Polly plunged past him. The incident rope caught at her legs and snapped, but she ran on, unheeding. The rope tangled in her legs and trailed out behind her as she raced down the debris-strewn road to the wreckage of the church.
No, not wreckage. There were no roof slates here, no rafters or pillars or pews to show it had ever been a church, only a flat expanse of pulverized bricks and glass. Except for the mangled metal railing of the steps which had led down to the basement shelter and which no one, no one could have got out of alive.
“So many killed,” the old man had said. Oh, God, the rector and Miss Laburnum and Mrs. Brightford. And her little girls.
This happened last night when I was in the drop, she thought. I heard it hit. They’d all have been there in the shelter. And if I hadn’t been in the drop, I’d have been there, too, she thought sickly, and remembered her plan to hide in the sanctuary till everyone was off the streets. I’d have been in that with them, she thought, staring at the rubble. With Lila and Viv and Mr. Simms. And Nelson.
And Sir Godfrey. They were all under there. “We must get them out of there,” Polly said. She started toward the railing, thinking, “Why isn’t the rescue squad here?” but even as she formed the thought, her mind was processing the fact that there wasn’t any dust or smoke hovering above the wreckage, only the drifting fog, and that she’d looked for and hadn’t seen the spire last night, was processing the already-strung rope and the depression in the center of the mound that had to be a shaft dug by the rescue squad. And the old man, who knew the church had been hit, who knew the people in it had been killed.
He came trotting up, clutching his fringed cushion and his paper sack. “Hard to take in, isn’t it, miss?” he said, coming over to stand beside her. “Such a beautiful church—”
“When did this happen?” Polly demanded, but she already knew the answer. Not last night. Two nights ago. The rescue squad had already been here, had already dug out the bodies and taken them away in mortuary vans.
“Night before last,” the old man was saying, “not more’n an hour after the sirens went.”
They were already dead when I was in the alley worrying about running into them on their way to the shelter, Polly thought bleakly. And the whole time I was trapped in Holborn. St. George’s and the shops in front of the drop were hit the same night. The back of her knees went suddenly weak, as if she had ventured too near the edge of a cliff.
“Least that’s what the warden said yesterday morning,” the old man was saying. “It didn’t… here, now, are you all right, miss?”
She stared blindly at him. The drop wasn’t hit last night. It was the night before last. But it can’t have been. If it was, then the—
Her knees buckled. The old man caught her, dropping his cushion and the paper sack onto the pavement as he did. “Why don’t you sit down here on the curb for a moment,” he said, holding her up. “Till you’re feeling better, and then I’ll take you home. Where is it you live, miss?”
He meant the boardinghouse. But Mrs. Rickett and Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming and Miss Laburnum were all dead. There was no one there to tell the retrieval team she lived there. And there’d been no one there yesterday, when—
“I must go to Townsend Brothers,” Polly said.
“That’s not a good idea, miss,” the old man said. “You’ve had a bad shock. The ARP post’s just down the way. I’ll be back in no time.”
In no time. They’re all dead, she thought, and they can’t tell them where I am. They can’t come and get me—
“Oh, dear,” the old man said, catching her and easing her down onto the edge of the curb. “Are you certain you aren’t injured?” and when she didn’t answer, “You sit there, and I’ll fetch the warden. He’ll know what to do.” He tucked the fringed cushion against the small of her back, trotted off down the street, and disappeared into the fog.
Polly got to her feet and stumbled blindly off up the street. She had to get away before he came back with the warden. She had to get