These Dark Wings (24 page)

No. If we are not ourselves now, when things are hardest, when we are needed most, when are we? Is this our best, lying and stealing? Running away and abandoning those we love? To this? To this world without them? I realize with a jolt that I am no longer thinking of Timothy Squire.

‘Your mother was very talented, as you must know,’ comes a piercing whisper, ‘a fine violinist. Listen, listen.’ Uncle is doing his thing where he is talking, but not really
to
anyone. ‘This part... here.’ And, after a moment, ‘Oh, I’m sure she
loved
this piece.’

Uncle is too far away to notice my sour look. Mum told me herself she wasn’t good enough to play professionally for a living, though she would sit for hours in her study with her violin, and forget to come out even to say goodnight. In the later days, she didn’t play the violin so much. Still she went into her study, the brown wooden door closed tight. Father, she said, had been a truly gifted violinist. If I ever heard him play, I don’t remember it.

While there is much church singing, eventually the noisy voices and strings do come together quite beautifully. Perhaps Mum
would
have been pleased to see me here.

The night air is freezing but welcome. I take a huge gulp of it. I would rather be frozen outside than stuffed in some fancy room with old people who do nothing but cough.
No one even clapped until the very end.
Never have I seen a moon so bright.

It is a quiet bus ride home. Cold air seeps inside, and Uncle soon drifts to sleep.
I will have another chance to ask him.
Once we get home, however, the moment we are back inside the Tower, an old sound returns. I can’t take my eyes from the barracks clock. It is 11.03 p.m. It has been three weeks.

The siren is wailing. At the time, it is a shock – the siren had been so quiet, and now my eardrums throb from the old, immediately familiar sound. But there is nothing in it to warn us that this was the night that Hitler had long been planning.

The night he would make us surrender.

Guns fire with the siren still in the air.

The British fighters are not in the sky yet. They are not in the sky when the first wave of German bombers passes over. Planes, countless planes, more than I have ever seen at once. They are not in the sky when the string of incendiaries lands on the Tower.

The east Casemates is hit. Constable Tower burns. Uncle says nothing. We have not moved from the grounds in front of the barracks. We stand, breathing heavily, looking out over the city. Between London Bridge and Southwark Bridge there is only a wall of flames. The moon, through the smoke, is still visible, high and bright and distant. I just keep swallowing, unable to stop myself.

No one goes to the shelter. No one moves. We are frozen, witnesses to these last moments, to this end.

It is nearly midnight. There comes a terrible rush of wind. Still we do not move. Oakes runs out, clearly searching for us, before joining our motionless vigil. I am too terrified to even move away from him.

An unknown amount of time passes, and the city is destroyed. Fire rains from the sky. Torches rise from the city to greet it. Everything is lit, the flames beacons for further destruction. The fire’s own wind churns up glass and sparks.

Below us roars a huge semicircle of fires. London bubbles and smokes, like a pot of boiling stew. I forget about everything. About Mum, about Father, about Timothy Squire, about Cora and MacDonald, about Oakes and the German.

The air is filled with debris. Everything is confused – I don’t know how I am standing or if I even am. The cold stone is beneath me and above me, and the world is ringing and pulsing. Even the moon is gone now. Dust fills my nose, my mouth.

The Tower breathes fire. Smoke drills flit through my mind –
crawl on your stomach, mouth as near the floor as possible –
still I don’t move. The wall of flames hems us in.

Another incendiary lands: to see it, just there. It is smaller than I thought it would be, smaller than Timothy Squire had me believe. He is a rotten liar. It is tiny, malicious, hissing. What happens when it ignites? I have always wondered. Will the world turn black? Disappear? Will I feel the heat on my skin?

All around me, people run. I see, though, in the distance, on the other side of the Tower, the dark outline of a figure on the ground. I can tell from the size and shape that it is Malcolm. Not ten feet from the white sputter of the bomb.

Without thinking, I move to the sandbags and pull one free. Someone screams my name. The sandbag is heavy, almost heavy enough to pull me over. Instead I stagger ahead. A hand reaches for me; I shoulder it away.

I can feel the heat of the bomb. It is too hot. What did Timothy Squire say?
It will cool.
I have no time to wait. I trudge into the wall of heat, dragging the sandbag behind me. I can hear nothing other than the rumble of the planes and the mocking whir of the bomb.

There is Malcolm, hands over his face, lying far too close.
His father is not here. Yeoman Brodie is away, off in the countryside somewhere.
Any moment now the incendiary will roar to life, and we will be buried in the avalanche of stone turrets and the east wall. I think of Flo, running on and on, long after my own breath gave out and my legs felt strangely light and clumsy.

You can do this.

I see in my mind the large, black, watching eye of Grip.
I am sorry.

I inch forward in the heat. There is no time. I wield the sandbag, but I miss the bomb by several feet. I am not close enough.

I move nearer, clenching the sandbag. Again I wield it, and this time I strike the hissing bomb. And again and again. I pummel the bomb to death. The sandbag is heavy now, too heavy to lift once more.

An arm pulls me, hard. Then I feel nothing except the blistering heat.

Tuesday, 13 May 1941

I am in bed. Somewhere much more comfortable than my creaking bunk. My arm is wrapped tightly in white cloth – another bedsheet, I notice – and the air smells heavily of iodine.

Hitting that bomb. I can still remember, I can still
feel
it, the exhilaration.

Thank you, Flo.

Uncle comes in. I beam at him. That he is so strong, so fast – that he raced into that blaze to save me. As I look at him, though, I can say none of these words. I can only smile up at his concerned expression.

He has brought eggs and toast, which I eat awkwardly with my left hand.

‘It is good to see you awake and smiling, my dear,’ he says. ‘Two days, and you’ve barely woken up to have a sip of water.’

