All Clear

St. Paul’s Cathedral—29 December 1940

EILEEN WATCHED THE WARDEN START AROUND THE INCENDIARY and up the steps after Polly. “You there! Stop!” he called after her, but she was already inside and the door had closed behind her.

For a split second Eileen was afraid he was going to go in after her, but the incendiary suddenly began gyrating and throwing off violent sparks and blobs of molten magnesium, and the warden stopped where he was, brushing wildly at his coat and arms. Mike leaped to his aid, slapping at the sparks.

The incendiary’s spinning was bringing it closer to the men and to the edge of the step.

“Look out!” Eileen shouted. It rolled over the edge, still spinning, and down two steps, sending off a shower of stinging sparks. Eileen instinctively backed away from it and fell off her step, stumbling and flailing her arms to keep her balance.

There was another, higher-pitched swish. “Jesus!” Mike shouted, running toward her. “Here come some more. We’ve got to get out of here!” He grabbed her hand.

They skirted the incendiary and ran up the steps, but too late. Another incendiary rattled down onto the porch, directly between them and the door, fizzing. They backed away from it.

And straight into the arms of the warden. “This way!” the warden shouted. “Quick!”

He grabbed their arms and herded them back down the stairs and around the side of the cathedral. More incendiaries fell, glittering among the trees and shrubs in the churchyard and along the lane as he propelled them down the hill.

“Where are we going?” Mike shouted.

“Shelter!” the warden yelled back over the roar of the planes. “Keep near the buildings!”

There was another clatter, several streets away, and a heavier thump. That’s an HE, Eileen thought. But Mike said it was all incendiaries.

They rounded a corner. A woman and two children were huddling in a doorway. “Come along,” the warden said, letting go of Mike’s arm to take charge of them, too. “We must get out of this.”

He was right. Fires were springing up all around them, turning the garish white light of the incendiaries to orange. The group went faster, heads down, hugging the line of wooden warehouses, and two elderly men fell in behind them.

Mike leaned close to Eileen as they ran. “If we get separated,” he said, “go to Blackfriars with him and wait for me there.”

“Why? What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got to get into St. Paul’s.”

“But—” Eileen said, looking fearfully back up the hill. Fires were burning all along its crest.

“We’ve only got tonight to find Bartholomew,” Mike said, “and Polly doesn’t even know what he looks like.”

“But I thought you said we needed to keep together.”

“We do. But if we should happen to get separated, we can’t afford to waste time running around looking for each other. We may only have a couple of hours’

leeway to get to the drop—”

He broke off as the warden turned his head to say, “We’re nearly there.” The warden pointed down a side street. “There’s a surface shelter just round the corner from here.”

A surface shelter. Polly had said one of them had been hit. “I thought you were taking us to Blackfriars,” Eileen shouted over the anti-aircraft guns.

“This is nearer!” the warden shouted.

They rounded the corner and stopped. The building at the end of the block was on fire, flames and smoke boiling from its upper story. In front of it, filling the narrow street, was a fire engine. Firemen swarmed around it, uncoiling hose, spraying a stream of water on the blaze. Eileen stepped back involuntarily, and bumped right into another fireman. “This lane’s off-limits!” he shouted at her, and then at the warden, “What are these people doing here?”

“I was taking them to the shelter in Pilgrim Street,” the warden said defensively.

“This whole area’s restricted,” the fireman said. “You’ll have to take them down to Blackfriars.”

“Wait,” another fireman said, coming over from the engine. He was carrying an infant. He thrust it into Eileen’s arms. “Here. Take this with you,” he said, as if it were a parcel.

The baby immediately began to scream. “But I can’t—” Eileen protested, and turned to Mike for support.

He was nowhere to be seen. He must have taken advantage of the confusion to go assist Polly. And left her here. With an infant.

The fireman was already walking away. “Wait, where’s its mother?” she shouted over the baby’s ear-splitting screams. “How will she know where to find it?”

He looked at her and then back at the burning building and shook his head grimly.

