Authors: Annie Groves
It was a busy day. The major had had several meetings to attend, as a result of which Sam had arrived back at the barracks too late to catch the transport that would have taken her back to her billet. Now she had the option of hoping for a lift, getting a bus into the city and then another bus out again, or walking the three miles or so that separated the barracks on Deysbrook Lane from her billet up in Wavertree.
Sitting on her own in the Naafi cafeteria she pondered on what her best choice was whilst drinking her cup of tea.
It made sense to catch the bus, even though that meant going back into the city and out again. It had been raining virtually all day and now it was dark and the temperature had started to drop.
On the other hand, since she didn’t feel like company or forcing herself to be pleasant and cheerful when she felt so unhappy perhaps she ought to walk. A brisk walk might even do her
good. She could walk back via Tuebrook and the West Derby Road; that way, if she changed her mind, she could still catch a bus.
She finished her tea and stood up.
Outside the Naafi hut she could, if she had wished to do so, have looked across to where the Bomb Disposal Unit had their headquarters and parked their vehicles, but of course she did not want to do any such thing.
Keeping her face averted from them, she pulled up the collar of her greatcoat and walked briskly towards the sentry box, dutifully showing her pass as she left.
It took her a good fifteen minutes’ brisk walking to reach Tuebrook, which, along with the railway sidings at Edge Hill, had been heavily targeted by German bombers, and the results of their attacks could still be seen in the damaged buildings.
Johnny’s section of the Bomb Disposal Squad was monitoring several non-urgent bomb sites in the area.
Johnny! She came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the pavement, oblivious to both the darkness and the sleet. She hadn’t known that it was possible for her heart to hurt so much.
She started walking again, her head down against the icy rain as she headed for Edge Hill.
She was close now to the bomb site that always filled her with secret dread because of the depth of the tunnelling. The Luftwaffe had bombed Edge Hill, hoping to damage the sidings. One of the
bombs that had missed was now buried deep beneath the earth, with the site being monitored. The bomb had fallen into what had been a narrow street close to the railing cutting. The street and its houses had been demolished and the site was now an uninhabited wasteland with half-standing buildings, where no one except those with business there ever ventured.
As she drew level with the gap between the buildings that led to the site she glanced up it automatically and then stopped. An army lorry was parked close to the site, the number of Johnny’s unit chalked on its side. What was it doing there, at this time of night? She would have known if there had been an emergency because the major would have had to have been informed. Without having had any intention of doing so, she discovered that she was walking towards the lorry, her heart beating far too fast.
Why? Because she thought Johnny might be here?
That was crazy. For one thing, just because she had seen a lorry from Johnny’s unit that did not mean that he would be in it, and even if he was then surely he was the last person she wanted to see, wasn’t he? He would certainly not want to see her! And for another, as she had been doing her utmost to avoid seeing him since they had broken up, walking down a potholed rubble-strewn road in the darkness, feeling sick with a mixture of misery and longing, hardly made any kind of sense, did it?
She gave a small gasp as she almost stumbled, grimacing as she stepped ankle-deep into a puddle.
What on earth was she doing?
She had reached the lorry now, which she could see was empty. Sometimes the men did leave a spare lorry at one of the sites, ready for use.
She switched on her torch, and swept the beam over the cordoned-off bomb site, registering its empty silence. The only sound was the noise of the wind-driven sleet hitting a piece of corrugated iron. Sam frowned. The opening to the tunnel was normally covered with corrugated iron held down by bricks. Could the wind have lifted them?
She stepped a little closer to the cordon and then stopped. She knew quite well that the real reason she was hesitating was because of her fear of this site.
The bomb had penetrated very deep into the ground. In order to get down to it the sappers had had to tunnel down a long way, shoring up the sides of the tunnel as they worked. The system with such a deeply buried bomb was that the sappers digging at the bottom of the tunnel, where there was barely room for more than a couple of men, had to spade what they dug up onto a shelf constructed above their head, which another sapper, working on that shelf, then removed.
