The Emerald Valley (74 page)

‘Good idea, Gordy. We haven't been in the hut lately.'

The shared cigarette was ground out and they started off down Porter's Hill, walking shoulder to shoulder until they came within sight of the windows. Then they kept to the side of the road, creeping in Indian file in the shadow of the hedge. The lane was usually the most dangerous part, as it was lit by the occasional lamp and within view of the house, but tonight the mist obscured them enough to make it reasonably safe. Through the barbed wire fence they went and across the yard between the high piles of timber to the large shed which stood in the far corner.

Made of wood-planks, its door tight-fitting and pad-locked, the shed was to all intents and purposes secure. But the boys knew otherwise. On one side there was a gap between the planks, too narrow for a man to climb through but allowing just enough space for a boy.

They lined up beside the gap, Huw keeping look-out while the other two crawled through, then following himself, lying prone and wriggling, wriggling, until first his body was in and then, by inching back to the widest space, his head. Inside he rolled over, and got up, the familiar feeling of triumph exciting him. Just to know you had breached a Porter stronghold was exhilarating enough, the fact that it gave cover for a game of five-stones or cards was an added bonus.

Inside the shed was divided into three by means of wooden partitions – one ‘room'taking up a full half of the hut, while the other half was bisected by another partition. The large ‘room'was bare and more or less empty except for a few cans and containers and a tangled heap of chains and ropes, but the inner sections were piled high with boxes and bundles of papers and records which had been turned out from the main filing system but not thrown away. The boys had investigated them once, but found them deadly dull – a mass of unintelligible figures and references – and now they ignored them completely, going straight through into the large room. There they arranged a pile of ropes in a corner and squatted down on the scratchy hemp ‘cushion', Stuart producing a pack of cards from his pocket. It was just possible to see the cards by the light of the nearest gas-lamp as it shone through the square, high-up window and they played pontoon for a while, using odd bits of sticks as tokens. Huw, acting as banker, did well and before long the other two boys had no tokens left.

‘This isn't much fun. You always win,' Gordon complained.

‘Trouble is, it's so bloomin'cold!' Stuart added.

On that they were all agreed. Sitting in one place, they had grown cold without noticing it. Now they shivered, pulling their jackets around them and hunching their shoulders to retain what little warmth they still had.

‘P'raps we'd best go home.'

‘But it's early yet.'

‘Tell you what, we could light a fire!' Gordon suggested.

The others regarded him suspiciously.

‘See – we could built it on that concrete,' he continued. ‘It looks as if it's for a fire anyway.'

Certainly the square slab of concrete set against one of the walls of the hut looked as if it might have been intended as the base for a coke stove. Whether there was once a stove which had been dismantled later, or whether it had never been installed at all, the boys didn't know, but there was no sign of a stove or stove-pipe now – just the blackened concrete base.

‘What could we light a fire with?' Stuart asked. ‘We ain't got nothing to burn.'

‘There's plenty of wood out there!' Gordon jeered. ‘And I've got some matches for me fags, haven't I?'

It was good enough for them. Huw and Stuart wriggled out between the boards again, collecting sticks and the driest pieces of wood they could find and passing them back to Gordon. Then they climbed inside again and gathered expectantly around the bonfire which Gordon had built on the concrete slab.

‘Come on, then, light it! What are we waiting for?'

Gordon produced the matches and struck one, but the wood was damp and unwilling to catch. Huw fetched a few of the sheets of yellowed paper from the back room, screwed them up and placed them beneath the stick; by blowing hard on this they managed to produce a flicker of flame which ran up one twig in an uncertain path before dying again.

‘It's going! It's going to go!' Stuart encouraged. ‘Try again!'

Huw fetched more paper and the three bent determinedly over the smouldering pile, alternately fanning and sheltering it. But the damp sticks still proved stubborn.

‘Good job we ain't got to cook our supper like this,' Stuart commented. ‘We'd starve, wouldn't us?'

‘It's never going to go,' Huw said. ‘Come on, let's go in the other room and have a game of five-stones. It'll be more comfortable on the boxes than it is sitting on this rope.'

He and Stuart went off into the inner sanctum, but Gordon hung back, reluctant to give up on his idea.