“Come along,” the warden said, and led Eileen and the others back to the corner and down the hill, stepping over the tangle of fire hoses which seemed to be everywhere.

The infant was screaming so loudly that Eileen couldn’t even hear the guns. “Shh, it’s all right,” she whispered to it. “We’re going to the shelter.”

It redoubled its screams. I know just how you feel, Eileen thought.

The couple and the teenaged girl had all hurried ahead, and the warden called back impatiently to Eileen, “Can’t you keep that child quiet?” as if she were violating some rule of the blackout.

At least they were going to Blackfriars. And between the fires and the searchlights, she could see the street ahead and the tube station below them. “Shh, we’re here, sweetheart. We’re at the shelter,” she told the baby, hurrying to the entrance, down the stairs, and inside.

The baby abruptly stopped crying and looked around at the busy station, rubbing its eyes. It was perhaps a year old, and covered with soot. Perhaps it got burned, and that’s why it’s screaming, Eileen thought, and examined its chubby arms and legs.

She couldn’t see any injuries. Its cheeks were very red, but that was probably from crying, which it looked like it was winding up to do again. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asked, to distract it. “Hmm? What’s your name? And what am I going to do with you?”

She needed to find someone in a position of authority to give the infant to. She went over to the ticket booth. “Can you—?” she said, and the baby began to scream again. “This child’s been separated from its mother,” she shouted over its shrieks, “and the fireman asked me to take her to the authorities.”

“Authorities?” the ticket seller shouted back blankly.

A bad sign. “Have you an infirmary here?”

“There’s a first-aid station,” he said doubtfully.

“Where?”

“On the eastbound platform.”

But it wasn’t there, though she walked the full length of the platform, the baby squalling the entire time. “I don’t recall ever seeing one,” a shelterer said when she asked him. “Is there a first-aid station here, Maude?” he asked his wife, who was putting her hair up in pincurls.

“No,” Maude said, opening a bobby pin with her teeth. “There’s a canteen in the District Line hall.”

“Thank you,” Eileen said, and started along the tunnel. Surprisingly, it was deserted.

Or perhaps not so surprisingly, she thought, walking through a puddle and then another. Water was dripping from the ceiling, and there was a distinctly unwaterlike odor. She walked rapidly toward the stairs at the end.

Halfway there, she was suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of children. They ranged in age from about six to twelve or so, and were incredibly grubby. Fagin’s band of pickpockets, she thought, and tightened her grip on her handbag and the baby.

“Give us a tuppence?” one of them asked, holding out his hand.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Why’s your baby cryin’?” the eldest one asked challengingly.

“Is it sick?”

“Wot’s its name?”

“Has it got the colic?” the others chimed in, dancing around her.

“It’s crying because you’re frightening it,” she said. “So run along.”

“I ’eard ’er tell the ticket seller it weren’t ’er baby,” the girl said. “I think that’s why it’s crying.”

“I bet she pinched it,” the eldest boy said.

The girl circled around behind her.

“That’s why she won’t tell us its name,” the smallest one said, pointedly not looking at the girl, who was edging closer to Eileen’s handbag. “Because she don’t know it. If it is your baby, wot’s its name?”

“Michael,” Eileen said, and walked rapidly away.

They ran to catch up with her. “What’s your name?”

“Eileen,” she said without breaking stride and rounded the corner to a stairway crowded with people.

The sitting and reclining bodies made it nearly impossible to get up the stairs, but it didn’t matter. The children had melted away so quickly she thought there must be a guard at the head of the stairs and scanned the crowd eagerly for him, but there was no one who looked official, only people in coats and nightclothes. Shelterers and evacuees. Eileen shifted the baby to a more comfortable position and picked her way up the stairs and out into the District Line’s hall.

Where there was no canteen and no first-aid station. “Oh, dear,” she said, and was immediately sorry. The baby, whose crying had subsided slightly during the interesting encounter with the urchins, went off again.

