Read Torpedo Run (1981) for Free Online

the woman’s laugh remained, but it had changed into a terrible, unending scream.
    As Devane’s senses returned he tried to free himself from the pressure of wood and brickwork across his shoulders and spine. It was hard to draw breath without retching, or to know which way he was facing.
    A bright column of fire spouted from the other side of the bar, and he guessed that either a gas main had caught fire orthe kitchen stove had exploded.
    Voices yelled and echoed around him like souls in torment, and he heard screams mingled with desperate cries for help.
    He found her by the wall, and as his hands explored her shoulders and bare throat he knew that her head had fallen forward.
    He gasped, ‘Claudia, for God’s sake!’ He pulled her slowly to her feet, so that she hung against him as if lifeless.
    It was even worse standing up. In the dancing blue flames he saw reeling figures, the glistening reflections of blood and torn limbs, broken glass and rubble everywhere.
    Someone was calling, ‘My eyes! My bloody eyes! Help me, please
help me!
’
    An American lurched past dragging his companion through the upended furniture, his face a mask of blood.
    Devane held her firmly but gently and then lifted her chin. She was breathing. She must have been stunned by the blast.
    A man blundered against him and Devane shouted, ‘Go to the hotel along the road and send for help.’
    The man, wild-eyed and staring, yelled back, ‘Who are you giving orders to?’
    ‘
You
!’ He saw the man fall back. ‘Do as I bloody well tell you!’
    He searched his own feelings. There was nothing. Just concern for the girl. Like she had said of her dead husband, he had been at it too long. After the first tour of operations you accepted it. Or went under.
    He began to lift her over a broken beam, or was it the front of the bar?
    The landlord was lying face down in broken glass. There was blood everywhere.
    It must have been a direct hit, probably on the rear of the pub. The floor seemed to have leapt up to meet the falling roof, so the bomb had most likely exploded in the cellar.
    Devane peered down at her and saw that her eyes were wide and staring.
    He said, ‘We’re getting out. You’re safe now.’
    He saw one hand touch her forehead as if to assure herself she was still alive. Then as her understanding returned shetried to turn her head, to see the smoky destruction, made worse by the dancing flames, the terrible screaming.
    Somewhere a bell rang loudly, and Devane guessed that ambulances and fire-engines were on their way.
Just another raid
. The bombs could have hit anywhere.
    Two policemen crunched through the broken doors, their torches reflecting on their steel helmets.
    Devane called, ‘In here. Six or seven still alive, I think.’
    The first policeman paused to peer at the girl. ‘She all right?’
    She whispered to Devane, ‘Don’t let them take me anywhere. I want to keep with you. Don’t let them. . . .’ She fainted again.
    The policeman said to his companion, ‘Here we go again, Tom. Ready?’
    The other man was staring past him, his face screwed up to withstand what was to come, what they must do amongst the carnage.
    Devane stooped down and slipped his arm beneath her legs, then, carrying her very carefully, he stepped over and through the collapsed doors and into the cool air.
    The place seemed to be full of people. Voices called instructions, and he heard the clatter of spades and picks as rescuers searched amongst the wreckage for survivors.
    Devane walked amongst them. A woman with her hair in curlers was tying a bandage on a man’s head. A fire-engine was backing down the pavement with more men unloading lifting gear and stretchers. Devane looked at them. Amateurs, ordinary men and women who were behaving with the skilled precision of guardsmen. Like his own companies, he thought vaguely. Newspaper boys and fishermen, barristers and house painters. The war soon honed away any kind of amateur status.
    She said