Lynda La Plante: Civvies

'Make for the stairs… GET UP TO THE NEXT FLOOR!'

The unwritten rule, the unspoken code, in any kind of situation, in any kind of emergency, you never abandoned a comrade, no matter what. Steve had darted back, tossing furniture aside like a madman, to go to Taffy's aid. Harry was there too, the combined strength of the three of them hurling the beam away so that it swung in a wide arc, hanging in space, and then came hurtling down, smashing through the floor with a crash that shook the building to its foundations.

Hoisting Billy in a shoulder-lift, Dillon gripped the banister rail and hauled himself up the narrow staircase. He heard the rumble and felt the shudder as the ceiling caved in, filling the air with a whirling duststorm. Behind Dillon, Jimmy halted halfway up the stairs and looked anxiously down. 'Harry?' he called hoarsely. 'Taff…?'

The complete frontage of Hennessey's had collapsed. One moment the upper storey was lit by flames, the next obscured by a pall of black smoke, clouds of red sparks billowing through the rafters of what was left of the roof. Behind the fire engines, their hoses snaking over the cindery, puddled ground, police cars and a cordon of uniformed men kept the groups of survivors at a safe distance. The Army had arrived, three Bedford four-tonners, MPs in jeeps, officers in quilted flak-jackets deploying their men to seal off the perimeter. Through the hissing of hosepipes and the roaring crackle of the inferno, a child's voice could be heard, screaming 'MUMMY!' and screaming again 'MUMMY!' and again 'MUMMY!'

'Oh God Almighty…' The landlord's wife, face blackened, hair singed, a blanket around her shoulders, tried to break through, screaming hysterically, 'My kids… My kids are still in there!' Held back, she stared up with wild, petrified eyes, white runnels on her cheeks where tears had eaten through the grime.

The door splintered and swung wide, hanging off its hinges from Dillon's force-kick. Smoke was sifting through the cracks in the floorboards. Dillon charged inside, Billy Newman draped across his shoulders, and turned to the wall, shielding both their faces as Taffy and Steve came through the doorway like an express train. Without breaking their stride they hurled a long section of what had been the bar-top through the window, taking out four panes and part of the frame. Grabbing the end, they held firm, the bar-top forming a slippery, slanting bridge between window-ledge and toilet roof ten feet below. Dillon checked it out, a cold inner core of his brain insulated from the noise, chaos and confusion, the total professional coolly estimating angles, the breaking strain of the corrugated roof, the risk of over-balancing under Billy's weight. Thank Christ he had his Pumas on, Dillon thought, stepping up onto the window-sill, inching out one foot to make sure of his grip.

'Frank, wait -' Steve leaning out, gripping his elbow. 'You'll never make it!'

Through the smoke and flying sparks, Dillon glimpsed a fireman on a hydraulic platform rising towards him, but prevented from coming too close because of the spread of flames. Dillon gritted his teeth. If he could just get Billy those extra few feet nearer the fireman's reaching arms… he edged further along the treacherous surface, feeling Steve right behind, the two of them balanced precariously on the wooden bar-top, now starting to bend under their combined weight.

'Hold onto me, Steve,' Dillon ground out. 'When they get Billy I'll lose my balance. Keep me steady!'

'I got you, mate.' The collar of Dillon's windcheater bunched in one fist, Steve's other arm was clamped like a vice to the inner wall. 'Another couple of feet… easy now… easy…'

With a final heave Dillon got the boy across the gap, saw him clasped safe and secure in the fireman's arms, and felt the wood split beneath his feet. His leg went through, he dropped, arms paddling thin air, and then hung, legs dangling as Steve hauled him up by the collar.

'Couple of Hail Marys, Frank.' Steve's handsome mug was split in a broad grin, the pair of them in a heap on the floor. 'Then I reckon we should get the hell out of here!' Dillon stared at him, raising his fist, then gave him the grin back, punching him on the arm.

Taffy was at the door, thumb jerking frantically over his shoulder at the smoke-filled passage streaked with orange. 'Frank, there's kids up here!'

Dillon leapt up, cursing. At the window he shouted down to the knot of firemen spraying the side of the building. 'Drench us! Come on – get those hoses on us, we're going back in!'

Standing in line, bracing each other, the three men took the full force of the jet, which sent them staggering backwards. Dillon wrapped his sodden windcheater around his head and dropped to his hands and knees, preparing to scuttle back in, when Harry, crouched low, appeared through the smoke, a little girl cradled in his arms.

The firemen, aiming their hoses to either side, formed a sheltering spray for the platform as it rose level with the window-ledge. The gap slowly closed, the platform inching nearer. Holding the little girl close to his chest, Harry stepped across.

Dillon stood next to an Army fire tender, drenched to the skin, gazing with sick eyes at the flames leaping towards the sky. The front of the pub was practically burnt out, the fire still raging at the back, rapidly devouring the upper storey and roof.

The little girl Harry had rescued was nearby, wrapped in a blanket, being comforted by her mother. Her two boys, barely a couple of years separating them, were huddled in their father's arms as he knelt between them. God knows how Taffy had done it, Dillon thought… the bloke was asbestos, somehow finding them in there and smashing his way out through a rear window, bringing them out alive with hardly a scorch mark apiece. That brand of courage didn't grow on trees.

Dillon closed his eyes, jaw muscles clenched tight making the scar on his left cheek stand out through the smeared dirt. His lads. None of them over twenty, with all their young lives ahead of them. If he lived to be a hundred, two hundred, he'd never forget this, never forgive. Jimmy's voice brought him back to his senses.

'They're bringing them out now.' Jimmy was pointing to where the firemen had hosed the front entrance to a charred frame of smouldering timbers. Bodies were being stretchered out.

'I'm game.' Harry, his hands bandaged, was staring at Dillon with bloodshot eyes, one old pro reading the thoughts of another. 'Come on, let's go for another try…'

'You crazy?' Jimmy tried to grab Dillon's arm as he started forward. Dillon shook him off. 'Frank, the whole place is gutted. Frank!'

'My lads…' Dillon choked on the words. '…are still in there.' A spasm creased his face. 'My lads.'

'Frank, for God's sake, don't be crazy!'

'I'm with you, Frank,' Harry said. 'Let's go for it!'

'FRANK!' Fists clenched at his sides, Jimmy watched them get another drenching under the fire hoses and head towards the building, a fireman and two MPs trying to cut them off.

'Oh shit!' Shaking his head wearily, Jimmy started to run. 'Wait for me…'

The young doctor, fair hair ruffled by the breeze to reveal his premature bald spot, moved along the line of stretchers, stooping every now and then for a closer look, moving on, signalling to the attendants those to be taken to hospital and the others who were beyond the power of medicine.

Doors slammed and ambulances sped away.

The firemen were reeling in their hoses, working mechanically, faces blackened, weariness etched into every pore. A single hose still played on the pile of smoking rubble, the damp hissing of the embers the only sound, clouds of steam and mingled soot drifting away into the darkness.

Jimmy came through the huddle of Army trucks and found Dillon having cream and gauze applied to his hands by a civilian nurse, who despite looking about sixteen seemed to know her job. Jimmy hesitated, watching the nurse lightly wrap and tie a bandage around the raw wound. The frozen stillness of Dillon's face, the absolute fixed, unblinking intensity of his eyes, scared Jimmy. The man looked possessed.