“Part of my job,” he said, smiling, and then soberly, “London’s extremely dangerous just now. Do take care.”
“I will. I’m sorry I won’t be here to drive the ambulance after all your lessons.”
“It’s all right. My housekeeper’s agreed to fill in. Unfortunately, she shows the same aptitude as Una, but—”
“Come along,” Alf called from the top of the steps. “You’re makin’ the train late!”
“I must go,” she said, starting up the steps.
“Wait,” he said, catching hold of her arm. “You mustn’t worry. It will all—”
“Come on!” Alf shouted, dragging her aboard. The huge wheels began to turn. “I get to sit by the window—”
“Goodbye, Vicar!” Theodore shouted, waving.
“You do not get to,” Binnie said. “Alf says ’e gets to sit by the window, but I want—”
“Shh,” Eileen said, leaning out. The train began to move. “What?” she called back to the vicar.
“I said,” the vicar shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth, “it will all come right in the end.” The train picked up speed, leaving him behind on the platform, still waving.
And if we no more meet till we meet in heaven, then joyfully, my noble lords and my kind kinsmen, warriors all, adieu!
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY V
London—21 September 1940
“OPEN THE DROP!” POLLY CRIED, IN HER PANIC HAMMERING on the peeling, nailed-shut door with both fists. “Colin! Hurry!”
The scream of the bomb rose to a painful shriek. Polly clapped her hands over her ears. Oh, God, it’s right on top of me, she thought. It’s a direct hit, and dropped to her knees, her head ducked against the eardrum-shattering sound, the expected blast.
But there wasn’t any blast, only a deafening, bone-shaking boom, followed by the rattle of things falling and then fire-engine bells. They stopped nearly a quarter of a mile away.
Impossible, she thought. That was on top of me. So was the next one, and the next one, and even though she told herself, murmuring it like a prayer, that the drop hadn’t been hit during the Blitz, it was impossible not to put her arms over her head when the bombs’ descending screams began, and cower, terrified, against the foot of the door.
“Colin!” she sobbed. “Hurry!”
After what seemed like an eternity but was only, according to the glowing dial of her watch, an hour and a half, the bombardment began to subside. Polly waited till the Kensington Gardens gun had stopped and then crept cautiously down the passage, almost afraid to look at what was left of it.
But the only sign of new damage was to the last two barrels at the alley end of the passage, which had toppled over. She pushed them out of the way and climbed a short way up onto the mound to look across the road. An incendiary had fallen in the middle of it and was sputtering and fizzing like an oversized child’s sparkler, and in its light she could see the still-intact tobacconist’s and could read “T. Tubbins” above the door of the still-there greengrocer’s. None of the shops was on fire. She couldn’t even smell any smoke. The shops’ unharmed roofs stood out sharply against the crimson sky, and she couldn’t see any firespotters on top of them, and none on the warehouses on either side of the drop. But the drop still didn’t open.
Perhaps the problem’s the Luftwaffe, Polly thought, looking up at the narrow space between the buildings. They can see the shimmer from up there and use it as a target.
But the idea that bomber pilots could see a tiny light on the ground—a cigarette or a chink in the blackout curtains—had been proven to be a myth. Neither could be seen at all from ten thousand feet up. Which meant the shimmer wouldn’t be visible either. And besides, the entire east and north of London were on fire, and the passage was nearly as bright as day. And half an hour later, when the planes were no longer overhead, the drop still showed no sign of opening.
An hour went by, then two. The raid intensified again and then let up, and the orange clouds faded to a sickly pink. The anti-aircraft guns stuttered to a stop. There was a long hush, broken only by the drone of a departing plane. It faded to a hum and then silence, and for several minutes Polly half expected to hear the all clear. Then the whole thing started up again.
It stopped for good at three, exactly when Colin had said it would. But he, or the historical