Had Grace slept very long before the sirens woke her?
She had forced herself to go to bed and lay uncomfortably on her back, hearing Mavis’ regular breathing. Eyes open, she watched scenes of Noddweir projected onto the smooth, unbroken darkness. Her grandmother, her mother. Then the woman who had died at the Roman temple, whom Grace had not actually seen there. The woman was lying in the middle of the ancient stone circle in Noddweir.
“See who it is,” her grandmother urged her.
When in her imagination she approached the awkwardly sprawled body, Grace recognized the face of her mother.
She came awake, heart pounding. Why should she be haunted by a dead woman she didn’t know?
What did a single death mean when millions were dying, so many anonymously? Refugees fleeing never to be heard from again. Servicemen unaccounted for, presumed dead. Airplanes and ships lost. Unrecognizable victims of bombings buried in mass graves.
Yet somewhere in the world there must be someone who would want to know what had become of this particular young woman with no name.
Mavis stirred. “Bloody hell!”
Grace reached for her uniform, the first clothes to hand.
Mavis flicked on a torch. She fought her way groggily into her dance hall outfit.
They grabbed their jackets, gas masks, and handbags and ran out.
The sudden cold in the street took Grace’s breath away. She trotted through the darkness more quickly than was prudent, hoping not to trip on uneven pavement or slip on a frozen patch. Others were also moving down the street. Murmurs and footsteps, all but invisible. Grace felt swept up in a rushing crowd of phantoms.
The vicar stood at St Martha’s side door, he and several boys ready to assist older parishioners down into the crypt which served as a shelter.
Fingers of light swept a starry sky, seeking enemy planes to snag in their deadly rays. A baby cried faintly below.
“Trying to trap a German plane with searchlights always reminds me of trying to catch flies, they’re so quick and nimble,” the vicar observed to Grace.
“The devil’s flies,” she replied. “That’s what we called them at home.”
“Could you wait here with me?” the vicar asked. “It will reassure people knowing we have a policewoman with us.”
Grace agreed, unhappily blowing on her hands to warm them. Mavis had already gone inside.
Those seeking shelter streamed past, jackets buttoned wrongly, long dressing gowns showing under heavy coats, more than one pair of feet shod in bedroom slippers. The woman Grace had interrupted whitening her doorstep arrived, still in her tartan headsquare and curlers. She avoided meeting Grace’s eyes.
The searchlights continued to dance after the blaring sirens went quiet. There was no sign of enemy planes. No sound of engines or anti-aircraft guns. No tracer bullets stitching across the night sky.
“We get false alarms,” the vicar told her. “But you never know. We were hit pretty hard toward the beginning of the month. I hear in London half the population doesn’t bother to take shelter any longer, they’ve grown so accustomed to living through massive bombings. Here, we’re still waiting for the worst. One almost wishes it would finally begin and be done with it.”
For a few minutes there were no new arrivals. The vicar sent his helpers into the church, went out into the street, looked up and down. “Street’s deserted,” he said returning to her side.
Grace didn’t know how he could see to tell.
“Everyone’s under cover safely then,” he went on. “We’ll join our unexpected guests below, shall we?” He shut the door, offered her his arm, and led her to a stairway. “Oh, yes, the crypt has proved most useful as a shelter. Not its usual line of work, but then what is usual these days?”
The smell of dampness and cold struck up through the stone flagged floor. A single bulb descending from the vaulted ceiling served for illumination.
“Well, vicar, if we get hit we’re in the right place!” called out a man with steel grey hair and the worn face of one who had spent his life at hard labor.
“Charlie, there, would rather be caught in the local pub with a pint in one hand and a good hand of cards in the other when he’s called to glory,” claimed a voice from the shadows.
“Pint of broon’s what he calls holy water,” added another voice.
“Tut!” the vicar replied. “I’m sure our friend, Constable Baxter, would have something to say about keeping the licensing hours.”
The bulb flickered.
“They’re here!” a woman cried in panic.
“Now, now, we would have heard the planes,” the vicar chided her.
The bulb went out.
There were gasps. A child whimpered. The baby shrieked louder.
