Archie released him and he crumpled on to the floor.
Stepping over the unconscious lieutenant, Archie grabbed the tool bag and returned to the bomb.
He looked at his watch again.
Dealing with Monkman had taken five minutes. Five minutes he didn’t have to spare.
Hunkering down again, Archie ripped the clay reservoir away. He grasped the jemmy and eased the edge under the narrow rim of the fuse. He exerted pressure but the edge of the tool couldn’t get purchase and pinged off. Archie tried again but the same thing happened.
Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he stood up and dug the edge of the jemmy in deeper, forcing it between the casing and the fuse. This time it bit and the fuse lifted slightly. With sweat trickling down his back and his heart thumping in his chest, Archie moved the jemmy’s flattened metal edge and prised the fuse up a little until it was an inch clear of the casing. Curling his fingers, he grasped the frozen fuse and gently pulled it out, but after raising it another few inches, it stuck on the jagged edge of the split casing.
Archie glanced at his watch, then, grabbing the jemmy, he tapped the fuse on alternate sides to nudge it out of the obstruction. He took hold of the barrel of the fuse again.
Staring unseeing at the far wall, Archie took a deep breath and then drew the fuse out of its pocket in one even movement.
Looking down at the eight-inch cylinder of precision engineering designed to kill anyone who touched it, Archie let out a long breath. But he wasn’t done.
Holding it firmly, Archie unscrewed the gane, the deadly firing charge that would still blow him to kingdom come if ignited by the fuse’s firing trigger.
In a series of steady motions, he unscrewed it, popped it in his pocket and then, holding the fuse tight in his left hand, Archie straightened up.
Stepping backwards away from the bomb, he placed it in the purpose-built padded box ready to go to the lab at Woolwich.
Heaving a huge sigh, and rolling the tension out of his shoulders, he yanked on the call-rope and within a minute Chalky and Ron peered over the gaping edge of the floor above.
‘What happened to him?’ asked the corporal, indicating the unconscious Monkman sprawled across the floor.
‘He fainted,’ Archie replied. ‘Now, Ron, go and get the boys to rig up a block-and-tackle set-up so we can winch this bloody thing up. Chalky, you come and help me clear up.’
Ron disappeared whence he’d come while Chalky clattered down the stairs.
Bending down, Archie dragged Monkman upright and rested him against a pillar.
‘What really happened?’ asked Chalky, as he joined him.
‘What was bound to happen eventually,’ Archie replied. ‘He lost his nerve.’
‘So you landed him one?’ said Chalky.
‘Aye.’
‘And he went down in one?’
Archie gave him a wry smile.
‘You wouldnae survive a Saturday night on Sauchiehall Street if you didn’t floor ’em with the first blow.’ He kicked the officer’s boot. ‘Monkman!’
Monkman’s eyes fluttered a little then closed again.
Archie crouched down and lightly tapped his face.
‘Monkman!’
The lieutenant jerked and his eyes flew open.
With confusion written across his face, his pale eyes darted around, then as they rested on the bomb, panic gripped him again.
Screaming and with his gaze riveted to the bomb, he scrambled backwards away from it. Archie bent down, seized him, and dragged him to his feet.
Wide-eyed, Monkman struggled to free himself.
‘It’s safe!’ Archie shook him. ‘The fuse is out. The fuse is out!’
Monkman blinked. ‘Out?’
‘Aye. It’s out. Safe,’ Archie repeated. ‘We’re just getting set to lift it out.’
He indicated above to where the squad, who’d just returned, could be heard clattering about.
The wildness left the lieutenant’s eyes, so Archie let him go.
Leaving Monkman to tidy himself up, Archie looked up.
‘If you sling a couple of stout beams across here,’ he said, indicating a place between two untouched concrete basement pillars, ‘I reckon we can roll it across and—’
Archie caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked around to see Monkman lighting his cigarette with a match.
‘No!’ he screamed, launching himself at Monkman as the lieutenant casually flicked the still-flaming match towards the canister of liquid oxygen.
