These Dark Wings Read online

  ‘Sir?’ I say.

  ‘People – a certain kind of people – find Churchill inspirational. Well, here’s your chance to see for yourself.’

  I quickly look down again, wishing he would go back to his wall. What is he talking about? He is mad.

  ‘Thousands of innocent people, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters – they have homes, families, all the things that make life worth living.’ His voice is very loud now, loud and grating. ‘They didn’t want this war. They didn’t want the slaughter of their neighbours, of their communities. And our planes are the same to the German people. Right now, perhaps, a girl in Berlin looks up from her window in terror, waiting for our bombs to fall.’

  ‘Gregory, that’s quite enough,’ Brodie interrupts.

  Oakes half stands, pointing a long finger at him.

  ‘That’s no more than Margaret Cooper would have said, and quite right. Imagine what she would write about this mess.’

  I am stunned by the sound of Mum’s name. No one, not even Uncle, has spoken her name aloud. Why is Oakes talking about her? Then, before fully rising to leave, he mutters darkly.

  ‘Are we ready for an invasion?’

  In the silence, I feel the chill of the stone underfoot.

  Mr Brodie clears his throat. ‘Nevertheless, it will be an honour to host the prime minister. He is due to visit us Sunday next, as Yeoman Oakes mentioned. I think you will enjoy it very much, Anna. And your uncle should be feeling a sight better by then.’

  I try to smile back. I don’t care about seeing the prime minister. Why would he come here anyway? And how dare Oakes talk about Mum?

  Mr Brodie is still watching me. ‘And you must be looking forward to Monday. Starting school again?’ He smiles kindly. ‘Be around some children your own age, and away from grouchy old men.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir. I’m looking forward to the new school.’

  I know nothing of the school – not even where to find it in the castle. And why do classes start so late? It would be nearly half term at home.

  He is still looking at me, waiting. What do people even talk about in this place?

  ‘Bloody Tower is very old, isn’t it, Yeoman Brodie? Were the ravens here even before that?’

  His eyes go wide. ‘The ravens?’

  ‘Uncle says the ravens have been here a long time. That the legend of the ravens goes all the way back to Charles II. Maybe even further.’

  ‘Legend of the... Well, your uncle would be the one to know about all that.’

  He sounds slightly uncomfortable, but now that we are talking about it, I do have a question to ask.

  ‘So if the ravens are gone, London – and Manchester and Glasgow, and all of Britain – will surrender?’

  He frowns, grows more serious. ‘Britain is more than London and Glasgow. It is a Commonwealth that spans the world. It is an idea, a shared culture.’

  The Warders rise and begin cleaning. Without wives, they do their own washing up, before changing into their uniforms for Chapel and then heading off to their posts.

  A sudden noise. We all turn.

  Every sound seizes the mind, focuses it. Within the great ceilings and halls of the Tower, sounds bounce off beams and leak through stone. In the seconds before a name can be put to each noise – a dropped pot, a slammed door, a calling raven – other, sinister words float to the surface. Engine, bomb, shrapnel.

  I reach for the mask, suddenly thankful that Oakes monstered on about it. Even Mr Brodie, despite all his brave talk and giant size, freezes with pipe to his lips, dripping dish over the sink, turning his eyes to mine. I know it as well as he does. Bombs do not care if you are a soldier or a cook, a mother or a child. A Warder or a girl.

  No one is more protected than another. And no one can protect another.

  But the ravens, Uncle claims, can. They can sense the shift in the air, notice changes in the sky that aircraft spotters are blind to, and other such rubbish talk. One thing is true: when ravens are upset, you know it. The strange, deep, horrible croak becomes something else – high-pitched and wild. A shriek, almost human.

  The sound outside is a raven, croaking just beyond the Green. What does it mean? It is, I somehow know for certain, a message for us.

  A warning? Or a threat?

  The ravens are here for the corpses. Their big dinner is coming.

  The Warders are everywhere. Even during Chapel, they are posted at all the exits. From one end of the Tower to the other, inside the walls and out, men in blue coats stand guard. And you never know where another will suddenly appear – around a corridor, from the top of a stone staircase. They are always there, waiting, searching.

  I will never get past them.

  I have sneaked into the library and read as much history as I could stand in order to find proof – proof that it can be done. One prisoner convinced a group of friends to lower him down into a waiting boat. Another – some lord, I think – was brought a disguise of women’s clothes by his wife and servants, who then smuggled him out.

  Both had help. Family. Friends. A boat. I have no one, nothing.

  Mabel, how did you do it? A flightless bird got out and I cannot.

  Is it a sign? Is Mabel giving me hope, that I too can escape the coming bombs and fire? Maybe Uncle was right and Mabel knew more – she sensed something coming, something about to happen. She escaped to save herself. To show me the way.

  It is impossible.

  I stand staring, defeated. A vast, curving, snaking pile of rock: towers, arches, ramparts and passageways too narrow for cats. Stone stretching out, east and west, north and south, huge, windowless walls climbing upward, hiding the city, the sun, the world. Along with the gas mask, I must always carry a whistle, in case I get buried in the debris of a bomb. Now I feel that it is too late. I am already buried.

  And, of course, it rains every day so I can go nowhere without my umbrella. Turning away from the stone walls, I walk towards the Green. My days, after prowling the castle in vain for freedom, are spent here, wet and alone. Alone, that is, except for the wandering, muttering ravens with their orrk, orrk, as they potter about, or the harsh kraa.

  The rain falls harder. The towers look even more dreary in this weather. As I gaze around, a stunned feeling rises up, making it difficult to do anything at all. Thoughts become as heavy and grey as the stones.

  How dare Oakes talk about Mum.

  What was he even talking about? ‘Making peace with Hitler,’ Yeoman Brodie said, but Oakes mumbled about an invasion. He is mad.

  The rain grows until it bounces off my umbrella like a drum. Only for the briefest moment does it sound like approaching bombers. I shut my eyes against the rain, trying to imagine that I am not surrounded by croaking shadows and endless walls. Then comes a real sound, a human sound.

  Clicking footsteps.

  It is Nell. She is older, roughly the same age as the NAAFI girls who work in the canteen. Far too old to speak to me. Where exactly she lives and what exactly she does is a mystery. Mainly, she stands around and smokes cigarettes, looking very trim. Now she is wearing a lovely blue and white hairband as she saunters across the passage. No sign of a gas mask.

  A black flash tugs away my gaze. Where the ravens come from, I can’t tell. They can’t fly, but they can swoop, a dark blur in the corner of your eye. Somehow, despite their size, they arrive unseen, appearing as if they were always there. Only the ravens’ voices – their dreadful, gnarled voices – tell you where they are.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  I turn, quickly. For a horrifying minute I worry that I was thinking aloud – or, worse, acting like Uncle and talking to the ravens – but Nell looks unconcerned. She doesn’t even have the small, bloodshot eyes of the rest of us. She wears a thin necklace that looks almost like pearls.

  ‘Maida Vale,’ I say, my voice higher than usual. ‘Warwick Avenue.’

  ‘Knew it.’

  She takes a long haul off her cigarette.

  �
�It’s too bad you had to come here. Where the bombs fall.’

  ‘Are you from here?’ I ask, as if her jumbled Cockney accent is possible to ignore. I feel thoroughly second hand.

  I nod when she does, unsure what to say next. Should I stand? Offer her my umbrella? My face is red and stiff from the wind. I need sleep. I say nothing.

  ‘So, what are you doing here?’ A pencilled eyebrow is raised. ‘You look after the birds now?’

  I try to answer but am forced to wait as the great clock on top of the barracks strikes 11 a.m. She ashes her cigarette briskly.

  ‘Yes,’ I say into the still ringing air. ‘My uncle – Henry Reed, the Yeoman Warder, if you know him – he is the Ravenmaster. Which I suppose makes me the junior Ravenmaster.’

  ‘It’s not all that fun,’ I add, for some reason. ‘A lot of the time it’s just cleaning the cages.’

  She laughs, really slow. ‘Yeah, some folk can’t even clean up after themselves.’

  I laugh too. ‘I don’t much like them, to be honest. Well, I like Mabel, but...’ Is my voice always so weak, so small? ‘The job’s not all bad. They are quite smart, actually, if not as smart as Uncle says. You’d think they were smarter than people, the way he goes on about them. I’m called Anna, by the way. Anna Cooper.’

  But Nell is done with her cigarette and our talk, and after a final narrowed glance at the ravens, she turns and clicks back across the passage. Again I am alone. I sit, hunched under the grey clouds and the deliberately cold rain, watching the smoke climb from her discarded cigarette.

  Suddenly I cannot breathe.

  All this stone – stone covering everything – makes me feel shadowed, and dark and old and caged. The bricks blackened and crusted, gnawed by the wind and rain for a thousand years. It will take time to ‘grow accustomed’ to the Tower, Uncle says. I never will.

  Why did Mum leave me here, in this horrible place? In this world without her?

  2

  The night is silent. Only the distant waves pushing though the dark. From the east come the sounds of the river, lapping waves and foghorns, dockers’ voices and crying gulls. The waves. The water. The sea. Father.

  Don’t let your imagination get away from you, Mum used to say.

  I am just exhausted. Too exhausted to sleep.

  I sit up on the bunk, which creaks in protest. The hardest bed in the world, with barely enough space to put my knees up (I can only sleep with my knees up). I have not unpacked my pyjamas, but wear my clothes in any event, my ID card and whistle in the pocket of my jumper. It is freezing and at any moment I will have to stumble down to the shelter.

  I fumble for the candle, light it. The room around me is dark and empty. Dust covers everything. My hair, no longer red, is now a dull grey like everything else. I don’t bother having the electric light on, terrified that in the rush to the shelter I’ll forget to switch it off. Even with the curtains drawn properly, it is not worth the risk.

  My throat is clogged from the dust and my stomach heaves horribly – a much larger butter ration is needed to make the wartime bread edible. I think of the food at Flo’s house. They had me for dinner a lot – Mum never came, I think maybe she was sad not to have Father with her – and Mrs Swift would always send me home with lots of leftover roast beef. Once she gave me a whole jar of pickles and, beaming, I carried it up the driveway. I remember being quite cross with Mum when she just shoved it in the cupboard without a word.

  This is my home now. I know billeting officers come to houses and tell people they have to take someone in (like the giant Canadian soldier that Katherine Molesworth’s family had to put up in their study), but surely London has other spare rooms than this frozen chamber in the Bloody Tower. The window faces west, away from most of the bombing. If I look I can just see Tower Hill beyond. I don’t look.

  A mouse is my room, scurrying against the wall, a dark smudge in the shadows. Why don’t the ravens eat it? If I could catch it, I would happily present Grip with this gift. Mice lived in the Underground shelter too, squeaking and scratching, their horrible long tails vanishing into impossible cracks.

  I think for a moment of the stories of the young princes – two boys my own age – who disappeared in this very tower. Not disappeared, I know. Those boys were murdered, comes Oakes’s voice. That’s why they call it the Bloody Tower.

  I can’t stay here, sleeping in a chamber in the bloody Bloody Tower. I can’t adjust to this. If home is destroyed, I will go to Montreal. Flo is there. No dirty great bombs or ghastly cold towers or creaking wooden bunks. I will write to her now, tell her that I am coming.

  I hold the dusty diary in my hand. It was in my bag, that day in the shelter, so I have kept it with me. Instead of writing anything new, I turn blackened pages, flipping through the past year.

  One entry, just before Mum’s accident, is a list. We had done it in school (Irene started it, I think), and filled in the blanks at home:

  I like the feeling of speeding on the Bakerloo Line.

  I wish that I had less (fewer?) freckles.

  Examinations (and sharks) make me nervous.

  I would love to learn to drive a train.

  ‘Drive a train?’ I don’t care if I never go down into the Underground again. ‘Sharks’? I only want one more day in bed at home, with Mum’s slow voice reading to me.

  I exhale deeply, trying to keep calm.