“They hit the power station!”
“Bleeding Germans are here, all right!”
“Can’t be. We would’ve heard explosions.”
“The floor’s shaking!”
“That’s your legs, Jack.”
One or two of those gathered together turned on their torches. The vicar reached up toward the light fixture, his hand wrapped in a handkerchief. The light came back on.
“Loose bulb,” he announced.
A general shuffling about followed the collective murmur of relief as people made themselves as comfortable as they could, draping themselves in blankets and lying down. Someone played a harmonica. Before long the baby stopped crying and went to sleep.
Grace walked around looking for Rutherford. Noticing she was treading on grave markers set in the floor, she shuddered. People had placed mats and rugs on them and were seated or stretched out, apparently unconcerned. A featureless form in a far corner proved to be a couple cuddling, taking advantage of the darkness. Well, it wasn’t a crime and none of Grace’s business. One man sat rigidly, back to the wall, his face turned straight ahead, obscured by his gas mask. He didn’t move as Grace went by. Mavis sat chatting with an unfamiliar young man. Grace didn’t find Rutherford and was relieved to see no one from the station either.
“How about a sing-song?” the man named Charlie asked the company at large. He was with a woman who was calmly knitting, and a little girl with a solemn expression.
“Good idea, Mr. Gibson!” the vicar replied. “What do you suggest? I think in the circumstances it isn’t likely to be hymns!”
Laughter rippled in the dimness. A man with a baritone voice started singing about a little lad getting fish when the boat came in, and the words were taken up by the others.
The words reminded Grace of former fisherman Hans, and she offered a fervent silent prayer for his safety that night.
“Very good,” the vicar said with a smile. “You’re all in fine voice tonight, I can see. Since we’re entertaining each other, I will be happy to perform a couple of tricks that may amuse you.”
Not only children moved to stand in a semi-circle in front of the vicar.
“That’s right,” he went on. “Magicians always say the quickness of the hand deceives the eye, but since I only have one of them I shall do a couple of tricks where sleight of hand is not needed. First, no doubt someone has a pack of cards with them?”
“Aye, vicar, here y’are. I’m about sick of playing Patience during these raids. I’m not too patient with Patience, you might say.” Charlie Gibson handed him a well-thumbed pack of cards.
The vicar nodded his thanks. “In this time of crisis, we are all pulling our weight. Even those naughty knaves volunteered for the duty of defending the king and all the other cards. So the king called a meeting….” He laid the king of clubs on the floor and continued. “The knave of clubs was accepted as a recruit and so was the knave of diamonds, so I shall place them on the king’s right hand. But although they also volunteered, the knaves of hearts and spades were rejected, so I must place them on the other side of the king. Can anyone tell me why the king did not accept those two cards for his army?”
Several suggestions were offered and after a few moments the vicar held up his hand. “Very well, I shall tell you. It was because although they were as willing to fight as the other knaves, they were judged medically unfit for service.”
“How do you work that one out, vicar?” someone asked in a puzzled voice.
“Because the rejected knaves only have one eye apiece.”
Laughter mixed with applause broke out.
The vicar gave a slight bow and began rummaging in his pockets.
“My final trick tonight fittingly involves a cross. As you see, I now have seven coins in my hand. I shall lay them on the floor thus.” He arranged the handful as a row of five with one above and one below the middle coin. “Who can move only two coins and make a cross whose arms have the same number of coins?”
The sole adult who attempted the feat soon retired from the attempt.
“The solution is simple, as is so often the case when we are overwhelmed with seemingly insurmountable difficulties,” the vicar observed, picking up a coin from each end of the row and placing them carefully on the middle coin. “There it is. A perfect cross with each arm three coins long.”
Another round of applause and laughter. A man in the front row of onlookers proposed a game of poker to Charlie. “And let’s see if I can win a cross o’ cash from you,” he said with a grin and a wink.
“Only if you let the vicar play,” Charlie riposted.
The vicar shook his head. “I fear I must ask you to refrain. Gambling on church property is something I only need one eye to see and I really cannot permit it.”
