THE shadows were lengthening across the show ground, and the sunlight slanted in golden shafts across the quiet Surrey meadows. In the ring the jumps lay piled beside the ropes, leaving a clear run for the gymkhana ponies, and the audience was starting to thin, as people made their way towards the gates and joined the long queues at the bus stops. The show jumpers, hacks, show ponies and hunters were being loaded into their cattle trucks, trailers, and horse boxes, heavy lorries crawled carefully across the rough ground to the gate, bouncing over the cart ruts, and revving their engines frantically to get them up the steep, slippery slope to the road.
Roberta Morton put her tack into the passenger compartment of the big Bedford four-horse box belonging to the Bracken Hills Riding School, pushed her short, wavy brown hair back from her small, vivacious face, and gave her famous chestnut mare, Shelta, a last pat before jumping down and slamming the door on the two horses inside. Red-haired Heath Graham, who, like Bobby, worked for the Bracken stables, was fixing the three rosettes that they had won in the cab window, Shelta’s two blue firsts, and June Evening’s second from the novice class.
“They’re a wonderful advertisement,” remarked Bobby, climbing into the cab. “Not that we really need one at the moment.”
“We certainly don’t,” agreed Heath, remembering the teeming pupils and the endless lessons which went on all day, and sometimes, it seemed, half the night in the indoor school and the paddock at Bracken.
Heath finished fixing the rosettes where they could be seen by people outside and settled into the driving seat, switching on the ignition. A few minutes later they were driving slowly out into the road, people standing aside to let them pass, and Heath turned the box towards home, along the quiet, shadowy lanes.
As they rattled steadily along, with the shadows falling longer across their path as the sun sank towards the wooded hills of Surrey, Bobby happily remembered each glorious moment of Shelta’s two jumping classes, as she always could remember the details of her beloved mare’s performances. Shelta was jumping better than ever now, she decided, after her winter’s rest. It was her first show of any size since their tremendous success at Harringay last October, when they had won the B.S.J.A. spurs for the highest number of points gained by any one rider on one horse in the competitions held under B.S.J.A. rules during the days of the show.
“She really was going well today,” remarked Heath, signalling to an impatient, snarling sports car that she was ready to be overtaken.
“Yes. Two jump offs, and not a fence down all afternoon,” agreed Bobby, remembering Shelta floating effortlessly over the big triple to beat internationally famous Keith Rhodes by a clear round to his horse’s four faults.
“I meant June,” said Heath mildly. “I thought she was wonderful to come second with all that competition.”
“Oh yes, she was. Sorry. I was thinking about Shelta,” Bobby smiled. “You know, the only thing wrong with working for Guy is that it makes me professional, which means I can’t jump her in the British Team,” she said. “I’m sure she’d be good enough.”
“So am I,” agreed Heath. “But short of leaving Guy and getting a job in an office or something, I don’t see that there’s much you can do about it.”
Bobby agreed, knowing that she would never consider the idea. She was far too happy at Bracken, working for Guy Mathews, the young man who owned the riding school, and jumping some of his horses as well as her own Shelta in the shows.
High above them the sky was turning a darker blue as the sun sank towards the horizon, and the evening star appeared, pale against the darkening sky above the wooded slopes and the large suburban houses, the open stretches of common land, the golf links, patchy farmlands, and arterial roads of which Surrey is formed. They were just turning off the main road into one of the quiet lanes which led towards Bracken Hills when above the throb of their engine and the sound of traffic on the main coast road they heard the deep, stuttering roar of a heavy ’plane with engine trouble. Bobby peered out of the cab at the quiet, pale sky, and the ’plane came into view, a little to their right, still quite high, but diving steeply, with a dark banner of smoke trailing from one of its engines.
“Heath, he’s going to crash,” she exclaimed.
“He might reach Gatwick,” replied Heath, watching the smoke thicken behind the machine. “It isn’t so far away.”
