by Ellie Dean
‘If it is an emergency they will need a nurse,’ she said. ‘Where have they gone?’
‘I’m really not sure exactly,’ said Andy. ‘John just said to prepare the fire truck with emergency equipment and get to the Officers’ Club.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I suspect they’ve gone into the hills somewhere, because they wanted digging equipment, oxygen, water and ropes – and his sturdiest boots – but I can’t be certain.’
‘We must find them,’ said Danuta. ‘Rita, we will take bike.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Rita. ‘But we’ll freeze up there in this lot.’ She flicked at the flimsy tea dress rippling in the wind against her bare legs.
‘So we will borrow fireman’s clothes,’ said Danuta, heading straight for the line of waterproof coats and trousers hanging above a shelf of sturdy boots.
‘I don’t think John will …’ began Andy.
‘John won’t mind,’ said Rita, pulling the trousers on over her dress and hunting out her working boots. She tossed a second pair to Danuta, hoping they might fit, and within two minutes they were dressed.
‘I don’t like the thought of you girls going up there on your own,’ said Andy.
‘Don’t be daft, Andy,’ Rita said. ‘You’re on duty, and I know my way about up there.’ Grabbing her crash helmet, she gave it to Danuta, and donned Peter’s. It was a bit big, but it was better than nothing. ‘Phone the Anchor and tell Rosie what’s going on, she’s out of her mind with worry.’
‘I must go home for medical bag,’ said Danuta.
‘Righto.’ Kicking the starter on her motorbike, Rita waited for Danuta to sit behind her. ‘Hold on,’ she yelled above the bike’s roaring engine.
Danuta clung to Rita as they shot out of the fire station and headed for Beach View. Leaping off at the end of the alley, she rushed as best she could in the ill-fitting boots into the house and up the stairs. Grabbing her medical bag, she kicked off the boots and stepped into her black lace-up shoes, then raced back down and within seconds was back behind Rita.
Rita took off like a rocket, leaning the bike at nerve-shattering angles around corners and opening up the throttle on the straight.
Danuta pressed into her back, her head tucked down, the medical bag tight between them, her heart thudding wildly. She hadn’t felt a thrill like this since the last time she’d been parachuted into France.
It was now after ten o’clock. They’d drunk enough tea to sink a battleship, worried themselves to a frazzle, and although Andy had telephoned, they were still none the wiser as to where the men had actually gone or what had happened to Ron and Harvey.
‘I wish there was something we could do instead of hanging about waiting for the damned phone to ring,’ muttered Peggy in frustration.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Rosie replied, pale and drawn with worry. ‘Until we know for sure where they’ve gone, or what’s happened, we’re stuck. And even if we did know where they were, how would we get to them?’
She scrubbed at her face with her hands. ‘Oh, God, Peg,’ she rasped, on the brink of tears, ‘what if Ron really is in serious trouble?’
‘We have to stay positive, Rosie. There’s no point in letting your imagination run riot – it’ll only make you feel worse.’
‘Our men will find him,’ said Fran.
‘Of course they will,’ Doris piped up. ‘John is an experienced soldier, as are Bertie and Frank – and the others all possess local knowledge. They’ll track him down.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ muttered Ivy. ‘All this hanging about knowing nothing is driving me round the bend.’ She looked at the gathering. ‘Where’s Rita and Danuta? Why aren’t they back from the fire station?’
‘They’ve been gone a long time,’ Sarah murmured.
‘You’re right, they have,’ said Peggy. ‘But I know those girls too well. And I wouldn’t mind betting they’ve gone after them on that blessed motorbike.’
She took a trembling breath at the thought of the reckless way Rita drove the thing, and could only pray there wouldn’t be any more dramas tonight.
Bertie was very much afraid he might be lost. This secret valley had changed so much over the last four years that it was barely recognisable. Small trees had grown tall, saplings had seeded themselves amid the tangles of briar, creeper and gorse, and once sturdy trees had been brought down by high winds or succumbed to old age and fallen down to rot away.
