The Rescue Man Page 18

  Paradise Street now stood stricken in a pall of black dust. In the distance he heard a fire engine clanging its alarm. He turned the bike around and began pedalling furiously into Canning Place. He sailed past the Customs House, its noble facade ruined since the August raids, and took a right into South Castle Street. This was a different gauntlet to run, for a flight of incendiaries was plummeting through the dark; they hit the road with their distinctive popping sound and then erupted in a sizzling halo of greenish-white flame. He saw a fire-watcher emerge from a doorway and begin to stamp them out, a disabling tactic that had enjoyed a brief craze before the Germans got wise to it and began fitting the bombs with a booby-trap charge. The man looked up and saw Baines.

  ‘Give us a hand, mate!’ he called.

  Baines jumped off his bicycle and began stomping on the fizzing incendiaries, trying not to think of blasted limbs as he did so. The fire-watcher was blowing on his whistle, and soon a couple of wardens were running down the street to join them. One of them, finding his boot unequal to the task, placed his steel helmet over the spark-spitting cylinder. Baines stopped to watch the helmet glow and then melt in the incandescent heat. The man looked up in shocked amusement.

  ‘That’s me lid gone,’ he said.

  Another ribbon of incendiaries tumbled out of the sky. Baines spent a few more minutes helping to extinguish them, but a glance at his watch warned him that he was already late. Remounting his bicycle he began slaloming past men who were carrying stirrup pumps towards a blazing shopfront; incendiaries had evidently fallen on rooftops and burnt their way through. On St George’s Crescent an empty tram had been overturned, and ignored. Towards the docks he could hear the shrieking descent of bombs, and now he could see them too, falling, almost ambling down across the glowering sky. Fear seemed to propel him faster along the street, and by the time he reached the depot he was pouring with sweat. They were just leaving the building as he arrived, and Farrell called out, ‘You know there’s a war on, don’t yer?’ He quickly locked up his bicycle and fell into step with them as they made for the van on the street. He sensed Rafferty fixing him a look, but he refused to catch his eye; he wasn’t going to talk to him if he could help it. He nodded over to Mike, who was also ignoring Rafferty. In the van he sat next to Mavers, hoping to absorb some of his stoical calm while the random thump of explosions fell around them.

  ‘Trouble getten here?’

  Baines nodded. ‘An HE in Paradise Street and then incendiaries on South Castle Street.’

  Mavers lifted his chin in acknowledgement. ‘It’s another one like last night, they reckon. About a hundred bombers, with more on the way.’

  ‘Where are we off to?’

  ‘The docks. There’s a load on fire right now. We’ve gotta clear a shelter that’s right in the middle of ’em.’

  At the foot of Chapel Street they happened upon a scene of pandemonium. The Church of St Nicholas, the sailors’ church, had taken a direct hit, and fire could be seen devouring the roof. The van juddered to a halt and they climbed out. Baines looked up at its tower, and remembered telling Richard the story of the schoolchildren who had perished there one morning in 1810. Firemen were grappling with hoses, but their long arcs of water were unavailing in the battle against the blaze; the flames seemed to dance higher in mockery of their elemental foe. Across the road Baines caught sight of a man in a dog collar watching the place burn, the vicar, he supposed, dumbstruck by the spectacle of this house of God being consumed in hellfire.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do here,’ said Rafferty, ‘let’s get along.’

  Back in the van McGlynn was shaking his head. ‘Me mam and dad got married in that church.’ His softly bewildered expression was rendered more pathetic by his protruding teeth. Poor eyesight and buck teeth, thought Baines: this kid really had got the booby prize.

  ‘See that priest?’ said Farrell. ‘He looked like someone’d gobbed in his collection plate.’

  ‘He was in shock, for fuck’s sake,’ said Mavers. ‘You’d look like that if they burnt down the Bevy.’

  ‘The what?’ asked Baines.

  ‘The Bevington Bush – his local,’ Mavers said, nodding at Farrell, who turned to Baines.

  ‘Bet you’ve never been in a pub down Scottie Road, ’ave yer?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Just as well. You’d stick out a mile.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Mavers to Baines, with a wink, ‘you’re not missen much.’

  The van had pulled in at Wapping Dock, and Rafferty was on the street talking to a fire officer. In front of them a long line of warehouses were burning, and across the waterfront flames seemed to be gorging on every rooftop. He heard a warden shout to a messenger, ‘Tell them to bring all the pumps they’ve got – the whole place is goin’ up!’ The firemen were fighting the blaze in pairs, braced over the hose as if it might at any moment leap out of their hands. From the warehouse nearest to them could be heard continuous metallic pops, which turned out to be drums of paint exploding in the fire. A sickly sweet odour had infused the air around them – burning sugar. He saw one fireman close to the leaping flames remove his mask and retch on to the cobbles. Even from this distance Baines could feel the tremendous heat of the conflagration, it seemed to be cooking his blood. They were standing there in a line – Mavers, Farrell, Mike Wo, McGlynn, himself – their faces illumined by this fiery spectacle; it was appalling, and yet none of them could look away.

