In the ordinary way of things that would have been fine because most bombs entered the ground at an angle and continued along the same trajectory as they ploughed through the earth.
However, because London sat in a basin, the riverbanks on both sides of the Thames were made up of mud and slurry deposited over thousands of years. This meant that instead of ploughing through solidly packed earth, bombs landing here were apt to slither their way through the water-laden ooze unimpeded, which made their final resting point hard to detect. Archie had pointed this out to Monkman and had suggested that a disturbed mound of earth set back from the river was a better place to start digging. Monkman had answered this suggestion with a hateful look and then set the men to dig on his original site before driving off, the mud spraying from his wheels as he accelerated away.
After two hours of digging in the new area, they’d discovered a collapsed channel, indicating that the bomb had swerved off to the left. After an hour of repositioning and redigging the shaft they had set-to again. That’s when God, in his infinite wisdom, had seen fit to open the heavens above and it had been raining like a Presbyterian Sunday ever since, swamping the hole and churning up the ground.
‘When do you expect him back?’ added Chalky.
Archie cast his gaze around the lead-grey sky. ‘Well, he’d better get here soon or it’ll be too dark to see anything.’
As if he’d heard his name, the sound of wheels crunching over loose stones heralded the return of Monkman’s car.
The lieutenant, dressed in his protective overalls and wellington boots, climbed out of his car and marched over.
‘Have they found it yet?’ he asked, as drops of water slid off the peak of his hat.
‘The Thames mud doesn’t make for easy digging,’ Archie replied.
The lieutenant chewed the inside of his mouth, setting his thin moustache wriggling on his top lip.
‘Have you checked the equipment?’ he asked.
‘Aye,’ Archie replied. ‘I wouldn’t want to find myself face to face with a number thirty-five and find the clock stopper’s leads were worn.’
‘Sir,’ Monkman snapped when it was clear that Archie had finished his sentence.
‘Sir,’ Archie repeated, regarding his senior officer impassively.
Monkman studied him for a moment then fumbled under his waterproofs and took out his cigarette case.
Mogg heaved up another bucket of dirt from below and Archie, Arthur and the lieutenant stepped back as the squaddie manhandled it away from the top of the shaft.
Flicking his lighter into a flame, Monkman lit his cigarette.
‘Bally weather,’ he muttered as the wind threw sheets of rain against them.
‘Worse still if you’re soaked to the skin and frozen to the bone down the bottom of an eighteen-foot shaft. Sir,’ Archie replied.
Monkman opened his mouth to speak but a two-tone whistle from below cut between them.
Archie went over to the parapet and looked over to see Tim and Fred’s upturned faces.
‘What is it, Fred?’ he asked.
‘We’ve found something like shrapnel mixed in with the gravel,’ the lance corporal yelled back.
Archie straightened up and looked across at Monkman. ‘Better have a look, don’t you think, sir?’
The lieutenant held Archie’s gaze for a moment, then, after taking a long draw on his half-smoked cigarette, threw it aside.
‘Let’s get on with it, then,’ he barked, and stepped up on to the parapet.
‘Hold fast, Fred, Lieutenant Monkman’s coming down,’ Archie shouted as Monkman descended, the smell of expensive brandy and cheap perfume lingering after him.
Swinging his leg over the top, Archie planted his foot on the first rung and followed his senior officer down.
His feet squelched as he stepped off the ladder on to the earth platform halfway down. The new shaft was below, and he continued down to where Monkman was standing beside the section’s lance corporal.
Archie switched on his torch and shone it at the floor. Small fragments of metal glimmered back at him.
He chewed his lip.
It wasn’t conclusive by any means, but it could be something that all bomb disposal squaddies dreaded: a camouflet. A pocket of deadly carbon monoxide caused by a bomb exploding beneath the surface.
Monkman hunkered down and scooped up a handful.
He directed the beam of light from his torch on to the contents of his hand then stood up.
‘Just old nails and junk washed down the river,’ he said, discarding them. ‘Keep digging.’
Grasping his shovel, Fred stuck it in the earth.
