A Strong Hand to Hold. Anne Bennett
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She hadn’t quite reached the bombed site, when she saw Beattie detach herself from a group moving debris, and run down the road to Jenny. ‘You’ll never believe it,’ she said, ‘but we’ve heard her. Or at least, we heard a scream from somewhere, so she’s still alive, but we don’t know exactly where she is.’
Jenny wondered how the child had survived so long. The bomb that had killed her mother and brothers and landed on the house fell at about seven o’clock. She’d been incarcerated for nearly twenty-four hours.
Doctor Sanders was there on standby. He was very worried, because since the one petrified scream an hour or so ago there had been nothing, though they’d knocked and called repeatedly.
Suddenly one of the rescuers said, ‘I reckon there’s only one place she can be.’
‘Where’s that then?’
‘In the pantry,’ the man said. ‘It’s well known. You’re as safe there as in a shelter, built under the stairs as it is. That’s where she’d have made for if she’d got any sense, I’d say.’
Nearly everyone agreed with that and the rescuers began to concentrate on the debris at the very edge of the stack where the side of the house and stairs would be. They worked feverishly for hours in the black bitter cold night using the inadequate light from shielded torches. Jenny’s coat was now filthy dirty and her fingers blistered, her nails were all broken and her back felt as if it was ready to snap in two, but she made no word of complaint. But when Maureen O’Leary appeared with a tray of tea and buttered soda bread for them all later, she could have kissed her. ‘Any news?’ she asked Jenny.
‘None for hours,’ Jenny said. ‘When I first got here Beattie said they’d heard her scream. Since then there’s been nothing. Let’s pray she is taken out alive Gran.’ Maureen could only nod her agreement.
Through the evening, many workers had dropped out and others had taken their place. Even Beattie had been to a neighbour’s house where her Bert had slept before putting in a few hours helping the rescue attempt before he went back to work that evening, and Jenny’s Uncle Gerry had come to help after a day at work. He’d also been to visit Peggy at the hospital, but he said none of that to Jenny: in his opinion she had enough on her plate already.
Gerry had been there about an hour when there was a sudden shout. Wearily and hopefully Jenny lifted her head. ‘I’ve found the front of the house,’ someone shouted and indeed he had, for though there was no front door or bay window left, the bottom of the stairs that once led from the tiny hall had eventually been uncovered.
However, it was soon apparent that the stairs could not be moved at all, the weight of the house was resting on top of them and if the child was in the pantry, the stairs could be protecting her.
Before long they’d uncovered a couple of roof beams that had fallen against the staircase, leaving a tiny triangular-shaped hole, filled with broken bricks and tiles, and Jenny knelt down and began pulling them out with her hands.
‘Steady girl, you’ll have the lot down,’ Beattie cautioned. ‘Take it easy.’
But Jenny was impatient to get to the child and the others felt the same way, helping all they could. Soon, though, they’d pulled the debris out as far as anyone could reach and stood looking at the small hole. ‘It might be like that all the way to the pantry, filled with rubble,’ Jenny said. ‘The stairs are probably taking the strain, stopping the big stuff falling down. Someone could get in there and perhaps find out.’
‘Oh aye,’ one man said. ‘Nowt but a midget could get in there.’
‘I could,’ Jenny said.
Everyone turned and stared at her and eventually Gerry said, ‘You couldn’t do that. It’s too risky, you could bring the lot down.’
‘What’s the alternative?’ Jenny snapped.
There was no answer to that. Gerry felt he ought to forbid Jenny to go – he was after all her uncle – but he knew Jenny, she’d probably take no notice of him anyway. He felt bad that he couldn’t offer to go himself, but he was far too big. God, but it was a dangerous operation for a young girl. Far too dangerous.
Jenny had already removed her scarf and coat, begrimed with dust and dirt, and handed them to Beattie as she asked for the loan of a torch. ‘Won’t you be scared to death?’ Beattie said.
Jenny looked at the black, uninviting hole and suppressed a shudder. Scared to death was an understatement. She was absolutely petrified. Since she’d been a small child she’d been terrified of closed-in spaces, worried to death she wouldn’t be able to breathe. Somehow she had to conquer her fear, or commit the child to never being found alive.
So she looked Beattie straight in the face and said, ‘No, not really. I’ll be fine.’
‘You know what you have to do?’ Phil Rogers asked Jenny, handing her his flashlight, as she crouched at the tunnel mouth.
‘Course I do.’
Phil Rogers nodded and stepped back. Jenny looked around at all the faces before taking a deep breath and going in head first. ‘Oh God, I hope she’ll be all right,’ Beattie said, and everyone echoed the same sentiment as Jenny’s legs slowly disappeared into the tunnel.
Jenny O’Leary’s heart was pounding against her ribs, the breath rasping in her throat as she tried to contain her panic. Every nerve in her body urged her to get out of the bombed house now, while she had a chance. Progress was pitifully slow; there wasn’t room either side of her for her elbows, so she had to pull herself along by her hands. Her whole body rested on broken bricks and tiles and shards of glass. Her arms were grazed, her hands and her legs tom and bleeding, but she bit her lip and pulled herself on across the rubble, inch by painful inch.
The space was so small she had to keep her head down and her mouth and eyes filled with dust and grit. Suddenly she stopped, too frightened to move any further. She couldn’t breathe and knew she’d die in this futile attempt to rescue Linda Lennox. The girl must surely already be dead! The tears came then and she sobbed and prayed more intensely than she’d ever done before. ‘Oh God, help me.’
Strangely, she did feel eased, though the roof of her mouth was still dry and her hands clammy. She forced herself to count to ten slowly and take deep breaths to prove that she could. Afterwards she felt a little better; she focused on the entombed child and inched herself a little further.
She wondered after a while how long she’d been in the tunnel. It seemed for ever. Surely the pantry wasn’t as far as this? Perhaps the tunnel led somewhere else entirely, or nowhere at all. Panic threatened to overwhelm her again; she moaned in great distress, dropped the torch and it went out.
‘Oh God! Oh God!’ In the pitch black she scrabbled frantically. To be stuck here in the pitch dark was the most frightening moment of her life. She’d not stand it! She’d go mad!
Then suddenly, her grasping hands found the torch again and, as she turned it on, the little tunnel seemed flooded with light despite the shield and she sobbed with relief.
A little further on, she realised the roof seemed further away than it had been. She found she could raise her head and did so, glad to be able to get away from the plaster and brick dust if only for a moment or two.
The space got bigger still. Soon Jenny was able to lift herself on to her knees and progress was slightly quicker. Then she came to an area where she could crouch and when she swung the torch this time, she saw why. The beams holding up the first floor had fallen against the stairs, but as the stairs rose so the space beneath them became larger. She sat for a moment, glad of the respite, and considered things.
The pantry must be near, because it was fitted under the stairs and anytime now she could be coming to it.