Caroline was alone again.
The noises of fighting were moving away now. The building in which she lay was quite near the main gates and she presumed it was their destruction which had signalled the start of the assault and woken her up. Now the fight was moving into the centre of the base. But below her window there was a steady rumble of incoming trucks, tanks and other vehicles as the Americans flooded in to join the fight.
She wondered where Matron was. It was unlike her to leave them alone; she should have been with Rowles, giving orders, taking decisions, making the children feel safe, protected, even loved, with a sly glance or a flash of a smile in the direst of circumstances. Rowles' presence made Caroline feel safe, Matron's made her feel she belonged.
She remembered her older sister's arm around her shoulder at their Grandad's funeral, reaching up and taking her hand, feeling her sister squeeze it for comfort.
Footsteps and voices in the corridor. Rowles was no longer alone.
The door opened and a tall man with thick black hair and heavy features entered. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but had an SLR machine gun slung across his chest. She recognised him — he was the doctor who had been there when she regained consciousness after the operation. Jones? Johns? She couldn't recall his name.
Rowles came in behind the man, pushing a wheelchair, then closed the door.
The doctor leaned over her.
'Can you hear me Caroline?' he asked.
'Yuh.'
'Can you move at all?'
She lifted her arm feebly and wiggled her fingers until the effort became too much and the limb flopped back down, useless.
The doctor smiled. It was obviously meant to be reassuring but there was something calculating in his eyes, something which made her withhold trust.
'We're going to lift you into the wheelchair,' he said. 'It may hurt, but I haven't got any anaesthetic on me, I'm afraid. Then we're going to take the lift down to the rear doors where I've got a jeep waiting. If we move quickly, I think we'll be able to get ourselves away from here before they secure the perimeter.' He turned and nodded to Rowles, who wheeled the chair alongside the bed then took Caroline's hand.
She was sad to leave her clean, white cocoon, but the pain in her head as the doctor and Rowles pulled her into a sitting position made it hard to concentrate on anything but staying conscious.
'One, two, three,' said the doctor, grunting on 'three' as they lifted Caroline out of the bed and into the chair. Once she was sitting again, the pain in her head receded.
Outside, there was a whoosh and then a tremendous explosion directly beneath the window. Bazooka, perhaps? The window finally came off its latch and smashed against the interior wall, showering the now empty bed with shards of glass.
The doctor went to take the handles of the wheelchair, but Rowles stepped behind her. The doctor, looking over her head at Rowles' determined, territorial look — which Caroline could picture clearly, even though she was facing the other way — nodded. He turned and opened the door, then waved for Rowles to follow him.
They moved quickly out of the room and into the corridor, turning left and heading for the grey lift doors twenty metres away. Caroline observed the flat details of the corridor as she rolled past door after door, all closed. They reached the lift and the doctor reached out to press the call button, but before he could make contact the lift pinged, the doors slid open, and an American soldier stood before them, gun levelled straight at the doctor's chest.
The soldier and the doctor stood there for a second, frozen in surprise. But the soldier's reflexes were tuned for combat, and when the moment passed he was quickest. Deciding that he didn't need to waste ammunition, he brought his gun around and smashed the butt across the doctor's face, sending him crashing to the floor, stunned.
Caroline was intrigued by the soldier's uniform. It was a camouflage pattern of light and dark browns. Desert clothes, hardly suitable for warfare on the rolling green plains of England.
The soldier stepped over the prone doctor and relieved him of his weapon. Caroline could tell by the tiny vibrations in her chair that Rowles was still gripping the handles tightly, resisting the temptation to go for the gun that was slung across his back, waiting for the right moment. Perhaps the soldier hadn't even noticed the strap that ran diagonally across the boy's chest. Or perhaps he'd made the same mistake that so many had made before him, ignoring the tiny boy, failing to consider him a threat. If that were the case, Caroline knew he'd soon regret that judgment.
The soldier stood upright and looked down at the two children. He didn't say a word, just held out his arm, lowered his index finger, and rotated it to indicate that they should turn around and go back the way they'd come.
Caroline felt her chair move to the left, beginning to describe a circle, then the chair stopped at about 45 degrees and Rowles stepped back from the handles, grabbed the strap, brought his gun to bear, and fired at the soldier's chest.
There was a dry click as the gun jammed and then another of those moments of stunned surprise as boy and man stood facing each other.
Caroline saw the doctor begin to stir on the floor behind the soldier.
The look of astonishment on the soldier's face faded into amusement and he laughed at Rowles.
Oh dear, thought Caroline, allowing herself a tiny smile. That's not wise.
Rowles launched himself at the soldier with a cry, using his gun as a club, beating the man's chest and arms. The soldier lifted one big hand and swatted the gun aside, then lifted the boy off the ground in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides.
The doctor was up on all fours now, shaking his head to clear it. There was a loud scream of engines above as the jets made another pass, and a clatter of boots on the stairs at the far end of the corridor, as the soldiers returned.
'Little boy,' said the soldier in a thick Brooklyn accent. 'You're feisty, aintcha?'
Grasped tight, his feet off the ground, his arms useless, with no weapon to defend himself, Rowles looked puny and weak compared to the man who held him fast.
But Rowles was not beaten yet. With a feral snarl he bared his teeth, leaned forward, and bit hard into the man's throat.
The soldier staggered back and released his hold on the boy. But Rowles did not fall to the floor. Instead, he wrapped his arms around the soldier's neck and his legs around his waist, and continued biting, gnawing, crunching and savaging the man's throat. He growled as he did so, like a wolf ripping out the throat of a helpless lamb.
Great fists raised and smashed the boy's head again and again and Caroline winced at the soldier's scream of pure agony and terror, but Rowles was limpet tight to the man, impossible to dislodge. The soldier took another step back and lost his footing, tumbling down and smashing his helmet against the floor. Rowles leaped up, pulled the knife from the soldier's leather sheath, grasped it tightly in both hands and brought it down in a mighty arc, straight into his heart. The soldier's legs kicked furiously, but his death throes gave the boy no pause.
Rowles pulled out the knife, cut the gun's strap with one swift slice, freeing the M-16 from the soldier's chest, then turned to the doctor, who had by now regained his feet.
'Quickly,' he said. The doctor reached forward, grabbed the handles of Caroline's chair and spun her around, pulling her behind him as he backed into the lift.
The clatter of boots was deafening now. Helmets appeared, rising up the stairs at the far end of the corridor. Rowles, his back to Caroline, fired a short burst at the stairwell, which caused the helmets to vanish from view.
Then the boy turned to look at her. His eyes were pitch black, blood dripped from his face and chin, and when he spoke she could see strands of flesh stuck between his teeth.
She realised in that moment that she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone in her life.
'Run,' he said softly, his voice full of regret.
The doctor pressed the button and the doors of the lift began to slide closed. Caroline lifted her arm, reaching out her helpless fingers towards Rowles. Their eyes met and she knew, with absolute certainty, that she would never see him alive again.
