Room for a Stranger by Ann Turnbull Page A

continued, slowed, and at last stopped.
    For a while she lay stunned. Then, cautiously, she raised herself onto her knees. She hurt all over and she could feel blood trickling into one eye.
    â€œRhoda?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
    But there was no answer.
    Rhoda was somewhere beneath her, buried under the rubble.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Doreen moved fast. She sprang off the mound of rubble, and began to pull away bricks and stones, heaving them to one side. She sobbed as she worked, “It’s all right, Rhoda. Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.”
    There was no response. She began to panic as she scraped and scrabbled and brushed away earth. She touched cloth – Rhoda’s raincoat; her shoulder; her hair. If only she could see! Rhoda was so still and silent. Doreen found her face and brushed earth from her nose and mouth.
    â€œRhoda!” she begged. “Wake up! Please wake up! Don’t die!”
    There was no movement.
    A picture came into her mind – not something she’d seen but something she’d been told – of women gathered at a pit head, and a miner brought out, dead, with scarcely a mark on him, suffocated by the fall of earth and stone when the roof collapsed.
    Suffocated. Rhoda was suffocated.
    She sprang up in terror and ran outside.
    She had to get help.
    Despite her panic, a part of her brain was thinking fast. There must be a telephone at the station, but it would take ten minutes to get there, probably more in the dark. Much nearer was the Revells’; their smallholding was just up the lane.
    But first she had to find her way out of the hollow.
    She found the place where the path led up, and began to climb, scrambling up the muddy slope on hands and knees, grabbing at tussocks and brambles, not caring about the pain.
    She reached the top, picked her way across the dangerous area of ruined walls, and then began to run. The path was just visible between darker masses of trees, and she ran, uncaring of where she put her feet. Her fear of the dark was gone too; all that mattered now was to see houses and people – most of all, people.
    There was a short cut to the Revells’ that Joyce always took: a smaller path leading off to the left. It brought you out almost opposite the smallholding. Somehow Doreen found it. She raced along, feeling nettles whip her legs, thinking only that Rhoda was dead, that she must tell someone, she must get help.
    She came out on the road, crossed it, found the drive that led to the smallholding. She saw the dark shape of buildings against the sky. “Help!” she shouted. “Help, please!”
    A dog began to bark, then another; and far away, towards Station Road, a third dog added its voice. She heard people, and saw light – light at last, and such a bright one! A hurricane lamp was bobbing towards her, and a woman’s voice, with a nervous edge to it, called, “Who’s that?”
    â€œDoreen! Doreen Dyer! I need help!”
    She reached the woman. It was Molly, Joyce’s sister. The hurricane lamp made a great blaze of light between them. Doreen stretched a hand towards it. “The blackout…” she whispered.
    â€œBugger the blackout,” said Molly. “What’s up?”
    â€œShe’s dead,” said Doreen. “I killed her.”
    Her teeth chattered as she spoke. She hadn’t stopped shaking since Mrs Revell brought her home.
    Lennie tried to reassure her. “She might not be. She might just have been unconscious.”
    â€œLennie, you didn’t see what happened. All the earth… It all fell on her. And the bricks. And me on top. She couldn’t breathe.”
    â€œBut you got all the stuff off her. You were quick. They get roof falls all the time in mines, and people survive.”
    â€œ
Do
they?”
    â€œOf course. Here, drink your tea.” He handed her the cup. If Doreen hadn’t been in such a state she would have