While We're Apart (31 page)

She sounded like Lady Bracknell at her most imperious, and Mary had to bite her lip as Ivy spluttered behind her hand.

‘I am terribly disappointed in you, Mary. I thought that as the respectable daughter of a vicar, you would have had higher aspirations than a night in a common public house.' She looked down her nose at them. ‘I don't know what my friend Lady Chumley would say if she heard about your questionable behaviour. It's really most upsetting.'

Mary didn't reply, for she couldn't have cared less what she thought.

‘Go to bed, the pair of you. We will discuss this further in the morning.'

They didn't need to be told twice and moments later they were collapsed on their beds in fits of giggles – which they had to smother in their pillows in case she heard them, and came in to berate them further.

‘Lawks almighty, Mary,' spluttered Ivy some time later, ‘I ain't seen nothing like that since
The
Monster from the Deep
, at the pictures.'

Mary buried her face in her pillow as a fresh bout of giggling overtook her. She was so glad she had Ivy to share with.

Ron had stayed at the Anchor to help Rosie and the two barmaids clear the wreckage of the party in the basement and tidy up the bar. It had been a very busy night and he was feeling his age suddenly, for he was an early riser and it had been a long day.

‘I do like little Mary,' said Rosie after she'd locked the front door and they finally had the place to themselves. ‘She did very well tonight, considering how young she is, and it hasn't done my takings any harm either.'

‘To be sure it was great to hear them all singing,' Ron replied. ‘'Tis a good thing to forget your troubles in these difficult times, if only for an hour or two.' He eyed her quizzically. ‘I suppose you'll be wanting her to come again?'

‘She's already agreed to that,' she said as she slipped off her high heels and wriggled her toes. ‘So I might need you to help behind the bar again tomorrow.'

‘Aye, well, I'll be glad to lend a hand, Rosie, but for now I must take meself off to bed.' He put his arms round her and held her close, then softly kissed her. ‘Sleep well,
Acushla
, and try to dream of me and not all that money dropping into your till,' he teased gently.

‘Get away with you, Ron Reilly,' she giggled. She kissed his lips and led him out towards the side door. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.'

He went out with Harvey at his heels, waited to hear her shoot the bolt in place on the other side of the door, and then sauntered down the street. It was a cold night, the stench of burning polluting the air, the accompanying smoke veiling the bright stars. The silence was disrupted by the urgent clang of bells, and he realised the emergency services must still be dealing with whatever had been hit down on the seafront.

Harvey seemed to have made it his aim to water every lamp post and downpipe along the way, and as he'd been cooped up all night, Ron thought his dog might appreciate a bit of a stroll down to the seafront before they went home. If they were still fighting the fire, they might need some help – although he doubted he could do much tonight after being on his feet all day.

After the smoky fug of the crowded bar he found that the cold night air had revived him somewhat, so he dug out his pipe from his pocket and paused for a moment to light it before heading down the hill. The sea rolled like molten lava beneath the glow of the moon, the surf splashing on the shingle as regularly as a heartbeat. The sound soothed him, for he'd spent his younger years at sea, and he felt at one with it.

But as he reached the bottom of the road he came to an abrupt halt. His contented mood fled, to be replaced by one of horror.

The four-storey Grand Hotel and the two boarding houses beside it had been reduced to nothing more than an obscene pile of smoking, blackened rubble. It was like a scene from Dante's
Inferno
, for dark figures were moving about within the swirling grey and ebony smoke and orange flames, their shapes distorted by their protective clothing, giving them the look of twisted demons.

Five fire engines had arrived, as well as the usual rescue wardens and the engineers from the electricity and gas boards. Even the doughty ladies from the WVS were there in their new motorised wagon to hand out tea, biscuits and sandwiches.

As Ron stood frozen in shock, an ambulance pulled away with a screech of tyres and a stridently clanging bell. He knew that the boarding houses had been closed down for the duration, but had recently been requisitioned to house some of the homeless who had been camping out at the Town Hall.

As for the hotel – it would have been packed on a Friday night, with people having dinner or drinks and dancing in the magnificent ballroom. And although they had a shelter in the basement, it would have offered no security at all against a direct hit – and there was very little doubt that this was what had happened.