  Rafferty, his brow beaded with sweat, hurried back towards them. He seemed almost dazed by the chaos.

  ‘The shelter’s been cleared, but the warden says there’s a nightwatchman who’s not been accounted for. We need to do a quick sweep of those sheds to check he hasn’t been trapped.’

  Farrell said, ‘Shouldn’t the fire brigade be dealin’ with that?’

  ‘The fire brigade are dealing with the fire,’ said Rafferty.

  Carrying a stirrup pump, they stalked down a narrow alley that ran between Duke’s and Wapping Dock, their shadows looming monstrously against the wall. At the bottom of the alley they found a fire door that was unlocked. On entering the warehouse they could instantly smell smoke, mixed with something potently aromatic; incendiaries had burnt right through the old Victorian timbers and started a number of small fires. Baines glanced at crates stamped with the Lipton’s trademark, and realised that what they could smell was burning tea.

  ‘Get that pump working over here,’ called Rafferty, and soon, in a reverse of the traditional process, they were pouring cold water on hot tea leaves. They continued down the vertiginously stacked corridors, calling as they went, but no answer was returned. Turning a corner they found lead-covered timbers that had been brought down by an incendiary and were now melting like wax on the floor. There was no more water left to put them out.

  ‘This place is tinder,’ said Mavers, gesturing at the barrels of rum packed solid against a wall. ‘I reckon we best be gettin’ out.’

  Rafferty looked around, evidently dissatisfied. ‘We’ve hardly covered the place. We should split into teams –’

  ‘No, we shouldn’t,’ said Mavers. ‘It’s gonna blow to hell. If we stay here we’re just gonna get roasted.’ There was conviction in his voice, and Baines knew that in the event of a confrontation Mavers would carry the day. From the way Rafferty hesitated it seemed he already had. They began to retrace their steps, but the fires had moved with disconcerting speed and were now scything across the aisles down which they had come. Black smoke was rolling towards them. Blinded, they turned back, and now they were moving without any distinct idea of an exit. Their pace quickened. The warehouse was suddenly a labyrinth to be escaped, and the minotaur that lurked behind them was white hot and roaring.

  Baines was alarmed. How on earth had they got caught in this? One minute they had been searching for a notional nightwatchman, now they were running for their lives. As they sought a corridor that was clear of smoke they could see the torrent of flames coursing
along adjacent corridors. Behind them they heard a huge explosion, and then another. The rum barrels, igniting one by one. They were heading towards the opposite corner of the building, and now the smoke had begun to envelop them. Baines took out his handkerchief and tied it round his mouth.

  ‘There’s a door,’ shouted Mike, pointing to the end of a corridor that vectored off to the right. Within moments they were upon it; it was locked, but Mavers already had his pickaxe and was hacking into the wood. Farrell removed an axe from the webbing on his belt and the pair of them fell into a steady rhythm, each landing a blow at a time. The door was splintering, but slowly, and the heat had become so intense that when Baines took a breath it felt like burning fire itself. Seeing Mavers begin to tire he snatched the pickaxe from his hands and tore at the wood. He felt maniacal, possessed, as he swung the axe; he was not going to die in this place, he was getting them out of there, and Farrell’s grim rictus of concentration as he swung in time spurred him on.

  Meanwhile Rafferty, perhaps conscious of his part in exposing them to this inferno, was convinced he had seen a trapdoor at the far end of the corridor.

  ‘I’ll have a quick look,’ he called.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I was you,’ Baines heard Mavers tell him, but Rafferty was already gone. Their blows rang heavily against the door. Baines felt the smoke stinging his eyes. They were all coughing like hags. Hearing a terrible wrenching noise he glanced behind; iron girders had begun to buckle under the heat. Mike Wo put his arms through the space where the axes had made a hole, and started straining at the wood, his face twisted in a grimace like a circus strongman’s. Baines could see a vein bulge on Mike’s temple as the door cracked down one side, and now they could see – relief! – a rift large enough to crawl through. When he tried to recall it later Baines wasn’t sure if it was the noise of falling timber or Rafferty’s cries that alerted them first, but when they turned to look they saw him engulfed in a whirl of flame, its wild energies fed by whatever material had been spilt in the collapse. The flames licked hungrily around his body and made an aureole about his head. Mavers took a few steps towards the burning figure, and as he did so the whole corridor seemed to flash in molten rage, and the figure and the fire could no longer be separated. Mavers staggered back, his arms raised against the furnace blast of heat. By the time Baines had heaved himself under the mangled door, the last man out, the building was a lost cause, a house of flames.

  ‘We should never have been there in the first place. It was a job for the fucken fire brigade.’ This was Farrell, who still carried in his voice the shock of what they had escaped, and what Rafferty had not, the night before. He, Mavers and Baines were walking up Church Street, where firemen were still training long loops of water over the blackened crusts of buildings. The second raid had lasted from midnight until just after five in the morning. A lurid glare now hung across the sky. Everywhere people stood about watching the smouldering ruins.

  ‘Rafferty knew the risks,’ said Mavers.

