The Rescue Man

by Anthony Quinn

  ‘The old man’s come from the church over there. They’re trying to put out a fire on the roof – if they can’t they’ll have to evacuate the whole shelter in the crypt.’

  Baines knew the church immediately. It was St Catherine’s, where the Eames family had worshipped eighty years previously. Cassie Eames had been married there; Frank Eames’s memorial service had been held there. How often had he read its name in the journals?

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said, and looked to Farrell and Mike.

  ‘We’re not lettin’ yer go on yer own,’ said Mike.

  Richard nodded, and for a moment it seemed that he was about to continue with his squad to the hospital. Instead he took a couple of stirrup pumps, handed one to Baines and stood in readiness himself, having delegated the hospital evacuation to one of his men. In the time it had taken the old man to scour the street in search of help, the situation at the church had deteriorated. The vicar was standing beneath the stone portico as they arrived, his face a mask of weariness and sorrow. He led them inside, where fire was burning a bright hole through the dome and cinders were falling through the nave like confetti.

  ‘Where’s the fire brigade?’ asked Richard.

  ‘We called them half an hour ago,’ said the vicar, with a despairing shrug. It did not even bear mentioning among them that the last few nights had left the fire services hopelessly overstretched. There were thousands of people ready to protect the city, they knew, but there were many more thousands of firebombs, rattling on rooftops, lodging in the eaves, bursting into fiery life. If they were going to save anything here Baines knew they would have to act quickly.

  ‘Is there a ladder we can use?’ he asked.

  ‘I believe there’s one in the mission hall,’ said the vicar, pointing, ‘across the yard at the back.’

  ‘Right, Mike, you take a pump and see what you can do with the fire up there. Terry, you start getting them out of the shelter. We’ll have to try and climb on to the roof.’

  They dispersed. Led by the vicar, Baines and Richard emerged into the churchyard, where more fires were blazing in the wind. Flames leapt skywards, and the smoke made their eyes stream. As they reached the mission-hall door Baines could feel red-hot sparks stinging the back of his neck. Once inside they tried the lights, but the fuses had blown. He noticed the varnished parquet floor, the wooden chairs stacked at the side, the stage with its tatty velvet curtains – all perfect tinder. But no ladder. ‘It must be in the basement,’ said the vicar. Above them they heard another stick of incendiaries clatter across the leads. They waited for the vicar to unlock the basement door, and then, pointing their torchlights into the dark, the two of them made a cautious descent down the rickety staircase. The smell of damp and mould suffused the air. Their beams, butterflying haphazardly over the room, disclosed yet more stacked chairs, a bookcase of hymnals, a rusted bicycle. Richard had gravitated to the far side of the room, where a lawnmower stood and tools hung on the wall. He was examining something as Baines went to join him.

  ‘Looks like the gardener’s room,’ Richard said absently, and picked up a spade.

  ‘Or the gravedigger’s,’ said Baines.

  At this Richard turned his face towards him, and with a cheerless little laugh said, ‘You know, this would be a perfect opportunity …’ His face was so deep in shadow that his expression could not be read.

  ‘Opportunity … for what?’

  ‘Well, a madhouse outside, fires everywhere, bombs flying down – you could literally get away with murder.’ He seemed to be talking more to himself than to Baines, but his musing tone was not pleasant to the ear. ‘I mean, with all this noise who would hear the blows to the head, or the screams as I did it? I could even use the spade to dig your grave.’ Your?

  ‘Richard, what are you – talking about?’

  ‘I think you know, Tom,’ he said, snarling out the last word. Baines started to walk past him, but in one swift manoeuvre Richard whirled the shaft of the spade through the dark and caught Baines on the side of the head. He felt so surprised that he almost laughed, but the blow had dazed him, and he sank to his knees. His torch rolled across the floor. He felt Richard’s shadow loom over him. His voice came eerily flat and quiet.

  ‘You must have taken me for such a fool – that offends me almost as much as what you did. With my fucking wife.’