The skyline was different too, the canopy much thicker, which blotted out the moon and stars he might have used as a compass, and served to deepen the darkness beneath it.
Bertie came to an abrupt standstill, the sound of breaking twigs, soft oaths and trampling feet of the others dwindling away as they caught up with him. His inborn sense of direction must not fail him now, he thought desperately. He’d been so positive he was following the right path, but his confidence was ebbing away rapidly as he’d gone further into this unfamiliar landscape.
‘Which way now?’ asked Frank. ‘By my reckoning we’ve been walking for over half an hour and you said it would only take twenty minutes.’
‘Frank, I know you’re anxious, but I need a moment of quiet to check my bearings.’
‘You mean you’ve got us lost?’ Frank shone the torch into Bertie’s eyes.
Bertie swiped it away. ‘I’ll be of no use to Ron if you blind me with that,’ he snapped. ‘And I am not lost. I just need time to reconnoitre the area.’
There was a deep muttering of discontent from the others as they crowded round him. The older ones were tired and sweating, the younger ones were losing patience, and he could see the Colonel was beginning to have serious doubts about his leadership.
Bertie knew that if he didn’t pull himself together, he’d have a mutiny on his hands, and any hope of finding Ron would be lost. He blocked off the noise of the men arguing amongst themselves and concentrated hard as his sight adjusted once more to the darkness.
Ron was an expert tracker and poacher. He knew this place like the back of his hand and would leave no sign of his passage, but there had to be something to follow – a broken twig, a footprint in a clump of weed, or bent grasses. However, there had been nothing so far, and Bertie was beginning to despair.
He determinedly bucked up his spirits and his belief in himself, and slowly trained the beam of the torch across his surroundings. This was the right way, he was sure of it now, for he was seeing the trees as they had once been, and he recognised an outcrop of chalk half-hidden beneath the spread of gorse.
The beam drifted over gorse and brambles, skimming over a scrape in the earth and a pile of dead leaves. He quickly shone the torchlight on that scrape again and realised no rabbit had done that. He bent to examine it and the leaves behind it.
‘What’s that?’ asked Frank.
‘It’s where an animal had a crap and scraped the leaves over it,’ muttered Bertie, prodding the leaves with the toe of his shoe and uncovering the stinking mess. ‘I’d say that was dog, wouldn’t you?’
‘It’s certainly big enough. But was it Harvey?’ Frank muttered.
‘It’s fresh, so it’s a very real possibility,’ replied Bertie, cleaning his shoe on a clump of long grass.
He was about to move away when he heard something very faint that didn’t belong in these woods. Freezing on the spot, he held up his hand for silence. ‘Listen,’ he breathed.
None of them moved, their heads cocked, straining to hear what Bertie had heard.
And then it came again, so faint that only those with excellent hearing could make it out.
‘That’s Harvey,’ gasped Frank. ‘And it came from down there.’ He tramped off, calling to the dog, the sound of his voice ringing through the trees as the weak, irregular barks spurred him on.
Bertie was so relieved he hadn’t led them all astray that he happily let Frank take the lead – and yet it troubled him that Ron hadn’t replied to his son.
The barking stopped as they reached the trapdoor to the underground bunke
rs and tunnels, and it was clear to them all that Ron had had to hack his way through the undergrowth to get to it.
‘Good boy, Harvey,’ shouted Frank. ‘It’s all right, boy. We’re coming to get you.’ He put his hands round his mouth and shouted for his father. ‘Da! Da! Are you down there?’
There was no reply and Bertie took charge again, pointing to the trapdoor. ‘There’s a bunker to the right at the bottom of the steps, and behind that are five miles of tunnels and two more bunkers. I should warn you,’ he said quietly to John Hicks, ‘that I have it on the highest authority there is ordnance stored down there that mistakenly has not been cleared.’
‘How much ordnance?’ asked a grim-faced John.
‘Enough to blow up most of this hill and half the Cliffe estate.’
John Hicks turned to the others. ‘We’ll deal with this,’ he said. ‘You civilians must go back to the fire truck and stay there.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until I find my father,’ Frank protested.
