THE ALL-CLEAR DIDN’T sound until past four the next morning. Emma had managed to make it to the caves, where Mrs. Pickering had Tubby in his inconspicuous tote as they sheltered along with hundreds of others. Sleep had been impossible with the earth trembling at the onslaught of an attack that continued without pause.
“We’re going to need the mobile canteen.” There was a slight quiver to Mrs. Pickering’s authoritative voice as they shifted forward with the crowd, moving toward the exit. “It’s filled with petrol and rations, fully prepared to use immediately.”
Emma climbed the stairs, careful to ensure Mrs. Pickering remained in front of her to keep the older woman from being jostled. Especially with Tubby’s tote cradled in her arms.
“I can’t drive the mobile canteen,” Emma said apologetically. “I have my train to Chester in two hours.” Even as she spoke, she caught that distinct odor of smoke and destruction. A familiar prickle of cold sweat tingled across her palms and her heartbeat throbbed like a fleet of German planes.
Emma came to stand beside her friend and sucked in a breath. The nocturnal darkness of early morning was lit with fires burning in the near distance. Close enough for the heat to sear away the predawn chill and ash to sift down over them like macabre snow.
Mrs. Pickering put a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “I don’t think you’ll be going to Chester today.”
By the time Emma arrived at Victoria Station, there was already a line in front of the mobile canteen. Margaret was inside boiling water, her hair tied beneath the same kind of scarf her mother used at the munitions factory.
“The water mains are busted, and the electricity is out.” She rushed around the small space, setting out mugs and jam jars for tea.
Emma helped, drawing down the stores of their sugar while calling out for one of the WVS women to bring fruitcake from the canteen in the station that they’d baked the day before.
“No water or electricity anywhere in Nottingham?” Emma asked.
Margaret gave Emma a worried look. “None. Mum wasn’t at the Raleigh factory last night, but that was bombed too.”
Emma hurriedly filled the mugs and jam jars and began handing them out to people crowding in front of the small window of their van. Most of those coming for tea weren’t civilians, but the men and women on Nottingham’s front line. ARP Wardens with their heavy tin hats dusted with ash, nurses with filthy uniforms and white aprons spotted with crimson, and firemen in their heavy gear with soot-stained faces, necks and hands.
“How are things?” Emma asked, handing a plate of fruitcake to a fireman.
“Bad. A lot dead. Even more injured.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Lost a few of our own.”
Emma’s skin prickled as if she’d been plunged into ice water. “Who?” Her movements were automatic as she handed him a jam jar of tea.
“Dunno.” The man took his drink and left.
The certainty she had in Charles’s safety slipped away at that moment, like wisps of smoke gliding between her fingers. She’d known his job was dangerous, but she hadn’t truly acknowledged it. Not until now.
And she had never considered that his impaired vision might put him at a fatal disadvantage in the wrong circumstances.
Her hands trembled as she distributed the refreshments, her attention fixed on those lined up, searching every face in the hope of seeing Charles. The hours dragged on in countless jars and mugs sloshing with tea, the bottoms layered in a sifting of sugar yet to be dissolved.
Whenever men from the fire brigade approached, she asked after Charles. And to each query, they simply shook their heads. Margaret kept flicking worried looks in Emma’s direction, their mutual fear standing in the middle of that small mobile canteen like a dense mass.
When they’d given out the last dregs of tea and there wasn’t a crumb of fruitcake to be had, Emma busied herself by doing anything possible to keep from lowering the hatch on the van.
“There’s nothing left to give out,” Margaret said quietly. “He’s likely occupied in another part of the city.”
Emma stopped shifting empty jars around. There was no purpose to her efforts when there was no tea to be dispensed. Margaret was right. The fire brigade had their hands full, and Charles was likely in another location. But somehow closing the mobile canteen seemed so final, as if doing so would cut off the possibility of any communication about Charles’s whereabouts.
Emma swallowed, her mouth impossibly dry. “Can we wait a moment more?”
