‘Yes,’ Tilly lied. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Go to the lady, Ruth,’ he said. ‘Jump. I’ll carry Mum.’
Gordon lifted Agnes as gently as he could under her arms and tried to extract her from the collapsed floor without doing more damage to her leg. Agnes cried out in pain as her leg came free. Somehow, they managed to get down the stairs, which were beginning to collapse. They burst through the open front door and outside into a chaotic scene of people, screaming and shouting, and a night sky lit up with flames. Tilly vaguely hearda siren howling through the night and was aware of people rushing from one place to another with buckets of water, but all was useless. The fire had taken hold. Once they’d hauled Agnes and Ruth clear of the house, Tilly took in gulps of air. She coughed and choked to clear her lungs of the noxious fumes and lay on her back on the ground while her chest heaved and fought to pump oxygen into her body. For a moment she lost all sense of feeling; she had no awareness of where she was or what she was doing there. Then she heard a voice coming to her through her waves of unconsciousness. She thought it was Ronnie, calling her name.
She took in a huge gulp of air and came to her senses. She realised that something had to be done quickly to stop Agnes’s bleeding. Tilly looked around in desperation. She called to a woman standing by.
‘I need a strap, a belt, anything to stop her bleeding,’ Tilly shouted.
The woman pulled the belt off her dressing gown and handed it to Tilly, who used it as a tourniquet. When she knew Agnes was safe, she turned to Ruth. The girl seemed unharmed apart from being covered in ash smuts and coughing to clear her lungs of the smoke inhalation. Gordon was ignoring the wound across his forehead and comforting Ruth.
‘She’s going to be all right,’ Tilly said. ‘Your mum’s going to be all right. We just need to get her to hospital.’
She could see firemen racing to and fro with hoses, instructions barked all around her, and a sense of panic filled the air.
‘Is everyone out?’ a fireman asked.
‘Yes, thank God,’ Tilly replied. ‘But we need to get this woman to hospital.’
‘Looks like you need some treatment too,’ the fireman said.
Tilly had been so focused on getting Agnes and Ruth out of the house, that she had not noticed the burns on her face and hands. When the adrenalin of the moment began to wear off, she became conscious of the searing pain.
Gordon, hearing what the fireman said, took his eyes off his wife and daughter for a moment and looked at Tilly.
‘My God,’ he gasped. ‘You must be in a great deal of pain. I don’t even know your name. You’ve saved my wife and daughter’s lives.’
‘It’s Tilly and your wife’s not entirely safe yet. We must get her to hospital.’
‘I’ll take you,’ offered a neighbour. ‘My works van is over there.’
The neighbour who had taken Tommy and still held his hand, offered Gordon and the children a bed for the night.
‘Better that you should all try to get some sleep,’ the woman said. ‘Agnes will be in safe hands with this young woman, I’m sure.’
‘Thank you, Mabel,’ Gordon replied.
Agnes was drifting in and out of consciousness, but, just as they carried her into the van, she opened her eyes. ‘Gordon,’ she whispered. ‘Ruthie, Tommy.’
‘Mum,’ Ruth called out and threw herself across her mother. ‘I want to go with you.’
‘Careful,’ Gordon said. ‘You can’t go. Mum needs to get to the hospital now, and you need to have a warm drink and get into bed with your brother. He needs you now. The doctors and nurses will look after her. We’ll go and see her tomorrow.’
‘Do as your dad says now, there’s a good girl,’ Agnes whispered.
Gordon thanked Tilly for all she had done and they put Agnes into the van.
‘I hope they can do something for you, too,’ he said. ‘You must be in agony.’
Once the van pulled away and they were on their way to the Royal, Tilly allowed herself to collapse and give in to the pain. The adrenalin had masked the hurt, but now she was beginning to feel the true price she had paid for the rescue.
Chapter 33
August 1942
Over the preceding several months, since being back in Micklewell all that time ago, Ronnie had been sent on several missions to accompany bombers across the Channel towards Germany, assisting in various bombing campaigns.
Cologne had been the next target of English raids for several weeks and the city had been razed to the ground. The destruction had killed nearly five hundred people in one night and had levelled churches, factories, offices and homes. Irreplaceable treasures had been destroyed and over three thousand homes demolished; forty-five thousand people had been left homeless.
