All Clear

The City—29 December 1940

EILEEN AND THE CHILDREN MADE FIVE RUNS TO AND FROM St. Bart’s with Dr. Cross over the next few hours with no opportunity to get away from him. When they returned to St.

Bart’s, he never even got out of the ambulance. Instead, he had Eileen back up to the entrance, where attendants unloaded the patients while he gave instructions to the house officer through the window and was told their next assignment.

“St. Giles, Cripplegate,” he’d say to Alf. “Do you know where that is?” and they were off again.

On the third run, Eileen had said, “We’re nearly out of petrol,” hoping she’d be sent to fill the tank when they arrived back at St. Bart’s and they could escape, but Dr. Cross had simply asked the incident officer for a tin, which he’d poured into the tank as flames licked less than five feet away.

We’ll have to make a run for it when we arrive back at St. Bart’s this time, Eileen thought.

But they didn’t go back. At the last moment the incident officer leaned in to say, “Injured ARP warden in Wood Street. St. Bart’s wants to know if you can pick him up on the way back.”

“Tell them yes,” Dr. Cross said.

“But what about the patient in the back?”

“He’s stable for the moment,” the doctor said, and they took off for Wood Street through streets filled with reddened smoke and lined with orange flames, maneuvering around spills of bricks and sparkling, sputtering incendiaries.

“HE,” Dr. Cross said as Eileen edged past a huge crater.

Alf nodded. “Five-hundred-pounder.”

I thought Mike said they didn’t drop any HEs, Eileen thought. And he said the raids were over by midnight.

But even though the all clear had gone while they were on the way back from Moorgate, she could still hear the low growl of the planes, and so could Binnie.

“ ’Ow come they done the all clear when them bombers is still comin’?” Binnie asked.

“It ain’t bombers makin’ that sound, you noddlehead,” Alf said. “It’s the fires. Ain’t it?” he asked Dr. Cross.

“Yes,” Dr. Cross said absently, wiping the windscreen with his hand to clear it, but it wasn’t the windscreen. It was the smoke, which seemed to be growing thicker by the moment as the number of fires increased.

When it began to rain a few minutes later, Eileen thought, Good, that should help put out the fires, but all it did was send up smothering clouds which came down over the streets like a blackout curtain.

Even Alf couldn’t find his way in it. He got them lost twice, and even when he was able to tell which way to go, more often than not the route was blocked with debris or with fire pumpers and miles of snaking hose.

They detoured around fallen masonry and a broken gas main shooting a jet of flame across the road. It was impossible to avoid all the broken glass—it was everywhere, testament to the HEs Polly had said the Luftwaffe hadn’t dropped.

Eileen drove cautiously over it, praying she wouldn’t get a puncture and strand them in the midst of the flames. She backed, turned, bore left in response to Alf’s directions and then right, trying to get to the incident and the injured warden and then trying to find a way back to St. Bart’s in an endless nightmarish round of darkness and flame and smoke.

Occasionally, a gust of wind would blow the smoke aside, and she’d catch a glimpse of St. Paul’s dome, floating above the smoke. It was never any closer, always just out of reach. Even if she could somehow have got free of Dr. Cross and the patients in the back, she couldn’t have got to it. When they tried to go to Creed Lane, a soot-blackened warden had stopped them and said, “You can’t get through this way. You’ll have to go round by Bishopsgate to Clerkenwell.”

“Bishopsgate?” Alf said. “That’s miles. Can’t we take Newgate?”

The warden shook his head. “The whole of Ludgate Hill’s on fire.”

“Even St. Paul’s?” Dr. Cross asked anxiously.

“Not yet, but it won’t be long now, I’m afraid.”

“What about the fire brigades? Can’t they do anything?”

He shook his head. “Can’t get to her, and even if they could, there’s no water. She hasn’t a chance.” And he gave them directions to make their way back to Bishopsgate.

“There’s got to be some way to go to Creed Lane without goin’ all that way,” Alf said after the warden walked away. “Try Gresham. Second left.”

But Gresham Street was a solid wall of flame, and so was the Barbican. They ended up having to go all the way to Bishopsgate after all, and by the time they reached Creed Lane, the burn victim had died.

“Young woman in her twenties,” the incident officer said, shaking his head. “Flames jumped the lane.”

