Blackout

London-17 September 1940

BY MIDNIGHT ONLY POLLY AND THE ELDERLY, ARISTOCRATIC gentleman who always gave her his Times were awake. He had draped his coat over his shoulders and was reading. Everyone else had nodded off, though only Lila and Viv and Mrs. Brightford’s little girls had lain down, Bess and Trot with their heads in their mother’s lap. The others sat drowsing on the bench or the floor, leaning back against the wall. Miss Hibbard had let go of her knitting, and her head had fallen forward onto her chest. The rector and Miss Laburnum were both snoring.

Polly was surprised. The historical accounts had said lack of sleep had been a major problem. But this group didn’t seem bothered by the uncomfortable sleeping conditions or the noise, even though the raid was picking up in intensity again. The anti-aircraft gun in Kensington Gardens started up, and another wave of planes growled overhead.

She wondered if this was the wave of bombers that had hit John Lewis. No, they sounded nearer-Mayfair? It and Bloomsbury had both been hit tonight as well as central London, and after they’d finished with Oxford Street, they’d hit Regent Street and the BBC studios. She’d better try to sleep while she could. She would need to start off early tomorrow morning, though she wondered if the department stores would even be open.

London businesses had prided themselves on remaining open throughout the Blitz, and Padgett’s and John Lewis had both managed to start up again in new locations after a few weeks. But what about the day after the bombing? Would the stores which hadn’t been damaged be open, or would the whole street be off-limits, like the area around St. Paul’s? And for how long? If I haven’t got a job by tomorrow night-

Of course they’ll be open, she thought. Think of all those window signs the Blitz was famous for: “Hitler can smash our windows, but he can’t match our prices,” and “It’s bomb marchй in Oxford Street this week.” And that photograph of a woman reaching through a broken display window to feel the fabric of a frock. It might even be a good day to apply for a position. It would show that the raids didn’t frighten her, and if some of the shopgirls weren’t able to make it into work because of bombed bus routes, the stores might hire her to fill in.

But she’d also have to compete with all those suddenly unemployed John Lewis shopgirls, and they’d be more likely to be taken on than she would, out of sympathy. Perhaps I should tell them I worked there, she thought.

She folded her coat into a pillow and lay down, but she couldn’t sleep. The droning planes were too loud. They sounded like monstrous buzzing wasps, and they were growing louder-and nearer-by the moment. Polly sat up. The noise had wakened the rector, too. He’d sat up and was looking nervously at the ceiling. There was a whoosh, and then a huge explosion.

Mr. Dorming jerked upright. “What the bloody hell-?” he said, and then, “Sorry, Reverend.”

“Quite understandable given the circumstances,” the rector said. “They seem to have begun again.” Which was an understatement even for a contemp. The gun in Battersea Park was going full blast, and he had to shout to make himself heard. “I do hope those girls are all right. The ones who were trying to find Gloucester Terrace.”

The gun in Kensington Gardens started in again, and Irene sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Shh, go back to sleep,” Mrs. Brightford murmured, looking over at Mr. Dorming, who was staring at the ceiling. The raid seemed to be directly overhead, whumps and bangs and long, shuddering booms that woke up Nelson and Mr. Simms and the rest of the women. Mrs. Rickett appeared annoyed, but everyone else looked wary and then worried.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have let the girls go,” Miss Laburnum said.

Trot crawled into her mother’s lap. “Shh,” Mrs. Brightford said, patting her. “It’s all right.”

No, it’s not, Polly thought, watching their faces. They had the same look they’d had when the knocking began. If the raid didn’t let up soon…

Every anti-aircraft gun in London was firing-a chorus of deafening thump-thump-thumps, punctuated by the thud and crash of bombs. The din grew louder and louder. Everyone’s eyes strayed to the ceiling, as if expecting it to crash in at any moment. There was a screech, like tearing metal, and then an ear-splitting boom. Miss Hibbard jumped and dropped her knitting, and Bess began to cry.

“The bombardment does seem rather more severe this evening,” the rector said.

Rather more severe. It sounded as if the planes-and the antiaircraft guns-were fighting it out in the sanctuary upstairs. Kensington wasn’t hit, she told herself.

