| OCR Text |
Show 222 large fire extinguishers, organized teams which brought their streams of foam converging from two different directions onto the bottom side of the truck. As soon as the projecting streams of the advanced pair began to falter, a fresh pair moved in, like efficient ants, one set attacking after the other. Until the smoke began to lighten from black to a thin grey, and the tongues of flame no longer appeared. "By god," Robbie said in admiration, "they know what they're doing." She could smell it now, the body of the truck, the scorched paint and burnt rubber-the raw chemicals like an acid in the back of her throat. At the window of the Volkswagen one of the men from the rescue unit was removing tools from a side panel of the rescue truck. "Someone in there is still alive," Robbie said lowly, speaking to himself and not really to her. It did not seem possible that anyone could be alive in that car -the torn and twisted metal-it was so squashed into the front compartment that there did not seem to be room for a human. But from the urgent scurrying of the rescue men, there was someone, somehow, lying in there. And that person was alive. Maybe the person was unconscious, she prayed that the person was unconscious. That whoever it was-that anonymous person lying there- was not in great pain. To be in great pain, and be held captive by that twisted metal: it was too much to bear. "Don't get shook," Robbie said. "What do you mean?" "I can tell by your face: you're getting shook." |