He indicated the body that lay in the street, covered with a gray blanket. “That coulda been you if I wasn’t navigatin’,” Alf said to Eileen.

“She should have been in a shelter,” the incident officer said. “She’d no business being out in this.”

“Can Alf and me go look at the body?” Binnie asked.

“No,” Eileen said. They had no business being out on the streets in this either. “Is there a shelter near here?” she asked the officer. “These children—”

“You can’t leave us here,” Alf said. “We’re your assistants.”

“But your mother will be worried about you—”

Alf said, “We ain’t—”

Binnie cut him off. “Mum ain’t ’ome. She’s at work.”

“And if you make us go to a shelter, who’ll tell you ’ow to get back to St. Bart’s?” Alf asked.

He was right. She wouldn’t have a prayer of getting the ambulance back to the hospital without him. She was completely disoriented in the smoky fog, and Dr.

Cross was even worse. “No sense of direction, even in the daytime, I’m afraid,” he’d said on the first trip. “That’s why I never learned to drive.”

“You can leave us behind in some shelter,” Binnie said, “but you can’t make us stay there.”

She was right, and God knew what the two of them would do or where they’d go if they weren’t with her. “Get in the ambulance,” Eileen said, and went over to Dr. Cross and the incident officer.

The doctor was speaking on a field telephone. As she came up, the incident officer said, “Are you injured, miss?”

“Doctor,” he said, turning to Dr. Cross, “this young lady is—”

“I’m not injured. I’m Dr. Cross’s driver.”

Dr. Cross took the receiver from his mouth and said, “I’ve just been in contact with Moor Lane Fire Station. They’ve a fireman in Alwell Lane with burns and a broken leg. Guy’s Hospital was supposed to send an ambulance, but they can’t. The hospital’s on fire, and they’re busy evacuating their own patients.” He handed the telephone back to him and turned to Eileen. “We need to go pick up the fireman.”

He started for the ambulance.

“Wait,” Eileen said. If she could phone the fire watch and get a message to John Bartholomew, she could tell him they were trying to get to him and to wait till they arrived.

“Can you get through to St. Paul’s on that telephone?” she asked the incident officer. “My husband’s a member of the fire watch. I was on my way there to take him his supper when I was recruited into driving. He’ll be frantic with worry over where I—where the children and I are. If I could only telephone him to let him know I’m all right—”

The incident officer looked doubtful. “These phones are supposed to be for official business only.”

“This is official business,” Dr. Cross said. “We don’t want any of those lads worrying. We want their full attention on saving that cathedral.”

The incident officer nodded, cranked up the telephone, then put it to his ear and said, “Put me through to the fire watch at St. Paul’s,” and handed it to her. “It’ll take some time to patch it through.”

Eileen nodded, listening to a series of hums and trying to think what to say. She couldn’t mention their drops or time travel with the incident officer listening. And Mr. Bartholomew hadn’t met her yet. Who should she say was calling?

Mrs. Mr. Dunworthy, she thought, and I’ll tell him I’m trying to get to St. Paul’s so we can go home together, and to—

There was a sharp crackle, and a man’s voice said, “St. Paul’s Fire Watch here.”

“Yes, hello, I’m trying to reach—”

There was a volley of static, and then silence.

“Hello? Hello?”

The incident officer took the telephone from her. “Hullo?” He flicked the switching mechanism back and forth. “Are you there? Hullo?” He listened for a moment.

Eileen could hear a woman’s voice on the line.

“They just lost the telephone exchange at Guildhall,” the incident officer said. “They’re trying to get it back.”

But they won’t, Eileen thought. The Guildhall’s on fire. They’re evacuating the telephone operators.

“I’ll see if I can patch you through,” he said.

But that didn’t work either. “The operator says lines are down all over the city. If I do get through, what should I tell him?”

She thought quickly. “Tell him Eileen said that we can’t get through, but the three of us are coming to him as soon as we can, and to stay at St. Paul’s till we arrive.

Tell him on no account is he to leave for Mr. Dunworthy’s in Oxford without us,” Eileen instructed, and at his curious look, she added, “We were to have gone to our friends in Oxford for the New Year.”

