his elbow. He gives Julian his left hand to shake. Gratefully Julian stretches out his own left hand.
“I’m Wild,” the smiling man says. Julian is not sure if he is hearing a name or an adjective. The man doesn’t elaborate. He is fit and strong, able-bodied in every way except for the missing arm. “How do you know Folgate?”
“Is that her last name?”
“Wild, leave him alone,” Maria says. “Stop interrogating him. Let him meet the rest of the gang before the siren goes.”
“Is the siren going?” Julian asks. He wishes for no sirens. He wishes for it to be 1942 or 1943, after the terrible beginning and before the terrible end, somewhere in the drudging middle. Please, no sirens.
“Fine, Folgate,” Wild says, “but I’m going to introduce him, not you. You are atrociously long-winded, as if there isn’t a war on. Listen up, everybody!” he yells. “We have a new member . . .”
Finch protests. “No, we don’t!”
“Julian, gang. Gang, Julian.” Self-satisfied, Wild turns to Maria. “That’s how it’s done.”
Rolling her eyes, she pushes him in the chest. “Go away,” she says. She is familiar with him, unafraid of him, and not in love with him despite his brazen good looks. “Julian, come here and meet Duncan.” Duncan is a big guy, at least 6’5”, with a gruff voice and a lamb-like demeanor. He’s deaf in one ear and can’t serve, Maria says, but like many of their friends, he’s a volunteer in the Home Guard, the London Defence League charged with doing whatever is required to help the city get through the nighttime attacks. During the day, Duncan works the docks at Wapping.
“London Defence League?” Julian asks Maria. “You’re not part of that, too, are you?” He thought only men could join the LDL. Before she can reply, Duncan and Wild pull him away.
“Folgate, the war will be over before you’re done introducing this man. Stop being in love with the sound of your own voice.”
“Leave him alone, Wild,” Maria says. “Let me—”
“This isn’t the stage,” Wild continues. “Julian doesn’t give a toss about Duncan’s deaf ear. I just showed you how to do it. Again, watch and learn. Julian—Nick Moore. Nick—Julian. Nick, say something.”
“Fuck off,” says Nick, a spindly albino chap, spread out on a lower bunk, smoking and not getting up.
“That’s all you need to know about Nick,” Wild says. “He knows only two words. Right, Nick?”
“Fuck off.”
Nick works at the Ford truck and munitions factory in Dagenham, Maria tells Julian, which at the moment is closed on account of being nearly burned to the ground. So at present Nick is working the Wapping docks with Duncan.
“Julian, do you want to come with us when we go out?” Wild asks.
“Absolutely not!” says Finch, idling close by.
“Sure,” Julian says. “Where are you going?”
“Finch, after losing Lester, you well know we could use an extra pair of hands.” Wild waves his stump around. “We’re a Rescue Squad, Julian. We call ourselves the Ten Bells Watch. Ever hear of the Ten Bells?”
“The pub over in Bethnal Green?” Julian knows that pub. It’s not too far from Devi.
“Yes! Good man. When the umpteenth bomb fell into the transept of St. Paul’s, and all the stained glass was blasted out, the church got itself a group of volunteers called the St. Paul’s Watch whose only job was to douse incendiaries. Well, we’re a group of volunteers who douse the incendiaries that fall near Ten Bells.”
Julian laughs. “Pub saving is so often overlooked during war.”
“My sentiments exactly!” Wild studies Julian with an approving grin.
“Is that where you’re all from, Bethnal Green?” Julian doesn’t want them to be from there. Bethnal Green gets incinerated during the Blitz. “Does anyone have a newspaper?” What year is it? What month is it?
Reaching into one of the bunks, Wild pulls out the Evening Standard and tosses it to Julian, saying to Maria—
But Julian has stopped listening. The paper hangs from his hands.
It’s November 8, 1940.
His shoulders turn inward. He couldn’t have come at a worse time, a worse month, a worse year. He can’t even look up. The math in his head is brutal. He almost wishes he were back in Invercargill where he did no math at all.
“Are you okay, Julian?” Maria says solicitously.
The 49th day is Boxing Day, the day after Christmas.
She peers into his face.
This can’t be the way it ends. It just can’t be.
Getting himself together, he takes a deep breath, lifts his head, and smiles.