‘I’m feeling better now, Uncle. Thank you.’

He smiles, a kind smile. ‘You’re looking fighting fit. In a few weeks your hair will have grown right back.’

‘
My hair
?’

I try to reach up but my arm is wrapped too tight. With my left I explore, tentatively, the top of my head. There is
some
hair, at least, though not at all even.
I can’t let Nell see me like this
. God, what will Timothy Squire say? In a few
weeks
it will grow back?

‘Are you okay, dear? I hope so. Because there is someone who wants to see you, if you have the strength for visitors.’

Before I can even answer the door is opened. Awkwardly, Malcolm is ushered into the room by a red-faced nurse. I turn my head on the pillow, not sure which way to shift.
What does my hair look like?

‘Come on in, Malcolm. Is there anything you want to say to Anna?’

He shuffles closer. He looks more pained than I have ever seen him.

‘Thank you,’ he finally mutters.

I smile back at him. At least he recognizes me.
My hair can’t be
that
bad.

‘Can I go now?’ He turns helplessly to Uncle, who nods.

Grip would have had more to say.

I am in the Hospital Block, I finally realize – I have never been in here before. I must get a mirror.

‘And you,’ Uncle says, touching me gently, ‘owe a debt yourself. Gregory is at the cathedral this morning, but he should be back this afternoon.’

‘Yeoman Oakes?’ I say weakly.

‘A very foolish thing to do, Anna, running into that fire. Luckily, Gregory was close enough to reach you. No one else could have.’

Oakes?

Uncle tells me more. He protests, says I am too tired, too sleepy; I ask until he tells me everything. Untold damage, thousands dead or dying. So many places were hit: the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, St Mary-le-Bow, Somerset House, King’s Cross Station, Big Ben, and the House of Commons. The Queen’s Hall, where only hours before we had sat listening to the music of Gerontius, has burned to ash. The moon, when it reappeared, shone red, reflecting the blazing streets below.

The two nights since have seen no attacks. Lucky for me, as I was apparently just lying here, under no shelter apart from these white sheets. No one thinks this is the end, not after nine months. What will it take? Life cannot continue. Not like this. We have done all we can. We can do no more.

But Uncle has other news. The school building in the Mint has been destroyed. School is cancelled for the year. I have no time to count my blessings –
no student report!
– as Uncle keeps talking. The mere fact that the building is rubble is not the only reason why school has been cut short.

‘Many of the parents are worried, rightly, of course,’ he says. His next words echo strangely in my ears. ‘Some of the kids have been sent away.’

‘Evacuated? Now?’

‘Yes. Some to Gloucester, others north.’

My heart seizes. Flo has already been taken from me; poor Leslie was killed. If Kate leaves too...

‘Malcolm is being sent to Gloucester to stay with his father. And Mavis’s boy, Carson. Rosemary and Jill Parrett. And the Squire family.’

The world seems to move more slowly. Uncle is there, sitting beside the bed in his old suit and tie; I can’t seem to piece it together. What is he saying?

‘Mr Squire was so distraught. You should have heard him after Timothy ran from the shelter that night. Gregory had to hold him from running out into the bombing after his son. Now, with the latest attack... it was too much. He loves that boy. They had to go somewhere safe, the whole family. Timothy Squire had to go away, Anna dear.’

‘When? When are they going?’

His face is drawn tight.

‘Malcolm and Carson leave at noon, I believe. The others took yesterday’s train.’

Sunday, 18 May 1941

Leslie’s mum was nice enough to lend me a hat for Chapel. It is quite unbecoming, covered in fake blue flowers, and far too big, but at least no one can see my hair. I shall have to wear this hat for several more weeks.

Maybe by then Timothy Squire will have returned.

‘Oh, my dear. When you asked me if Mr Squire’s boy, if Timothy, had left anything for you, I thought... Well, I did find a curious thing, on the floor by the bed, but I thought one of the nurses must have dropped it...’

‘What? Where is it?’

We are leaving Chapel along with all the others when he casually mentions
this
. Sparks says a jolly hello in passing but I don’t even respond. I am surprised he noticed me, hiding under Mrs Ballard’s hat.

Uncle looks taken aback. ‘It is, ah, it’s just here.’

For an eternity he rummages in the pocket of his brown suit, before handing me the small object.

‘What is it?’

Uncle squints in the sunlight. ‘I don’t know. I thought perhaps you might know. I assumed it was nothing at first, a trifle left in this old suit, until I recalled where I picked it up. I had hoped, given the circumstances, that maybe it had some significance?’

None that I can see. What the bloody hell is it? Is it a joke?

It
looks
like a tiny piece of metal, the size of a thumb – a piece of a bomb, or shrapnel maybe? Then I see the weird shape at the base, almost like a...

‘What happened to the study? The night of the May raid?’

Uncle shakes his head sadly. ‘I am sorry, my dear. The study was destroyed along with the school.’

Not all of it, I think, putting the half-melted silver dog into the pocket of my dress.
Timothy Squire.

Uncle has started walking again, giving up the mystery as lost. I keep pace, my face blank. In my pocket, though, I can feel the weight of the metal figure.

A final act of scavenging.

Wednesday, 21 May 1941

Everything is different now. I can walk without pain, some of my hair has grown back (but I am never without Mrs Ballard’s hat), and the weather is warm and bright even as dusk falls. But things have not changed
this
much. Something very unusual is happening. Soldiers are acting oddly and extra Warders walk their beats. Everyone seems in a tizzy, the nurses and the NAAFI girls, women and men walking quickly, heads down.

I have seen it, spending the week sitting on the Green in the sun until Uncle fusses and sends me back to bed. I took the news of the others leaving poorly, I suppose.