He nodded, then ran up to the ambulance as she was pulling away. “You didn’t tell me your husband’s name.”

“Husband?” Alf said incredulously. “She ain’t—”

“Bartholomew, John Bartholomew,” she said quickly, and drove off before Alf could do any more damage.

“Bartholomew,” Dr. Cross said musingly. “How fitting that you and your children, the angels who’ve come to St. Bartholomew’s aid, should be named Bartholomew.”

Binnie began, “We ain’t—”

“Angels,” Eileen finished neatly.

“Oh, but you are,” Dr. Cross said. “I don’t know what we should have done without you. Half of our drivers were caught on the other side of the fire and couldn’t make it in. If it hadn’t been for you and your children—”

“We ain’t—”

“Which way do I turn up here?” Eileen cut in to ask.

“Left,” Alf said, “but—”

“It was extraordinarily good luck that Mrs. Mallowan told me she’d seen you leaving,” Dr. Cross said, and Eileen realized she’d heard him say that name before, when they were leaving St. Bart’s on that first run. But it had to be some other Mrs. Mallowan.

“Mrs. Mallowan?” she asked, to be certain.

He nodded. “Our dispenser, though actually she’s not ours. Our regular dispenser couldn’t make it in, and Mrs. Mallowan kindly offered to—”

“Her given name isn’t Agatha, is it?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Agatha Christie Mallowan?”

“I believe so. She lives in Holland Park.”

Binnie had said, “The dispenser looks like she don’t miss a trick,” and she was certainly right about that.

I finally get to meet Agatha Christie, Eileen thought ruefully, and when I do, she stops me from making my getaway and going to St. Paul’s.

“Are you acquainted with Mrs. Mallowan?” Dr. Cross was asking.

“Yes. No. I’ve heard of her.”

“Oh, yes, I believe she writes some sort of novels. Are they good?”

“People will still be reading them a hundred years from now,” Eileen said, and turned into Alwell Lane.

And into a scene of chaos. Nearly every building on both sides of the narrow street was on fire, bright yellow flames shooting from the windows and boiling up violently from the roofs and over the narrow street, threatening to engulf it at any moment. Three firemen had their hoses aimed at the burning buildings, even though there was no way they could save any of it. The stream from their hoses was only a thin trickle.

But they kept on spraying the buildings, oblivious to the flames arching dangerously over their heads. And to Dr. Cross. He had to shout at them twice before they told him where to find the injured fireman, and there turned out to be three other casualties as well—two firemen unconscious from smoke inhalation and a young boy with badly burned hands. They had to cram the four of them into the rear of the ambulance, and Binnie had to sit on the doctor’s lap on the way back to St. Bart’s.

The journey took even longer than the others had. Every road they turned up was blocked with fallen masonry or roaring flames or both. They could no longer catch even glimpses of St. Paul’s. It had been swallowed up in a boiling mass of smoke that filled the entire sky. When they pulled in to St. Bart’s, the smoke stood like a great red wall stretching from horizon to horizon.

There was no one at the entrance to take the patients inside. Binnie had fallen asleep on Dr. Cross’s lap. Eileen had to shake her gently awake to get her off him so he could go in to get help.

“I’m awake,” Binnie murmured crankily and curled up again next to the drowsing Alf.

“Shove off!” he said, then sat up and rubbed his eyes sleepily. “ ’E’s gone. Why ain’t you takin’ off for St. Paul’s?”

“Because we have four patients in the back.” And Dr. Cross was coming out the door with a trolley.

“I couldn’t find anyone,” he said. “We’ll have to take them in ourselves.”

Somehow they managed—with Alf and Binnie helping—to get all four patients onto trolleys, into the hospital, and through an endless maze of corridors to a place where they could be turned over to the staff.

And it was no wonder there hadn’t been anyone at the entrance. Every ward, every examining room, was filled with patients, scurrying nurses, soot-covered rescue workers, doctors shouting orders, harried-looking attendants—one of whom detached himself at Dr. Cross’s order from the ARP warden he was bandaging to come take Eileen’s end of the trolley from her. “What are you doing?” he asked. “You’re injured. Sit down. I’ll fetch a doctor.”

Why did everyone keep saying that? “I’m Dr. Cross’s driver.”