  He tried to focus, but his head was throbbing. ‘Richard –’

  ‘Shut up. All that time – you didn’t think I knew. It’s insulting, actually. That afternoon at the flat, you skulking in the darkroom, and she comes out of there, all la-di-da, hullo, darling … You got really careless. D’you think I didn’t notice your cigarettes stubbed in the ashtray? Yes – that – number one in the dos and don’ts of sneaking around with another man’s wife. You fucking fool –’ He put his boot on Baines’s chest and shoved him over. Baines heard him clang the point of the spade against the concrete floor, and wondered just how vengeful Richard’s mood might turn. He now felt the steel blade pressing against his jugular.

  ‘Is there any reason in the world why I shouldn’t beat you to a bloody pulp?’

  He said it in such a steady tone that Baines for a moment couldn’t think of a reason. He knew that Richard had killed men when he was at the front all those years ago – he knew he had it in him. But back then he was a soldier fighting for his life, it was kill or be killed. Surely he wouldn’t stoop to murder?

  ‘Well? Any last words?’ Apparently he would. Baines felt so undone by the suddenness of his predicament that he couldn’t find any words, even the ones that might help him beg for mercy. His head twisted to one side by the steel edge, he saw the beam of his fallen torch trained on a spot along the foot of the wall, and wondered if this might be the last thing he ever gazed upon. Then he realised what he was looking at.

  ‘Over there …’ he heard himself croak.

  ‘What?’ said Richard, coldly.

  ‘… by the wall.’

  Richard, briefly nonplussed, directed his own torch sideways. The dim illumination picked out the cobwebbed rungs of a wooden ladder which had been laid lengthwise against the angle of wall and floor. Richard then shone the beam full in Baines’s face as he silently considered his betrayer. The moments seemed to stretch out, until he snorted, and lifted the spade from Baines’s neck.

  ‘Looks like you’ve just saved yourself,’ he said, and hurled the spade away. In the distance they heard a whump as another bomb exploded nearby. By the time Baines had risen unsteadily to his feet Richard was dragging the ladder towards the stairs; without another pair of hands it would be an arduous task getting it out of there. He watched while Baines picked up his torch, gingerly palpated the bruise on his head and then grasped his end of the ladder. As he did this Richard turned away momentarily and said, in a tone that now had only a baffled wonder in it, ‘You know the most surprising thing of all …? I’d always thought you – liked me.’

  And he shrugged. The words cut Baines more painfully than anything else he could have said. In that moment he wanted desperately to protest against them, to plead with him and ask his forgiveness, but he hardly knew how or where to begin, and before he could open his mouth to speak Richard began hauling the ladder up the steps. Too late – and had he not forfeited the right to plead in any case? He had been merciless in his deception, and no apology, no act of contrition, could wipe that slate clean.

  Richard opened the door at the top of the stairs and backed out slowly into the hall, guiding the ladder through. Just as Baines reached the top step the room convulsed in a blinding flash and the air around them split into screeching shards of metal. Simultaneously he felt a body slamming into him with a force so volcanic that it propelled him right back into the darkness from which he had just emerged. Something inconceivable had begun to suggest itself – the one you didn’t hear. Familiar geometries were suddenly collapsing. The building seemed to have flipped on its side, the door he had just held open had leapt away and now the stai
rs were somersaulting past him; a flurry of jagged fragments whistled past his ears as the floor of the basement rose to meet him with a bone-crunching smack. Then a deluge of dust began raining down, filling his eyes, his nose, his mouth, until he thought he might choke to death on it. There was a keening in his ears, shrill and monotone; he hoped it would stop soon.