“Perhaps we should sing,” the rector shouted over the cacophony.

“That’s an excellent idea,” Mrs. Wyvern said, and launched into “God save our noble King.” Miss Laburnum and then Mr. Simms gamely joined in, but they could scarcely be heard above the roar and scream outside, and the rector made no attempt to go on to the second verse. One by one, everyone stopped singing and stared anxiously up at the ceiling.

A high-explosive bomb exploded so close that the beams of the shelter shook, followed immediately by another HE, even closer, drowning out the sound of the guns but not the planes droning endlessly, maddeningly overhead. “Why isn’t it letting up?” Viv asked, and Polly could hear the panic in her voice.

“I don’t like it!” Trot wailed, clapping her small hands over her ears. “It’s loud!”

“Indeed,” the elderly gentleman said from his corner. “‘The isle is full of noises,’” and Polly looked over at him in surprise. His voice had changed completely from the quiet, well-bred voice of a gentleman to a deep, commanding tone that made even the little girls stop crying and stare at him.

He shut his book and laid it on the floor beside him. “‘With strange and several noises,’” he said, getting to his feet, “‘of roaring…’” He shrugged his coat from his shoulders, as if throwing off a cloak to reveal himself as a magician. Or a king. “‘With shrieking, howling, and more diversity of sounds, all horrible, we were awaked…’”

He strode suddenly to the center of the cellar. “‘To the dread rattling thunder have I given fire,’” he shouted, seeming to Polly to have grown to twice his size. “‘The strong-bas’d promontory have I made shake!’” His resonant voice reached every corner of the cellar. “‘Sometime I’d divide and burn in many places,’” he said, pointing dramatically at the ceiling, the floor, the door in turn as he spoke, “‘on the topmast, the yards, and bowsprit would I flame-’” He flung both arms out. “‘Then meet and join.’”

Above, a bomb crashed, close enough to rattle the tea urn and the teacups, but no one spared them a glance. They were all watching him, their fear gone, and even though the terrifying racket hadn’t diminished, and his words, rather than attempting to distract them from the noise, were drawing attention to it, describing it, the din was no longer frightening. It had become mere stage effects, clashing cymbals and sheets of rattled tin, providing a dramatic background to his voice.

“‘A plague upon this howling!’” he cried. “‘They are louder than the weather or our office,’” and went straight into Prospero’s epilogue and from there into Lear’s mad scene, and finally Henry V, while his audience listened, entranced.

At some point the cacophony outside had diminished, fading till there was nothing but the muffled poom-poom-poom of an anti-aircraft gun off to the northeast, but no one in the room had noticed. Which was, of course, the point. Polly gazed at him in admiration.

“‘This story shall the good man teach his son, from this day to the ending of the world,’” he said, his voice ringing through the cellar, “‘but we in it shall be remembered-we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’” His voice died away on the last words, like a bell echoing into silence.

“‘The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve,’” he whispered. “‘Sweet friends, to bed,’” and bowed his head, his hand on his heart.

There was a moment of entranced silence, followed by Miss Hibbard’s “Oh, my!” and general applause. Trot clapped wildly, and even Mr. Dorming joined in. The gentleman bowed deeply, retrieved his coat from the floor, and returned to his corner and his book. Mrs. Brightford gathered her girls to her, and Nelson and Lila and Viv composed themselves to sleep, one after the other, like children after they’d been told a bedtime story.

Polly went over to sit next to Miss Laburnum and the rector. “Who is he?” she whispered.

“You mean you don’t know?” Miss Laburnum said.

Polly hoped he wasn’t so famous that her failing to recognize him would be suspicious.

“He’s Godfrey Kingsman,” the rector said, “the Shakespearean actor.”

“England’s greatest actor,” Miss Laburnum explained.

Mrs. Rickett sniffed. “If he’s such a great actor, what’s he doing sitting in this shelter? Why isn’t he onstage?”

“You know perfectly well the theaters have closed because of the raids,” Miss Laburnum said heatedly. “Until the government reopens them-”

“All I know is, I don’t let rooms to actors,” Mrs. Rickett said. “They can’t be relied on to pay their rent.”

Miss Laburnum went very red. “Sir Godfrey-”

“He’s been knighted, then?” Polly asked hastily.