“I don’t see why we can’t keep the van open while we clean.” Margaret handed her a towel.
When the last dish was washed and tucked into the locking cupboards, the time finally came to seal up the mobile canteen and return home. The late-afternoon sky was bruised with smoke and ash and Emma’s lower back had begun aching several hours before. She stepped through the narrow door, following Margaret, and turned to lock it behind them.
“Emma.”
She spun around at the familiar voice. “Charles.” She sprinted across the parking lot of Victoria Station, her heels clacking against the asphalt, and practically slammed into his embrace. He was solid against her, real. Alive.
“Are you all right?” she gasped.
He nodded, his jaw tight. “But Francis...”
Emma’s heart lurched. “Is he...?”
“He’s alive, but injured.” Charles twisted his mouth to the side, obviously needing a moment to compose his emotions. “I’ve never seen it before, being in the middle of the bombing like that. The incendiaries came down so fast, we couldn’t put them out. Next thing we knew, bombs were whistling down, sending the earth erupting all around us. A dog was trapped on a second floor, and you know Francis.” Charles gave a mirthless smile. “I hadn’t even seen the dog, but already he was running into the burning house as it was falling to pieces. Came out with the dog wrapped in a blanket in his arms, scared but perfectly unharmed. That’s when the house came down. The dog leaped away in time, but people can’t move as fast, especially blokes as large as Francis. The building collapsted on top of him, broke his leg and knocked his head hard enough to leave him senseless.”
“He’ll recover?” Emma asked.
“Of course he will. He’s Francis.” But there was a shadow of doubt in Charles’s deep brown gaze despite his confident reply. He took her hand in his and stared at her like he wanted to imprint her face on his memory. “Emma, when those bombs were falling, all I could think of was you. I knew Mum and Dad were in the caves, safe. But I couldn’t stop worrying about you, wondering if you were safe too. I...”
Emma gazed up at him, her breath locked in her chest. “You what?”
“I want to marry you,” he said in a rush. “Not now, not when I know how much you’ve lost in your life, and my job is so dangerous. But when this war is over, when I’m a boring accountant again, combing over ledgers and when the greatest injury I might sustain is a paper cut, Emmaline Taylor, I want to marry you if you’ll have me.”
“If I’ll have you?” Her fear and sorrow from earlier transcended to a lightheaded joy and she found herself laughing even as warm tears wet the corners of her eyes.
“And if Olivia approves,” he added.
Emma couldn’t speak for a moment, so great with gratitude that he considered Olivia as much as her. “If she says yes, then so do I.”
From somewhere down the street someone called to Charles. He lifted a hand up to let him know he’d be there in a moment.
Emma gripped his jacket in her hands, wishing she could tug him to her and keep him from going back. But that wasn’t who he was.
She loosened her hold on him and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Be safe.”
“Always.” He winked and jogged away, toward the other firefighters.
Emma accompanied Margaret to the bus stop and then walked home the rest of the way. Several homes on the streets she passed had their windows blown out and one building was even missing its front door. But aside from those few instances, the remainder of the streets had been largely untouched.
The tenement house on Mooregate Street was still standing, its windows intact.
Emma opened the main door and was met with total silence. Mrs. Pickering was clearly not back yet or Tubby would be yapping in friendly welcomes. Emma was nearly to the second floor when the sound of a door opening came from Mr. Sanderson’s flat.
“Mrs. Taylor.” He came down the stairs in his house slippers, moving with surprising haste. “Someone came by with a telegram for you.” He reached into the pocket of his jumper and withdrew the folded envelope.
Though Emma did not have anyone in the war to receive a telegram about, its presence left a warning going off in the back of her mind. She pulled the single page free and stared at the paper in her hands, disbelieving what she read.
Olivia has run away, likely to go home. Telegram immediately if you find her.
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor
Emma gaped at the message, her body going cold. Olivia was somewhere in England between Chester and Nottingham.
And depending on when Olivia left, she might well have been in Nottingham last night, out in the open amid the heavy bombing.