'Our Violet setting her cap for you,' Swales said. 'Girls always go for poets.'
'I'm a journalist, not a poet. What about Renfrew?' He nodded his head towards the cots in the other room.
'Renfrew!' Swales boomed, pushing his chair back and starting into the room.
'Shh,' I said. 'Don't wake him. He hasn't slept all week.'
'You're right. It wouldn't be fair in his weakened condition.' He sat back down. 'And Morris is married. What about your son, Morris? He's a pilot, isn't he? Stationed in London?'
Morris shook his head. 'Quincy's up at North Weald.'
'Lucky, that,' Swales said. 'Looks as if that leaves you, Twickenham.'
'Sorry,' Twickenham said, typing. 'She's not my type.'
'She's not anyone's type, is she?' Swales said.
'The RAF's,' Morris said, and we all fell silent, thinking of Vi and her bewildering popularity with the RAF pilots in and around London. She had pale eyelashes and colourless brown hair she put up in flat little pincurls while she was on duty, which was against regulations, though Mrs Lucy didn't say anything to her about them. Vi was dumpy and rather stupid, and yet she was out constantly with one pilot after another, going to dances and parties.
'I still say she makes it all up,' Swales said. 'She buys all those things she says they give her herself, all those oranges and chocolate. She buys them on the black market.'
'On a full-time's salary?' I said. We only made two pounds a week, and the things she brought home to the post — sweets and sherry and cigarettes — couldn't be bought on that. Vi shared them round freely, though liquor and cigarettes were against regulations as well. Mrs Lucy didn't say anything about them either.
She never reprimanded her wardens about anything, except being malicious about Vi, and we never gossiped in her presence. I wondered where she was. I hadn't seen her since I came in.
'Where's Mrs Lucy?' I asked. 'She's not late as well, is she?'
Morris nodded towards the pantry door. 'She's in her office. Olmwood's replacement is here. She's filling him in.'
Olmwood had been our best part-timer, a huge out-of-work collier who could lift a house beam by himself, which was why Nelson, using his authority as district warden, had had him transferred to his own post.
'I hope the new man's not any good,' Swales said. 'Or Nelson will steal him .'
'I saw Olmwood yesterday,' Morris said. 'He looked like Renfrew, only worse. He told me Nelson keeps them out the whole night patrolling and looking for incendiaries.'
There was no point in that. You couldn't see where the incendiaries were falling from the street, and if there was an incident, nobody was anywhere to be found. Mrs Lucy had assigned patrols at the beginning of the Blitz, but within a week she'd stopped them at midnight so we could get some sleep. Mrs Lucy said she saw no point in our getting killed when everyone was already in bed anyway.
'Olmwood says Nelson makes them wear their gas masks the entire time they're on duty and holds stirrup- pump drills twice a shift,' Morris said.
'Stirrup-pump drills!' Swales exploded. 'How difficult does he think it is to learn to use one? Nelson's not getting me on his post, I don't care if Churchill himself signs the transfer papers.'
The pantry door opened. Mrs Lucy poked her head out. 'It's half past eight. The spotter'd better go upstairs even if the sirens haven't gone,' she said. 'Who's on duty tonight?'
'Vi,' I said, 'but she hasn't come in yet.'
'Oh, dear,' she said. 'Perhaps someone had better go look for her.'
'I'll go,' I said, and started pulling on my boots.
'Thank you, Jack,' she said. She shut the door.
I stood up and tucked my pocket torch into my belt. I picked up my gas mask and slung it over my arm in case I ran into Nelson. The regulations said they were to be worn while patrolling, but Mrs Lucy had realized early on that you couldn't see anything with them on. Which is why, I thought, she has the best post in the district, including Admiral Nelson's.
Mrs Lucy opened the door again and leaned out for a moment. 'She usually comes by underground. Sloarie Square,' she said. 'Take care.'
'Right,' Swales said. 'Vi might be lurking outside in the dark, waiting to pounce!' He grabbed Twickenham round the neck and hugged him to his chest.
'I'll be careful,' I said and went up the basement stairs and out on to the street.
I went the way Vi usually came from Sloane Square Station, but there was no one in the blacked-out streets except a girl hurrying to the underground station, carrying a blanket, a pillow, and a dress on a hanger.
I walked the rest of the way to the tube station with her to make sure she found her way, though it wasn't that dark. The nearly full moon was up, and there was a fire still burning down by the docks from the raid of the night before.
'Thanks awfully,' the girl said, switching the hanger to her other hand so she could shake hands with me. She was much nicer-looking than Vi, with blonde, very curly hair. 'I work for this old stewpot at John Lewis's, and she won't let me leave even a minute before closing, will she, even if the sirens have gone.'
I waited outside the station for a few minutes and then walked up to the Brompton Road, thinking Vi might have come in at South Kensington instead, but I didn't see her, and she still wasn't at the post when I got back.
'We've a new theory for why the sirens haven't gone,' Swales said. 'We've decided our Vi's set her cap at the