Taking hold of the ladder, the lieutenant climbed back up to the platform.
‘Stop digging, Fred,’ shouted Archie.
The lance corporal stuck his shovel in a mound of earth.
‘I said keep at it,’ bellowed Monkman, glaring down from the platform six foot above them.
Tim and Fred looked at Archie.
‘And that’s a direct order, Soldier!’ the lieutenant shouted, his voice booming around them in the damp shaft.
Archie, grabbing a handful of grit, climbed up to join his senior officer on the earth platform.
‘How dare you countermand a superior officer?’ Monkman forced out between gritted teeth as Archie reached him. ‘I could have you—’
‘Look.’ Picking out a fragment of twisted metal, he held it so Monkman could see it. ‘It’s not junk. It’s from German armaments, sir.’
Monkman gave the fragments in Archie’s hand a cursory glance. ‘This is rubbish, nothing more.’ He forced a laugh. ‘Good God, man, this stuff is scattered all over London—’
‘Aye, perhaps it’s rubbish,’ interrupted Archie. ‘Or perhaps it’s debris from a bomb that’s exploded beneath the surface.’
The lieutenant gave him a mocking look. ‘Don’t be ridiculous—’
‘If there is a camouflet down there,’ said Archie, fixing his commanding officer with an unwavering stare, ‘we need to bring down the rods to locate it before we let the men dig any further.’
Annoyance flickered across Monkman’s face.
‘Look, McIntosh,’ the lieutenant forced out between tight lips, ‘we’ve been days digging out this UXB and, for all we know, the bugger’s ticking away ready to blow us all to kingdom come, so unless you want to be up on a charge of insubordination, I suggest you and your men get on with—’
‘Right, men, out you come,’ Archie shouted. ‘Quick as you like.’
‘Now you . . . you look . . .’ Monkman spluttered as his face went from pink to red to puce and he fought to get out his words.
Both men downed tools and hurried to the bottom of the ladder. Tim got there first, closely followed by Fred. They started to climb but, halfway up, the youngster lost his footing on the sodden wood and fell back, taking the older man with him. They crashed, all arms and legs, on to the mud floor at the bottom of the shaft.
Tim rolled off and jumped up.
‘Sorry, Fred,’ he said, offering the other man his hand to help him up.
Fred scrambled to his feet but just then there was a low rumble below them. Both men looked down. For a split-second time stopped then the ground beneath the two sappers fell away, taking them with it.
Archie sprang forward and grabbed one of the safety cords.
‘Help!’ he screamed, as he wound the saturated rope around his forearms and took the strain of the fallen man.
He looked across at Monkman who, having flattened himself against the wall, was staring in horror at the gaping hole beneath them.
‘Pull him up,’ Archie yelled at him.
The lieutenant looked up.
‘Pull the man up,’ Archie bellowed. ‘Grab the rope and pull him up.’
Yanked out of his stupor, Monkman fumbled around for a bit then caught hold of the other dangling rope. Someone above started tugging on the line Archie was holding. Tim, his face bright pink as he da
ngled like a puppet on the end of the rope, emerged from the chasm and was winched upwards.
Leaving the inert eighteen-year-old to be taken to the surface by other hands, Archie stepped over to where Monkman, with sweat running off his forehead despite the frigid temperature, was struggling to raise Fred from the depths.
Ignoring the pain of his blistering hands, Archie grasped the damp hemp line just below Monkman’s hands.
‘Heave,’ he yelled.
‘I can’t hold him,’ moaned Monkman.
‘You’ll damn well have to,’ Archie ground out between gritted teeth as the rope started slipping.
Using himself as a counterweight, Archie rocked back and hauled the squaddie at the other end of the line up a foot or two. Winding the rope around his arm, Archie heaved again, his boots sliding in the mud as he tried to get purchase.
Just as his arms felt as if they were about to come loose from their sockets, the rope grew taut as those above took up the slack. Exhausted, Archie released the rope as Fred, also bright pink and hanging like a sack of coal, was hauled to the surface.