“By King Edward,” Miss Laburnum said. “I can’t imagine that you’ve never heard of him, Miss Sebastian. His Lear is renowned! I saw him in Hamlet when I was a girl, and he was simply marvelous!”

He’s rather marvelous now, Polly thought.

“He’s appeared before all the crowned heads of Europe,” Miss Laburnum said. “And to think he honored us with a performance tonight.”

Mrs. Rickett sniffed again, and Miss Laburnum was only stopped from saying something regrettable by the all clear. The sleepers sat up and yawned, and everyone began to gather their belongings. Sir Godfrey marked his place in his book, shut it, and stood up. Miss Laburnum and Miss Hibbard scurried over to him to tell him how wonderful he’d been. “It was so inspiring,” Miss Laburnum said, “especially the speech from Hamlet about the band of brothers.”

Polly suppressed a smile. Sir Godfrey thanked the two ladies solemnly, his voice quiet and refined again. Watching him putting on his coat and picking up his umbrella, it was hard to believe he’d just given that mesmerizing performance.

Lila and Viv folded their blankets and gathered up their magazines, Mr. Dorming picked up his thermos, Mrs. Brightford picked up Trot, and they all converged on the door. The rector pulled the bolt back and opened it, and as he did, Polly caught an echo of the tense, frightened look they’d had before Sir Godfrey intervened, this time for what they might find when they went through that door and up those steps: their houses gone, London in ruins. Or German tanks driving down Lampden Road.

The rector stepped back from the opened door to let them through, but no one moved, not even Nelson, who’d been cooped up since before midnight.

“‘Hie you, make haste!’” Sir Godfrey’s clarion voice rang out. “‘See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst,’” and Nelson shot through the door.

Everyone laughed.

“Nelson, come back!” Mr. Simms shouted, and ran after him. He called down from the top of the steps, “No damage I can see,” and the rest of them trooped up the steps and looked around at the street, peaceful in the dim gray predawn light. The buildings were all intact, though there was a smoky pall in the air, and a sharp smell of cordite and burning wood.

“Lambeth got it last night,” Mr. Dorming said, pointing at plumes of black smoke off to the southeast.

“And Piccadilly Circus, looks like,” Mr. Simms said, coming back with Nelson and pointing at what was actually Oxford Street and the smoke from John Lewis. Mr. Dorming was wrong, too. Shoreditch and Whitechapel had taken the brunt of the first round of raids, not Lambeth, but from the look of the smoke, nowhere in the East End was safe.

“I don’t understand,” Lila said, looking around at the tranquil scene. “It sounded like it was bang on top of us.”

“What will it sound like if it is on top of us, I wonder?” Viv asked.

“I’ve heard one hears a very loud, very high-pitched scream,” Mr. Simms began, but Mr. Dorming was shaking his head.

“You won’t hear it,” he said. “You’ll never know what hit you,” and stomped off.

“Cheerful,” Viv said, looking after him.

Lila was still looking toward the smoke of Oxford Street. “I suppose the Underground won’t be running,” she said glumly, “and it’ll take us ages to get to work.”

“And when we get there,” Viv said, “the windows will have been blown out again. We’ll have to spend all day sweeping up.”

“‘What’s this, varlets?’” Sir Godfrey roared. “‘Do I hear talk of terror and defeat? Stiffen the sinews! Summon up the blood!’”

Lila and Viv giggled.

Sir Godfrey drew his umbrella like a sword. “‘Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more!’” he shouted, raising it high. “‘We fight for England!’”

“Oh, I do love Richard the Third!” Miss Laburnum said.

Sir Godfrey gripped the umbrella handle violently, and for a moment Polly thought he was going to run Miss Laburnum through, but instead he hooked it over his arm. “‘And if we no more meet till we meet in heaven,’” he declaimed, “‘then joyfully, my noble lords and my kind kinsmen, warriors all, adieu!’” and strode off, umbrella in hand, as if going into battle.

Which he is, Polly thought, watching him. Which they all are.

“How marvelous!” Miss Laburnum said. “Do you think if we asked him, he’d do another play tomorrow? The Tempest, perhaps, or Henry the Fifth?”