by SL Beaumont
“Hey, Jess, how did it go? William? Verdict?” he asked.
“He has the charm of a prince and the morals of an alley cat. He will be a perfect fit,” I answered.
Jimmy looked stunned for a moment, before a grin spread across his face.
“Did he try to hit on you?”
I must have looked uncomfortable because he slipped a friendly arm around my shoulders and turned me towards the doors leading into the bar.
“Didn’t you tell him about the strapping Scotsman that you have tucked away at home?”
I laughed. “No, it wasn’t like that.”
Jimmy signaled to the barman. “My friend here needs a G and T pronto.”
The barman obliged, upending a blue bottle into a measuring cup just as a loud boom sounded and the pub shook. The cup slipped from the barman’s fingers with a clatter. Bottles in the refrigerators behind the counter and those on the shelf against the wall behind the bar rattled. Empty glasses tipped over on an adjacent table and several bottles of spirits skidded off the end of the bar, splintering into shards as they hit the wooden floor. Clear liquid ran across the boards following the slope of the floor towards the door. With a shriek, I grabbed on to the edge of the bar for support.
There was an eerie silence for a moment as everyone looked at each other with a mixture of confusion and concern.
“What the hell was that?” Jimmy said. “An earthquake?”
“Jim,” Dave shouted from outside.
Jimmy and I looked at each other for a second before rushing through the door to join Dave.
“Look.” He pointed up the road to where an enormous cloud of smoke and dust rose into the dusky sky. The screech of brakes sounded as traffic pulled to an abrupt stop on the busy road. Then loud splintering crashes could be heard as brick, timber and metal returned to earth and the awful sound of human suffering rose above the din.
We started running up the road in the direction of the blast. Jimmy and Dave, not hampered by shoes with three inch heels, raced ahead of me, covering the two blocks in no time. By the time I joined them, the first survivors were staggering from what remained of the Kings Arms Hotel, covered in white powder from fractured concrete and plaster.
“What the—” began Dave.
We stood frozen to the spot and watched as two figures stepped from the rubble into the road, leaning on one another to stay upright. Both had blood running down their faces from cuts to their heads. Behind them a woman took a few lurching steps before collapsing beside a broken wooden bar stool with a feeble cry for help. A dazed man stepped over her, crossed the road and kept walking, his gaze unfocused. Two young women stumbled out of the wreckage, clinging to one another, their clothes torn and dusty, each missing a high-heeled shoe, so that they appeared to be engaged in an elaborate twisting dance routine. A man pushed past them calling for help, blood squirting from beneath the hand he pressed into his shoulder where his arm would once have been. Another man remained seated at an outdoor table, his hand still wrapped around a half-full pint of beer. On his lap sat one of the pub’s many colorful hanging baskets, the reds, blues and greens of the flowers and foliage in stark contrast to the chalky white powder which covered the man’s hair and clothes. What remained of his drinking companions lay scattered around him, like a macabre human jigsaw. The man stared into space with a blank expression.
“Oh my God,” I said, covering my mouth with my hand as I took in the horrific scene, struggling to comprehend the wreckage.
All around us people began rising from where they had taken cover moments earlier. There were desperate shouts as some hurried towards the wounded, whilst others held back, unsure what to do faced with such devastation. As I looked around, I noticed some people begin filming the carnage on their mobile phones.
Dave rushed forward and took the arm of one of the young women, while Jimmy went to the aid of her friend and helped them to sit down on the edge of the curb. They were shaking uncontrollably, so I took my raincoat off and draped it around the shoulders of the one nearest to me.
The wail of sirens from emergency responders racing to the scene began to get louder as they approached from all directions. A single police car pulled to a stop beside us and two young police officers alighted, donning their hats as they stepped out. Their faces displayed horrified expressions as they surveyed the chaos, but these were soon replaced by grim determination as they strode forward and took charge. One officer directed those of us helping the injured to lead them to an open outdoor square across the road from the scene, whilst the second officer tried to contain the spectators.
“Help is on the way,” he called. “We need to make certain that there isn’t a second device or a gas leak before going in.” Jimmy, who’d been climbing into the rubble to assist the injured, now stepped back and looked around with a helpless expression. “I know,” the officer said understanding his reaction. “But until we know what we are dealing with we don’t want any further casualties.”
