Page 55 of The London Girls
The man was clutching his arm, which was bleeding profusely. ‘Help me,’ he whispered again.
‘Sir, can you walk?’ she asked, yelling to be heard over the fresh commotion of fire engines and raised voices.
‘I think so.’ He stumbled to his feet and she steadied him before lifting her end of the stretcher. ‘If you can follow us, we can take you straight to hospital,’ she promised.
The man did his best to keep up with them, and Florence found herself panting with the exertion of carrying a grown man on a stretcher, struggling to keep up with Jack’s long, loping stride. But she kept reminding herself that he was likely in pain and just pushing through, which she had to do, too.
Florence gritted her teeth, her arms burning, but she managed to push everything out of her mind as she focused on what they had to do. She ignored the screams and cries for help; she refused to look down as she tripped and stumbled, as bodies started to line the street, as lights flashed and as the unmistakable boom of another bomb falling made the ground move beneath their feet.
She coughed through the smoke as they finally reached their ambulance, manhandling the stretcher in and, once he was secured, turning around and frantically searching for the other soldier who’d been following them. Only she couldn’t see him.
‘Jack, we’ve lost him!’ Florence took a few more steps, spinning around, using her light to search for him. In despair, she dropped low and started to shine the torch on the faces of men lying there, most of them dead.
‘We need to load some others in,’ Jack said. ‘And fast, before we lose this one.’
Florence put her light between her teeth when she reached another soldier, using all her strength to turn him over. She groaned from the exertion as she pushed him, taking her torch from her mouth and using it to look at his face.
No. No, it can’t be!
She dropped her light, fumbling for it then scrambling backwards, bending over, palms on the road as she vomited over and over again.
‘He’s here, I’ve found him!’ Jack shouted.
Florence couldn’t call back to him as she quickly stood and hurried away from the body, needing to get away from it. Oliviahad told her he was home for two days, that he hadn’t shipped out yet, that she was so looking forward to seeing him again.
‘Flo, help me get this one in,’ Jack said as she neared him.
She bent and did her best to help haul the man inside, as a fireman yelled at them and came hurrying over with a young woman in his arms, her body limp as he begged them to take her, their ambulance already overloaded. But Florence could barely hear what was being said to her as she stepped away from the ambulance and doubled over again, unable to keep down the burning-hot bile as it rose in her throat.
‘Let’s go!’ Jack yelled.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to stand, closing the back doors and hurrying around to the driver’s side. But as she slipped into her seat and started the engine, she was almost paralysed by sadness.
The soldier she’d seen, the soldier whose pale, ghoulish face would haunt her forever, was Leo, and she was the one who was going to have to break the news to Olivia.
Poor, darling Leo, who’d survived war only to die at home on leave.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she carefully drove them towards the hospital, remembering the people in the back who still had a chance at living, who she could still save.
Olivia is a widow. My friend who’s been married less than a week is going to have to bury the man she loves.
The night stretched on into the early hours, the most deadly and horrific night of bombings that Florence could remember, and now that the sun was rising, the carnage of the evening before waschaotic at best. They picked their way down the street, systematically turning bodies over, checking for pulses amongst the young men still littering the street. It was impossible for anyone to leave when there could still be survivors.
She’d stayed clear of the area closest to the theatre, not wanting to see Leo’s body again. Even though she’d seen countless men dead over the past few hours, something about seeing his body had affected her terribly, and she couldn’t bear to look at his face again.
‘There’s no one else here to check,’ Jack said as he walked slowly towards her. There was something comforting about his odd gait now, the way he lumbered along seeming so familiar.
They stood together, looking out at the bodies, surveying the mess the Luftwaffe had left behind. The brutal reality of what had happened, of the lives lost and the buildings destroyed, of how many bodies now lined the street, was almost impossible to comprehend, even though she was seeing it with her own eyes.
‘It seems wrong, doesn’t it,’ Jack said, shifting slightly beside her. ‘Leaving all these bodies here.’
She nodded, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself. They weren’t allowed to take the bodies with them in the ambulance; their job was strictly to transport patients to the hospital, not the morgue. But Jack was right, it did seem wrong to leave them. Especially Leo.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she tried to blink them away, but this time it didn’t work. Now that everything was over, now that their job was done, all the sadness she’d been keeping down suddenly came bubbling up in a way she’d never experienced before.
A sob that sounded more animal than human erupted from deep inside her, and she lurched forward, clutching her stomach as the pain took hold of her all over again.
‘Florence?’
