Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  “What the ruddy hell?” said Davies.

  “It’s the station,” she cried. “It’s been hit.”

  Davies squirmed in his seat, trying to see outside.

  “Not the railway station,” said Charlie. “The police station.”

  Davies turned the ignition. The car squealed in protest. It was as if the bomb blast had knocked it out.

  “Look at it,” said Davies, twisting in his seat to peer through the rear window.

  The street behind was all aflame, and a good portion of the station had spilled into the road.

  They watched in silence, entranced by the horror of it.

  There was a sound that didn’t quite fit. It simmered under the roar of fire like a million rusty doors squeaking, echoing, and growing louder.

  “What is it? Just drive, man!” said Charlie.

  “The road’s moving,” said Davies.

  The road was liquid, bubbling, teeming, as if a shockwave were running through it, heading towards them, and she wondered for a moment if it were an effect of the bomb blast, like an earthquake tsunami coming for them. The eerie sound grew louder.

  “What on earth?” said Charlie.

  He opened his door and stepped out onto the street, peering into the blackness.

  “Oh my sweet God,” said Davies.

  “Charlie! Get back in!” shouted Rachel. She had no idea what it was but she sensed the odour of death on it.

  The black wave hurtled towards them and Charlie’s face went white. He jumped back inside almost as the wave hit them and Davies shouted.

  “Rats!”

  She saw it now. A tidal wave of rats that filled the entire street and was about to engulf them. Someone in the car screamed. The rat wave hit them and she felt it bumping under them, banging at the car’s underbelly, trying to get in, the squealing deafening them. She had climbed up onto her seat before she realized it, every inch of her skin crawling. She could see them all around the car, the entire street a swirling, teeming broth of rats.

  Danny was kicking, squirming, shouting, “Let me free! Don’t leave me locked up like this! Please!”

  Charlie was trying to unlock the cuffs behind him.

  “Stay still! Stop moving and I’ll let you out!”

  “Hurry up! God! Please!”

  He was screaming like a girl. Or was it her? She didn’t know, but she could see his fear and she knew he was more scared of them than her. She wanted to run, felt an insane impulse to open her door, knowing it was safer to stay where she was, but her body was desperate to flee. Someone was moaning. She thought it might be her.

  “It must have hit a sewer,” said Davies.

  “Just drive!” shouted Charlie.

  He cranked the key again and the ignition spluttered. They edged forward to the sound of rats crushing underneath and squealing.

  “Faster!”

  Davies swallowed and moaned and put his foot down and the car jolted forward and slid sideways as if on ice, rats screaming all around them.

  “They’re under the wheels!” shouted Davies. “I can’t control the car!”

  It lurched to the side and spun around back the way they’d come and she wondered if the rats were actually carrying the car away with them. Then he found some traction, they skidded and hurtled back towards the police station, the rats still banging at the undercarriage.

  “Stay still, man!” shouted Charlie.

  She saw that Danny was rubbing his wrists and climbing up onto the seat and squirming and moaning hysterically and she wondered if Charlie was going to shoot him anyway, to stop him crawling right out of there.

  “We’re safe in here!”

  The car slid into another spin, rats crying under them, and she had a sudden horrific thought that it might turn over onto its side and the rats would pour in, but he found traction again and they hurtled ahead and suddenly the wave was gone and the street was quiet again.

  Out of the rear window she watched it hurtling up the street, a black cloud heading east.

  — 41 —

  DAVIES EDGED THE CAR back towards the blaze and they jumped out before he’d killed the engine.

  Danny puked against the car, Charlie holding onto him.

  Rachel made sure there were no more rats. The wheels were thick with red fur and there was a stink of death.

  Constable Davies ran towards the blaze.

  “Chief Inspector Lees! Sergeant Webster!” shouted Davies. “They’re inside! We need to get them out!”

  But he knew already that it was hopeless. The police station had taken a direct hit. Reg pulled him back.

