All Clear

Ludgate Hil —29 December 1940

MIKE ROUNDED THE CORNER AND FLATTENED HIMSELF into the first doorway he came to and waited, hoping the ARP warden wasn’t right on his heels. When the fireman had begun shouting at the warden, Mike had started backing away from the group, keeping close to the buildings, and as soon as he was even with the corner, had darted up the lane they’d just come down and into the next side street. It was narrow and pitch-black after the light of the fires, which was why he’d ducked into the doorway—so his eyes could adjust and he could see if he was being followed.

He wasn’t. There was no one in the street or at the end of it, though he’d half hoped Eileen would manage to get away from the warden, too. He’d hated abandoning her, but he’d been afraid he might not have another chance. Once inside the shelter, they’d have had a hell of a time getting out. And he had to get to St.

Paul’s. Polly didn’t know what John Bartholomew looked like, and besides, there was no way they’d let a woman up on the roofs, which was where Bartholomew was bound to be. Another wave of incendiary-bearing planes was already coming this way, the rumbling drone growing louder by the second.

The fastest way back to St. Paul’s was the way they’d come with the warden, but he didn’t dare risk it. That warden had been doggedly determined. When he discovered Mike was missing, he was liable to come after him. I’d better take the next street over, Mike thought. He emerged from the doorway, looked quickly in both directions, and took off running, thinking, At least I don’t have to worry about being heard. The roar of the planes drowned out everything else.

Before he’d gone a hundred yards, he regretted his decision to come this way. The street curved sharply, and the lane branching off it was not the next street over. It was no wider than an alley, with several other, darker alleys opening off it.

Mike picked the one that looked like it led out of the maze, hampered by the fact that he couldn’t see anything.

The alley didn’t lead anywhere. It ended in a brick wall. Mike retraced his steps, cursing. Why couldn’t they have figured out John Bartholomew was at St. Paul’s two weeks ago, two months ago, so all they’d have had to do was walk into the cathedral and ask for him? He’d known where he was. He should have asked Polly when St. Paul’s had nearly burned down instead of assuming it was in May, and he should have asked Eileen what John Bartholomew’s assignment was. But they’d all been so focused on airfields and then Bletchley Park. And now, instead of walking into St. Paul’s and politely asking Polly’s Mr. Humphreys for Bartholomew, he had to fight his way through a raid at the last minute in the dark.

He realized he must have missed a turning. The street he found himself on led back downhill, and when he turned and went in the opposite direction, twisted back on itself, and ran downhill, too. The drone grew louder, so loud he could barely hear the clatter of incendiaries falling on all sides. They were several streets over, but they lit the whole area in a garish white light.

Good, Mike thought. At least I’ll be able to see where I am. But nothing looked familiar at all. He glanced up, searching for the dome of St. Paul’s to orient himself by, but the buildings on either side of the narrow street were too tall.

He ran down to the corner, but he couldn’t see it from there either. The only thing visible was thick, roiling smoke, reflecting the light from the fires in a pinkish orange, and above it thick clouds. And flames. There were fires everywhere. The lack of water to fight them with was supposed to have been the problem, but no amount of water could have made a dent in this many blazes.

Another batch of incendiaries rattled down, making him dive into a doorway for cover. “Heddson and Poldrey, Booksellers, has moved to 22 Paternoster Row,” a notice posted on the door said, and there was an arrow pointing up to the next street. Paternoster Row ran right alongside the cathedral.

But the entrance to it was blocked by a blaze which filled the whole street. He backtracked and went up the next lane over, but it didn’t go through. He tried the next.

And there was the blaze which had blocked his way to what had to be Paternoster Row. He had to be really close to St. Paul’s, though he still couldn’t see it. The dome was supposed to have floated like a beacon above the smoke and flames that night, so where the hell was it? All he could see was smoke. And more flames. The entire far side of the street was on fire, red flames leaping from the windows of the warehouses and book depositories that lined it, but he couldn’t afford to backtrack again. He had to get to St. Paul’s.

He ducked his head against the intense heat and started along the street.

A man with an axe grabbed him by the sleeve. “Where do you think you’re going?” he shouted over the roar of the fire.

“St. Paul’s!”

“You can’t get through that way!” the man shouted. “Help me break this door down!”

Mike shook his head. “I’m not a fireman!” he shouted back.

“Neither am I!” the man bellowed, hacking at the door. “I’m a reporter. I’m supposed to be covering this fire, not fighting it, but there’s no one else here!”

I don’t have time for this, Mike thought.

“I’ll go get the fire brigade!” he said, to get away from the reporter.

“No use! That’s the fire station,” the reporter shouted, pointing with the axe at a flaming building down the street and chopping ineffectually at the door again. “I just saw an incendiary land on the roof!”

And if it burned through to the floor below, the building and this whole end of the street would go up, and he’d never get through. Mike grabbed the axe from the reporter and began hacking at the door, splintering the heavy wood while the reporter ran to get one of the sandbags piled up against the corner lamppost.