‘Oh, let him stay and mess about with it if he wants to,' Huw said. ‘We'll have a game, shall we?'

He and Stuart settled down on the damp boxes as well as they could, dealing the cards between them and ignoring the sounds from the outer room where Gordon was still fiddling with his fire. Then a sudden whoosh! made them jump, almost out of their skins.

‘Crikey! What was that?'

They rushed to the doorway to see a visibly shaken Gordon backing away from the now blazing fire. In his hand he was holding one of the cans.

‘What was that? What did you do?' Huw asked, while across him Gordon was explaining loudly, ‘I think it's petrol. I put some on the fire to make it go …'

‘It's going now all right!' Stuart cackled.

Huw was aware of a stab of alarm. Certainly the fire was going – flames were licking around some chunks of wood which Gordon had stacked on it. But showers of sparks were spiralling up towards the tarpaulin roof and a couple of sticks thrown out by the force of the explosion were burning on the wood-plank floor of the hut.

He ran to them, trying to kick them back, but instead one landed on a small patch of spilled petrol and within moments an area of the floor was burning.

‘We've got to put this out!' Huw instructed.

‘What with?' For the first time Stuart sounded frightened.

They looked around them. There was nothing to hand but the pile of hemp ropes.

‘Try them!' They dragged out the ropes, trying to bundle them together into a cushion to stifle the flames, but as they threw it haphazardly they succeeded only in scattering the fire and several other small patches where Gordon had dripped petrol began to burn.

‘Come on, let's get out of here!' Stuart yelled in panic.

‘No, you idiots, we've got to put it out!' Huw was stamping on the burning wood with his booted feet and when the other boys did not reply, he turned to see them threshing their way out of the gap in the planking.

‘Come back! Help me!' he yelled, but they took no notice.

Frightened, he turned back to see that the fire was worse than ever. He almost followed his friends through the plank-gap to safety, but a vision of Amy's fury if she got to find out about this stopped him. He tried again to blanket the flames with the ropes, but in vain; then, as a last desperate resort he tore off his jacket and beat at the fire. One section succumbed, dying to a pile of glowing embers, but on the other side of the concrete slab he suddenly noticed a trail of fire snaking across the floor.

Why should it do that? he wondered, momentarily puzzled. Then, as he realised it was heading straight for the petrol can which Gordon had set down under the window, he knew. More spilled fuel, short fuse to a fireball!

The fear he felt then was so sharp it was white-hot, exploding through his veins. He beat the licking fire to the petrol can, picked it up and hurled it at the window. The glass smashed as it went through, but the cap – loosened by Gordon – came off and more petrol spilled out, splashing onto Huw's hand and the floor and filling the air with heavy fumes. Then, as the fire reached the saturated patch, the floor and the wooden wall beneath the window went up in a mass of flames.

In that moment Huw knew there was nothing more he could do to contain the fire. In utter panic he rushed across to the gap in the planks, dropping to his knees and trying to wriggle himself through. But getting in and out as a lark was one thing; trying to force himself through with a raging fire behind him and panic in his heart was quite another. His head stuck, his shoulders stuck and when he attempted to push through a leg, the thick heel of his boot caught on the plank. The smoke was in his nostrils now and in his mouth, thick and acrid, choking him; showers of sparks flew upwards and with a faint roar the roof caught.

The panic shot through him again, fierce and licking as the flames. I'm not going to get out! he thought. I'm trapped! But in the midst of the terror there was a tiny area of calm which seemed to visualise the scene as clearly as if he was somewhere above, looking down on it all.

He saw beneath him the blazing hut, the petrol cans outside the window exploding with the heat, himself trapped as the fire gained strength around him. It was the most peculiar sensation he had ever experienced.

Then he was coughing again, his eyes streaming as he threw himself once more at the wretchedly small gap which was his only way out … And felt in his heart the terrible certainty that it was hopeless.

Amy was still sitting in the kitchen deep in thought when she heard the hammering on the door.

‘All right – all right – I'm coming!'

She opened it to see two small dishevelled boys.

‘Mrs Roberts! Quick – quick!'

