Weaver

XI

Once the raid started it went on and on, the planes rumbling across the sky, and the little shelter shuddered and rattled as the bombs slammed into the carcass of the town. Mary supposed the whole south coast was getting it, a final softening-up before the invasion forces landed.

Oddly she wasn't afraid. She had lived through too many raids.

When the others had gone running off to their posts, Mary had pulled on an overcoat, collected her bag and gas-mask, and went down to George Tanner's Anderson shelter. She got there just before the first planes came over. George had made the shelter a bright little place, like a den. He had painted the interior white, lined it with canvas to keep out the damp, and brought in blankets and deck chairs and a wireless set. There was even a camping stove to make a cup of tea. But the wireless delivered only static. Maybe the raids had knocked out the transmitting towers, silencing the BBC.

She had been back to the house a couple of times, trying to remember what needed to be done. She'd turned off the lights, switched off the gas, and filled sinks and the bathtub with water in case the mains got cut off. She had her briefcase with her research materials, and she packed a small rucksack with clothes and bathroom stuff. But then it was back to the shelter. She felt useless stuck down here, contributing nothing.

There were safer places to be than this. The best shelter in Hastings was a system of caves called St Clement's, which had been fixed up to hold a few hundred. And it would be safer yet to get out of town altogether and head off inland, where she could evade both the bombs today and, presumably, the stormtroopers that were likely to land here tomorrow.

But she didn't want to leave the house. This was the last point where they had all been together, she and her son, his new wife and her father, and even poor sweet Ben. She wished she had thought to arrange a way they could contact each other.

It occurred to her that even if the house was bombed flat, as seemed highly likely right this minute, the Anderson shelter might survive. Here, then. She scrabbled in her bag for her lipstick. It was an American brand, and she used it sparingly; cosmetics were just one item in desperately short supply over here. She made an experimental mark on the white-painted wall. The lipstick was bright red; you couldn't miss it, and, in the interior of the shelter, it wasn't likely to get washed off or rubbed away.

But where should she tell them to meet? Nowhere in Hastings itself; the place would be crawling with Germans if they landed. Somewhere nearby, somewhere memorable. She held up her lipstick, and wrote clearly: