Chapter 7: Iron and Ash

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This entry is part 7 of 10 in the series My Estranged Cousin Tried to Evict Me From the Normandy Base Wash Station—Until I Pinned Him to the Concrete Floor

My Estranged Cousin Tried to Evict Me From the Normandy Base Wash Station—Until I Pinned Him to the Concrete Floor

Chapter 2: The Mud-Smeared Libel

Chapter 3: The Adjuster’s Ultimatum

Chapter 4: A Document From the Ward

Chapter 5: The Floor of the Washhouse

Chapter 8: Tears on the Concrete

Chapter 10: Cold Rations at Dawn

The dust settled, slow and suffocating. The air tasted like ash and pulverized wood. A chilling quiet fell, broken only by distant shouts and the frantic scramble of soldiers outside.

I coughed, my lungs burning, and pushed myself up. My knee screamed in protest, but adrenaline coursed through my veins.

“Douglas!” I rasped, my voice hoarse.

I crawled through the wreckage, navigating around splintered planks and shattered basins. My eyes darted around, searching.

Then I saw him.

Douglas lay motionless, his chest caught beneath a massive oak rafter, easily three hundred pounds of solid timber. His eyes were open, fixed on the broken ceiling, a silent terror gripping his face.

Captain Garrick, his face ashen, stumbled out of the doorway. He looked at Douglas, then at the shifting ruin of the washhouse. He hesitated for only a second, his gaze flickering between the trapped corporal and the gaping hole in the roof.

Then, with a desperate yell, Garrick turned and fled, disappearing into the courtyard without a backward glance. His own self-preservation trumped any concern for Douglas.

“Don’t move, Douglas,” I instructed, my voice surprisingly steady. “Just stay still.”

I moved quickly, surveying the scene. Forty years of rigging heavy machinery, lifting diesel engines, and positioning girders had taught me to see angles, leverage, and weak points.

My eyes landed on a discarded steel pipe, thick and sturdy, lying half-buried in the rubble. Beside it, a five-ton hydraulic truck jack, miraculously intact.

“Help me!” Douglas whimpered, his voice barely audible, his face going grey. “I can’t breathe.”

I didn’t answer with words. I dug the steel pipe free, my hands aching, and wedged one end under the massive beam, as close to Douglas’s chest as I could get it. The leverage was crude, but it would have to do.

Then, with a grunt, I positioned the hydraulic jack, pumping the handle with all my strength. The jack hissed, slowly, agonizingly slowly, beginning to lift the immense weight. Each pump sent a jolt of pain through my arthritic hands, but I ignored it.

“It’s too heavy!” Douglas choked, tears streaming down his face. “I can’t… I can’t hold on…”

“You will,” I gritted out, pumping harder. The beam creaked, lifting maybe an inch, then two. It wasn’t enough.

Suddenly, a secondary joist above us groaned ominously, threatening to collapse.

“He lied!” Douglas cried out, a broken sob tearing from his throat. “My father lied! About the inheritance! The machine shop in ’38! He told me you cheated him, that’s why he made me hate you!”

The confession, raw and desperate, hung in the dust-filled air. It was the truth, finally, after all these years. The weight of his father’s old spite, the 1938 family land inheritance lie, had driven his hatred.

With a final, desperate surge, I pumped the jack one more time. The beam lifted just enough. “Now!” I yelled, pulling Douglas free with a strength I didn’t know I had. He slid out, gasping, just as the secondary joist finally gave way, crashing down with a deafening roar where he had been moments before.