Rolling his shoulders, Tommy studied the pile of rubble in front of them.
‘How do you want to do it, Mick?’ he asked.
‘Now we’ve got the wall propped up right it shouldn’t take us more than a few moments to dig out the rubble over there,’ he said, indicating the narrow area at the front of the house that was below street level. ‘And we can bring the family out through the basement window.’
Above their heads, German planes with empty bomb bays droned eastwards as they headed back to their bases in France.
‘And we’d be wise to do it before the next wave of their Kraut mates arrive,’ Mick added.
‘Have you sent for a first-aid team?’ asked Tommy.
Mick nodded and took the half-smoked roll-up from behind his ear and stuck it in his mouth.
‘And as luck would have it, the street warden told me there’s a mobile unit parked in the recreation grounds so I’ve sent one of the lads around to see if they can spare someone.’
He’d driven off before she’d arrived on duty that evening but the image of Jo walking into Post 7 the day before flashed through Tommy’s mind. He shoved it aside and focused on the task at hand.
‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, Mick,’ said Tommy, taking his leather gloves from his rear pocket and tugging them on, ‘as the gas company blokes haven’t checked the mains yet, do you think you should be lighting up?’
Mick sniffed the air.
‘I can’t smell no gas so it should be safe enough,’ he replied, shaking the flame out.
Grabbing the pick that probably weighed more than his arm, Mick took a drag and then, with his fag dangling from his lower lips, headed towards the rubble clogging the access to the basement. Taking his pick from where he’d left it, Tommy followed him.
Grasping the handle firmly, Tommy swung at the front wall of the house, breaking it into several pieces. Usually, they didn’t use picks when digging for survivors as it wasn’t considered a good thing to smash a hole in your victim’s head as you were rescuing them, but as it was clear that there wasn’t anyone under the rubble in the narrow passageway, he and Mick went at it with gusto. It took them just a few moments of backbreaking work to reduce what had been unmovable blocks of masonry to hand-size fragments of brick.
‘All right, Mick,’ said Tommy, leaping up onto the pavement. ‘You bowl and I’ll bat.’
Mick nodded and discarding his spent butt amongst the wreckage he grasped the nearest jumble of brick and threw it up to Tommy who caught it and tossed it behind him.
As they emptied the passageway of building fragments the faint booming further down the river told them that the planes that had just flown overhead were getting rid of their remaining munitions over Ilford and Barking.
Once the top of the window was visible, Tommy jumped down into the space.
‘Mind out, short arse,’ he said, pretending to barge Mick out of the way.
Giving him a good-natured two-fingered gesture, Mick stepped aside.
Careful to avoid the shards of glass jutting from the frame, Tommy took his torch out and shone it into the basement.
‘Over here,’ screamed a woman.
‘Get us out, for pity’s sake,’ sobbed another woman. ‘We’ve got kids down here wiv us.’
Tommy swung the torch towards the voices.
Huddled together under a fallen beam on the far side of the basement was a handful of women and at least a dozen children clutching teddies or sucking their thumbs as they clung to their mothers.
‘Right, well, you keep your chin up,’ said Tommy. ‘The medics are on their way and we’ll soon have you all out.’
‘Any sight of a first-aider?’ he asked in a softer tone to the man standing next to him.
‘You’re in luck, Tommy boy, one’s just arrived,’ said Mick. ‘It’s that girl on that posh woman’s wagon.’
With anticipation rising in his chest, Tommy climbed out of the basement access to see Jo coming towards him.
She was wearing her usual navy trousers and jacket and a seaman’s duffel coat at least two sizes too big for her. Her rucksack was slung on her back and her wonderful chestnut hair was bound tightly and tucked under her white tin helmet with the red cross painted on the front. As always, the sight of her expanded his chest with love and so much more.
Watching her step as she picked her way through the rubble to the space he and Mick had just shovelled out, it was only when she was an arm’s reach from him that Jo looked up.