Time seem to slow but as Archie’s hands connected with the other man’s chest, a fierce flash of searing white light stabbed like a stiletto through his eyes for a split second. Then everything went black.
‘Have you finished, Peter?’ asked Cathy, lifting a mixing bowl from the sudsy water and stacking it on the draining board.
Peter, who was sitting up at the table eating his tea, lifted his plate by way of reply.
‘Good boy,’ Cathy replied, smiling at him. ‘Would you like pudding?’
Her son nodded his head and picked up his spoon.
She cut a slice from the apple tart she’d made after she’d returned from her mother’s house an hour ago and set it in front of him.
She glanced at the clock on the dresser.
Four thirty. Just three hours and Archie would be home.
And from next Monday he would be returning to their home, not this house of misery and hate that she’d been imprisoned in for over three years. It would be full of love and . . . Cathy put a hand on her stomach and smiled.
Of course, she wouldn’t tell Archie for a few weeks yet. Not until Kirsty and his mother Aggie came to join them and they’d all settled into a rhythm as a family.
However, just because she was moving out of the area didn’t mean she was going to let this business with Mrs Paget lie. In fact, once she’d cried it all out at her mother’s, she’d pulled herself together and, while Peter had taken a late-afternoon nap on the sofa, she’d sat at the kitchen table and written a letter to the WVS’s regional HQ complaining about Mrs Paget’s treatment of her. She’d also mentioned the coordinator’s sneering attitude towards the very people she was supposed to be helping. She’d posted it on the way home from her mother’s and, although it might not change anything, Cathy felt a great deal better for writing it.
Turning back to the oven, Cathy whipped a tea towel off the rack and winding it around her hands, she opened the door.
The mouth-watering smell of lamb stew billowed out from the casserole on the top shelf.
Reaching in, she lifted the lid and, satisfied that her and Archie’s evening meal wasn’t drying out, put it back and closed the oven door.
She refilled the kettle. She had just relit the gas beneath it when the back door opened and Violet walked in with a face like a gargoyle with a wasp stuck up its nose.
To be honest, as the Wednesday-afternoon church tea had wound up over an hour ago, she’d expected Violet to already be at home when she’d returned. The fact that she hadn’t been was a thin silver lining on what had otherwise been a very cloudy day.
Cathy smiled. ‘I’m guessing Gran had a word with you then, Vi.’
‘I’ve never been so embarrassed,’ snapped Violet.
Cathy gave her a confused look. ‘What, not even when MI5 turned up and arrested your Stanley as a traitor?’
‘My Stanley was led astray, but he’s a hero now and will be getting a medal to prove it,’ Violet snapped. ‘And when he gets—’
The crack of the front-door knocker cut across her words.
Giving Cathy a hateful look, Violet left the room to answer it.
Taking the spoon from her son, Cathy fed Peter the last couple of scraps of his dessert. She was just wiping his face with his bib when the door opened. A fair-haired soldier with a bomb disposal badge on his sleeve and a forlorn expression on his face entered the kitchen.
Staring across at him, Cathy’s blood turned
to ice as her heart crashed in her chest.
‘Mrs Cathy Wheeler,’ he said, twisting his field cap in his hand.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Corporal White, and there’s been an accident.’
Chapter Thirty
WITH HER COAT streaming behind her, Cathy grasped the handrail and swung herself from the stairs on to the second floor of The London Hospital.
Like the rest of the hospital, the green-tiled corridor she was standing in was busy with nurses in lilac pinstriped uniforms and starched frilly caps, as they hurried between wards and white-coated orderlies pushing hospital gurneys.
Looking up at the noticeboard pinned to the wall, Cathy’s eyes ran swiftly down the list of wards, then she hurried along the corridor.
The distinct smell of detergent and surgical spirit wafted up as she pushed open one of the double doors and burst into Charrington Ward.
The ward, like the others in the eighteenth-century block, was set out in the classic Nightingale formation, with beds lined up along each wall. The kitchen and sluice were at one end of the room and the patients’ day room at the other.
