London - Edward Rutherfurd [590]
Charlie Dogget sat shaking on the edge of the crater looking in. The bomb, all eight hundred pounds of it, was half-buried in the centre where the gold had been. Silversleeves was still lying unconscious where he had landed in the blast. Charlie stared at the bomb, half expecting it to explode. But nothing happened. Unexploded bombs – UXBs – were not uncommon, but they could go off at any time. Charlie got up slowly and wondered what to do. He supposed he ought to summon help and get Silversleeves out, but there was, of course, the matter of the gold. Was it all buried under the bomb now, or was it possible he could still get some more out? “If I’m lucky enough not to be killed by the Messerschmitt last night or this bomb now,” he thought, “I should think my luck will hold good.” Slithering down into the crater again, he started towards the bomb.
There was more light now. Some other building must have been set ablaze nearby because a wall of flame suddenly leaped into the sky behind him. By its light he saw one gold coin lying near the bomb, but nothing else. “I know what it is. It’s God up there, sparing my life but keeping me from temptation,” he thought. “Just when I think I’ve struck it rich, He goes and buries all the money under eight hundred pounds of high explosive.” He reached down slowly for the gold coin only to be interrupted, from behind, by a roar that made him jump half out of his skin. He whirled round, looked up, and beheld a most awesome sight.
Standing on the edge of the crater, his huge form seeming even larger against the wall of flame filling the sky behind him, his great red beard appearing almost to be on fire itself, the mighty person of Admiral Sir William Barnikel was staring down into the pit. His arm, like that of some avenging Viking god, was raised and pointing at him.
“My God,” thought poor Charlie. “He’s caught me at it.”
But Admiral Barnikel knew nothing of Charlie and his Roman gold. As his car came by St Paul’s, all he had seen was the figure of Silversleeves being tossed by the blast into the crater, and now this gallant little fireman with his shock of white hair going down beside an unexploded bomb to get the warden out.
“Well done that man!” he thundered. “By God, you deserve a medal! Hold fast there. I’m coming!” Striding down into the crater himself, Admiral Barnikel cried: “You’ll never haul him out alone, man! Here we go.” Charlie took Silversleeves’s long legs and Barnikel his arms, and they hauled the unconscious warden up to the roadway where the admiral flagged down a passing ambulance and told the two women in charge to take the ARP warden straight to St Bartholomew’s. A moment later Helen was on her way with Silversleeves, still out cold, in the back of her van.
“Now then,” cried the admiral cheerfully, “I want you to come with me. I need your name and station.” He took Charlie over to his car. “I think,” he said in a low voice, “we might also get out of here. You never know when one of these unexploded buggers is going to go off.” Thirty seconds later, it did.
When an exhausted Percy got home from the big brewery fire at nine o’clock the following morning, Jenny did not tell him about Maisie.
“He’s been out all night and he’ll feel he’s got to do something. Let him sleep,” Herbert had insisted. So the brothers did not share their grief until the evening.
When Helen Meredith arrived home, however, she received a severe shock. The house in Eaton Terrace had been completely destroyed by a high-explosive bomb. One glance at it told her that no one could possibly have survived in there. She was still standing in the ruins unable to take in what had happened when her mother Violet walked round the corner.
“It’s the strangest thing, my dear,” Violet explained. “I had this extraordinary feeling I was in danger, so I went round to the shelter in Sloane Square Underground. I must