  “It’s too late.”

  The heat blasted her face, the smell of bacon wafting through her, and she knew it was their dead bodies frying.

  Danny observed it, his face all ashen, and she wondered why he didn’t run now, escape. He could be back home so easily, but he just stood there examining the blaze like the rest of them.

  A window exploded in the building next door and they all ducked as if a sniper had fired.

  “I’m sorry, sir!” shouted Davies. “I’m sorry!”

  She didn’t know if he were shouting at Charlie or at his dead chief inspector.

  He slumped down in a heap, wiping his brow, tears streaming on his cheeks and evaporating with the heat.

  Rachel saw what he was: a young man, a little older than Charlie, a lot younger than her dad. He should be having fun, dancing, not a care in the world, and he was here facing death and destruction every night, never knowing if a bomb would wipe out everyone he knew, everyone he cared about; never knowing if he’d see another morning.

  They watched helplessly till a fire unit arrived to tackle the blaze, but there was nothing they could do. None of them knew that the two men inside were dead before that bomb had hit. None of them knew that one of them was a Nazi spy who’d shot the other.

  None of them knew that Rachel had shot that Nazi spy dead.

  After a while, Charlie handcuffed Danny and led them back to the car.

  — 42 —

  CONSTABLE DAVIES PARKED on the pavement outside the Bull’s Head pub, and they trudged up the alley, heading for the air raid shelter, their shoes scuffing and echoing off the walls.

  Davies pressed in close behind Danny, so no one could see his hands cuffed behind his back. Charlie was leading them. Footsteps came running up behind them. Civilians. Stragglers.

  “Hurry up. Get inside!” called an ARP.

  He was standing with the cellar flap open and was surprised to see so many late comers.

  “Reg. Thought you was supposed to be here?”

  “Got caught up in it, Bert. I was collecting the prisoners.”

  “I’m glad to see you fellahs,” said Bert. “Gilbert shouted down to me he thought the station was a goner.”

  His face scanned theirs in the gloom and read the sour taste of defeat there.

  “Direct hit,” said Reg. “We’d only just walked out of it.”

  “Where’s Sergeant Webster?”

  Davies shook his head and looked at the floor. “Chief Inspector Lees too.”

  Bert gulped and croaked. “Poor buggers. I’m sorry.”

  They stood there, shuffling, not knowing what to say. Charlie spoke first.

  “Now, take off his handcuffs.”

  “Are you sure, sir?” Constable Davies said.

  Charlie sighed, as if trying to explain rationing to children who wanted sweets. “We’re about to take him into an air raid shelter full of angry civilians. I don’t want a riot on my hands as well as an air raid.”

  “Of course.”

  Davies stood behind Danny and unlocked the handcuffs discreetly.

  “Okay, chaps,” said Charlie. “We go in and sit him near the entrance. We do not let it slip to anyone in there that he’s in custody.”

  “If I had my way we’d leave the bugger out here,” Davies grumbled.

  “I understand that, Davies, but he’s a prisoner of war now,
so we look after him just like any other prisoner.”

  Davies glared at Danny, and then at Charlie and Rachel and Reg. He was still trying to work it out. How had the chief inspector sent them out, all innocent, and then conveniently died in the bombing? It was only the randomness of the bomb falling, the unpredictability of it, that stopped him from pointing his pistol at them.

  Don’t trust Davies, she had said. What exactly had he done that she would tell Charlie this? Was this some little part of history she’d changed?

  Constable Davies shrugged and swore and headed down the steps to the cellar, pushing Danny in front of him. Bert went down behind them.

  Charlie turned to Rachel and Reg.

  “You know what to do,” he whispered.

  Reg nodded.

  “I know,” Rachel said.

  Charlie stepped down and took Rachel’s hand. Reg followed, closing the cellar flaps behind him.

  When Rachel pushed through the black curtain, the smell of damp and body odour assaulting her, Danny was already sitting in the corner close to the barrel skid steps, Davies next to him, blocking his escape route.

