Authors: Catrin Collier
‘There’s more alive under the roof,’ the fireman confirmed. ‘We’re getting them out just as fast as we can.’
‘Jenny, have you seen Myrtle?’ Huw stood beside Haydn.
She tried to focus on them, but the effort proved too much.
‘That’s enough.’ Bethan took charge. ‘Get her over to the ambulances,’ she ordered the firemen. ‘I’ll show you the way.’
Ronnie waited. The creaking and groaning of their metal cocoon resounded, more alarming with every passing minute. Wyn had handed out three girls so far. Jenny, Judy, and one he hadn’t recognised, but Wyn hadn’t said a word for at least two minutes and he was beginning to wonder if there were any more survivors.
‘Careful, this one’s badly injured.’
Ronnie steeled himself, hoping it wasn’t burns. Judy’s hand had been burnt, and flakes of her skin still clung to his fingers.
‘If we slip another girder under here, it could give you more room,’ a voice echoed behind him.
‘And it could bring the whole lot down on top of us,’ he called back.
‘We don’t have much option: the fire is getting out of control and coming this way.’ A fireman crawled up behind him. ‘I’m regular, not factory trained, lad,’ he pulled rank on him. ‘Leave this to the professionals.’
‘Not until my mate gets out of here. Wyn, you all right?’ Ronnie shouted.
‘I need help.’
‘I’m coming.’
Before the fireman could stop him, Ronnie crawled around the top of the bench.
‘It’s Jane. Both her legs are broken and I’m afraid of hurting her.’
‘Here, let me take her by the shoulders, we’ll manage between us.’
Ten sweating minutes and six girls later they were alone.
‘That’s it,’ Ronnie said flatly.
‘I’ll just check down there.’
‘I’ll wait.’
‘No you won’t. That fireman’s going to burst a blood vessel if he shouts any louder. Ronnie, if I don’t get out of here will you take care of Diana?’
‘What are you talking about …’
‘Give Billy my gold watch. It’s in my locker. Tell him about me, and tell him I was proud to be his father and that I loved him. Take care of Diana, and be good to her and Billy. If you’re not, I’ll come back to haunt you. And warn Huw the same goes for him with Myrtle.’
‘Tell him yourself …’
The shouts outside grew louder.
‘Go, Ronnie.’
‘I’m not leaving you.’
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to.’
Ronnie shone his torch down the length of Wyn’s body. It was then that he saw the steel bar pinning down Wyn’s leg, and he understood why Wyn hadn’t been able to get the last girls out without help.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ The fireman’s head appeared in a pool of torchlight at the top of the bench.
‘My mate’s trapped.’
‘We’ll be back with a hoist. If you don’t care about yourself, there’s four firemen behind you who won’t move until you do. Get going, will you? The fire’s almost on top of us.’
‘Remember, the watch is in my locker, and take care of Diana.’ Wyn pushed Ronnie; the fireman grabbed his shoulders. He was pulled kicking and yelling to the outside. The firemen scrabbled out after him just as the roof shattered, settling in a crackling of flame and sparks to the floor.
Ronnie trawled through the ashes and debris, skirting past two bodies reduced to charred cinders. Stifling his nausea, he covered his hands with the torn sleeves of his overalls and turned them over. The shrivelled remains of dust caps clung to the skulls. Women, not men!
He rose to his feet. Black powder and dust was everywhere. The rank stench of burnt gunpowder and cordite assailed his nostrils. He closed his eyes against the stinging smoke, trying to orientate himself, but now that the sheets of metal had been cooled with hoses and dragged out into the yard, it was difficult to see where he and Wyn had worked to free the women.
He found the blackened remains of what might have been a bench, but was it the bench they had worked behind? There was no body close by, not even a pile of ashes.
‘Ronnie?’ Bethan stood beside him. ‘You did all you could, no one could have possibly done more. The firemen said the girls would have died if it hadn’t been for you.’
‘Not me, Wyn,’ he said harshly. ‘And I can’t even find his body.’
‘We’ve got to go. The salvage workers are waiting to move in.’ Bethan dragged him away, up the ramp that led to the canteen and the cloakroom. The lockers had remained untouched by the explosion and the fire that had followed. He walked along the bank until he came to Wyn’s. Turning the handle, he opened it. A pair of singed overalls, half-melted rubber boots and a gold watch lay inside. Nothing else. He picked up the watch.
‘He asked me to give it to Billy.’
She nodded.
‘Someone’s going to have to tell Diana. Do you mind if I do it?’
‘The police have been given a list of the dead and injured, they’re informing the relatives now.’
He closed the locker door.
‘Come on, I’ll drive you to the hospital, you need to see a doctor.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re bleeding.’
‘I don’t think it’s my blood. Haven’t got a cigarette, have you?’
‘In the middle of this powder you want to light up?’
‘It’s not a good idea?’
Bethan recognised the symptoms of shock and led him across the almost deserted yard to the tea wagon.
Night had fallen, murky and smoke-ridden. She would never have found the wagon if it hadn’t been for the white stripes painted around the counter.
