The Sky that Spat Misery

"Christ, you look like you've seen a ghost," said Sergeant Davies, nudging Thomas with an elbow that smelled of damp wool and yesterday's gin.

Thomas blinked. The wrench in his hand had gone slack, his fingers numb from the predawn cold. The balloon winch yard was empty except for them and the sentry by the gate, who was stomping his boots to keep circulation going. Across the river, the first bombs of the evening raid were already falling- dull thumps that trembled through the soles of his boots like a second heartbeat.

Thomas didn’t answer Davies. His gaze was fixed on the eastern skyline, where the searchlights had begun to slice through the dusk. The wrench slipped from his fingers and hit the cobbles with a clang that made the sentry jump.

"Oi! Thomas!" Davies snapped. "Pick that up before-"

But Thomas was already moving, striding past the sentry without a word, his pulse hammering in his throat. The sentry shouted after him, but the wind snatched the words away. He barely heard them. The image burned behind his eyelids: Brewer's street, directly in the path of the approaching bombers.

He ran.

The streets twisted like a gutted animal- brick dust in his teeth, the stink of ruptured gas mains sharp as a blade. Thomas skidded around a crater where a tram stop had been, his boots slipping on shattered glass. The raid had moved eastward, but the aftermath was everywhere: a woman kneeling beside a stretcher, her mouth open in a silent scream; two boys dragging a pram loaded with salvaged crockery; a fire warden waving an arm like a broken semaphore.

Thomas ducked under a sagging lintel, his shoulder grazing the exposed brick. Evelyn’s street was unrecognizable- a canyon of collapsed facades, the odd wall standing like a rotten tooth. He vaulted over a water main spewing rust-brown liquid, his breath sawing in his chest. The garden wall was gone. The greenhouse- just a skeletal frame, glass glittering in the mud.

Then he saw her.

Evelyn stood knee-deep in debris, her coat torn at the shoulder, one sleeve dark with something that wasn’t rain. She was wrestling with a beam pinning down a man Thomas didn’t recognize- some neighbour, maybe, his face grey with plaster dust.

Thomas didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, boots skidding on wet brick dust as he grabbed the other end of the beam. Evelyn's head snapped up- eyes wide, lips parted- but there was no time for words. The beam groaned as they lifted together, muscles straining against its impossible weight. The man beneath gasped, scrambling free just as the beam slipped from their grasp and crashed back into the rubble.

"Help him," Evelyn said, already turning toward the collapsed bakery next door where voices cried out. Thomas gently caught her wrist and felt her pulse hammering against his fingers.

"You're bleeding," he said, voice rough.

She glanced at her sleeve as if noticing the dark stain for the first time. "It's not mine." The lie was thin, but there was no time to argue. Another explosion rocked the street three blocks over, and the ground trembled beneath them.

Thomas tightened his grip on Evelyn’s wrist- not enough to hurt, but enough to make her stop. "Like hell it isn’t." His voice was low, rough from running and the bite of brick dust in his throat. He could feel her trembling under his fingers, a fine vibration like a plucked wire.

She yanked her arm free with more force than necessary. "There are people trapped in there," she said, jerking her chin toward the bakery. The words came out clipped, uneven. "I’m not standing here while you-"

Another blast cut her off, closer this time. They both flinched as the shockwave rippled through the street, sending a cascade of loose mortar pattering down from a nearby wall. Thomas grabbed Evelyn’s elbow and pulled her sideways just as a chunk of masonry crashed where she’d been standing.

"You’re not going anywhere," he said, shifting to block her path. "Not like this."

Evelyn’s breath hitched- sharp, furious. "You don’t get to decide that." Her fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms. The torn sleeve flapped in the wind, revealing a gash along her forearm, raw and glistening. Thomas’s stomach lurched.

Another explosion shuddered through the street. The bakery’s remaining wall groaned ominously. Voices inside rose to panicked shouts.

Thomas exhaled through his teeth. He grabbed his scarf- threadbare wool, stiff with dried sweat- and wrapped it around Evelyn’s forearm in two quick loops. "Then we go together," he said, knotting it tight enough to make her hiss. "But you don’t bleed out on my watch."