He peered through the choking, acrid smoke still coming from the remains, and spotted young Rita, who was working furiously alongside her colleagues to put out the last of the flames so that the emergency heavy-lifting crews and rescue services could go in to try and find any survivors.

‘Holy Mother of God,' he breathed as he quickly put out his pipe. ‘Come on, Harvey. They'll need all the help they can get.'

But Harvey was nowhere in sight, and as Ron hurried towards the fire chief, John Hicks, he finally spotted him nosing about in the rubble of the second boarding house. Knowing he would bark if he found anything, Ron left him to it. ‘What can I do, John?'

‘It's a bad one, Ron,' he replied, his handsome young face drawn with anxiety and streaked with soot and sweat. ‘We've managed to get everyone out of the boarding houses, and accounted for those that were missing, but we have no idea how many are trapped down there in the hotel basement.'

Ron eyed the smoking devastation, certain that no one could possibly have survived. ‘Has
anyone
got out?'

‘More than we could have hoped for, but we still had twenty casualties and ten fatalities.' John gave a deep sigh. ‘God alone knows what we'll find in there.' He looked round at his hard-working colleagues and watched them for a moment. ‘I shall need you and Harvey's nose to help the rescue crew once the heavy-lifting team have made that cellar ceiling safe.'

Ron nodded and looked around for the dog. He was still rummaging in the rubble of the boarding houses. ‘Harvey,' he shouted. ‘Stop messing about and come here.'

Harvey ignored him, his nose to the ground as he anxiously circled a particular spot. His ears were pricked and his hackles were high. He was on the trail of something.

‘Blasted dog,' muttered Ron. ‘Leave it, I said,' he roared. ‘Come here.'

Harvey whined and started to scrabble into the heart of the rubble, and before Ron could stop him, managed to wriggle beneath a precarious pile of charred timber and shattered bricks and then disappeared.

Ron was furious, for John had said everyone from the boarding houses had been accounted for, and if Harvey was busy chasing vermin instead of concentrating on his job properly, he'd stop his biscuits for a week.

He stomped over the debris, his boots sliding over sharp-edged bricks and broken masonry as he approached the place where Harvey had disappeared. There was a narrow tunnel burrowing beneath the wreckage. ‘Harvey, get your hairy arse out of there this minute,' he yelled down it.

There was a muffled bark from deep beneath the shifting, treacherous rubble, and Ron became really afraid that his dog might get buried. ‘Ach, you heathen beast,' he muttered. ‘Will you come outta there before this lot falls on top of you?' he shouted down.

There was no answering bark this time, but as Ron lay carefully on the debris and put his ear to the tunnel entrance, he could hear the dog whining and the scrabble of paws. It sounded as if Harvey was stuck and couldn't get out.

Ron began to dig furiously, praying that the whole mess didn't cave in and bury them both, for it was slippery with water and sliding and collapsing beneath him every time he moved. Careless for his own safety, he began chucking bricks, mortar, window frames, lead piping and masonry aside. Scrabbling with his bare hands, he tried desperately to make the hole bigger so that Harvey could climb out. He could still hear the dog whining piteously, and he was almost blinded by tears of frustration as the tunnel never seemed to get any bigger and the debris shifted and swayed beneath him.

‘I need help over here,' he shouted. ‘Harvey's stuck and this lot is about to collapse.'

Rita and three others came rushing over. But before they could even reach him, Harvey's head appeared and after a momentary scramble, he emerged with something firmly clasped in his mouth. He gently placed the bundle in Ron's open arms, stood and wagged his tail, gave a bark and shot straight back down the hole again before anyone could stop him.

Ron looked in stunned disbelief from the bundle in his arms to the hole where his beloved dog had disappeared.

‘Oh my God,' breathed Rita. ‘It's a baby. Is it alive?'

Ron pulled back the filthy blanket, stroked the tiny cold, dirty face and felt a pulse in the delicate neck. ‘Yes,' he said softly as he hastily wrapped the infant back in the blanket and handed it over to her. ‘Get her to the ambulance, quickly,' he ordered. ‘She's very cold and her pulse is weak.'

