Bloody Good

by Georgia Evans

  Yes. Alice pulled on her nightgown and went down to her room for warm woollies. It was darn cold in the cellar.

  She was reaching in the drawer for a pair of thick socks when she heard the explosion.

  Running down the stairs, she met Gran coming up from the cellar.

  “Alice? You heard that? It was close!”

  Too damn close. That wasn’t a stray bomb falling out in a field somewhere.

  The phone rang and for a few seconds Alice stared at it, then snatched the receiver off the cradle. “Doctor?” It was one of the air raid wardens, calling no doubt from the post in the village hall. “The vicarage got a hit.”

  “I’m on my way.” The vicarage with all those children! Alice shuddered. “Better send some with a message to my assistant. He’s billeted with Sergeant Pendragon.” If only the sergeant had a phone!

  “We will. After I call Nurse Prewitt.”

  “I’m on my way!”

  There was nothing else to say. Alice ran back upstairs, pulled a pair of winter woollies under her nightgown and put a thick skirt and sweater on top. She grabbed a coat and her bag and was heading for the door.

  “Want me to come down, my love?”

  It was a cold night and Gran looked so worn. “Why not stay here? Stoke up the fire and we can bring people up here if we need to.”

  “I’ll put on the kettle.”

  Tea, the secret weapon against all trouble and disaster.

  Alice headed across the damp grass to the garage. She could probably ride Gran’s bicycle down there in the time it took to start the engine, but she might well be glad of the car later.

  She grabbed the crank handle and turned. Seemed the engine gods smiled—it started on the first go and in minutes she was heading down the hill toward the vicarage.

  As, it seemed, was half the population.

  Peter had been dozing off to sleep when the blast hit. Memories rushed back of his first few weeks in jail: locked in his cell as bombs fell outside. He overcame the terror by schooling himself with the belief that there was nothing he could do. He’d be hit or he wouldn’t and he’d survived. Helped, he was convinced, by a lot of desperate prayers.

  There would be no all clear. Howell had told him Brytewood was still waiting to receive air raid sirens. There was just a blast and some poor beggar got his.

  Damn! He sat up in bed. This wasn’t his cell in Pentonville. This was Howell Pendragon’s spare bedroom, and he, Peter Watson, was the doctor’s assistant. He was out of bed and reaching for his trousers when the sergeant put his head round the door.

  “Lad, you’re up. Good for you. Get dressed. You’ve got a job to do. See you downstairs.

  Peter pulled on his sweater as he ran downstairs. Howell Pendragon was ahead of him, a hefty leather bag in his hand. “Best take this with us. The doctor will bring her supplies and the post has a store, but you can never have too many bandages.”

  Ominous, but true, though. “Know where we’re headed?”

  “Somewhere at the bottom of the village, I think.”

  As they stepped outside, a figure came running up the path. “Sergeant, got a message for the new doctor!”

  Now was not the time to point out he wasn’t any sort of doctor. “Yes?”

  “We need you. The vicarage got a hit.”

  “A direct hit?” If they had, there wasn’t much he or anyone could do.

  “Landed on the vicar’s tennis court. Took out half the vicarage, though, and did some damage to the cottages down the lane.”

  “Miss Waite’s place? Pear Tree Cottage?” the Sergeant asked as he wheeled two bicycles from the shed.

  “Yes, and the one next door, but no one seems hurt. It’s the children and Reverend and Mrs. Roundhill we’re worried about.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  They left the breathless lad behind. They had to make haste if there were children trapped in the rubble. Peter shuddered. They must be petrified.

  He decided to follow Howell rather than ride abreast. He knew his way, and negotiating the twisting lanes with a shaded headlight, no street lights, and enthusiastically blacked out houses was no picnic. That was on top of a long, uphill pull. Not that the sergeant seemed to have any trouble. Dash it all, he really had got out of condition those months in prison. Cycling around here on a regular basis would soon fix that.