“What are you doing?” Dr. Cross said impatiently to the attendant. “Grab hold of the trolley.” To Eileen he said, “Wait here.”

Eileen nodded, and he and the attendant disappeared with the trolley through a pair of double doors. And she was suddenly free to leave and go to St. Paul’s, as long as she wasn’t waylaid by some other doctor on the way out.

And if I can get to the cathedral, she thought, remembering that wall of red and what the warden had said about all of Ludgate Hill being on fire. She looked at Alf and Binnie, drooping beside her. I can’t take them back into the middle of those fires, she thought, though she wasn’t at all certain she could find her way to St. Paul’s without them.

I must. I’ve already exposed them to too much danger tonight as it is. Which meant she had to get away from them, a feat that she knew from experience was nearly impossible. Perhaps if she persuaded them to sit down, they’d fall asleep again.

But when she suggested it, Binnie said, “Sit down? He’ll likely be back any minute.”

“Come along,” Alf said, grabbing her hand.

“In a moment,” she said. “I need to tell the matron we’ve gone out to the waiting room so the doctor won’t know where we’ve gone,” which was larcenous enough for them to fall in eagerly with the scheme.

“Stay there,” she ordered, and walked quickly down the corridor.

She wasn’t certain she could find her way back to the ambulance, let alone to St. Paul’s. She hadn’t paid any attention to which way they’d come when they brought the trolley in. And she had to be quick, or Alf and Binnie would tumble to what she was doing, and she’d find them waiting for her outside.

She looked in vain for someone to ask. There—walking away down that side corridor—was someone. Not a nurse. She was hatless and wearing a navy blue coat.

An ARP warden, Eileen thought. She’d very likely just brought a patient in.

“Miss!” Eileen called. “Can you tell me where the emergency ward is?”

The young woman turned. She looked disheveled, her fair hair badly windblown, and smears of soot on her cheeks and forehead. Not an ARP warden, Eileen thought. A patient.

“Eileen! Oh, thank God!” the young woman cried, and began to run toward her.

“Polly?”

Polly flung her arms around her. “I was so afraid I’d be too late. It took me hours to get here,” she said, nearly sobbing. “There were fires everywhere, and I couldn’t get through … and I thought I’d never find the hospital … but here you are, thank God!”

They were both talking at once. “How did you find me?” Eileen asked. “I thought you were at St. Paul’s. I was just leaving to look for you. Where’s Mike?”

Polly pulled back from her. “Isn’t he here with you?”

“No, I … we got separated. I thought he went to St. Paul’s. He’s not with you?”

“No. Where did you see him last?” She stopped, staring at Eileen in horror. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”

“No. You mean because I’m here at St. Bart’s? I was dragooned into driving an ambulance and—”

“But you’re bleeding.”

“No, I’m not,” Eileen said, and looked down at herself. The entire front of her coat was covered in dried blood. Her hands were bloody, too. A crooked line of blood had trickled down the back of her hand and wrist and into her sleeve. No wonder people had kept asking her if she was injured.

“It’s not mine,” she said. “There was a lieutenant who was bleeding. I had to apply direct pressure.”

“And I ’ad to drive,” Binnie said, popping up beside her.

“I told you where to go, you pudding’ead,” Alf said. “You’d ’ave ended up bein’ burnt to ashes if I ’adn’t.”

“I would not,” Binnie said.

“You would so.” Alf turned to tug at Eileen’s bloody sleeve. “What’re you doin’ ’ere? The ambulance is that way.” He pointed back down the corridor. “And who’s she?”

“My friend Polly. Are you certain Mike didn’t come to St. Paul’s?” Eileen asked Polly. “That’s where he said he was going.”

“Who’s Mike?” Binnie asked.

“Hush,” Eileen said. “Might you have missed each other somehow?”

“Yes … I don’t know. He might have come while I was on the roofs—”

“Or he might have gone back to Blackfriars tube station to find me,” Eileen said. “He told me to wait there for him. Come along, we’ve got transport. We’ll go to St. Paul’s first. Mike may have told Mr. Bartholomew where—”

“Who’s Mr. Bartholomew?” Alf asked.

