Page 59 of These Old Lies

Finally they managed to squeeze and contort themselves under the table, barely fitting under its protection as they lay down side by side. This was the worst part for Ned, waiting, unable to see what was coming, powerless.

Trying to ignoring his racing heart, Ned looked up at the table on top of them to realise he knew this worn wood. This was the old worktable where Charlie had once made his defiant hats, where he had bared his soul to Ned, still damp from the rain, and presented him with tickets to a fancy dress ball. Of all the things for Charlie to have kept from the hat shop, Ned was struck that this remained.

He was about to ask Charlie about it when a whistle cracked through the air. Another hit, closer this time. The electricity went first, plunging them into the pitch black. Their only guide to what was happening around them was sound: furniture cracking as it rocked side to side, books and china tumbling to the floor.

Ned’s senses scrambled like a radio that couldn’t find a frequency. The smell of mud and blood filled his nose, even though he could feel the rough wooden floor beneath him. His uniform felt wrong. Where was he? Where were his men?

Ned wasn’t sure who reached out first, but suddenly Charlie’s hand was in his. Their fingers interlaced, as if to anchor one another as much as possible. The pads of Ned’s fingertips brushed over the fine hair on the top of Charlie’s hand. Beneath it, he could feel Charlie’s tendons and bones, strength and fragility together.

A tight squeeze brought him back. Ned wasn’t in Flanders. This was now, this was London, under a table with Charlie.

Another crash and tremble. Around them, timber cracked, plaster broke, bricks exploded. The fact that they were still alive to hear those noises meant it wasn’t a direct hit. But it was close. Damn close. Pinging hits of debris bounced off metal interspersed with larger bangs that made the table’s winches creak. Ned guessed that Charlie’s house didn’t have a roof anymore.

His and Charlie’s existence blurred together as one, both waiting for their improvised solution to fail, for the inevitable pain, or, if they were luckier, for everything to simply disappear. But the table held. The winches didn’t move. Their hands stayed clenched together. The metal hood absorbed what it needed to absorb. Ned was going to buy Miss Forbes the biggest box of chocolates he could find when this was over.

Then the world was silent.

Charlie rolled to face Ned. Ned turned to Charlie.

Ned took a deep breathe in. Charlie exhaled.

Charlie’s survival instinct kicked in first, and he pulled back with a shuddering breath. He started to kick at the debris surrounding the table. In the surrealism of the moment, ears still ringing from the noise, Ned was confused. They were safe. They were together. Why did Charlie want toleave?

Charlie kept his grip tight on Ned's hand as he fought to escape their shelter. Neither could see in the darkness, but Charlie resolutely crawled in the direction of what had been the front of the building.

“Come on, Ned,” Charlie urged. “We need to move before the building goes.” Slowly, like swimming to the surface after a deep dive, Ned returned to himself. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he began to help Charlie advance through the fallen beams and bricks, spotting dead ends and walls on the brink of collapse.

Ned thought he saw a glint of what had been the large front windows of the shop when a woman’s sob penetrated the broken building. Charlie dropped Ned’s hand and started pulling frantically at the rubble around them.

“That’s Betty. They must have been let out of the shelters,” Charlie said to Ned, and then louder, “We’re here! We’re here!”

“Dad! Dad? Are you hurt?” Frank’s voice called out.

“My boy.” Charlie cleared a space and leapt over some fallen shelves, grabbing his son in a tight embrace at the shop’s entry.

“Dad, we saw the house, we thought… there was no way.” The boy’s voice was broken with tears.

They stumbled out and onto the street, Betty running straight into Charlie’s arms. He whispered into his wife’s hair as she sobbed against him, with Ellie and Frank clutching each of his sides. “Hush, don’t cry. Ned saved us. Made us our own shelter. That old dining table everyone hates? Perfect hiding place!”

The entire red-brick street had been ripped apart. All the insides outside like an animal’s carcass, transforming what was normally comforting to the grotesque, with roofs caved in, walls falling outwards. Even buildings left standing were pockmarked with holes. And everywhere, the smell of burning. It seemed inconceivable that the heap of rubble before Ned could possibly be the shop that he and Charlie had defended only a handful of hours earlier.

Ned looked down at his hand, which was stained with dried blood. He needed to wash up. God Almighty, his back hurt. Sometime over the course of the evening’s events he had lost his glasses. He hoped he could find hisspare pair. He was turning to leave and find his way home when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

“I think Dad needs you?” Ellie said to Ned. The statement confused him—surely she couldn't know—until he looked over to see that his friend literally needed help propping up a beam. He rolled his shoulders and turned back to the wreckage.

???

Dawn was breaking, and the noises of London getting ready for the day filled the air. Delivery boys, milk trucks, the bark of a dog, shopgirls headed to work, the cry of a baby. Life continued and found a way to avoid the craters in the streets.

Ellie, Frank, and Betty had collapsed into sleep on what had once been the chesterfield, both children’s brown curly heads looking so much younger when pressed against their mother.

Charlie, for his part, wandered amongst the remains of what had been his business and his home, dodging dangling furniture and shards of plaster to get to the broken dishes and the fluttering bits of clothes. Every once in a while, he’d find an item that had miraculously survived, creating a haphazard collection of the family’s life: tools from the garage sitting beside a doll which was somehow unscathed, a slightly torn book, some folded shirts. Ned struggled to distinguish one item from another in the carnage.

He would have fallen asleep himself if he hadn’t had one eye still focused on the street, half convinced the looters would be back. He rubbed his hand against his rough face. More than sleep, Ned desperately needed a shave.

“Thank God there wasn’t a fire.” His own soft voice surprised him.

Charlie looked up from the piles of rubble. Dust and soot coated both of their faces. Ned’s sleeve was soaked in another man’s blood, and most of Charlie’s clothes were torn and blackened.