“It was a car bomb,” a man in the growing crowd called out, pointing to the almost unrecognizable mangled remains of a vehicle lying on its side up against the broken windows of a neighboring building, which until a few minutes earlier had been a lunch-time sandwich bar. “I saw it light up seconds before the explosion.”
“Okay, sir. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll need a statement from you,” the officer replied before relaying the information through to headquarters on his shoulder-mounted radio.
“Jessica.” I turned towards the voice. Will jogged across the road to join me. “Are you okay?”
“These poor people, they were just having a drink like we were earlier,” I said, wringing my hands and watching as a team of fireman leapt from their truck, unwinding a hose to deal with a small blaze that smoldered at the rear of the site.
Will nodded. “I know.”
I looked up at him. His brow was furrowed and he looked as distraught as I felt.
“Who would do such a thing? In the heart of London?” I asked.
Jimmy and Dave returned from helping the two young women to an ambulance that had just arrived. Dave handed me back my raincoat.
“Will, this is Jimmy and Dave, two of your new colleagues,” I said.
“G’day, mate,” Jimmy said as he hurried past us and back towards the remains of the pub. “Can you give us a hand with this guy?” he called over his shoulder.
“Sure,” Will replied, following him and taking the other side of a solidly built injured man who had staggered from the pub. Between them, Jimmy and Will helped him across the road to the square where more ambulances and paramedics were beginning to arrive.
The smell of smoke and rotten wood intermingled with something sweet and sickly hit me as I helped an older woman away from the debris to relative safety. I wrinkled my nose and looked skywards; sunset was upon us. I noticed a police van arrive and several officers begin setting up spotlights on tripods pointed at what remained of the pub.
We were busy for the next twenty minutes, helping the walking wounded from the ruins across the road to the square to be triaged and assisting the small handful of police officers to set up barriers until more of their colleagues arrived. At one point I found myself moving odd shoes, bags, documents and other personal objects thrown by the blast into the street, to an area at the edge of the square. The bomb squad arrived and we were all moved back from the site. We were beginning to feel surplus to requirements when a police officer approached us.
“Anyone else is going to need either a stretcher or a body bag,” he said with a grim expression. “Thanks for your assistance, but I’ll need you back behind the barrier now. Leave your details with the officer over there as we’ll need statements from you all.”
We nodded and walked across to the officer holding a tablet, at the edge of the police cordon, and gave our names and contact details. I looked down at my white shirt; it had a blood stain on the sleeve and black marks across the front. I went to pull my raincoat on but
noticed that it had drops of blood across the shoulders. I shuddered. I looked at my hands, they were blackened too. I hiccupped, the beginnings of a sob.
“Come on,” Jimmy said, taking my arm. “Let’s head back to The Tower, I need a stiff drink after that. Will, mate, join us?”
◆◆◆
As we ducked under the hastily erected police cordon, a block back from the scene we noticed Aditi Sharma, the petite dark-haired BBC reporter, standing alongside the crews of several other television networks, awaiting the signal from her cameraman as he counted her in. We paused to listen.
“I’m reporting live from the scene of a devastating terrorist attack in the heart of London tonight.” Aditi paused and looked behind her at the remains of the pub, a smoldering pile of brick and plaster, dotted with a number of white sheets, covering the bodies of the dead. “Eye witnesses tell me that a car bomb exploded outside the Kings Arms Hotel on Cheapside at 8.05 pm tonight. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack at one of the City’s popular after work venues. There is currently no official death toll, but I understand that there are already eighteen confirmed dead and many more injured.”
Aditi pressed her right hand to the earpiece in her ear as the news anchor in the studio asked her a question. A moment later she nodded.
“Another incidence of home grown terror? We’re hearing those rumors here too. This is the third attack since the outcome of the Brexit referendum, but as yet there’s been no official comment. Witnesses describe the two men who parked the van containing the bomb and walked away ten minutes before the explosion, as white and in their twenties. We understand that police teams are pulling the street CCTV footage as we speak.”
She paused, listening before continuing. “At this point no one has claimed responsibility, so we have no idea as to the motive behind the attack, but there is some speculation that this incident may be related to the recent Trafalgar Square and Windsor bombings. However, it does seem that this was a much larger device, so authorities will be desperately hoping that this isn’t an escalation of violence.”
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