An expression he couldn’t interpret but that quickened his pulse nonetheless shot across her face.
Jo held his gaze for a second or two and then lowered her eyes.
‘All right,’ she said, adjusting the rucksack straps, ‘what do we have?’
‘A handful of women with their children,’ said Tommy, trying to concentrate on what he was saying rather than the shape of Jo’s mouth.
Jo nodded. ‘I’ll climb in and pass the children out then see to the adults.’
‘Good idea,’ said Tommy.
Taking the pickaxe resting against the side of the house, he carefully knocked out the remaining fragments of glass and splintered wood.
Grabbing a rug that had been thrown out onto the pavement by the blast, Tommy laid it over the window sill then using a block of brick as a step he started to climb through the window.
Jo’s small hand caught his arm.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked as he straddled the window sill.
Tommy turned and raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t seriously think I’m going to let you go in alone, do you, Jo?’
Of course, she should tell him she was quite capable of climbing through a broken window to deal with a casualty. After all, that’s what she’d been trained to do, but somehow, when he gave her that quirky smile of his, she couldn’t. Well, not so much couldn’t as didn’t want to.
She’d been on early shift the day before so hadn’t heard about the men injured on the heavy rescue teams until she’d reported for duty earlier. Therefore, when Reggie and his crew had swaggered in minus Tommy a little later, Jo had started to imagine Tommy lying in hospital with his leg in plaster. Over the subsequent hours, her imagination had reached fever pitch until finally she’d worked herself up into imagining the worst: Tommy lying under a sheet on a mortuary slab. Telling herself not to be so stupid, she’d tried to get on with the rest of her day, but when she looked up to see him standing just a few feet from her, hale and hearty, utter relief had flooded through her.
Finding herself suddenly gazing up into the face that haunted her nights and her every waking hour almost overwhelmed her. Thankfully, she hadn’t given in to the impulse to throw her arms around him, but only just.
Pressing her lips together, Jo watched as Tommy rolled over the sill and dropped down into the room. Adjusting her first-aid bag across her, she stepped onto the block of bricks and put her hands carefully on the protective carpet.
‘If you move your leg forward there’s a washstand; you can get your balance on that,’ Tommy called from below her, shining his torch so she could see. ‘But be careful. It’s a bit of a drop.’
Jo searched with her toe until she found the surface. Planting her foot firmly on the marble top, she climbed through the window.
‘Here,’ Tommy offered her his hand, ‘let me help you.’
He’d pulled his neckerchief up and over his mouth and nose, highwayman style, so only his eyes were showing and they were warm as they gazed up at her. A pleasant little coil of excitement started in the pit of her stomach but she cut it off.
‘I can manage just fine, thank you,’ she replied, throwing him her kitbag. ‘You’re not the only one who knows how to climb through windows, you know.’
She jumped into the small space that he’d illuminated with his torch but as she landed an explosion close by rocked the floor and Jo lurched sideward. Tommy’s arms shot out and caught her and instinctively she gripped his upper arms to steady herself. Still hol
ding onto him, Jo raised her eyes to find him gazing down at her.
‘I said be careful, didn’t I?’ he said, his deep tone resonating through her.
A couple of heartbeats passed and then, ignoring the pounding in her chest, Jo disentangled herself from his embrace. Straightening her helmet, she went to walk across the room but Tommy caught her arm.
‘Don’t become a casualty, remember,’ he said, reiterating the first rule of rescue that was drummed into them.
He picked up his torch from the floor and Jo took hers from her kitbag.
‘What’s it looking like?’ Mick called through the window behind them.
‘Dodgy,’ said Tommy, looking at the pale beam supporting the ceiling before checking out the rest of the room. ‘One of the support walls has been damaged so the rafters are sagging in the middle and the back wall looks like it could buckle any moment. Pass us through a couple of jacks and we’ll need some of the lads if they’re free plus the WVS women. We’ve got kids here.’