‘None of us are,’ said Fred the Fish and they stood purposefully where they were.
‘I should warn you there’s ordnance down there, and after all this time it’s probably highly volatile.’
‘Then we shouldn’t be wasting time,’ said Alf. ‘And the more hands there are, the quicker we’ll get them out.’
John Hicks knew there was little point in arguing. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got to deal with,’ he said, taking charge of the lever and drawing back the trapdoor.
Everyone edged forward as he shone his torch down on the wall of earth and broken concrete that blocked their way.
Harvey’s weak howl came from beyond it. ‘We’re lucky,’ said Bertie. ‘They’re in the first main bunker and not half a mile down one of the tunnels. But whatever you do, don’t try digging through that mound. It’s the roof of the bunker, and below that is a concrete ceiling.’
‘What’s holding the place up?’ asked John Hicks.
‘Corrugated iron sheeting and wooden props at this end,’ Bertie replied. ‘Just dirt, iron cladding and props the further down you go. But by the look of that, the whole thing has collapsed. I’ll see if the air vents have been blocked and try to clear them.’
It took a glance to discover that the drainage pipes forming the air vents had cracked, slipped and shifted, the earth and forest detritus falling into them from all sides and blocking them entirely. Bertie knew the dangers of deadly gases building up underground, particularly if there had been an explosion. ‘Help me clear these,’ he said to Robert. ‘They need fresh air down there.’
As Harvey’s whimpers grew fainter and there was still no sound from Ron, the firemen got busy dismantling the trapdoor and widening the opening. Once that was achieved, every man picked up a spade or pickaxe and began to dig determinedly away at the rubble that blocked the way in.
They saw the fire truck lights immediately they breached the hill, and Rita swung the bike towards them and raced over the undulating ground, almost losing Danuta from the back as she was lifted from the seat. She slowed the bike and then drove into the valley until they could go no further.
Sliding off the bike, her legs trembling from clinging on, Danuta pulled off the crash helmet and regarded the woods. ‘We should have brought torches,’ she said. ‘But if we turn off the headlight, it will only take a moment to get our night eyes.’
As Rita switched off the bike’s headlight, Danuta quickly laced up her sturdy shoes. Hitching up the waterproof trousers that swamped her small frame, she gripped her medical bag. ‘You are ready, Rita?’
‘I can’t see a bloody thing,’ she replied.
‘You prefer stay here and I go?’
Rita looked at her surroundings and shivered. ‘No fear.’
‘Then take my hand. I will lead the way.’
They set off into the ever-deepening darkness, and although Rita constantly tripped and stumbled, Danuta could see the way clearly. The men had been careless as they’d set out to find Ron, and it was easy to see which way they’d gone by the trampled weeds, the freshly broken branches and snapped twigs.
It was ten-thirty when the club chairman telephoned the Anchor to say that he’d heard nothing from the men and would be closing up for the night. He promised to keep an ear open for any call that might come through and let them know immediately.
‘I feel terrible that I didn’t think to go with Danuta,’ said Fran. ‘If there has been an accident, then they’ll need medical attention.’
‘Danuta’s quite capable, and the firemen will be trained in first aid,’ soothed Peggy. ‘You have absolutely no need to feel guilty about anything.’
‘I have to be on duty at six tomorrow morning, so if you don’t mind, I’ll go back to Beach View and try to get some sleep,’ Fran said. ‘But ring me the minute you hear anything.’
‘Of course we will,’ said Peggy. ‘And I suggest you take Sarah, Pauline and Ivy with you. There’s no point in all of us hanging about here twiddling our thumbs when you’ve got work in the morning.’
‘I’ll make my way home as well,’ said Doris. ‘John will let me know what’s happened when he gets back.’ She kissed Peggy and gave her a hug. ‘I suggest you try and get some sleep, although I know it won’t be easy.’
She turned to Rosie, who was now quite haggard with worry. ‘Ron’s a tough man. He and Harvey will pull through. You’ll see.’
They trooped outside to discover it was raining again and so quickly made their way home, each of them knowing they would have little sleep tonight.
