Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [134]
The lieutenant may have been surprised when the Wehrmacht officer followed him toward the building, but he said nothing. Cray left Katrin on the street and climbed four stairs to the door, and then stepped from the cool day into a hot house. The east wall—papered with maroon flowers—was bubbling and peeling from the fire in the adjacent home. This was a living room, but the furniture had been tossed when the room buckled from the bomb that hit next door. And the back wall had collapsed, as had some of the ceiling. Timbers and plumbing hung down, and electric wires. Plaster was everywhere.
A man was on his back next to the collapsed wall. A timber lay across his arm, pinning him. On the floor below the arm and beam was crumbled plaster. His eyes were wide and glassy. His mouth opened and closed. His other hand was gripping the corner of a throw rug. He was wearing a blue knit sweater, and it rose and fell quickly as he breathed.
"See what I mean?" The TeNo man jabbed the big pry bar under the beam, then heaved on it. The bar's blade only dented the weakened floorboards under the man's arm, and didn't raise the offending beam.
"You can't just push the beam back?" Cray asked. He held his gloved hand to his face, trying to keep the heated vapors out. He breathed quickly, as if that might make the air cooler. He had not bothered with a gas mask.
"Too much weight behind it," the Rescue Squad man replied.
The lieutenant stared at Cray's bandaged face. "Who are you?"
Cray lifted his collar to look at the tabs. "I'm a major. Go turn off one of the fire hoses and bring it in here. Turn it off at the pump, not the nozzle."
The lieutenant knelt next to the man on the floor. He brought up the saw. "I've got to take the arm off. He's not going to last. None of us is going to last if we don't get out of here."
The man groaned. The sound of falling timber came from the floor above. The room shivered. Glass shattered somewhere in the next room. Cray reached for the lieutenant's hand, halting the saw just as it was to bite into the trapped man's arm.
"Go turn off the fire hose and bring it in here." The lieutenant hesitated.
"I'm an engineer." Cray had to raise his voice over the sounds of the burning and collapsing structure. "Berlin Polytechnic. Now go get the fire hose."
The TeNo lieutenant released the saw to Cray, then sprinted from the room to the street. Cray tossed the saw aside. He knelt next to the man. "We'll have you out of here in a minute."
The wounded man breathed raggedly. He nodded. Yells came from outside, the lieutenant cursing the firemen who were reluctant to follow his orders and relinquish the hose. Cray looked toward the door but smoke hid it, and obscured even the nearby walls.
Cray coughed against the smoke and said to the wounded man, "Is it hot in here or what?"
The man managed, "Yeah, it's hot. And my arm hurts." After a moment he added, "I'd ask you to get out of here and save yourself, but I'm not that brave."
Licks of fire came through the wall near the ceiling behind them, then gushed into the room, spreading along the fractured ceiling. Flames churned above them like an angry sky.
The lieutenant rushed back into the room, dragging the hose behind him. Water dripped from the brass nozzle. "Drop the hose to the floor," Cray ordered.
The lieutenant did as he was told, and Cray stepped on the hose, pressing the water out of it and flattening it. The lieutenant copied him, stomping on the hose. Water dribbled from the nozzle. Then Cray knelt to close the nozzle.
"Help me press the hose into the crack," Cray said. "Hurry now. You"—he pointed at the TeNo man in the gas mask near the door— "when I give the signal, tell the firemen to turn the water back on, full pressure."
Cray jammed the hose into the narrow space under the beam. He wedged it in, much like filling a gap with a bead of caulk, kicking the hose into place.