  They rounded the corner and headed for the church. It was still standing, but as they came closer, Peter couldn’t miss the broken windows in one of the cottages, and the vast crater beside the vicarage. The house hadn’t taken a direct hit, but the tennis court wouldn’t ever see play again, and a great oak that probably saw the coming of the Normans, or at the very least sheltered someone during the Civil War, had taken off the back of the house.

  “Looks nasty,” Howell Pendragon said as he hopped off his bicycle with an energy Peter envied and propped it up against the hedge.

  Looked more like a disaster to Peter. “Have they got somewhere set up?”

  “If they haven’t they will soon. Follow me.”

  Brytewood ARP was set up in the church hall, the open door sending a forbidden beam of light across the road.

  “Shut the bleedin’ door!” a voice called.

  “Why worry now?” Another voice came clear in the night. “Jerry’s been and gone and done it!”

  “He’s halfway to Berlin by now!”

  As if to make a liar out of the last speaker, another plane, no, several, approached. The door slammed shut, cutting of a distinctly saltier expletive, and Peter and Howell hit the ground just as the planes passed overhead and a car came around the bend and stopped, extinguishing the lone, shuttered headlight.

  Peter heard the car door open and Sergeant Pendragon called, “Is that you, Doctor?”

  “It’s me.” Alice’s voice came though the dark. “Think there’s any more coming?”

  “I hope not! We need to see what’s going on across the road.”

  After the noise, lights, and blazes of London bombing, this dark quiet was eerie and terrifying. “We’re going to need lights,” Peter said. “Or we’ll end up breaking our legs tripping over the mess.”

  “I’ve a torch,” Alice said. Damn, he shouldn’t be thinking of her as Alice. She was the doctor. “They’ve several hurricane lamps in the post. At least they did last week, and paraffin for them. I’ll check.” She looked toward the damaged vicarage. “Is anyone still in there?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Howell replied.

  The emergency post was definitely equipped with hurricane lamps. No wonder the light from the open door had lit up the surrounding area. Eight or ten lamps burned on the cluttered table, or suspended from the roof, casting light on the two ancient villagers who appeared to be manning the place.

  “Good to see you, Doctor,” the younger one, who looked about eighty, said. “And you too, Sergeant,” he added with a nod and then gave Peter a curious stare.

  “My new assistant, Peter Watson,” the doctor supplied. “Arrived today. He’s supposed to start duties tomorrow but we’re breaking him in early. This is Mr. Black and Mr. Baines.”

  “Hope I can help.” Peter offered his hand.

  It was taken in a strong, meaty one.

  “Glad to have you.” It was a better welcome than he’d received other places.

  “Anyone get out yet?” Alice asked.

  “Just me, I come over with Ming Li the instant I saw someone here.” The speaker was a middle-aged woman clutching a Pekingese to her chest. She wore knitted gloves, and a good foot or so of pale flannel nightgown showed under the coat. “We were so scared, I tell you. I told Ming Li we were coming over here where we were safe from having the house topple over on us.”

  “It’s not your house we’ve got to worry about, Mrs. Chivers. The vicarage and Miss Waite’s took the worst of it.”

  The look she gave Black would have felled a lesser man. “You’d worry if you heard your chimney go and the tiles fall off your roof
.”

  “Of course we would, Mrs. Chivers,” Alice jumped right in. “But right now, getting everyone out of the vicarage is our priority. Tell you what, I bet Mr. Black and Mr. Baines would be relieved to have someone take care of making the tea.” She looked in their direction. “How about it?”

  “Yes, please,” Baines replied. “You’ll have to use the gas ring in the back since that hit took down the electricity pole, but that would be grand.”

  Alice set two bags on a table. “Let’s see what’s going on then.”

  As she spoke, the door pushed open and June Groves entered carrying a child. “Thank God you’re so close!” she said. “We’re going to need help. The back part of the house is ruined and I’ve got to go back and get the others, and Mrs. Roundhill is unconscious.”

  “June, how many are hurt?” Alice asked. “And what about you?”

  Good question—the woman was bleeding from a gash in her head and she was covered in what Peter guessed was plaster dust.