Peggy encouraged Cordelia to go to bed in Rosie’s spare room, where mercifully Daisy was fast asleep with Monty snoring on the rug between the two single beds. Once Cordelia was settled, Peggy went into Rosie’s sitting room and, finding her sitting forlornly by the dead fire, set about getting it alight again.
‘Here, drink this,’ she encouraged, handing her a glass of brandy. ‘It might make you feel a bit calmer.’
‘How can I be calm?’ Rosie replied tightly. ‘My Ron’s out there somewhere, hurt or worse, and I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on.’ She tossed back the brandy, lit yet another cigarette and began to pace back and forth.
Peggy sipped her brandy and remained silent. There was nothing she could say that would ease Rosie’s fears, or her own, for that matter, so as Rosie paced endlessly back and forth, smoking one cigarette after another, she listened to the clock ticking away and tried not to imagine what might be going on up in those hills.
But it was the not knowing which bred the growing, terrible fear that she might never have the chance to tell Ron how much she loved and admired him.
Rosie kept pacing, her imagination running riot, her heart aching for the man she loved so much. She knew he was strong, and capable of surviving almost anything. But what if, this time, he’d come across something he couldn’t beat?
She threw the cigarette butt into the fire and sank onto the couch, curling into herself as the tears finally came. ‘Oh, Peggy, I can’t bear the thought I might lose him,’ she sobbed.
‘I know,’ Peggy replied, drawing her close until their tears mingled and hope began to dwindle away as the clock kept on ticking.
Stan, Chalky and Bert had to admit defeat after a while and leave the digging to the younger and more able. John Hicks was clearly struggling with his false leg, but he refused to give up and wielded the spade alongside his three crew members.
The tunnel was narrow, so only one man could work at a time, shovelling up the dirt to the next man, who shovelled it back through the opening and out amongst the surrounding trees. They were making good headway, for Bertie had counted the steps and his spade had just clanged against the concrete floor at the bottom.
Harvey’s whines were louder and clearer now the air vents were open. But what drove them harder was the fact there had still been no sound from Ron.
It had started to rain, which only made their task harder. Bertie took a breather and looked at his
watch as he let another man take his place in the line. They’d been digging for nearly an hour and he knew for a fact there was still quite a way to go before they broke into that main bunker.
He was aching all over, unused to such strenuous exercise, and dolefully regarded the angry blisters on his hands. They wouldn’t do much for his golf swing, he thought sadly, and he was supposed to be playing an important match tomorrow. He pushed back his shoulders, ignoring the rain hammering down on him, picked up the spade and got digging again. Cordelia would never forgive him if he didn’t get Ron out alive.
‘What’s happening?’
Danuta and Rita clambered down into the dip, looking incongruous in oversized firemen’s kit.
‘What are you two doing here?’ shouted John from the depths of the entry tunnel.
‘We’ve come to help,’ said Rita, grabbing a spade. ‘And Danuta’s got her medical kit. How far down is Ron buried?’
‘We need to break through here,’ said John. ‘Bertie reckons we’ve got about fifty feet before we reach the bunker.’
Without further questioning, the two girls joined in. They all worked with a will and in silence, for none of them had the breath to talk and the rain was now thundering down through the trees, turning the earth to mud which made their footholds treacherous.
And then they heard a scrabbling, and before any of them could react, Harvey pushed his way through the wall of earth and almost twisted himself in half in his delight at seeing them.
Frank made a terrific fuss of him, but the dog wriggled away and headed back through the hole he’d made. He began to bark urgently.
‘It must be clear on the other side,’ said Frank. They began to dig even faster, and suddenly the wall of dirt subsided, and they were in the bunker.
Harvey continued barking as he stood guard over Ron. The torch beams lit up the place to show a collapsed ceiling, thin sheets of rusting iron, lead pipes, wooden props, and great chunks of concrete amid at least four feet of earth. And in the corner by an ancient generator lay Ron in a cleared circle of that earth, with an enormous slab of concrete pinning him down.