Page 54 of The London Girls
It was then she felt Jack’s leg nudge hers, and although she daren’t look down, her eyes fixed on the truck in front of her, she did appreciate the touch. He projected a tough, burly-bear image thathad almost sent her running scared that first day, but she’d glimpsed a different side of him enough times now to know that there was more to him. That he had his own reasons for doing this job, that he’d suffered something traumatic, just like she had.
But the brush of his thigh against hers was long forgotten when she stopped abruptly, the scene facing them like nothing she could have ever imagined, even after everything she’d seen.
‘What on earth ...’ she started, as she carefully stepped out on to the road. But her question died on her lips as she digested the carnage that confronted them, and she stood rooted to the spot, staring. The noise was deafening, as whistles were sharply blown, men yelled, as people screamed in agony, and then another bomb fell, shuddering through the ground, almost knocking her over.
Florence had thought she’d seen it all, had thought she’d hardened herself to what they were faced with night after night, but nothing could ever have prepared her for this.
‘There were so many soldiers here tonight,’ Jack said beside her, raising his voice to be heard. ‘A few nights home on leave, and this is what happens to them. It’s like that first night the Luftwaffe bombed all over again.’
Florence was speechless, staring at the bodies, at the men thrown like toy soldiers across the concrete. She supposed they’d been leaving, or perhaps waiting outside and smoking a cigarette, or maybe their night was only just beginning; whatever they’dbeendoing, it was their final moment alive before they’d been caught unawares.
‘What do we do?’ she asked, as two firemen ran past her and almost knocked her over.
Jack reached out to steady her and she found herself clasping his hand, as an air-raid warden bustled up to them, flicking on her light.
‘Don’t try to enter what’s left of the theatre, just check the bodies. Some were hit out here, others have been carried out,’ the woman said. ‘Use your lights sparingly, Lord knows we don’t want another direct hit.’
Florence let go of Jack’s hand then. ‘Come on, let’s start at this end.’
He followed her and they both dropped low, using their lights to quickly check each face before feeling in the dark for pulses, ignoring the sticky sensation of blood covering so much of the skin they touched. Florence could hear moans coming from somewhere, but so far she hadn’t found a live soldier yet. And every single one was a soldier – all young men who’d deserved a night of fun after what they’d been through.
‘Flo!’ Jack’s call sent her scrambling, and she used her light to check the man he was crouched over.
‘He’s alive?’ she asked.
‘Barely, but there’s a pulse.’
She stuck her light back in her pocket. ‘You go and get the stretcher. I’ll stay with him.’
Florence began to sing a little song, filling the silence as she held the man’s hand and prayed that he’d make it long enough for them to get him to hospital. She would have preferred moaning or crying out to his silence, and when she touched her palm to his forehead, she hated how cold he felt.
‘Florence?’
‘Here!’ she called back, reaching for her light and flashing it once so Jack could find her. He put the stretcher down beside the man. ‘You take his shoulders, I’ll take his legs.’ Florence bent, bracing herself to lift and reaching down, but she only connected with one leg. ‘Hang on a minute, I just ...’
Florence turned her light on again, wondering why she was finding it so hard to do her job, when bile suddenly rose in her throat and she doubled over, vomiting on to the pavement.
‘What’s—’
‘He doesn’t have a leg,’ she gasped. ‘His, his, his leg is gone!’
No wonder he’d felt so clammy, his lips pursed from the pain. The poor man’s leg had been blown off from the knee down!
‘He’s not going to make it, is he?’ she asked.
‘Our job is to get anyone with a pulse to the hospital,’ Jack said quietly, tying off the leg to stop the blood flow. ‘Can we lift him now?’
‘Yes,’ she said, dropping down low again, refusing to think about what she’d just seen, about what she was so nearly touching. Florence hefted his good leg with all her strength, and within seconds they were carrying him to their ambulance.
They loaded him in and hurried back for another. It was a hard choice, when he was so close to death, but they couldn’t drive all that way for one man.
‘Here’s another!’ Jack called out.
As they dropped to check this one, their stretcher already placed beside him, something touched Florence around the wrist, and she startled, instinctively pulling away.
‘Help me,’ the man whispered.
‘One moment, let us just get this soldier on to the stretcher,’ she said, before flicking on her light.
