The Secret Orphan. Glynis Peters

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       Chapter 1

      14th November 1940: Coventry, England.

      Boom.

      Boom.

      The ground vibrated with each explosion. Unfamiliar sounds surrounded Rose Sherbourne as her body received blow after blow from displaced items of furniture. She jumped when shattering glass hit falling bricks, and everything around her crashed under their weight. Boom.

      Another explosion, followed by the sound of metal hitting metal, echoed out around Rose’s ears and her breath came thick and fast. Through the opening of what was once the front room, a sudden blast of hot air blew both her and her mother off their feet. Rose’s body fell against something hard and a searing pain shot through her back. For a few seconds she could not see, and she blinked, only to feel fine dust fall on her cheeks and into her eyes yet again. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and prepared herself to scrabble upright.

       Boom.

      A wall fell around her and, unable to move both with fear and because something was pinning down her right leg, Rose took a moment to catch her breath. Above her an intense whistling sound screamed from the sky, followed by an eerie whooshing sound. A continuous whistle followed. Rose held her breath. The sound meant only one thing; another bomb would explode within seconds and all she could do was pray it was away from her home.

       Boom.

      The rest of the wall fell, and she watched helplessly as brick after brick fell to the floor and her mother’s body bounced as it was forced into the air for a second time. Rose tried to move but she felt a crushing sensation, a gripping tightness across her chest. She tried to struggle free from the bricks pinning her to the ground. Her chest hurt each time she tried to cough free the dust she’d inhaled when she hit the floor.

      A piercing sound screeched above and once again the planes dropped their unwelcome packages.

      Thud.

      Thud.

      One by one.

      Two by two.

      Rose counted them down.

      One by one.

      Two by two.

      She could hear return fire and engines drifting off into the distance.

      The sky fell silent.

      The enemy were heading back to wherever they’d come from and a stunned Rose blinked away the dust, trying to make sense of what had happened. Indescribable noises came from above and she raised her eyes skyward and saw a large bright moon taunting her with its white light. There was no roof.

      Bombed. The bombs had hit her home.

      Rose’s ears tingled inside and with each noise she felt a strange vibration along her jawline. With focus upon her face she sensed heat. Her cheeks burned as if it was a hot summer’s day.

      There’d been a thick frost all day, but it did nothing to suppress the heat from the raging flames nearby. With relief, Rose noted they were not close enough to burn her, but they were fierce enough to make her skin tingle and sweat.

      She set her mind to where she lay and which room she was in when the bombs had hit. She needed to work out an escape route before she suffocated. Fear raged through her tiny body, and a sense of loneliness overwhelmed her. She lay back with exhaustion and as she focused upon the light of the moon, questions raced around her mind.

      Why hadn’t Mummy taken her to the shelter when they heard the siren sound out its warning?

      Why, instead of running to safety like they usually did, did Mummy hum Rose’s favourite piano piece – Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – and twirl around as if showing off a new dress? She’d acted excited – strange.

      With a sob, Rose remembered how her mother had screamed at her to keep playing, and how her voice had growled it out with such a fierce urgency it had frightened Rose. When Rose pleaded for them to go to the shelter her mother cuffed her around the ears.

      Rose’s body started to tremble until she thought her limbs would never stop no matter how hard she tried to control them. She tried to shut out the screams she could hear around her. High pitched wails of wounded neighbours. The endless shouts and pleas from the street, the screams of other children calling for their parents. Not everyone had made it to the shelters, or if they had, the shelters had failed to protect them. Either way, Rose drew no comfort from knowing she was not alone with her struggle.

      She tried to turn her head away from her mother’s contorted face. Rose knew she was dead. A tear trickled down the side of Rose’s face. She was alone.

      Eventually, after what seemed like many lonely hours of trying, she released an arm and began clawing at bricks and rubble. Her cries for help were suffocated by the louder voices and frantic sounds of motor engines and fire-engine bells. Rose recoiled at the pain when she scraped her skin against the shards of shattered glass and cement, but after a while she ignored the pain of bruises and gashes in her skin out of sheer desperation to survive.

      When she pulled at the last of the bricks, nothing prepared her for the moment she clambered free into devastation and despair.

      The moonlight lit the path for a man as he staggered past calling out a woman’s name. He gave Rose a glance, shook his head, and she saw pouring blood running from a gaping hole in his forehead. She turned away and looked across at what she assumed was once the other side of their street but was now nothing more than rubble heaps and bonfires. Seated on an upturned tin bath, she saw a woman screaming into what looked like a ragdoll lying limp in her arms. She pleaded for it to come back to life.

      Rose started towards the woman, she wanted to tell her that ragdolls weren’t real and that the woman needed to go somewhere safe, but she took no more than four steps when a noise from behind distracted her. Confused and bewildered, Rose turned around and stumbled back to the hollow she’d made for herself. She called through the opening.

      ‘Mummy? Mummy? It’s all right, I’m coming. I’ll help you.’

      She tugged at the obstacles in her way. Furniture and twisted pipes, hissing in the night air hampered her movements. Her hands bled and burned against hot bricks and pipes. She inhaled air which dried her mouth with ash. And then, despite wanting to save her mother, she sighed with bittersweet relief when a fireman lifted her to safety.

      ‘Come on love, let’s get you seen to. You’re safe now, little one.’ His husky voice sounded tired.

      ‘Put me down. Please, go and get Mummy. She’s under the bricks. I need you to save her. Her name is Victoria.’ Rose begged and squirmed in his arms.

      The fireman pulled her closer to his body, running. He paid little heed to her high-pitched pleas, and after they turned a corner, Rose never saw Stephenson Road, or her mother again.

      Rose called out and tried to pound the chest of the fireman but СКАЧАТЬ