‘I’ll get it taken in for Frankie,’ she said. ‘He’ll need a coat for the winter.
A siren wailed into life. Within seconds it was joined by more. Cook looked east, towards the docks. Dots in the sky already growing larger.
‘I wanted Ruby to go with him,’ Gracie said. ‘Get her away from all this.’
‘You didn’t know the bombs would come,’ Cook said.
‘Not just the bombs,’ Gracie said. She looked around. ‘All of it.’
35
Cook made the decision to stay the night. Safer to take shelter than try to get across town, and no guarantee the trains would be running.
The public shelter was still standing. Cook still didn’t like the look of it. It was leaning, for a start. The top of the wall was a foot further back than the bottom. And above it all, the concrete slab roof looked like it was waiting to fall.
‘This isn’t safe,’ Cook said.
Nobody inside seemed moved by Cook’s assessment. Forty pairs of eyes blinked at him in the darkness.
‘When this thing comes down, anyone’s left inside they’ll be flat as a pancake.’
A bomb landed nearby, and the blast pushed Cook into the shelter, then sucked him out again as air rushed back to fill the void created by the explosion. He braced his arms against the door of the shelter, as the roof slab made a sickening, grinding sound. In the gloom, there was suddenly a crack of light where there shouldn’t be.
‘One more like that and we won’t have to have this debate any more,’ Cook said. ‘Let’s go.’
Still no response.
Gracie peered in. ‘Come on! You heard the man! Shift your arses out of there!’
There was grumbling, but people started moving.
‘Quick smart!’ Gracie shouted.
It was the whistling sound that broke the deadlock. A bomb with their names on it. Falling straight towards them, getting louder by the second. Suddenly, everyone was up and moving.
Cook stepped inside, his hand on the rough concrete roof, willing it to stay put while forty people shuffled out. It didn’t feel right to be outside, safe, while others were in danger. Something he’d learnt from his old CO, always make sure you’re the first on the battlefield, and the last to leave.
‘Move your arse!’ someone shouted.
‘I’ve forgotten me blanket!’ from outside. Someone halfway out, trying to push their way back in.
‘I’ll bring the blanket,’ Gracie’s voice rang out. ‘You get clear of the doorway, let the rest of us out.’
After a few seconds that felt like hours, the crowd began moving again, while the screaming bomb got louder and louder. A direct hit, surely, Cook thought.
There was a loud splash as the bomb went into the water. A muffled explosion, and the ground moved. Dust rained down from the concrete slab, and pinpricks of light suddenly emerged from the brick wall.
Another explosion nearby rocked the shelter as Cook stepped out. Unearthly screams pierced the night. A sound of pure terror and agony, louder than if a hundred people had been suddenly hit.
‘Stables,’ Gracie said.
Cook waited for the last stragglers, while the horses screamed. Cook thought it was the worst sound he’d ever heard.
36
‘Nobody’s coming in,’ the guard said. He held a shotgun at his waist, levelled at the crowd. He was scared, and he was right to be.
‘You move yourself out the way right now Jim Brown,’ a woman shouted. ‘There’s a bloody war on, didn’t nobody tell you?’
