She couldn’t wait that long. But to get to the roofs, she’d have to get past the chorister. And away from the shelterers, which would be difficult. When the boy wandered a short way down the Crypt, the women made him come sit down, saying, “The gentleman in charge told us to keep to this end.”
“I only wanted to look at the tombs,” the boy said, which gave Polly an idea.
“Isn’t the artist who painted The Light of the World buried down here?” she asked no one in particular, and walked over to read the memorial tablets on the north wall, working her way slowly along them and waiting for her chance.
The chorister looked at his watch, took the kettle off the gas ring, and disappeared into one of the bays. Polly waited for the next batch of incendiaries and when the shelterers automatically looked up at the ceiling, darted into the next bay and along the Crypt, keeping next to the wall and looking for another way up to the main floor. Or to the upper levels.
Two of the bays had mounds of sandbags covering something—the organ pipes? John Donne in his shroud?— and the next had a grille across it with a padlocked and locked gate, but in the one after that there were several shovels and coils of rope and a large tub of water. And a stairway.
It was the twin of the one she’d come down, which meant it would only go up to the main floor, but it would get her up out of the Crypt and away from the chorister. She ran quickly up the not-nearly-as-dark steps and out into the north transept.
And into the arms of the chorister. “Not that way, miss,” he said, catching her with both hands. “Down this way.”
He took her back down the steps.
“I was only—”
“Quickly,” he said; he didn’t seem angry, only in a great hurry.
He hustled her at top speed through the Crypt to where the shelterers were sitting. “Attention, everyone,” he said. “Please collect your things. We need to evacuate the building.”
The women began gathering up their belongings. “This is the second time I’ve had to move tonight,” one of them said disgustedly.
“Is St. Paul’s on fire?” the boy asked.
The chorister didn’t answer. “This way,” he said, and led the way to a narrow recessed door in the northwest corner. “I’ll see you all get to another shelter.”
“But you don’t understand,” Polly said. “I must speak to Mr. Bartholomew.”
“You can speak to him outside,” he said, herding them through the door. “The fire watch is being evacuated as well.”
The fire watch? Why were they being evacuated? They were supposed to be putting out incendiaries. It doesn’t matter, she thought. It means you can tell Mr.
Bartholomew.
Bartholomew.
“Will they come out this way?” she asked.
“No, they’ll have gone out through the nave. It’s quicker,” he said, pushing Polly through the doorway, up the short flight of steps to the surface, and through the outer door. They emerged into the churchyard and a cacophony of sound—droning bombers, clanging fire bells, the deafening thud of anti-aircraft guns, the wind. It was blowing hard, fanning the flames of a Victorian house on fire just beyond the churchyard.
The flames lit the churchyard with an eerie reddish light. The shelterers stood in a huddle among the tombstones, waiting for the chorister to take them to the shelter.
Polly darted past them and around to the west front of the church. The fire watch was already there, standing in the courtyard. But there were far too many of them
—an entire crowd—and they weren’t the watch, they were civilians. And beyond them, firemen were playing water on several buildings on fire in Paternoster Row.
The people in the courtyard must have fled those buildings and come here for shelter.
But they were making no attempt to go inside St. Paul’s. They were all standing well back from the steps, in the center of the courtyard, and they seemed oblivious to the fires behind them and to the deafening drone of planes overhead. They were looking, transfixed, up at the dome.
Polly followed their gaze. Halfway up the dome was a small gout of blue-white flame. “An incendiary!” a man behind her shouted at her over the roar of the planes.
“It’s too far up for the fire watch to reach.”
“Once the dome catches,” the woman on her other side said, “the whole building will go up like a torch.”
No, it won’t, Polly thought. St. Paul’s didn’t burn down. The fire watch put out twenty-eight incendiaries and saved it.
The fire watch. She looked over at the porch, but no one was on it or on the steps or coming out either of the side doors. The chorister had said coming out through the nave was quicker. That meant the fire watch was already out here, somewhere in this crowd. Polly started through it, looking for men in coveralls and helmets.
“Mr. Bartholomew!” she called, pushing between people, hoping someone would turn his head. “John Bartholomew!” but there was too much noise from the guns and the planes and the fire engines’ bells. She couldn’t make herself heard. And she couldn’t see any helmets.
“Oh, look!” the woman she was shoving past said. “She’s going!” and Polly, shocked, turned and looked up. Where the small flame had been, large yellow flames were spurting, whipped by the wind. Even as she watched, the fire seemed to grow larger and brighter.
“She’s done for,” someone said.