But Bobby doubted it. The ’plane’s dive seemed to become even steeper, and it was hidden from sight by the tree-covered slopes of the North Downs.
“I hope he manages to get down somewhere safely, anyway,” she said as the box gathered speed again along the quiet road.
As she finished speaking they were both startled by the dull roll of a distant explosion. Bobby gave an exclamation of horror, and the box swung slightly as Heath instinctively glanced in the direction in which the ’plane had vanished. There was an indignant blast on the horn of a following car, and Bobby said, “Heath, there’s smoke over there, towards Bracken.”
“It can’t possibly be the village,” said Heath firmly. “Not with all those hills round it. He must have hit the downs above the valley. I only hope they all managed to get out first.”
Bobby agreed, still gazing at the smoke, hating the thought of anyone crashing in flames like that. Heath drove on through the quiet lanes towards Bracken, and the thick black cloud was hidden from sight as they drove through Fern Dene, the next village to Bracken Hills, and took the quiet, tree-shadowed road towards Bracken. It was dark beneath the interlacing branches, and Heath switched on the headlights as they momentarily left the woods and passed Bracken Hills Station, with the pink stationmaster’s cottage behind it. From here another dark, deserted lane led to the village itself. Both girls were silent, remembering the roar of the explosion and the heavy cloud of oily smoke drifting above the downs. They rounded a bend faster than Heath normally drove with horses behind her, and Heath’s feet went down suddenly on brake and clutch at the sight of a riderless horse trotting in a nervous, hesitant manner up the centre of the road. She had the cab door open and was down on the road in a moment, with Bobby close behind her.
“Steady, girl. Steady, Froth.” Heath was holding out her hand. Pink Froth, fourteen two, strawberry roan, and one of the best gymkhana ponies in Surrey, stopped dead, staring at them with head flung up and eyes wild. In the light from the box headlamps she looked crazy and terrified, white glinting round her big dark eyes, nostrils red rimmed, and sweat creaming on her neck and flanks. But she allowed Heath to catch her, and without speaking Bobby fetched a halter from the box and slipped it over the pony’s tense ears. Then she lowered the ramp, the pony was hustled inside before she could think of jibbing, and the two girls scrambled back into the cab, not daring to put into words the thing that they both feared. Heath put the box into gear, surprised to find that her hands were shaking, and sent it leaping forward, ignoring the bangs of balancing horses behind her.
“She could have dodged out somehow,” said Bobby hopefully as Heath changed rapidly into top gear and trod on the accelerator.
“She could,” agreed Heath, swinging the box round a bend behind the swinging path of its headlights. One more bend and Bracken Hills was in sight. Both girls caught their breath at the sight ahead of them. The village itself seemed deserted, cottage doors stood open, a dog barked at a closed gate, and over everything, blotting out the evening star, hung a heavy pall of smoke. Somewhere ahead a flickering glow was reflected on the trees, and above the sound of the box they heard the clang of bells. Heath took the last long bend rather wildly, missing the kerb by a miracle, and pulling up sharply behind a police car. For a moment both girls just stared in stunned silence, unable to realise that they were not dreaming. For instead of the short, dark drive, and beyond it the softly lighted square of loose boxes, barns, and tack room, they saw the lurid flicker of flames, licking along rows of ruined loose boxes, the glowing, twisted parts of the crashed ’plane, the drifting cloud of evil smelling smoke, scarlet fire engines standing side by side in the road, while firemen, dark silhouettes against the heavy glow of the fire, played powerful jets of water on the flames. Two ambulances stood parked nearby, their white paint looking pink in the weird light. Several wild-eyed, sweating, panic-stricken horses milled among the crowd, while a few helpful onlookers attempted to catch them, and more people stood massed at the end of the drive, staring at the fire.