“Shh,” Eileen said. “Mike may have told him where he was going, and if he didn’t, we’ll tell Mr. Bartholomew to search between St. Paul’s and Pilgrim Street—

that’s where we got separated—and we’ll go to Blackfriars and look—”

“No,” Polly said. “Mr. Bartholomew’s here!”

“Here?”

“Yes, in this hospital.”

“Oh, well, then, that makes it simple. He can go back to St. Paul’s and look for Mike there, and we can go to Black—”

“You don’t understand,” Polly said. “I came here to find John Bartholomew, but I don’t know where he is. I’ve been asking the staff, but no one will tell me anything. I know he’s somewhere here in the hospital—”

Eileen stared blankly at her. “You haven’t found him yet?”

“No, I only just missed him. The fire watch said he’d left for hospital—he brought the man who was injured here—and I came to find him, but it’s taken me hours, and—”

“He brought him here? When?”

“I’m not certain,” Polly said. “A bit before eleven.”

John Bartholomew had been here at St. Bart’s the entire time she was transporting patients. If she’d only known. “What’s the name of the firewatcher who was injured?” Eileen asked.

Polly looked stricken. “I don’t know. I should have asked, but I thought I might still be able to catch them—”

“It’s all right. I know what Mr. Bartholomew looks like and what he had on. I saw him earlier tonight. He was wearing street clothes and an overcoat and scarf.

We’ll go through the wards—”

“You saw him?” Polly said. “Where?”

“At Blackfriars. He—”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” Polly said eagerly. “If you told him about us—Did he tell you where the drop was?”

“Drop?” Binnie said alertly.

Alf cut in, “You mean like when they ’ang somebody?”

“I didn’t have a chance to tell him anything,” Eileen said. “I was on the train platform when he ran past, and I tried to go after him to catch him, but—”

“Alf got in the way,” Binnie said.

“I never,” Alf responded indignantly. “It was that guard what stopped ’er.”

“Shh, both of you,” Eileen said. “I tried to go after him, but I was shanghaied into driving two bombing victims to St.—”

“We been rescuin’ people all night,” Alf said.

“Except for this one what died,” Binnie put in. “We got there too late.”

“Too late,” Polly murmured.

“You mustn’t worry,” Eileen told her. “We’ll find him. What sort of injury did the firewatcher he brought in have? Burns? Broken bones? Internal injuries?”

If it was internal injuries, he’d be in surgery, but Polly didn’t know. “All I know is they had to carry him down from the roofs on a stretcher.”

“They? There was more than one firewatcher with him?”

“Yes. The other one was Mr. Humphreys. Elderly, balding.”

“Good,” Eileen said. “You know what he looks like, and I know what Mr. Bartholomew looks like.”

“I’ll find ’em,” Alf said, and started to dash off. Eileen grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and Binnie by her sash.

“What’re you doin’ that for?” Alf demanded indignantly. “I’ll wager I can find ’em sooner’n you. I’m good at spottin’.”

“I know you are,” Eileen said, “but neither of you is going anywhere till we’ve worked out a plan. Mr. Bartholomew is tall and has dark hair. How tall is Mr.

Humphreys, Polly?”

“Shorter than me,” she said. “They should both be wearing blue coveralls and tin helmets unless Mr. Bartholomew didn’t have time to change, in which case—”

“He’ll be wearing street clothes and an overcoat,” Eileen said. “You and Binnie check the waiting rooms, and I’ll go ask Dr. Cross—”

“What if ’e makes you drive him someplace again?” Binnie asked.

She was right. “I’ll ask the matron, then, and Polly, you go describe the patient to the admitting nurse. We’ll all meet back here. Alf, Binnie, if you find Mr. Humphreys, ask him where Mr. Bartholomew is, and tell him—”

“You’re lookin’ for ’im,” Alf finished for her.

Polly gave Eileen a rapid look.

“No,” Eileen said. “He won’t know who we are. Tell him someone from Oxford needs to speak to him.”

“You ain’t from Oxford,” Alf said. “You’re from Backbury.”

“ ’Ow come ’e won’t know who you are?” Binnie asked.

“I’ll explain later. If he won’t come with you, tell him to stay where he is, and then come fetch us.”

“What if we get thrown out?” Alf asked.

Always a possibility where the Hodbins were concerned. “Go round to the door of the ambulance entrance and wait for us there,” Eileen said.