  He had lost consciousness, for how long he wasn’t sure – it could have been ten minutes, or an hour. When he awoke he could feel the most excruciating pressure on his chest; every breath he took seemed to poke a dagger against his lungs. He tried to move his arms, and found they were pinioned. He spat out some dust, and tried again. Some unearthly weight, cold and gritty, was pressing down on him. The air seemed to be eddying, as if some electrical charge had taken possession of it. He thought he might try to speak, but when he did all that emerged was a broken moan. Then he remembered something that had happened just before the world turned upside down. He had been carrying a ladder up the steps with – Richard? So where was he? He wanted to call out to him, but all he could feel in his mouth was a terrible dryness. He supposed Hell might be like this, the perception of a desire – to talk, to move – instantly rendered as its denial. He knew that there was something else, something absolutely vital, that he had to do, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

  The time, blank and busy, ticked on. Then he saw, from the very corner of his eye, something move; at first it was a rough shape, and seemed to crawl on all fours. A dog? As it dragged its way towards him he felt frightened. It was a dog, and that noise he could hear was its slavering jaws – it was bending its head down, about to fasten its teeth on his helpless neck. Oh God …

  He must have passed out again, because he awoke to find Richard there, on his hands and knees, calling his name over and over.

  ‘Tom? Tom? Oh thank God! … Thank you.’ He was silent for a few moments after that. Baines could see the beam from his torch, but behind it Richard himself was a blur. He wanted to apologise to Richard for something – that he didn’t mean to mistake him for a dog? No, it was for something else, but he wasn’t sure what, and couldn’t make himself understood in any case.

  ‘Don’t try to talk, old boy. Look, you’ve got this bloody great chunk of – wall on top of you. The bomb blew it right through. I’ll have to try and –’ Richard rose to his feet and staggered for a moment. ‘Not so good myself, to tell the truth,’ he said. It was too dark for Baines to see anything, but he could hear Richard muttering, and the crunch of debris under his boots. He was still finding a way to accommodate the pain in his chest. What distressed him more, however, was the loss of that thing he had meant to say to Richard. He was fairly sure he had to make an apology, but he couldn’t for the life of him recall what he might be apologising for, and it goaded him furiously.

  ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? After all the lucky escapes … we get one that lands right on top of us!’ Baines thought he heard a slight vibration in his voice; there was something not quite right in the pitch of it. There followed long minutes of silence, and he wondered if Richard had fallen unconscious. Then from somewhere behind he heard the thin sound of running water, and footsteps slouching back towards him. Richard knelt down, holding a tin helmet that was slopping with water. He carefully guided it towards Baines’s mouth.

  ‘Found a privy at the back – sorry, only thing I could find to pour it in.’

  Baines felt it trickle over and past his clotted mouth, then it was on his lips and – oh relief! – it swilled around his mouth. He tried to swallow, and choked. He could feel rivulets of water on his tongue, oh the mercy of water … I will show you fear in a mouthful of dust … Now he could feel Richard wiping the dirt and blood from his face.

  ‘There – that looks better.’

  Baines felt ready to try again. ‘Richard …’ It was no more than a froggy rasp.

  ‘There we are! Back in the land of the living. Just hang on, my old mate, I’m going to try … and shift … this fucking thing.’ He was straining heavily at the broken slab of masonry, but just as Richard seemed to get it clear it fell back on him again. Baines moaned as the daggers’ points pierced him. This was agony more exquisite than he had ever thought possible. It was killing him, he knew. Dead wouldn’t be so bad, really – it was the dying that was hard. He wondered if it would take long. But Richard had not abandoned the struggle, that was merely his preparation, and with quick grunting breaths, like a champion weightlifter, he heaved the torturing burden away. It fell with a dull thunk to his side. Then Richard too dropped heavily to the floor. For a few minutes Baines listened to the fractured rhythm of his breathing. Somewhere up above he could hear the raids continuing, the faint whistles and the distant explosions. Now that the pressure was off him his chest felt euphorically light, almost empty, and he attempted to raise himself on to his elbows. The stabbing pains had receded, though he could see that one of his legs was twisted in an unfamiliar way – he wouldn’t try to stand just yet. He saw the gleam from Richard’s dropped torch, and picking it up he poked the narrow funnel of its beam into the darkness. Richard was lying on his side, eyes closed, his face cut about with raw incisions and glistening blotches; he looked bloodier than Banquo.