  “I’ll be alright, honest. I got Sammy out as he was nearest the door. I’m worried about Mrs. Roundhill and the two older boys are trapped down in the cellar.”

  “What about the vicar?”

  “He went up to London and was staying the night. Poor Mrs. Roundhill was so worried about him being up there with the bombing, and look where they land.”

  Baines took the whimpering child from her arms. The child cried out; his head was matted with blood and the way he cradled his arm pretty much suggested it was broken. If that was all the little blighter’s injuries he’d come off lightly by the sound of things.

  “I’ll have a look at him,” the doctor said, pulling off her coat to reveal a pullover and tweed skirt and a frill of nightgown underneath.

  Peter told himself to get his thoughts right back on the wounded.

  “Let’s see what’s happened to you then, Sammy,” Alice said, reaching for one of the lamps. “Mr. Baines will put you down here on the blanket, and we’ll have a look.”

  “Come on, lad. Best get the others. We’ll need a stretcher for Mrs. Roundhill by the sound of things.”

  “Are the phone lines still up?” the doctor asked. “We’d better call the ambulances in.”

  “Do I have to go to hospital?” the pitiful little voice asked from the table.

  “I’m afraid so, Sammy. I can stitch you up, but I think your arm’s broken. You’ll be fine, though, not much else hurt that I can see.” She looked right at Peter, her blue eyes tired but bright. “Better go and see what else is needed, and someone call those ambulances.”

  “Thank heaven for the field phone,” Baines said. “I think Jerry took out our phone line along with the electricity.”

  “How are the other children?” Alice asked.

  “Scared witless,” June replied. She looked in much the same condition. “I told them to stay put and get their shoes on and I’d be right back. Two are just scared and shaken up but Celia looks as if her leg’s broken. I was scared to move her.”

  “How many little ’uns are there?” Howell asked as they stood in the lane by the hedge, or rather what was left of it.

  “Six, counting Sammy. We rather took over the vicarage. Lord knows where we’ll end up now.”

  The last wasn’t a moan or gripe, just tired resignation.

  Close up, Peter understood her worry. “We’d better look at Miss Waite’s cottage later,” Baines said, glancing down the lane. At this distance it appeared worse damage than Mrs. Chivers’s several doors away.

  “She’s lucky she was in hospital,” Howell muttered half to himself.

  “Wonder where that visitor of hers is,” Baines said and shrugged. “I’ll send someone to check.” He looked around at the cluster of villagers slowly gathering. One Peter noticed was Gloria, the nurse, on a bicycle with a roll of blankets tied to the carrier.

  “Want me to check?” she asked as she dismounted and wheeled her bike to the side and propped it near theirs.

  “We’ll need you here, Gloria. Let someone else go,” Alice said.

  “Right!” Baines looked around the crowd and met a tall heavyset man’s eyes. “Fred, do us a favor, go and look over Miss Waite’s house, see if everyone’s alright.”

  Fred set off down the lane. Howell opened the vicarage front gate. The hedge was twisted and uprooted, but the wooden gate swung easily on the gateposts.

  “Now you lot wait back here,” Baines said to the crowd. “We’ll see if it’s safe. We’ll need stretcher bearers once we see where everyone is.”

  Between the lanterns and electric torches the group made a fine beacon for another attack, but skies appeared empty. Thank the Lord.

  Peter followed the others into the house.

  A woman Peter presumed was Mrs. Roundhill lay unconscious on the dining room floor, dried blood on her face and arms. Beside her sat two children, ash pale and shivering. The blanket covering the vicar’s wife might have been better around them.

  “Good, children,” Gloria said. “You put your shoes on and found something warm. Now we’re going to take Mrs. Roundhill over to the doctor.”

  A sad, scared voice called from the bottom of the stairs. “Don’t forget me.”

  “We won’t,” June replied. “We’re coming.”

  “That’s Celia,” she explained. “She fell coming down the stairs. I think, no, I’m pretty sure her leg’s broken. It looks all wrong.”

  She turned back to the two still huddled together by the unconscious Mrs. Roundhill. “You get up and hold my hand. We’re getting out of here.”