She stared at him, lips parted- whether to argue or thank him, he’d never know. Another cry from the bakery decided it. They moved as one, scrambling over shattered bricks toward the collapsed entrance.

The bakery's entrance was a jagged maw of splintered wood and twisted metal. Thomas kicked aside a shattered pane, glass crunching underfoot. Inside, the air was thick with flour dust- pale as ash, clinging to their eyelashes and the backs of their throats. A man’s voice called from the wreckage, weak but insistent.

Evelyn moved first, crawling over a fallen shelf, her injured arm tucked tight against her ribs. Thomas followed, his larger frame forcing gaps where none existed. The scent of burnt sugar and yeast soured by time hit him- a sickly reminder of what this place had been hours before.

"Here!" Evelyn’s voice was raw. She was crouched beside an overturned dough trough, her fingers gripping the edge. Beneath it, a young woman stared up at them, one hand pressed to her swollen belly, the other gripping a child’s wrist. The boy couldn’t have been more than five, his face-streaked white with flour and terror.

Thomas wedged his shoulder under the trough’s edge, muscles screaming as he lifted. Evelyn slid in beside him, her good arm braced beneath. The wood groaned, shifted- then held fast.

The trough wouldn’t budge further- rusted hinges or some unseen weight holding it fast. The woman beneath gasped, her free hand scrabbling at the boy’s shoulder like she could physically tuck him deeper into the scant shelter. Thomas gritted his teeth, his shoulder burning where the wood dug in. Evelyn’s breath came in sharp, shallow bursts beside him, but her arm never wavered.

Then the boy whimpered. A small, broken sound that cut through the dust-choked air sharper than any bomb. Evelyn’s head snapped toward the child, her expression shifting in an instant- fierce, and focused. She twisted abruptly, wedging her injured forearm beneath the trough’s edge alongside Thomas’s shoulder. Fresh blood bloomed against the makeshift bandage.

“Evelyn-”

“Lift,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

The trough groaned as their combined strength forced it upward another inch- just enough for the woman to roll free, dragging her son with her. Evelyn gasped as the weight shifted, her arm trembling violently beneath the wood. Blood seeped through the scarf, dripping onto the flour-dusted floor in dark blooms.

Thomas braced his free hand against the nearest wall, muscles burning. "Go!" he barked at the woman. She scrambled backward, clutching her son, his small face pressed into her shoulder.

The moment they were clear, the trough crashed down- Evelyn barely yanking her arm free in time. She collapsed against Thomas, her breath ragged, her injured arm cradled against her chest. The boy stared at them over his mother’s shoulder, his eyes wide and unblinking.

Outside, the raid’s fury shifted northward- the bombs’ thunder growing distant, the ack-ack guns’ staccato fading. In the sudden quiet, the bakery’s remaining walls creaked ominously.

Thomas felt Evelyn sag against him, her weight sudden and alarming. He hooked an arm around her waist, his fingers pressing into the damp wool of her coat. "You're done," he murmured against her temple. "Let's get you out before this whole damn place-"

The bakery's rear wall groaned. Plaster rained down in fist-sized chunks.

Evelyn's fingers dug into his shoulder. "The cellar stairs-"

He didn't argue. They half-stumbled, half-crawled toward the narrow stairwell, Evelyn's injured arm tucked between them. The woman and child had vanished into the smoke-choked street- sensible folk, Thomas thought grimly. The steps wobbled beneath them, the wood spongy with damp.

The cellar steps groaned under their combined weight, the wood soft and splintering like rotted fruit. Thomas tightened his grip around Evelyn’s waist, his fingers pressing into the damp wool of her coat as they descended into the musty dark. The air smelled of damp earth and old yeast, thick enough to taste. Behind them, the bakery’s ceiling gave one final shudder before collapsing in a cloud of flour and debris.

Evelyn stumbled on the last step, her knees buckling. Thomas caught her- just barely- her weight sudden and alarming against his chest. In the dim light filtering through the cellar’s high windows, he could see her face had gone pale, her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. The scarf around her forearm was soaked through, the dark stain creeping toward her elbow.

"You’re not walking out of here," Thomas said, voice low. It wasn’t a suggestion.