  ‘Did he, though?’ asked Farrell. ‘When we were inside that place ’e didn’t seem to ’ave a clue. Any of us coulda done better – you, the prof, McGlynn …’ He paused. ‘All right, maybe not McGlynn.’

  They laughed in spite of their weariness. The corpse, what was left of it, had been recovered from the charred wreckage a few hours ago. Baines thought of the last two words he had spoken to Rafferty in the van the previous afternoon. He didn’t feel guilty – he was still euphoric with survival. Rafferty would have died whether he’d said the words or not. But he couldn’t deny feeling glad that nobody had actually overheard them.

  At the curving end of Ranelagh Street Lewis’s department store had had all of its windows blown out. In the street opposite, Blackler’s was a ravaged husk. Christmas shopping would have to be scaled down this year, he supposed. Not that they were expecting much in the way of festivities; the heavy-rescue squads would be on stand-by for as long as the attacks continued, and they had shown no signs of abating. He parted with Farrell and Mavers on Lime Street, and, seized by an urge to get clear of the grit and smoke, he began to walk. He would usually have spent Christmas Day with George and May; realising that he might be on duty for the rest of the week he decided he should try to see them today. He stopped at Gambier Terrace to change his clothes – he would burn this filthy jacket once he could get hold of a new one – and set off south. There was no possibility of a tram, for the roads were either cratered or blocked with debris, and the road-repair teams were already overstretched. On Princes Avenue he passed children playing on bomb rubble. Outside certain ruined houses boards had been left with forwarding addresses painted on them.

  He was grateful to reach Sefton Park, a refuge from the chaotic damage on the streets. The barrage balloons still swayed around the perimeter, and the lake had been drained by the Fire Service for auxiliary water supplies during the last raids. But these reminders of war were set against the tranquillity of matutinal birdsong, of wide green spaces, and of couples strolling by without apparent regard for the desolate atmosphere beyond. He had recently come across the phrase ‘London can take it’, a tribute to the capital’s resilience in the face of the Blitz. If that were so, then Liverpool could take it, too. The Luftwaffe might knock them about all they wanted, but in the end the streets and houses and pubs and churches would be rebuilt in new and better ways. It would be changed, but it would be the same. What would survive any amount of bombing was the spirit of the place, the unshakeable honour in belonging to this ancient, altered town.

  These optimistic thoughts were still stirring his blood as he turned down the avenue that approached the Elms. He was smiling at the memory of a scabrous joke of Farrell’s the previous night when he saw George standing in his driveway talking to a man he’d not seen before. Both were wearing funereal black. George saw his confusion and came to greet him.

  ‘Hullo, son,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid it’s poor old John, Dora’s husband. Their house got a direct hit – I’ve been trying to telephone you the last couple of days.’ The man he’d been talking to was one of the undertakers.

  ‘I’ve been … out,’ said Baines, in a daze. He hadn’t known John well, but Dora, their housekeeper, had been a fixture in his life since he was a boy. She and her family lived on the other side of the park.

  ‘I know you have,’ said George, patting his shoulder. ‘Why don’t you go in and see May, she’s been worrying about you.’

  He entered the house, which seemed to have partaken in the mood of mourning; the blackout curtains hung like a mark of respect. He opened the door and peered into the living room, where, huddled around Dora on the sofa, sat her two boys, returned from evacuation. A few other mourners stood around in attitudes of stiff unease, as if they had been hired for the occasion but not given anything to do. Dora didn’t look up, so immersed was she in her grief, and the boys, hollow-eyed and pinched, directed a faintly accusing glance in his direction before their heads dropped again.

  He found May in the kitchen, and as he embraced her he felt absurdly relieved that he’d put on a suit and tie for his visit. She cupped his face with her hands, in a way she hadn’t done since he was a boy, and as he looked at her the tears stood in her eyes.

  ‘When George couldn’t get you on the telephone I was that worried.’

  ‘We’ve been kept busy,’ he said, as lightly as he could. ‘I’ve hardly been home the last three days.’

  May didn’t seem to have heard him. ‘Do you know how precious you are to me?’ Baines, not sure whether an answer was required, could only muster what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  ‘What happened?’ he said, lowering his voice.

  ‘It was the raid the other night. Dora was in the Anderson shelter, John had gone back into the house because he thought he’d left a light on, then …’ She shook her head slowly, unwilling to put the moment into words. ‘They said he wouldn’t have known a thing about it. The whole house has gone.’

  ‘A
t least she’s got the boys back. Where are they living?’

  ‘Here, of course,’ she said, almost surprised by the question. ‘We weren’t having them go to a rest centre. This is their home until they’re rehoused.’

  Just then George came in. His air of flustered decency was somehow even more affecting than May’s capable solicitude. Spry in his late sixties, he had recently begun to look older, and thinner; anxiety did that to you, Baines thought.

  ‘I’ve just had a word with the undertaker,’ he said. ‘They can’t get enough men to dig the grave – there are too many others waiting to be buried.’

  May looked distraught. ‘Mother of God, that’s just – how long are we meant to wait?’