‘You and Wyn brought out a lot of girls who would have died, Ronnie.’
‘I remember Jenny. After that it’s all a haze.’
‘Jenny’s concussed, she’s got a broken arm and slight burns but she’s going to be fine. They’ve taken her to the hospital. Here, come and sit in my car and drink this. Then I really do have to take you to the hospital.’
‘I’d like to see Diana first.’
‘She will have been told by now.’
‘You don’t understand …’
‘Later, Ronnie. You can see her later.’
‘Just one more look? In the cloakroom. I need to pay my respects.’
‘Two minutes.’
Curling his fingers around the gold watch in his pocket he walked into the women’s cloakroom. It had been turned into a temporary mortuary. Two sappers were already loading the bodies on to the back of a truck. No hearses for wartime casualties, he reflected grimly.
In a corner heaped on a pile of charred bones, was a leg. Firm, rounded, ridiculously pink and unscathed. It bore no signs of fire, yet it was neatly severed, just below the knee.
He crouched beside it.
‘It’s a wooden one, mate,’ one of the sappers shouted. ‘We think it belonged to the bloke who got those girls out from under the roof that caved in.’
‘You found his body?’
‘No, just the leg. It was trapped beneath a girder.’
Ronnie fingered the gold watch as he rose to his feet. It was all so bloody obvious. Why hadn’t he thought of it straight away? Wyn’s overalls wouldn’t have been in his locker if he’d been killed. His suit would have been folded there.
Give Billy my gold watch. It’s in my locker. Tell him about me, and tell him I was proud to be his father and that I loved him. Take care of Diana, and be good to her and Billy. If you’re not, I’ll come back to haunt you. And warn Huw the same goes for him with Myrtle.
‘Any haunting you do won’t be from the grave,’ he murmured to himself.
Turning his back on the dead he walked towards the loading bay and Bethan. The sappers’ voices echoed after him.
‘Well whether it’s sabotage or not, there won’t be any more ammunition coming out of this place, that’s for sure.’
‘Want to make a bet on it?’ a factory fireman retorted. ‘Manager’s just said we’ll be back to full production this time next week, and we will. They can’t lick Jerry without us.’
Huw sat next to Myrtle’s bed, glad that the nurses were too busy to chase him away. He wanted to be the first one to talk to her when she woke. The first to give her the news, and tell her it didn’t matter. That nothing could possibly make a difference to the way he felt about her. He looked up and saw Doctor John standing in the doorway.
‘Someone told me you two only got engaged yesterday, Constable Davies.’
‘That’s right. How is she, doctor?’
‘As well as can be expected. As soon as her arm heals we’ll fit her with a false hand. They’re very good these days, and there’s all kinds of useful gadgets that can be added to them. She’ll need a bit of help to adapt, of course. I take it she was right handed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pity.’
‘She’ll have me to help her.’
‘The nurse told you about her sight?’
‘She said that you didn’t know the extent of the damage.’
‘The prognosis isn’t good.’
‘She’s blind?’
‘She has certainly lost some function, but she may see light and shadows. Time will tell.’
Huw reached down and gripped Myrtle’s left hand.
‘Can I stay with her until she wakes?’
‘I don’t see why not, Constable Davies,’ he paused in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to be, doctor. She’s still alive.’
‘After today I can see why you’re grateful for that much.’
Bethan left Ronnie with the casualty nurse and walked down the ward looking for Haydn. Her uniform was filthy, her hands, face and hair covered with smuts and ashes, but no one commented or stopped her. She found them at the end of the ward.
‘I could hear you two arguing from the other side of the hospital. Are you ever going to stop?’
‘She breaks both her legs and then tells me she’s intent on staying in Pontypridd and going back to the factory just as soon as she’s fit again.’
‘Is that what you want, Jane?’ Bethan smiled at her sister-in-law.
‘It’s what I want, but he wants me to go back to London.’
‘Isn’t that what you wanted when he brought you to Pontypridd?’
‘That was before I started contributing to the war effort. After today they’re going to need all the skilled hands they can get.’
Haydn reached out to her and Bethan moved away.
‘How many times do you expect me to stand back and watch you being dug out of bomb craters?’
‘This is the last, I promise. I’ll take a week or so off as soon as I can walk, and bring Anne down to see you in London.’
‘Time the patient was asleep.’ A nurse picked up Jane’s chart from the foot of the bed.
Haydn leaned over and dropped a kiss on to his wife’s forehead. Bethan turned aside, pretending she hadn’t seen the tear fall from his eye.
‘I really thought she’d be safe here,’ he said as they walked down the ward together.
‘Tell me anywhere that’s safe in this country at the moment and I’ll send my children there.’
‘I didn’t understand. Today, at the factory, those women, Wyn, Ronnie… they were as brave as any soldier I’ve seen under fire.’
‘Don’t ask Jane to stay at home and look after Anne again, Haydn. At least not until after the war’s over. If you do, you’ll lose her.’