As it was now just after five thirty, the nurses were busy giving out supper to the men, who were sitting in their beds or in chairs alongside.
A stout nurse in a navy puffy-sleeved uniform, a ridged white cap and silver belt buckle, spotted Cathy and waddled over.
She stopped in front of Cathy.
‘I’m Sister Torrance. Can I help you, my dear?’ she asked, her rosy face lifting in a friendly smile.
‘I believe a Sergeant McIntosh was brought in a little while ago,’ said Cathy.
‘Are you a relative?’ asked the ward sister.
‘I’m his . . . wife,’ Cathy replied. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He was caught in an explosion,’ said Sister Torrance. ‘And while he’s stable, breathing . . .’ She gave Cathy a sympathetic look. ‘I’ll ring the doctor so he can explain it to you fully.’
‘Can I see him?’ said Cathy, her imagination flicking through images of Archie burnt and with limbs missing.
‘Yes, of course. He’s been sedated, so he might be a little drowsy.’ The ward sister placed a hand on Cathy’s arm. ‘I don’t want you to be too alarmed about the bandages. They are just a precaution. Follow me.’
Sister Torrance turned, and when they reached the side room she stood aside.
Cathy walked in and her gaze fell on Archie’s long body as he lay flat on the bed. He was covered with a blue counterpane, which had been folded back to just above his waist. He was wearing his army vest, and his bare brown arms and muscular shoulders contrasted starkly with the crisp white sheet beneath them. There wasn’t a mark or injury on him and she could see the outline of his legs and feet beneath the bedcovers.
However, as her gaze reached his face, Cathy covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a scream as she saw the bandages covering his eyes.
Sensing her presence, Archie’s head turned in her direction.
‘Is that you, Nurse?’ he asked.
‘No, Archie, it’s me,’ Cathy said, putting her handbag on the locker beside the bed. She sat down in the chair next to him then slipped her hand in his.
‘Cathy,’ he said, his long, dexterous fingers closing around hers. ‘How did you hear—’
She cut off his words by covering his mouth with hers and putting her arms around him. His arms encircled her as he crushed her to his chest, his lips pressed on her forehead in a series of hard kisses. Tears gathered in her eyes.
Not wanting to let him know she was weeping, she disentangled herself from his embrace and sat up.
‘Your corporal came to tell me on his way back to base,’ Cathy replied. ‘He gave me a lift to my sister Mattie’s. I left Peter with her. He also told me to tell you that the heavy rescue got all the children and nurses out.’
‘Thank God,’ said Archie.
From nowhere, despondency surged up in Cathy.
‘Oh, Archie, I . . .’
A tear escaped and fell on to his arm.
‘Now, now,’ he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips.
Cathy ran her hand across his stubbled cheek but didn’t speak as tears streamed down her face.
Sister Torrance appeared at the door and beckoned to her.
Cathy wiped her eyes again and forced a laugh.
‘You know, I’ve been in such a hurry to see you, I forgot to spend a penny.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I won’t be long.’
Standing up, Cathy hurried out and followed the ward sister into an office. Inside, an elderly doctor wearing a white coat and with a stethoscope around his neck was standing by the desk.
‘Mrs McIntosh, I’m Dr Alder,’ he said, offering her his hand.
‘Why are my husband’s eyes bandaged?’ Cathy asked, as she shook his hand.
‘It’s a precaution, until we can ascertain the extent of the damage,’ the doctor replied.
Cathy’s jaw dropped as the word ‘damage’ screamed around in her head.
With tears once again distorting her vison, Cathy looked from the doctor to the nurse then back again.
‘But he will get better, won’t he?’
Sister Torrance gave her a little chin-up smile but didn’t reply.
‘We have an ophthalmologist coming from Moorfields to examine your husband tomorrow,’ Dr Alder replied softly. ‘We will have a better idea then.’
Cathy took her handkerchief out of her pocket and dried her eyes.
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she said.
With her feet feeling as if they’d turned to lead, Cathy retraced her steps to the side room. Archie turned his head in her direction as she walked in.
‘Cathy?’
