Fire Watch

“Marble Arch, usually,” she went on. “My brother Tom saves us a place early and I go…” She stopped, held the handkerchief close to her nose, and exploded into it. “I’m sorry,” she said, “this awful cold!”

Red nose, watering eyes, sneezing. Respiratory infection. It was a wonder I hadn’t told her not to cry. It’s only by luck that I haven’t made some unforgivable mistake so far, and this is not because I can’t get at the long- term memory. I don’t have half the information I need even stored: cats and colds and the way St. Paul’s looks in full sun. It’s only a matter of time before I am stopped cold by something I do not know. Nevertheless, I am going to try for retrieval tonight after I come off watch. At least I can find out whether and when something is going to fall on me.

I have seen the cat once or twice. He is coal-black with a white patch on his throat that looks as if it were painted on for the blackout.

September 27—I have just come down from the roofs. I am still shaking.

Early in the raid the bombing was mostly over the East End. The view was incredible. Searchlights everywhere, the sky pink from the fires and reflecting in the Thames, the exploding shells sparkling like fireworks. There was a constant, deafening thunder broken by the occasional droning of the planes high overhead, then the repeating stutter of the ack-ack guns.

About midnight the bombs began falling quite near with a horrible sound like a train running over me. It took every bit of will I had to keep from flinging myself flat on the roof, but Langby was watching. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of watching a repeat performance of my behavior in the dome. I kept my head up and my sand bucket flrmly in hand and felt quite proud of myself.

The bombs stopped roaring past about three, and there was a lull of about half an hour, and then a clatter like hail on the roofs. Everybody except Langby dived for shovels and stirrup pumps. He was watching me. And I was watching the incendiary.

It had fallen only a few meters from me, behind the clock tower. It was much smaller than I had imagined, only about thirty centimeters long. It was sputtering violently, throwing greenish-white fire almost to where I was standing. In a minute it would simmer down into a molten mass and begin to burn through the roof. Flames and the frantic shouts of firemen, and then the white rubble stretching for miles, and nothing, nothing left, not even the fire watch stone.

It was the Whispering Gallery all over again. I felt that I had said something, and when I looked at Langby’s face he was smiling crookedly.

“St. Paul’s will burn down,” I said. “There won’t be anything left.”

“Yes,” Langby said. “That’s the idea, isn’t it? Burn St. Paul’s to the ground? Isn’t that the plan?”

“Whose plan?” I said stupidly.

“Hitler’s, of course,” Langby said. “Who did you think I meant?” and, almost casually, picked up his stirrup pump.

The page of the ARP manual flashed suddenly before me. I poured the bucket of sand around the still sputtering bomb, snatched up another bucket and dumped that on top of it. Black smoke billowed up in such a cloud that I could hardly find my shovel. I felt for the smothered bomb with the tip of it and scooped it into the empty bucket, then shoveled the sand in on top of it. Tears were streaming down my face from the acrid smoke. I turned to wipe them on my sleeve and saw Langby.

He had not made a move to help me. He smiled. “It’s not a bad plan, actually. But of course we won’t let it happen. That’s what the fire watch is here for. To see that it doesn’t happen. Right, Bartholomew?”

I know now what the purpose of my practicum is. I must stop Langby from burning down St. Paul’s.

September 28—I try to tell myself I was mistaken about Langby last night, that I misunderstood what he said. Why would he want to burn down St. Paul’s unless he is a Nazi spy? How can a Nazi spy have gotten on the fire watch? I think about my faked letter of introduction and shudder.

How can I find out? If I set him some test, some fatal thing that only a loyal Englishman in 1940 would know, I fear I am the one who would be caught out. I must get my retrieval working properly.

Until then, I shall watch Langby. For the time being at least that should be easy. Langby has just posted the watches for the next two weeks. We stand every one together.

September 30—I know what happened in September. Langby told me.

Last night in the choir, putting on our coats and boots, he said, “They’ve already tried once, you know.”

I had no idea what he meant. I felt as helpless as that first day when he asked me if I was from the ayarpee.

“The plan to destroy St. Paul’s. They’ve already tried once. The tenth of September. A high explosive bomb. But of course you didn’t know about that. You were in Wales.”

I was not even listening. The minute he had said “high explosive bomb,” I had remembered it all. It had burrowed in under the road and lodged on the foundations. The bomb squad had tried to defuse it, but there was a leaking gas main. They decided to evacuate St. Paul’s, but Dean Matthews refused to leave, and they got it out after all and exploded it in Barking Marshes. Instant and complete retrieval.

“The bomb squad saved her that time,” Langby was saying. “It seems there’s always somebody about.”

“Yes,” I said, “there is,” and walked away from him.

***

October 1—I thought last night’s retrieval of the events of September tenth meant some sort of breakthrough, but I have been lying here on my cot most of the night trying for Nazi spies in St. Paul’s and getting nothing. Do I have to know exactly what I’m looking for before I can remember it? What good does that do me?

Maybe Langby is not a Nazi spy. Then what is he? An arsonist? A madman? The crypt is hardly conducive to thought, being not at all as silent as a tomb. The chars talk most of the night and the sound of the bombs is muffled, which somehow makes it worse. I find myself straining to hear them. When I did get to sleep this morning, I dreamed about one of the tube shelters being hit, broken mains, drowning people.

October 4—I tried to catch the cat today. I had some idea of persuading it to dispatch the mouse that has been terrifying the chars. I also wanted to see one up close. I took the water bucket I had used with the stirrup pump last night to put out some burning shrapnel from one of the antiaircraft guns. It still had a bit of water in it, but not enough to drown the cat, and my plan was to clamp the bucket over him, reach under, and pick him up, then carry him down to the crypt and point him at the mouse. I did not even come close to him.

I swung the bucket, and as I did so, perhaps an inch of water splashed out. I thought I remembered that the cat was a domesticated animal, but I must have been wrong about that. The eat’s wide complacent face pulled back into a skull-like mask that was absolutely terrifying, vicious claws extended from what I had thought were harmless paws, and the cat let out a sound to top the chars.

In my surprise I dropped the bucket and it rolled against one of the pillars. The cat disappeared. Behind me, Langby said, “That’s no way to catch a cat.”

“Obviously,” I said, and bent to retrieve the bucket.

“Cats hate water,” he said, still in that expressionless voice.

“Oh,” I said, and started in front of him to take the bucket back to the choir. “I didn’t know that.”

“Everybody knows it. Even the stupid Welsh.”

October 8—We have been standing double watches for a week-bomber’s moon. Langby didn’t show up on the roofs, so I went looking for him in the church. I found him standing by the west doors talking to an old man. The man had a newspaper tucked under his arm and he handed it to Langby, but Langby gave it back to him. When the man saw me, he ducked out. Langby said, “Tourist. Wanted to know where the Windmill Theater is. Read in the paper the girls are starkers.”

I know I looked as if I didn’t believe him because he said, “You look rotten, old man. Not getting enough sleep, are you? I’ll get somebody to take the first watch for you tonight.”