‘I understand that now. I behaved like an idiot, didn’t I?’
‘It’s not the first time, and knowing you, it won’t be the last.’
‘Poor Wyn.’
‘Poor Diana.’
The lorry ground to a halt at the end of the trading estate. The driver leaned over, opened the passenger door and shouted to the young man leaning on a makeshift crutch fashioned from a piece of steel piping.
‘Where are you headed?’
‘North?’
‘Wales or England?’
‘Wales.’
‘Hop in. I’m sorry,’ the driver apologised as the man limped towards him. ‘Trust me to tell a one-legged man to hop. I honestly didn’t see.’
‘That’s not surprising in this blackout.’ He tucked away the white handkerchief he’d used to attract attention.
‘Can you manage?’ the driver asked as the man tossed the metal bar into the cab and heaved himself up, using his hands.
‘I’m used to it. It happened a year or so ago.’
‘Active service?’
‘The blitz.’
‘Bloody Jerry.’
‘Bloody war.’
‘Where exactly are you going?’
‘Rhyl. I have a friend there working in munitions. I’m hoping they’ll take me on.’
‘They will. They’re that short they’ll take on a one-armed, no-headed monkey, no disrespect intended.’
‘And none taken.’
‘It’s good to have company. It can get lonely on these long night runs. What’s your name?’
It was a simple enough question but his passenger hesitated for a moment.
‘Glyn, Glyn Powell.’
‘Pleased to meet you. Mind you, after today’s news you might not be working in munitions for very long.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Where’ve you been all day, Glyn?’
‘A bit busy.’
‘And nowhere near a radio. Haven’t you heard? The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor this morning. The Yanks are coming in on our side. Mind you, I think that’s bloody typical. We do all the hard work, then when it looks like we’ve hit a winning streak they join us and take all the credit.’
‘If they help us win the war that bit sooner, it will be worth giving them some of the credit.’
‘You’re not one of those Communists or pacifists who’s prepared to make peace at all costs, are you?’
‘No. Just someone who has lost a lot in the two years since the war started.’
‘Yes, well. I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t mean to offend you. You like films?’ he asked settling on what he hoped was a safe topic of conversation. ‘What do you think of Gary Cooper? Now there’s a hero for you.’
‘It was a beautiful service.’
‘Yes, wasn’t it.’ Diana repeated the trite phrase over and over again. She couldn’t bear to look at the sofa where Wyn’s father was holding court. Dressed in his best suit and wearing his Great War medals on his chest, he was receiving the condolences and congratulations of friends and neighbours on his son’s behalf, and she couldn’t help feeling that he was prouder of Wyn dead than he ever had been of him alive.
‘That medal will be something for Billy to inherit.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ She turned away from the minister’s wife, wondering why on earth she was thanking her.
‘Diana?’
She turned to see Ronnie behind her. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’
‘At Wyn’s memorial service?’
‘Diana, didn’t anyone tell you? I was the last person to see him. I have something to give you.’
She looked at the room full of people. Myrtle sitting next to Huw, her arm in a sling, her face half hidden behind the dark glasses the doctor had prescribed to save what was left of her sight.
‘It’s important, Diana.’
‘Come through the kitchen into the back garden.’
She crossed the yard and climbed the steps to the small vegetable plot her mother tended.
He walked towards her and opened his hand. ‘It’s his watch. He wanted Billy to have it.’
She took it from him, staring down at the case through a tear-stained haze.
‘He left us something else, Diana.’
‘Us? Ronnie, please …’
‘He left us each other. You do know why they didn’t find his body, don’t you?’
Her eyes told him she already suspected the truth.
‘He’s not dead. I promise you, he’s still alive. There’s no way his overalls could have got back into his locker if he’d been killed. He must have wanted to disappear. I have no idea where he’s gone, or why …’
‘I do.’ She had searched the house for Erik’s letter to tell him Wyn had been killed, but it had disappeared, together with photographs of her and Billy, and his mother and Myrtle. She had wondered if he’d been planning it for some time.
Tomorrow she’d walk up to Jacobsdal. Someone there would have Erik’s address. There were other things that should be sent on. The bankbook that held his inheritance from his mother. A letter wishing Erik and his new friend, whoever he was, well.
‘He told me that if I didn’t look after you and Billy he’d come back to haunt me, and the same went for Huw with Myrtle. But he isn’t a ghost, Diana.’
She ran her fingers over the engraving on the watch casing. The fine work was slightly worn at the catch.
He reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek. ‘I never thought I’d be able to ask you this, but will you marry me? Not now of course, but in a year or so?’
‘What about Tony? And Billy and …’
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her as though he never intended to let go. ‘There’s no problem we can’t face or solve as long as we’re together.’
‘And Wyn?’
‘We’ll tell his son what a brave hero he had for a father.’
‘Ronnie …’
‘Do you love me?’
‘You know I do.’
‘That’s the only difficult bit. From here on in, everything’s going to be perfect. Trust me?’ He moved away and held out his hand. She took it. They walked slowly down the steps and back into the house.