Night of Triumph

by Peter Bradshaw

  Mr Ware stayed where he was, swaying. His mouth was drawn back in a bloody, broken grimace and it was difficult to tell if he was sneering at her or not.

  ‘Bissh. You.’

  His mouth was now a broad, smudged oblong of blood.

  Then, having apparently decided on something, he turned round and looked for something on the ground. He picked it up: the wooden pole that Elizabeth had just hit him with. Mr Ware held the end with two fists, one on top of each other, with the pole angled up high behind his head, like a baseball player.

  ‘Stop. Get back. Stop,’ said Elizabeth. The gun was now beginning to tremble.

  ‘You. You. You.’

  Mr Ware brought his bunched fists up over the crown of his head, and his weapon disappeared briefly behind his back; he was clearly preparing to smash it down onto Elizabeth’s skull with all his might. He stepped forward, and Elizabeth took one pace back.

  His face was now a mask of blood.

  With a groan, he made to bring his club down on Elizabeth. She flinched, shut her eyes and fired three times.

  Krak. Krak. Krak.

  Elizabeth dropped the gun clatteringly onto the floor, her wrists in agony from the recoil.

  Mr Ware continued to advance on her, swaying, but now sneering and gurgling and gloating in triumph, still with the club raised. He appeared to be shifting its position in his hands, waggling it, to get a better aim at his defenceless victim. He kept shuffling forward, and Elizabeth retreated, now utterly without hope. She sank down on her knees, her palms pressed on top of her head.

  ‘You. You.’

  But there was something odd about the way Mr Ware’s body now twisted and jerked to the side, and the movement of his legs had a shuffling, uncoordinated manner, as if his pelvis were locked. This was because, though the first of Elizabeth’s bullets had hit the wall behind him, the second had pierced his right forearm just above the elbow, and the third had entered his head three inches above his left eyebrow.

  Mr Ware was quite still, but then lurched away, flailing blindly with outstretched, stiffened arms, like a swimmer, and crashed into the bottom of the staircase, tried vainly to heave himself up, and crashed down again. Instantly, there was a groaning and cracking from somewhere up above. The spray of dust from the upper storey had become a downpour. The ceiling bowed terrifyingly and a crack travelled down the wall.

  Elizabeth stood up. Her knee-joints felt as though they were made of honey. She scrabbled out of the front door, past the tarpaulin, through the wooden door-hole. She got out into the street and scrambled and staggered away.

  Behind her, she could hear the deafening, rending crash of the house collapsing in a shower of dirt and dust, motes of which were now beginning to circle round in front of her.

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

  Fourteen

  The sound took quite a while to die away.

  Elizabeth did not look round. She blinked, found her eyelashes had gummed together and prised them back open with her fingertips. Then she pushed her hair back from her forehead and smoothed down her skirts which had changed to the colour of dust.

  She looked at her shoes: these too were very dirty.

  Elizabeth realised that this was the first time she had ever stayed up all night.

  She began to walk, listening to the birdsong. Should she take a cab? Should she take a bus? She heard traffic. There must be cabs.

  Elizabeth would have liked somewhere to sit down, but there was no bench, or low wall. She pushed out her left hand and bent her elbow round, meaning to check the time. The watch-dial loomed blankly.

  Her wrists both hurt a great deal and she realised that her ears were ringing. A brief, trembly movement with her right hand confirmed that she still had her purse.

  She turned a corner, then hesitated, and looked back round to where she had come from.

  She peered to the end of the street, which was still hazy with unsettled dust, like smoke from a bonfire. That policeman seemed to have vanished. No. There he was. Talking to a group of people in uniform, and pointing to her. Now they were walking quickly in her direction – running, actually.

  She could see London’s streets: houses, curtained windows. She could still hear distant merrymakers, who were still out in these streets. All those people, people drinking, people laughing, people fighting, people talking, all those people she had seen from the Palace balcony last night: all the same people. People everywhere.

  Elizabeth coughed; her side hurt, she put her hand to the pain, bent over a little, and again found herself unable to check the movement. She was sinking back down to her knees, but found the strength to straighten when the men got close to her.

  It was then that Elizabeth recognised Hugh, her VE Night gallant, in his uniform of the Scots Guards. But something queer had happened.

  His blond hair had turned completely grey.

  ‘Oh, Your Highness,’ he gasped, presuming to take her hand. ‘Your Royal Highness. Oh, thank God. Are you all right, Your Royal Highness?’

  ‘Perfectly, thank you.’

  ‘Oh, great merciful God and all the English saints and martyrs.’

  Someone was now placing a blanket around her shoulders, and offering a sip of brandy in a metal cup from a hip flask. She waved it away. Hugh had some. All around her, Elizabeth could hear singing and screeching and shouting. She could hear the backfiring of cars, and even the tinkling of glass. And above it all, one distant voice:

  ‘Victory in Japan! Victory in Japan! Victory in Japan!’

  Acknowledgements

  I offer fervent thanks to David Miller, Alex Goodwin, Jon Jackson, Peter Mayer, Robert Lacey, Jamie-Lee Nardone, Matt Nieman Sims, Linda Grant, Prof. Margot Gosney, Hugh Bonneville, Ben Liston and David Baddiel. As ever, extra special thanks are due to Caroline Hill.