by Laura Wilson
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.
‘Those must have been the Lightollers,’ said Smithie, shifting more rubble, ‘so now we’re looking for Mrs Ingram.’ He paused again to listen, and shook his head. ‘You all right in there?’ he called. ‘Not long now.’
Again, the faint wailing sound.
‘She got a husband or anyone who can come down and talk to her?’ asked Smithie. ‘Sometimes that helps.’
‘Away,’ said Stratton. ‘I don’t think there is anyone else, unless the vicar—’
‘Sod that. Still…’ He handed Stratton a full basket. ‘Get cracking, will you?’
‘Right.’
After twenty minutes’ further rubble-clearing, the ends of Stratton’s fingers were raw and his knuckles bleeding profusely. His arms and shoulders felt as though they were on fire, and his lower back ached from bending over, but, just as he thought he couldn’t carry on for even another minute, Smithie said, ‘Right, I can see her. Pass it back.’
Stratton did as instructed and then, inching towards Smithie, said, ‘Where?’
‘Down here. Watch out, you’re on top of her – get back a bit.’ Stratton jerked backwards, appalled, smacked his head against a clump of bricks, and swore.
‘I don’t think it’s her head,’ said Smithie. ‘She must be laying the other way. Can you talk, love? Can you hear us?’
Silence. ‘Stop shifting about,’ said Smithie, ‘I can’t hear.’ Stratton, a crick in his neck and his thighs protesting as he squatted in the confined space, kept as still as he could. Without warning, Smithie bent forward and began scrabbling energetically, like a dog after a buried bone. ‘I think she’s still with us,’ he panted. ‘Come on, give us a hand.’
A further ten minutes’ work, accompanied by increasingly loud creaking noises from above which Stratton tried to ignore, revealed the slight body of what looked like a young girl. She lay with one hand bent behind her head and her legs pulled up so that she formed a gentle S curve. She was entirely grey – like a plaster relief, Stratton thought. Peaceful, like something one might see on a gravestone.
Smithie took up her unresisting hand and felt the wrist for a pulse. ‘Still there,’ he said, ‘but only just. No room
for a doctor in here. Have to get her to the bottom of the shaft before the bloody lot caves in. Get hold of the feet – I’ll manage this end.’
Stratton looked at him doubtfully. ‘Come on,’ said Smithie, irritated, ‘get on with it – don’t want the whole fucking lot down on your head, do you? Just be thankful she won’t be much of a weight.’
Crawling backwards on knees and elbows in the pitch dark, tugging on the woman’s ankles, while Smithie pushed, the short distance to the base of the shaft seemed to last an eternity. Mrs Ingram moaned slightly, but didn’t regain consciousness, despite the bumps.
Finally, Stratton heard, ‘All right, you’re there. Get clear,’ and, with huge relief, straightened his back, blinking in the light from several torches being shone down into the shaft. ‘Get out of the bloody way,’ yelled Smithie from behind. ‘We need a doctor.’
Stratton stood upright with an effort and flattened himself against the side of the shaft as the doctor was lowered down, looking incongruous with his dark coat over his pyjamas, his tin hat and black bag. It wasn’t, Stratton saw, Dr Makepeace, but the retired senior partner, elderly and shakily uncertain in his movements. He knelt unsteadily to feel the woman’s pulse and ran his fingers over the limbs and the hair, which was matted with dust and blood into a pink paste. He grimaced, shook his head, then, moving with surprising deftness, jammed a hypodermic into the grey, encrusted flesh of her arm. ‘That’s the best I can do,’ he said. ‘Nothing broken, as far as I can see. Get her out.’
Stratton could now see that the woman’s nightdress was ripped off at the thigh, so that the legs were exposed. The doctor called for blankets, and they managed to wrap her and get the ropes around her, so that, like the others, she could be borne upwards and stretchered away to the ambulance.
Smithie got himself upright, using Stratton as support, and they scrambled up the rickety ladder that had been lowered. Stratton could feel Smithie behind him, shoving him roughly upwards, all the while intoning, ‘Come on, move your arse.’ They’d just made it to the top when there was a crash behind them and several tons of rubble, dislodged from the other side of the shaft, roared downwards, obscuring it entirely.
‘Christ!’ shouted Smithie, from somewhere around Stratton’s knees. ‘Too fucking close for comfort, if you ask me.’
‘You all right?’ Stratton pulled him to his feet. Smithie only came up to the middle of his chest.
‘Blimey,’ he said, looking up. ‘Surprised you didn’t get stuck and all. You’re too big for this work, mate. Who sent you down?’
‘The man in charge.’
‘Bit irregular, that. Still, never mind.’
The doctor peered at them through dusty glasses and said, ‘Inspector Stratton, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
Smithie’s face was a picture – the eyes flew open in consternation. ‘You a policeman?’ he asked. ‘Sorry I was ordering you about like that, but—’
‘No need to apologise,’ said Stratton. ‘You knew what you were doing, I didn’t.’
‘Glad there’s no hard feelings,’ said Smithie. ‘We got the job done, at any rate, didn’t we? Better climb off this lot before anything else happens.’
Back on the pavement, Stratton, who felt as if he’d swallowed most of a rotten blanket, was glad to be given a milk bottle full of water to rinse his mouth. As he spat out the last of it, he saw Jenny pushing her way through the crowd. Fiercely and wordlessly she embraced him, holding him so tightly that, when she finally let go, he saw that she, too, was coated with plaster. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m here. Let’s go home, shall we?’
