The Black Mile Read Online Free PDF

Henry planted his feet on the
floor of the newsroom and waited for the shift. The sensation was followed by a
tingling in the soles, then a steady vibration. Sixty feet below, beneath the
pavements of Fleet Street, the newspaper’s great presses were beginning to
turn.

TUESDAY, 11th JUNE 1940
      8
    FRANK GAVE UP TRYING TO GET BACK TO SLEEP. His
nightmare had woken him at five and now the burns on his chest were itching and
he couldn’t settle. He lay on his back for an hour, watching the dawn light
prickle through the black-out, listening to Julia’s low, shallow breathing next
to him. His head was fuzzy, a dull throb pulsing through the fugue. He’d
finished off half of the bottle of scotch after the argument with Eve.
    It was no good: he was awake. He
levered himself upright, shuffled his feet into his slippers and padded quietly
onto the landing and into the bathroom. He relieved himself, took off his
pyjama jacket and turned to face the mirror. He angled himself so that he could
inspect the burns on the right-hand side of his body. They still looked awful,
even twenty years later: mottled, blackish-brown skin, like the flesh on a
joint that had been left in the oven too long. The pocked blisters reached all
the way up his neck to just below the ear, down his arm and across his breast
and shoulder. A white ring of skin marked where his wristwatch had been. He
raised his arm; the burns were worst beneath his shoulder. Not unusual, the
doctors said. The gas dissolved in the natural moisture of the armpit. A single
droplet there was plenty enough to burn all the way through the bone. HS, the
lads called it: Hun Stuff.
    He hadn’t had the nightmares for
years, until, last week, he’d read an article in the newspaper about the
Luftwaffe dropping mustard on London. He’d dreamt it every night since: running
into the empty trench, seeing what looked like an oily reddish liquid gathered
at the bottom of the excavations––looked like sherry––a garlic-like smell. The
captain saying the gas rattle had been sounded but he hadn’t heard it, not with
the shells and the rifles. The realisation of what it was, already too late:
his skin blistering, his eyes gummed together, the uncontrollable vomiting.
When his stomach ran out of half-digested bully beef and hard tack, there came
blood and, eventually, a sickly yellow fluid straight from his lungs. In the
dream, he watched, helplessly, as Harry Sparks and the two other blokes he
dragged out melted before him. Their flesh bubbled and liquefied, dripping off
their bones and running away into the mud. 
    Pain. He winced. He could
normally stand it but it was especially bad today. He opened the cabinet, took
out a jar of Vaseline, applied it with his fingertips. The coolness helped
dampen the itch. He went quietly back into the bedroom to dress.
    He paused at Eve’s room, rested
his forehead on the door panel. He couldn’t hear anything: she was still
asleep.
    Downstairs. They had a small
house in West Wickham. Nothing fancy, just a two-up, two-down at the end of a
terrace of identical houses. It had cost £900 freehold when he bought it, three
years ago. The mortgage set him back £1/3/7 a week, just about affordable on an
Inspector’s wage if Julia was careful with the housekeeping. It was a nice
place. Comfortable. He left it all to Julia. She had an eye for décor, soft
furnishings and such like. The female touch. Soft green and brown wallpaper
with “autumn tints”. Metal light switches with bronze finishes. An “imitation
vellum” chionoiserie-inspired standard lamp with tassels in the front room.
Yes: she’d done a super job. The only item he’d insisted upon was the Pye
gramophone player in the figured walnut case. £17. Damnably expensive, but
quality. Sounded mint. His one little luxury.
    He rubbed the sleep out of his
eyes as he went into the kitchen and lit the coal for the boiler. He only had a
few chores, what with Julia running the house, but this one