His Lordship's Downfall: Part Two by Josie Litton

Author:Josie Litton [Litton, Josie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Josie Litton Books
Published: 2017-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

They’d put them all, the young stalwarts rushed up from London, in a hotel a mile or more from the explosion. On the main floor, three conference rooms were knocked together to give them sufficient space to work. Desks, phones, computers, all were moved in overnight.

The idea was that they would muster resources, deploy them where needed, field inquiries and the like. Instead, it all quickly degenerated into chaos.

None of them had a clue of what to do. Their privileged births had not, it turned out, endowed them with superior wisdom and reason. They had not been gifted in the cradle with innate moral authority. Nor had the playing fields of Eton transformed them into leaders whom other men would willingly follow.

People came and went, shouting orders that more often than not were contradictory. Frantic pleas were heard but not responded to. Television cameras were brought in to show the masses that Something Was Being Done. But in fact nothing was.

Rage built up in him so slowly that he wasn’t aware of it until it was close to exploding. He heard himself at one point, shouting down the phone line, wanting to smash his fist into the face of the man at the other end. Finally, he realized that he couldn’t stay in that room, couldn’t be as helpless and useless as all those other men.

He remembered going out into the street, following the smell and the sounds, until he came to a pile of still smoking rubble where rescue workers were digging. Someone handed him a hard-hat and a shovel.

He dug, how long he didn’t know. Three days, more? Sleeping a few hours here and there on the ground. Eating whatever was handed to him, when he could stomach eating anything at all. Working alongside the other men, communication down to grunts, gestures, and the occasional curt, sensible direction. Thank god there had been some there who knew what had to be done and how to do it.

They pulled four out alive--a child, two men, and a young woman. Also, a dog. All the rest--dozens more, mostly in pieces--went into the body bags.

By the end, he could not have recognized himself. Covered with ash, hollow eyed, haunted. A canteen had been set up in a nearby church. He remembered stumbling into it, staring at the altar, struggling not to cry and failing.

After that, it was all a bit of a blur. He didn’t recall returning to London. He did remember standing in the shower in the master suite of his town residence for a long time while wrenching sobs shook him.

They were still conducting raids and rounding up suspects when he went back to work at the Home Office. To his surprise, there was no reprimand for walking out on his assigned duties. No acknowledgement either for what he had done. But a fortnight later, he was transferred to the Exchequer, a massive promotion leaping him over the heads of his peers, marking him as a man on the way up.

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