Page 35 of The London Girls
It felt like the longest moment of her life as they stood waiting for the firemen to emerge, and when they did the relief hit her so hard she almost dropped to her knees. The woman was limp, but they wouldn’t have been carrying her if she wasn’t alive.
‘Get them loaded in!’ Jack called, and she ran with him to the ambulance, holding the doors open as they put the woman in the back.
Jack was bent low, his fingers to the woman’s throat as he felt for a pulse. He didn’t need to tell Florence that she needed to drive quickly; if they were going to save this mother, she was going to have to get her to the hospital faster than she’d ever gotten there before.
‘Florence?’
She paused, holding open the door that she’d been about to close.
‘Don’t youeverpull a stunt like that again.’
Florence didn’t reply. She shut the door and ran around to the driver’s side, hands shaking violently as she fumbled for the keys.
And just as she started the engine, there was a loud cracking sound as the remnants of the house they’d been in moments earlier crashed to the ground, the roof giving way completely, crushing everything beneath it. Tears pricked her eyes as she thought of the family in the back, and as she drove through the broken street, pastthe man still standing in his striped nightgown doing circles as he looked around, bewildered.
If I had to do it all over again, if I had to make that choice to go in, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
‘What the hell was that about?’ Jack’s voice was a thundercloud as he growled out the words.
Florence didn’t answer. Or more like, she couldn’t answer. The words choked in her throat like the smoke in the night air.
‘I asked what the hell that was about!’ Jack thundered beside her.
‘Perhaps you don’t have the right to ask me that,’ she smarted, her hold on the steering wheel tight as she accelerated down a small part of the road that was untouched by the chaos of the night of bombing. The West End had been fortunate so far.
‘I’d say I have every damn right to ask you,’ he said. ‘You don’t ever put your life in danger like that again. It was reckless and stupid and—’
‘I’m an orphan,’ Florence said, hurling the words at him as if it were all his fault. ‘I lay there in my home, pinned to the ground with my family dead around me after a bomb hit just near our house, all because no one came to save us until it was too late. I’m the only one who survived, Jack, and I’m not going to have that happen to another family, not on my watch.’ Her breath shuddered out of her as she fought to get her words out. ‘Not if there’s something within my power that I can do.’
Her breath was coming in rapid pants now, tears hiccupping in her throat as Jack’s silence deafened her. She cleared her throat and used one hand to quickly wipe her cheeks, hating that she’d let her emotion get the better of her. She was usually so good at hiding her emotions from others.
‘So, when I tell you that I’m going in, that nothing will stop me?’ She shook her head. ‘I damn well mean it, all right?’
‘All right,’ Jack replied quickly, and she caught his nod when she glanced sideways at him.
‘All right then,’ she muttered in reply.
After a beat of silence that felt hours long, Jack said, ‘You know, you should have told me.’
Florence almost laughed. Most people would have consoled her or given her some form of pity, but not Jack. ‘I don’t see that it was any of your business, and besides, I don’t like talking about it.’
Jack didn’t say anything else; he sat in silence as she drove the rest of the way, wrestling with the voices in her head, the memories of her parents and her sister: their laughter, their smiles, their hugs. She was never going to see them again, but that family they’d saved tonight – they had a fighting chance of being together again, of all surviving to see another day. That was something she’d done, something she could feel proud of, knowing those children still had their mother, despite the fact that their home had been lost.
When she stopped the ambulance in the garage, she got out quickly, intending on doing a quick check over the vehicle before going home and crawling into bed. But when she walked around the back, she saw that Jack had moved to stand in her way, his big frame making it impossible to get around him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his shoulders slightly stooped as he looked down at her. ‘I’m truly sorry for your loss, Florence.’
She nodded, moving forward a step to make it clear that she wanted to get around him and that she didn’t want to talk, but he still didn’t move.
‘Any house you want to go into, anyone you want to save, I won’t ever question you again. That’s a promise.’
Florence stared up at him, finally meeting his gaze. She could have sworn she saw tears in his eyes, but if she had, they were gone by the time he blinked.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
He shifted from one foot to the other, and she wasn’t sure if he was in pain or simply uncomfortable talking to her.
‘It’s fair to say I’ve got my own demons. I know what it’s like to lie awake at night, I know ...’ His voice trailed off.
