Chapter 5: Fire

About a week passed and trade quickly built as Tony played for the regulars every night. Lady Sheila fitted in remarkably well at the Feathers and soon Kate and Lady Sheila were working quite well together, and quickly becoming close friends ... She enjoyed working in the bar and was quite proud of Tonys piano playing for patrons on the piano.

Quite quickly the word spread about the atmosphere created by the nightly sing songs and whole families were coming in when the air raids allowed them to. Every night now there was a raid sometimes the sirens did not go until later in the evening, some times they were early but people were coping. They quickly learned to adjust their lives to the nightly raids. People started puling together and helping each other. One good instance was the holding of places in food queues' for each other and often sharing the food they managed to obtain.

Kate and Tony stopped sleeping together while lady Sheila was there, except on a couple of occasions when lady Sheila went up to the West End to visit friends. They thought that it was the courteous thing to do. But they took full advantage of her absence when she was not there.

One day Kate had one of her sisters in law come in to talk with her. She warned. "Kate watch out for Ray and his mate they are plotting something, and they have it in for your boyfriend."

Kate told her. "He is not a boy friend; he is on the pay roll. We only met on the train and I offered him a room here as he has no family, and later I found he is a bloody good piano player so I hired him, but come to think of it I wouldn't mind if he was my boyfriend... :"

Tony had the previous week applied to join the auxiliary Fire Service as he felt he ought to be doing something positive about the war. The lady who interviewed him said with your injury, and the fact that technically you are still in the Navy. I am afraid that we can not use you in an active role, but your experience in communications would be most helpful and it was agreed that they would contact him later for another interview and probable training.

Lady Sheila returned to Frindley park after a week and Tony told her that he would follow in a few days. She felt that being away from the estate too long would not be a good policy, but she had promised Kate that she would love to come back to London for a holiday at a later date.

It was later that night and as usual the sirens had gone just after dusk and apart from some sporadic anti-aircraft fire in the distance things were pretty quiet. Suddenly a warden popped in. "I have a family trapped and they are dropping incendiaries. Tony looked out the door and the whole area seemed to have come alight. There was no doubt about it that tonight they were attacking civilians and not the docks.

People were running around with buckets of sand and stirrup pumps and putting the incendiaries out as best they could. Many buildings had incendiaries landed on the roofs which were blazing and in danger of starting major fires. They all knew the Germans would probably follow up shortly with high explosive bombs to spread the fires by blowing the incendiaries around amongst the buildings.

Tony helped as much as he could, having commandeered a stirrup pump from a warden ... But in an adjoining street Tony saw the unexploded bomb tapes go up. He asked the warden what's happened.

"There is a land mine gone through the roof at number 46 and Mrs. Wails mother is trapped in bed, we are waiting for the bomb squad. But it could go off at any time; some of the bloody things have time fuses."

"Has no-one gone in to help them out?"

"Not bloody likely." The warden said, we have enough to do out here and I dare not risk anyone at present ... We have so many people to rescue in less risky situations. We have to leave that one for the experts"

Tony suddenly found he could see the scene in the house of the old lady lying in bed and her daughter by her side gently crying. The land mine was gently swinging just over their heads, its parachute snagged on a projecting beam. He said to the warden.

"I'm going in and see if I can get them out."

Without waiting for a reply he nipped under the barrier, and abandoned his walking stick by the front door. Limping he made his way through the open front door hanging on to the stair rail, he managed the stairs. Arriving on the upper floor he came to the master bedroom where the elderly woman lay in bed. She was covered in dust and shivering with fright, her married daughter was holding her and crying. The scene was just as the vision had predicted. The land mine was hanging about eighteen inches from the old ladies head and swinging gently in the evening breeze which was coming through the hole in the roof. Looking up he could see the stars in the sky above. Tony knew that if there was a big gust of wind and the mine swung and touched anything it could explode instantly.

She told Tony "I'm not leaving my Mum, and you can't make me..."

"I am not going to make you do anything Missus" Tony said.

"I would like you to help me get your mum out though before this bloody thing explodes."

Tony could see the land mine swinging from the beam, and he could hear the beam creaking every time it swung under the weight of the mine. Putting his ear to the outside of the mine and steadying it he pretended to listen, he found that he had a vision of a clock, which showed that he had just seven minutes to get them out, before it was timed to explode. He turned and said to the two frightened ladies.

"We are OK and we have about seven minutes to get you out, so we have plenty of time."

Tony realised that the parachute could give way any moment in the breeze that was coming through the damaged roof. However the vision had given him confidence that they had some time before it went off.

"No problem it won't go off yet, but let's get out of here anyway."

He said to the daughter "I will need your help. I have an injured leg, but with your help we can make it."

"Can she walk at all?"

The daughter shook her head.

Looking around for ideas, he asked. Have you got a single bed mattress anywhere in another room perhaps?"

She said. "Yes on my bed"

Tony quickly fetched the single mattress from the adjoining room, and told Mrs. Wails.

"We must lift your Mum on to this mattress and tie her or strap her on to the mattress with anything we have and let it go down the stairs like a sled while between us we must take the weight to stop it going too fast."

Fortunately the old lady was quite frail and quite light and between them they easily lifted her on to the mattress. Dragging it along the landing to the top of the stairs Tony went first, and sitting on the stairs he took the weight of the mattress on his back and shoulders, while he inched his body down one stair at a time, while Mrs. Wails managed to put a brake on its movement from above, and between them they managed to slow the descent to the ground floor. They pulled the mattress through the door on to the street, and managed to get a couple of wardens to come and drag the mattress to safety.

The strain had been too much for Tony's leg and he collapsed in agony. Fortunately Kate appeared with the barman and between them managed to pull him to safety, just as the mine exploded, showering everyone within a 200 yards radius with debri and dust ... Fortunately the blast largely went upwards as it was contained a bit by the thick walls of the house.

The press were there with photographers and Mrs. Wails was expounding to the press how Tony had come to save them, but after she had finished she turned to Tony and said.

"I thought you said we had seven minutes?"

Tony grinned despite the excruciating pain in his leg. "Well we did. It went off just on seven minutes. I think, didn't it?" He realised as he spoke that once again the ring had come to his rescue

Kate and Bill got Tony to bed in the Feathers as he refused to go to hospital that night. He was hoping that his leg would recover with rest, and the help of the ring, knowing as well that the hospital would be busy with casualties from the raid. The blast had broken all the windows in the Feathers, but as Bill the barman said. "We will get the windows boarded up and with the blackouts up no one will know the difference and we will be open tomorrow night as usual."

Tony felt exhausted after his life saving operation, his leg ached and Kate gave him some aspirin which helped him drop off to sleep. His slumber was quite fitful and he awoke several times to the distant sound of explosions, but usually he would drop off to sleep again quite quickly. The next morning Kate fetched a local doctor who charged half a crown to examine him, and who suggested that he rest up for a few days and if it got no better to contact the naval medical service.