“What if ’e’s unconscious so we can’t tell ’im?” Alf asked.

“We ain’t lookin’ for the one what’s hurt, you dunderhead,” Binnie said. “We’re lookin’ for the ones what’re with ’im. Ain’t we, Eileen?”

“Yes,” she said, and Alf nodded and took off like a shot down the deserted corridor.

Binnie started after him and then stopped. “You ain’t tryin’ to ditch us like you done when you said you was goin’ to tell Matron we was in the waitin’ room, are you?”

She should have known better than to think she could fool them. “I’m sure.”

“You swear?”

“I swear,” Eileen said.

Binnie pelted down the corridor. “I take it those are the fabled Hodbins,” Polly said, looking after them.

“Yes, and if anyone can find Mr. Bartholomew, they can.”

She led Polly back to the spot where Dr. Cross had told her to wait, said, “Someone inside will be able to tell you where the admitting desk is, Polly. And the ambulance room entrance,” and hurried upstairs.

She’d hoped the busyness and disorganization would enable her to sneak unnoticed into the wards, but a matron stopped her. “No one’s allowed up here—you’re injured. Orderly!” the matron called. She took Eileen’s arm and attempted to steer her to a chair. “Where are you bleeding?”

“It’s not my blood,” Eileen said, cursing herself for not taking off her coat. “I’m Dr. Cross’s driver. He sent me to ask about a patient who was admitted here tonight, a member of the St. Paul’s fire watch.”

“The men’s wards are on the second and third floors.”

“Thank you,” Eileen said, and ran upstairs, pausing on the landing to shed her coat, drape it over the railing, and use her handkerchief and spit to rub the worst of the caked blood off her wrists and hands before going on up.

There was no matron on second, but a nurse came out of the first ward as she was going in. She went through her story again. “What’s the patient’s injury?” the nurse asked.

“Dr. Cross didn’t tell me,” Eileen said. “Two other firewatchers brought him in, Mr. Bartholomew and Mr. Humphreys.” She described them.

The nurse shook her head. “They wouldn’t be on the ward. No one but patients is allowed on this floor.” But Eileen went through the litany with nurses outside each of the wards, hoping one of them might know where Mr. Bartholomew was, and then went up to third. It took forever, and she felt as if she was still in the ambulance, dealing with endless detours and blocked-off lanes.

There was no sign of Mr. Bartholomew or Mr. Humphreys. Or of Alf and Binnie. They’ve probably already managed to get themselves thrown out, she thought, but as she ran down to Admitting, she thought she glimpsed them darting around a corner.

Polly hadn’t had any luck either. “The admitting nurse went to ask if anyone in the emergency ward knows anything,” she said, “but she’s been gone forever. I’m afraid she may have been waylaid to help out with patients.”

The way I was with the ambulance, Eileen thought. “The firewatcher wasn’t in the patient roster?”

“No.”

“Are you certain he was brought here?”

“Yes,” Polly said, then looked uncertain. “That is, the firewatcher I talked to said he thought they’d come here, but if the roads were blocked, they might have taken him to Guy’s.”

“No, it caught fire. They had to evacuate.”

“Where were they taking the patients?”

“I don’t know,” Eileen said. And if they set off to some other hospital, they might miss him, the way she and Polly had missed each other that day she’d gone to Townsend Brothers. “They might not even be here yet,” she said. “You may have been able to come here faster on foot, there are so many roads blocked. I’ll go check the ambulance entrance.”

If I can find it, she added silently, and set off to look for it, but before she was halfway down the corridor Polly called her back.

The nurse had returned. “I found the patient you were looking for,” she said. “Mr. Langby.”

“Where is he?” Polly asked.

“He’s just been taken upstairs from surgery.”

Eileen and Polly started toward the stairs, and the nurse moved swiftly to block their way. “I’m afraid no one’s allowed in the recovery room. If you’d like, you can wait in the waiting room.”

“Two men brought him in,” Polly said. “Members of the fire watch. Can you tell us where they are?”

And when the nurse seemed to hesitate, Eileen put in, “Dr. Cross sent me to find out. I’m his driver.”

“Oh,” the nurse said. “Of course. I’ll go and see.”

