These Dark Wings Read online

  He lets the first remark go in his excitement for the second. ‘What kind?’

  ‘You tell me. I need to know something – about a certain type of bomb. I’ve been looking, but I haven’t been able to figure out exactly how it works.’

  ‘You should’ve asked me.’

  ‘Well, I’m asking you now.’

  We stand in silence on the Green. He looks up at me, waiting.

  ‘It’s about a bomb they haven’t dropped yet,’ I say. ‘But everyone always talks about it. Poison. The gas bomb.’

  He looks at me strangely. ‘Yes?’

  ‘How does it... kill? The gas bomb. How does it kill?’

  He looks at me, nervous, thinking. ‘It is... the gas stops your breathing. So you die.’

  We look at each other for a moment. I remember all the things he said. We all do what we must. It is cool in the dusk and soon we both grow still. He does not look away, but nods very slowly before speaking.

  ‘Like going to sleep.’

  I nod, turning my face towards the now sinking sun.

  Saturday, 10 May 1941

  ‘Uncle, I need to talk to you.’

  ‘And I need to talk to you. Come, dear.’

  He is in unusually good spirits today. Perhaps I can finally get him to answer me honestly. But first things first.

  ‘No, no,’ he says, seeing me reach for the gloves. ‘The birds can take care of themselves today. We’re going out.’

  I stare at him, no words coming. Dazzling light streams in through the stained glass. Finally, I manage a cracked, ‘Where?’

  He grins, a rakish gleam in his eye. He looks almost flushed. ‘Where else? Wembley.’

  I nod dumbly, unsure what to make of his transformation.

  Wembley?

  We walk out in the cold. Uncle wears a brown suit and a trilby hat, limping slightly. I have changed into the new spring outfit Nell helped me pick out. Although the white jumper is hers (it is a little long at the arms), the navy skirt is straight from the shops. Now I really look like a Magpie, glowing in the sun. I smile at the thought but suddenly shiver. Maybe I should have worn my old trousers. Those blessed few days of warmth seem a different life ago. Is it really May?

  It must be because buses now run on summer timetables. The driver punches our fourpenny tickets and we find seats as near as we can to the front. The air is stuffy, with an unpleasant smell like damp laundry. Green gauze is stretched tight across the windows. Out there is the city where I have spent my whole life, Which I may no longer recognize.

  ‘What a match,’ Uncle is saying. ‘Preston won in nineteen thirty-eight. Haven’t lost a game this year. But Arsenal is older, more experienced, and miserly with goals.’

  While Uncle’s enthusiasm has startled me, I have not forgotten my determination to get the truth.

  The bus driver calls out: ‘Sorry about the detour, folks. There’s been a nasty old man in the sky dropping stones.’

  A few low chuckles, Uncle among them.

  ‘Did your mum ever tell you about the QPR games?’ Uncle smiles widely. ‘Oh, she loved them.’

  There is nothing possible to say. Mum at a football match?

  Uncle reads my expression clearly enough. ‘Oh yes. Dad loved the Hoops, and we would beg him to bring us along to White City. Your mum too, though I fear her love was more particular. How she swooned over Harry Pidgeon!’

  I feel my face go red. ‘Who?’

  ‘He could dribble up the field like a dancer. Scored the odd goal, as well. Your mum must have been around your age. I think her affection was quite serious.’

  Uncle is laughing like I have never heard him before. He is too pleased for me to say what I want to – what kind of name is Harry Pidgeon? – so I just gaze round the strange green interior of the bus. I keep staring, tangled in thought. I don’t mean to think it, I don’t want to, but it is everywhere.

  ‘Mum died on a bus like this.’

  Although he goes very pale, he says nothing. After a moment, Uncle reaches over and squeezes my hand.

  Despite my new resolution I can’t bring myself to ask the question.

  Didn’t she?

  When we get off the bus, the streets are humming like a beehive. I almost offer Uncle my arm, but he seems steady enough. Hawkers are selling red and white peonies and small Union Jack flags. Girls stand in summer dresses, despite the cold. I know Timothy Squire wishes he could be here.

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’ I wonder aloud.

  ‘No, no,’ Uncle says. ‘Perfectly safe.’

