Martin Walker - Black Diamond

Albert slammed his phone into his pocket and shouted, “Fabien, get over here.” One of his men came running. “Take my van and head up to the water tower and see if it’s turned off there. If so turn it on. If not, then follow the line and check every valve. If you see a water department seal, ignore it and turn it back on. Understood?”

“Where are the children?” Bruno asked.

“What children?”

“Two young Chinese girls, nieces of the cook.”

“The main building was empty, and we got four adults out of the staff building. Nobody said anything about children. Where would they sleep? Merde, we were told that third building was empty. Let’s go. Merde en croute, Fabien has my van.”

“We’ll take my car,” said Bruno, and they raced back to the Land Rover, pulling out just as a huge new fire engine heaved through the stone gates. Albert climbed half out of the Land Rover, waving at the new arrival and shouting, “Follow me.”

Bruno raced around knots of firemen shifting hoses from their engines to their water tenders. Unless Fabien found the right valve, there would be no more water once the tenders were empty. He went past the staff house, fire now leaping from every window, and on to the farthest building, trying to remember where the manure pool had been so he could avoid it. In his mirror, he could see the fire engine following him, heaving over the bumps in the ground, its headlights half blinding him in the mirror as they rose and fell with the terrain. He pushed the mirror to one side and concentrated on the ground ahead.

“Where’s that damn ambulance?” Albert was shouting into his phone. “I want it at the farthest building. That’s where you’ll find me, with the engine from Les Eyzies that’s just arrived. And send any more new arrivals to the same place. There may be kids in there.”

Bruno recognized the far building as the one where he had peered into the window and seen the curiously old-fashioned furniture. The fire was concentrated at the front, and the west side and the roof had yet to catch. He swung the Land Rover around to the eastern side of the building and parked, leaving the engine running. There was movement at an upper window, and he pointed it out to Albert. Bruno darted across to the side of the engine from Les Eyzies and clambered up to the locker where they kept the protective gear, at least they did if it was the familiar model from St. Denis.

“Hey, what d’you think you’re doing?” came a shout as Bruno jumped down with a protective jacket and helmet in his hand. He ignored it, scrambled into the jacket, put the helmet on and grabbed a hand ax from its bracket on the door. Albert was already breaking into the rear door with his crowbar as Bruno arrived. Bruno breathed deeply, fighting down the old fear that fire provoked ever since it had first reached out to hurt him. The scar on his arm seemed to prickle in anticipation as he remembered the burning armored car on the airfield at Sarajevo and the sound of soldiers screaming inside as he fought to widen the flaming door and pull them out. Grimly, he used his ax to make another hole for more leverage for Albert, and between them they hauled the door open.

Albert eyed him doubtfully and pulled a scarf from his pocket. “Tie this around your face. It’s fire retardant.” He pulled down his own protective mask. He plucked a flashlight from the Velcro on the chest of his jacket and led the way into the smoke. The bright yellow of his jacket seemed to disappear at once. Bruno could follow him only by the swirls Albert’s movement left in the smoke.

The flashlight was almost useless, but at least it picked out the first of the stairs. Albert leaned down to touch them and shouted, “Not too hot, but it could catch anytime. You look around the ground floor, I’ll get the ladder to that upper window.” He handed his flashlight to Bruno and retraced his steps to the door.

The first two ground-floor rooms were empty, and the third had a door so hot that Bruno did not dare open it. He went back to the stairs and began to climb slowly, controlling the threads of panic that seemed to run like electricity from the scar on his arm into his brain by counting and testing the heat of each tread.

He reached a landing where the wall was hot, but the stairs then turned away from it and seemed cooler. He climbed on, and the smoke was thinner. His flashlight picked out two doors straight ahead, neither of them warm. He opened the first, and smoke seemed to be pouring from the ceiling. He clamped his mouth shut against the smoke and the fear, but the room seemed unoccupied. He stubbed his foot against a bed, felt along its empty length and turned back to the other door.

Something was blocking it. He used his ax to lever the door open. His brain was shrieking at him to run, to leave, to save himself in flight. He knelt down to feel the blockage. It was a piece of rolled-up cloth that he was able to tug away. More smoke was coming from the ceiling, and Bruno knew he had better be fast. He couldn’t breathe in this much longer. He felt himself going dizzy, and his self-control was ebbing.

The screams had kept him going in Sarajevo, an appeal for help from men he knew whose flesh was burning that had made him plunge again and again into the flames to haul them out. But there were no screams here. They’re dead already, a part of his brain was insisting. It’s wasted effort. They’re corpses. The smoke got them. They suffocated. Get out and save yourself.

Bruno fought the fear and made himself think of water. Cool water. He was swimming, swimming in the river with Isabelle. No, it was colder than that, he told himself. It was snowing. He was in the mountains, and the snow was all around.

He groped along the wall and reached a bed, and then his hand met a very thin leg. He felt along the length of the unconscious child, picked up the limp body and staggered to the window. Holding the child against his chest with his left arm, he used his right to break the window open with his ax, almost tripping as his feet encountered another body crumpled beneath the window. He leaned out and gulped at the clean night air.

“This way,” he shouted as the ladder swerved toward him from the adjoining window. A fireman began clambering up as Bruno stuffed his ax into a pocket and held out the child in his arms. Smoke billowed thickly around him.

“There’s another child,” Bruno shouted down to Albert, standing by the controls of the ladder.

The first fireman took the child from Bruno’s arms and handed the small figure down to a second man who had clambered up below him. Bruno pulled his head and body back into the thickening smoke and held his breath as he hauled up the second child at his feet and passed it through the window.

“Get out now,” Albert was shouting, and Bruno leaned out to grab the ladder with his right hand. He hauled a leg over the windowsill and then felt his ax tumble from his pocket, and he gripped the ladder tightly as he sensed it begin to swivel away from the window, and the room seemed to explode behind him. Hugging the metal step with both arms, his legs swaying in the breeze, Bruno felt a scalding heat on the back of his legs, and a great rush of flame roared past him into the night.

“You damn fool,” Albert was saying from a great distance. “I told you to stay on the ground floor.”

There was white foam all over him, and then a familiar face was looking into his eyes. It was Fabiola, pulling open his jacket to put a stethoscope against his heart.

“The kids will be all right, Bruno,” he heard her say. “You got them out in time.”

Fabiola stood beside him with a glass of milk, saying it would soothe his throat and nourish him. He felt his chest burn with every breath. He was in a strange bed, lying on his back, but he could see his feet. Both his legs were suspended in the air, a light gauze dressing on them. Dr. Gelletreau was at the foot of the bed, looking up from a chart to smile at him. Fabiola raised his head and eased a straw into his mouth. Bruno drank, realizing with relief that he was at the medical center in St. Denis. If he’d been badly hurt, they’d have moved him to the big hospital in Perigueux.