Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

The footsteps got closer, then she heard many more pairs of boots coming up the stairs in pursuit.

Caroline scrunched her toes against the soft, smooth bed sheets in a tactile farewell just as the door to her room burst open.

“Caroline?” It was Rowles. He was breathing hard, on the verge of panic, which was unlike him.

“What’s happening?” she said. Or at least that’s what she tried to say. Her tongue felt like a lump of meat in her mouth and her lips seemed swollen and heavy. What she actually said was “Wa han,” but sweet, faithful Rowles understood her.

“American army,” he said, by way of explanation as he closed the door behind him, grabbed a metal-framed canvas chair and shoved it under the door handle. Then he ran to her bedside, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“They may not check too carefully,” he whispered.

The door handle rattled immediately. She’d thought he was being optimistic.

The boy she trusted more than anyone else alive crouched down beside her bed with a machine gun aimed at the door. It was cocked and ready to fire. He was defending her with his life, and she felt an overwhelming flood of affection for him. It took a huge effort but she managed to lift her right arm out from under the covers and reach across to stroke his light brown hair. He glanced up at her and she smiled at him. His wide eyes and small freckled nose gave him the face of an angel, but stare deeper into those eyes and there was only pitiless darkness. Hard to believe he was only eleven.

He smiled back and just for a moment his eyes lightened. There was still some feeling in there, after all. She hoped one day she’d hear him laugh. But she didn’t think it likely.

She remembered her father laughing at an old repeat of Morecambe and Wise , his eyes creased to slits as he literally held his sides and rocked back and forth on the sofa like a laughing policeman at a fairground.

If Rowles was going to die here, she was glad she could die with him. She’d heard Matron refer to them once as Bonnie and Clyde, so it was fitting.

The door ceased rattling and the footsteps clattered away.

A moment later she heard boots descending the stairs.

Rowles stood up and walked around the bed, then pulled the curtain aside a fraction and looked out at the battlefield.

“I don’t know why they’re attacking, but I think they’re winning.” There was a huge explosion nearby and he pulled back from the window, shielding his eyes. “It’s not safe to stay here. We have to go.”

Caroline wanted nothing more than to run away with him, but she would need to be carried, manhandled, pushed in a wheelchair. She was twelve years old and would have described herself as solid, even stocky. Rowles was eleven and thin as a rake. There was no chance. She wanted to tell him to go without her, to save himself and leave her be. But her treacherous mouth wouldn’t form the words and, she realised with some surprise, she was too selfish for that. She wanted to be with him, no matter what.

“Wel air,” she grunted.

“Good idea. I’ll go look for one. Back in a mo.”

He pulled the chair away from the handle and cracked open the door. Once he’d assured himself that the corridor was clear he slipped out, pulling the door closed behind him.

Caroline was alone again.

The noises of fighting were moving away now. The building in which she lay was quite near the main gates and she presumed it was their destruction which had signalled the start of the assault and woken her up. Now the fight was moving into the centre of the base. But below her window there was a steady rumble of incoming trucks, tanks and other vehicles as the Americans flooded in to join the fight.

She wondered where Matron was. It was unlike her to leave them alone; she should have been with Rowles, giving orders, taking decisions, making the children feel safe, protected, even loved, with a sly glance or a flash of a smile in the direst of circumstances. Rowles’ presence made Caroline feel safe, Matron’s made her feel she belonged.

She remembered her older sister’s arm around her shoulder at their grandad’s funeral, reaching up and taking her hand, feeling her sister squeeze it for comfort.

Footsteps and voices in the corridor. Rowles was no longer alone.

The door opened and a tall man with thick black hair and heavy features entered. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but had an SLR machine gun slung across his chest. She recognised him — he was the doctor who had been there when she regained consciousness after the operation. Jones? Johns? She couldn’t recall his name.

Rowles came in behind the man, pushing a wheelchair, then closed the door.

The doctor leaned over her.

“Can you hear me, Caroline?” he asked.

“Yuh.”

“Can you move at all?”

She lifted her arm feebly and wiggled her fingers until the effort became too much and the limb flopped back down, useless.

The doctor smiled. It was obviously meant to be reassuring but there was something calculating in his eyes, something which made her withhold trust.

“We’re going to lift you into the wheelchair,” he said. “It may hurt, but I haven’t got any anaesthetic on me, I’m afraid. Then we’re going to take the lift down to the rear doors where I’ve got a jeep waiting. If we move quickly, I think we’ll be able to get ourselves away from here before they secure the perimeter.” He turned and nodded to Rowles, who wheeled the chair alongside the bed then took Caroline’s hand.

She was sad to leave her clean, white cocoon, but the pain in her head as the doctor and Rowles pulled her into a sitting position made it hard to concentrate on anything but staying conscious.

“One, two, three,” said the doctor, grunting on “three” as they lifted Caroline out of the bed and into the chair. Once she was sitting again, the pain in her head receded.

Outside, there was a whoosh and then a tremendous explosion directly beneath the window. Bazooka, perhaps? The window finally came off its latch and smashed against the interior wall, showering the now empty bed with shards of glass.

The doctor went to take the handles of the wheelchair, but Rowles stepped behind her. The doctor, looking over her head at Rowles’ determined, territorial look — which Caroline could picture clearly, even though she was facing the other way — nodded. He turned and opened the door, then waved for Rowles to follow him.

They moved quickly out of the room and into the corridor, turning left and heading for the grey lift doors twenty metres away. Caroline observed the flat details of the corridor as she rolled past door after door, all closed. They reached the lift and the doctor reached out to press the call button, but before he could make contact the lift pinged, the doors slid open, and an American soldier stood before them, gun levelled straight at the doctor’s chest.

The soldier and the doctor stood there for a second, frozen in surprise. But the soldier’s reflexes were tuned for combat, and when the moment passed he was quickest. Deciding that he didn’t need to waste ammunition, he brought his gun around and smashed the butt across the doctor’s face, sending him crashing to the floor, stunned.

Caroline was intrigued by the soldier’s uniform. It was a camouflage pattern of light and dark browns. Desert clothes, hardly suitable for warfare on the rolling green plains of England.

The soldier stepped over the prone doctor and relieved him of his weapon. Caroline could tell by the tiny vibrations in her chair that Rowles was still gripping the handles tightly, resisting the temptation to go for the gun that was slung across his back, waiting for the right moment. Perhaps the soldier hadn’t even noticed the strap that ran diagonally across the boy’s chest. Or perhaps he’d made the same mistake that so many had made before him, ignoring the tiny boy, failing to consider him a threat. If that were the case, Caroline knew he’d soon regret that judgment.