Big Smoke. Still, even with these blemishes, the beauty of the building was undoubtedly striking. Taking her turn at the gate, she handed the guard her pass, which clearly stated she’d be working in the war rooms. Finding her name on his list, he checked it off, and nodding to her, he ushered her through. As she walked towards the main door, her heart pounded. She was really going to do this. She would actually work for the prime minister himself.
Julia checked her watch and noted she was early, so without a need to rush, she allowed herself a moment to admire the architecture along the way as she sauntered into a long, broad corridor. To her right, sun streamed in through a line of elegant bowed windows, the leaded glass creating square pools of light that highlighted the tones of a highly polished cherrywood floor. From this vantage point, Julia got an excellent view of London. In one window she noticed a plump pigeon sitting sunning itself on one of the black wrought-iron guard rails, its eyes closed and its green and purple iridescent neck feathers shimmering in the morning sunshine. She smiled to herself as she passed it. Sometimes it was hard to believe a war was going on when nature treated it with such contempt.
The bright sunlight also bathed the wall to her left in a gentle, warming glow, illuminating statues and portraits of noted people of the past that hung there. Their stately figures were highlighted in arched recesses of white-coloured stone. Julia moved past paintings of starched-looking admirals and distant ancestors of the royal family, tripping lightly along the floor, not wanting her echoing shoes to draw attention to her. As she marvelled at the beauty and the heritage all around her, she hoped Mr Churchill would protect this. She would hate one of Hitler’s bombs to flatten all this impressive history. Reaching the end of the corridor, she moved through a grand archway into a marble-floored entrance hall, with more cream stone staircases ascending through the building. This morning it was alive with activity as people bustled about their business, the rolling echo of their collective conversations bouncing around the stone walls along with the sound of their hurrying feet. Julia had been instructed to head towards a doorway at the end of the room where another soldier stood on guard. Showing her pass once again, the soldier looked at it, handed it back, and allowed her inside, closing the door behind her.
The other side of that door was a world away from the rest of the building. It was such a contrast to the hallway she had just left that it took Julia a moment to see and get her bearings. Grey brick walls were illuminated by dim lighting and riveted to the walls was a heavy iron staircase with criss-cross metal treads that reached down into the bowels of the earth. It felt more like a fire escape than the way to the war rooms of a prime minister. Everything about it spoke of the industry of war: behind her was the grandeur of the British empire and in front of her was the future work to be done. It felt as though this staircase was a gateway to the inner workings of the machine that was driving the British war effort. She imagined it wasn’t much different from being on an elegant steamship and taking a wrong turn and suddenly finding yourself in the heat and dust of the engine room. As she had worn her high heels, she couldn’t help but clank down the metal stairs, feeling very self-conscious.
At the bottom of the staircase stood another soldier waiting by another enormous iron door. This one was in full dress uniform and studied her pass in much more detail than the guards before.
‘You’re new?’ he challenged, an edge of distrust in his tone.
She nodded. ‘My first day today.’
He peered at her again before slowly turning her pass over and running his thumb across the front of it, scrutinizing all the words, inspecting it for irregularities. Eventually, he handed it back to her.
‘You will need to wait here for your supervisor. You need an escort your first time in here.’
He went inside, closing the heavy steel door behind him with a clang of metal.
In the dimly lit hallway, Julia waited and shivered. Outside, it had looked as if it was shaping up to be another lovely day, but down here it was