These Dark Wings (19 page)

I lie exhausted in the black cold of my room.

I brace for other images but none come. Just the wind, ceaseless, moaning, slipping through the stone. It does not sleep either. I roll stiffly on to my side and then to my feet. The long winter night has ended. Wrenching aside the blackout curtain, I stare at the day. Sunday dawns grey and wet.

I look up at the heavy sky, frowning. How can there be that much dust – enough dust to block out the sun?

The silence of the Tower surrounds me. Wind on stone, shuffling echoes.

By nightfall the clouds have cleared. The black sky is empty. Searchlights stab and point in the darkness. No planes fly. No bombs fall.

Fifty-seven straight days. Every night, they have come.

Is it over? Have the Germans given up? Can people come up from the Underground, turn on their lights, go outside?

Or is Timothy Squire right? Is this the invasion?

When they stop coming from the sky, I’ll start looking to the sea.

I push aside Brodie’s words. I am happy, for a moment, to watch the small stars shining out. Tonight, for the first time in almost a week, I will shake out my hair and have a bath. Maybe I will wear it long, like Mum’s, even though I don’t have her lovely curls.

One thing I know for certain. Tonight, for the first time since I have lived at the Tower, I will go to sleep in my pyjamas.

The cold sun shines. The Warders, now all smiles and chuckling laughter, have gathered on the Green for a game of bowls. Grip and I watch them suspiciously.

Even Uncle is here, and though his throw is well short, he laughs as loud as the others. Oakes cheers him on with a grin I didn’t know he possessed. The sky is quiet, a gentle blue.

It is nice to be away from Timothy Squire, to be free of the
stiffness
of spending time with him. Stealing and sneaking and hiding.

Even some of the Wives are here, though few are smiling.

The Wives should be happier – most husbands are away in the desert or God-knows-where. Their husbands are alive and nearby. Other wives have to wait for letters from abroad, living in fear that some horrid news will come. No, it is not so bad for the Wives. They just have to waste away in queues.

I must stop thinking poorly of the Wives.
I
don’t want to spend all day in the queues, sorting out food coupons. Many of the Wives belong to the WVS, mobile squads of nurses, and committees that look after the refugees (French and Belgian, Leslie says). And many of the Yeoman Warders
are
in danger, leaving the Tower for second jobs as ARP wardens or firewatchers, members of rescue parties or volunteer firemen like Oakes.

Eventually, I am invited to try my hand – Yeoman Cecil is quite insistent – and I wander over and do my best. I send the ball as far as I can (much further than Uncle’s), yet still shy of the mark. There are many smiles, though, and soon I feel myself smiling too.

Though I have always burned easily in the sun, I don’t move into the shade until the game is over.

Dinners have become even worse. It seems raw carrots and potatoes are about the only things left. I don’t even wait to get back to my room. I have half a twopenny chocolate bar hidden inside my coat. (From Uncle.) The Warders, arguing and clearing up, are paying no attention to me. Unwrapping the chocolate, I take a slow, deliberate bite; then chew as fast as I can.

Uncle, pottering around the room, stops me as I leave. A little guiltily, I keep my head down as he talks.

‘I have something for you.’

He gives me a box. Inside, gleaming in the candlelight, is a knife.
A bare bodkin
. Delicately, he reaches for it, lifts it free. He turns it slowly over.

‘The handle is of yew, the same wood as the longbows of the famous yeoman archers.’ He presses the handle, gently, into my palm.
‘
Happy birthday.’

My expression says something that my mouth doesn’t, because he carries on in a low tone.

‘Just promise to keep it safe in its box.’

‘I will, Uncle.’

I know why he is giving this to me. I remember the rest of Churchill’s words.
A bare bodkin for every hand. If the Hun is to come, they will come. You can always take one with you.

Is this a fake peace? Is the invasion about to begin? When Flo and I were in Brighton, everyone still called it the ‘phoney war’ and the ‘bore war’. We were rushed back to London when Hitler invaded Belgium.

I remember thinking the war was going to be fine. I remember, early in June, the photographs in all the papers of the massive numbers of Canadians and Australians arriving in Britain. We were going to win.

Looking down at the small knife in its box, my eyes dim with tears.

Thursday, 14 November 1940

After school, I sit with Timothy Squire up on the battlements. He rarely leaves the grounds lately, I’ve noticed. Certainly not with me. We haven’t spoken a word to each other since I made him promise to stop looting. When he once came up and stood right in front of me, he saw the expression on my face and said nothing. Probably looking for someone to play Monopoly with.