  Perfectly safe? The sun glints off the shining faces as we march along. If there is a daytime raid, we’ll be a perfect target. Another, slightly less terrifying thought grabs me. How long is the game? Surely we won’t still be here after nightfall. Surely.

  We are inside the stadium. I am inside Wembley: sixty thousand people in the cold sunshine, all staring towards the brilliant green pitch. Uncle looks so happy that I can’t bring myself to ask anything more about Mum or the length of the match. His eagerness is infectious.

  The game is set to begin at 3.30 p.m. A cheer rises up, and the players emerge from the tunnels. Uncle cheers too, and my heart surges to see him. He looks like Mum now. Mum when she would read me The Hobbit, doing all the different voices. Her voice for the dragon was low and scary, but she laughed, too.

  The national anthem explodes into the arena. It is easy to become dizzy amid all the roaring voices.

  ‘See the young lad up front for Arsenal?’ Uncle yells to be heard, pointing vaguely at players in red and white. ‘Denis Compton. A sublime talent.’

  I nod. This is almost as loud as a raid.

  Preston in dark shorts looks like the slower team. Something happens – people are screaming – a penalty to Arsenal. The shot, hard and sure, is saved. Only three minutes gone. My legs are frozen.

  Soon Uncle hands me my ‘picnic’ lunch of a cheese sandwich and crisps. Afterwards, though, I feel a little queasy. I adjust my positioning, stretching my legs in the light.

  Now Preston moves faster. The post rattles. Another shot, and Preston scores. Uncle looks tired, but is always smiling. Happy. Just before half-time, Arsenal scores and the game is tied. Five clouds hang in the sky.

  Although the players looked exhausted in the second half, the crowd cries with the same enthusiasm, even Uncle. The game goes on for a very long time, the ball kicked back and forth. Eventually, it ends in a draw. They will have to play again to settle on a winner. I make a note to tell Uncle that examinations are coming up and I’m really not feeling that prepared. That is only half a lie.

  It is 5 p.m., beautiful and sunny and freezing. Even though I move as quickly as I can, the crowd is in no hurry to leave the stadium. Once we reach the gates, the pace is slower than Grip waddling to the roost for bed. I pause, knuckling my back, before lumbering long with the laughing figures.

  ‘Our day is not over,’ Uncle looks down at me with a wink.

  ‘Oh, Uncle. I have had the most glorious day. I can’t thank you enough. But I would really rather just enjoy the sunshine – maybe wander around London a bit.’

  ‘Oh no, dear. You will not want to miss this.’

  Uncle may be wrong. As another bus winds through the invisible streets, we sit in silence. Kate told me that the police have agreed to a new closing time, and cinemas and pubs are now open until 10 p.m. Uncle can’t plan to be out for so long, can he? I glance at him now. He looks older, worn, hidden under a hat.

  Once we’re off the bus, we stop for tea and scones, which are delicious, and then Uncle checks his watch and says we have to hurry. When we finally turn and walk up to the Queen’s Hall, I cannot raise a smile.

  ‘A concert,’ I say, straining to keep the disappointment from my voice.

  ‘Oh no,’ he answers, not looking down. ‘Elgar’s masterpiece.’

  Of course, once we get inside and take our seats, it turns out to be very much a concert. ‘The Dream of Gerontius,’ Uncle says, assu
ming perhaps that I am familiar with Gerontius. He makes various noises about Mum, how pleased she would be if she could see us.

  The room, though, is quite splendid, and the fancy musicians and singers fill the stage. I wonder, and not for the first time, if Uncle truly had me in mind when he bought these tickets. Football and concerts? Is Oakes on duty at St Paul’s tonight?

  When Mum took me out for a birthday treat, she always asked what I wanted to eat. Even if we couldn’t have it, she’d find us something similar.

  The music is long and dull. My legs are sore from the day of sitting in the cold, and it is a shock to go from the screaming openness of the football to the quiet unmoving stiffness of the concert hall. My mind drifts to Monopoly. My little silver dog, moving along the board. Timothy Squire, laughing and talking. Not doing anything evil or horrible.

  It’s not Timothy Squire’s fault. It’s the war. We are not ourselves.

