Chapter 32
She threw back the bedclothes and moved to the window.
In the distance, she could see the sky was lit up with fire and silhouetted against a pale moon were the unmistakeable shapes of planes, two bombers and three accompanying fighter planes.
An air raid! What was the target? The dockyards.
She immediately thought of Ronnie. A good thing he wasn’t there.
But that made no difference — nowhere was safe in a war.
Tilly stood at the window for a while, mesmerised by the light show in the night sky. She went onto the landing for a better view. Amelia was already there in her nightclothes.
‘It’s the Blyskawica,’ Amelia said. ‘Apparently she’s in dock for a refit. She’s firing back at the German bombers. Thank goodness we’re no closer.’
‘There will be casualties,’ Tilly said. ‘I’m getting dressed. They need all the help they can get.’
‘At this time of night?’ Amelia asked. ‘Surely there will be other medically qualified people on the scene. Anyway, it’s too dangerous and how will you get there? It will all be over by the time you cycle all that way.’
‘I’m an ambulance driver at the front, Amelia. Going to help the wounded this evening is no more dangerous, is it?’
Tilly got dressed, grabbed the first-aid kit from the cupboard in the bathroom and wheeled her bicycle out from the garden shed.
The clouds cleared the moon, lighting her way, and she peddled as fast as she could in the direction of the shipyards.
The sky was lit up from time to time when another wave of aircraft soared above her head and search lights peppered the sky.
The stillness of the night was disrupted by the loud booms of the bombs and, where incendiaries missed their target of the Blyskawica, fires were blazing all around her as she cycled through the town.
Three houses in King’s Road were on fire and, as she passed one, a man came running out calling for help. He held a small boy in his arms.
Tilly threw her bike down and ran towards him.
‘Agnes and Ruth. They’re still in there,’ he cried, coughing up the words and struggling to breathe. ‘Here, take my son. I need to get them out,’ the man screamed.
‘Dad, Dad, don’t leave me,’ the child whimpered.
Two neighbours ran from across the road to join them.
‘Give Tommy to us, Gordon,’ one said.
The boy clung on to his father.
‘Get him away from here,’ Tilly shouted. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
The man handed the boy over to the neighbours and turned back towards the house.
‘You’re not going back in there, are you?’ one neighbour said.
‘I can’t leave them,’ Gordon replied. ‘They were behind me. They were right there.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Tilly said.
‘I can’t ask you to risk . . .’
‘Don’t waste time talking. Come on,’ Tilly screamed.
‘Then take this and put it over your face,’ the woman said, taking off a shawl from round her shoulders and giving it to Tilly.
As they disappeared through the front door into the blazing building, a huge piece of burning wood fell down the staircase and lodged itself at the bottom of the stairs. Tilly and Gordon stepped across it and called out, ‘Agnes? Ruth?’ He turned to Tilly and said, ‘This way, follow me.’
The air was thick and burned the back of Tilly’s throat.
She tried to breathe shallowly as each breath caused her searing pain.
Her eyes refused to focus as they fought to stay open.
Tears streamed down her face and it felt as if her eyebrows and lashes were burnt to a crisp.
The intense heat made every part of her body scream to escape but she kept seeing visions of a mother curled around her child’s body, trying to protect her from the flames.
Gordon and Tilly called out again and again, and then stopped to listen for any response.
They kept as low as they could, crawling up the staircase, the sound of exploding glass and collapsing masonry all around them.
They searched each other’s faces, both looking for a sign of hope in the other that they were not on a hopeless mission, both determined not to give up.
Tilly was beginning to fear that they would have to get out before the house collapsed around them and save themselves when she heard a small voice call out in fear. ‘Dad, Dad. Up here.’
‘Ruth, Ruthie, hold on,’ Gordon replied, shouting above the sound of falling timbers.
The smoke cleared briefly and Tilly saw a girl squatting beside her mother at the top of the stairs.
‘Don’t move, Ruthie,’ Gordon said.
‘Mum’s foot is trapped. I can’t move her,’ Ruth cried.
Debris began falling from the ceiling and there was a gaping hole where the landing floorboards should have been. The woman’s foot had gone through the floor up to her thigh. Blood was pouring from a gash in her leg and she was unable to move. She kept lapsing in and out of consciousness.
Tilly and Gordon kicked debris to one side and Tilly stepped back as a torrent of roof tiles and plaster collapsed over her head and ripped through the floor beneath her feet, creating a chasm separating Tilly from the family.
The force of the collapsing roof pushed Tilly back and a shower of plaster and wood covered her face and the shawl, which she could feel melting into her skin.