‘Yes,’ she said, resuming her seat next to him and taking his hand again. ‘I bet you thought I’d fallen down the pan.’
‘Or run off with a handsome doctor,’ he laughed.
She laughed, too.
‘I suppose the house will be gone by the time I get out of here,’ he continued.
‘Don’t worry about the house,’ she said. ‘We’ll find another. The main thing is to get you fighting fit again.’
Cathy shifted on to the bed, and finding her hand again, he squeezed it.
They sat in silence for a long while then from outside on the ward came the faint sound of the seven o’clock pips.
‘You should be getting back to your sister, Cathy,’ he said softly. ‘The blackout will be starting soon.’
‘No, but I—’
‘I don’t like to think of you walking through the streets alone or getting caught in an air raid,’ he said.
She opened her mouth to speak.
‘Please. For me.’
‘All right, if you insist,’ she said, desperately wanting to say otherwise. ‘But I’ll be back first thing.’
‘I’m counting on it.’
He gave her that quirky smile of his and tears sprang into Cathy’s eyes again.
‘Do you want me to phone your mum?’
‘Not yet,’ he replied. ‘Wait until we hear what the consultant says tomorrow but take my wallet. There’s money in it if you need it.’
Taking it from the locker drawer, she dropped it in her handbag, then, stretching over him, she pressed her lips on his. Archie’s arms wound around her, holding her close, his mouth opened under hers.
Tearing herself from his embrace, Cathy stood up.
‘Until tomorrow,’ she said.
He blew her a kiss. ‘Until tomorrow.’
Although she just wanted to throw herself back into his arms, she hooked her handbag over her arm and walked around the bed. As she reached the door, a tear escaped and rolled down her cheek.
She turned back to the bed.
‘I love you, Archie,’ she said, wiping it away with the heel of her hand.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. ‘And I love you, too, Mrs McIntosh.’
Cathy had just turned in
to her sister Mattie’s road when the air raid siren went off.
Picking up her pace, she reached the front door as the first humming overhead started. Turning the key, she went in and through the blackout curtains and found Mattie, wearing her slippers and dressing gown, standing in the hall.
‘Thank goodness,’ her sister said, helping her off with her coat. ‘I was beginning to worry.’
‘How’s Peter?’ asked Cathy.
‘Absolutely fine,’ Mattie replied. ‘He and Alicia were tearing around pretending to be aeroplanes after supper, so he was almost asleep on his feet by the time I put him to bed. Now what’s this about Sergeant McIntosh?’
Cathy opened her mouth to speak but instead she covered her face and burst into tears.
Mattie’s arms closed around her and, resting her head on her sister’s shoulder, Cathy wept uncontrollably for a moment or two and then, as the bombs started falling on Limehouse Basin half a mile away, Mattie spoke again.
‘Come on,’ she said, giving Cathy a hug. ‘Let’s go downstairs to the shelter and you can tell me all about it over a cuppa.’
Half an hour later, with bombs shaking the earth around them, and having told, or more truthfully sobbed, the whole story about her and Archie, Cathy blew her nose.
‘I know I should have said something to you before now, Mattie, but we were waiting until we’d got everything sorted out . . .’ She gave her sister an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry.’
Mattie, knitting needles in hand, was sitting opposite Cathy in one of the two comfy chairs in her basement shelter. They both had a cup of tea courtesy of Mattie’s primus stove, and the soft sound of a string quartet drifted over them from the Pye wireless that was sitting on an old dresser at the other end of the room.
To her left, in her sister’s Morrison shelter, tucked up in a sleeping bag and with his thumb in his mouth, slept Peter. Next to him was Mattie’s two-year-old Alicia with baby Robert snuggled in his collapsible canvas cot alongside.
All three of them, having known nothing but bombs dropping around them since they were born, slept peacefully in their metal cage while German armaments crashed to earth above them.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mattie, pulling a length of pink three-ply from the ball on her lap. ‘To be honest, Cathy, you’ve had such a blooming smile on your face for the past month, I’d pretty much guessed. But what are you going to do now?’
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