to find the source; it was a large army truck that was stopping twenty metres away. Two soldiers jumped down from the drivers cab and then assisted a group of army nurses down from the covered rear of the vehicle. They set to work with the injured that were scattered around the street, some already on pallets.

Grasping her wrist, he kept his voice as low as he could but it was difficult to gauge since he could not hear the exact volume himself, “No officials, and no questions.”

She looked at him, momentarily confused until she realised what he meant and nodded her understanding. So that when one of the orderlies arrived at his side, she told him that Marner was just stunned and that they should occupy themselves with the more seriously injured first. He moved away and Marner concentrated on his breathing, willing his head to stop whirling. There was no pain anywhere except his head and he verified this by lifting each leg and arm, one at a time into the air and then lowering it, as if he were warming up for a callisthenics session. Up onto his elbow once more he beckoned for Lemele to help pull him up to a sitting position. Once this was achieved he paused for a minute, breathing slowly and keeping his eyes fixed on the same block of bricks. Then he motioned her to help him up onto his feet. As he gained height above the ground the thrumming in his head amplified but it was tolerable. He had no idea what had hit him in the back and was mystified and even suspicious as to why he felt no pain there.

Now fully upright with Lemele hanging onto to his arm, he stepped forward and was gratified to find that his legs functioned. Each step resulted in a jolt that made his head wobble and resound with clamouring bells and he resolved to walk carefully and softly, necessary anyway with so much debris littering the ground. He was now aware of a stinging pain in his right heel and was forced to lift up and walk on only the ball of his foot. Lemele noticed his uneven gait as they weaved and staggered across the field of rubble like two drunks clinging to one another at the end of an almighty night on the town. She asked him what was wrong and on getting no reply swung her face around to make eye contact and raised her free hand to point down at his foot. He shook his head and continued to hobble on, leaving her with no choice but to move with him.

They reached the guest house which showed no signs of structural damage to the walls, even though all of the windows were broken or entirely caved in and the majority of the roof tiles from the front side of the house were in the front yard and over the adjoining section of road. “We have to go and get our things,” he shouted. Lemele pantomimed putting her fingers in her ears and crinkling up her face to give him the message that he was talking too loudly. He set to laughing at her gesture, which along with her grime-streaked face gave her a grubby, urchin-like appearance. She theorised aloud that he must be in shock, which he could not hear and she could not think how to mime or translate with hand motions.

Climbing the stairs, he could not hear the creaks but Lemele was certain that they were louder and more alarming than the evening before. She clung to the banister for fear that something might collapse, although the banister was loose enough that it might be the most likely structure to give way.

They looked into Lemele’s room first and found the damage to be minimal; the windows had broken but the tape on them and the drawn curtains had prevented too much glass spreading around. Marner’s room was a disaster; as well the remains of the window and frame that had been blown in to the room, the block of flying debris that had pounded onto the roof causing the tiles to fall had gone on to punch through the ceiling plaster. The jagged edge of this lump of masonry was protruding from between the exposed wooden joists in the ceiling above.

As Marner stepped gingerly across the threshold a creak came from above and a shower of dust sprinkled down, indicating that it was not stable. Lemele pulled him back and used her hands to indicate that he should stay on the landing. She went into her room and closed the door, which repeatedly swung open due to the door frame having buckled out of true. She bade him turn around to face the other way with a twirling motion of her hand and a mock stern look on her face. He did as instructed and waited whilst she changed and packed her few things into her bag.

When Lemele reappeared beside him again she motioned once again for him to remain there. With her lighter weight she had a better chance of moving around in Marner’s room without bringing down debris, as well as being able to hear if anything was shifting around above. Keeping her back to the wall, she skirted carefully around the edge of the room to the wardrobe which was standing with the doors jammed open by the wrecked window. His clothes that were hanging inside were dusty but undamaged, as was his travel bag which was in the bottom of the wardrobe. Lemele lifted these out, stepped around the tangled mess of fabric and wood and returned to the landing with them. He yelled, “Thanks. We also need the gun and papers, on the bedside table.”  Lemele located them after a brief search under the bed.

Marner was struggling to get into his uniform trousers. The problem was that he needed to lift his left leg up, but was struggling to balance on his injured right foot. She made him sit down on the floor and lifted his right foot up to look at the heel pad, pulling off the torn sock to have a clearer view. The wound was dirty and bloody and so she motioned him to stay there whilst she disappeared downstairs, returning a minute later with Monsieur Pinault’s bottle of eau-de-vie. When she poured some over the cut he yelped with the stinging of the alcohol and tried to tug away. Lemele hung on tight to his ankle and poured out more, wanting to be certain that the wound was clean.

Marner put out his hand for the bottle and she guessed that he wanted a swig. After a quick mental debate she put the bottle down behind her, out of his reach. Lemele was convinced that he must have at least a mild concussion; he had been out cold for maybe ten minutes and was unsteady on his feet. From her medical training she was aware of the need to keep concussion patients away from alcohol. In this way any symptoms of complications or degradation of the patient’s state that might indicate internal cranial trauma or bleeding, such as dizziness or slurred speech, could be clearly attributed to the injury and not to the alcohol. He frowned at this denial of a drink but decided to just put up with it and so lay back and left her to her ministrations.

Now that the wound was clean, Lemele could see that there was a shard of glass embedded in the fleshy pad of his heel. In her wash bag she found her old tweezers and doused them in the liquor. Taking up his foot again she tried to grasp the shard with the tweezers, discovering that they were not sturdy enough, as well as the glass being slippery with blood. Something more robust was required to enable her to get some leverage under the object, and so the tweezers were exchanged for her nail scissors.