  “Tell you what,” Baines interrupted. “How about we carry them? I’ll get some of that lot hanging about outside to help. They look all done in.”

  June didn’t argue, being, Peter guessed, pretty much done in herself.

  Didn’t take long to get two stretchers in. With luck the ambulances would arrive soon. As long as it had been a quiet night in Dorking.

  “What happened to Mrs. Roundhill?” the sergeant asked.

  “I’m not sure. We’d all gone to bed. She often stays up late when the vicar’s away. Can’t sleep. When I came down with the younger children, I found her on the floor. I think the blast threw her against the fender,” June replied. “I moved her off it. I know you’re not supposed to move people but she looked so uncomfortable.”

  “Don’t worry.” Gloria had her arm around her shoulders. “I’d have done the same. We’ll see how she is once we get her in the light.”

  The woman didn’t stir as they lifted her onto the stretcher. A bad sign, Peter thought, but he’d seen people in worse states, and they often survived.

  “That’s the lot then,” Baines said as the last child was handed to a pair of willing arms.

  “Yes, oh God! No!” June as good as shrieked. “How could I? I forgot Sidney and Dave!”

  “Eh?” Baines said.

  “The two older boys. The brothers?” Gloria asked.

  “Yes! Oh, dear heaven! How could I? I was so wrapped up worrying about Mrs. Roundhill and the younger ones. I forgot they were down there. How could I?” She burst into tears and was approaching hysterics.

  Gloria slapped her on the face. The sound cut off her wails, which subsided to a few sniffs and gulps. “Calm down,” Gloria told her. “Tell us where they are.”

  “Down in the cellar. They didn’t like sleeping upstairs, got scared every time a plane went over, and used to get the little ones all het up, so we set up a room for them there with beds and an electric fire and now…”

  They all looked toward the kitchen, or what was left of it.

  “Looks like we’ll need to call out the entire squad to dig them out,” Baines said.

  June gave a loud sob. “The poor things must be terrified.”

  “You need to sit down,” Gloria said. “I’m going to take you over to the hut. You need to be with the other children. They’ll be getting anxious without you. Shock does a lot to children.”

  And adults, Peter co
uld have added, but why state what everyone already knew?

  With Gloria and June gone, Black, Peter, and the sergeant stared at each other. “Best see what’s going on,” Black said and led the way over the rubble.

  The house was in a bad state. By daylight it would look worse. Peter held his lamp low to light the floor and followed the others.

  The back corner and the kitchen seemed to have taken the worst of the damage, the floor above had caved in, and the night breeze blew though the gaping gap in the wall.

  “Where the blazes is the cellar?” Black asked, looking around the mess.

  “The door’s over there,” Howell said. “I remember carrying some potatoes down there for Mrs. Roundhill a few weeks back.”

  “Over there” was a heap of wall and a pile of splintered wood that had once been the back stairs.

  “Damn! We’ll have to dig them out,” Black muttered as he stepped back to avoid a chunk of falling masonry.

  Chapter 14

  “Crikey! It’s about to go!”

  Peter wasn’t about to argue. The entire back stairs, what was still left of them, rocked precariously.

  “We’ve got to get them out,” Pendragon said. “Can’t leave them there.”

  “They could be goners,” Black said.

  “No, they’re alive.” The Sergeant spoke with such conviction, it never occurred to Peter to doubt him.

  “We’ll need a winch and crane and crew to clear that lot,” Sam said, shaking his head.

  Howell hesitated a few seconds. “The lad and I can do it,” he said. “I see a gap, you make sure we have stretchers waiting for them, and leave your torch and give the lad your tin hat.”

  “You’re certain about this?” Black asked. “Maybe we should get help for this.”

  “I don’t think so.” As Pendragon spoke, another chunk of wall settled on the stairway. “Too many won’t help at all. Our weight is making it less stable. Go carefully and get those stretchers.”

  As he left Howell asked, “Want to go too, lad? This is risky.”

  So was spending nights locked in a cell on the second tier. “Sergeant, if you think it can be done, let’s have a bash at it.”