their white faces, their bodies braced as if for a blow.
That’s how they looked when I was standing outside knocking that first night, Polly thought. That’s the expression they had on their faces in the moment before the door opened, and they saw it was me.
She’d been wrong about their having adjusted to the raids. This terror had been there all along, just beneath the surface. She thought suddenly of the painting The Light of the World in St. Paul’s. I wonder if that’s why whoever’s on the other side of the door isn’t opening it. Because they’re too frightened.
More knocks, louder. Trot climbed straight up her mother’s body and buried her face in her neck. Mrs. Brightford pulled her other girls closer to her. Miss Laburnum pressed her hand against her bosom, the elderly gentleman reached for his umbrella, and he and Mr. Dorming both stood up.
“Is it the Germans?” Bess asked in her piping voice.
“No, of course not,” Mrs. Brightford said, but it was obvious that was what they were all thinking.
The rector took a deep breath and then crossed the room, unbolted the door, and opened it. Two young girls in ARP coveralls and carrying tin helmets and gas masks tumbled through it.
“Shut the door!” Mrs. Rickett said, and Mrs. Wyvern echoed, “Mind the blackout,” exactly as they had with Polly.
The girls shut the door, and Miss Laburnum smiled in welcome. Trot let go of her mother, Irene took her thumb out of her mouth to give the newcomers the once-over, and Viv scooted over closer to Lila to give them a place to sit. Mrs. Rickett continued to glare suspiciously, but then she had done that to Polly, too.
The young women looked around the room at everyone. “Oh, dear, this isn’t it either,” one said, disappointed.
“We were going to our post, and I’m afraid we’ve got lost in the blackout,” the other one said. “Is there a telephone here we might use?”
“I’m afraid not,” the rector said apologetically.
“Then can you tell us how to get to Gloucester Terrace?”
“Gloucester Terrace?” Mr. Dorming said. “You are lost.”
They certainly were. Gloucester Terrace was all the way over in Marylebone.
“It’s our first night on duty,” the first young woman explained, and the rector began to draw them a map.
“Are they Germans?” Trot whispered to her mother.
Mrs. Brightford laughed. “No, they’re on our side.”
The rector gave them the map. “Shouldn’t you stay till this lets up?” the rector asked, but they shook their heads.
“The warden will have our heads for being late as it is,” the first one said, raising her voice to be heard above the din.
“But thanks awfully,” the other one shouted, and they opened the door and ducked out.
Michael Davies should have come here, not Dunkirk, if he wanted to observe heroes, Polly thought, looking after them. She’d just seen them in action. And it wasn’t only the young women and their willingness to go out on the streets in the middle of a raid. How much courage had it taken for the rector to cross the basement and open that door, knowing it might be the Germans? Or for all of them to sit here night after night, waiting for imminent invasion or a direct hit, not knowing whether they’d live till the next all clear?
Not knowing. It was the one thing historians could never understand. They could observe the contemps, live with them, try to put themselves in their place, but they couldn’t truly experience what they were experiencing. Because I know what’s going to happen. I know Hitler didn’t invade England, that he didn’t use poison gas or destroy St. Paul’s. Or London. Or the world. That he lost the war.
But they didn’t. They’d lived through the Blitz and D-Day and the V-1s and V-2s, with no guarantee of a happy ending.
“Then what happened to Rapunzel?” Trot asked as if nothing had happened.
“Tell us the rest of the story,” Bess and Irene chimed in and were both asleep before their mother had read a page, and Trot was struggling to keep her eyes open. They were too young to understand what was going on, of course, or what might happen. Polly was glad.
And the others must feel the same protectiveness toward them that she did. Mrs. Wyvern and Miss Laburnum dropped their voices to a whisper, and Mr. Simms reached over to pull the blanket up over Bess’s shoulders. Mrs. Brightford smiled at him and went on reading. “… ‘and after many years of searching, the prince heard Rapunzel’s voice…’”
“Mummy,” Trot said, sitting up and tugging at her mother’s sleeve. “What if the Germans in vade?” she asked, pronouncing it as two words.
“They won’t,” Mrs. Brightford said. “Mr. Churchill won’t let them.” She went on reading. “‘And Rapunzel’s tears, falling on the prince’s eyes, restored his sight, and they lived happily ever after.’”
“But what if they do? In vade?”
“They won’t,” her mother said firmly. “I’ll always keep you safe. You know that, don’t you, darling?”
Trot nodded. “Unless you’re killed.”
Meanwhile, it is important not to give the enemy any information which would help him in directing his shooting by telling him where his missiles have landed.
Dulwich, Surrey-14 June 1944
BY WEDNESDAY MORNING, MARY WAS BEGINNING TO WORRY. There’d still been no mention of Bethnal Green railroad bridge or the other V-1s that had fallen the night of the twelfth. If the first four V-1s had hit when her implant said they had, they should have heard something by now.
But even though the last two FANYs-Parrish and Sutcliffe-Hythe-had returned with a box of sticking plaster from Platt, which was only four miles from where the first V-1 had fallen, and Talbot had rung up Bethnal Green to ask them to save back any dancing pumps that came in for her, there’d still been no mention of explosions or of odd-looking planes with yellow flames coming out of their tails.
There was nothing in the newspapers either, but Mary’d expected that. The government had kept the V-1s secret till after the fifteenth, when more than a hundred rockets had come over and made their existence impossible to keep quiet. But she’d thought there might be something about a gas explosion, which was the story they’d put out.
But there were no stories at all in the London papers, and the big news in the South London Gazette was the engagement of Miss Betty Buntin to Joseph Morelli, PFC, of Brooklyn, New York. And the FANYs’ only topic of conversation was who got to wear the pink net frock first. If she’d been dropped into the post without any historical prep, she wouldn’t even have been able to deduce there was a war on, let alone that they were under attack. And the next rockets wouldn’t be launched till tomorrow night, so there was no way to introduce the subject.
She attempted it anyway. “I was actually supposed to be here on Monday,” she said. “Did I miss anything?”
“The invasion of Normandy,” Reed said, polishing her nails.
“And the applecart upset,” said Camberley, who was trying on the pink frock. “We’d have got you that ecru lace if we’d known you were coming.” She turned to Grenville. “I’ll never be able to eat and breathe in this. It will have to be let out again.” She turned back to Mary. “I say, Kent, you wouldn’t happen to have any evening frocks, would you?”
“Don’t tell them yes unless you’re prepared to share them,” Fairchild said.
“But if you share yours with us, we’ll share ours with you,” Camberley said.
Parrish rolled her eyes. “I’m certain she’s simply panting for a chance to wear the Yellow Peril.”