He watched Rita stumbling over the rubble with the bundle clasped tightly to her chest, and once she'd handed it over to the ambulance crew he turned his attention back to Harvey, who was barking determinedly deep underground. ‘There must be someone else down there,' he said anxiously. ‘Quick, get more help to shift this lot.'

As more willing hands came to remove the piles of broken masonry, bricks, mortar and wood, Harvey continued to bark. ‘We're coming,' shouted Ron as he threw aside a length of lead drainpipe.

The sad remnants of clothes and toys lay charred and twisted amid the chaos. As they dug and cleared, they found ruined photographs and letters, a delicate dancing shoe – and a baby's rattle.

‘Dear God,' breathed Rita, who was working frantically beside Ron. ‘I hope she's still alive down there.'

‘I thought you'd accounted for everyone?' he rasped as the dust and smoke filled his mouth and nose and made his lungs ache.

‘We thought we had, but a chap's just turned up from the billeting office to verify things, and it seems a young woman and her baby were due to move into the basement room tonight. She must have gone in without anyone seeing her. But why, why didn't she get out when the sirens went?'

Ron didn't reply, for he could barely breathe, let alone talk – and people had grown careless over the past months once the raids had tailed off. He continued to clear the tunnel, urged on by Harvey's anxious barking. Once it was big enough to get a man through it, Ron took off his coat and grabbed the rope. ‘He's my dog. I'll do it,' he said in tones that brooked no argument.

The rope was tied in a noose round his waist, the slack taken up by two burly firemen who would bear the strain should the debris collapse beneath him. After several deep breaths, he took a torch from John Hicks, knelt down and began to crawl along the steeply sloping tunnel that was as black as sin and claustrophobically narrow.

It reminded him of the tunnels they'd dug in the first war so they could lay mines beneath enemy territory, and those nightmare memories made him stop for a moment. His pulse was racing, and all the old terrors had returned, for he'd once been buried in a tunnel like this, and it had taken many hours before they'd managed to dig him out. Now, he had no idea of how deep he would have to go, or what he might find there. But Harvey needed him. He had to overcome his fears and get on with it.

His hand was slippery with sweat and shaking as he switched on the torch. The powerful beam swept unsteadily over the unstable surface of the surrounding tunnel that sloped alarmingly down towards what looked like the remains of a cellar. And there was Harvey, his eyes shining in the reflected light as he stood protectively over the prone figure of a woman.

‘Good boy,' Ron soothed as the dog whined and nudged the woman with his paw. ‘I can see them,' he shouted back to the others. ‘Another few feet and I'm there.'

More torches shone down the tunnel as Ron scrambled towards the pair, but the wavering beams simply made the scene even more macabre. He pulled off the rope and ruffled Harvey's head. ‘Good lad,' he praised, before kneeling next to the young girl whose clothes had been ripped from her in the blast.

She was lying too still beneath the shattered concrete and brick, and her face was ghostly white in the torchlight. Covered in blood, her leg was clearly broken and there was a deep gash on her forehead.

Harvey sat and panted as Ron touched her neck to see if he could find a pulse. It was there, but very faint and irregular. ‘Send the stretcher down,' he yelled. ‘She's alive, but only just.'

The stretcher slithered down the tunnel, hauled by Rita, who'd shed her heavy protective clothing and wore little more than trousers and a vest.

‘Why have they sent you?' asked a horrified Ron.

‘I'm the only one left that's small enough to fit through that, and someone had to bring the stretcher,' she said calmly. She knelt by the girl, felt the thready pulse and nodded. ‘We'd better move quickly before we lose her,' she muttered.

They lifted away the debris that had almost buried her and put her gently on the stretcher. Placing a blanket over the girl's almost naked body, Rita buckled the straps firmly and then tied the end of the rope that had been round her waist to the end of the stretcher. ‘Pull her up,' she shouted. ‘But carefully. The whole tunnel is deteriorating.'

Ron stroked Harvey's head as they watched Rita slowly crawl up the tunnel behind the stretcher, her guiding hand keeping it from hitting the crumbling sides. Once they'd got to the many willing hands who reached out to help, Ron gave a deep sigh of relief.