Parry found it harder and harder to breathe. His respirator wasn’t coping with his desperate need for oxygen. He sucked harder and harder, pulling the sides of the mask in with the effort until he felt light-headed. He knew the mask had to come off. He yanked it up over his face and screamed as he twisted his body into a jagged piece of concrete lying next to him. He sucked in the air, but then coughed violently as the dust layer he had disturbed was pulled into his lungs. He panicked: unable to breathe properly, feeling a heavy weight on his legs. With visibility at zero, the tension still tangible from the last days of the battle with the Russian navy, his body gave in and he sagged, his head resting on the remnants of the building that had just collapsed around them.
Eventually, his coughing fit subsided, his breathing settled, and he started to take stock of his surroundings. A layer of dust was forming on his upper body. The remaining buildings in the area seemed to be maintaining their integrity. Parry tried to sit up but a searing pain shot down his side. He raised his body up on his elbows, the visibility improving as he could now see his legs caught beneath a jumble of large chunks of masonry. He tried to pull them out but, apart from more pain lancing down the left side of his body, nothing moved. More dust was settling, and he could now see his dust-encrusted respirator. No wonder I couldn’t breathe, he thought.
He looked about him as best he could, the shapes of more rubble coming into view. The jagged walls of the building they had been alongside were now visible. He saw a outline of something familiar about ten metres away but couldn’t quite make it out. Rubbing the dust out of his eyes, causing them to water and forcing him to squint, the picture cleared. It was a pair of legs, at least from the knee down — except one was shorter than the other, severed off just above the shin. They appeared immobile. The rest of the body that he didn’t recognise was hidden in the rubble.
He tugged his own legs again, the pain returning but not as bad. But he still couldn’t shift his legs from beneath the weight that pinned them down. Could he feel them both? He thought so. An attempt at moving his feet failed, and there was a moment of panic. He prayed it was just the pressure of the objects on top of his feet and legs that were responsible and not because, like the body he could see to his left, they had been crushed or even severed.
Parry heard the crunch of gravel behind him, and strained his head back and then to the left and right in order to see the cause of the noise. “Who’s that? Is someone there?”
A shadow descended over him before a recognisable figure crouched by his side. The full beard of his PO coming into view.
“Petty Officer Bell, thank God. Where is everyone?”
PO Bell was also without a mask. “It’s not good, sir. I’ve seen Lieutenant Wood and Page, both dead. Page’s head has been caved in and the lieutenant must have had every bone in his body broken. I reckon that’s Corporal Davey to your left, but it doesn’t look good from here. I’ll check him out in a minute, but no doubt he’s dead as well. How about you, sir? You OK?”
“My legs are trapped. What about the rest of the group?”
“Not a dicky bird, sir. They’ve got to be under that mess back there. We were lucky it fell slightly behind us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
Bell leant in closer to his captain. “I’ll check out your legs, sir. Then check out the poor bugger over there.”
PO Bell ran his hand down Parry’s legs, testing them slightly, searching for breaks or gashes that would indicate a crucial injury. He could only check to just above the knee, the rest was buried beneath the rubble. The dust had settled so he had a pretty good view of the situation.
“Not looking too bad, sir. Your legs seem to be pinned from the knee down.”
Captain Parry raised his body on his elbows again. “Can you move it?”
“They’re heavy chunks, but no real big ones. I’ll just try and shift them one at a time.”
The biggest was right on the top, but precariously balanced. One shove with his shoulder, and it tumbled down away from them with a crash and a shower of dust.
“Aaaagh.”
“You OK, sir?”
“Yes, yes. Just hurts like hell. That took some of the pressure off, and some of the feeling has come back.”
“Just a couple more should do it.” The next one was not so easy, and Bell had to rock it back and forth until eventually it gave way, crashing down to join the first one.
“I can move one of my feet.”
“I’m not going to be able to shift this last one so easily.”
“Find something to lever it with. Must be something amongst the debris.”
Bell left his captain and went in search of a length of wood or something similar. He was soon back, grinning and holding up a length of steel. “Have you out in a jiffy now, sir. Get ready to pull your legs away.”
He was true to his word. The last piece was soon levered off, and the captain was free at last.
“Let me help.” Bell lifted one of the captain’s arms and heaved him up, placing an arm around the man’s waist and pulling the captain’s right arm around his neck and shoulder. Parry was now standing on a pair of very shaky legs. The sharp pains had gone, his right foot was weak and throbbing. But his left foot was not so good.
“Perch your backside on there, sir.” Bell pointed to a steel RSJ that could be used as a seat. “Then let me have a look at it.”
Once the captain had sat down, Bell examined Parry’s legs for a second time.
“Your left foot looks badly swollen, and I can see a piece of bone sticking out above your sock. Looks like it’s busted, sir.”
“It feels numb, but there’s no pain.”
“That’ll come. I need to cut that shoe off. Otherwise the swelling will have nowhere to go, and you could have the blood to it cut off.”
“You have a check on the others first. We need to find some cover and batten down for the night.”
“Shoe first, sir, eh? You’ll be going nowhere otherwise.”
Parry capitulated, and Bell cut into the offending shoe, the occasional groan from his captain as he jarred the man’s ankle. After about five minutes, the shoe had been pulled off and the swollen foot and ankle lowered onto the ground. Parry lay back, gritting his teeth as the swelling foot regained some blood flow and the nerves came to life.
“I’ll go and look for the others now, sir. You hang fire.”
Parry nodded.
Petty Officer Bell went from man to man. Lieutenant Wood was dead, his body all but severed in two. Bell could see bits of the camouflaged uniform of Corporal Davey. The Marine was buried under a three-ton piece of masonry, and there was no sign of life. Taylor lay face down, a steel RJS pinning him down. A second girder lay in between the man’s body and a lower limb which it had hacked off when it struck. Taylor too was dead. Page and Harper had suffered similar fates but appeared to have been killed almost instantly, Page with a crushed skull.
As Bell made his way back through the debris, he checked his watch and looked up at the slate grey clouds. Three twenty. It would get even darker in the next couple of hours. He picked up a length of distorted wood on his way back to Parry.
“No go, sir, they’ve all bought it.”
“Damn, damn. It’s my bloody fault. We should never have left the safety of the sub.”
“We couldn’t have stayed there, sir. Supplies of fresh water and food wouldn’t have lasted past two weeks. There was no option but to explore further afield.”