Evelyn’s chin lifted stubbornly. "I can-"

"-stand," Evelyn finished weakly, though her legs betrayed her, buckling again as soon as Thomas loosened his hold. He caught her under the arms, her back pressing against his chest as he lowered them both to the cellar floor. Her breathing was too quick, too shallow- the kind that preceded a faint. Thomas shrugged out of his jacket, wadded it into a makeshift pillow, and eased her head down onto it.

"Look at me," he ordered, thumb brushing her cheekbone to keep her eyes open. Her pupils were dilated, her gaze unfocused. He peeled back the blood-soaked scarf with hands that shook more than he'd like to admit. The gash was deep, angry- a cruel divot in her forearm that still welled crimson.

She hissed when he pressed the cleaner edge of the scarf against it. "Still not in pain?" he muttered, tying the fabric tighter.

Evelyn's laugh came out as a thin exhale. "Maybe a little."

Thomas's fingers lingered on the knot he'd tied- too tight, he knew, but necessary. Evelyn's pulse fluttered beneath his fingertips like a trapped bird. The cellar smelled of damp earth and spilled molasses, a sickly sweetness clinging to the air. Above them, another explosion rattled what remained of the bakery, sending a fine shower of dust across their shoulders.

"You're a terrible liar," he murmured, peeling back his sleeve to tear a strip from his already threadbare shirt. The fabric gave with a reluctant rasp. "Always have been."

Evelyn's eyelids fluttered. "And you're still-" She sucked in a sharp breath as he wrapped the fresh cloth around her arm, "-infuriatingly good at this."

The compliment, if it was one, settled somewhere low in his chest. He secured the makeshift bandage with a knot that wouldn't hold for long. Outside, the drone of retreating planes mingled with the distant wail of sirens. The raid was moving on, leaving its wreckage behind.

The cellar’s silence pressed in around them, thick as the dust still settling from the collapsed bakery above. Evelyn’s breathing had evened out, but her fingers twitched against the damp cellar floor- small, restless movements Thomas recognized from the trenches. Shock.

He shrugged off his jumper, rolled it into a lumpy pillow, and slid it beneath her head. She blinked up at him, her pupils still too wide. "You’ll freeze," she murmured.

"Already have," he lied, rubbing warmth back into his arms. The cellar’s cold bit deeper than the winter air outside, seeping through his shirt like slow poison.

A muffled crash echoed from the street above. Evelyn flinched, her hand darting out- not toward the sound, but toward Thomas’s wrist. Her fingers closed around it with surprising strength. "They’re coming back," she whispered.

Thomas didn't correct her. The muffled thumps weren't returning bombers- they were rescue crews kicking through debris. But Evelyn's grip on his wrist tightened like she was anchoring herself to the present. Her fingernails left crescent moons in his skin.

"Listen to me," he said, crouching closer. "It's just the ARP men. They'll-"

The cellar door exploded inward in a shower of splinters. Thomas threw himself over Evelyn instinctively, his back taking the brunt of the falling debris. Light flooded the cellar, revealing two figures silhouetted against the smoke-choked sky- not rescue workers, but Home Guard volunteers clutching aged rifles.

"Christ alive," muttered the taller one, lowering his weapon. "Thought we'd found looters."

The taller Home Guard volunteer—a ruddy-faced man with sergeant's stripes on his sleeve- stepped forward, his boots crunching over broken glass. His companion, a boy no older than seventeen, kept his rifle trained on Thomas with trembling hands.

"Easy, lad," the sergeant said, pushing the barrel down. "This one's RAF. See the uniform?"

Thomas remained crouched over Evelyn, his shoulders rigid. Her fingers still clutched his wrist. Flour dust drifted through the cellar beams like snowfall.

"She needs a medic," Thomas said, his voice rough. "Arm's torn open."

The sergeant whistled low through his teeth as he knelt beside Evelyn. "Christ, she's bleedin' like a stuck pig." His hands hovered uncertainly over her arm, recoiling when Thomas shot him a warning look. "Right, right- Jonesy!" He jerked his head toward the boy. "Run fetch that stretcher team we passed on Brewer Street. And for God's sake don't drop your rifle again."

As the boy scampered up the ruined stairs, the sergeant rubbed his jaw, studying Thomas with narrowed eyes. "You're out of uniform, mate. Your lot's meant to be at the balloon site during raids, not playin' hero in bakeries."

