The Escape - Robert Muchamore Page 0,30

and saw a fresh bullet hole in the masonry less than thirty centimetres above them.

‘Too close,’ Rosie gasped, close to tears and with her hands shaking.

A few metres ahead, a boy of about six cowered under the rusted frame of a market stall.

‘This square is too open,’ Mr Clarke said. ‘It’s a shooting gallery. Keep to the side streets as you walk back to the car.’

Another blast of machine-gun fire ripped off in the distance and an elderly refugee with his coat over his head kept rocking back and forth yelling, ‘I can’t stand it,’ over and over.

‘There’s a dot of blood on your shirt, Dad,’ Rosie noted.

Mr Clarke looked down and saw a coin-sized circle of blood just below his nipple. ‘Shrapnel,’ he explained. ‘Just a nick.’

High above them, an aeroplane was going into a dive.

‘Stuka,’ Mr Clarke yelled, as he grabbed Rosie’s hand.

The risk of falling masonry in a bomb blast made Clarke avoid the narrow alleyway they’d emerged from minutes earlier. He led his kids across the cobbles and made it into a side street as the first of three bombs exploded. The first two hit the marketplace, slaughtering many who’d already been shot, along with those struggling to drag them out of harm’s way. The third bomb hit the front steps of the civic hall, demolishing the front porch and tearing a hole in the façade that exposed desks and filing cabinets on the upper floors.

The Clarkes moved briskly into the side street, chased by dust and the sickly smell of burned meat. Rosie realised it was human flesh, but knew she had to keep the thought out of her head if she wanted to avoid breaking down.

‘What about the little boy under the table?’ Paul asked anxiously. ‘Did either of you see him after—’

Before Paul could finish his father stopped moving, to the consternation of a woman running behind with a pram who had to swerve out of his way. Mr Clarke had grabbed his handkerchief and began coughing into it.

‘Are you OK?’ Paul asked.

‘It’s the dust,’ Rosie said, shielding her eyes with a hand.

But as Clarke pulled the handkerchief away from his face, he spattered his daughter with blood.

‘Oh god,’ Rosie gasped. ‘Dad!’

With each cough Clarke wheezed desperately for air but his throat was clogged with blood, and the coin-sized patch on his shirt had turned into a soggy red dinner-plate.

‘What’s happening?’ Paul asked, as Rosie grabbed her father’s arm and helped him to sit on the kerb.

‘Deeper,’ Mr Clarke croaked, as he looked desperately at the wound in his chest. ‘Must be …’

‘It’s right where his heart is, or his lung … or something,’ Rosie said, glancing around desperately. As legs swept by she realised that theirs was just one crisis amidst a hundred.

‘Henderson,’ he croaked, as the blood-soaked handkerchief fell away from his face. ‘Find him. Give him the papers.’

‘You’re not going to die, Dad,’ Paul said, more out of hope than conviction.

Mr Clarke used the last of his energy to look at his son and mouth the word Sorry with his bloody lips.

‘Dad!’ Rosie screamed, shaking him as she glanced all around. ‘Just hang on, there must be someone …’

But suddenly there was no resistance and Mr Clarke’s head flopped backwards. Unmoving eyes stared at her, glazed and still, like a pair of marbles.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It’s hard to grasp when something so big happens. Paul and Rosie felt like some giant magnet held them in place. They kept looking at each other, then back at their father, to confirm that he was really dead.

Several minutes passed. The dust from the explosions settled and the aeroplanes retreated into the surrounding countryside, but neither Paul nor Rosie spoke. Their first sentence had to capture the enormity of what had happened and they couldn’t find the words.

Normally there would be a safety net – police, ambulance, telephones – but they’d seen enough of the evacuation to know that normal rules didn’t apply. They’d stepped over death and looked away from pain and now it was their turn to be the ones sitting at the roadside while the world passed by.

‘I’ve lost my mummy,’ a small boy said.

It was the lad Paul had seen hiding under the market stall. He was stocky, no more than six, and so dusty that he could have been a statue of himself. Part of Rosie wanted to tell him to scram because she had enough problems, but he was a cute little thing and it was a relief to have