Beware This Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

walls. But Dad said there were injured people inside. I was about to go in when an ambulance arrived. I knew the two men. One’s a conshie named Nigel or Neville, something like that. He’s a nice lad, really. Works hard. The other is a dour Scot who says he isn’t going to fight another war. Everybody calls him Mac. He must be getting on for fifty but he’s very strong, physically and emotionally
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    They got a stretcher from the ambulance and the three of us entered the building. I stopped only to fetch myfirst-aid kit from the clinic and we went through the walkway to the Danger Section
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    Eileen paused, remembering. As they entered the shed, the smell of cordite, blood, and feces assailed them.
    What a sight. Since the bombing raids started, all of us have had experience in dealing with dead and mangled bodies, but this was very hard. Probably because I knew all of the young women. One of them, Tess Deacon, lived on this street. She was dead, lying like a doll covered with dust, but not a mark on her. The percussion had killed her instantly. The worst was Irma Dimble. She had been eviscerated. Mac stepped forward to deal with that, bless him. Both of her arms had been severed and lay, one on each side, a few feet away. I could see that her ring finger was covered with a piece of sticking plaster. Funny how you notice irrelevant details like that in a crisis
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    I checked on the others. Prue McDermott’s throat was sliced, a raw red gaping mouth of a wound. Her eyes were open and for a second she focused on me. She tried to speak but that only made more blood bubble out. I put a pad on her throat but she sort of sagged and her eyes rolled back in her head. I knew she was dead. No time to mourn. Young N. was beside me and he was stalwart. We went over to the two girls who were still alive. Sylvia Sumner’s right arm had been severed just below the elbow. It too was lying to one side like a mannequin’s broken limb. Her left hand was a bloody mess. Poor, poor girl. She had got engaged only a month ago and she’d come into the clinic especially to show me the ring
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    The other girl was Audrey Sandilands. Funny, cheeky Audrey. She was unconscious but breathing, although she was bleeding from the nose and mouth. Another percussive injury. Not much I could do for her on the spot. The damage was all internal
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    Mac, in the meantime, was examining the two men who had been injured. They must have been working nearby. One of them – Doug Aston – had a deep head wound and the other’s eye had been blown out and was lying on his cheek. His name is Peter Pavely and I’ve known him for years. A kind fellow, a devout Methodist
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    I had to decide quickly whom to move first. Audrey, Sylvia, and Mr. Pavely were the worst off. I thought Sylvia and Peter could be saved; I wasn’t so sure about Audrey. Fortunately at that moment another two ambulance men arrived and I didn’t have to make that choice. I directed them to Audrey and they loaded her onto the stretcher and took her off. I got Mac and Neville to help with Sylvia. She was semi-conscious and moaning softly. I applied tourniquets to both arms and wrapped pads around the wounds. They took her away. I did what I could for Mr. Pavely and Doug Aston until more help arrived
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    Eileen gulped down more of the cocoa. She kept some brandy in her cupboard, but she was too chilled to leave the precarious warmth of her bed, so she tugged the covers up higher and continued to write.
    Another ambulance arrived and was able to take both men off to the hospital. I stayed behind to organize removal of the three bodies to the mortuary. I asked the wardens who were standing by to assist with thecleanup – a euphemism if ever there was one for scraping human tissue and bone from the floor and the benches and mopping up pools of blood. There were four wardens, none of them young men, and they were superb. I knew that two of them had served in the Great War, the same as my father had, so