Lost in the Flames by Chris Jory Page A

below. Looking at the photos of those who had been bombed out of their London homes, Jacob’s imagination worked up a vision. He saw in his mind’s eye the Bampton children in their terraced house on the Isle of Dogs. They were hurrying downstairs into the cellar they had told him about, the one to which he knew they would go when the air-raid sirens wailed.
    ‘Hurry up,’ he saw Bobby saying to the scurrying figure of his brother. ‘Get a bloody move on.’
    ‘Bugger off!’ Billy said. ‘I’m going as fast as I can.’
    And their cellar stairs shook as a stick of bombs fell in a line all the way up the other side of their street, and the incendiaries that followed, breaking apart with a fluttering sound like a hastily departing flock of birds, set off a chain of fires that merged together into an unbroken conflagration and another plane released its bombs and high-explosive fell through the tiled roof of the Bamptons’ house and crashed through to the ground-floor kitchen before it blew away the supporting walls. The roof collapsed and the rubble covered over the cellar stairs and down underground the dim lights went out and the flame of a solitary candle flickered and died in the eruption of dust from the walls. Jacob saw the Bamptons on the trembling floor, listening as more bombsthundered above, tracking away up the street, and then the raid faded away, the diminishing rumble of a passing storm, and there was now only the sound of running water as the firemen trained their hoses on the burning rubble above and broken water pipes leaked their contents around the Bamptons’ feet and Mr Bampton went to the top of the stairs, feeling in the darkness for the door, but his hands scraped frantically now across the unfamiliar contours of loose bricks and stone. He called out at half-voice, lifting to a roar, but outside the roar of the flames and the cries of the injured drowned out his shouting as the water crept higher. Mr Bampton roared again, but no one came and the water continued to rise, and finally towards dawn, Jacob decided, a fire crew would hear their cries and they were dug out, shivering in their grimy cloak of fear and exhaustion, and they were led away from where their house had been to a church hall several streets away and they were given hard oat biscuits that stuck in their throats, and they washed them down with weak grey tea in the bleak grey dawn. And as Jacob exhausted his imaginary narrative, he steeled his resolve to join up just as soon as the RAF would have him.
    ***
    Shortly before Christmas, Jacob finally received his letter and took the bus to Oxford. He fidgeted in his chair and bit his lip as he waited to be seen at the RAF recruitment office. They tested him for physical, mental and intellectual preparedness.
    ‘You appear to be an adequate candidate. What role do you envisage for yourself?’
    ‘A pilot. That would be my preference.’
    ‘Of course, everyone says that. How old are you?’
    ‘Eighteen.’
    ‘How old are you really?’
    ‘Eighteen.’
    ‘Very well, then. Bomber crew?’
    ‘Yes, that’ll do me fine.’
    ‘You’re in. Sign here. We will summon you for training in due course, within a few months at the most.’
    Jacob’s heart soared. He signed his name on the form and was given his RAF number and went home to count the days. He foundAlfred in the orchard with the pigs.
    ‘Hello, son,’ said Alfred glumly. ‘How did it go?’
    ‘I’m in.’
    Jacob tried to suppress a smile but failed.
    ‘I knew it,’ Alfred said.
    ‘It’s what I wanted.’
    ‘You’re too bloody young. You’re still not eighteen.’
    Alfred spat at the earth and sighed.
    ‘You’ve always been a damned fool, Jacob. A damned bloody fool. But at least you’ll have some real wings now, not like that time you chucked yourself out of the window playing bloody Icarus.’
    ‘I’ll be all right, father. You’ll see.’
    Alfred prodded a piglet away with his toe.
    ‘That’s Churchill,