Page 32 of The London Girls
He nodded. ‘Fair enough. But it’s your call, you’re the driver.’
She straightened, still surprised that there was only one other driver preparing to go out immediately. Of course they could be hurt or even killed, but if they waited it out, so many more people could die. So many more families could be torn apart, and that wasn’t something she wanted on her conscience. Every single mother, father, sister or brother she could help save was worth the risk. It had to be. Otherwise, what was she even doing?
‘We’re heading out,’ she said, sounding far more confident than she felt. ‘Every second after a bomb is dropped is critical, and I don’t want to be sitting here waiting when we have a job to do.’
Jack didn’t say anything, he just turned and started walking towards her ambulance, and she hurried after him.
It was now or never – and if she overthought it all? It could firmly end up being never.
Thirty minutes later, Florence was worried she might damage the steering wheel she was holding it so tight. It was her first proper night on the job, and despite the Luftwaffe going easy on them for the past few weeks, they were certainly making up for it now.
She kept her head ducked low, eyes strained from focusing on the other ambulance ahead of her. They were travelling in a convoy from the West End with fire engines leading the way, and she was starting to wonder if she had been too quick to volunteer to go out.
A reverberation sent the vehicle moving sideways beneath her, and she yanked the steering wheel to keep it straight on the road. Jack was silent beside her, but his shoulder bumped hers when the vehicle lurched again, his big body filling the passenger side as they continued in the dark. She was grateful to have him with her, despite his quiet demeanour; he was a steady presence in a night that was anything other than predictable, although she couldn’t read him tonight. Was he cross with her for insisting they go out, or pleased?
‘You still think this was a good idea?’ Jack asked, his voice gruff and impossible to read.
She turned with the convoy, disorientated by the dark and the smoke, but knowing that all she needed to do was follow. For now.
‘I didn’t see that we had a choice,’ she replied, as much to convince herself as to answer him.
Part of her wanted to tell Jack what had happened to her – what was motivating her to go out when almost everyone else thought they were crazy – but another part of her didn’t want to share her life with him. Not yet. Sometimes it was nice to just be Florence, to not be the girl who’d lost her parents and her sister, to not be the one everyone felt sorry for. She knew he’d look at her differently if he knew; everyone always did.
‘Look out!’
Florence slammed on the brakes, narrowly avoiding hitting the ambulance in front of her. Her heart was thumping, her hands still glued to the steering wheel as she stared at the back of the other ambulance, the only other one who’d chosen to brave the night.
She dared not look at Jack beside her, even though she could feel his eyes on her.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, opening his door and getting out when she finally pulled over.
Florence took a few seconds to compose herself, furious that she’d been so easily distracted on her first night out. She needed to do better next time; she needed to stay focused and not get pulled back into her memories. What must he think of her for almost crashing?
But as she stepped out into the night, as the acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils and then her lungs, making her cough as it curled in her throat, everything came violently rushing back. An air-raid warden ran past, blowing her whistle and using her light to show them the way; a fire engine was parked nearby, perhaps the one that had led the convoy, positioned to get wayward flames under control. Suddenly she was back in the house, trapped as she screamed for help, listening for her family, trying to figure out where they were and why they weren’t calling out too.
Hands reached for her, big burly hands that wrapped around her arms and hauled her from beneath the debris that had fallen on her, moving a piece of furniture or maybe it was part of her house that had pinned her. She blinked through the grit in her eyes, hazily making out the rubble around her as lights flashed, as someone with a torch searched.
‘Help them,’ she croaked. ‘Please, help them first.’
She couldn’t hear anything, even though she could see lips moving. The person nearby, and then the person hauling her, they were speaking but she couldn’t hear a thing as she blinked, seeing flashes of their faces and moving mouths.
And then she saw them. Her mother covered in ash, her eyes wide open, someone walking away from her, leaving her.
‘Help her!’ Florence screamed, even though she couldn’t even hear her own voice. ‘Please!’
It was then that it dawned on her – why people were rushing past, tripping over her mother’s body as if she were nothing, as if she weren’t precious and loved and capable of saving.
Her mother was gone. And as everyone rushed to the next house – as they departed what was left of her family’s home, of her family–she knew.
There was no one else to save. She was the only one who’d survived.
‘Florence!’
Jack’s call spurred her into action, and she ignored the choke in her throat as she hurried forward, pulling her scarf up over her mouth and nose.
‘Are you ready for this?’ he asked as a sharp whistle sounded nearby, telling them where to go.
‘I’m ready,’ she replied, coughing again as they rushed after the firemen. She tripped on the rubble as she shone her light on a doormat that had miraculously survived, untouched, still lyingthere on the ground with itsWelcomestitching visible to all who crossed over it.