She nodded, clutching his arm. They said goodnight to the rescue squad, and to Doris and Donald, and went home in the feeble dawn light in silence. As they walked, Stratton felt a strange feeling of elation come over him. It was the events of the night, he knew, but somehow it felt like being drunk – the early stages, at least. A light, reckless feeling, an exultation such as he hadn’t experienced in a long time. When they reached their garden gate he stopped and pulled Jenny round to face him. He could see, from the way her eyes sparkled, that she was experiencing something similar.
‘We’re alive,’ he said, drawing her towards him.
‘Yes.’ Jenny put her hands on his arms. ‘I was so worried. We could see all this earth going into the hole, and people kept saying it was going to collapse on top of you…Doris kept telling me you’d be OK, but I don’t think she believed it, and we really thought…You were only just in time, Ted, getting out. Was it horrible down there? It looked pretty grim, what they brought up.’
‘Mmm.’ Stratton tried to embrace her.
Jenny pushed him away. ‘Not in the street. People might be looking.’
‘Who cares?’ said Stratton, and took her into his arms.
‘I think,’ said Jenny, when they’d shut the front door behind them, ‘that I’d better run you a bath.’ She sounded serious, but her face was full of mischief. ‘We heard “Raiders passed” while you were down the hole, so it’ll be safe to go upstairs.’
‘And I think,’ said Stratton, taking her hand, ‘that you’d better join me. You don’t look any too clean yourself.’
Jenny stared at him, scandalised, for about ten seconds, then laughed. ‘I don’t think we’ll both fit.’
‘We can have a damn good try,’ said Stratton. ‘Go on.’ He gave her bottom a slap. ‘Run the bath.’
When Stratton came upstairs, Jenny was standing by the bath, monitoring the water to make sure it didn’t go over the five-inch-high black line marked on the porcelain. When he came up behind her and put his arms round her, she gasped.
‘Sorry, love, I didn’t mean to give you a shock.’
‘No, it’s not that – your poor hands! They look like pieces of meat.’
‘Moving all that stuff. You can put something on them later. And leave that tap on, for God’s sake – we’ll need a bloody sight more hot water than that to shift this lot. And,’ Stratton nuzzled the back of her neck, ‘you’ll have to wash me. I can’t do it myself.’
‘I suppose,’ said Jenny, sounding severe, ‘you need me to undress you, too.’
‘Sounds like a good idea.’
Jenny laughed and wriggled round to face him. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Keep still.’
Jenny got into the bath behind Stratton – it was a tight squeeze, but they managed it – washed his hair, and soaped his back. Despite the bathroom’s chilliness, her breasts felt warm against his skin…‘What about the front?’ he asked.
‘Don’t be impatient,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m going from the top down.’
‘I should point out,’ said Stratton, ‘that some things are nearer the top than they were five minutes ago.’
Jenny giggled.
The water was like black soup by the time they got out. By then they were too engrossed to go back downstairs to the Morrison shelter. Stratton simply picked Jenny up, ignoring her protests, carried her across the landing, and laid her down on their double bed.
Three
Stratton was exhausted, and it was only seven in the morning. Hardly surprising since he’d been up most of the night, and his raw knuckles ached like buggery, but dragging himself to the bathroom had seemed to take the same amount of effort as climbing a mountain.
Yet another wet morning, and the bathroom was cold, as usual. You’d never know it was summer, thought Stratton. Standing shirtless before the basin, he screwed up one side of his face and scraped at it, ineffectually, with the blunt blade. He gave up, dropped the razor into the grey water and eyed himself in the mirror: with bags under his blue eyes and a much-mended vest, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Not that he’d ever been a matinée idol, even as a younger man – his looks were always too rugged for that, and the nose, broken early, had put paid to any chance of refined handsomeness. At six foot three he was taller than most, broad shouldered and, thanks to nature and a lot of hard work on the allotment, muscular, but all the same
…Thirty-nine, he thought, and I’m starting to look like an old man. At least – the thought made him grin – Jenny doesn’t seem to mind. He ran a hand through his hair – still thick and still, mostly, black, which was something to be grateful for, anyway – then bent down to pull out the plug and clean the basin before padding back to the bedroom to put on his shirt.
Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time, unless you counted about twenty minutes in the small hours of this morning – Stratton grinned again – when he hadn’t felt tired. The fatigue was partly physical but mainly, he thought, the mental weariness engendered by a world of constant discomfort, dirt and scarcity: clothing that was darned and frayed; battered, rickety furniture; houses – those still standing – falling to pieces from neglect, buses and tube trains crammed with heavy-eyed, putty-faced people…Even the girls looked shabby, hair done up in scarves, dressed in slacks or with bare legs, which, in cold weather, were marbled pink and white like potted meat. And the trees, too, despite their green leaves, looked dusty and tired.
Except the ones in Larkin Avenue, of course. He hadn’t been able to see last night, but he was fairly sure they wouldn’t have any leaves left. Flying bombs seemed to have that effect. They also, judging by the results he’d seen so far in daylight, had a nasty habit of replacing the missing leaves with shreds of human flesh. So many horrors…In the last four and a half years he’d seen more than his share: houses burst open, filthy, scarred and exposed raw to the sky, buses hurled into the sides of buildings, severed arms, legs and heads coated with a new skin of plaster-dust, and as for last night…
Feeling nauseous, he went down to breakfast. He didn’t really fancy it – besides the sick feeling, he wasn’t awake enough to be hungry – but Jenny would be worried if he didn’t eat anything. At least the hens that he’d persuaded her to keep in the garden were laying well, although they did, as she often complained, attract flies. Not that he blamed her for grumbling – she was tired, too, what with working at the Rest Centre till all hours, and the drudgery of queuing and juggling the ration books as well as the housework. Besides which, she was missing the children even more than he was: after a year at home, Monica (now thirteen) and Pete (now eleven) had been re-evacuated to Suffolk when the flying bombs started.
