Night of Triumph

by Peter Bradshaw

  Around the corner was a high, locked gate, with six vertical metal posts, bisected by two diagonals, angled from the top left to bottom right: the higher was at the level of her face, the lower at the level of her knees. The dog was chained up in a neighbouring yard. Elizabeth realised that its breathing was as laboured as hers.

  She began to climb the gate. Her left foot went in, higher than her right, on the sloping lower bar. Agonisingly, each instep was crushed into the metal by the angle. Pushing off from the left, she tried to hoist her right foot up onto the upper bar and with her right hand grabbed one of the row of topmost rails, exposed like spikes. Elizabeth sagged at this stage, and hoisted up her skirts around her waist, to give herself more room to move. With a superhuman heave, she managed to get herself up on the top of the gate, and found that the spikes were spaced just widely enough to allow Elizabeth to squeeze her bottom down between them and sit astride it.

  The dog looked up and began to bark again.

  Now Elizabeth swung her other leg over and found that she had, from this vantage point, no easy way of judging where the footholds and handholds were going to be on the way down. And it really did look like a long drop. Her body continued to tremble and shudder in a way that made the whole gate rattle. Elizabeth could now hear the back door into the yard open and someone begin to turn the bins the right side up. They would know she had made her escape through the window. They would come round looking for her. She would have to jump, would have to do it now. At least it wasn’t a case of landing headfirst.

  Elizabeth swung back and forth, and then leapt off. Her impact on the pavement was obscured by another deafening bark from the dog. She bent at the knees in an attempt to lessen the impact, but an excruciating pain seared both ankles.

  Elizabeth could hear footsteps.

  She got up and attempted to run. Her whole upper body was shaking; her lungs were burning, and the pain in her ankles meant she ran with a crazy, wobbling, splayed gait. Rounding the corner, wheezing but still not crying with distress, she found her way into another small yard, which led back round into Piccadilly. She was free – wasn’t she?

  Staggering, Elizabeth found herself back on the main street. She was opposite the Royal Academy: actually, some way west of it. She reeled, and fought a desire a vomit. Every bodily movement exacerbated the pain she felt everywhere. Frantically, Elizabeth looked up and down the pavement – all she could see were stragglers and drunk people. She could not see Mr Ware. Was there a taxi? No. Eerily, there were no vehicles, no private cars, just people stumbling and drifting over the wide avenue.

  Suddenly, Elizabeth saw a policeman, a man with precisely that genial, tolerant and yet watchful look that she saw in the officer who had accosted them both when she left the club. Seeing her, the man appeared instantly to break into a broad, welcoming smile. It was a good omen. She attempted a bleary smile of her own and stumbled over towards him, asking for his help, as loudly as she could, over and over, well before he had any chance of hearing what on earth she was actually saying.

  ‘Now, now, then,’ said the constable tolerantly, ‘what’s all this? One too many, is it? All over the place, you are.’

  Elizabeth almost collapsed into his arms, gasped for breath, attempted to say the word ‘help’ but only retched into her palms.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he smiled, with more severity now. ‘This is no behaviour for someone in uniform, VE Night or no VE Night. I suggest you get yourself on home.’

  Elizabeth’s face became a grimacing mask, still she could not catch her breath. ‘It ... it ...’

  ‘Is this young lady with you, sir?’ asked the policeman, looking at someone just behind Elizabeth’s right shoulder, and she could now feel the Luger jammed once again into the small of her back.

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m sorry about this. We’ve all been making rather merry.’

  The sycophancy of Mr Ware’s way of speaking, coupled with that quaint Dickensian phrase, made Elizabeth almost sag at the knees with horror and disgust. She did in fact collapse slightly, and Mr Ware grabbed her under the left armpit while keeping the gun barrel firmly jammed in position.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ asked the policeman.

  ‘Oh yes, oh yes, please don’t worry about us. I’ve got her now. It’s time to call it a night. It’s been quite a night, hasn’t it?’

  At this moment, a taxi came past with its light on. Mr Ware smartly placed his thumb and forefinger in his pursed mouth and gave a piercing whistle.

  ‘We’ll be off now.’

