The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(96)

I rode in through the gates and asked a man in uniform watching the blaze.

“What happened to everyone? Did they all get out?”

“Not really,” he said in a daze. “One of the shelters gave way, and a lot of people are still missing.” He looked around at me, dismay in his eyes. “They say some people didn’t use the shelters.”

“Where are all the people who work here? How can I find out if my friend is all right?”

“They told them to go home, or to one of the rest centers if their homes have been bombed. Obviously a lot of them have stayed to help, though. Who are you looking for?”

“Colonel Mallard,” I said. “He’s billeted at my house. But he wasn’t there when I left.”

“I can’t say I’ve seen him since the bombs hit. Can’t remember seeing him in the shelter neither.” He pondered for a moment, and I wanted to shake him ruthlessly. Think, man. Think!

But all he did was shake his head.

“Thank you,” I said quickly, hopping back on my bicycle. If the Colonel had made it, he’d have stayed to help the wounded. But where? Litchfield isn’t a big place, but with hundreds of bombed homes to evacuate, who knew where he might be?

I resolved to cycle on to the hospital and look out for him on the way. As I cycled through the miserable pandemonium, I could hardly bear to see the number of injured and homeless shuffling around the streets. It was a horrendous scene, people weeping beside buildings, perhaps knowing who had been crushed beneath, women stopping me for help, and me having to tell them that I was a medic and had to get to the surgery as fast as I could. I couldn’t help catching sight of every man to see if he wasn’t a little too tall, a little too clumsy.

Litchfield Hospital was already packed. I found the supervisor, and she set me up at a canteen table at the front, where I was supposed to assess patients’ needs and send them on to a specific doctor or treat them myself if I could. I was immediately bombarded with a long line of wounded, some of them with deep gashes oozing quantities of blood, others with larger limb injuries. There was a man with concussion, a baby with breathing problems, a severed hand that I tried to sew back on and we’ll just have to wait and see how it takes. There were a lot of cases of really bad burns, one all over a poor woman’s leg. She said it was trapped under a fallen beam in her house, and she had to wait for the rescue team to lift the beam, even though it was on fire.

The noise and panic among the crowds was immense, and the smell of soot and burning flesh horrific. I tried to listen for the familiar tones of the Colonel, and glanced around me when I had the chance to see if he was one of those being carried in on a stretcher. The space was busy and I could only see narrow slots between moving bodies, and once or twice had to leave my table to double-check when I had been sure I’d caught a glimpse of him. But he was nowhere. My stomach was churning like a hot whirlpool.

Where was he?

At last, around midnight, they gave me a short break, and I raced outside and found my bicycle. I didn’t know where to go, I just knew that if he was alive, he would still be out there, helping people. I cycled from street to street, looking at every bomb site, trying to see him through the darkness. I saw people running to and from buildings, gathering possessions, moving furniture, looting.

After ten minutes of frenetic cycling, I knew I had to get back, so I began tracing my way through the maze of destruction back to the hospital.

And then I saw him.

I had to look twice. His large silhouette stood before a rampant fire, a collapsed school building, a fire truck attempting to subdue the flames. I flew off my bicycle, leaving it to crash to the ground, and ran toward him, calling, “Colonel Mallard, Colonel Mallard.”

He turned, first his head, and then his body, seeing it was me, taking great strides forward, opening his arms to meet me, calling my name. “Mrs. Tilling!”

I plunged down onto the forecourt, faster, faster, and then, quickly, frantically, pulled myself to a stop just short of him, a foot or so away, suddenly shy, afraid.

Was he about to embrace me?

“I thought you were dead,” I said, panting and quite unable to handle the whole situation.

“I thought you might have,” he said, folding his arms around in front of him, as if that was what he’d intended to do all along. “I asked Venetia to go and see you when she got home, but of course you were here, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, letting out an embarrassed little laugh and looking at my feet. “Of course you’re all right.”

He unfolded his arms and stepped toward me, and as I looked up at his large chin, he took me in his arms and held me there for a space of time that felt like a thousand years and a single millisecond simultaneously. I couldn’t think, although several dozen questions were colliding inside me, none of which seemed to have answers. But life is not always about questions and answers. It’s about things and feelings, like the sensation of someone’s arms around you, on a chilly night, beside a monstrous burning building. These things are real. Yet now I can’t quite put my fingertips on it. It has gone, subsumed into the past, gone with the moment.

I drew apart before he did; I knew that he would take it better than I would. He looked down at me and smiled, taking one of my hands in his.

“It’s nice to know that someone cares enough to miss me.” He smiled.