Page 102 of Strangers in Time

He felt his body jerk and roll and hit something hard. Objects fell all around him, hot and burning and sharp and stabbing. Then, with a rush of pulsation in his head, he could hear again; part of him wished he couldn’t.

He gasped and looked up as the very air seemed to ignite. Long, silvery threads of electrified molecules were descending like miniature, flaming enemy paratroopers.

Magnesium clusters.

The Luftwaffe had changed up its tactics. The bastards must have recognized some advantage of sending the bombs first and the clusters next, he thought.

He ripped open a sandbag with the utility knife that all wardens carried. He poured the sand everywhere the clusters landed. He had to be careful because the Germans had started adding delayed maiming explosives onto the incendiary bombs. When his dulled knife would no longer open the sandbags, he simply laid his steel helmet on top of the flaming devices to cut off the oxygen supply that fire required.

Oliver looked behind him and paled. The entire façade of the building was wavering, as though deciding whether to stand or fall. The stacked columns of sandbags had been blasted open in one section and he dove through them, rolled on the pavement, came to his feet, and ran for his life.

A few moments later the wall collapsed behind him. The concussive force of its disintegration engulfed him from behind and, Pegasus-like, he was lifted into the air on its tendrils and catapulted across the street, where he collided with a lamppost. He gripped it momentarily as bricks and shards of exploded windows plowed through the air. Thankfully, he lost his grip and fell to the pavement as this angry horde of debris sailed over him like a murder of crows.

He lay stunned on the pavement for a few moments, trying to regain both his wits and his breath. He slowly stood and remembered where he had been going.

The Ramseys, Neil and Dorothy.

Yet the cries for help and the screams of the wounded and the dying came at him from all directions. He saw people, their clothes ripped off them, staggering from the hotel. They were bloody and dazed, and two dropped to the street as he watched. He ran over to help, only to find they had already died.

The sirens were still screaming, the whines of Jericho’s Trumpets were ubiquitous, and the ack-ack guns were delivering theirwithering response. Oliver watched as thousands of rounds of flak and sledgehammer shells were slung upward. The velocity with which they were hurtling burned colorful contrails across the dark horizon.

And still the damn bombs fell and clusters of waterproof fire ignited the landscape, and all the darkness and evil of hell was forcefully and cruelly visited upon the earth.

A CURIOUSVICTIM

OLIVER WATCHED AS EXPLOSIONafter explosion ripped across London’s horizon. Buildings toppled, streets heaved up like ocean waves, parked cars burst into flames or were tossed about like toys by the massive detonations. The sounds of ambulances and fire engines overlay the cacophony of apocalyptic noise.

It was as though a volcano had erupted in the middle of one of the largest metropolises in the world, and all Oliver could think of was Pompeii.

He managed to turn the gas main off for the hotel, as well as two others down the block. He used his gas rattle to warn folks of the dangers of escaped methane. Using the microphone in his gas mask, he shouted instructions to people who could barely stand, much less listen. The hotel looked like a doll’s house with its entire front sheared right off, allowing him to see directly into dozens of rooms. Fires roared everywhere, and desperate people were jumping from upper-level floors now, choosing a quick death over being burned alive.

He assisted a group of firemen as they clutched a large, round tarp. They positioned it next to the hotel and beneath a man who was clinging precariously to the ledge.

“Jump,” screamed one of the firemen.

The man shook his head in terror as the flames behind him crept closer.

Oliver called out, “We’ve got you, mate. Haven’t lost one yet. Buy you a pint after?”

The fearful man suddenly laughed at these remarks, closed his eyes, and jumped.

Oliver and the firemen all tucked their chins and didn’t look up after making sure they were positioned to catch the falling man. That would prevent their necks from being jerked back when the jumper hit the tarp, possibly cracking their spines.

The burned man landed safely and was handed off to an ambulance crew.

Oliver next ran to those who had already leapt to the streets, and found only two were still breathing. He did what he could with his first aid kit, and when the other ambulances and hospital buses arrived, he directed the medics to these victims.

One of the medics called out, “Do we need to take you to hospital?”

“What?” Oliver said, startled.

“Look at yourself, guv.”

Oliver glanced down and saw that his cape and tunic had been ripped off and his shirtsleeves and pant legs were shredded. Both arms and legs were covered in blood, and bits of glass shone in his skin like flinty diamonds in the medic’s torch. His adrenaline now receding, Oliver felt an odd pain in his right leg; his hearing was also coming and going, as though people were alternating between shouting and whispering.

“I’m all right,” said Oliver, who suddenly remembered the Ramseys.

He limped to their house only to find the door blown off and the windows gone. A fire was raging inside. He only had his tubing; Parker had the bucket and stirrup pump.

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