  But Danny didn’t look like he was thinking about escape. He studied the floor, almost asleep, and she wondered if he would remember when he had to run. She sat next to him and scanned the cellar full of people. A gramophone record was playing Al Bowlly somewhere. Someone was serving tea at the far end. Winnie.

  She rose. “I’d better tell Winnie her mother’s safe. You look like you all need a cuppa.”

  “Yes, please,” said Charlie. “And one for our friend here too. Davies?”

  “I don’t want one, sir,” said Davies.

  Charlie nodded at Rachel to leave it and she pushed through to the tea stall at the far end of the cellar. Winnie was serving a woman. Rachel edged around her.

  “Your mum’s safe,” she said, before Winnie could ask. “She’s gone to another shelter down lower Moseley way.”

  Winnie stopped, hand on her heart. “Oh, my. I was so worried.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll have four teas when you’re ready.”

  “Just a minute, I was here first.”

  The woman in front turned and scowled. The woman from that first night in the shelter who’d been moaning about the invasion.

  “I’m sorry,” said Rachel, “I’m not pushing in.”

  “Good job and all,” she said.

  “Now then, Sheila,” Winnie said. “Don’t be causing a kerfuffle.”

  “I’ll say what I damn well like. It’s a free country, for the moment, thank you very much, and I won’t be bullied by some jumped up boy in a uniform.”

  She looked over the cellar to Charlie now.

  “Don’t start that nonsense again,” said Winnie. “No one wants to hear it, Sheila.”

  “That’s because no one wants to hear the truth. The Germans are no different to us. We’ve got more in common with them than the bloody Bolsheviks and the Jews!”

  “They are different from us,” Rachel said.

  “Oh really,” Sheila snapped, looking her up and down.

  What was it about every stuck up woman here that they scanned your entire wardrobe before they talked to you?

  “And just how are they so different from us?”

  “They’re different because Nazism represents the absolute worst of us, not the best.”

  “Oh really? Did you hear that off Winston bloody Churchill? We’ve all heard fine speeches. They’re ten a penny now. But we’ve lost this war. The Germans kicked us into the sea at Dunkirk and now they’re bombing our towns to buggery. In a week or two they’ll sail right over the channel and fly a Swastika over Buckingham Palace. Just in time for the King’s speech on Christmas Day.”

  Rachel shoved her hand in her coat pocket so she wouldn’t slap this stupid woman right across her ranting mouth.

  “No they won’t,” she said.” Because we’re going to win. It won’t be this year. It won’t be next year. It’s going to be long. And there’s going to be more nights like this. Lots of nights like this. But they’re not going to invade us. They’re going to give up on it when they see they can’t invade us. And then we’re going back over to France and we’re going to march right up to Berlin and we’re going to bury Hitler.”

  A few people clapped their hands together and muttered encouragement and she realized their conversation had become a slanging match that everyone was listening to.

  “And how the bloody hell do you know?” shouted Sheila.

  Rachel faltered for a moment, glanced at Charlie and saw his eyes all lit up and a funny smile on his face. It was the look her dad had given her when she’d got her A levels and her place at university.

  “Because we’ve got more people like us and less like you,” she said.

  “How dare you talk to me like that!” Sheila gasped.

  But her outrage was buried in applause.

  “You bloody tell em!”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  “Shut your cakehole, Sheila!”

  Another enormous boom vibrated through the cellar, dust falling from the ceiling, the dim lights flickered.

  “Well, you’d better win it soon,” said Sheila. “Or there’ll be nothing left to win.”

  “Just take your tea and be quiet,” said Winnie.

  Sheila snatched her mug of tea, spilling it on her hand, and tried desperately to ignore the pain. She huffed her way to a dark corner accompanied by laughter.

  Winnie poured four mugs and Rachel turned to Charlie and nodded.