Today, though, we are sitting together in full view of the Tower.

‘It’s not right,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘Something is wrong. Can’t you feel it?’

Yes.
‘Uncle gave me a knife as a birthday gift.’

His eyebrows climb.

The winter has hardened and so has the mood. After the single night of peace the Germans have returned, but now the attacks seem minor, brief. When Leslie said last week was the quietest Guy Fawkes Night she’d ever heard, neither of us laughed. No one seems to laugh these days. Something
is
wrong.

In the distance, a figure leans against the wall. It is Nell, not doing her firewatcher duty. It is clear, even at this distance, that she is ashing her cigarette.

‘You have to come and see.’

‘See what?’ I say, turning back to him. Some more shrapnel? A lady’s pearls?

Together we slide from the wall and head towards the barracks.

Again there is no one home. He is rummaging around in the pile of comics. It is not a comic that emerges. I recognize the radio instantly. The Warders have stopped listening to the BBC – grown tired of the jolly stories from the shelters, according to Oakes. One more resounding tale of ‘Blitz spirit’ will be enough to send people rioting in the streets. Oakes is spreading defeatism, I suppose, in his delusional attempts to stop the war.

Uplifting tales of heroism are not what Timothy Squire wants me to hear.

A voice crackles from the speakers.

‘Germany calling. Germany calling.’

I recognize the voice, which sounds more like ‘Jairmany calling’, and I immediately jump to my feet.

‘We can’t listen—’

‘I told you, they don’t tell us anything.’ Timothy Squire’s voice has that sneer in it.

‘Well, I believe you. But I don’t want to listen to this.’

Lord Haw-Haw (I’ve never heard his real name) does a daily broadcast from Radio Hamburg. We are told not to listen to Nazi propaganda, though some people seem to – I can sometimes hear his voice when I sneak past the barracks. Leslie laughs at him, how wrong and desperate he is. Others whisper about it, about how Lord Haw-Haw knows things that the BBC won’t tell us.

‘It’s unpatriotic,’ I say.

‘Something is going to happen,’ says Timothy Squire.

He is just scared, I tell myself. Still, it doesn’t feel right to be listening to this.
Why, Timothy Squire, must you be so awful?

Lord Haw-Haw’s voice is nasal, like someone talking with a busted nose (definitely
not
the velvety voice of Bruce Belfrage on the BBC), but his threats are chilling.

‘The Jews will get it tomorrow. The bombers will be over the Morris works in Oxford, and then on to Southampton.’

Bombs
are
falling all over Britain. London has had a few nights of anxious peace, but larger raids have targeted other cities. Birmingham, Manchester, Coventry, Bristol, Sheffield – attacking coal miners, shipbuilders, and steel workers. The radio voice is gleeful.

‘When Southampton is finished, Winchester will be next. But Hitler has something special for you tonight.’

Timothy Squire’s eyes are on me. He looks, for the first time, openly frightened.

‘Something is going to happen,’ he says.

I don’t know what to say.
Something
always happens. Why is this different? Unless... are they truly coming?

‘What do you think?’ I ask, trying to sound casual.

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. But something
different
.’

‘It’s Oakes,’ I say suddenly.

Timothy Squire does not turn off the wireless.

‘Oakes?’

‘Yes. Meeting with that German—’

‘Traitors’ Gate?’ Again the smirk in the words.

‘Yes, at bloody Traitors’ Gate! Listen, every time we’re hit... there’s a connection. I don’t care about spy fever – Oakes is a spy, I’m sure of it.’

‘So what do you want me to do?’ he says meanly, making that sickening gesture across his throat.

MacDonald.

I am suddenly filled with a terrifying thought.
No. I am acting mad.
Timothy Squire steals from empty houses; he would
never
kill MacDonald.

The thought is not as convincing as I’d hoped.

In the silence, the nasal voice returns, sneering.

‘Hitler has given you a day to bury your dead. Yesterday was only a sample.’

Where was yesterday’s attack? Are bombers coming back to London? I leave Timothy Squire’s flat without saying goodbye.

Back in my room, several hours later, I pull back the blackout curtain. The moon, huge and white, is rising. Too big, too fast. At any moment, the wail of the siren will be heard. Any second now, the Tower alarm will sound.

The night deepens. I check again, carefully, and see the moon shining cold and cruel. My eyes ache with the strain. And then, a sound. High, metallic, distant. Bombers. They are here.

But nothing comes. A far-off ship, perhaps. Or a distant plane, intent on some other mission? I stay at the window, unafraid of Violet or Uncle spotting me, my legs beginning to shake.