‘Before you rush in and get yourself fried to a crisp, tell me where the fire escape is?’
Gemma wriggled in a fury of impatience, but he merely gathered more sweater into his hand. As Doctor Gibbons joined them, she said urgently: ‘At the back, where my wing joins the extension behind—there’s a side door with a small staircase which leads to the landing outside my ward…’
‘The way we came the other day, from the centre door—that will be impossible now; the wind’s blowing strongly from the centre towards your wing… Is there a fire chute?’
‘Yes—I know where it’s kept.’
‘Good.’ He turned to Doctor Gibbons. ‘Shall we try the side door, get into the ward and get the chute going from a window at this end? The fire escape is a good way away, I doubt if they can move the old ladies fast enough—if the dividing wall should go…’
They were already running towards the house. In a moment they were inside, to find the staircase intact. ‘Get between us,’ said the professor shortly, and took the stairs two at a time, with Gemma hard on his heels and Doctor Gibbons keeping up gamely. The landing, when they reached it, was full of smoke, but although the fire could be heard crackling and roaring close by, the thick wall was still holding it back. The professor opened the ward door on to pandemonium; Gemma had a quick glimpse of the night staff nurse tearing down the ward propelling a wheelchair with old Mrs Draper wedged into it; it looked for all the world like a macabre parody of an Easter pram race. There wasn’t much smoke; just a few lazy puffs curling round the door frame.
Gemma didn’t wait to see more but turned and ran upstairs to the next floor where the escape chute was, stored in one of the poky, disused attics which in former days would have been used by some over-worked servant. The door was locked—she should have thought of that. She raced downstairs again, took the key from her office and tore back. The chute was heavy and cumbersome, but she managed to drag it out of the room and push and pull it along the passage to the head of the stairs where she gave it a shove strong enough to send it lumbering down to the landing below. But now she would need help; she ran to the ward door and opened it cautiously. The professor was quite near, lifting Mrs Thomas out of her bed and settling her in the wheelchair a nursing aide was holding steady. He glanced up, said something to the nurse, who sped away towards the distant fire escape, and came to the door.
‘I can’t manage the chute,’ said Gemma urgently. ‘It’s on the landing.’
He nodded, swept her on one side and went past her, shutting the door, leaving her in the ward. The beds, she noticed, had been pulled away from the inner wall and ranged close to the windows, and there were only six patients left. She sighed with relief as the professor came back with the chute and she went to give him a helping hand.
There was still only a little smoke in the ward, although the roar of the fire sounded frighteningly near. Gemma shut her mind to the sound and began the difficult task of getting Miss Bird, hopelessly crippled with arthritis, out of her bed, wrapped and tied into a blanket ready to go down the chute. The nursing aide had come back; she could hear the professor telling her to go down first so that she could catch the patients as they arrived at the bottom. The nurse gave him a scared look.
‘I’ve never done it before,’ she told him in a small scared voice.
The professor eyed her sturdy figure. ‘Then have a go,’ he said persuasively, and actually laughed. ‘I’ve thrown a mattress down. Don’t try to catch the ladies, just ease them out and get help, any help, if you can. And be quick, my dear, for the inner wall isn’t going to hold out much longer.’
Gemma glanced over her shoulder. He was right; the smoke was thickening with every moment and there was a nasty crackling sound. She left Miss Bird to be picked up by the professor and hurried to the next bed—Mrs Trump, fragile, heaven knew, but very clear in the head, which helped a lot. She saw Nurse Drew plunge down the chute out of the corner of her eye, and a minute later, Miss Bird, protesting vigorously, followed her. She was ready with Mrs Trump by now and wheeled her bed nearer the chute and then wasted a few precious seconds dragging empty beds out of the way so that they had more room.
The professor already had a patient in his arms and she was tackling the third old lady when the wall at the other end of the ward caved in with a loud rumble, an enormous amount of dust and smoke and great flames of fire. Gemma, tying her patient into her blanket, found that her hands were shaking so much that she could hardly tie the knots. The professor was going twice as fast now, getting the next old lady into her blanket; she finished what she was doing and went to the last occupied bed—Mrs Craddock, apparently unworried by the appalling situation, blissfully unable to hear the noise around her. As Gemma rolled her into the blanket she shouted cheerfully: ‘A nasty fire, Sister dear. I hope there’ll be a nice cup of tea when you’ve put it out!’
Gemma gabbled reassurances as she worried away at the knots. The flames were licking down the wall that was left at a great rate now, and she could have done with a nice cup of tea herself. She was so frightened that her mind had become a blank. All that registered was that Mrs Craddock must be got down the chute at all costs.
The professor, elbowing her on one side without ceremony tugged the webbing tight with an admirably steady hand and bent to take Mrs Craddock’s not inconsiderable weight. ‘Come along,’ he said almost roughly, adding unnecessarily: ‘Don’t hang around.’
Mrs Craddock was stoutly built as well as heavy, and it took the professor a few precious moments to get her safely into the chute and speed her on her way. They were unable to hear the reassuring shout from below when she got there because the rest of the wall caved in with a thunder of sound. It did so slowly, like slow motion, thought Gemma, stupidly gawping at it, incapable of movement. The professor shouted something at her, but his voice, powerful though it might be, had no chance against the din around them. She felt herself swung off her feet and hurled into the chute. She hit the mattress at the bottom with a thump and a dozen hands dragged her, just in time, out of the way of the professor, hard on her heels.
The next few hours were a nightmare, although it wasn’t until afterwards that Gemma thought about them, for there was too much to do; old ladies, scattered around in chairs, on mattresses, wrapped up warmly on garden seats—the fire brigade were there by now and a great many helpers who had seen the fire from the village and come helter-skelter on bikes and in cars; the butcher in his van, the milkman, Mr Bates and Mr Knott, the gentleman farmer who lived in the big house at the other end of the village. The only person Gemma didn’t see was Charlie Briggs, who really should have been there and wasn’t. She wondered about him briefly as she went round with Matron and Night Sister, carefully checking that each patient would be fit to be moved. Now and again she brushed against the professor, listened carefully when he bade her do something or other, and then lost sight of him again.
The beginnings of a May morning were showing in the sky by the time the last ambulance had been sped on its way, leaving a shambles of burnt-out wards, broken furniture and everything else in sight soaked with water. Those who had come to help began to go home again while Matron, looking quite different in slacks and a jumper, thanked each of them in turn. Presently they had all gone, leaving Gemma and Doctor Gibbons, Matron, the night staff and the professor standing in what had once been the imposing entrance, while firemen sorted over the bits and pieces, making sure that all was safe before they too left.
It was the professor who suggested that he should drive everyone to their homes; Matron had been offered temporary shelter with the rector, whose house could be seen through the trees half a mile away, the rest of them lived round and about, not too far away, excepting for one nursing aide who came from Salisbury. He sorted them out, taking those who lived close by before driving Matron down the road to the Rectory. That left Gemma and Doctor Gibbons and the girl from Salisbury; he squeezed all of them into the car, left Gemma and the doctor at the latter’s gate and drove on to the city. Gemma watched the car out of sight, yawned and started for her own garden gate.
‘They’ve slept