Mick nodded, but as his head disappeared from the window, the boom of bombs being dropped on the docks half a mile south of them reverberated around the space.
The screams of terrified children filled the basement as another bomb found its target. There was a moment of complete calm then a small creak. Jo started forward again but as she did, the beam in front of her crashed down, choking the atmosphere with grit and dust. With it came the wall above it, blocking the path to the trapped women and children.
‘You two all right?’ asked Mick, peering down at them through the window.
‘Yes, we are, but a ground-floor wall has just collapsed so I need those jacks,’ Tommy replied.
‘No sooner said than done, mate,’ said a ruddy-faced individual, appearing next to Mick and helping him feed one of the ten-foot metal poles through the window.
Shouldering the massive metal pole with ease, Tommy swung it upright. Finding a support joist in the ceiling, he shoved it upwards and then kicked the base into place. Another one was handed through and Tommy did the same as before a bit further along the joist.
‘That should hold it,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Jo grabbed his forearm. ‘There are children trapped down there and we have to get them out.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But we’ll never get through that lot.’ He ran the torch beam over the ton of collapsed wall in front of them. ‘Stay between these supports and don’t move, while I get a couple of the lads to help shift it.’
Covering the distance in three strides, Tommy leapt onto the washstand then heaved himself up and through the window.
Jo studied the wreckage of stone wood and mortar in front of her for a moment then she shone her torch over it.
‘Are you still there?’ called a woman’s voice from the other side of the debris.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ said Jo. ‘And we’ll have you out as soon as heavy can dig you out. They’re on their way now.’
A blast shook the ground again, sprinkling them all with grit and brick dust and setting the children sobbing again.
Shining her torch through a gap, Jo peered in. The pale beam illuminated a huddle of women and young children sitting in the dirt. Two of the women had small babes in arms and there was an elderly couple at the back.
‘Where’s that bloody heavy rescue?’ screamed a woman, with dry blood on her cheek and a toddler clinging to her.
‘Yeah, where are they?’ yelled another, trying to soothe a sobbing child in her arms.
‘Too bloody busy riffling through our knick-knacks, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said another mother.
‘They’re getting more men to clear the rubble and dig you out,’ said Jo. ‘How many of you are there?’
‘There’s me and my two kids, my sister Betty and her three and the baby, plus Sylvia and her two toddlers, Mr and Mrs Myers from next door and their daughter with her new-born. Winnie Cooper from number six is down here too with her two boys and the twins.’
‘Is anyone hurt?’ shouted Jo.
‘I think Mrs Myers has broken her leg and my sister’s got a nasty cut on her head. One of Winnie’s boys bashed his head and has a lump the size of an egg but other than that I think we’ll all live to fight another day.’
Another explosion shook the ground, dislodging a shower of grit onto Jo’s head. The children’s screams rose to an earsplitting pitch as they went from terrified to hysterical and the women joined in.
‘For pity’s sake! Can’t you get the kids out at least?’ bellowed a woman as brick dust settled on Jo’s face.
‘All right, I’ll see if there’s a gap,’ Jo replied, as one of the babies started whimpering.
Coughing, she scanned the wall of rubble in front of her with her torch. As she ran the shaft of light along the floor she noticed one of the rafters had landed at an angle on a fragment of wall creating a space. Dropping onto all fours, she shone her torch into the gap.
A blast close by bounced the grit and dust up from the ground and shook the foundations again. Jo pressed her face onto the sleeve of her jacket to protect her eyes and waited until the tremor subsided.
‘I think I can squeeze through and get the children,’ said Jo, taking off her hat and first-aid bag and setting them to one side.
As another bomb exploded and set the floor shaking again, Jo pressed herself flat on the floor and started to wriggle through but just as she ducked her head into the hole something grabbed her hips and pulled her backwards.