  No. If we are not ourselves now, when things are hardest, when we are needed most, when are we? Is this our best, lying and stealing? Running away and abandoning those we love? To this? To this world without them? I realize with a jolt that I am no longer thinking of Timothy Squire.

  ‘Your mother was very talented, as you must know,’ comes a piercing whisper, ‘a fine violinist. Listen, listen.’ Uncle is doing his thing where he is talking, but not really to anyone. ‘This part... here.’ And, after a moment, ‘Oh, I’m sure she loved this piece.’

  Uncle is too far away to notice my sour look. Mum told me herself she wasn’t good enough to play professionally for a living, though she would sit for hours in her study with her violin, and forget to come out even to say goodnight. In the later days, she didn’t play the violin so much. Still she went into her study, the brown wooden door closed tight. Father, she said, had been a truly gifted violinist. If I ever heard him play, I don’t remember it.

  While there is much church singing, eventually the noisy voices and strings do come together quite beautifully. Perhaps Mum would have been pleased to see me here.

  The night air is freezing but welcome. I take a huge gulp of it. I would rather be frozen outside than stuffed in some fancy room with old people who do nothing but cough. No one even clapped until the very end. Never have I seen a moon so bright.

  It is a quiet bus ride home. Cold air seeps inside, and Uncle soon drifts to sleep. I will have another chance to ask him. Once we get home, however, the moment we are back inside the Tower, an old sound returns. I can’t take my eyes from the barracks clock. It is 11.03 p.m. It has been three weeks.

  The siren is wailing. At the time, it is a shock – the siren had been so quiet, and now my eardrums throb from the old, immediately familiar sound. But there is nothing in it to warn us that this was the night that Hitler had long been planning.

  The night he would make us surrender.

  Guns fire with the siren still in the air.

  The British fighters are not in the sky yet. They are not in the sky when the first wave of German bombers passes over. Planes, countless planes, more than I have ever seen at once. They are not in the sky when the string of incendiaries lands on the Tower.

  The east Casemates is hit. Constable Tower burns. Uncle says nothing. We have not moved from the grounds in front of the barracks. We stand, breathing heavily, looking out over the city. Between London Bridge and Southwark Bridge there is only a wall of flames. The moon, through the smoke, is still visible, high and bright and distant. I just keep swallowing, unable to stop myself.

  No one goes to the shelter. No one moves. We are frozen, witnesses to these last moments, to this end.

  It is nearly midnight. There comes a terrible rush of wind. Still we do not move. Oakes runs out, clearly searching for us, before joining our motionless vigil. I am too terrified to even move away from him.

  An unknown amount of time passes, and the city is destroyed. Fire rains from the sky. Torches rise from the city to greet it. Everything is lit, the flames beacons for further destruction. The fire’s own wind churns up glass and sparks.

  Below us roars a huge semicircle of fires. London bubbles and smokes, like a pot of boiling stew. I forget about everything. About Mum, about Father, about Timothy Squire, about Cora and MacDonald, about Oakes and the German.

  The air is filled with debris. Everything is confused – I don’t know how I am standing or if I even am. The cold stone is beneath me and above me, and the world is ringing and pulsing. Even the moon is gone now. Dust fills my nose, my mouth.

  The Tower breathes fire. Smoke drills flit through my mind – crawl on your stomach, mouth as near the floor as possible – still I don’t move. The wall of flames hems us in.

  Another incendiary lands: to see it, just there. It is smaller than I thought it would be, smaller than Timothy Squire had me believe. He is a rotten liar. It is tiny, malicious, hissing. What happens when it ignites? I have always wondered. Will the world turn black? Disappear? Will I feel the heat on my skin?

  All around me, people run. I see, though, in the distance, on the other side of the Tower, the dark outline of a figure on the ground. I can tell from the size and shape that it is Malcolm. Not ten feet from the white sputter of the bomb.

  Without thinking, I move to the sandbags and pull one free. Someone screams my name. The sandbag is heavy, almost heavy enough to pull me over. Instead I stagger ahead. A hand reaches for me; I shoulder it away.