Feeling that she must wake at any moment Bobby climbed slowly down from the box, and followed by Heath pushed her way through the crowd towards the drive. Several people tried to stop her, or speak to her, but Bobby only wanted to hear, sensibly and truthfully, what had happened to everyone, to Guy, to the resident pupils, and to the horses. The entrance to the stable yard was blocked by the main fuselage of the ’plane, a mass of blazing fabric and struts, broken in two, seats hanging out of the shattered body, with the flames sweeping over them. There did not appear to be anyone inside, for which Bobby was thankful. The pilot had probably been making for the open fields beyond the stables, Bobby realised, and he had just failed to reach them. He seemed to have swept the tops off the boxes on the right of the yard as he came in, and had crashed just in front of them, the nose and forepart breaking away to bounce on to the boxes on the left. The firemen were playing thousands of gallons of water over the fiercely burning wreckage, somewhere a horse was kicking and screaming, and Bobby grabbed the arm of a nearby policeman, who was helping to keep the crowd back.
“Have you seen Mr. Mathews, the owner?” she asked desperately.
“Yes, he’s all right Miss, he wasn’t hurt,” the policeman assured her. “You’ll very likely find him with his horses, in the road.”
Bobby was staring into the smoke and flames, towards the sound of kicking.
“Is there a horse trapped somewhere?” she asked, finding herself forced to shout in order to make herself heard above the roar of the flames, the hiss of water, and the shouts of men.
“Well, I’m afraid there were several we couldn’t get out,” explained the policeman. “Had to stop Mr. Mathews from trying, he’d have got himself killed. Now, you go and help him look after the horses, Miss. You can’t do any good here.”
Bobby hardly heard the last part of the sentence. There was another way into the yard. She turned, forcing her way through the crowd across the bottom of the drive, and heading for the gate into the jumping paddock behind the stables. Then she was running over the rough grass behind the blazing boxes, heading for the other gate into the yard. There were two more fire engines parked there, the hoses leading in through the gateway. Bobby went straight in. The boxes, barn, and tack room across the top of the yard seemed undamaged, the box doors stood open, and the horses were gone. But the rest of the yard seemed an impossible inferno. But from somewhere behind that thick barrier of smoke, and the masses of wreckage and rubble, came the sound of kicking.
Bobby was past the firemen before anyone saw her, and was plunging into the smoke. The heat from the burning ’plane hit her like a solid wall, but she gasped and ran on. A roof shifted and fell inwards, sending up a shower of sparks, and there was the sudden roar of a new fire. The horse was not far away now, screaming on a high pitched note of terror that made Bobby feel sick. It was then that she saw Guy. He was struggling to shift a jammed door, his brown hair falling over his eyes, the lurid glow of the flames throwing weird shadows over him. There was a crash from inside the box, and Bobby hurried to help. It was unbelievably hot; the box was one of three that had somehow escaped the first blaze, and were so far only smouldering. One of them was Shelta’s, Bobby realised, and then remembered with a rush of relief that her horse was safe in the box outside.
The noise came from the centre one, and Bobby joined Guy in tugging at the broken, swollen top door. They were hidden from the fire fighters by the wreckage and the smoke. Both were weak with coughing, and Bobby could hardly see from her stinging, watering eyes.
“Bobby, get out of this,” ordered Guy hoarsely.
Bobby ignored the order, and with both of them pulling the door gave way, and burst suddenly open, sending Bobby backwards. The ground was hot under her hands as she scrambled to her feet, and Guy was hauling open the lower door.
He vanished into the dark, smoke-filled interior of the loose box, and at the same moment there was a crunching sound, and sparks flew up from the blazing roof of the box next door.
“Guy,” screamed Bobby. “Get out.”
