With its 150-foot-deep tunnels, Holborn had been one of the first tube stations the contemps had co-opted when the Blitz started. The government hadn’t intended for them to be used as shelters. They’d been worried about sanitation and infectious disease. But their admonitions to “Stay at Home-Build an Anderson Shelter” had gone unheeded, and there’d been no effective way to enforce the ban, not when there were stories of people being killed in Andersons and surface shelters. And not when all a person had to do was buy a ticket and ride to Holborn.
Which the entire city of London had apparently done tonight. Polly could scarcely get off the train, the platform was so jammed with people sitting on blankets. She picked her way carefully through them, trying not to step on anyone, and out to the tunnel. It was just as bad there, a solid mass of people, bedding, and picnic baskets. One woman was boiling tea on a Primus stove and another was setting out plates and silverware on a tablecloth on the floor, which reminded Polly that she hadn’t had supper. She asked the woman where the canteen was.
“Through there,” she said, pointing with a teaspoon, “and down to the Piccadilly Line.”
“Thank you,” Polly said and made her way toward it through masses of people sitting against the tiled walls and standing in little knots, chatting.
The main hall was only slightly less mobbed. Polly rode down the long escalator to the canteen, which was much larger than Notting Hill Gate’s and had china cups and saucers-“Just bring them back when you’re done, there’s a dear,” the WVS volunteer behind the counter said-and Polly bought a ham sandwich and a cup of tea and walked about, looking at the contemps.
Historians had described the shelters as “nightmarish” and “like one of the lower circles of hell,” but the shelterers seemed more like people on holiday than doomed souls, picnicking and gossiping and reading the comic papers. A foursome sat on camp stools playing bridge, a middle-aged woman was washing out stockings in a tin pot, and a wind-up portable gramophone was playing “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” Station guards were patrolling the platforms to keep order, but their only job seemed to be ordering people to put out their cigarettes and pick up their discarded wastepaper.
The government was right to have been concerned about sanitation. There was only one makeshift toilet on each level, with endless waiting queues. Polly saw several toddlers sitting on chamber pots and watched as a mother carried a pot over to the platform’s edge and emptied it onto the tracks. Which no doubt accounted for the odor. Polly wondered what it would be like by the middle of winter.
There’d been some attempts to impose order-a lost-and-found, a first-aid post, and a lending library-but for the most part, chaos reigned. Children ran wild in the tunnels and played dolls and marbles and hopscotch in the middle of the tunnels and on the narrow strip of platform reserved for passengers getting on and off the trains. No one was making any effort to put them to bed, even though it was half past nine and a number of adults were unfolding blankets and plumping pillows, and one teenaged girl was putting cold cream on her face.
Which reminded Polly, she needed to find a place to sleep-or at the least, sit-which might be difficult. The few empty spaces along the walls were staked out with blankets for relatives and friends. The escalators would shut off when the trains stopped at half past ten. She might be able to snag one of their steps, though the wooden slats looked uncomfortable, but she had an hour to kill till then. She read the ARP and Victory Bonds posters pasted to the walls. One of them said Better Pot-Luck with Churchill Today Than Humble Pie under Hitler Tomorrow.
Whoever composed that has obviously never eaten at Mrs. Rickett’s, she thought and went to look at the lending library. It consisted of a stack of newspapers, one of magazines, and a single row of worn paperbacks, most of which seemed to be murder mysteries.
“Book, dear?” the ginger-haired librarian asked her. “This one’s very good.” She handed Polly Agatha Christie’s Murder in Three Acts. “You’ll never guess who did it. I never do with her novels. I always think I have the mystery solved, and then, too late, I realize I’ve been looking at it the wrong way round, and something else entirely is happening. Or perhaps you’d like a newspaper. I’ve got last evening’s Express.” She pressed it into Polly’s hands. “Just bring it back when you’re done with it so someone else can have a read.”
Polly thanked her and looked at her watch. She still had twenty minutes to fill. She got in the queue for the canteen, again keeping an eye on the escalators so she could dart to claim a step as soon as they stopped, and observing the contemps in the queue: a couple in evening dress, complete with fur cloak and top hat; an elderly woman in a bathrobe and carpet slippers; a bearded man reading a Yiddish newspaper.
A group of ragged, dirty urchins hovered nearby, playing tag and obviously hoping someone would offer to buy them a biscuit or an orange squash. The woman ahead of Polly carried a fretful toddler, and the one ahead of her had two pillows, a large black handbag, and a picnic basket. When she neared the front of the queue, she shifted the pillows to one arm, set the basket on the floor beside her, and opened her handbag. “I do so hate people who wait till they reach the counter to look for their money,” she said, digging in the bag. “I know I had a sixpence in here somewhere.”
“You’re it!” one of the urchins shouted, and a ten-year-old girl ran by, knocking against the handbag. Its contents, including the elusive sixpence, spilled out in all directions, and everyone except Polly stooped to gather up the lipstick, handkerchief, comb.
Polly was looking after the girl. She knocked against her on purpose, she thought and glanced back at the picnic basket. It was gone.
“Stop, thief!” the woman shouted, and the rest of the urchins scattered.
A station guard took off in hot pursuit, shouting, “Come back here, you hooligans!”
He was back in moments, pulling a small boy along by the ear. “Ow,” the boy protested. “I didn’t do nuthin’.”
“That’s him,” the woman said, “the one who stole my basket.”
“I dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” the boy said, outraged. “I never-”
A workman came up, carrying the basket. He pointed at the boy. “I saw him stowin’ this behind a dustbin.”
“I put it there for safekeeping,” the boy said, “till I could take it to the lost-and-found. I found it layin’ on the platform, without a soul round it.”
“What’s your name?” the guard demanded.
“Bill.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“At ’er work,” an older girl said, coming up, and Polly recognized her as the one who had knocked against the woman’s handbag. She was wearing a dirty, too-short dress, and a filthy hair ribbon. “Mum works in a munitions factory. Making bombs. It’s dreadful dangerous work.”
“Is this your sister?” the guard asked the boy, and he nodded. “What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Vronica. Like the film star.” She clutched the guard’s sleeve. “Oh, please don’t tell Mum about this, sir. She’s enough worries already, what with our dad in the war.”
“’E’s in the RAF,” the boy put in. “’E flies a Spitfire.”
“Mum ain’t ’eard from him in weeks,” the girl said tearfully. “She’s ever so worried.”
She’s nearly as good as Sir Godfrey, Polly thought admiringly.
“Poor little tykes,” the woman murmured, and several of the people who’d gathered around glared at the guard. “There’s no harm done. After all, I’ve got my basket back.”
I think you’d better check the contents before you say that, Polly thought.