She could see the bricks now. They were neatly piled up together. Neatly piled up? So it wasn’t the wind that had blown that covering off, then.
Only human hands could have stacked them like that.
It was probably just some boys larking around who had removed the corrugated iron, not realising the danger they would be creating for the men who had to go into the tunnel. The most sensible thing she could do was put the covering back, put the bricks down over it, and then report what she had done to the barracks in the morning.
She went towards the corrugated iron and then stopped and looked back at the truck. A simple piece of mental arithmetic she didn’t really want to add up was forcing itself on her.
Without the truck it might have been possible for her to convince herself that the removal of the covering over the tunnel shaft was the work of mischievous boys, but the truck was there and it must have had a driver.
Sam turned to look back the way she had come. There was no one in sight, no sounds of any human movement. Her lips had gone dry and her heart was pounding. She did not want to do this, she really didn’t, but she knew that she had to.
Taking a deep breath she climbed over the cordon and walked towards the mouth of the tunnel.
A further hazard with this site was that water was gathering at the bottom of the tunnel, despite the men having installed a pump.
The pump! She couldn’t hear the pump working. Maybe it had been turned off deliberately. She hesitated.
There wouldn’t be anyone down there – why should there be? She started to turn away, but her conscience was prodding her. If it had been any other bomb site but this one she wouldn’t have hesitated to check it out, would she?
Taking another deep breath, she continued towards the tunnel mouth, gasping a little when she slipped on the sticky mud but not stopping until she was as close to the edge as she dared to get. She could feel her stomach churning sickly with her own fear as she shone her torch downwards, then forced her gaze to follow its beam.
Nothing! She exhaled in relief, started to turn away, then stopped, knowing that she should check again.
This time she shone the torch more slowly, panning its thin beam along the walls and then across the shelf platform, its boards sticky with mud. Down below it she could see the silent pump, and rising level of the water – nothing else.
Nothing else? Then what was that she could see shining in the beam of the torch through the boarding of the platform? She shone the torch yet more slowly, its beam picking out the badge that was the insignia of the Bomb Disposal Unit. She moved the torch beam upward from it over the uniformed chest, her heart leaping into her throat as finally it played over the face of the man trapped there.
Johnny!
Johnny. It couldn’t be, but it was. Her hand was wet with sweat where she was holding the torch.
Her heart was drumming with fear and panic. She desperately wanted to believe that none of this was happening, but she knew perfectly well that it was.
Forcing herself to look down at him, she called Johnny’s name, then when there was no response she called again more loudly.
Nothing. No movement. No sound, no awareness that she was there at all.
She could see that he was slumped over, his body almost submerged beneath the water, and she knew that if he was alive he must be unconscious. If he was alive? He must be. He
had
to be.
She had to get to him. Sam didn’t hesitate. Driven by love and fear, not even the fact that she was shaking from head to foot, and half sobbing, could stop her from climbing down the rope ladder the men used to reach the platform.
It was like going down into hell itself, and several times she had to force herself not to panic and start clawing her way out again when her feet slipped on the wet, mud-coated rope, threatening to send her plummeting downward.
It seemed to take her a lifetime to reach the platform, and once she had she crouched there, feeling violently sick, unable to move, almost unable to breathe. What if the rain caused the mud she had left behind to start to slide into the hole trapping her,
burying
her…? Don’t think like that, she told herself. You mustn’t.
She reached into her pocket for her torch, each movement an effort because of her fear and her icy cold hands. Switching it on, she peered down
through the platform, her breath catching on a frantic sob as the first thing the light revealed was Johnny’s face, closer now.
His eyes were closed, but to her relief she could see that he was breathing. Tears filled her eyes as she sobbed his name. He was lying on his back with rising water lapping all around him.
