'Or Vi or any of the rest of them. I'll drive a stake through your heart or whatever it takes,' I said, and the air fell apart.
There was a long sound like an enormous monster growling. It seemed to go on and on. I tried to put my hands over my ears, but I had to hang on to the road to keep from falling. The roar became a scream, and the pavement shook itself sharply, and I fell off.
'Are you all right?' Jack said.
I was sitting next to the lorry, which was on its side. The beams had spilled out the back. 'Were we hit?' I said.
'No,' he said, but I already knew that, and before he had finished pulling me to my feet, I was running towards the post that we couldn't see for the dust.
Mrs Lucy had told Nelson having everyone out on patrol would mean no one could be found in an emergency, but that was not true. They were all there within minutes, Swales and Morris and Violet, clattering up in her high heels, and Petersby. They ran up, one after the other, and then stopped and looked stupidly at the space that had been Mrs Lucy's house, as if they couldn't make out what it was.
'Where's Renfrew?' Jack said.
'In Birmingham,' Vi said.
'He wasn't here,' I explained. 'He's on sick leave.' I peered through the smoke and dust, trying to see their faces. 'Where's Twickenham?'
'Here,' he said.
'Where's Mrs Lucy?' I said.
'Over here,' Jack said, and pointed down into the rubble.
We dug all night. Two different rescue squads came to help. They called down every half-hour, but there was no answer. Vi borrowed a light from somewhere, draped a blue headscarf over it, and set up as incident officer. An ambulance came, sat a while, left to go to another incident, came back. Nelson took over as incident officer, and Vi came back up to help. 'Is she alive?' she asked.
'She'd better be,' I said, looking at Jack.
It began to mist. The planes came over again, dropping flares and incendiaries, but no one stopped work. Twickenham's typewriter came up in the baskets, and one of Mrs Lucy's wine glasses. It began to get light. Jack looked vaguely up at the sky.
'Don't even think about it,' I said. 'You're not going anywhere.'
At around three Morris thought he heard something, and we stopped and called down, but there was no answer. The mist turned into a drizzle. At a half past four I shouted to Mrs Lucy, and she called back, from far underground, 'I'm here.'
'Are you all right?' I shouted.
'My leg's hurt. I think it's broken,' she shouted, her voice calm. 'I seem to be under the table.'
'Don't worry,' I shouted. 'We're nearly there.'
The drizzle turned the plaster dust into a slippery, disgusting mess. We had to brace the tunnel repeatedly and cover it with a tarpaulin, and then it was too dark to see to dig. Swales lay above us, holding a pocket torch over our heads so we could see. The all-clear went.
'Jack!' Mrs Lucy called up.
'Yes!' I shouted.
'Was that the all-clear?'
'Yes,' I shouted. 'Don't worry. We'll have you out soon now.'
'What time is it?'
It was too dark in the tunnel to see my watch. I made a guess. 'A little after five.'
'Is Jack there?'
'Yes.'
'He mustn't stay,' she said. 'Tell him to go home.'
The rain stopped. We ran into one and then another of the oak beams that had reinforced the landing on the fourth floor and had to saw through them. Swales reported that Morris had called Nelson 'a bloody murderer'. Vi brought us paper cups of tea.
We called down to Mrs Lucy, but there wasn't any answer. 'She's probably dozed off,' Twickenham said, and the others nodded as if they believed him.
We could smell the gas long before we got to her, but Jack kept on digging, and like the others, I told myself that she was all right, that we would get to her in time.
She was not under the table after all, but under part of the pantry door. We had to call for a jack to get it off her. It took Morris a long time to come back with it, but it didn't matter. She was lying perfectly straight, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes closed as if she were asleep. Her left leg had been taken off at the knee. Jack knelt beside her and cradled her head.
'Keep your hands off her,' I said.
I made Swales come down and help get her out. Vi and Twickenham put her on the stretcher. Petersby went for the ambulance. 'She was never a horrid person, you know,' Morris said. 'Never.'