Stepping back, Archie rested against the wooden planks of the shaft, his hands on his thighs as he regained his breath.
Opening his eyes, Archie looked across at Monkman.
‘It was an accident,’ the lieutenant said. ‘No one could have known.’
Resisting the urge to smash his fist into his senior officer’s face, Archie didn’t reply.
Turning, he looked down into the gaping hole they had just dragged Tim and Fred out of. The bomb was sitting at the bottom.
Taking his torch, he switched it on.
‘There you are, sir,’ said Archie, directing the beam on to it. ‘Looks like a 500-kilo to me.’ Standing away from the wooden wall, he grabbed the ladder leading up to the surface.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Monkman.
‘Up to see how my men are faring,’ Archie replied.
*
‘“Toot, toot,” went Gordon the engine,’ said Cathy, watching her son’s eyes flutter down. ‘“Toot, toot,” Thomas replied, his big metal wheels rolling over the rails as he headed for the engine shed for a good night’s sleep.’
Softly she closed the book. Placing it on her lap, she rested her hands on it.
In the mellow glow of the Noddy night light, Cathy gazed at her sleeping son and, as it always did when she looked at him, love filled her heart.
Although she still had vivid nightmares and often woke up in a cold sweat, the one thing she could never regret about her miserable, violent marriage was Peter. He was worth all the suffering she’d endured and, sin though it might be, she was counting the days, eighty-seven days in all, until she was officially free of Stanley Wheeler.
And then . . . An image of Archie smiling across the breakfast table at her that morning drifted through Cathy’s mind and a little smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
Well, who knew?
Her mind was just about to conjure up a very pleasant fantasy of her life as a free woman when she heard the distinct sound of Archie’s bike drawing up at the front of the house.
Leaning forward, she kissed Peter lightly on the forehead then stood up. Putting the book back with the half a dozen others on his toy shelf, she made her way downstairs.
However, as she reached the last step, Archie, still dressed in his boiler suit and covered in mud, strode out of his room clutching a half-drunk bottle of Johnnie Walker.
‘Ca— Mrs Wheeler,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘I thought you’d be at the shelter by now.’
‘It’s thick fog all the way up the Thames so I thought I’d treat myself and Peter to a night in our own beds,’ she replied. ‘But has something happened?’
Pain flitted across Archie’s face and he covered his eyes with his free hand.
Cathy went over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
‘Come on, Archie,’ she said softly. ‘Let me get you something to go with your Scotch.’
He nodded and let her lead him into the still-warm kitchen, where he slumped on to the chair. Cathy fetched him a tumbler from the dresser and while he sat with his elbow on the table and his head on his hands, she poured him a stiff drink.
She nudged it against his hand. He took it and gulped it down then handed it back to her.
She went to pour him another, but he held up his hand. ‘Thanks, but one will suffice.’
Resting his head back against the wall behind him, Archie closed his eyes.
Cathy put the cork back in the bottle and placed it on the table.
Feeling utterly helpless to ease his pain, Cathy drew up a chair and sat next to him.
Archie opened his eyes and glanced down.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, grabbing the line of buttons at the front of his muddy boiler suit and making to stand up. ‘I shouldn’t have—’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Cathy, laying her hand on his arm. ‘What happened?’
Pausing occasionally to master his emotions, Archie told her about Fred and Tim.
‘Archie, I’m so sorry,’ she said when he finished. ‘Did you get them out in time?’
Archie shook his head. ‘By the time I climbed up out of the shaft, someone had already draped Fred Wood’s battle jacket over his face. Judging by the colour of him, my guess is he died instantly, so at least he wouldn’t have known anything about it.’
‘Has he got family?’ asked Cathy.
‘A wife and five kids; the youngest’s but a few weeks old,’ Archie replied.
‘Poor woman,’ said Cathy.
‘Aye,’ said Archie. ‘Mercifully, although Tim had taken in a lungful of the deadly gas, the lads had managed to revive him up top. I had a couple of words with him before the ambulance carted him off to Plaistow Hospital. Of course, by then bloody Monkman, the lieutenant in charge, had buggered off back to his club or wherever officers go when they’ve caused a good man’s death.’