  But I am trapped here. Another day and another day and another day. Changeless, from the morning feeding to the night raids to the potato dinners. I am stuck in this room with the windows covered, smothering me. And even if I could fall asleep, the dreams would be there, waiting.

  No. I am not a child. I am here, behind solid walls, with at least a little warmth. Countless people want to go home but cannot. Some people have nothing but what they stand up in.

  I shut the diary, pressing it closed. I must keep my thoughts focused – or a cold sea of panic starts to rise.

  The Tower is not so rotten. Even if Nell and the Warders are mean sometimes, I can still hear the distant rumble of traffic outside the walls if I listen hard. With the dark, the world drops away. But it is still there.

  Flo said I was special, that it was unlucky to have brothers and sisters like she did, that I would never be left out of things. What things? If I had a sister (I’d never want a brother) she would be here now. A friend. A friend to keep away this mouse.

  I saw Flo before she left. She had her father’s suitcase, covered in stickers from faraway hotels. She didn’t seem too sad. Neither did I, of course. We just planned where we would meet.

  ‘Outside the Notre-Dame Basilica,’ she said. ‘On the steps.’

  I agreed, not knowing what the basilica was but sure that I could find it.

  ‘Will you learn French?’ I asked. I had only ever met one French person before, Mr Pepin, who made a chair for Mum. I couldn’t understand a word he said.

  She paused to think. ‘Maybe by then, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.’

  I can see them now, Flo with her sister and two brothers – both older, short and wide, and not like her at all – all of them playing together in the quiet streets of Montreal.

  There will never be a house like ours there. With a small garden with sweet peas and the skinny magnolia tree, never quite as pink as Mrs Weber’s across the street. Old Mrs Morgan and her terrier next door. The photograph of us, of the family together.

  All that is gone.

  For now I am safe. And I must try to sleep. I blow out the candle, ease on to the stiff mattress, and curl back under the cool blankets. I clamp my eyes shut.

  After a few silent moments, from the darkness rises the long, low wail of the siren.

  Saturday, 5 October 1940

  ‘Countess Margaret. The only grandmother ever beheaded at the Tower.’

  As often as I hear Uncle’s voice, it is still unfamiliar. The words seem to glide, high and then low, the tone always changing. Nothing like Mum’s firm voice.

>   ‘Seventy-one years old, if you can believe it.’

  I look up at him and manage an exhausted smile. We stand together in front of the scaffold. A paved area, hardly three feet, with a brass plate in its centre: Site of the ancient scaffold: on this spot Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded on the 19th May 1536. A notice close at hand gives further names, all familiar from lessons – Queen Catherine Howard; Lady Jane Grey.

  ‘All beheaded with an axe. Except Queen Anne, whose head was cut off with a sword. The executioner’s block was known as the Ravenstone.’

  Of course it was. Most executions took place on Tower Hill, and only the sensitive (mainly women, it seems) or very famous people were executed here. ‘His head should be rolling on Tower Hill,’ the girls at school would say about a mean teacher.

  I grimace and turn away. It doesn’t really bother me, though. Everywhere you look in this place, some awful thing has been done. The Tower is gloomy and horrible and savage. Here people are kept prisoner, killed, or both. And then eaten by ravens.

  I will not live here.

  ‘Who would have thought, even after nine centuries – older than the Vatican, the Louvre – that such a place could still hold mysteries?’

  Uncle is smiling as we head towards the roost for dusk feeding. I am surprised to see him back in his uniform. (‘He’s been on the “sick list”,’ Brodie told me.) He still looks frail under the heavy cloak, his face thin behind steel-rimmed glasses. He, of course, is talking.

  ‘On a typical day, Anna, the grounds would be crowded with members of the public, queuing to see the Armoury or the White Tower...’

  Still, these are the best times, with Uncle lecturing me as if I am just another visitor – the only wartime tourist in the Tower. I gaze where he points, nod when he stops talking, smile encouragingly. He is, after all, my only family now.

  I was not always so nice to Uncle. When I first arrived here, that long month ago, I could do nothing but stare at the knuckles of his hands, covered in thick black hair. He smelled like years of damp.

  ‘But... Mr Reed—’ I had said.