It is how I keep working.
The rain makes everything harder in the stupid, practical way weather always does. Mud underfoot. Gloves slick. Water running into eyes. Radio crackle cutting through the hiss of rain and fire. The building pops and groans, old timber shifting as heat works through it.
We knock the fire back enough to create a safer approach.
Not safe.
Never safe.
Safer.
There is a difference, and the difference is the job.
The crew move with care. Dan is manning the controls on the pump. I catch one glimpse of AJ standing exactly where Dan put him, rain shining on his high-vis, eyes fixed on the work in front of him.
No notebook.
No phone.
Just watching.
Then Kev’s voice comes over the radio.
“Casualty located.”
Everything narrows.
“Status?” I ask.
A beat.
“Male. Unconscious. Bringing him out.”
The world becomes hands, space, route, rain.
We clear what needs clearing. Make room where there is no room. The ambulance is still minutes away, which is both normal and far too long. The wife’s scream cuts through everything when Kev and Mish bring Arthur out.
He is limp.
Smoke-blackened.
Grey hair plastered to his forehead.
One slipper missing.
He looks small.
They often do.
That is one of the things no one tells you.
People look small when you get them out.
We start care.
Mish is there.
Kev is there.