  Charlie stood over Davies and Danny and issued his order. Rachel couldn’t hear it, but this was the moment where he told Davies to help her.

  Constable Davies glared across the cellar at her and wondered why, but he got up, slumping as if his spine was gone. He inched over towards her.

  Charlie took his place next to Danny. He watched and waited until Davies had mugs of steaming tea in his hands, then he nodded to Rachel.

  She caught her breath, swayed against the table and let out a loud moan. “Oh, I feel so faint.”

  Hand to her forehead, she fell to the floor. She banged her forehead on someone’s knee and felt the gravel on the stone floor scrape her palm so that her second moan was all too real. She landed so she could see across the cellar to the exit.

  “What’s up with her?” Davies shouted.

  “She’s fainted!” Winnie cried.

  “Give her some air!” shouted Reg, marching over.

  Charlie took a couple of steps forward, leaving Danny unguarded behind him. Danny looked at the black curtain next to him.

  “Go on, then, you fool,” hissed Charlie.

  Danny made a sudden dash for it. He was through the curtain and scampering up the steps before anyone noticed.

  “Hey! Stop!” shouted Charlie. He ran after him.

  Constable Davies saw what was happening, put down the mugs and tried to step over Rachel and push past Reg. Rachel got to her knees, to make it more difficult for him, reaching out to tug at his trouser leg.

  She heard the flaps of the cellar doors fly open with a bang and knew that Danny was springing out, legging it out of the back yard, pushing through the church gates, Charlie stumbling after him.

  A gun shot.

  Cries of shock and horror.

  Davies pushed through the crowded cellar and yanked aside the black curtain to follow up those steps. But he was too late. He would run into the church yard and find Charlie all alone, his pistol drawn, complaining that the prisoner had escaped.

  — 43 —

  SHE WOKE TO THE SMELL of damp ash. It was permanently cold here, she’d noticed, and everyone seemed so used to it. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and yawned and felt the echo of last night’s terror vibrate through her. No, it hadn’t been a nightmare. It had all been real. She could smell again the scent of bacon frying.

  Rushing to the window to pull back the blackout curtain she thought she might gag and vomit right out o
f the window. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass, groaning. A bus sailed right past the window, a startled woman on the top deck surprised to see her. A line of people waited for the bus, most of them chatting to each other.

  She padded over to the chair where she’d thrown her coat this morning, sometime in the black dawn after they’d crawled out of the shelter, sleepwalking, the all clear siren blaring all over town.

  She scampered back to the warmth of the bed sheets and flipped through the stack of photos again. Mary Lewis, Winnie, Olive, some of them taken during this war, over the next few years. Their lives already mapped, but more important, their safety assured.

  She heard Winnie clumping to her door and shoved the photos under her pillow.

  “Are you awake, miss?”

  “Yes,” she called, not sure what to say. “I’m awake.”

  Winnie came in with a breakfast tray and Rachel suddenly felt ashamed: a pampered child being served breakfast in bed while a war was on.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” she said. “I’d have got up for it.”

  “I thought you were going to sleep all day again,” joked Winnie.

  “I didn’t get much last night.”

  Olive peeped around the door. How strange it was, that this little girl would grow up to be the grandma who’d always been an old woman to Rachel. She would be a young woman and live a whole life before Rachel would come along.

  “You have to grab your sleep where you can these days,” said Winnie.

  Another boiled egg and toast, tea in a bone china cup. She thought it must be impossibly extravagant to have an egg for breakfast. She didn’t want to eat it.

  “The egg,” she said. “Am I using up all of Charlie’s ration?”

  Winnie sighed and grimaced, as if it were a subject she wasn’t supposed to mention. “He has a few contacts for things like that,” she said. “To be entirely fair to him, though, he shares it around. My family always get whatever’s going.”

  Rachel picked the egg from its cup and felt its heat on her fingers. She rolled it in her palm so it didn’t burn her.