“Shh,” Eileen said, walking over to two women standing in an alcove, talking. “I’m supposed to deliver this baby to the authorities,” she said without preamble. “It lost its mother in a fire. But I can’t find—”

“You need to take her to the WVS post,” one of the women said promptly. “They’re in charge of incident victims.”

“Where’s that?” Eileen asked, looking round at the hall.

“Embankment.”

“Embankment? Oh, but—”

“The westbound platform,” the woman said, and the two of them walked quickly away.

Before I could fob the baby off on them, Eileen thought.

What now? She couldn’t take it to Embankment. Mike had told her to wait for him here. If he found John Bartholomew …

But she couldn’t go with him with this infant on her hands. And Embankment was only two stops away.

But Polly’d said some of the lines had been hit. What if she couldn’t get back? She couldn’t risk it. She’d have to find someone here to take the baby. She surveyed the platform, looking for a motherly type.

There was one, bathing a baby in a dishpan. “Shh, sweetheart, don’t cry,” Eileen said, stepping carefully between people’s shoes and their stretched-out stocking feet to get to her.

“I was wondering if you could help me,” she said to the woman, who was wringing out a washcloth. “I’m trying to find this baby’s mother.”

“I’m not it,” the woman said, and began washing her baby’s face.

It didn’t like it. It began to cry, and so did Eileen’s baby. “I know,” Eileen shouted over the din. “I was wondering if you could watch the baby since you have one of your own.”

“I’ve six of my own,” the woman said, grabbing a bar of soap and rubbing it vigorously over her baby’s hair. It screamed even louder. “I can’t take on another.

You’ll have to find someone else.”

But everyone Eileen asked refused to help. Maybe I should just wait till no one’s looking, she thought, and set the baby down in the middle of them and walk off.

They won’t even notice it’s not one of theirs. And even if they did, they’d surely take care of it when they realized it didn’t belong to anyone.

And if they didn’t, and the baby toddled out to the edge of the platform and fell onto the tracks?

I’m going to have to take it to Embankment after all, Eileen thought, and went out to the platform.

It was even more jammed than the others. She stepped gingerly around picnic hampers and over a game of Parchesi. “You! Watch where you’re going!” someone called, but they weren’t speaking to her. They were shouting at two of the urchins who’d accosted her before.

They dashed up to her, just missing the Parchesi game. Eileen instinctively tightened her grip on her handbag. “You said you was named Eileen,” the boy said.

“Eileen wot?”

“Why?” Eileen said eagerly. “Is someone looking for me? A tall man with a limp?”

The boy shook his head.

“Is it the baby’s mother?” she asked, though it couldn’t be. The fireman had indicated that she was dead.

“I told you she pinched it,” the girl said to the boy.

“Eileen wot?” he repeated doggedly.

“O’Reilly,” she said. “Who asked what my name was?” but they were already tearing back down the platform at breakneck speed, vaulting over shelterers and darting between passengers who were getting off the train that had just pulled in.

“Mind the gap,” the guard called, standing inside the door of the train.

The train guard. She wouldn’t have to take the baby to Embankment after all. She could give it to the guard, and he could take it to the WVS post. If she could get to him.

But the platform was jammed, and the doors were already closing. “Wait!” she cried, but it was too late. I’ll have to wait for the next one, she thought, working her way out to the edge so she could hand the infant to the guard as soon as the doors opened.

It had been snuffling, but as soon as Eileen stood still, it set up a howl again. “Shh,” Eileen said. “You’re going to take a nice train ride. Would you like that?”

The baby howled louder.

“You’re going to go on a nice train, and then have some nice milk and biscuits.”

“If the train comes,” the old man next to her said. “They’re saying there’s been a disruption in service.”

“A disruption?” Eileen peered down the track into the tunnel, looking for an engine light in the blackness. Nothing.

This is the story of my life, she thought, standing on platforms waiting for trains which never come, with children who don’t want to go on them.

“That infant should be in bed,” the old man said disapprovingly.

“You’re quite right.” She looked at him consideringly, but he looked frail. And ill-tempered. “I’ll speak to Hitler about it,” she said, and noticed that people waiting had perked up and were looking down the track. She still couldn’t see a light, but there was a faint rumble, and a gust of air caught the skirt of her coat and blew it against her.