She could dimly see the beam which ran along the row of boxes, supporting the roofs, and as she watched it was beginning to sag, charred through at one end by the flames. Hooves trampled desperately on the concrete floor of the box, and Bobby heard Guy’s calm voice as he spoke to the horse. Then there was a sharp cracking noise, tiles slid from the roof in a sudden, crashing shower, and abruptly the whole thing caved in. Bobby saw Guy for an instant, almost in the doorway, then something seemed to hit him, and he fell. For a moment she could see nothing but falling tiles and rafters, smoke, dust, and sparks, and then, as the rubble settled a little, she saw Guy trapped beneath the main beam, lying on his back, still holding the horse’s head collar. With a shock of horror Bobby saw that it was his bold bay thoroughbred, Sergeant, on whom he had won so many combined training events. The lovely head was pulled back at an unnatural angle, and the head collar was dragged half off. Guy was conscious, and quite calm, as Bobby wondered frantically how to start getting him out.
“You can’t do anything alone,” Guy told her. “You’ll have to get some help, I’m afraid.”
“I won’t be long.” Bobby hated leaving him, but certainly she was not strong enough to shift the beam, and she might dislodge more rubble. She dashed away through the smoke, back towards the fire fighters, startling them with her sudden appearance from what they had thought to be a deserted inferno. They had not noticed her when she dived into the smoke to look for the trapped horse.
“Mr. Mathews is trapped,” she told one of them breathlessly. “Do come quickly, the whole box may collapse on him.”
“Right, we’re on our way.” The man looked round for more helpers, and a stretcher party who had been standing by beside the gate joined them. Bobby led the way back into the murk.
Guy was still in the same position, but the roaring, leaping flames were closer, and the red light flickered over his white face. The rescue party wasted no time. For a few agonising moments Bobby watched as they worked desperately to free him. The flames were licking across the open roof of the box as they started to lift the beam, and Bobby wanted to run, to get away from the stifling smoke, the heat, and the horror, out into the quiet, dew soaked fields, but she waited, while the beam was raised high enough for Guy to be dragged clear, and he was carried out into the yard, and on to the stretcher, the rescue party following hastily as something else collapsed with a crash inside the stable.
Guy was unconscious now, his white face smoke grimed and streaked with blood, his smoke-darkened, tangled hair white with plaster dust, his hands torn and blistered from the jagged bricks and splintered wood. Bobby walked beside the stretcher as they left the worst of the heat and confusion, and gained the comparative peace of the field gateway. An ambulance was drawn up, waiting, and Guy was lifted in. Bobby was shepherded in after him, but she insisted that she was all right, and would only accept a lift as far as the road, where Heath met her.
“Bobby, where on earth have you been?” she demanded. “What’s happened? I can’t find Guy anywhere, none of the pupils knows where he is.”
“He was trying to get Sergeant out,” Bobby told her. “The roof fell in on him, I don’t know how badly he’s hurt.”
Guy came round just before the ambulance drove away, knowing at once where he was and what had happened, and insisted on speaking to the girls.
“You’ll have to put the horses in the new boxes and the indoor school for tonight,” he told them weakly. “Get someone to ’phone the vet. How many escaped, have you any idea?”
“About twelve, I think,” replied Heath. “The pupils have been rounding them up. None of them seem to be much hurt.”
“Good. But get the vet,” repeated Guy.
“We will,” Bobby promised him. “Don’t worry Guy, we’ll manage all right.”
“Be careful,” Guy warned them. “Don’t try to go back into the yard, it’s no use. Sergeant would have had to be shot anyway. He’d broken a leg.”
His eyes closed, and the girls were quietly driven out of the ambulance into the noisy, luridly lighted confusion in the road. The doors closed and the white van moved smoothly away, its bell beginning to ring as it gathered speed down the road towards Hestonbridge, the nearest town with a hospital. Heath and Bobby turned sadly back towards the horses, who had been successfully corralled in somebody’s front garden, and were now being sorted out by three of the resident pupils, Jessica, Thelma, and Brian. Rex, the fourth pupil, had been kicked by a frightened horse, and had broken his wrist. He had been taken to Hestonbridge to have it set. The owner of the garden, a Mr. Corbett, was standing at his gate, and his wife was at an upstairs window, watching the scene below, and at the same time keeping an eye on their two-year-old son.
