‘Oh Lord, Nelly,’ she said.
As one, we both rushed to the door of the shelter – which was gone, blown off by the force of the blast, it seemed – and in absolute shock and dismay, we looked out on to a scene of devastation.
The air was filled with smoke and dust and it was difficult to see what was happening. I screwed my eyes up against the grit that was flying around everywhere and tried to make sense of it all. Our house hadn’t been hit. At least, I could see it silhouetted against the orange flames that were burning and knew it was standing. But I couldn’t see Nelly.
Bitter smoke hit my throat and made me gasp for air and I coughed violently.
‘Here,’ Mrs Gold nudged me and pushed a scarf into my hands. ‘Use this.’
I tied the fabric over my nose and mouth and made to crawl out of the shelter. But Mrs Gold gripped my thighs. ‘We should stay here,’ she said.
I looked at her over my shoulder. ‘I need to find Nelly.’ I kicked my legs so she’d let go, and clambered up on to the lawn – what was left of it.
‘Nelly?’ I bellowed. But there was so much noise – sirens, and shouts, and screams and crashes – that I could barely hear my own voice.
And then ahead of me a figure rose up. So scared and disorientated was I that for a crazed moment I thought it was an angel with fiery wings, coming to take me to the afterlife, with anunworldly cry. But I blinked and I suddenly understood it was no angel – it was Nelly. My lovely, darling Nelly with her robe alight and flapping in the wind. And she was howling in fear and pain.
‘Get the blankets,’ I screeched over my shoulder to Mrs Gold. ‘Quickly!’
Keeping low to the ground I scurried along the garden to where Nelly stood screaming, and without thinking, I grabbed her round her shins and rugby-tackled her on to the grass. I was acting on instinct, and I just knew I had to stop the flames however I could.
I could barely see a thing, but I heard Mrs Gold next to me, her breathing ragged and raspy, and I reached up so I could take the blanket she pushed towards me.
With Nelly on the ground, I covered her now silent body with the blanket and rolled her up, pushing her this way and that, until I was certain the flames were out, talking all the time in case she could hear me. ‘It’s going to be all right, Nell,’ I muttered. ‘You’re going to be fine. It’s all going to be all right.’
Nelly was still and quiet and my heart was thumping so hard in my chest, I thought I might be sick or pass out, but I unwrapped the blanket and put my hand to my best friend’s breastbone and felt, with utter, glorious relief, the rise and fall of her breath.
‘She’s alive,’ I said. ‘She’s alive.’
I felt rather than saw Mrs Gold scramble to her feet and disappear. ‘Come on, Nelly,’ I said. ‘Keep breathing. Keep going.’
Nelly’s breaths were shallow and gasping, and I was frightened for her. I knew we had to get her to hospital. I couldn’t see her properly because of the smoke and dust, but I knew she had to be terribly burned. And, I thought, looking around me, it wasn’t safe to be here. The fence was ablaze, one of the trees in the garden was burning like a fiery torch, and our neighbours’ house was gone. Simply gone.
‘Elsie?’ Mrs Gold was back, this time with some other people. ‘Elsie, these women will help Nelly.’
‘Oh, thank God,’ I breathed.
Unsteadily I got to my feet. There were two ambulance drivers there – women I vaguely recognised from the hospital – and behind them two firewomen, pointing their hose at the fence to make sure we could get out of the garden safely.
‘She’s breathing,’ I said, trying to sound professional. ‘She’s alive. But I think she’s burned. She was alight.’ My voice caught on the words. ‘She was burning.’
‘You did well,’ one ambulance woman said. ‘You saved her. We can take her now.’
‘Mrs Gold needs help too,’ I said. ‘She’s bleeding.’
I heard Mrs Gold’s protests that she was fine, but I ignored them. ‘Help them both,’ I said urgently. And then, all my energy spent, I sank to the ground and cried.
Chapter 20
Nelly was alive. She was alive and I was so glad. But her burns were worse than I could have imagined.
‘She was wearing some sort of housecoat,’ one of the emergency doctors explained to me, early the morning after the raid. I knew him – his face was familiar to me and he called me Nurse Watson so he clearly knew me too – but my mind refused to call up his name.
‘The housecoat caught alight and stuck to her body as it burned,’ he went on.
‘It was a robe,’ I muttered. ‘Not a housecoat.’
The doctor looked at me oddly but he carried on. ‘She’s got burns to the right of her torso,’ he said. ‘Her right arm, her right leg, and the right side of her face. It’s too early to tell but she’s probably going to lose the sight in her right eye. Her hair caught fire, which is why her face is so badly injured, and her ear is damaged so we think she may well have some hearing loss. Also …’
