Page 28 of Strangers in Time

As he stepped gingerly over and around rubble that lay in piles throughout the city, Charlie heard the clang of a fire engine bell and the accompanying screech of tires. It was coming closer, its sound painfully loud. It would have been terrifying had Charlie not heard it so many times before. Indeed, he was sometimes startled when hedidn’thear it. At least the air raid sirens weren’t bellowing.Thosestill scared him.

He came to an abrupt stop as a tall, burly constable stepped in his way, arms spread wide, blocking Charlie and several people behind him from proceeding on the pavement.

“What’s the trouble, Constable?” asked a man in a wrinkled suit and bowler hat and carrying a battered leather satchel.

“Just stay where you are till I says otherwise,” replied the officer dutifully, his helmet strap wedged under his pointy chin.

Charlie peered past the bobby to see the fire engine navigate the corner just up ahead. He turned to go back the other way and had gone about twenty paces when he heard it.

“It’s probably ’nother ’a themUXBs.”

Charlie looked down to see a bedraggled man sitting on the pavement against a crumbling wall of brick. In front of him was a small glass cup of matchsticks set next to a tin cup with a few coins in it. He was wild-eyed and bushy-haired with a long, unruly beard.

Charlie knew that the man was a person of the pavements. There were many of them, and Charlie also knew he was perilously close to becoming one himself.

“A what?” said Charlie.

“UXBs, boy. Anunexploded bomb,” said the creature in a hoarse whisper.

Charlie nodded. There were many of those around here, he knew, half sunk in the streets or in the sides of buildings, or, even more dangerous, hidden entirely from view.

“You know how far down Satan dwells, lad?” he said.

Charlie blinked, shook his head, and slowly edged away from the man.

“Sixty-four feet, six inches.”

“How’s that?” said a startled Charlie.

“Jerry bomb named Satan. Thirteen and a half feet long, ’tis. Damn thing burrows down sixty-four feet, six inches. Makes a crater big enough to fit two bloody double-decker buses, it does. We got it out, though, yes we did.”

“Youdid?”

The creature looked past Charlie, perhaps all the way back to the Blitz. In a calmer voice he said, “Was with the Royal Engineers, back then. Bomb disposal. Tricky business. Delayed fuses, photoelectric cells, booby traps. Most bombs go in at an eighty-degree angle. Burrows down only twelve feet or so, but not the Satan. It goes down over five times deeper. Then you dig, that’s the hardest part ’cause digging can make vibrations and that can make the bomb go off. Can’t think about it too much. Dead before you know it anyways, so what’s the bother? The Jerries, they were cunning, give ’em that. But we outsmarted ’em.” He paused and patted his upper thighs.

Charlie could then see that there were no legs below them. He next noted the square board and attached wheels the man was sitting on.

“Till a bomb hit East Ham but didn’t go off,” the man continued in a more subdued tone. “Sent us in to defuse it. But it blew up while we was working on it. Jerry got three of us that day. And half ’a me. Only reason I’m still here is I went to get some water for my mates. Blew when I was coming back.”

Charlie mumbled, “I’m sorry,” but the man waved this off.

“No rules to war, though they lie and say there is.” He looked Charlie up and down. “I bet your dad is fighting, eh, lad?”

“Dunkirk” was all Charlie said.

The man’s expression dimmed with this response. “Aye.” He looked at the journal in Charlie’s hand. “Is that a proper book, with words in it and all?” he said in wonder.

Charlie shook his head. He opened it so the man could see. “I’m lookin’ to sell it,” he said, eyeing the few coins in the cup.

The man stroked his filthy beard. “Got no use for it, then?”

“Got more use for money,” replied Charlie, still staring at the coins in the cup.

“Don’t we all,” said the man. “But don’t look at me cup of coins. Got none to spare. Buttheyuse quite a lot of paper.”

“Who does?”

The man pointed across the street. “Them.”

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