The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [113]
‘How do they do that? It’s so real.’
‘Film people designed it.’ On his feet again, he yanked my arm. ‘You got about fifty yards to go. Come on, run. No, you got to jump the troughs. No time to run the length.’ He was pulling me towards the next fire basket.
I can’t.
‘You have to. Fifty yards, that’s all.’
He was lying, I knew. Now the lights had come on I could see the extent of the ghost city. Had to be a couple of hundred yards at least, and four or five of the black iron troughs. We’d never do it in time…
We jumped the first. I ran fast as I could across the open space towards the next, him pounding beside me.
WHUMP.
A line of orange brightness in the dark over to our left.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ Davey’s voice breathless, scared. ‘They’ve started igniting the troughs. Come on, Frannie, run like you never run in your bleedin’ life. Won’t all go up at once, but won’t be long.’
WHUMP. Another. Somebody was sobbing no no no. It was me. I jumped the next fire basket. Maybe three to go. There were lines of fire all over the site now. It looked like the ground was cracking open and letting loose the pit of hell.
WHOOMPH. One of the tanks had let go a gush of oil: flames shot up into the sky, no more than a hundred feet away. I could feel the heat on the side of my face like sunburn. Any second now the water would fall onto the blazing troughs too, and the night would explode.
‘Jump.’ Over the next. Then a bang, and brightness half blinding me. The next trough ahead had ignited. I stopped, looking desperately left and right for the easiest way through.
‘You–still got to–jump it, Frannie.’ Oily black smoke was drifting across the site, making it harder and harder to breathe. ‘We’re–all right till they start flushing more tanks.’
‘We’ll get burned.’
‘Better–burned than fried. Don’t–think–jump.’ He took my hand. ‘High–as you can.’
I soared. Ran. Soared. Terrible spitting crack split the night, a great shower of sparks, billowing clouds, a rain of smuts. One of the water towers had let go. As I ran on, somewhere in all this dreadful blatter, a different note, a low bass humming. The bombers were on their way. But we was out of the ghost city, beyond the reach of its starfish arms of fire.
‘Davey?’
‘’S OK. My trouser leg caught fire.’ He was limping across the grass, backlit by the flames, bending to rub at his calf. ‘Stings like billy-o. You all right?’
‘I’m fine! I was too. Could hardly breathe, heart up high in my throat and revving like Mr Keiller’s motorbike, but I was better than I ever been, before or since. I was alive.
As he came up to me, I took his hand again. ‘Davey, boy, you’re a bloomin’ hero.’
‘I’m an effing idiot, is what. Don’t know that you deserve rescuing.’
Never worth pushing your luck. There were Germans in the sky. I ran ahead past the Nissen hut and down the path, hardly feeling its sharp stones under my bare feet. Didn’t stop till I was in the car.
Seconds later Davey was in. Then we were off, bouncing and jolting. No time for three-point turns; better to go on ahead. The track twisted sharp downhill, under the ramparts of Barbury hillfort. Behind us the ack-ack started up. A searchlight beam swept the sky.
‘Where does this go?’
‘Quick way back to Wroughton.’ The track was plunging steeply down. ‘Levels out in a mo’, then we’re almost back where we started.’ Farm buildings ahead on the left; a plantation of trees to the right.
‘Stop. Please stop.’
‘Not again.’ All the same, he slowed.
‘You wasn’t anywhere near me when we saw Liddington burning, were you?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘You weren’t in the Starfish at all, then, were you? You came back in to fetch