  They were bundling into the back of the cab when the constable said quietly, and ineffectually, ‘Wait a bit, aren’t you ...?’

  From inside the cab, Elizabeth looked back at the shrinking image of the officer with his puzzled, suspicious face.

  Thirteen

  ‘Not long, now, Lil,’ said Mr Ware. ‘Not long. I just need you along with me for this job, and then, when the sun comes up, you can go back to your life and I can go back to mine.’

  They had got out of the taxi at the Western end of Green Street in Mayfair, opposite Speaker’s Corner. A row of houses were badly bomb-damaged, and boarded up. A single policeman stood outside to guard against looters, looking sleepy and resentful, holding a cigarette with the lighted tip inward into his palm.

  ‘Evening, or should I say, morning!’ said Mr Ware, stepping up to him briskly with a broad smile.

  ‘Yes? What can I do for you?’

  ‘We just have to retrieve some equipment I’ve left behind.’

  ‘What sort of equipment?’

  ‘Two gas masks, a fire axe and my colleague’s whistle,’ continued Mr Ware brightly. ‘Left in there when we inspected this property last Monday. Got to account for all the equipment, you know. Very important we get it all back. It’s a military matter,’ he added knowingly, pointing at Elizabeth. ‘My colleague is coming with me to establish that it’s all present and correct.

  ‘Where’s this kit of yours stowed?’ asked the officer, quite baffled, but too weary to argue.

  ‘Ground floor.’

  ‘Well, for Gawd’s sake mind you don’t try going upstairs. The bomb damaged the stairwell; the thing’s unstable and the whole kaboodle could come down if you’re not very careful.’

  ‘Right you are, chief.’

  ‘Don’t be in there long.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  There was another moment of hesitation and then the policeman exhaled heavily, puffing out his cheeks, let them through the door-sized hole sawn into the boarding, drawing aside a sheet of tarpaulin like a curtain. The second level of admission to the house was the battered and unsecured front door, which opened when Mr Ware shoved against it. It ground against the rubble and rubbish strewn about the floor, but swung back eventually. Mr Ware pushed Elizabeth inside and produced a torch from his bag; he removed his gun as well and held it in his other hand, pointing it at Elizabeth.

  ‘Don’t you cry out, my girl,’ he told her. ‘Don’t you fucking make a peep. This is it. We’re here now. We’re in! Isn’t this a thrill?’

  He laid the Luger down on a surface, apparently a sideboard, and swung the torch beam around. Then he moved forward, as stealthily as a cat.

  ‘Yes,’ he breathed, ‘there we are. There’s the kitchen. You can see the sink. There’s the kettle. Most of the wall’s gone, you see.’

  Elizabeth could see the rough lumber of the wooden boarding behind the jagged expanse of missing wall. Most of the kitchen floor, she could see, was covered in a mound of rubble that could have been about knee-height if you tried to stand in it. She could see what looked like a smashed rocking chair on one side, whose wooden back-struts had come away, and a ruined couch at the other end, with some cushions lying about. Elizabeth was also aware of a strange, sweetish smell.

  ‘V2 hit this place. One and only V2 to make the West End! I happened to be on the scene. They cleared us all out sharpish, and I happen to know they didn’t look for survivors. A
nd why? Because, for why, they’d been informed there were no survivors. By yours truly. Tonight’s the first chance I’ve had to get back in here, and to be quite honest, I didn’t know if they were going to let me back in at all. Bringing along someone in uniform was my insurance policy.’ In the darkness, Elizabeth could just see Mr Ware wink. ‘All right. Come on then,’ he said, pointing his torch up into the corner, where the stairs were. ‘Up we go. This is where we strike a rich seam, my girl! Get along with you,’ he picked up the Luger and shoved it into Elizabeth’s back. From somewhere, she found the courage to speak.

  ‘But, didn’t he say we weren’t to go up there? That the whole building might come down?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Just fucking get on with it. Would I do this if it wasn’t safe? Would I? Of course not! Come on.’

  Gingerly, Elizabeth placed a foot upon the first stair, and then the next upon the second. Minutely, but distinctly, the whole staircase began to creak, and seemed to list about a sixteenth of an inch to the left. A fine spray of dust, as if from a bottle of sal volatile, floated down from somewhere up above and settled on her hair and forehead.