He was too far below her for her to be able to reach out and touch him from the platform. She would have to go down even further into the tunnel. She looked up the way she had just come. If she went for help would they get back in time? The water was rising fast.
If, instead of going for help, she could get to Johnny she might be able to lift his head clear of the water. They wouldn’t have to wait long for someone to come looking for them. Someone at the barracks must know by now that he was missing, surely, and would send a search party out to find him? But what if they didn’t … what if …?
Don’t think about it, Sam ordered herself as she started to make her way down to Johnny. Don’t think about anything except being with Johnny. What if the worst
did
happen and the tunnel collapsed on top of them? At least they would be here together, and what was her life to her anyway without him?
But to die in such a way and such a place, slowly, gasping for air in the darkness …
She gasped, almost slipping into the pool, as she reached the bottom of the shaft, and managed to struggle through the muddy water to get to him.
Crouching down beside him she whispered his name in his ear and stroked the wet hair off his face, keeping her torch on and tucked into the breast pocket of her jacket so that she could at least see something of what she was doing as she struggled to lift his head up and support his upper body against her own to keep his head clear of the water.
It hurt so much to fear that holding him like this might be as close as she would ever get to holding him in a lover’s embrace, and that this might be all she would know of him before death claimed them both.
But at least she was here with him. How many other women mourning the men they had lost would have been more than happy to change places with her, were this their man? She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his forehead, cold lips on cold flesh.
Suddenly his eyelids fluttered and then opened. For a minute Sam was too overwhelmed with relief to speak.
Johnny was looking at her, his gaze cloudy and confused. ‘Sam …’ he whispered weakly. ‘Is it really you?’
‘Yes, it’s really me.’
‘I’ve been dreaming about you. Perhaps I still am.’
‘No, you’re not dreaming. I am here.’
‘The pump’s packed up,’ he told her.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Part of the shoring fell in onto the pump. It’s
on my leg and I can’t get free. Hurts like hell, it does.’
Sam swallowed painfully. She’d realised that he was trapped, of course.
‘Help will be here soon,’ she told him. ‘They’re bound to send someone from the barracks.’
‘I thought you said you’re afraid of tunnels.’
‘I am.’
‘So why did you come down here?’
‘You know me,’ she answered as lightly as she could. ‘Always ready to live dangerously.’
He didn’t say anything for so long that she was afraid that he had lost consciousness again, but then abruptly he said, ‘The water’s rising.’
‘Yes.’ She managed to keep her voice calm but she knew that the way her arms tightened around him would have given her away.
‘I want you to get yourself out of here, Sam.’
Now it was her turn not to say anything.
‘Sam?’
‘It’s no use trying to boss me around. I’m staying here.’
‘It’s not going to be that long.’
‘No, I’m sure the others will be here soon.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant. Is it still raining?’
Sam swallowed back her tears. ‘No, it’s stopped.’
‘Liar. I reckon I’ve got an hour at the most. Water’s rising fast.’
‘No, you mustn’t say that.’
‘It’s the truth, and you know it. I don’t want you staying down here, risking your own life on account of me. I’m not worth it.’
‘That’s for me to say.’
‘You’re not crying, are you?’ he demanded.
‘No!’
‘Must be raining then, seein’ as me face is getting all wet.’
Sam gulped.
‘I was thinking about you before …’
‘Wishing you’d never met me?’ Sam suggested, trying to sound light-hearted.
‘No. Wishing I’d had a chance to tell you what a fool I’ve bin and how much I love you.’
‘Oh, Johnny.’
She
was
crying now, but somehow it didn’t matter and somehow too he had managed to put his arm around her and pull her down towards him until she was close enough for him to kiss her.
His lips tasted of cold and wet, and even a little mud, but Sam didn’t care. Her heart swelled with love for him, and she kissed him back every bit as fiercely as he was kissing her.
‘I’ve bin missing you,’ he told her emotionally as he released her. ‘Missing you and wishing I’d not acted like such a fool.’