***
As soon as he arrived at the shelter Stu McPherson tried to chat up Mabel Greene. “Where’s yer mam, Mabel?”
“At home, in the backyard.” She was a little thing, alone, without so much as a blanket to keep her warm.
“Yer family got its own shelter in the backyard, then?”
“Nay. Mam’s just afraid of getting buried alive, pinned under bricks and rubble, so she says, shouting for help, bleeding to death or getting gassed by broken mains or dying of thirst before they can dig her out. Or maybe no one will hear her at all. She has nightmares about it and wakes me up screaming in her sleep.”
“Me mam’s hiding under the stairs. Says there’s too many dirty refugees in the shelters. We’d get lops off them.”
Mabel hugged herself. “I hope mam doesn’t get killed by a bomb.”
“Hitler isna looking for yer mam. Howay, why divn’t we get out of here? I know a place we can be alone. Yer mam won’t expect you back ’til the all clear.”
“Harraway with you, Stu! How can you think about such things when bombs might start falling round our ears any second?”
“Makes me think about such things more.” He ran his hand down her arm and she slapped it away.
After a while he gave up and wandered off. He was slender. Narrow face, narrow nose, black hair in disarray. He lacked the awkwardness common to teenagers. His movements were as smooth as a snake’s.
He hunkered down, leaning back against a stone pillar, snickering to himself at the reaction when the bulb went out. Before he had a chance to steal anything under cover of darkness the light came back on, but the crypt was dimmer than before.
Stu let his gaze run past the huddled shapes. Sheep. As soon as the sirens go, they run where they’re told or cower under the stairs. It made him sick. If it were up to him he’d follow his brother, Rob, and go fight the Germans. How could they say he was too young? He had more guts than the lot of them. Give him a gun and put a German in front of him and he’d show them he wasn’t too young to pull a trigger.
He stretched his legs across a gravestone set in the floor. He didn’t bother trying to read the inscription. Who cared? Dead was dead. No matter who you were it was all the same. You could cower your life away, follow all the rules, kowtow to every toffee-nosed bastard, but you’d still end up underground.
Stu’s head didn’t move, but his dark eyes flicked this way and that.
An old crow of a woman was perched partway up the stairs. Was she afraid there were ghosts in the crypt or loppy foreign refugees? All the fools were singing but she dozed, handbag at her side.
Stu got up and glided in her direction. No one paid any attention to him. He started up the stairs, gauging the distance to the door at the top. As he passed the woman his hand swooped down.
“Hoy!”
Bloody hell! She was awake!
He leapt up the stairs.
A hand smacked down on his shoulder, unbalancing him. He fell, hitting his knee on a stone step.
A figure loomed over him. A uniformed woman.
It was the policewoman who lived with the tart with the fancy man.
Now old one-eye from the church intervened as the crow reached up and grabbed her bag back. “Little bugger—beg your pardon, vicar,” she cawed. “Tried to pinch it, so he did.”
“Did not, you old bag!” Stu muttered. He tried to get up, but the policewoman’s hand clamped on his shoulder held him down. “I tripped over it on me way out. Coulda broke me neck, her leaving it lying about on the stairs like that.”
“You can’t intend to go out yet, lad? The all-clear hasn’t sounded.” The vicar’s voice was mild.
“Needs a good braying,” screeched the old woman.
Stu ignored her. “Got to go, see? I’m a messenger. I go about on me bike during raids when the phones get cut off. I only waited a while to make sure me mam got here safely.”
“We’re not having a raid right now and his mam isn’t here,” his accuser said. “Stealing stuff in the dark’s more like what he’s up to!”
“But there might be a raid, see, so I left me bike outside, handy in case. If there was a raid, messages wouldn’t get through if I didn’t show up.”
He could see the policewoman looking him up and down, then shone her torch on the boy’s worn boots.
“Where did you get that?” she asked. Her voice sounded colder than he’d expected.
“Me boots? Me mam bought them.”
“Not your boots, the splash of red paint on them.”
Stu’s reply was sullen. “Painted me bike red the other day and the bloody brush went and dripped, miss.”