“I’m afraid they’re making a dreadful mess of your garden,” said Heath. “We’ll have them out as soon as the fire dies down a bit.”
“Don’t worry, it’s quite all right,” Mr. Corbett assured them. “Glad to be able to help. Dreadful business. If he had been a few feet further this way when he crashed it would have been our house, not your stables.”
Heath thanked him, and she and Bobby joined the three pupils, who were attempting to catch and halter the frightened horses. As far as they could tell ten had escaped from the yard and the pony boxes by the school, and Shelta and June made the number up to twelve. Then there were the horses in the further fields, at grass for the summer, a few cobs and ponies, old horses, the brood mares, and some youngsters. Bobby managed to slip a halter on Coffee, the dark brown juvenile jumper, whose legs were covered in blood, and who was trembling all over, and Heath caught Bracken Silver Fountain, the grey Welsh Mountain pony stallion, whose escape had been little short of miraculous. The roof of his box had been swept away, and the wall had partly caved in. He had jumped out over the lower half of his door, and fallen, cutting himself in dozens of places, and being half buried in burning debris, losing most of his luxurious mane and tail and singeing his fine, smokily dappled coat.
“Brian, will you go and telephone the vet?” she asked him. “Tie Nobby and Goldcrest to the fence, they’ll be all right for a few minutes.”
“All right.” Brian tethered his two ponies, and hurried away. Mr. Corbett appeared carrying a powerful torch, and Bobby examined Coffee’s legs in its light. As far as she could tell none of the pony’s cuts and scrapes were really serious, but they looked sore, and some might be deeper than they appeared.
Behind them the fire engine searchlights made the drive and the road as light as day, the fire added its own lurid light, and the flames licked and leaped over the wreckage, beneath the thick, billowing smoke, roaring and crackling hungrily, and hissing with anger as the water caught and dowsed them. The high hay byre, under which the horse box was usually parked, had lost its roof and one upright, but the others still stood gaunt and black against the crimson sky. The rescued horses trampled and snorted, staring at the fire with heads high and ears nervously pricked. Snow Goose, the rather clownish grey thoroughbred, began to dig up the flower border in which he was tied with an impatient fore-foot, and Cloisonné, the heavy roan and white mare, suddenly uttered a piercing whinny. Shelta replied from the horse box, and Froth gave a high, shrill squeal.
“Are you sure there aren’t any horses left in the jumping paddock?” Bobby asked Jessica.
“Pretty sure,” replied the dark-haired girl. “They all stampeded out when the fire engines went in.”
Then Brian came back to report that the vet was on his way, and Mrs. Corbett emerged from the house with a bowl of warm water and disinfectant with which they could bathe the various injuries that the horses had received. Mrs. Joyce, Guy’s housekeeper, arrived with two large Thermos flasks and some china mugs in a basket, and a few minutes later the vet drove up in his battered station wagon. He was a small, wiry, sandy haired man named Darwin, and a wonderful vet. He examined all the horses carefully and said that they were not too bad.
“One or two will be lame for a time,” he told them. “Coffee, the bay mare, and the stallion. The mare is the worst, sprained shoulder I think.” This was a fifteen-hand riding school horse called Dorcas. “Got anywhere to put them for the night?”
Bobby explained about the new boxes and the indoor school, and the vet advised them to take the horses round as soon as possible, and get them settled. “Looks as though they’ve got the fire under control,” he finished.
The girls looked in the direction of the yard, and realised that the flames were dying down and that the smoke was much thinner. The firemen were moving in closer, finishing the fire off with a soaking deluge which should ensure that it did not start again. The horses were untethered, the garden gate opened, and leading two each, with three for Heath, and the vet driving slowly behind to light the way with his head lamps, they started across the field. The horses jogged and pulled, het up and suspicious, as they crossed the paddock towards the dark bulk of the indoor school, and the row of recently built loose boxes beside it. The vet parked his car facing the boxes, so that his head lamps floodlit the interiors, and seven of the horses were installed. The remaining two had to be housed in the school, and Shelta, June, and Froth were still to come.
