“You have a kind heart and he took you in. I expect he was just a common criminal.”
“Even so,” Ferguson had wanted to reply, “you don’t smash a boy’s hands.” It would have spoiled the afternoon for Frank, so he had answered simply, “No, it was true, I made inquiries.” Now they were all learning about war the hard way, for the second time in one generation; yet sitting in this basement and looking at the diverse group in their rugs and siren suits, people still seemed unaware of what had happened. I know and I understand, he thought with great bitterness as another explosion shook the street; but it is all useless, people prefer stupidity. He felt in his pocket for his cigarette case, but caught sight of the notice Angelina had chalked up in large letters, “No Smoking During Alerts.”
“Dear me,” Selina sighed, “it is being noisy tonight! I must confess I find it trying night after night with no sleep.”
“Do try some wax plugs, Miss Tippett, I’m sure they would help you.” One of the many old ladies dived into a huge bag she held, full of goggles, ointment, and powder. There was a violent crash as she spoke, on a neighbouring roof.
“Patience, my children,” Angelina shouted from the top of the stairs, “wait until you hear the eight o’clock news tomorrow,” and she mimicked the announcer: “‘There was slight enemy activity over London in the early hours of last evening.’” They all laughed, but several stirred uneasily in their chairs.
“I think it is better not to try to settle till the guns stop,” Mrs. Juniper Oil intervened. “I go home directly the all-clear sounds, take a bath, and sleep on till eleven.”
I can’t do that with my ledgers and my stores, Selina thought, yawning. Horatio was staring at her in a very peculiar way, like a child she had once seen who had been frightened by a runaway horse. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rashleigh,” she called across to him, “five minutes more and we’ll have some soup.”
“Hush,” he whispered, pointing to the staircase, “they’re after us.”
“Of course, they are after all of us.” It was best to humour him. “But here in the shelter we are safe.”
Rashleigh shivered violently and shook his head. He could distinguish forms in the shadows, dancing and leaping. “Can’t you see the flashes?” he muttered. “They’ve got to the stockades.”
“Stockades? Whatever do you mean?”
“The Indians …” He broke from Selina’s grasp, for she had crossed over to quiet him. “There, can’t you see them?” He tried to crouch under the staircase. “Indians …” he yelled the word, but nobody heard him, for the walls lifted with a roar at that moment and split, and rushed towards each other in a cascade of noise, plaster, and crumbling bricks.
12
“ARE YOU HURT, madam?” Selina realized gradually that the shouts were meant for her. The darkness was worse than the staircase had been, and she found herself kneeling on a mattress, clasping an enormous pillow. “No!” The word sounded like a scratchy whisper, though she was yelling. “No, I don’t think so.” A memory came back of being forced to stand as a small child almost underneath a waterfall, and of fearing that it would choke her.
The guns had not stopped, but there were whistles everywhere. “Stay where you are, don’t move and we’ll have you out in no time!” With infinite relief, she recognized Dobbie’s voice. Then the paralysis lifted. “Angelina!”—this time she really screamed—“Angelina, where are you, are you safe?”
“Yes, dear, but thanks to myself, not the nation. The cork has been blown out of Miss Hill’s thermos and the soup has scalded her leg. If we had had deep shelters this would never have happened. I shall write to the Times about it!” Somebody kicked against a fallen chair and …was he injured?… Horatio was whimpering in a corner.
“There, that’s better!” Ferguson, who had been thrown to the ground with an old lady wriggling in his arms, managed to disentangle himself and flash on his torch. Part of a wall had come down but the beams above the shelter had held, and though the occupants and their Lido of beds and chairs had been flung like a trampled ant heap onto the floor, there had been no serious damage. “We’re all right, Dobbie,” he shouted up, “we can manage if you’re wanted elsewhere.”
A fog of dust, smoke, and unknown smells enveloped the room. People coughed and laughed. Plaster fragments slithered from the walls to plop on the ground like hailstones. “If only I could find my bag,” Lilian wailed. “It’s got my ration book in it!” There was a great central silence, Selina noticed, in a multiplicity of little noises. The guns broke into an even more savage barking, and they could hear the buzzing of enemy planes. “I wish they would not remind me of a mosquito,” Ferguson grumbled, shaking his overcoat.
“Has anybody got a torch? I’ve lost my bag and it’s got my ration book.”
“My dear, this thermos is all right. We can have some tea.”
“Pull yourself together!” Angelina was slapping Cook’s back violently. “What do you want to cry for? We’re safe!”
The zipper had caught again, of course, and Eve tore at her bag to get out of it. Lilian’s papers and a camp stool were all over her legs. It was like a Goya drawing, she thought, frantic black shapes in an underworld lit by one faint beam. Horatio was muttering between his sobs and somebody suddenly screamed. The sensation of having her legs tied up was definitely unpleasant, but the blanket gave at last and she scrambled to her feet, still holding a strip of it in her hand.
“Now then!” Dobbie came carefully down the staircase with his big, shaded torch. “The sooner you get to your cups of tea the better. These steps seem all right, but come up one at
