They were about halfway home and travelling pretty well flat out, Albert guessed, when the driver gave a gasp. ‘Something’s up with the steerin’!’ he said hoarsely. ‘The old girl won’t answer to me hand on the wheel.’ He slammed his foot on the brake but nothing happened and the next moment the headlights went out, the bus swerved crazily and, for Albert at least, the world turned violently upside down and darkness descended.

Chapter Seven

ALBERT CAME TO to find he was lying on what seemed to be grass, at the foot of what looked like an enormous mountain. There was something pinning him down; he realised it was a coach seat, probably the very one he had been sitting on when the driver had declared that the steering had gone. Albert tried to wriggle out from under the seat, whispering Edie’s name in a tiny thread of a voice as he did so, and heard a soft moan.

Edie! It must be her, trying to respond to him saying her name. He turned and felt around, found nothing except the grass upon which he lay. Nothing. Painfully, he stretched his hand out further and – oh joy! – felt a shoulder, then an arm, an elbow, then a wrist. But as his fingers felt lower he nearly recoiled in horror. The wrist was gashed open, he could not tell how deeply, the hand beneath it was sticky with blood and the blood was still welling out.

Immediately all his first aid training during the war rushed to the forefront of his mind. Panic receded. First, stop the bleeding. He pulled a clean white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and managed to wriggle on to his side so that he had both hands free, then bound the handkerchief tightly round Edie’s wrist and began to shout. His voice, which had refused to obey him earlier, came out loud and clear, and as his shouts began to echo round the bus – for it was the coach itself which loomed over him, not a mountain – he saw lights flashing, glimpsed the starry sky through a gap in the mangled metal, and demanded that someone come at once before Edie bled to death.

Things happened quickly after that. Many vehicles lit up the scene, including several ambulances, and the drivers and passengers of other buses, and those from their own vehicle who had managed to escape with minor cuts and bruises, were milling around trying to help. Firemen came also, with their heavy-lifting equipment, so that it was not too long before Albert and Edie were both freed, though Edie had not regained consciousness. She and Albert were dispatched to hospital in the same ambulance and all the way into the city Albert held Edie’s hand and talked comfortingly to her. ‘You’ll be all right; there was a doctor waiting to give you a shot of something when we managed to get you out from under that seat,’ he told her. ‘They don’t know quite how bad your injuries are yet, but I mean to stay with you and see you get the best of all possible attention. Thank God for the National Health Service! Hey, Edie, now the government will pay all your bills so you can concentrate on getting well again without having to worry about money. I dare say you’ll be back in Deering’s by next Monday, raring to go, but if you aren’t you’ll get sickness benefit. Oh, we’ll see you right, never you fret.’