The indoor school was gas lit, as electricity had not yet been extended from the stables, and Heath lighted the lamps, filling the place with a soft yellow glow. The horses were tied up, and Bobby and Brian returned to fetch the remaining horses. The fire seemed almost dead by now, only an occasional flicker ran along the charred wreckage, and a brief glow showed here and there in a dark corner. Searchlights still lighted the centre of the yard, and firemen moved among the rubble. Inside the big motor box it was difficult to believe that they had not been dreaming. Shelta and June pulled steadily at their hay nets, while Froth tried vainly to reach some from her stall on the other side of the passenger compartment. The windows were closed and the smell of burning had only penetrated faintly, and was almost drowned by the sweet smell of hay and warm horses. With Brian’s help Bobby unloaded the three horses, and they started back to the stables, Bobby leading Shelta and Froth and Brian following with June Evening. The horses were surprised and worried by the smell of burning, and the generally strange atmosphere, and Shelta almost pulled Bobby over as they began to cross the jumping paddock. She snorted piercingly at the litter of wreckage behind the ruined boxes, and whinnied shatteringly to the other horses. She and her two companions were housed in the school with Bobby and Goldcrest, two stolid children’s ponies who had been in the new boxes at the time of the crash and had been released in case the fire spread.
Mr. Darwin was giving anti-tetanus injections to all the horses in case they had any deep punctures or wounds which could not be seen in the bad lighting available, and Heath and Thelma were helping to bathe cuts and apply ointment. Bobby fetched rugs from the tack room, which was still intact, and Heath and Jessica fetched buckets of short feed from the barn, which had also escaped, though the hay and straw had been soaked to prevent it catching fire so easily. Shelta and June, who were the most valuable of the remaining horses, changed places with Cloisonné and Sailor in the boxes, and the vet went off in his van and returned with two bales of straw and three trusses of hay. One fire engine and its crew would stand by for a time, in case the fire broke out again, but the others were packing up to leave, and the crowd had dwindled to one or two bystanders, The horses were as comfortable as they could be made that night, and Mrs. Joyce was longing to get everyone back to the house, where she could make certain that they were all unhurt, and give them hot drinks and some food. The vet ran them across the jumping paddock first to make sure that the grass kept horses were all right. As far as they could see in the starlight all was well, though the horses were naturally restless, and the vet drove them on to the road, where he dropped Heath and Bobby, who were to drive the box down to the house, as it rather blocked the road in its present position.
A few great white hoses still lay coiled like giant snakes in the gutter and along the narrow pavements as far as the hydrant outside the village post office, but past there signs of the fire were few. One or two parked cars with police signs on the roofs, an enormous fire engine with an escape ladder attempting to turn round in somebody’s drive, but otherwise the village was back to normal, cottages lit up, lights flooding across little front gardens, people reading, eating, talking, or watching television, dogs being taken for last walks before bed, and firelight flickering peacefully in a darkened front room, for it was a cool evening. Then Heath was turning the box into the drive of Cedarwood, the house that Guy had bought a year ago, when he started to take resident pupils. It was a large, ugly Victorian building in yellow brick, with a tall centre part, and two lower wings jutting out on either side. All the woodwork was painted white, and the main door was at the back, opening on to a square tarmac yard, with terraced lawns and shrubbery leading down to a copse at the garden boundary. Heath parked the box in the yard, and the two girls climbed down and crossed the yard to the front door, suddenly feeling limp and deadly tired now that there was no more to be done that night.
They paused in the red tiled, white panelled hall to hang their coats on the hallstand at the foot of the graceful, white staircase, and then went on into the lounge, where the pupils were sitting.
“l suppose I shall have to ’phone the owners,” said Heath wearily, running a filthy hand through her tangled, smoke grimed hair. “And I must ’phone the hospital.”