She landed on her back, the burning material sticking to her.
She threw the debris and the shawl off herself and felt as if her skin was peeling away with it.
The pain in her face and hands was intense, but the need to reach Gordon, Ruth and Agnes forced her on.
Tilly dragged herself to her feet. Through the dense smoke, she could hear Gordon talking to his daughter. Somehow, he’d reached her.
‘It’s all right, Ruthie. You’re going to be all right,’ he reassured her.
‘Mum. You have to help Mum,’ Ruthie cried.
‘We’re getting you out, both of you,’ Gordon said, before turning and peering into the murky atmosphere that made it so hard to see anything.
‘Are you all right?’ he called.
Tilly was aware that time was critical. They couldn’t last much longer in this heat. The building was collapsing around them.
‘Yes,’ Tilly lied. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Go to the lady, Ruth,’ he said. ‘Jump. I’ll carry Mum.’
Gordon lifted Agnes as gently as he could under her arms and tried to extract her from the collapsed floor without doing more damage to her leg.
Agnes cried out in pain as her leg came free.
Somehow, they managed to get down the stairs, which were beginning to collapse.
They burst through the open front door and outside into a chaotic scene of people, screaming and shouting, and a night sky lit up with flames.
Tilly vaguely heard a siren howling through the night and was aware of people rushing from one place to another with buckets of water, but all was useless.
The fire had taken hold. Once they’d hauled Agnes and Ruth clear of the house, Tilly took in gulps of air.
She coughed and choked to clear her lungs of the noxious fumes and lay on her back on the ground while her chest heaved and fought to pump oxygen into her body.
For a moment she lost all sense of feeling; she had no awareness of where she was or what she was doing there.
Then she heard a voice coming to her through her waves of unconsciousness.
She thought it was Ronnie, calling her name.
She took in a huge gulp of air and came to her senses. She realised that something had to be done quickly to stop Agnes’s bleeding. Tilly looked around in desperation. She called to a woman standing by.
‘I need a strap, a belt, anything to stop her bleeding,’ Tilly shouted.
The woman pulled the belt off her dressing gown and handed it to Tilly, who used it as a tourniquet.
When she knew Agnes was safe, she turned to Ruth.
The girl seemed unharmed apart from being covered in ash smuts and coughing to clear her lungs of the smoke inhalation.
Gordon was ignoring the wound across his forehead and comforting Ruth.
‘She’s going to be all right,’ Tilly said. ‘Your mum’s going to be all right. We just need to get her to hospital.’
She could see firemen racing to and fro with hoses, instructions barked all around her, and a sense of panic filled the air.
‘Is everyone out?’ a fireman asked.
‘Yes, thank God,’ Tilly replied. ‘But we need to get this woman to hospital.’
‘Looks like you need some treatment too,’ the fireman said.
Tilly had been so focused on getting Agnes and Ruth out of the house, that she had not noticed the burns on her face and hands. When the adrenalin of the moment began to wear off, she became conscious of the searing pain.
Gordon, hearing what the fireman said, took his eyes off his wife and daughter for a moment and looked at Tilly.
‘My God,’ he gasped. ‘You must be in a great deal of pain. I don’t even know your name. You’ve saved my wife and daughter’s lives.’
‘It’s Tilly and your wife’s not entirely safe yet. We must get her to hospital.’
‘I’ll take you,’ offered a neighbour. ‘My works van is over there.’
The neighbour who had taken Tommy and still held his hand, offered Gordon and the children a bed for the night.
‘Better that you should all try to get some sleep,’ the woman said. ‘Agnes will be in safe hands with this young woman, I’m sure.’
‘Thank you, Mabel,’ Gordon replied.
Agnes was drifting in and out of consciousness, but, just as they carried her into the van, she opened her eyes. ‘Gordon,’ she whispered. ‘Ruthie, Tommy.’
‘Mum,’ Ruth called out and threw herself across her mother. ‘I want to go with you.’
‘Careful,’ Gordon said. ‘You can’t go. Mum needs to get to the hospital now, and you need to have a warm drink and get into bed with your brother. He needs you now. The doctors and nurses will look after her. We’ll go and see her tomorrow.’
‘Do as your dad says now, there’s a good girl,’ Agnes whispered.
Gordon thanked Tilly for all she had done and they put Agnes into the van.
‘I hope they can do something for you, too,’ he said. ‘You must be in agony.’
Once the van pulled away and they were on their way to the Royal, Tilly allowed herself to collapse and give in to the pain. The adrenalin had masked the hurt, but now she was beginning to feel the true price she had paid for the rescue.