‘I thought you said it was an accident,’ said Cathy.
‘Aye, an accident that shouldn’t have happened,’ said Archie. ‘All the signs were there indicating the possibility of a camouflet and I told Monkman as much. If he’d listened to me, Fred would be going home to see his new baby in a few weeks instead of lying on a mortuary slab and Tim would be chatting up girls in the Trocadero, not struggling for breath in an oxygen tent.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘The bloody joke of all this is that when we got down to the bomb it was an old-type fifteen, so after pumping the fuse mechanism full of salt-saturated methylated spirits and waiting the obligatory thirty minutes for it to lose its charge, a quick flick of the wrist and it was out. All that was left to do was winch the bomb to the surface, load it on to the truck and whizz it off to Hackney Marches.’ He sighed wearily. ‘I know the CO will write to their families officially, but I’ll pen a note to Fred’s wife myself tomorrow when I have a moment or two. I always do.’
‘Goodness, how many men have you lost?’ she asked.
‘Since we started in ’forty, eight officers and fifteen squaddies,’ he replied. ‘And that’s only the ones in my unit. During the Blitz the company lost an officer almost every day because back then, to be honest, no one really knew what they were doing. First, we had straight forward fifteens and twenty-fives with the odd thirty-five thrown in. They were electrical fuses but then Fritz started dropping clockwork seventeens with unpredictable fuses, sometimes with the old electrical fuses in too to prevent you moving them. Each time we worked out how to neutralise a fuse, the bloody Germans would bring out another sort, then we’d lose more men until the boffins at Woolwich worked out how to beat it. For the past year things have settled down, but it’s only the lull before the storm as I’m sure the Nazi engineers will be sending us another deadly puzzle to unravel soon enough.’ He ran his hands over his face. ‘I could ask for a transfer out, right enough, dozens do, but . . .’
‘But?’ asked Cathy.
‘It’s what I do,’ he replied, giving
her that quirky smile of his.
‘The Nazis try to kill people by dropping bombs on them and I stop them by defusing them. It’s as simple as that.’
Cathy’s heart ached for him.
‘Have you had anything to eat?’
He shook his head. ‘After I left HQ I needed to hear Kirsty’s voice so I telephoned her, just to keep my bloody mind off all that’d happened, then I came straight here.’
‘I’ve saved you some stew; shall I warm it through for you?’ she asked.
‘Please,’ he replied, giving her a grateful smile.
Rising to her feet, Cathy went over to the stove and relit the gas under the pot on the back ring. Stirring the beef chunks and vegetables around in the thick gravy until they bubbled, Cathy then scraped the contents of the saucepan into a bowl. She placed it in front of Archie and handed him a spoon.
‘Get that down you, Soldier,’ she said, placing a plate with two slices of buttered bread at his elbow.
Leaving Archie to eat, Cathy refilled the kettle and put it back on the stove. By the time the whistle was starting to rattle, Archie had scraped the last smear of gravy from the bottom of the bowl.
Placing his spoon in his empty dish, he relaxed back in the chair and smiled at Cathy.
‘Better?’ she asked.
‘Much,’ he replied. ‘And I’m sorry to have burdened you with it.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I just wish I could do more.’
‘You’ve done more than enough by just being here,’ he replied. ‘Now I should stop dirtying your kitchen and spruce myself up.’
‘There’s plenty of hot water in the kettle, so take a clean towel from the pile on the dresser and get yourself cleaned up,’ she said. ‘And while you’re doing that, I’ll fetch you a fresh vest and shirt.’
Leaving Archie to strip out of his dirty boiler suit she went into his room.
She picked a clean khaki vest from the top drawer of the dresser but as she reached into the wardrobe, a faint aroma of Archie drifted over her. Captured in the heady scent of him, Cathy gathered one of his shirts in her arms and pressed her face into it, inhaling deeply for a second then, remembering what she was supposed to be about, she hurried back to the kitchen.
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