Morning Missed

The lights coming towards us were blinding and I couldn’t see the road ahead. The horn of the lorry in front was blowing continuously, getting closer every second, and now only one car’s distance away. I briefly glanced forward. In that split second I realised that the lights were from the headlights of a string of powerful lights on the top of the cabin of the lorry bearing down on us. There was no way to pass the lorry on the narrow road. I slammed on the brakes, and slew the Range Rover onto the right-hand verge. “Hang on Jimmy!” I screamed at the top of my voice over the roar of the engine as the wheels lost friction with the road. Trees were rushing towards us, I threw the steering wheel wildly to the left and the car started to respond, but then careered broadside towards the trees. Only a few metres from the trees we hit something very solid behind the driver’s door. The car turned onto its right side at the same time pointing it forward, the roof grazed a large tree as we slid past, the engine screaming as the wheels lost contact with the ground. I was powerless to be able to stop the car sliding across the ground and over an incline down a ravine. Trees were flashing past the windows, any moment we were bound to hit a tree, but instead the car turned onto the roof. The momentum increased with the car rolling back onto the passenger’s side onto its wheels again, but it didn’t stop; over and over again the car rolled and then nothing; I blacked-out. All I could hear was the noise of dripping, nothing else. Was I awake or was I hallucinating? I tried opening my eyes but the lids wouldn’t part. I felt sick and disorientated. I felt the blood pumping in my head. I lost consciousness again. As soon as I woke the nausea returned, as did the sense of helplessness and disorientation, but this time something was pervading my sense of smell. It was not a wholly unpleasant odour, but my brain was registering danger, whilst the incessant ‘plip-plop’ of the dripping continued. I made a renewed effort to open my eyes, but with little success, although on this occasion I knew that they were gummed together. Instinctively I realised it was blood. It was the same sensation I had felt five years earlier, after I had been beaten senseless by my father-in-law’s factotum. I presumed the blood was from a wound on my head, which had dried over my eyes. I tried bringing my hands to my face, but my arms were pinned behind my head, and something was preventing me from moving them forward. I stopped moving and tried to think where I was, but nothing came to me. ‘Plip-plop’ was all I could hear and it seemed that those two-toned sounds drove every other thought from my head. “Help!” I tried shouting, but it was only a loud croak, rather than an audible cry for assistance. My tongue was resting on the roof of my saliva-less mouth, which seemed odd, and blood was pounding in my ears. I cleared my throat the best I could, and tried shouting again. “Help! For god’s sake help me!” It sounded much louder at the beginning, but trailed away to a whisper, and I doubted that anyone would hear me from the confined space of the Range Rover. The exertion had momentarily banished the ‘plip-plop’ from my thoughts, and when they returned the tempo and sound had changed their resonance. It was obvious that the pool of liquid had enlarged. ‘What was that smell?’ I said to myself. It was familiar but my head was fuzzy. Petrol! “Shit!” I swore to myself and started to struggle again. Why wouldn’t my arms move? Why was blood in my eyes? Why did I feel so sick and disorientated? I took a deep breath through my nose to relax and think, but instead I inhaled something gooey, and it lodged in my wind-pipe. Instantly I started to choke. Whatever was blocking my wind-pipe wasn’t clearing. If anything the choking had lodged it more firmly in my throat. I retched. I coughed. I coughed much harder again, and felt a massive familiar pain in the right-side of my chest. “Ahhhhhh!” It was an animal’s scream. It was also the best thing I could have done, because I had dislodged the mucus from my throat and my right eye opened. I was coughing again, less violently than before, as though a crumb had ‘gone the wrong way’ as my Mother would chide me. I still could not see where I was, because it was dark outside, but there was enough luminance for me to tell that I was upside-down. The Range Rover was old, but had been specially strengthened by Overfinch for my former father-in-law, for which I was now eternally grateful. I never knew exactly all the modifications, but I did know that the cost of the modifications were as much as the original price of the car. He was paranoid about his security, which was not surprising as he was not only a very wealthy shipping magnet, and owner of a number of companies – including a successful Lloyd’s Insurance Broker – but also he was planning a military coup in Zimbabwe. The irony was that he was killed by something – or rather someone – from his car. His chauffeur come man-servant stabbed him to death with an African spear, the factotum who had beaten me senseless. With events of the past flashing through my mind, I hoped that one of the security features fitted by my former father-in-law might be an automatic fire extinguisher, because the ‘plip-plop’ was continuing, ever relentlessly, no faster, no slower. I rotated my eyes upwards and could just about make out that the roof of the car had been partially crushed, and was only a couple of centimetres above my head. Somehow my arms were behind my head, and were pinned back by the roof of the car. I had been thrown up against the door pillar, and I tried leaning into it further, whilst trying to move my left hand sideways. I screamed again when it moved, and I suspected it was fractured in one or more places, but it moved. Slowly, and painfully, I brought my left hand to my face. I wiped away the vomit and blood from my eyes. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness and my night vision was improving, and then I retched again, as I saw the lifeless body of Jimmy Black lolling in the seat beside me. Poor Jimmy. He was always so eager to help me, even when I was persona non grata in Lloyd’s of London. Jimmy was an insurance broker at Lloyd’s Brokers Judge Palmer & Gown, which I inherited following the deaths of my former father-in-law and estranged wife. As soon as he knew I was in need of assistance he jumped to help me, and now he was dead, leaving behind a wife and young son Johnny. “What have I done?” I wailed. I looked down at my hands and saw I had wiped away from my eyes a mixture of dry and uncongealed blood. I reasoned that I had been unconscious for a while. The ‘plip-plop’ of petrol remained unerringly constant, and I could now make out that the windscreen had cracked and it was out of its mountings on the driver’s side of the car. I guessed that the flammable liquid was dripping onto the underside of the up-turned bonnet. The car was not lying solely on the roof, but was tipped forwards being supported by the front edge of the bonnet, which should mean the liquid would eventually run out of the front of the car. The electrics were off, so no petrol should be pumped from the fuel tank. Where was I? I tried recalling what happened, but my mind was blank, and my head hurt. Was Jimmy really dead? I needed to get out of the car and check Jimmy. My right arm was trapped by the collapsed roof, so I tried bringing my left arm across my body to open the door. As soon as I moved my arm the pain around my collar bone was excruciating and I couldn’t even get close to touching the door handle. Why had I not been found? At that moment I heard an engine, it was some distance away, and sounded like a lorry revving in low gears. I strained to see any lights. “Low gears.” I spoke to myself. Why would a lorr