  Baines called out to him, once, twice, but received no answer. He hauled himself over on his back to where his companion lay, and gently shook him by the shoulder. Richard groaned and stirred.

  ‘Richard, I wanted to talk to you,’ he said, feeling his way towards something important. ‘I wanted to say how sorry I am – for –’ He thought by saying sorry the rest would follow, but he had led himself up a blind alley. What was it? What had he done that he was sorry for? Richard didn’t appear to be listening in any case. He had sat upright, and now Baines could see through the treacly blood that matted his hair a stark white gash, like the white of fat on an uncooked pork chop. He decided he didn’t want to look at that any more, and began patting Richard’s leg instead.

  ‘God, I feel tired,’ Richard muttered. ‘Think I must have dropped off just then … How are you doing, Tom?’

  Baines considered. ‘Not too bad – a bit cold. I wonder if they’re going to send someone to help us?’

  ‘Mmm, soon enough – they’re just having a pretty hot time of it, up there …’ His voice had started to slur. Baines thought he should keep him talking, otherwise he might peter out for good.

  ‘I know you’ve been through worse than this. I remember you telling me – the noise of the shelling, at the front.’

  ‘Hmm … I did tell you that …’ He stopped, as though he might be trying to recall it for himself. Through the blasted doorway of the basement Baines heard a shrilling, not of a bomb but a whistle.

  ‘D’you hear that? That must be the warden – they’ve found us.’

  He saw Richard nod, slowly, but his mind had gone elsewhere. He mumbled something, and Baines, straining to hear, said, ‘What’s that?’

  Richard’s head had slumped at a drunken angle on his chest, but he lifted it slightly and said, ‘… to the very last.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Baines, patting his leg again. ‘To the very last.’

  His voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘Tom … I’m not sure –’

  The sentence was not finished, and never would be in this life.

  PART THREE

  Searching

  1944

  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake, Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake.

  Sonnet 61

  15

  AS SOON AS she walked through the revolving doors Baines found himself unable to tear his gaze from her. It was the busiest time of the day in the Lyceum tea rooms, and the steadily thickening traffic of office clerks, leisured ladies and waitresses around the place might have obscured her entrance altogether. But there she was, seated at a table against the wood-panelled wall that offered him a most satisfactory vantage from which to spy. She was tall, dark-eyed, in her early thirties he
supposed, and carried herself with an unemphatic indifference that beguiled him immediately. When the waitress addressed her the woman reeled off her order and completed it with a quick unnecessary smile. From the tannoy came the muted strains of a song he knew well.

  The stars are still on high,

  But they don’t twinkle any more.

  Why does it seem

  They’ve lost their gleam?

  He had been there for nearly an hour, and now had a focus to prolong his vigil. He had already made a study of the two American servicemen, eavesdropped on the proud but nervous parents with the son back home from college, speculated on the portly businessman whose sausage-like fingers kept drumming, annoyingly, on the table next to his. Until the woman had entered he had been preoccupied by an unarguably fetching waitress, the single junior of a staff that comprised matronly women no younger than fifty. When she had taken his latest order (he was on his third pot of tea) he had noticed her fingernails, bitten to the quick, and a certain harassed distraction that caused her to miss the wry lift of his chin he had intended as a gesture of sympathy.

  He lit another Player’s and tried to blow a smoke ring, a trick he had never quite mastered. The woman was closely examining her dark eyes in a little compact, and Baines took advantage of her absorption to have a good long stare. As he did so her eyes flicked sideways and suddenly he was trapped in the full, frank light of their gaze. He looked away, embarrassed. As a couple swished past his table towards the exit he used them as cover to retreat to the lavatory at the back, the panorama of the room flashing before him in the long horizontal mirror. The song trickled on beneath the hum of conversation.