“Can you see it?” she turned to ask the old man. The baby gave a sudden ear-splitting shriek and launched herself out of Eileen’s arms.

“Don’t—” Eileen gasped, lunging for it.

“Maaah!” the baby shrieked, its little arms outstretched, and Eileen looked up the platform.

A woman was running toward them, her arms outstretched, too, stumbling over the shelterers sitting against the wall. Her face and arms were smeared with soot, and there was a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but her face was alight with joy.

“Oh, my darling!” she sobbed, pushing past the old man, nearly knocking him down.

She snatched the baby out of Eileen’s arms and hugged it to her. “I thought I’d never see you again, and here you are! Are you all right?” she said, holding the baby out to look at it. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“It’s fine,” Eileen said. “Only a bit frightened.”

“The bomb knocked you out of my arms, and I couldn’t find you, and the fire … I thought …”

“I need to get to the train,” the old man said, and Eileen was surprised to see that it had pulled in.

He pushed past her to the opening doors.

“Mind the gap,” the guard Eileen had intended to give the baby to said, and passengers began to get off, buffeting mother and baby, but neither of them noticed.

The baby gurgled happily and the mother cooed, “Mummy’s been looking for you everywhere.”

One of the passengers crashed into Eileen, hurrying to get past. “Sorry,” he muttered, and darted past her, so quickly he was halfway to the end of the platform before she realized who it was. John Bartholomew.

He wasn’t wearing the fire-watch uniform—he had on an overcoat and a dangling wool scarf—but it was him. Eileen was certain of it, in spite of his looking younger, in spite of the fact that he was supposed to be at St. Paul’s, not here at Blackfriars. He must have been somewhere else and had returned as soon as the raid began. That was why he was pushing his way desperately through the crowd, to get to St. Paul’s.

“Mr. Bartholomew!” Eileen shouted, and ran after him down the platform.

He didn’t turn his head, he just kept plunging through the crowd, over to the exit and into the tunnel.

Oh, no, he’s here under another name, Eileen thought. And what were the fire watch called? “Officer!” she called as she ran along the tunnel to the stairs.

“Firewatcher! Wait!”

He was halfway up the stairs. “Officer Bartholomew!” she shouted, and stepped squarely onto the Parchesi board. It flipped up, and dice and wooden pieces flew everywhere.

“What the—?” the boys who’d been playing the game said.

“Sorry!” she called without stopping, and ran on up the stairs, sidestepping teapots and shoes.

“Watch where you’re going!” someone shouted as she raced along the tunnel and over to the escalators. “This isn’t a racecourse, you know.”

John Bartholomew was already at the top of the nearly empty escalator and stepping off. “Mr. Bartholomew!” she shouted desperately, vaulting up the moving John Bartholomew was already at the top of the nearly empty escalator and stepping off. “Mr. Bartholomew!” she shouted desperately, vaulting up the moving escalator two steps at a time.

At the top, the station was full of people swarming in carrying children and bedrolls and, improbably, a tall stack of books. For a moment she couldn’t see him, and then she spotted his dark head. He was going toward the turnstiles.

She started after him, swimming upstream through the crowd, calling, “Mr. Bartholomew! Wait!” But there was no way he could hear her in this din.

She pushed past a cluster of women, all in robes and nightgowns, and ran toward him. “Mr. Barthol—” she shouted, and two urchins jumped out in front of her.

“I told you it was ’er,” Binnie said.

“Alf, Binnie!” Eileen said, looking desperately past them at John Bartholomew, who was through the turnstile and heading toward the exit. “I haven’t time—” She tried to elbow past.

But they planted themselves firmly in front of her, blocking her way, and Binnie grabbed her arm. “We been lookin’ for you everywhere,” she said.

“Yeah.” Alf folded his arms belligerently. “Where’s my map?”

It’s going to be a warm night.

FIREMAN,

29 December 1940