“Why in God’s name they’ve locked every one of these buildings when they knew there were bound to be raids, I don’t know,” the reporter said, coming back with the sandbag. “And what good did they think putting a bucket of water and a stirrup pump outside the door would do?”

Mike had the door open. The reporter dumped the sandbag across his arms, grabbed the stirrup pump and bucket, and raced up a rickety staircase. Mike ran up after him, but by the time he got there with the sandbag, the reporter already had the incendiary out.

Mike smothered it with sand, just in case, and the reporter said, “That’s one less fire I’ll have to cover tonight,” but by the time they got downstairs again, flames from the warehouse next door were licking at the side of the building, and yet another wave of planes was buzzing overhead.

“Do you hear that?” the reporter said unnecessarily, and then Mike realized he was talking about a jangle of bells. A fire brigade.

A fire engine pulled into the street, and men swarmed off it and began hooking up a hose to the hydrant. Water belched from the hose and then slowed to a trickle.

“There’s no water in the main!” one of the firemen shouted.

“We’ll have to hook them up to the pumps!” the one in charge said, and the men connected the hoses to portable pumps and began playing water on the flames.

Good, Mike thought. The professionals can take over. The reporter seemed to be thinking the same thing. He picked up his camera from where he’d left it on the doorstep and began snapping pictures of the firemen training a hose on the fire station.

Mike edged away from him, gauging whether he could get down Paternoster Row to the cathedral or was going to have to go around. The blaze didn’t seem to be any bigger, but the wind was starting to pick up, fanning the flames.

“Here,” a fireman said, shoving a hose into Mike’s hands. “Take this branchpipe down to Officers Mullen and Dix.”

“I’m not one of your firemen,” Mike said, determined not to get caught again. He thrust the hose back at him and said what he should have said to the reporter. “I have to get to the cathedral. I’m a member of the St. Paul’s fire watch.”

The fireman slapped the heavy nozzle and hose back into Mike’s hands. “Then this is where you belong.”

“But—”

“If we don’t stop it here, nothing you can do at the cathedral will save her. Run it along there, where Mullen and Dix are,” he ordered, pointing at two firemen, barely visible through the smoke, playing water on a warehouse fifty yards or so up the street.

And fifty yards closer to St. Paul’s, Mike thought.

“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” he muttered, and slung the hose over his shoulder and limped off with it down the wet street, stepping over two other hoses and going around a pile of burning debris. He’d hand the branchpipe to Mullen and Dix and take off, and hopefully the smoke would keep the first fireman from seeing what he’d done. Or at least give him a head start.

If he could get past the fire they were trying to put out. It was a bookstore—he could see the wrought-iron signboard above the door: T. R. Hubbard, Fine Books—and the inside of the store was an inferno, flames leaping from every single window all the way up to the roof and lunging out into the middle of the narrow street.

Mullen and Dix, playing a pathetic stream of water—which turned instantly to steam—on it, were backed almost up against the warehouse across the street, even though it was on fire, too—as if they were afraid the flames in front of them would make a sudden lunge—and their helmeted heads were ducked against the blaze.

And the heat. The air was hideously hot and full of burning cinders. One landed on Mike’s ear, sizzling, and he swiped wildly at it as if it was a wasp.

The hose snagged on something, jerking him back so hard he nearly stumbled. He hobbled back to see what it had caught on. A piece of stone coping. It must have fallen from the top of one of the buildings. He kicked it aside and began hauling the hose again toward Mullen and Dix, who had backed up even farther against the warehouse so that it seemed to loom over them.

It was looming over them. “That wall’s going!” Mike shouted, but even he couldn’t hear his voice over the roar of the flames and the wind. “Get out of there!”

He dropped the hose and waved his arms wildly, but they didn’t see him either. Their heads were down, and the top of the wall arched out above them like a breaking wave.

“Look out!” he shouted, and dived forward, half tackling, half shoving them into the middle of the street and out of the way.

The wall crashed down, spraying bricks and sparks. Mullen and Dix scrambled to their feet, slapping at their uniforms. The hose they’d been holding flailed and writhed like a huge snake, spraying icy water all over the three of them.

Mike made a lunge for it, but it was too strong for one person to hold. “You have to help me!” he shouted to Mullen and Dix, but they were just standing there next to the heap of bricks that had been the warehouse wall.

They shouted something at him. It sounded like “You saved our lives!”

Oh, no, Mike thought, wrestling with the writhing hose. Just like Hardy.

But it doesn’t matter he told himself. We won the war. Polly was there.

But that wasn’t what they were shouting after all—it was something about the bookstore.

“What?” he said, and turned around to see it, signboard and all, come crashing down on him.

“Yes, you may go to the ball, Cinderella,” her fairy godmother said, “but take care that you do not stay past midnight, or your coach will turn back into a pumpkin, and your gown once again into rags.”

—CINDERELLA