‘There's a fire! Huw … !'

They were so out of breath that it was a moment before she could make out what they were saying.

‘Calm down, lads! What is it?'

‘A fire down at the timber yard! Huw's trapped!'

‘Huw?' Still she could not comprehend. They weren't making sense.

‘Huw! He's still in the shed! It's all afire! Quick!'

Their panic got through to her in spite of their incoherence and she looked from one to the other, cold fear beginning in the pit of her stomach. Stuart and Gordon. Huw's friends. But no Huw …

‘Quick missus! Come quick!'

She stopped for nothing more. Something was terribly wrong. She reached inside the door for her old mackintosh, pulling it on as she followed them. Half-way up the path she realised she was still wearing her slippers, but that scarcely mattered. As the boys began to run, Amy ran too, screaming at them and trying to get them to explain.

‘What is it? What's happened? Stuart – where is Huw?'

As they reached the open ground behind the Rank she saw the flames, searing orange through the mist.

‘Oh, my God!' She stopped, appalled. ‘Fire!'

‘Yes – yes!' They were chattering, gibbering. ‘Quick!'

‘Has anybody rung for the fire brigade?' she asked, thinking of her phone, trying to be calm. ‘The hooter hasn't gone, has it?'

Almost as she spoke it began, a shrill siren echoing through the darkness and the mist. Somehow it added to the nightmare atmosphere and she began to run towards the fire again. The boys ran with her but then at the bottom of the hill they hung back, fascinated yet afraid and guilty, knowing they were responsible for the holocaust that met their eyes. The hut was well ablaze, but now the fire had spread and whole piles of timber were blazing, sending showers of sparks into the air while smoke hung in a heavy pall over everything. It blew into Amy's face, stinging her eyes and throat; she coughed, turning and twisting. The boys were at her heels again and she grabbed hold of Stuart's arm.

‘Where is Huw?'

‘In the hut. We were in the hut …'

‘Oh, my God,' she said again.

The gate to the yard was wide open now and she ran through it, her feet turning on the uneven ground. The hut was a ball of fire, blazing fiercely. In the light of the flames she saw a tall figure she recognised.

Ralph! He must have been at home, seen the flames and come down. She ran towards him, all differences forgotten as hysteria rose in a choking tide.

‘Ralph! Ralph …'

He turned and saw her. ‘Get out of here, Amy! Get away – go on!'

‘No! Ralph …' she grabbed his arm. ‘Huw's in there! The boys said …'

‘Huw? Where?'

‘In the hut! They said …' She turned, but the boys had gone. ‘They said he's in the hut!' she screamed.

‘How can he be? It was locked.'

‘I don't know. But they said … they said …'

‘All right. All right, Amy.' He was searching in his pockets and she heard the jangle of keys. ‘Stay here!' he instructed and then began to run.

She couldn't do as he told her but began to run after him, dodging between the showering sparks and the blazing timber.

The door of the hut was still standing, though through the window the flames danced and leaped. Ralph was fumbling with the padlock and as the door swung open the fire came roaring out.

‘Huw!' she rushed forward. The hut was an inferno, the heat seared her face and she screamed in panic – jumping back, then rallying. ‘Huw! I must get to him … !'

As she darted forward he caught her, taking her arms in an iron grip. She half swung round, fighting him. ‘Let me go! Let me go! Huw … !'

‘You can't! Amy …'

‘I've got to! Let me!' She was sobbing now as well as screaming. ‘He's in there … he's in there … oh, God … Ralph …'

But his grip did not relax and he dragged her away. As her feet scrabbled on the ground one slipper came off and she kicked out of it, still fighting and crying, ‘Huw! Huw!'

‘You can't go in there! No one can.'

Above the roar and crackle and the sound of her own cries she heard the jangling bell of the fire-engine coming closer, rattling down the lane and screaming into the yard. Even before it had stopped the firemen were leaping down, strange alien figures in hastily-buttoned jackets and helmets. Then the hose snaked down and through blurred and streaming eyes she saw them rush with it towards the river. There were shouted instructions now adding to the general chaos, and after what seemed a lifetime the water came gushing through the hose, a steady jet playing on the blaze.