wearing an overcoat. It flapped about his legs as he ran. It’s Mike, she thought.
No, it wasn’t him. He wasn’t limping. Someone looking for shelter? People had taken shelter in the Crypt, hadn’t they? But whoever this was knew exactly where he was going. He ran between the rows of wooden folding chairs set up for evensong and toward the dome.
He had to be one of the fire watch. She ran out from behind the pillar, but he was already across the wide floor under the dome. “Wait!” Polly called. “Sir!” She ran after him, but he’d already vanished into the shadows.
A door slammed. Where? Had he gone into the south choir aisle or into the transept? She darted down the near side of the transept and then around to the other side, looking for a door. The stairs up to the Whispering Gallery were along here somewhere, but she didn’t know if they led on up to the roofs.
Here were the stairs leading down to the Crypt, but they were barred by a gate, not a door, and what she’d heard was definitely a door. It must be somewhere in the choir. She started into it.
And ran into a young man in a black robe. She jumped a foot, and so did he, but he recovered immediately.
“Were you looking for the shelter, miss? It’s this way.” He took her arm and led her back to the Crypt stairs.
“No, I’m looking for someone,” she said. “A member of the fire watch.”
“They’re all on duty just now,” he replied, as if she’d asked for an appointment. “If you’ll come back tomorrow —”
She shook her head. “I must speak to him now. His name is John Bartholomew—”
She shook her head. “I must speak to him now. His name is John Bartholomew—”
“I’m afraid I don’t know most of the watch by name.” He unlatched the gate. “I’m only filling in tonight, you see.”
“Is Mr. Humphreys here?”
“I don’t know if he’s on duty. As I said, I’m only—”
“Then is there someone in charge I could speak to?”
“No, I’m afraid Dean Matthews and Mr. Allen are both up on the roofs. The raids are very bad tonight. The shelter’s down these stairs,” he said, motioning for her to precede him.
“I don’t …,” she began, and thought better of it. She didn’t want him taking her out through the nave and delivering her into the hands of the air-raid warden.
They started down the stone steps. “Mind your step,” he said. “I’m afraid these stairs are rather badly lit. The blackout, you know.”
“Badly lit” was an understatement. Below the first landing there was no light at all, and Polly had to put her hand on the cold stone wall and feel her way.
“I’m only a chorister, you see. One of the volunteers fell ill, and Dean Matthews asked me to help out. Nearly there,” he said helpfully, and pulled aside a black curtain for Polly.
She slipped through it into the Crypt. In spite of the vaulted ceiling and the tombs in the floor, it didn’t look like a crypt. It looked like an ARP post. A paraffin lamp sat on a wooden table next to a gas ring with a kettle on it, and beyond the table was a row of made-up cots, with coveralls and helmets hanging on hooks behind them. But no members of the fire watch.
“Will they come back down during the night to rest and have a cup of tea?” Polly asked.
“It’s not likely they will tonight,” he said, looking up at the low ceiling, through which the droning planes could be heard faintly. “The shelter’s along here.”
He led her past what had to be Wellington’s tomb—an enormous black-and-gold sarcophagus—toward the west end. “I expect they’ll be up on the roofs all night, with all these bombs.”
“Then could you go up and tell John Bartholomew that I must speak with him?”
“Go up? Onto the roofs, you mean?” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to get up there. That’s why Dean Matthews put me in charge down here. Our shelter’s just over here,” he added and led her into a sandbagged arch at the end of the church where a half dozen women and a young boy huddled against one wall on folding chairs.
“Here’s another for your little band,” the chorister said to them. He explained to Polly, “These ladies were evacuated from a shelter in Watling Street.”
“It was on fire,” the boy explained, sounding disappointed that they’d been forced to leave.
“You’ll be safe here,” the chorister said to all of them, and walked rapidly back to the watch’s headquarters. But not back upstairs, and it didn’t look like he was going to go upstairs. He was messing about with the kettle.
Polly looked about for a stairway at this end of the Crypt, but she couldn’t see one. What now? Should she wait here on the off chance one of the fire watch would come down here, and try to persuade him to take a message to John Bartholomew?
From the sound of things, that wasn’t likely to happen. More and more incendiaries were spattering overhead, and the roar of the planes was growing louder even down here. “Will St. Paul’s burn down?” the boy asked his mother.
“It can’t,” the woman said. “It’s built of stone.”
But that wasn’t true. The cathedral had wooden inner roofs, wooden supports, wooden beams, wooden choir stalls, wooden screens, wooden chairs. And hard-to-reach spaces between the roofs which seemed to have been designed just for incendiaries to melt through and lodge in. Which was what the fire watch were working frantically to keep from happening. And would be working frantically on all night. The chorister was right. They wouldn’t be down before morning.