“One’s elderly and the other’s tall with dark hair,” Eileen called after the nurse, and described what she thought they were wearing.

“And let’s hope she doesn’t run into Dr. Cross while she’s finding out,” she said to Polly.

Binnie came tearing up. “I been to all the wards, and ’e ain’t there. You want me to go look someplace else?”

“No, stay here till the nurse comes back,” Eileen said. If the nurse didn’t bring any information, they could send her to surgery. “Where’s Alf?”

“I dunno,” Binnie said. “Me and ’im split up. Do you want I should go look for ’im?”

“No.” Eileen grabbed her to ensure she didn’t.

The nurse returned. “I spoke with the ambulance driver who brought Mr. Langby in. She said only one member of the fire watch came with Mr. Langby—a Mr. Bartholomew—and that he left as soon as Mr. Langby was safely inside the hospital.”

“Left?” Polly said, looking as though she’d been kicked in the stomach.

“Left to go where?” Binnie asked, and the nurse seemed to suddenly become aware of her presence.

“Children aren’t allowed in—” she began.

“Left to go where?” Eileen cut in. “It’s essential Dr. Cross speak with him immediately. When did he leave?”

“Over an hour ago,” the nurse said. “You’ll have to take that child to the waiting room.”

“She’s Dr. Cross’s niece,” Eileen said. “I’ll go and tell him.”

She let go of Binnie’s arm, grabbed Polly’s, and propelled her down the corridor. “Don’t worry. We can still catch him. We’ll drive to St. Paul’s,” she said. “Binnie—” But Binnie had disappeared.

An orderly was coming toward them, looking angry—no doubt the reason she’d vanished, and she’d reappear as soon as he passed. But she didn’t.

Good, Eileen thought, steering Polly through the maze of corridors, looking for something familiar to show her they were headed in the right direction. They obviously couldn’t take Alf and Binnie with them, and this way they wouldn’t have to waste time arguing with them over their staying here.

But Alf popped up moments later and said, “If you’re lookin’ for the ambulance, you’re goin’ the wrong way.”

“Where’s your sister?” Eileen asked.

He shrugged. “I dunno. We split up. Where’s your coat?”

“I took it off. Show us the way.”

“Come along,” he said, and led her and Polly quickly and expertly to the dispensary.

Agatha Christie wasn’t there, which Eileen supposed was good, considering what had happened last time, but she’d have liked to see her again now that she knew who she was. And what? Tell her how much you love her novels? London’s burning to the ground, and you’ve got to get to St. Paul’s. She pushed out through the emergency doors.

The ambulance wasn’t there.

Of course not. There were hundreds of casualties, and Guy’s Hospital’s ambulances couldn’t get through. I should have taken the keys like Alf, she thought, feeling sick, staring at the empty spot where the ambulance had been.

Polly was staring at the sky. The wall of smoke was still there, but the red had faded to a pinkish charcoal gray, and above the pall the overcast sky was beginning to show a hint of paler gray. “It’s nearly morning,” she said. “We’ll never make it in time.”

“No, it isn’t,” Eileen said staunchly. “That’s the light from the fires reflecting off the cloud cover.”

Polly shook her head. “ ‘It is the lark.’ ”

“It isn’t. It’s only—” Eileen held her watch up, trying to see the time, but it was too dark to make out the hands. “There’s still time to get there before he leaves,” she said, though she didn’t see how. The Underground wouldn’t start running till half past six, and even if they could get to Blackfriars, they’d have to climb Ludgate Hill.

Polly was still staring blindly at the sky. “We won’t be able to find him,” she murmured as if to herself. “We’ll be too late.”

“Alf,” Eileen said, “do you think you could find us a taxi?”

“A taxi?” Alf said. “Whattya want a taxi for?”

Wretched child. “We must get to St. Paul’s immediately. It’s an emergency.”

“Why don’t you take the ambulance?” he said, and Binnie came driving around the corner of the hospital.

She leaned out the window. “I thought I better ’ide it so nobody else took it.”

Alf opened the passenger door, scrambled in, and rolled down his window. “Well?” he said. “Are we goin’ or what?”

That won’t be there in the morning.

—FIREMAN, ON SEEING ST. PAUL’S

SURROUNDED BY FIRES,

29 December 1940