The beam was not the only thing holding the joist down. The rubble looked loose— bricks and chunks of plaster and pieces of wood — but it was as solid as cement. Swales, who showed up out of nowhere when we were 3 feet down, said, “It’s the clay. All London’s built on it. Hard as statues.” He had brought two buckets with him and the news that Nelson had shown up and had had a fight with the spotty officer over whose incident it was.
“ ‘It’s my incident,’ Nelson says, and gets out the map to show him how this side of King’s Road is in his district,” Swales said gleefully, “and the incident officer says, ‘Your incident? Who wants the bloody thing, I say,’ he says.”
Even with Swales helping, the going was so slow whoever was under there would probably have suffocated or bled to death before we could get to him. Jack didn’t stop at all, even when the bombs were directly overhead. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, though none of us heard anything in those brief intervals of silence and Jack seemed scarcely to listen.
The banister he was using broke off in the iron-hard clay, and he took mine and kept digging. A broken clock came up, and an egg cup. Morris arrived. He had been evacuating people from two streets over where a bomb had buried itself in the middle of the street without exploding. Swales told him the story of Nelson and the spotty young officer and then went off to see what he could find out about the inhabitants of the house.
Jack came up out of the hole. “I need braces,” he said. “The sides are collapsing.”
I found some unbroken bed slats at the base of the mound. One of the slats was too long for the shaft. Jack sawed it halfway through and then broke it off.
Swales came back. “Nobody in the house,” he shouted down the hole. “The Colonel and Mrs Godalming went to Surrey this morning.” The all-clear sounded, drowning out his words.
“Jack,” Jack said from the hole, and I turned around to see if the rescue squad had brought it down with them.
“Jack,” he said again, more urgently.
I leaned over the tunnel.
“What time is it?” he said.
“About five,” I said. “The all-clear just went.”
“Is it getting light?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Have you found anything?”
“Yes,” he said. “Give us a hand.”
I eased myself into the hole. I could understand his question; it was pitch dark down here. I switched my torch on. It lit up our faces from beneath like spectres.
“In there,” he said, and reached for a banister just like the one he’d been digging with.
“Is he under a stairway?” I said and the banister clutched at his hand.
It only took a minute or two to get him out. Jack pulled on the arm I had mistaken for a banister, and I scrabbled through the last few inches of plaster and clay to the little cave he was in, formed by an icebox and a door leaning against each other.
“Colonel Godalming?” I said, reaching for him.
He shook off my hand. “Where the bleeding hell have you people been?” he said. “Taking a tea break?”
He was in full evening dress, and his big moustache was covered with plaster dust. “What sort of country is this, leave a man to dig himself out?” he shouted, brandishing a serving spoon full of plaster in Jack’s face. “I could have dug all the way to China in the time it took you blighters to get me out!”
Hands came down into the hole and hoisted him up. “Blasted incompetents!” he yelled. We pushed on the seat of his elegant trousers. “Slackers, the lot of you! Couldn’t find the nose in front of your own face!”
Colonel Godalming had in fact left for Surrey the day before but had decided to come back for his hunting rifle, in case of invasion. “Can’t rely on the blasted Civil Defence to stop the jerries,” he had said as I led him down to the ambulance.
It was starting to get light. The incident was smaller than I’d thought, not much more than two blocks square. What I had taken for a mound to the south was actually a squat office block, and beyond it the row of houses hadn’t even had their windows blown out.
The ambulance had pulled up as near as possible to the mound. I helped him over to it. “What’s your name?” he said, ignoring the doors I’d opened. “I intend to report you to your superiors. And the other one. Practically pulled my arm out of its socket. Where’s he got to?”
“He had to go to his day job,” I said. As soon as we had Godalming out, Jack had switched on his pocket torch again to glance at his watch and said, “I’ve got to leave.”
I told him I’d check him out with the incident officer and started to help Godalming down the mound. Now I was sorry I hadn’t gone with him.
“Day job!” Godalming snorted. “Gone off to take a nap is more like it. Lazy slacker. Nearly breaks my arm and then goes off and leaves me to die. I’ll have his job!”
“Without him, we’d never even have found you,” I said angrily. “He’s the one who heard your cries for help.”
“Cries for help!” the colonel said, going red in the face. “Cries for help! Why would I cry out to a lot of damned slackers!”
The ambulance driver got out of the car and came round to see what the delay was.
“Accused me of crying out like a damned coward!” he blustered to her. “I didn’t make a sound. Knew it wouldn’t do any good. Knew if I didn’t dig myself out, I’d be there till kingdom come! Nearly had myself out, too, and then he comes along and accuses me of blubbering like a baby! It’s monstrous, that’s what it is! Monstrous!”
She took hold of his arm.
“What do you think you’re doing, young woman? You should be at home instead of out running round in short skirts! It’s indecent, that’s what it is!”
She shoved him, still protesting, on to a bunk, and covered him up with a blanket. I slammed the doors to, watched her off, and then made a circuit of the incident, looking for Swales and Morris. The rising sun appeared between two bands of cloud, reddening the mounds and glinting off a broken mirror.
I couldn’t find either of them, so I reported in to Nelson, who was talking angrily on a field telephone and who nodded and waved me off when I tried to tell him about Jack, and then went back to the post.
Swales was already regaling Morris and Vi, who were eating breakfast, with an imitation of Colonel Godalming. Mrs Lucy was still filling out papers, apparently the same form as when we’d left.
“Huge moustaches,” Swales was saying, his hands 2 feet apart to illustrate their size, “like a walrus’s, and tails, if you please. ‘Oi siy, this is disgriceful!’ ” he sputtered, his right hand squinted shut with an imaginary monocle. “ ‘Wot’s the Impire coming to when a man cahn’t even be rescued!’ ” He dropped into his natural voice. “I thought he was going to have our two Jacks court-martialled on the spot.” He peered round me. “Where’s Settle?”
“He had to go to his day job,” I said.
“Just as well,” he said, screwing the monocle back in. “The colonel looked like he was coming back with the Royal Lancers.” He raised his arm, gripping an imaginary sword. “Charge!”
Vi tittered. Mrs Lucy looked up and said, “Violet, make Jack some toast. Sit down, Jack. You look done in.”
I took my helmet off and started to set it on the table. It was caked with plaster dust, so thick it was impossible to see the red W through it. I hung it on my chair and sat down.
Morris shoved a plate of kippers at me. “You never know what they’re going to do when you get them out,” he said. “Some of them fall all over you, sobbing, and some act like they’re doing you a favour. I had one old woman acted all offended, claimed I made an improper advance when I was working her leg free.”