  ‘Oh my God,’ gasped Elizabeth, starting to feel faint, ‘we can’t do this. Please. We mustn’t do this. It’s all going to collapse.’

  ‘Come on. Get on with it.’

  Very slowly, and as if traversing a narrow, swaying rope bridge, Elizabeth and Mr Ware climbed the stairs, which stayed steady. A fine, powdery dust continued to fall. At the top, they found themselves on a narrow landing, which was dimly illuminated by the dawn light through the window. The beam of Mr Ware’s torch swung round and picked out the handle of the door on their left. He twisted it; the door opened easily and they were in.

  The window had been blown out and there was broken glass and rubbish in a mound over a double bed. Mr Ware gave Elizabeth the torch.

  ‘Hold this. Point it at the bed.’

  Greedily, hastily, and apparently all but forgetting that Elizabeth was there, Mr Ware scrabbled away at what covered the bed. Within a minute, he had disclosed an eiderdown, under which were two dead bodies: that of a man and a woman. The man was in pyjamas, the woman in a nightgown. Their heads, and the pillows on which they rested, had turned black. The sweetish smell that Elizabeth could sense on the lower floor of the house intensified almost unbearably.

  Mr Ware scrambled round to the woman’s side of the bed, gesturing brusquely to Elizabeth to keep the torch trained on him; numbly, she complied. He wrenched back the eiderdown and the sheet and tried to pull out the woman’s hand. This was not easy. Rigor mortis had set in: it was like pulling at the arm of a statue. But he was able to get a grip on it, and Elizabeth could see that there were rings on almost every finger except the thumb. One had what looked like a diamond. Mr Ware scrabbled in his bag and produced a pot of Vaseline. Frantically, he rubbed at the dead, stiff fingers and, with practised skill, removed every ring and carefully stowed them in the pouch of a wallet which he took from his pocket.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘I knew it. Beautiful. Now, then. Let’s have a look at the other hand.’

  But there were no rings on that one. Mr Ware shrugged, and went round to the other side of the bed, and quickly took possession of the dead man’s gold signet ring, using the Vaseline pot, as before.

  ‘Right,’ he said simply, and then began systematically to open the drawers of a bedside cabinet, starting with the one at the bottom, so he wouldn’t have to waste time closing each one. When it came to the top-most drawer, he gasped, while removing a small case from what looked like a sweater.

  ‘Oh Jesus, Lil. Oh Jesus.’

  He opened up the case and took out what appeared in the blackness to be a cord.

  ‘Keep that bloody light steady on me, girl!’

  She did so, and the beam picked out a gorgeous dazzle. Mr Ware bunched the necklace in his fist and stuffed it back inside the case, so roughly that, at first, the lid would not shut properly. Elizabeth then saw him grow strangely still. He appeared to be thinking about something.

  ‘Put the torch beam on my mouth,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  Elizabeth shone the torch onto his mouth, and Mr Ware grinned, pulling his lips back, like a skull.

  ‘Look!’ he said brightly. ‘All my baby teeth. All of them. Never dropped out when I was a kid. All of them. All my baby teeth.’

  For a few seconds, Mr Ware did his death’s-head grin in the darkness. Then he snapped out of it. ‘All right, let’s go,’ he said curtly. ‘We’ve got to go. We’ve got to quit while we’re ahead. Can’t risk staying here any longer. Let’s go. Down the stairs, and out. Come on.’

  He pushed Elizabeth ahead of him. She stepped forward, around the bed, and back out of the door, with her captor following. They stepped down the swaying stairs, and again a fine cloud of dust sprayed down on them in the darkness, dislodged by their disturbance to the house’s damaged spinal column. Now there was an ominous groaning and creaking to the staircase as it tilted. Elizabeth was light-headed and dizzy as they reached the ground. They had to get out of there. But Mr Ware was reluctant to leave, perhaps suspecting there might be more treasure to be had, or else simply savouring the scene of his great triumph.

  ‘You know, it’s funny,’ he mused. ‘It’s funny what Katharine was saying about you looking like – well, you know. What a joke. I almost believed it myself at first!’

  Elizabeth said nothing. She just edged towards the door.

