“What?”
“You can’t get out that way. It’s blocked. Through here,” he said, leading her over a fallen pillar and down a broken staircase. “That’s it, only a few more steps.”
“What did you say?” Polly asked him, pulling back against his hand on her arm, trying to make him stop.
“I said, ‘only a few more steps.’ We’re nearly there.”
“No, before that,” she said. “You said—”But they were down the stairs and out of the theater and he was handing her over to two FANYs.
“She needs to be taken to hospital,” Hunter said. “Possible internal injuries and exposure to gas. She’s a bit muddled.”
“Over here!” a man in a helmet called from across the street, and Hunter started toward him.
“Wait!” Polly called after him.
She had nearly had it, the knowledge which had been hovering just out of reach since he’d told her she’d saved Sir Godfrey’s life. “I need to speak to him,” she said to the FANYs, but he was already gone, she was already being wrapped in a blanket, being bundled into the back of an ambulance. “I need to ask him—”
“The man you saved has already been taken to hospital. You can speak to him there,” the FANY said, putting a mask over her nose and mouth. “Take a deep breath.”
“No,” Polly said, pushing it violently away, “not Sir Godfrey. Hunter, the man who brought me out.” But the doors were already shut, the ambulance was already moving. “Driver, you’ve got to go back. He said something when we were coming out of the theater. I must ask him what it was!”
“She’s confused,” the attendant called up to the driver. “It’s the effects of the gas.”
No, it’s not, Polly thought. It’s a clue.
He had said … something, and when she’d heard the words, they’d set up an echo of someone else, saying the same words … and for an instant it had all made sense—Alf and Binnie blocking Eileen’s way, and Mike unfouling the propeller, and the measles and the slippage and A Christmas Carol. If she could only remember …
Hunter had said, “You can’t get out that way. It’s blocked.” Like their drops. Hers had been bombed, and Mike’s had a gun emplacement on it, and Eileen’s had been fenced off and turned into a riflery range, blocking their way back. Like Alf and Binnie had blocked Eileen’s way, like the station guard had kept Polly from leaving Notting Hill Gate and going to the drop the night St. George’s was destroyed—
It has something to do with that night, Polly thought. The guard wouldn’t let me leave, and I went to Holborn —
“This won’t hurt,” the attendant said, clamping the oxygen mask down over her nose and mouth and holding it there. “It’s only oxygen. It will help clear your head.”
I don’t want it cleared, Polly thought. Not till she remembered what he’d said, not until she’d worked it out. It was a puzzle, like one of Mike’s crosswords. It had something to do with Holborn and Mike’s bus and ENSA and her shoe.
No, not her shoe—the shoe the horse had lost. “For want of a horse, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the war …”
The ambulance jolted to a stop, and they were opening the doors, carrying her inside the hospital past a woman at a desk.
Like Agatha Christie that night at St. Bart’s, Polly thought, and for an instant she nearly had it. It was something to do with Agatha Christie. And that night she’d gone to Holborn. The sirens had gone early, and the guard wouldn’t let her go to the drop, and so she hadn’t been there when the parachute mine exploded, she had thought they were all dead and had staggered into Townsend Brothers, and Marjorie had seen her and decided to elope with her airman—
“Let’s get you out of those clothes,” the nurse said, and they were taking her bloody swimsuit off, putting her into a hospital gown and a bed, bombarding her with questions so that she couldn’t concentrate. She had to keep explaining that her name wasn’t Viola, it was Polly Sebastian, that she wasn’t a chorus girl at the Windmill, that she wasn’t injured.
“It’s not my blood,” she insisted. “It’s Sir Godfrey’s.”
She’d nearly forgotten about Sir Godfrey, she had been so fixed on remembering what Hunter had said, but if he’d died on the way to hospital, it didn’t matter. If she hadn’t saved his life …
“Is he here?” she asked. “Is he all right?”
“I’ll send someone to see,” the nurse promised, taking her pulse, pulling the blankets up over her. “This will help you to sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep,” Polly said, but it was too late. The needle was already in her arm.
“Marjorie,” she murmured, determined not to lose her train of thought. Marjorie had decided to elope with her airman, and so she’d been in Jermyn Street when it was hit, and so she’d …
But the sedative was already working, her thoughts already breaking up like fog into wisps of thought, already drifting from her grasp. She couldn’t remember what Marjorie … no, not Marjorie. Agatha Christie. And the measles and a horse and that night at Holborn. There hadn’t been anywhere to sit, so she’d stood in line at the canteen waiting for the escalators to stop, and Alf and Binnie had run by, had stolen the woman’s picnic basket. Alf and Binnie, who’d kept Eileen from going to St.
canteen waiting for the escalators to stop, and Alf and Binnie had run by, had stolen the woman’s picnic basket. Alf and Binnie, who’d kept Eileen from going to St.
Paul’s … no, that wasn’t Eileen, it was Mr. Dunworthy. They’d kept Mr. Dunworthy from going to St. Paul’s, and he’d collided with Alan Turing. No, Mike had collided with Alan Turing. Mr. Dunworthy had collided with Talbot, and her lipstick had rolled into the street, and Sir Godfrey …
