He discovered it just above the door. In the absence of a key to turn off the inflammable gas he knocked the lead pipe flat. The flame began to die down until it gave a fairly safe illumination.
Up the rickety stairs the young officer made his way. With smarting eyes and irritating throat he groped through the stifling smoke, guided by the cries of the injured victims. The room was feebly lighted by a nightlight set in a basin of water. The light flickered in the breeze that swept in through the glazeless window, while its intensity was even more diminished by the eddying smoke. Yet it was sufficient to enable Barcroft to take in his surroundings.
The ceiling had fallen. Plaster and broken glass littered the floor, and every object presented a flat, face-upward surface. On the walls were crude prints hanging at grotesque angles and ripped by flying fragments. Pieces of broken furniture were everywhere in evidence.
In one corner of the room was a bed. One leg had been torn off, causing it to touch the floor. On the bed was a grey-haired woman, groaning feebly and with her forehead dabbled in blood.
She opened her eyes as Barcroft approached, then raising one hand pointed to the side of the bed. There was a cradle that had hitherto escaped his notice, and in it was a baby of but a few months old. Although the old woman could not speak she made it known that the rescuer should first save her grandchild.
Even in that scene of desolation Barcroft could not bring himself to lift the baby from its cot. Dimly he fancied that he might harm it. He hadn't the faintest notion how to hold an infant of tender years.
Lifting the cot bodily he bore it with its contents down the stairs and out into the night. By this time other rescuers were hard at work. Two of them seeing the flight-sub issuing from the house came up to him.
"D'ye want a hand, sir?" they asked.
The uniform imparted an air of authority, and instinctively the men realised the fact. True the naval rig was foreign to them. For all they knew Barcroft might be a sanitary inspector or a school-attendance officer, but his peaked cap and naval blue coat denoted an official of some sort, and, in cases of this description, the distinction carries weight.
"Yes, there's a woman injured in that house," replied the flight-sub, setting down his burden. One of the men bent over the cradle and drew back the covering. Then he hastily replaced it.