Perhaps the problem’s the Luftwaffe, Polly thought, looking up at the narrow space between the buildings. They can see the shimmer from up there and use it as a target.
But the idea that bomber pilots could see a tiny light on the ground-a cigarette or a chink in the blackout curtains-had been proven to be a myth. Neither could be seen at all from ten thousand feet up. Which meant the shimmer wouldn’t be visible either. And besides, the entire east and north of London were on fire, and the passage was nearly as bright as day. And half an hour later, when the planes were no longer overhead, the drop still showed no sign of opening.
An hour went by, then two. The raid intensified again and then let up, and the orange clouds faded to a sickly pink. The anti-aircraft guns stuttered to a stop. There was a long hush, broken only by the drone of a departing plane. It faded to a hum and then silence, and for several minutes Polly half expected to hear the all clear. Then the whole thing started up again.
It stopped for good at three, exactly when Colin had said it would. But he, or the historical record, had got their location wrong. Those bombs had definitely fallen on Kensington, not Marylebone. And not just in Kensington, but on Lampden Road.
Silence settled down over the site, but the drop still didn’t open. By the time the all clear went at half past five, Polly had had time to consider every possible and far-fetched reason for the drop’s remaining shut, and discarded them all.
Except the obvious one. The drop had been damaged. In spite of the undisturbed barrels and the cobwebs, the blast that had flattened the row of buildings across the alley must have disrupted the drop’s field somehow, destroyed the temporal connection. And there was no point continuing to sit here in the damp cold waiting for it to open. As soon as Badri-and Mr. Dunworthy-realized what had happened, they’d set up a drop somewhere else and send a retrieval team for her.
If they can find me, she thought. I should have checked in as soon as I found a room. Then they’d know where I live.
But they had the list of approved streets and addresses, and this was time travel. They were no doubt already waiting for her at Mrs. Rickett’s. I do hope she lets them in. She’s so adamant about my not having male visitors. She hoped the team hadn’t come through posing as soldiers, whom Mrs. Rickett had a very low opinion of. Or as actors.
She stood up, stiff with cold and with sitting too long, and went down the passage. If she hurried, she might be able to reach the boardinghouse before Mrs. Rickett got home from St. George’s and intercept the retrieval team. The fog, which had lifted during the raids, was closing in again, making it as dark as it had been that first evening when she came through and shrouding the entrance and the rubble beyond. Polly worked her way as quickly as she could over the tangle of beams and bricks. She sank in almost to her knees once and had to grab for jutting timbers several times before she reached the edge.
She stepped down onto the pavement, and stopped to brush off her coat and see how bad her stockings were. Bad. She had wide ladders in both and a hole in the left one. Her knee was bleeding, and her skirt was a disaster. My nonregulation navy blue skirt I promised Miss Snelgrove I wouldn’t be wearing today, she thought, and then remembered it didn’t matter. She was going back to Oxford.
What time was it? She glanced at her wristwatch. The face was caked with pinkish dust. She wiped it clean with her finger. Ten past six. Oh, dear, Mrs. Rickett would be home from St. George’s by now and telling the retrieval team Polly wasn’t there and that she had no idea where she was. If she hadn’t simply slammed the door in their faces.
Polly ducked under the rope barrier and hurried down Lampden Road through the fog, hoping they were still at Mrs. Rickett’s, that she hadn’t just missed them-
She halted, her mouth open, staring at the devastation before her. She’d been right. The raids hadn’t been in Bloomsbury. They’d been here on Lampden Road. As far as she could see through the fog, everything had been flattened. She’d thought the shops in front of the drop had been destroyed, but it was nothing compared to this. Both sides of the road had been obliterated so completely she couldn’t even guess what had originally stood here. Incident rope had been strung up across the debris-strewn road and along it as far as the fog let her see. It looked like a V-2 had hit it, but that wasn’t poss-
“Dreadful, isn’t it?” a voice behind her said. It was an elderly man in a wool cap, obviously on his way home from a shelter. He had a fringed pink silk cushion tucked under one arm and a large paper sack under the other. “Parachute mine.”
A mine. That was why it had done so much damage. High-explosive bombs burrowed into the ground before going off, but mines exploded on the surface so that the full force of the blast hit the surrounding buildings.
“It must’ve been a thousand-pounder to take out all those shops,” the old man said, pointing back toward the rubble in front of the drop. “And the church and-”
“The church?” She looked down the road, searching frantically for St. George’s spire. She couldn’t see it. “Which church? St. George’s?”
He nodded. “Dreadful business,” he said, surveying the street. “So many killed-”
Polly plunged past him. The incident rope caught at her legs and snapped, but she ran on, unheeding. The rope tangled in her legs and trailed out behind her as she raced down the debris-strewn road to the wreckage of the church.
No, not wreckage. There were no roof slates here, no rafters or pillars or pews to show it had ever been a church, only a flat expanse of pulverized bricks and glass. Except for the mangled metal railing of the steps which had led down to the basement shelter and which no one, no one could have got out of alive.
“So many killed,” the old man had said. Oh, God, the rector and Miss Laburnum and Mrs. Brightford. And her little girls.
This happened last night when I was in the drop, she thought. I heard it hit. They’d all have been there in the shelter. And if I hadn’t been in the drop, I’d have been there, too, she thought sickly, and remembered her plan to hide in the sanctuary till everyone was off the streets. I’d have been in that with them, she thought, staring at the rubble. With Lila and Viv and Mr. Simms. And Nelson.
And Sir Godfrey. They were all under there. “We must get them out of there,” Polly said. She started toward the railing, thinking, “Why isn’t the rescue squad here?” but even as she formed the thought, her mind was processing the fact that there wasn’t any dust or smoke hovering above the wreckage, only the drifting fog, and that she’d looked for and hadn’t seen the spire last night, was processing the already-strung rope and the depression in the center of the mound that had to be a shaft dug by the rescue squad. And the old man, who knew the church had been hit, who knew the people in it had been killed.
He came trotting up, clutching his fringed cushion and his paper sack. “Hard to take in, isn’t it, miss?” he said, coming over to stand beside her. “Such a beautiful church-”
“When did this happen?” Polly demanded, but she already knew the answer. Not last night. Two nights ago. The rescue squad had already been here, had already dug out the bodies and taken them away in mortuary vans.
“Night before last,” the old man was saying, “not more’n an hour after the sirens went.”