She picked up the telephone, and Bobby sank into an easy and chair closed her eyes. Heath dialled the number of the first livery owner, and Bobby listened sadly as she explained about the fire, and the death of the grey hunter, Mackerel. Five liveries had died in the fire, and Heath went on to telephone the owners of Destiny, the brown lightweight show hunter, and the owners of Crust and Crispin, two bay hunters who had belonged to a husband and wife. Bobby noticed that she was not ’phoning Mrs. Costello, the owner of Nightingale, the young grey Anglo-Arab, and she realised that as she had done most of the schooling of both Nightingale and his adoring, middle-aged owner, then she would have to break the news.
But first Heath telephoned the hospital, and after some delay managed to find out about Guy. She put down the phone looking white and exhausted, her eyes sore and heavy from the smoke.
“Well?” inquired Bobby anxiously, pushing her short brown hair back from her tired eyes. There was only Guy in hospital now, Rex had been sent home after having his wrist set, and Mrs. Joyce had herded him up to bed.
“I’m afraid Guy’s rather smashed up,” replied Heath. “One arm broken, several broken ribs, a back injury, and burns. But they don’t seem to think he’s in any immediate danger. I’m to ’phone again tomorrow.”
“I can’t really believe this is actually happening,” said Bobby. “It was only this afternoon that everything seemed wonderful, we were at the show, with all the summer ahead, the horses were going beautifully, and it didn’t seem as though anything could go wrong.”
“I know, it doesn’t seem possible,” agreed Heath, as Mrs. Joyce entered the room with a tray of Ovaltine and biscuits, which she set down on the small table in the centre of the room, before going to draw the heavy blue curtains across the french windows and the great bay. She was a tall, angular woman with softly greying brown hair, and a generous mouth.
“I must telephone Mrs. Costello,” said Bobby unwillingly. “She’s going to be dreadfully upset.”
“You’ll drink this first,” Mrs. Joyce told her firmly, handing her a mug of Ovaltine.
She handed drinks to everyone, and they all took grateful sips of the hot, sweet liquid. The pupils all looked exhausted, and Mrs. Joyce instructed them to go straight to bed when they had finished their drinks. Bobby was getting up to telephone Mrs. Costello when Mr. Joyce came in. He did the heavy work at Cedarwood, boilers and coal, gardening, and odd jobs, and had been helping to fight the fire. His thin face was black with smoke and streaked with sweat, and his thin black hair was plastered to his forehead. He had looked in to tell them that the last fire engine had left, and that the police had left a guard on the place.
“No one seems to know where that ’plane came from,” he told them. “It looks like a bit of a mystery. So far as I can make out nothing has been reported missing from anywhere.”
“How peculiar,” said Heath. “But I daresay someone will claim it before long.”
“I suppose everyone in it was killed?” asked Bobby.
“I’m afraid so,” replied Ed Joyce. “Didn’t have much time to get out, you know. It caught fire at once.”
He went on towards the kitchens, and Bobby picked up the telephone in the hall. Although it was after midnight they all felt that it was better to tell the owners at once, rather than let them read about it in the morning papers. Mrs. Costello, who was a widow, and lived with her married daughter, answered the ’phone herself. She did not sound as though she had only just been woken up, for which Bobby was glad. As gently as she could she explained what had happened. For a moment Mrs. Costello made no sound, then she gave a low cry and began to sob. Bobby held on for a few moments, listening to the heartbroken sound, and fighting back her own tears, and then Heath, who had been listening, took the receiver from her and replaced it on its rest.
“Come on Bobby, it’s time we all went to bed,” she told her.
Bobby nodded blindly, and they started to climb the stairs, followed quietly by the pupils. Alone in her room, overlooking the back garden and the quiet, dark hills Bobby felt sure that she would never be able to sleep. But no sooner was she in bed, with the light off, than she was asleep, and she did not even dream before morning crept greyly into her room.