  ‘How funny. How funny.’ The thin shaft of daylight showed Mr Ware to be smiling delightedly, lost in thought.

  ‘Shouldn’t we go now?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘What? Oh. Oh, yes.’

  They were about to make a move towards the door, when Elizabeth stopped. She could hear a faint whining sound, like a small animal in distress.

  ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Can you hear that?’

  Mr Ware frowned at her, suspecting a trick. But then he heard it too. A tiny, all but inaudible moan. It seemed to be coming from the kitchen area behind them, the area buried in detritus. Mr Ware turned to look in the direction of the noise, then back to Elizabeth. He took out his gun again, and pointed it at her.

  ‘Don’t you try anything,’ he snapped, and went around the detritus mound from where the noise appeared to be coming, squatted down on his haunches, removed his bag, placed it on the ground, and then placed his gun on top of that. He looked sharply up at Elizabeth, picked up the gun, made an ostentatious click on its safety catch and placed it down again, close by. Then he began to scoop the debris away with both hands, scoop, scoop, scoop. The noise got louder, and still louder. Scoop, scoop.

  And then they saw it: what looked like a boy of eighteen or perhaps nineteen, half-buried in the dust, his face caked in white, the blackened rills of blood running along the side of his head, a fragment of what looked like toast pressed on his cheek, and placed in his slack lips, the spout of a big, unbroken teapot. Did the impact interrupt him as he carried tea and toast? Somehow, Mr Ware had overlooked this other occupant of the house, presumably the son of the couple upstairs. He was still alive. Again, the tiny, thin moan.

  ‘Fetch me one of those cushions,’ snapped Mr Ware. ‘Fetch the bloody thing!’ he repeated, as Elizabeth stood there dumbly. Pulling herself together, she stumbled over to where cushions were scattered on the floor, took one, brought it back and tremblingly gave it to him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘perhaps if you put it under his head.’

  Mr Ware knelt down beside the boy with the cushion in his hand, looking almost tender.

  ‘You can make him comfortable, yes, but it would be far better to get him out of the rubble, before you get the cushion under his—’

  Mr Ware gripped the cushion in both hands and pushed it down hard onto the boy’s face. The soft low whining noise was replaced by an infinitesimally increased note of pain.

  ‘No! You can’t! You mustn’t!’


  Very quickly, there was silence. Mr Ware said, ‘There.’

  Elizabeth had now ceased to tremble. She turned white with rage. The whole night’s disgust boiled up inside her, and exploded.

  ‘You beast,’ she said to him. ‘You beast. You shameful, disgusting, unutterable beast.’

  Mr Ware sneered and shrugged.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, and made to grab her. But Elizabeth ducked out of his grip, stumbled back to where the broken rocking chair was to be found, and picked up one of the wooden strut-poles, brandishing it at him.

  ‘Put that down, Lil. Come on.’

  ‘You beast. You horrible beast.’

  ‘Put it down.’

  The pole was heavier than she thought, more like a beam. The two of them squared warily up to each other. Elizabeth glanced at where he had left the gun on top of his kitbag.

  ‘Get away from me.’

  ‘Come on. Don’t be a stupid girl. Come on.’

  Suddenly, Elizabeth changed her grip on the beam, holding it at its end, as if she were tossing a caber, and shoved so that it shot outwards, as straight as a torpedo, straight into Mr Ware’s face.

  There was a crack, and a yelp of pain. Elizabeth dropped the pole. Mr Ware held both hands up to his mouth, from which blood was pouring. He put his hands down, and she could see that four of his teeth, two from the top and two from the bottom, had gone.

  ‘Bissh,’ he slobbered. ‘Fughg bissh.’

  Lunging forward, he made a move to grab her, but was too dazed to do this with any firmness or accuracy. It was a brief grapple as Elizabeth slithered past him, and desperately grabbed for the gun.

  ‘Bisssh. Nogh.’

  ‘Stay back. Stay back. I’m warning you.’

  Elizabeth had picked up the Luger, and now, pale and defiant, was holding it with both hands, arms outstretched, pointing the gun straight at him.

  ‘Stay back or I shall have to shoot you,’ she said. ‘I mean it. Stay back.’