Thomas didn't move from Evelyn's side. Her fingers had gone slack around his wrist. "She'd be under three tons of flour if I hadn't."

The sergeant chuckled- a dry, mirthless sound- and lit a cigarette with hands that shook only slightly. "War makes fools of us all, eh?" He offered the pack. When Thomas refused, he shrugged and exhaled smoke toward the broken cellar window. "Your girl here's one of them biologist's daughters, ain't she? The one who keeps replanting that blasted garden after every raid."

Thomas stiffened. Evelyn's breath hitched beside him. Neither answered.

The sergeant's grin widened, yellowed teeth bared like a dog's. "Thought so. Heard she's got a real knack for making things grow where they shouldn't." His boot nudged a shattered jam jar, sending glass skittering. "Pity about the husband, though. Normandy, was it?"

Evelyn's fingers spasmed around Thomas's wrist.

The cellar air thickened with the sergeant’s smoke and something darker- an unspoken challenge. Thomas felt Evelyn’s grip tighten convulsively around his wrist, her nails biting into his skin. He didn’t pull away.

"Her husband’s not your concern," Thomas said, low and deliberate, as though each word were a stone laid between them.

The sergeant’s grin didn’t waver. He tapped ash onto the ruined floorboards. "Just making conversation, mate." His gaze flicked to Evelyn’s bleeding arm, then back to Thomas. "Though I reckon you’ve made yourself plenty concerned already."

Evelyn stirred weakly, her voice a frayed thread. "Thomas-"

Thomas didn't turn. He kept his body angled between Evelyn and the sergeant, shoulders squared like a barricade. The cellar smelled of gunpowder and sour molasses now, the sergeant's cigarette smoke curling between them like a challenge.

"Jonesy's taking his sweet time," the sergeant mused, tapping another careless shower of ash onto the ruined floor. His eyes- small and bright as a rat's- never left Thomas's face. "Funny thing. Girl gets hurt, and suddenly every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he's-"

Evelyn's fingers dug into Thomas's wrist like talons. "Leave him alone," she whispered, but her voice had the thin, reedy quality of someone clinging to consciousness by sheer will.

The sergeant exhaled through his nose, amused. "Brave little thing, aren't you?" He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Tell me, love- how'd a biologist's daughter end up playing nurse in a bombed-out bakery? Husband not mind you-"

Evelyn's hand went limp against Thomas's wrist as her eyes rolled back. He caught her before her head could strike the floor, his other hand already balling into a fist. The sergeant leaned back with a smirk- just as the cellar door crashed open again.

"Stretcher's here!" The boy's voice cracked mid-shout. Two medics clattered down the steps, their boots kicking up flour dust.

Thomas forced his fingers to unclench. "She's lost blood," he said, shifting to give them room. The older medic- a woman with a grey plait coiled tight beneath her cap- knelt beside Evelyn without hesitation, her hands deft as she assessed the wound.

"Tourniquet's too tight," she muttered, loosening Thomas's makeshift knot with a practiced twist. Blood welled sluggishly. "But the cut's clean. Needs stitching before infection sets in."

The medic's hands moved swiftly, winding fresh gauze around Evelyn's arm while her assistant prepped a morphine syringe. Thomas watched the needle sink into skin, his own muscles tightening reflexively.

"You her sweetheart?" the medic asked without looking up.

Thomas opened his mouth- closed it. The sergeant coughed a laugh into his fist.

The medic snapped her head toward him. "Unless you're bleedin' too, clear out." She jerked her chin at Thomas. "You- hold this."

The medic pressed the rolled gauze into Thomas's hands, guiding his fingers to apply pressure while she threaded a curved needle. Evelyn's eyelids fluttered at the prick of morphine, her breath shallow but steady now. Thomas focused on the rhythm of his own breathing- in, out- matching it to the slow rise and fall of Evelyn's chest beneath her bloodstained blouse.

Sergeant Hollis picked his teeth with a matchstick like he was excavating relics from a ruin. The splintered wood scraped against enamel, back and forth, slow and methodical. His other hand rested on the butt of his sidearm, fingers drumming an uneven rhythm against the worn leather holster.