Read Online Coventry by Helen Humphreys - Free Book Online Page B

they did when they were filled with a human form, and this was the sad truth she wished she could tell the customers but was never brave enough to do so.
    What kind of life had she given Jeremy? What kind of life had she given herself? If they survive this night, she will never move again.
     
     
    Harriet and Jeremy see the horses on High Street. Three horses running down the road, their manes lifting through the smoke, their hooves knocking on the cobblestones. Three night horses. The horses run right past them, close enough to touch. They are running away from the fire and the bombing, running toward the open fan of countryside outside of the city.
    Above them, Harriet can hear the bombers. The planes come in waves and sound exactly like that, like the pulse and pound of sea on the sand, a muffled, rhythmic heaviness. She doesn’t look up, even though, on such a clear night she might be able to make out the shape of the planes. But they have been warned not to watch bombing raids, not to gaze upward, as the pilots might see the reflection of their faces in the light of the fires and use their faces as guides to drop their bombs.
    The horses are gone now, disappearing into the smoke and the dust, into the frantic darkness. Perhaps their stable burned down and they escaped; or perhaps the horses were set free by their owner. On their own they have a better chance of surviving. Their flight is swifter than human flight. Their instincts are sharper.
    The Old Palace Yard, where Harriet has sometimes come to concerts with Wendell Mumby, is a heap of rubble. She remembers the untidy Tudor beauty of the building, how the upper storey leant out over the lower storey, how the panes in the upper storey windows shivered with age. It was a building full of sombre wood and streaky light. Harriet remembers the smooth feel of the stair railing, how it slid under her hand as she ascended to the second floor.
    “Look,” cries Jeremy. He seems to be less afraid now, to have taken on new energy.
    There are two men stumbling along in front of them. Each holds on to an end of a door. Lying on the door is a woman. Her clothes are torn and her head is twisted unnaturally on her body. They disappear into the smoke up ahead.
    Now that Harriet has seen one body she suddenly begins to notice that all around them are the dead and injured. In their flight down High Street they pass the bodies of dead men and women, limbs visible, soft shapes beneath the hard shift of the collapsed buildings. They see a child’s body lying in the road, thrown there by the blast of a bomb. Even though she has lived through the other, earlier raids, Harriet can see that this one is much worse. She never saw bodies before. Those raids were over quickly, leaving their targets destroyed but much else intact. This raid seems intent on destroying everything.
    At one point Harriet hears an ambulance siren, but never sees the actual vehicle. The rescue services don’t seem to be able to push through the wreckage.
    “This is worse than the other raids,” yells Jeremy, echoing her thoughts.
    The farther they stumble through the centre of the city, the more Harriet understands how catastrophic is the damage. Buses are on their sides. The tramlines are ripped up, the steel rails twisted as easily as the wire of a coat hanger.
    Harriet’s mother used to recite something about the trams. Harriet remembers how it frightened her when she was young, the sight of her mother’s face leering over her bed in the dark.
Mama, Mama, what is that mess
That looks like strawberry jam?
Hush, hush, my dear, ’tis just Papa,
Run over by a tram.
     
    Is she losing her mind?
    “Over here,” yells Jeremy. He’s kneeling down beside a pile of bricks. Harriet hears the high-pitched whine of a bomb falling, cringes and covers her head, but the bomb explodes a few streets over. She coughs from the dust, scrambles over to Jeremy, who is frantically digging through the bricks. “I saw his hand