Kicking out, Jo rolled over and found Tommy looming over her with undiluted fury contorting his handsome features.
Reaching down, he grabbed her upper arms and hauled her to her feet.
‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’ he bellowed at her as he set her on her feet.
‘My job,’ she spat back, matching his furious stare. ‘The same as you—’
‘I told you to stay put,’ he yelled, his fingers biting into her upper arm. ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’
‘No,’ she snapped back, glaring angrily up at him. ‘I’m trying to get the women and children trapped behind that lot—’
An ear-popping explosion rocked the cellar, sending a surge of air through the space, which took Jo’s words and lashed her face with grit.
She staggered back and collided with Tommy who caught her. With his arms around her, Jo clamped her eyes and mouth shut while brick dust swirled around them.
Jo tore herself from his grip and started forward but as she took the first step the upright beam to her right whisked past her and hit the floor.
Black spots popped at the corner of Jo’s vision as her eyes fixed on the massive timber lying just inches from her toes.
There was a faint squeak, like an un-oiled door hinge, above her. Puzzled, Jo looked up then blinked as dirt pitterpattered on her cheeks and nose.
Suddenly, Tommy’s arm looped around her waist and Jo found herself flying backwards. As she crashed into the hard muscle of his chest, a ten-by-ten ceiling joist fell from above, crashing on to the floor and throwing up a plume of earth and soil in its wake.
Jo’s heart beat once possibly twice before the bricks and mortar of the damaged house above crashed into the cellar.
Hugging her into him, Tommy shielded her from flying debris with his body as screams pulsing with terror and death filled Jo’s ear.
After what seemed like an eternity of roaring noise and terrified shrieks, the cellar fell silent.
Raising her head, Jo stared in utter disbelief at the mountain of bricks, mortar and broken beams for a moment before burying her face in Tommy’s chest and sobbing.
Chapter Nineteen
THE OLD MAN at the front of the queue handed over his pennies to the stout woman dressed in the forest-green uniform of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service. Picking up his two mugs of soup, he moved away from the counter.
It was about five thirty in the morning and Tommy was in the Wesley Chapel in Bower Street,
which had been the hub of WVS activity in Limehouse for the past year. The upper gallery where the congregation had once sat, was now given over to the sorting and redistribution of clothing to hand to those who had been left with just the clothes on their backs after a night’s bombing. The vestry had been turned into an information centre where lists of the dead and injured lined the walls. In the main part of the chapel, two lines of trestle tables and chairs had replaced the box pews. Beside the solid central pulpit, the resolute members of the WVS had installed a camp kitchen which offered hot meals and sandwiches plus what every doctor prescribed for shock: a nice cup of tea.
The German bombers were still overhead but there were fewer now and the booms from the bombs were quieter, indicating that the planes were discharging what was left of their munitions over Tilbury and Rainham on their way back to their bases. Although the all-clear had yet to sound, knowing that the worst of the night’s raid was over, many people were already making their way back to their homes to grab whatever sleep they could before heading off to work in a few hours’ time. Other than a handful of fire patrol personnel and a couple of aircraft spotters having a cuppa before going off duty, the place was empty.
The two people in front of Tommy shuffled along and he did the same. As the volunteer behind the counter took the next person’s order, Tommy gazed across the room at Jo. She was sitting at the table on the far side of the room with her hands clasped together, arms resting on the surface.
Cup of tea! Double Scotch would be better to calm his still raging emotions.
Although it was now almost an hour and a half since they’d climbed out of the collapsed basement, the almost overpowering fear that had gripped him when he’d found Jo about to crawl under a dozen tons of unstable rubble had yet to subside. But when the roof had collapsed above, instinct had taken over.
Mercifully, he’d grabbed her in time and thank God he had because a world without Jo was a world he didn’t want to be living in.
The queue moved forward again and the jolly-looking woman behind the counter looked at him through bloodshot eyes.
A Ration Book Christmas Page 24
