He wondered where the oxygen tank was, and whether it had yet burst.
Legionnaire had a similar thought. ‘We have to get him out before the plane blows up,’ he said.
Lloyd reached inside and unfastened the safety harness. Then he put his hands under the pilot’s arms and pulled. The man was completely limp. Lloyd had no way of knowing what his injuries might be. He was not even sure the man was alive.
He dragged the pilot out of the cockpit, then got him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him a safe distance from the burning wreckage. As gently as he could, he laid the man on the ground face up.
He heard a noise that was a cross between a whoosh and a thump, and looked back to see that the whole plane was ablaze.
He bent over the pilot and carefully removed the goggles and the oxygen mask, revealing a face that was shockingly familiar.
The pilot was Boy Fitzherbert.
And he was breathing.
Lloyd wiped blood from Boy’s nose and mouth.
Boy opened his eyes. At first there seemed no intelligence behind them. Then, after a minute, his expression altered and he said: ‘You.’
‘We blew up the train,’ Lloyd said.
Boy seemed unable to move anything but his eyes and mouth. ‘Small world,’ he said.
‘Isn’t it?’
Cigare said: ‘Who is he?’
Lloyd hesitated, then said: ‘My brother.’
‘My God.’
Boy’s eyes closed.
Lloyd said to Legionnaire: ‘We have to bring a doctor.’
Legionnaire shook his head. ‘We must get out of here. The Germans will be coming to investigate the train crash within minutes.’
Lloyd knew he was right. ‘We’ll have to take him with us.’
Boy opened his eyes and said: ‘Williams.’
‘What is it, Boy?’
Boy seemed to grin. ‘You can marry the bitch now,’ he said.
Then he died.
Daisy cried when she heard. Boy had been a rotter, and treated her badly, but she had loved him once, and he had taught her a lot about sex; and she felt sad that he had been killed.
His brother, Andy, was now a viscount and heir to the earldom; Andy’s wife, May, was a viscountess; and Daisy’s name, according to the elaborate rules of the aristocracy, was the Dowager Viscountess Aberowen – until she married Lloyd, when she would be relieved to become plain Mrs Williams.
However, that might be a long time coming, even now. Over the summer, hopes of a quick end to the war came to nothing. A plot by German army officers to kill Hitler on 20 July failed. The Germany army was in full retreat on the Eastern Front, and the Allies took Paris in August, but Hitler was determined to fight on to the terrible end. Daisy had no idea when she would see Lloyd, let alone marry him.
One Wednesday in September, when she went to spend the evening in Aldgate, she was greeted by a jubilant Eth Leckwith. ‘Great news!’ Ethel said when Daisy walked into the kitchen. ‘Lloyd has been selected as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hoxton!’
Lloyd’s sister Millie was there with her two children, Lennie and Pammie. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she said. ‘He’ll be Prime Minister, I bet.’
‘Yes,’ said Daisy, and she sat down heavily.
‘Well, I can see you’re not happy about that,’ said Ethel. ‘As my friend Mildred would say, it went down like a cup of cold sick. What’s the matter?’
‘It’s just that having me as a wife isn’t going to help him get elected.’ It was because she loved him so much that she felt so bad. How could she blight his prospects? But how could she give him up? When she thought like this her heart felt heavy and life seemed desolate.
‘Because you’re an heiress?’ said Ethel.
‘Not just that. Before Boy died he told me Lloyd would never get elected with an ex-Fascist as his wife.’ She looked at Ethel, who always told the truth, even when it hurt. ‘He was right, wasn’t he?’
‘Not entirely,’ Ethel said. She put the kettle on for tea, then sat opposite Daisy at the kitchen table. ‘I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter. But I don’t think you should despair.’
