Own goal! At last the driver’s words permeated Harrison’s brain. Registered. Sweet Jesus God! An own goal for AID AN.
Totally alone in the empty Oxfam shop in the deserted street, Les Appleyard pressed the button of his camera.
Inside the oil drum, the X-ray-sensitive microswitch clicked position and completed the circuit.
Leo Muldoon had made a remarkable recovery from the shock of being blasted across the street. ‘Slow down, Clodie, for God’s sake. We’ll be okay if you keep your nerve.’
She took a deep breath, lifted her right foot and tried to calm herself. Staring ahead as the wipers dragged aside the rain, she was scarcely aware which road she was on, blinded by the tears that welled in her eyes and ran freely down her cheeks. Occasional oncoming headlights rose out of the night dazzling and refracting brightly on the lacquered tarmac before screaming past in the opposite direction.
‘I’m sorry, Leo.’ Her voice was weak, fractured.
He looked at her, felt for her sorrow. He wanted to comfort her, this woman who had impressed him with her strength and dedication. But he couldn’t find the words. ‘Hold the faith, Clodie. I’m sure that’s what your da would have wanted.’
His words finally registered and she took her eyes from the road for a moment. He saw her smile; it was the first time that night. A gentle smile of appreciation for his words; somehow he didn’t think she ever smiled a lot. ‘How are the cuts?’
He’d soaked three handkerchiefs with the blood but at last he seemed to have staunched the flow. ‘Sure I’ll be fine.’
They had passed through Kingston-on-Thames, crossed the bridge and skirted Hampton Court Palace, now taking the Lower Sunbury Road towards Shepperton.
Muldoon consulted the map as they passed the water towers and reservoirs. ‘Slow here, take the next right.’
She checked behind as she turned without signalling. There was nothing else on the road.
Ahead the grey Nissan Sunny was where the other team members had left it, parked by the kerb, the key in the exhaust pipe. Clodagh pulled in behind it and switched off the engine. As they stepped out, the night was damp and chill, the only light from the moon which appeared fleetingly from behind the scudding rain cloud. Without exchanging a word, they stripped off their overalls and, taking new trainers from a plastic bag in the Escort’s boot, changed their shoes. Everything worn on the bombing raid ‘ was then locked in before Muldoon swiftly unscrewed the registration plate and replaced the original number of the stolen vehicle.
He tried to sound cheerful. ‘All done.’
She reached back inside and set the incendiary device timer for thirty minutes, then shut and locked the door.
They drove the Nissan Sunny straight on, rejoined the Staines road and continued for a mile before filtering onto the M3. At Junction 2 they took the M25 orbital northwards, then turned onto the M4 just after Heathrow Airport and headed west.
Back in Sunbury, on the quiet reservoir road, the Ford Escort exploded and burst into flames.
Within twenty minutes of the Deptford explosion, Les Appleyard was admitted to St Thomas’s Hospital in I Lambeth where he underwent emergency surgery to remove his right leg. One testicle had been destroyed in the explosion and careful needlework was required to save the second; his remaining leg was horrendously pulped, but the surgeon believed there was a chance that it could be saved.
His buttocks too had beeri badly lacerated, but the bombsuit had taken much of the force, reducing the injuries to his pelvis and trunk. Both hands were burned, but not severely and the damage to his face looked worse than it was. Miraculously his eyes had escaped injury, but both eardrums were badly ruptured.
The following day, heavily sedated, he was transferred by ambulance to the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot close to the family home in Guildford. Through the dreamlike veil of anaesthesia he was only vaguely aware of his arrival at the bleak brick Victorian building. The houseman’s welcoming words of encouragement were lost on him, but he felt the reassuring squeeze of his arm before he began the rattling trolley ride down the corridor. Counting the endless lights passing high above his head, wondering about the strange smell of disinfectant and cooking cabbages from the adjoining kitchens. He was too weak, too disorientated to realise that his leg had gone, the wound left open, the flaps of skin from the lost limb preserved to cover the raw stump.
Ward Six and the face of an angel, the prettiest porcelain face he had ever seen, framed against the wide triangular cap veil. The loveliest and most compassionate eyes. He did not register the grey shirtwaister and red epaulettes of the Queen Alexandra’s.
He told her how pretty she was, too, and wondered why she did not seem to hear.
But as Sister Di McGuire, a Dublin girl, looked down at her patient, all she saw were the cuts and the swellings, the glazed half-closed eyes and the almost imperceptible movement of the parched lips. She and the nurses knew who he was, what he did and what he had done. Tender, eager hands transferred him to the bed, their bodies strengthened by their anger and their pity, then watched while the registrar, an army major, made his examination and ordered the epidural. The sister nodded, turning quickly so that the surgeon would not see her tears as she thought of the terrible, awful waste of it all.
At lunch time Appleyard’s wife Doreen visited. She sat beside him, ashen-faced with shock and her eyes red from hours of remorseless weeping, and watched. Because of his injuries she could not even hold his hand; she had to be content with a desperate attempt at thought transference, willing him to open his eyes, willing him to recognise her. Even for one flickering second, for one half-smile. What she would have given for that. But he didn’t stir. Appleyard just drifted on through his sedated sea of dreams and the agony for Doreen was made worse because all she could see in her mind was her husband playing football with their two sons in the back garden earlier that summer. So fit and strong; always so strong. So unlike herself. She had always relied on his mental and physical strength, fed off it, she recognised that now. And here he was, more helpless than a baby.
‘There’s a possibility we can save his other leg,’ the consultant surgeon explained. Lieutenant Colonel Wallace was in his fifties, stout and florid-faced, that curious blend of military man and physician, combining compassion with a no-nonsense acceptance of the facts. ‘We’ll operate this afternoon.’
It was a long moment before she could find her voice. ‘Can you tell me — what you think, what are the chances?’
His smile gave her strength, despite his reply. ‘Not good, I’m afraid. But your husband is a brave man and a fighter.’
‘He’d hate to be in a wheelchair.’
Wallace nodded. ‘But he’ll be very pleased to be alive. Very pleased to see you and your children again.’
Those words were the comfort and hope she needed. And she took his advice to go home and to take strength from the support of family and friends who had gathered round. Yet all the time she had one eye on the clock, knowing that this was a critical period as Colonel Wallace attempted to screw an outer aluminium fixator into the bone of her husband’s remaining shattered leg.
After a sleepless night and endless cups of coffee, it was finally dawn and she waited with trepidation for the telephone call inviting her to visit.
At last it came. The operation had been initially successful although its viability was still in question. At least Appleyard was conscious and asking for her. Much encouraged, she took a taxi to the hospital, not trusting herself to drive.
Wallace had been right, her husband was clearly overjoyed to be alive. When she arrived, Sister McGuire was holding a cup of tea for him which he drank through a straw. He was pale and weak and spoke in a hoarse whisper, hardly able to hear yet making feeble jokes about nothing in particular. They talked about her and the children and the kindness of in-laws whom normally they barely tolerated — his condition wasn’t mentioned.