  I can feel the heat of the bomb. It is too hot. What did Timothy Squire say? It will cool. I have no time to wait. I trudge into the wall of heat, dragging the sandbag behind me. I can hear nothing other than the rumble of the planes and the mocking whir of the bomb.

  There is Malcolm, hands over his face, lying far too close. His father is not here. Yeoman Brodie is away, off in the countryside somewhere. Any moment now the incendiary will roar to life, and we will be buried in the avalanche of stone turrets and the east wall. I think of Flo, running on and on, long after my own breath gave out and my legs felt strangely light and clumsy.

  You can do this.

  I see in my mind the large, black, watching eye of Grip. I am sorry.

  I inch forward in the heat. There is no time. I wield the sandbag, but I miss the bomb by several feet. I am not close enough.

  I move nearer, clenching the sandbag. Again I wield it, and this time I strike the hissing bomb. And again and again. I pummel the bomb to death. The sandbag is heavy now, too heavy to lift once more.

  An arm pulls me, hard. Then I feel nothing except the blistering heat.

  12

  Tuesday, 13 May 1941

  I am in bed. Somewhere much more comfortable than my creaking bunk. My arm is wrapped tightly in white cloth – another bedsheet, I notice – and the air smells heavily of iodine.

  Hitting that bomb. I can still remember, I can still feel it, the exhilaration.

  Thank you, Flo.

  Uncle comes in. I beam at him. That he is so strong, so fast – that he raced into that blaze to save me. As I look at him, though, I can say none of these words. I can only smile up at his concerned expression.

  He has brought eggs and toast, which I eat awkwardly with my left hand.

  ‘It is good to see you awake and smiling, my dear,’ he says. ‘Two days, and you’ve barely woken up to have a sip of water.’

  ‘I’m feeling better now, Uncle. Thank you.’

  He smiles, a kind smile. ‘You’re looking fighting fit. In a few weeks your hair will have grown right back.’

  ‘My hair?’

  I try to reach up but my arm is wrapped too tight. With my left I explore, tentatively, the top of my head. There is some hair, at least, though not at all even. I can’t let Nell see me like this. God, what will Timothy Squire say? In a few weeks it will grow back?

  ‘Are you okay, dear? I hope so. Because there is someone who wants to see you, if you have the strength for visitors.’

  Before I can even answer the door is opened. Awkwardly, Malcolm is ushered into the roo
m by a red-faced nurse. I turn my head on the pillow, not sure which way to shift. What does my hair look like?

  ‘Come on in, Malcolm. Is there anything you want to say to Anna?’

  He shuffles closer. He looks more pained than I have ever seen him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he finally mutters.

  I smile back at him. At least he recognizes me. My hair can’t be that bad.

  ‘Can I go now?’ He turns helplessly to Uncle, who nods.

  Grip would have had more to say.

  I am in the Hospital Block, I finally realize – I have never been in here before. I must get a mirror.

  ‘And you,’ Uncle says, touching me gently, ‘owe a debt yourself. Gregory is at the cathedral this morning, but he should be back this afternoon.’

  ‘Yeoman Oakes?’ I say weakly.

  ‘A very foolish thing to do, Anna, running into that fire. Luckily, Gregory was close enough to reach you. No one else could have.’

  Oakes?

  Uncle tells me more. He protests, says I am too tired, too sleepy; I ask until he tells me everything. Untold damage, thousands dead or dying. So many places were hit: the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, St Mary-le-Bow, Somerset House, King’s Cross Station, Big Ben, and the House of Commons. The Queen’s Hall, where only hours before we had sat listening to the music of Gerontius, has burned to ash. The moon, when it reappeared, shone red, reflecting the blazing streets below.

  The two nights since have seen no attacks. Lucky for me, as I was apparently just lying here, under no shelter apart from these white sheets. No one thinks this is the end, not after nine months. What will it take? Life cannot continue. Not like this. We have done all we can. We can do no more.

  But Uncle has other news. The school building in the Mint has been destroyed. School is cancelled for the year. I have no time to count my blessings – no student report! – as Uncle keeps talking. The mere fact that the building is rubble is not the only reason why school has been cut short.

  ‘Many of the parents are worried, rightly, of course,’ he says. His next words echo strangely in my ears. ‘Some of the kids have been sent away.’